I've been reading a number of comments on this site ridiculing Republican's unwillingness to be bipartisan, as the God Obama and his disciples Nancy and Harry requested. They've been called obstrucionists, greedy, hateful, despicable -- you know, all those measured, well examined, thoughtful descriptions all smart liberals say they stand for.
So, Libs, what exactly do you think bipartisanship means?
Compromise?
I remember when my partner and I were head writing Fernwood 2Night and other shows and we'd be at one another tooth and nail over a particular joke or direction a sketch should take, and after making our case for our strongly divergent and opposite opinions, we went into "bipartisan" mode -- we looked for a third way that would advance the story of the sketch. Often, we came up with something better. We called it a compromise, and the effort gave us both something we could believe in.
What's better about Obama's "bipartisanship?" What's the third way Dems are willing to accept? Oh, some pork programs are being cut, but what is the third, bipartisan way in this bill?
All you people who're bitching about Republican "obfuscation" must have read the bill and know its contents, right? Enough to know where the Repugs have dropped the ball and the Dems ran to daylight.
How about some specific examples?
Is it bipartisanship to lock out Republicans from the room yesterday when final reconciliation of the stimulus bill was being finalized?
Is it bipartisanship to send a bill that's over a thousand pages long to congressmen two days before you want it voted on?
A yes or no. Is that bipartisanship? Just to get a sense of what YOU mean by it.
Is it incorporating ideas Repubicans feel are better suited to the package, ideas that just might replace or improve pet spending programs Liberals have been wetting their pants over for years now? Is that it?
Remember, Rahm Emanuel, UberStaffer for the Savior, famously said, "this crisis is too good to waste." We have the American public in the bedroom and they're primed for a screwing the way we like.
So, I'll ask all the Obama lovers/Bush haters what they mean by bipartisanship. Because from reading here, it just means that Republicans should vote for something they despise, something they think is wrong, something they're being bullied into.
If that's a democracy you're all happy with, fine. Just would like to know.
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thesagejournal
shmadoff
the constitutionalist
Joseph Cole
Darren Wolfe
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Salon.com
Comments
* Cut the lowest two income tax rates for 2009 and 2010, from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to 5 percent.
* Extend through 2010 a patch to the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was originally designed to ensure that wealthy people pay taxes, but instead would hit millions of middle-income families with higher taxes.
* Expand the $7,500 first-time homebuyers tax credit for a principal residence to all homebuyers while limiting it to purchasers who can make a down payment of at least 5 percent of the purchase price.
* Provide a tax deduction for small businesses with less than 500 employees equal to 20 percent of their income.
* Offer new tax deduction for those who do not receive tax-preferred, employer-sponsored health care coverage. And provide assistance to the unemployed who do not qualify for a COBRA premium subsidy.
* Give tax exemption on unemployment benefits and extend temporary federal unemployment benefits through 2009, phasing it out through mid-2010.
* Allow companies to write off current losses against previous tax years for up to five years. Companies now can only "carry back" losses for two years. The tax break would not be available to banks and other companies receiving help from the $700 billion bailout package.
* Extend through 2009 a break for small businesses that allows them to immediately write off up certain capital expenditures.
Or:
We are going to spend $448 million to build the Department of Homeland Security a new building. We have $1.3 trillion worth of empty buildings right now, and because it has been blocked in Congress we can't sell them, we can't raze them, we can't do anything. How about fixing them up?
How about not spending $248 million for new furniture for that
building; a quarter of a billion dollars for new furniture. How about the furniture the Department of Homeland Security a;ready has. If you're pissed about CEO's redecorating their offices, why not get pissed about this?
How about not buying $600 million worth of hybrid vehicles? I would rather Americans have new cars than Federal employees have new cars. What is wrong with the cars we have?
Or how about this: Minority whip, Eric Cantor said, "I think that if you have infrastructure programs that are meaningful, impactful, and put jobs back into place immediately within the first twelve months, you have a legitimate case for that to be a stimulus."
"Only $30 billion of the $880 billion is going to roads and construction," Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) complained, ONLY THIRTY BILLION TO FIX ROADS, BRIDGES AND BUILDINGS - MY ADDITION, calling for infrastructure investment to constitute "at least ten percent of the total amount."
