Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

I wrote more about this very subject on my own site last September when the $87 billion package was passed:

http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/000275.html

As a solid Liberal and a nominal Democrat, I think that bush should stay the coarse right up until he gets ousted in November, cause thats where he is headed.

My Mom always taught me that a person is what a person does. I agree with your perspective Murdoc except for one paragraph which I must take great exception to.

Murdoc said: “Of course, there are the eight months he was in office before 9/11. Every single day that passed without an order to the CIA, the FBI, and the entire US military to swoop down and round up or kill every terrorist suspect they could find was, at least, a missed opportunity.”

I would hope you meant “tried and convicted” suspect. Otherwise, a little SS is showing from under the collar. Or did you really mean to convey that suspects should be executed and interrogated after?

Heh. That was a little harsh, wasn’t it? I meant apprehend and check them out, and use whatever force necessary only if they fought back or presented an immediate danger to US citizens. I absolutely didn’t mean just kill suspects out of hand.

I mean, I’m a hawk and all, but I’ve got standards. I oversimplified my position in my post. I’ll let this comment be my clarification. Thanks for pointing it out.

I thought that was probably the case, but, those words did need clarification. Thanks.

I think that at this point, he’s beyond acknowledgement of mistakes. The Press Conference question about finding any mistake was his last chance, as I saw it. Now he’s so committed to his infallibility that to change his approach would look exceptionally weak, I think. He’s supposed to be the exemplar of “steady leadership in times of change,” after all.

I wrote about this at some length after the press conference. That open question was his chance to put this to bed. He could have admitted to any number of meaningless mistakes that certainly wouldn’t have hurt him, but definately would have vaccinated him against the current characterization of him. But given that he couldn’t think of any mistake - not a shred anywhere - he just looks pathalogical. The net effect is to convince many people that he simply cannot accept the possibility of mistakes, or that he is unswayable by any mountain of evidence presented detailing his mistakes. Accountability will play a large part in this election.

I really wonder about Rove et al. They’re supposed to be so savvy, but it seems like his political machine has blundered from one self-destructive play to another. Everything from the use of images of dead firemen in his very first ad after he had broken his promise to fully fund first responders, to the stink that they created about Kerry not releasing his war records, prompting the full press coverage of Kerry’s heroism. It’s quite surprising, actually. Is Rove over the hill?

The problem is, the Bush Administration has never learned how to properly toss the media the bones it needs to feel satisfied. They stonewall, even when the facts are plainly against them. By doing this persistently over time, they have stirred a hunger within the Washington Press Corps, and the media in general to find out all the juicy little secrets he’s been holding back. In this way, revelations that would be old news in a few cycles become persistent headaches for the president.

I know the “I can’t think of any mistakes right now” quote will be remembered and harped on but I think the bigger blunder was when asked who will America be handing over power to on june 30th? Bush smirked and said “well you’ll just have to wait and see”
This president is beyond clueless and I really think he is standing on his last leg as any kind of leader.

“Well you’ll just have to wait and see” means that there’s eventually going to be an ELECTION.

I can’t believe how many people don’t “get it” on this issue.

The President is not refusing to admit that mistakes were made, he is refusing to give his political opponents the opportunity to twist anything he might say into an “admission” that 9-11 is “his fault”.

And you know that is just what the loons at moveon and democrat underground would do if he so much as said “mistakes were made…”.

President Bush should simply say “history will determine where the mistakes were made, our job is to move forward and win this war”.

Which is what the President is doing, even if he isn’t explaining it to the Nth degree.

BK:
“I can’t believe how many people don’t “get it” on this issue.

The President is not refusing to admit that mistakes were made, he is refusing to give his political opponents the opportunity to twist anything he might say into an “admission” that 9-11 is “his fault”.”

While I agree with you in general, Bush has to find a way of being honest with us, period. If the Dems are making it hard, and will twist his words (and they will) he’ll just have to deal with it. Figure out how to use it against them, or something. He has to show more integrity than he is now, even if the Dems make it nearly impossible.

There are a lot of people that will vote against a party that does the word twisting because that’s all they can do.

(Unfortunately, doing so requires me to vote against both major parties at this point, so I’m back where I started.)

At this point, everybody but die-hard leftists and the media are satisfied with Bush’s explanations about 9-11. The apology stuff is pure nonsense—it’s a combination of trying to project Dr. Phil-style pop-psychology into the political arena and the desparation of partisan hacks to create headlines.

I’m trying to remember if Bill Clinton “apologized” for the Oklahoma City bombing. I’m sure he must have, since it’s the job of the president to apologize for everything from flash-floods to the actions of Osama bin Laden.

Brett Kottman:

I have got to believe that you are correct for the reason that Bush won’t admit anything. He doesn’t want his words twisted and used against him, and I don’t blame him. That is exactly what would happen.

Also, I’m not suggesting that he stoop to answer every slanted question from every slimy reporter looking for a sound bite. But there’s got to be a middle ground.

