Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Denying the failures didn’t help his numbers which have been declining steadily since January. I guess he finally realized he needed to shift strategies, since, the denial didn’t work.

Don’t however, expect him to say his tax cuts were misaimed accounting for the wealthier getting even wealthier and the borderline dropping into poverty creating a new total of almost 36 Million Americans living below the poverty line.

And don’t expect him to say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, which is obvious now.

Don’t expect him to admit failing to fully fund No Child Left Behind has left millions of kids behind.

Don’t expect him to admit our foreign policy tanked due to his remarks aimed at strong arming foreign support.

And don’t expect him to admit he has no nuts and bolts plan to deal with any of these. Only empty promises.

After all, Bush has mastered the art of tokenism, token color in his cabinet, token funding for kids, token tax cuts for the middle class, token effort to get OBL, token efforts to build the military, token promises to cut the deficit, and token health care benefits for the elderly while delivering REAL BIG benefits to his pharmaceutical supporters.

I say we leave his portrait hanging in the Whitehouse after he leaves in January as a token reminder of what the wrong person in the office can ruin in just 4 short years.

We were at war with terrorist before September 11, 2001; we just had not yet begun to fight back. The news of the destruction of the World Trade Center was greeting with cheers on many Arab streets. The Taliban rulers of Afghanistan brazenly harbored terrorists, trusting in their mountains to protect them from U.S. wrath. After September 11, much of the world was sympathetic; few supported aggressive U.S. action. World opinion is sympathetic to victims, but the U.S. refused to be a victim.

President Bush took the fight to the enemy. (I would rather have them deployed in Basra than in Boston.) Sure he made mistakes, but judge the totality. Afghanistan – the place everyone told us could not be conquered – was subdued in weeks. Is it as peaceful as Utah? No. Will it be soon? No. But everyone, except for terrorists, is better off with what we have now than what we had then.

Remember the predictions about Iraq? It was going to be Stalingrad with house-by-house fighting, tens of thousands of U.S. casualties, burning oil fields, the “Arab Steet” erupting. Our military chose a quick strike that avoided these terrible consequences, but this strategy also created the climate for a messier aftermath. The resistance had not been annihilated (as in Nazi Germany) and they weren’t sure they had been defeated. Imagine if the Union had captured Richmond in 1862 and “won” the Civil War without the appalling bloodshed. It probably would not have ended the unpleasantness. Sure, it might have been better to fight the war until we were certain that irritants like Sadr were dead, but this would have come at a cost (mostly to Iraqis) that the U.S. was unwilling to pay. A good dictum is to be ruthless and lethal in war, but generous in peace. Maybe we were generous too soon, but what policy would others have taken?

You shouldn’t confuse making and admitting mistakes with contrition. We all make mistakes. All you can do is base your decisions on the best information (By the way, Bush never lied about WMD. Everyone thought Saddam had it. John Kerry, who sat at the Senate intelligence committee even before Bush was elected, agreed. If Bush lied, so did Kerry.) Any reasonable person knows that his decisions would be different (better?) in light of subsequent facts, but you have to make decisions about the future with today’s facts. I have met a lot of people who claim that they “predicted” the past, but I have never met anyone who successfully predicted the future. Could Bush have done a better job? Yes. Can I find particular errors? Sure, easily. Given the constraints he faced and the information and resources he had at his disposal, did the President do a good job? Yes. Would Kerry have done better? I think Kerry would have followed a “police” rather than a war strategy. He would probably have invaded neither Iraq nor Afghanistan. If he wanted to follow the multilateral path he talks about, there would be no choice. The French would still love us, such as they do. The terrorists would still hate us, but they would have more secure bases. I don’t think that would have been better.

This announcement is so obvious and is so out of character as to rival Shrub’s “born again” act following 20 years of drunken stupidity. First the State of Texas suffered from this bozo’s incompetence and now for four years the Country has suffered. I cannot bear the thought of four more years of this wreckless, incoherent, lazy, greedy chickenhawk with a hidden agenda in every little thing he does. Has anyone noticed that people who support Bush will never defend him with specifics? They just stubbornly hold their self destructive opinions without saying a word in our idiot leaders defense.

Excellent post, Joseph, and Good points, David.
We here in Texas are still under the curse of Tom ” the Bug killer”Delay and Rick”Good Hair” Perry. I’m still waiting for the prosecution of these two guys to move foward. The Perry Homes guy (not “Good Hair”)got his freedom from lawsuits legislation with no reductions in Home Owner’s Policies.

Once Bush is out of office, I suspect American’s will all declare shock and awe at the corruption that has been going on.