Government analysts estimate that only about $60 billion worth of infrastructure projects are ready to be funded. (OUT OF 800 BILLION. MY ADDITION.)
"If you get a return on an investment, there's no question that you can invest in bridges, highways, military equipment, buildings, water projects. There's no question that can be stimulative. We don't deny that," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) when asked by the Huffington Post if the GOP believes in government spending as an economic remedy.
But the current bill, he said, is "spending money we don't have on things we don't need."
So, Paris, chew on that poo. And check out my previous post on what's IN the Pork stimulus bill. then we can talk.
Finally, if you're measuring the acceptability of this bill by (YOUR WORDS REGARDING BIPARTISANSHIP) "maybe the Republicans are getting some of that big pay back," well, okay.
Revenge as policy. At least it's an honest, if ignorant, approach to the mess we're in.
But you don't talk about the issues, do you. Just attack the messenger.
Why am I not surprised!
Oh, and thanks for sticking us with the check.
I wouldn't worry about someone who cannot submit a three-line comment without making a major grammatical mistake and a minor punctuation one. As Ben Ames Williams wrote, "Leave Him to Heaven."
Obama should accept that and stop pandering to people who will never support him anyway. Why compromise when the only result is a weaker economy? Why confuse voters about the differences between the parties?
I have one challenge for you, though: Explain why money for state government and education is, in your words, "pork" under the current circumstances. Can you find a single well-known economist outside the Chicago bubble that would support such a claim?
Sending a 2000 page bill to the Congress two days before it's supposed to be voted on...hmmm...sounds like the...Patriot Act!
Bipartisanship? Yes, it means compromise. It means bringing some fresh ideas. It means accepting that you're not going to get everything you want but that for the good of the country we should work together and present a solid front.
Remember when President Bush went to the Congress and asked for authority to use force in Iraq? He got it. It wasn't a straight up Republican/Democratic split.
Where's the Republican willingness to work for the good of the country? The stimulus bill had a nice whopping dose of tax cuts that no one on the Democratic side thinks will work so that Republicans would vote for it. And they jammed it back down the Democrats' throats. Don't expect more concessions.
The crows have come home to roost John. Enjoy eating them for the foreseeable future.
Maybe my responses could have been in the original post as you suggest, but as a writer, I wanted to keep the focus narrow, i.e., what is meant by bipartisanship?
I didn't offer up specific objections to the bill one way or the other.
It was only after you challenged me, did I post the comments.
Anyway, the final explanation is that it was a writer's thing -- one idea, narrowly explored.
Thanks again.
Revenge as policy. I like it. Does you honor.
Give me one or two specific instances of what you mean as "failed Republican policies."
Yep, that's the way it's done. But Pelose and Reid, years ago, promised bipartisanship and Obama campaigned on change ... big change ... hope ...
I don't see any of that. Especially with the country in such bad shape. So I'll stop bellyaching and see you in the bread line in a few years. How's that?
The conservatives ruined the repugnican party with greed and neocon agendas. They rightfully were rejected by the little people who have been harmed.
Get over it. You lost. Wishing that Obama--and the nation--fails is so party first, country last.
George W. Bush
Iraq War
Deregulation of electricity markets
Deregulation of financial markets
Deregulation of banks
Increased loan to capital margins
Valuing loyalty to the Bush Administration over competency in government employees.
Tax cuts as the answer for every problem.
Abstinence only sex education
I'd go the other way. Name me a successful Republican policy from the last eight years. I can't think of one, honest to god, I can't. I can name you some from other eras - I think Reagan did the right things with regards to the Soviet Union, I supported Bush Sr on the first Gulf War, I think balancing the budget is the right thing, I don't think welfare is the right way to help people. But in the last eight years? It's just fail, fail, fail.
It's not revenge as policy; it's learning as policy. The Republicans are completely and thoroughly discredited. You ran rampant for 8 years and you screwed it up. The electorate finally caught on.
You want to get taken seriously? Come up with some new ideas and come back with a little humility. Accept that the other side has some good ideas. Your party screwed up, big time. Don't act like it never happened.