Bush’s pretense at not being able to even think of a mistake just makes him look like an idiot. Despite what many on the Left like to pretend, the guy isn’t stupid. But he (or his advisers) seem to think playing dumb is the way to address this issue.

Playing it this way leaves two options for the viewers at home: We think he really IS dumb, or we think he’s lying.

Does he really want people to pick between those two options?

I understand that many people support his handling of this issue. 99% of them are definitely voting for him this fall. 99% of those already voting against him this fall hate the way he’s handling this issue.

The problem is that the people in the middle, the undecideds, have to try to figure out if he’s lying or just dumb. Either way, they’re going to come away unimpressed.

Bush’s approach is like a little kid covering his ears and chanting “La! La! La! La! I can’t hear you!” That’s the way I’m taking it, and I will almost certainly vote for him. What people who are trying to decide must think about this is beyond me.

He can answer the question in a fair, honest-sounding manner without saying anything that everyone doesn’t already know. He’s refusing to play the game, and it might cost him dearly in November.

I’ve written at length about this issue of Bush admitting mistakes. Let it be said once and for all—-he did admit to making mistakes, but did not name any.

I’m sure he did so because he would have been immediately vilified by his enemies. So he didnt give them a “talking point”. He could have done better, as Murdoc suggests, by handling the question in a better way.

“Well you’ll just have to wait and see” means that there’s eventually going to be an ELECTION.

if that is what it means then why did’t he say that? he could have answered by saying “well we will have to see who wins the election” But if he said that he would be held up to that statement. and if we have to wait to see who gets elected why do we have to transfer power on 6/30? we will be transfering power to….an unelected council or commitee or what???

when are these elections going to happen? Shouldn’t that be the tranfer date?

Martin:

I’m not talking about apologizing for 9/11 like Dick Clarke. I’m talking about admitting that everything isn’t going 100% the way he wants it to.

He acts like he’s ignoring reality. I support the guy more often than not, but I’m not impressed with his act of perfection. Especially when it’s so plainly obvious that things could be better.

Why can’t he say “Rebuilding Iraq is tougher than we thought it was going to be. It’s costing more in live and money than we expected. We should have had a more robust plan. Since we didn’t, this is what we’re going to do about it.”? Then he could tick off some items that are going to be in the news anyway, and he’s managed to not look like a liar or an idiot.

Obviously I’ve simplified what he should say for the sake of brevity, but he can admit error without taking blame or apologizing. Sure, some hacks will distort it, but they’re already distorting his current responses. Make the distorters work a little harder, and their distortion will be all the more obvious.

But he HAS admitted that everything isn’t going exactly the way he wanted it to. That was the whole reason for his press conference.

It sounds like you want him accentuate the negative more as if doing so will somehow befuddle his critics instead of just hand them headline-fodder. The point is that when a war is on, the president of the United States is in no position to start emphasizing and drawing attention to setbacks whenever prompted to do so by a reporter. Doing so emboldens the enemy (and no I’m not reffering to John Kerry, although it emboldens him too).

Martin, the question was about June 30th. There never was any plans to hold an election before June 30th and still aren’t. The reference is to an interim government. It helps to be informed when trying to expound.

Martin, either Bush tells the truth, or the truth gets told for him. When the truth is told for him, when people learn about his mistakes from other source, when people’s first warning about the details of his policies is to find out about them on the news when something has gone wrong, or when people have dug them up and set them out.

Note the quelling effect that Plan of Attack had on all the controversies. My theory? Bush’s problem is that he intentionally makes it difficult for the public to understand how his administration is creating public, domestic and foreign policy. Outrage depends on misunderstandings, in essence feeding on the gaps between what the politicians has been hiding about their policies and what they have led the public to believe.

I have the feeling that the Bush administration would be far less unpopular were they more willing to cut off controversies by controlled admissions of mistakes and misunderstandings.

Instead, they entrench themselves and fight all kinds of battles even in the face of public sentiment. If the Bush administration wasn’t trying to fight a culture war at the same time it was trying to govern, they’d have an easier time of relating to the public.

So you’re saying that it’s more a problem with style than substance?

If that’s true, I can understand a certain bunker mentality on the part of the administration—they’ve been under relentless and unfair attack from the left since day one. They were called Nazis for invading Afghanistan by large portions of the left, for crying out loud (many who now say they supported Afghanistan—just not Iraq). Any admissions of error (as opposed to quietly correcting their errors, as is what they’ve been doing) just invites greater vitriol and smears, which in turn make their jobs that much harder.

Stephen Daugherty & Murdoc:

I think Stephen’s got it half (3/4?) right - the administration does a poor job of throwing bones to the press on bad news.

My only quibble would be that I’d suggest adding “or good news” to the sentence. The president appears to quite honestly and sincerely not give a hoot about the press’ opinions of his administration’s actions. And my goodness! but this irks the press to no end. Removing the press, as he does, from its chosen role as the group that puts the final spin on the facts before they enter the American ear is deemed sacrilege.