Jack posted:

Remember the predictions about Iraq? It was going to be Stalingrad with house-by-house fighting, tens of thousands of U.S. casualties, burning oil fields, the “Arab Steet” erupting. Our military chose a quick strike that avoided these terrible consequences, but this strategy also created the climate for a messier aftermath.

Purhaps Jack didn’t notice that the messier aftermath includes:

• house-to-house fighting


• thousands of U.S. casualties


• burning oil fields


• an Arab Street insurgancy

Al

The things you mention are terrible. The question always is “compared to what?” Three times as many Americans were killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11. It cost the U.S. Marines 26000 casualties and 6800 killed to take the eight square mile island of Iwo Jima. When Saddam sabotaged the oil field of Kuwait, they burned out of control for weeks. We have seen nothing like that this time because our guys got to the fields before Saddam could set off his charges. The “Arab Street” has been less strident recently than at many times in the past. The street seems to erupt when it senses weakness.

In return for our loses, we rid the world of a horrible dictator who had attacked four of his neighbors, was paying suicide bombers, had used WMD and threatened to do so again, had the boldness to attempt to kill a former U.S. president and who TOLD US that he was the sworn enemy of the U.S. We didn’t really need an excuse. Removing him from power had been a U.S. goal since 1998. President Clinton thought Saddam enough of a threat to undertake this goal. President Bush managed to carry it out. Sometimes a leader has to make hard choices and pay a price now to avoid a bigger cost later. Someday soon, I believe we will look at this situation as we now do the nuclear freeze/peace movements of the 1980s. Great intentions, thank God we didn’t follow their advice because it probably would have to a slower pace of disarmament.

David wrote:
“Don’t however, expect him to say his tax cuts were misaimed accounting for the wealthier getting even wealthier and the borderline dropping into poverty creating a new total of almost 36 Million Americans living below the poverty line.

And don’t expect him to say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, which is obvious now.

Don’t expect him to admit failing to fully fund No Child Left Behind has left millions of kids behind.

Don’t expect him to admit our foreign policy tanked due to his remarks aimed at strong arming foreign support.

And don’t expect him to admit he has no nuts and bolts plan to deal with any of these. Only empty promises.

After all, Bush has mastered the art of tokenism, token color in his cabinet, token funding for kids, token tax cuts for the middle class, token effort to get OBL, token efforts to build the military, token promises to cut the deficit, and token health care benefits for the elderly while delivering REAL BIG benefits to his pharmaceutical supporters.”

“If I answer questions every time you ask one, expectations would be high. And as you know, I like to keep expectations low.”
Dubya, Washington, D.C., Dec. 10, 2002

As to whether or not — look, once the strategy is in place, I will let people know whether or not I’m airborne or not. In other words, I’m not trying to make any — I don’t need to dramatize the decision. It’s getting plenty of attention here at home. But we’ve got — and look, I’m just gathering enough information to be rational in what we do.
Dubya, Washington, D.C., Jul. 3, 2003

Jack wrote:

In return for our loses, we rid the world of a horrible dictator who had attacked four of his neighbors, was paying suicide bombers, had used WMD and threatened to do so again, had the boldness to attempt to kill a former U.S. president and who TOLD US that he was the sworn enemy of the U.S.

This is an example of what I’ve repeatedly called ‘Revisionist Rationalization’, from the Republicans. And, I’ve just about memorized my response, for having written it just as frequently.

- Americans were told it was a slam dunk that Saddam had WMDs’, and could take out Britain with 45 minutes warning. Americans would not have given their blessings to attack Iraq, for the results Jack expressed.

As we now know, Saddam was a hollow threat to us. Yet, the Right attempts to shame us for opposing the Iraq War, asking how we could not act against a dictator committing genocide on his own people. Not surprisingly, the atrocities in Sudan are not on their radar.

Shrub has already killed ten times as many innocent people as Osama. In our world, they don’t count. The neocons have taken over Washington, your livelihood and life are worth nothing.

Hate America? Vote Liberal!!!
Until the Democrats get rid of the liberals who have hijacked the party, I am forced to vote for people like Bush. I don’t like Bush, he is on par with clinton in destroying our rights, but socialism is unfair and does not work. If we ever get another true Democrat for a candidate, I will be first in line to vote for that person. Until then though, I must vote against any and all liberals.

Tim,

Just because you have drifted to the right and are now an angry neocon, doesn’t make your comment in the least bit true. Kerry & Co. are DLC centrists (who, under Clinton took back the party from the, er, “left”) and come from a long bipartizan tradition in foriegn policy. They have more in common with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissenger on Iraq than Bush and the Vulcans.

Larry