Republicans who've had access to it shed some light as to why this is: They're still trying to find any meaningful "stimulus" in it. What this actually is is patronage: They don't ever want to give up their position of power again, and they're going to confiscate a trillion dollars--or more-- from taxpayers to make sure they don't.
This is not socialism; this is not capitalism. This is totalitarianism. Fascism.
I think the top half of your list is full of what are piss poor ideas of stimulus, and a perfect display of Republican ideology replacing having to think.
Tax breaks for companies that have no rational reason to invest those savings into increasing jobs or output. Why? The economy is contracting, nobody invests into a shrinking consumer base. So, simply further losses to revenue with nothing to show for it except to offer another debt sacrifice in the name of the one note Republican ideology.
I do agree with low end tax cuts, though I'd eliminate employee contributions to payroll taxes for a given time. However, extending unemployment and food stamps provides the same kick. Poor people spend money.
If Republicans believed in the miracle of capitalism, they'd know that low end economic activity filters upward. If they embraced this "Multiplier Effect" with the same borderline insane fervor they reserve for their "Division Effect" we could get somewhere.
What use is compromising with stupid ideas?
Is there some economic alchemy I'm unaware of that creates gold out of horseshit, if enough of it is added?
Republicans made economic, debt mongering klutzes out of themselves these last 8 years, now they want to pretend that stumbling stupidity was just a modern dance, misunderstood by the great unwashed masses. 6+ trillion dollars in debt and nothing to show for it but a hollowed out, trashed economy.
Books that won't sell:
Republican Economic Advice.
Michael Jackson on Parenting.
Jeffery Dahmer's Family Cookbook.
Is this Democrat plan a great one? I doubt it.
What I DO know is the Republicans have proved their economic theories superior to communism. Lenin, Stalin and Mao's ideas spent 70 years in a futile effort to destroy capitalism.
Bush and the GOP accomplished it in a scant 8 years.
The Republicans have run out of "Idea."
They deserve a voice, they just haven't done anything to suggest it deserves being listened to.
Yet they are being treated with far more respect than they extended to the Dems during the recent Republican Reign Of Error.
Fuck 'em.
You want to get taken seriously? Come up with some new ideas and come back with a little humility. Accept that the other side has some good ideas. Your party screwed up, big time. Don't act like it never happened."
Conservatives did screw up big time. Instead of adhering to our principles, we acquiesced to stupid policies, we compromised unreasonably and we allowed ourselves to be bullied by eight years of bitching and lying and whining by those of you on the left. That kind of relentless message, those manufactured narratives that Americans were subjected to incessantly, as Goebbels knew, take their toll. The "electorate" you speak of is nothing but a grand abstraction: The left managed to sway enough people to cast their votes for Obama, not through reason, but through a constant bombardment of a bullshit narrative. Even then, and even as bad as things like education and the pursuit of reading have become among Americans (thanks largely to the people you champion), it still took you about six years of this daily rain of lies to sway enough people to get your party to where they are now.
Ten years ago, political discourse in this country was already on precarious ground. But it took less than a decade for you and yours to uproot it completely and throw it in the gutter. Once something like that has been destroyed, it just doesn't come back. Your establishment of a gutter opposition can't be turned around on a dime and made to take the high road just because your favorites are now running things. You expect the other side to display humility, after all you've done? You want respect for the office of the President of the United States, after you have systematically and intentionally dismantled it among "the electorate" for eight years?
This is a bed that YOU have made, and it's one of the few things that conservatives don't share the blame in. You fouled the nest.
Now lie in it.
Lie in it, and endure the abuse as your Messiah's fuckups become more and more obvious every day.
Lie in it, as public anger grows over worsening economic conditions and actual, real suffering begins, with no end in sight.
Lie in it, as people start to realize that weak, inane and infantile foreign policy invites terrorists and despots to embarrass or attack our country.
Lie in the bed you made as bullshit rumors resurface about your guy's religion and origins, his sex life and his criminal record speculated on with utter recklessness, this time with a hurting "electorate's" eager credence.
Then, we'll see how you feel when I come to you and say "show some humility, if you want to be taken seriously."