This is not the same as Bush disdaining the public’s right to know - he gives the impression that he figures actions speak louder than someone else’s words, and he trusts people to figure most of it out on their own, largely unfiltered by the press.

Having said that, I believe he’s overestimated the public’s intelligence, attention span, or both, and that the press has underestimated the same.

Both should change tack, pronto.

murdoc, this article is right on. I don’t agree with a lot of what this administration has done, but it’s not President Bush’s actions that make me mad as Hell. I realize he’s pushing an agenda and I can respect that.

But it kills me that the President of the United States can’t step up and take responsibility for what happens while he’s running the country.

Clinton never blamed GHW Bush for Somalia. He could have argued that “Blackhawk Down” never would have happened if his predecessor hadn’t left him a loose end in Somalia, but he didn’t.

Clinton never blamed GHW for the first WTC attack which happened only four weeks after he took office. Bush has consistently tried to put the blame for 9/11 on the previous administration.

Clinton didn’t even complain that the economy was in the crapper because of Reagan’s supply-side experiment. He rolled up his sleeves and did something about it. Bush, on the other hand, has always cried about how “technically” the recession began a few months before he took office, and then there was 9/11, and Enron, and a war, etc, never acknowleging that his $2 trillion deficit-causing tax cuts had something to do with it, too.

I can’t think of any other president in my experience, going back to and including Nixon, who has been so adamant about deflecting personal responsibility.

murdoc, you’re right. Taking responsibility is not the same as taking the blame. The majority of Americans, including myself, would have respect for President Bush as a man if he took some responsibility. I still wouldn’t agree with his politics, but I would respect him.

He shouldn’t spend so damn much time on his ranch in Texas.

And because I’m all worked up now, I feel the need to point out that it’s technically a farm. You have to have cattle to have a ranch. LBJ had a ranch. GW has a farm. :)

I just got this as part of a newsletter from my representative, Senator Feinstein. This is what I mean about taking responsibility.

As I have said earlier, my vote in favor of the Resolution to Authorize the Use of Force in Iraq was perhaps the most difficult, and consequential, vote of my career. It was a decision based on hours of intelligence briefings from administration and intelligence officials, plus the classified and unclassified versions of the National Intelligence Estimates. My decision was in part based on my trust that this intelligence was the best our nation’s intelligence services could offer, untainted by bias, and fairly presented.

It was a decision made because I was convinced that the threat from Iraq was not only grave but imminent.

Because of my vote, and the votes of the 76 other Senators who voted for the Resolution, our troops are stuck in Iraq, under fire, and taking casualties. Our armed forces are stretched thin; we have antagonized our enemies and alienated many of closest allies.

She’s taking responsibility for her vote.

I’ve written her some nasty emails over this issue, and I’ve bad-mouthed her on my blog.

However, because she is willing to take responsibility for her vote; because she has acknowleged that her vote had unfortunate consequences, I have a newfound respect for her.

I’m still disappointed that she voted the way she did, but that just makes me question her judgement, not her character.

> They were called Nazis for invading
> Afghanistan by large portions of the
> left, for crying out loud

Oh come on.

The September 14, 2001 Joint Resolution authorizing military force in Afghanistant passed in the Senate 98-to-0. I can’t find the House vote, but as I recall it was pretty similar.

Yes, there was some hand-wringing about how the military action should be conducted so as not to antagonize the Moslem world. Some on the right were calling for nuking the whole country. Some on the left were saying that perhaps we shouldn’t nuke all of Afghanistan.

Yes, there were the die-hard pacifists who oppose all war. The biggest anti-Afghanistan invasion protest was a single protest with about 10,000 attendees here in New York City, about 1/30th of the size of the later protests against the Iraq war.

But your history lesson is pretty revisionist. Our country was pretty damn united back then.

-Cf

I think George W. Bush, and his supporters, should take responsibility for, and advise the American people that, after flight training, GWB’s attendance record in the Texas Air National Guard was, at best, “spotty.”

Allegedly an article appeared in the TEXAS NATIONAL GUARD magazine a few years ago with the following story: During one annual reporting period the officer assigned to write GHW’s Personnel Evaluation Report refused to do so. It seemed that, according to official records, he had attended only one meeting. The remaining credits were of a “gratuitous” nature. I read, not in this article, that 55 credits were required to keep him in good standing, but the one meeting which he, allegedly, attended only earned him 5 credits and he was given 51 “grauitous” credits. With only 5 credits he would probably have been dropped from the Guard and his name forwarded to the Selective Service Board.

In addition, the assigned Rating Officer allegedly stated that he (the Rating Officer) was in attendance at the one session which GHW allegedly attended and the Rating Officer did not remember seeing him.

When the Texas National Guard unit tried to find another officer to write the Evaluation Report, all refused and a notation had to be made in his file that no Rating Officer was available.

Many, if not most, of GHW’s attendance credits were apparently of a “grauitous” nature. Does this explain why he was credited with attendance at an Air National Guard unit in Alabama, but no one seems to remember having seen him?

gwb right? not ghw.