Preferred cogent thought process of your response to Paris, although not all opinions are shared. Have discussed with you before what a good writer you are when pressed to explain. Start there, leave out the barrom cussing and get the discussions moving. I'd like to see some articles of substance make it to OS vs. the tripe that often does. Even if we do not agree.
Rated for comment response from you.
What a cool-assed comment!
I changed only 8 words, and ended up with a perfect script for a Bolshevik.
Fringe ideologues tend to sound the same, left, right, up, down. All the same.
No, the economy wasn't wrecked by explosive debt, cheap money, lax regulation and devalued dollars.
Nosir!
It was..... Twilight Zone Theme
The Democractic disrespect for Bush! A Media Blitz of Lies!
New economic theory. Emotional breakdown.
OK, since you want to be serious......
It was the Liiiiiiiiiberal Illuminati!
Da, komrade?
Bipartisanship has always meant that the losing side gave more than the ruling party. That is what the Republicans did for the past 8 years. That is what they did under Reagan and now you're going to sob and cry about it. Grow up buddy, you had your turn.
I worked at the SEC when we actually regulated the securities industry and actually prosecuted the greed bags who violated the laws. Deregulation was one of the stupidest ideas ever sold and conservative dimwits lionize that Reaganesque policy, and while he was certainly cute and a wonderful talking head, he didn't understand doodley squat about economics, law or human nature. Deregulation ignored the history that says if you leave the foxes free to raid the hen house they will and they did. Now Republicans want to act like they are blameless and whine. Not interested.
The idiotic basis for institutionalized selfishness makes me feel sick and your ridiculous disrespectfulness towards your own president shows what a complete asshat you are. Republicans lock themselves out by behaving like nonsensical horses asses. The country has voted and you lost. If you want to be treated respectfully, behave respectfully. Republicans will be treated with the respect they have earned and will be listened to accordingly.
So far you are on a long run of deficit spending financially and morally. So that high horse you are on, it's a delusion of your own construction. No point in replying to my post, I won't be back, you clearly have no solutions to offer.
This convinces me that it is fruitless: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Post he expects Gregg to receive a "standing ovation" when he walks into the next gathering of the Senate Republican Conference. " Asshats, every one.
Sounds like the hate is coming from those who're accusing others of it.
There is a time for a calm, collected discussion of policy differences, and there's a time for emotion. It doesn't make one a "fringe ideologue."
Now, for eight years, we've had ZERO calm, collected discussion from the left. None. We've had Bush derangement syndrome, and a host of other attendant pathologies. That's what they've contributed, and that's still what they're giving us. All that's really changed is they've added Obama messianism to the swamp of diseases they've given to the country.
It's this misguided desire by conservatives/libertarians to be conciliatory and acquiescent that put us where we are. And if you don't get mad, you won't fight when it's important to. That is often where the "Idea" you speak of comes from. I've learned my lesson. Have you?
I agree: Because, once they got to Washington, they abandoned the principles they campaigned and were elected on.
mr e also wrote: "Obama came over to extend his hand and give you another chance at bat."
This is an utter lie. He gave them a chance to kiss his feet by knuckling under to this irresponsible, nation-killing "stimulus" bill, that he doesn't want anyone to see or to debate. If they don't favor passing this p.o.s. right NOW, then they're "obstructionists."
For those Republicans who objected to the size and the lack of actual stimulus in this "stimulus" bill, it was "I won. I'm going to trump you on that."
The only thing he's "extended" is his ass for everyone kiss and his middle finger for those who refuse to kiss it.
There's never been a president this arrogant. Ever. Especially when he can't even put together a cabinet that's not in utter and complete chaos. This jerk off you love so much can't do the simplest things.
You have learned no lesson other than to spout ideological scripture.
Even your affectation of "calmness" is a script, as nothing follows but whack-assed ideological twaddle.
I know Fox and right wing radio has made it seem that trash talking like you have terminal Tourette's is a substitute for "discussion," but this is the real world, and nobody is screening your calls.
I bet you wouldn't know a "conservative principle" if one bit you on the ass.
It's just part of your script.
In the marketplace of ideas, yours are in the remainder bin.
That is assuming you have any ideas of your own, a fact not in evidence.
Enjoy the day.
And a snide remark about Fox News is not the same thing as a rebuttal, is it buddy? And if I'm quoting "scripture," you should be able to tell me what scripture I'm quoting, right? What is it?
In the end, bipartisanship mainly works in war, because otherwise, the differences among us make domestic politics a war: see Machiavelli's Discourses on why he favored war; it's functionality is to unite, because we are a predator species who need enemies. Or soemthing the explore; see the end.
In the end, Mr. Obama has to play by the same rules as everyone else. I don't dislike him or like him yet; I am waiting on the Russia House for that determination to see if he is feckless or not, although the stimulus bill was not inspiring for reasons alluded to below.
The absurd deference shown to Obama during the campaign against Hilary, for which she rightly complained and which existed for one and only one very obvious reason, his race, was bound to properly have a short shelf-life. But I am agnostic still. Russia and vision.
What was dissapointing to me about the stimulus bill really was that
a) it showed a total lack of awareness about the problem the Democrats AND Republicans have been pretending does not exist, which is the future of Entitlements, which under current tax law is bleak
b) It demonstrated in the Buy America provisions a really dangerous lack of awareness of the world order properties of this crisis
c) There is nothing new. For the government's actions to have a real effect OVER TIME, it must do something/encourage something the private sector would more than likely not do. Otherwise, the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem almost surely holds as a second order approximation, which is good enough, and you are just shifting around money/taxes in a way that doesn't really matter that much in the end. If you borrow money now, you have to pay it back later in full, absent something really novel, or a hyperinflation; our foreign creditors would respond to that with homicidal anger more than likely. There was no novelty here,and no global awareness.
Even roads and bridges can be done by tolls in terms of the Market versus the Government debate, although the cost of enforcement especially in terms of loss of time and subgame perfect credibility issues about whether the toll makers knowingly underbid because once the road is built then the government can't just let the thing sit there, might make public provision more efficacious in the end in this field. But we have lots of roads and bridges really. Nothing new. No imagination.
As to education as part of the stimulus, as a teacher, it would be nice to get paid closer to what people of equivalent educational backgrounds do, and perhaps helpful in terms of self-selection into the profession. In the end though, you either want to be in front of the class really badly,or not. Money...? If you think it is about that, you don't get it.
What I don't see in this part of the discussion of education is anyone addressing the real problems in the field, which I think is actually applicable not just to teaching, which is first that American culture is not particularly supportive of intellectual excellence; we like to beat up nerds. Although this suspicion of "pointy headed intellectuals" has its point, see Ben Franklin for what he wanted, nothing in the spending I have seen suggests what smart people who actually work in the field know to be the truth about the second bad problem, which is that the education field is drowning, dying a death by a thousand cuts, being crushed of its Tao, by stupid bureaucratic bullshit and adminstrative nonsense. What would have been nice in the bill is a biotech initiative to find the gene that causes people to want to make other people follow more and more policies and procedures in order to create a special ... treat to eliminate the problem. Or perhaps a program to develop an "administrator neutron bomb" that randomly kills 20% of the administrators because no one would notice if they disapeared; trust me on that one.Such a special treat/weapon would have large private sector and governmental spinoff benefits as well. Sort of joking about that, but you can't swing a dead cat in American education anymore without hitting an admisintrator; solve that one,please. Find the HR Hump gene for the corporate world too. And how about less Socialist crap in the education field as well as quit making kids think they should be ashamed to be Americans who should just curl up under their desks and let other people like the Russians and Chinese rule the world with their tender mercies. And how about less feminist crap that divorce is fine for the kids, and less Socialist crap about how this generation has it hard except for the part about their parents upending their lives, and more shut up and just work; with a smile, and a sense of humor. See Ben Franklin.
Most importantly, what was really missing from the debate so far is a discussion of why it is that the country that produced Edison and Franklin and Silicon Valley is becoming so ineffective compared to its past at inventing things, especially because we clearly have too many people working in finance and retail because of the way governmental policies have encouraged the structure of the economy and in which labor is going to have to be reallocated;see Hayek in his Nobel Address as to why the response time matters as maybe one of the useful things the government could do ,but only if it showed more creativity.
I have a simple idea. Give me four billion dollars and Groves like power. I will hire physicists who used to work on derivatives on Wall Street and put them to good use building superconducting electomagnetic railguns in North Alabama around the Huntsville Space Center and part of the Missile Defense Command that will acclerate objects to extermely high velocities. For missile defense applications, tungsten steel fins are hurled repeatedly at targets at over 100, 000 mph: F U Vladimir. But see the end. For space payloads and transport, take a aerodynamically shaped "train," magnetically levitate to reduce friction, and linearly accelerate it on the ground to 7,000 mph, in which afterwards the space train gradually drops its asbestos heat shield in layers as it deploys a wing for lift at the 38 degree launch angle and fires a rocket to orbital flight and then for transport applications passes by a fifteen to 100 mile wire, depending on the goal, orbiting in space that naturally iinduces an electromagentic field for a boost to between 25,000 and 100,000 mph, and we are commercialing space travel, right now, with massive spinoffs technologically and in the national defense field that is the core function of all government, and in which we offer the Russians, Japanese and French who need the Glory of War or Exploration a carrot. Now something like that in the stimulus bill would have impressed me.
Paragraphs. (heh-heh)
It's refreshing to see someone discuss issues and possibilities instead of spewing negativity.
Hadn't noticed before that you were (are?) a teacher. I do volunteer reading instruction for inner-city kids here and am disgusted at how they've managed to make it to high school without a minimum ability to read, compose a sentence or organize their thoughts.
Much of it is parental disinterest. Many of the kids are black and all but one have no father. Obviously, George Bush's fault.
I also in the past was a representative for an web based grammar program for use in schools and at home, the name of which I won't mention so as not to be accused of shilling. In their name, I went to many educational conferences, big sprawling things filled with (mostly women, it seems) walking the aisles looking at all the products for sale.
At least one hundred people a day stopped at our booth. Of those, about fifteen were TEACHERS. The rest represented educational bureaucratic flotsam. Assistants, grant writers, people teaching grant writing, instruction instructors, purchasing consultants, human resource people, yadda, yadda, yadda. All of them being paid out of the educational budget of their cities.
Where the EFF were the gdamn teachers? Why do we need all those stupid jobs when their salaries could go to the teachers or for equpiment and supplies?
I'm sure you have horror stories, but these experiences of mine are just on the periphery of education. I can imagine what it must be like in the storm.
Our leaders had sixteen hours to read the bill.
Your democracy at work.
National Security
After 9/11 (which the Repugs probably can't really be blamed for) Bush revved-up to go to war-- against a country that had NOTHING to do with the attack and has mired us in the mud militarily, financially, politically, and ethically ever since. As for national security, its very hard to make the case for improvement since Bush has essentially set up the United States as the rallying point for every pissed-off arab with an agenda. Bush and his demagogues point out that there were no attacks on U.S. soil. I remind you that originally it started out as "no terrorist attacks since 9/11"... then London and Madrid happened-- then they added the "U.S. soil" bit. I would also like to point out that in the same time frame there were no Rabid Squirrel Rampages, Indian Uprisings, or Martian Invasions. As for the terrorists, their publically stated goals were to destabilize the American economy and financial institutions. Why did they need to attack again when Bush and his cronies were busy doing a bang-up job of that on their own?
Government Reform
They reformed the government alright. Took a collection of agencies that were at least functional and "drowned them in the bathtub". Understaffed, under-funded and ignored to the greatest extent possible. And where staff was implemented, they turned out to be all of the Bush administrations PNAC buddies who were busy working to take advantage of a "new perl harbor"... I'd say they found one. When it came to actually addressing the needs of the people... lessee... there's 9/11 itself, Katrina, and a whole flurry of lesser disasters that couldn't have been managed in any worse way ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job!" -- Bush) The FDA that was so under-staffed they couldn't track down the source of TWO major food contamination breakouts. The Justice department's politically-motivated firing of U.S. Attorneys that the Administration didn't agree with. The list of agency issues is extremely long.
Economy
I don't think I even need to address this one. $3 Trillion in spending and the amount is still growing.
Energy
What exactly was Bush's energy policy? I don't think they ever came out and said what it was in public. They did have a meeting with their oil buddies behind closed doors. And the price of oil went through the roof.
Environment
Logging and development in national parks, drilling in Anwar, resumption of offshore drilling, refusal to sign the Kyoto agreement or admit the possibility (much less the likelihood) of Global Warming. Clear skies initiative which weakens many parts of the clean air act.
Health Care
Costs soaring and spiralling ever upwards and out of control. 40 million people without medical insurance. Refusal to sign the SCHIP act to fund insurance for poor CHILDREN. Family planning through abstinence. Forbidding doctors to talk about the entire spectrum of treatments available for a variety of medical conditions. Weakening and limiting laws governing the ability to sue doctors and hospitals for mistakes. Making it harder for poor people to obtain contraceptives and birth control information.
Education
The "no child left behind program", unwanted and imposed as an unfunded mandate. Limitations in the Pell grant program. Cuts in funding for educational outreach programs, colleges and universities on tribal lands. Withholding critical information from Aids patients and people at risk for contracting the disease.
Crime
Not sure whether to detail the crime record of the Bush administration or the CRIMES committed BY the Bush administration...
Values
Gitmo. Outing CIA operative. Lying to the American public to advance a war. No-bid contracts to Halliburton and other large corporations. Blackwater. Abu Grave. Waterboarding. Torture. Extrordinary Renditions. Secret CIA prisons. Domestic wire-tapping (spying). Suspension of Habeas Corpus. Tax cuts for the richest 1%. Trillions in debt. Hemoraging cash from every orifice. Failure to act to protect the environment. Devil may care attitude toward the economy. Cavalier in your face attitude toward friends and allies. Refusal to help poor children have health care. A soak-it-to-the-middle class tax and energy strategy. You just stop me when you've had enough.
But I'm just getting wound up-- you let me know when you want actual details. And these topic headings are taken DIRECTLY from the Republican Party's own web site, GOP.COM. Here's the URL: http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/.
You tell me, how'd you do? The Repugnicants shut out the Demoflats at every opportunity. So you own the problems. You own the situation. You're responsible for the mess we're in.
Bipartisan.... what's YOUR definition of the word?
What difference does it make what anyone's definition of bipartisanship is. It didn't happen.
It didn't happen from a man who campaigned on Change, on Hope, on reaching across the aisle. HE said that.
And He hasn't done it.
I tell you what: In the spirit of "reaching out" and "mutual understanding," why don't you take one thing, just one issue, to talk about, but in a very substantive way. Whatever you want it to be, whether it's the thing that Bush said or did that made you madder than anything else, or whatever you think is most important. We'll debate it, not necessarily right here, cluttering up John's comments but one way or another.
The ONE thing that Bush and his cronies did was make me ASHAMED to be an American.
Until Bush came along, the Repugnicants were Republicans. Ideologically different at times, and I didn't see eye to eye or agree with them all the time, but at the end of the day, they were people I knew. They were my friends and family, coworkers and colleagues, they were people I met on the street. They were people I respected and was able to respect. Because at the end of the day we were all interested in one thing-- making America a better place.
In all my life-- all 46 years of it-- I have never, ever, not once-- never been ashamed to be an American until George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft and all the rest got into office. Whether or not they stole the election is an item to be debated and resolved in the fullness of time. But what they DID in office was shameful, reprehensible, morally repugnant, and downright mean, rotten and nasty. For the last eight years I've smelled a stench-- felt dirty in a way that a shower couldn't fix-- a taint that followed me everywhere I went. I felt I had to apologize to people over and over for the actions of my government and its supposed leaders.
I didn't feel that way about Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr, or any other president or administration. Even when they were involved in things or did things I did not agree with or opposed. At the end of the day I was able to believe that despite the differences they were honorable, principled men who held the spirit and principles of the United States of America as sacred and sacrosanct. I was able to believe that THEY believed they were doing the right thing according to their beliefs, and that the great pendulum would swing and correct anything minor that needed correcting.
When Bush Jr was elected, my first feeling was that we'd elected an idiot-- a bumkin and we were in for four (or in worst case, eight) years of bumbling, bungling, fumbling around and lots of laughter and entertainment would ensue. But in the end it would be over and it could all be laughed aside. However, as time progressed and his administration unfolded, every day made me sadder and sadder, and I began to feel bad-- even guilty though I didn't v0te for him (or the Democrat for that matter)-- and felt like somehow it was our national burden as well as my own personal burden to bear and to even apologize for. With Bush every new revelation brought my confidence and opinion of the American government to a new low until finally there was hardly any room to go lower.
You know the truth-- and I've said this many times-- I'm not FOR Obama and the Democrats, I'm AGAINST Bush and his cronies and everything that he stands for. I personally didn't care if America elected a DILL PICKLE to office as long as it wasn't another Bush.
Maybe Obama won't solve all our problems. Maybe they're too big, too deep-- MAYBE even they go deeper and farther back than I can blame the Republicans for. Maybe the Democrats are just as much part of the problem as anybody else.
But they aren't George W. Bush, Dick Cheney or any of his PNAC buddies and I'm finally able to take a breath without feeling like I have to apologize to someone for being an American.
THAT is what makes me so angry about the last eight years. Let's talk about _that_.
I definitely have heard just about everything you're saying before. There are a LOT of people who feel the same way you do.
1. My first question in response is, do you live overseas, or are you frequently around expats from other countries who live and work with you? Who are these people that you feel you're constantly having to apologize to for being an American?
2. Assuming that Bush is as bad as you say he is, why does that mean that you have to apologize to anyone? And apologize for merely being an American? I don't see that you owe anyone an apology for nothing more than the place of your birth.
3. You say that it's what Bush did in office that makes you angry, ashamed to be an American, etc. You're very eloquent describing your feelings, but what's missing is WHY you feel that way in the first place. Specifically, what did he DO that made you realize that he was evil or an idiot or any of the thousand other things that people say about him.
4. How did you know (and you say that this was your first feeling, even from the beginning) that Bush is an idiot? Because he looked goofy on tv, or because someone showed you a funny book of "Bushisms" or you consider his core beliefs to be preposterous and so antiquated as to be an embarrassment or what?
The only thing I want to argue with you about at this point is that I really don't understand, I'm genuinely baffled that you feel like you have to apologize or be ashamed of being an American because of Bush. His presidency was something you had nothing to do with, and it was something you would have prevented if you could. I really can't understand feeling the need to apologize for something you were so totally opposed to and were powerless to prevent.
Don't worry about cluttering up my comments here. I was excited when you offered to debate an issue, one issue, in order to keep us all from rambling all over the place.
Like you, I've heard this "ashamed to be an American" feeling from many people, but few have explained it other than it's a feeling.
Though you tried to respond in an organized manner to Mr. E's post about feelings, I don't think it will get us anywhere because it's impossible to discuss or argue feelings.
They are personal and by nature irrational, like arguing over what color is the prettiest of all. The so-called "embarassment" about being an American is as much media driven as it being reality. It is a much better story to say Spaniards dislike Americans than a story about Brits thinking we're wonderful, for instance.
People get quickly drawn into the feelings du jour and they often last a long time, again the nature of feelings and emotion. Thinking about an issue requires work and a bit of integrity, that will allow you to see where you're wrong or someone else is right.
There is no integrity possible with feelings. They are what they are.
Brian, really...you're not predicting, you're telling us what you went through.
=======
Lie in it, and endure the abuse as your Messiah's fuckups become more and more obvious every day.
Lie in it, as public anger grows over worsening economic conditions and actual, real suffering begins, with no end in sight.
Lie in it, as people start to realize that weak, inane and infantile foreign policy invites terrorists and despots to embarrass or attack our country.
=======
Those are the Bush years for a Republican.
Who were the Republicans compromising with during the last eight years? Dick "Deficits Don't Matter" Cheney gave in to all those nasty Democrats that insisted on increasing the deficit? The Democrats have been beating the deficit drum for years. The Bush Administration and Republican Congress doubled the deficit. There's just no wiggle room there. It's a fact. It's what your boys did.
Did conservatives compromise? Yah, you did. And not with the Democrats. You compromised with the country club Republicans. They rolled you. They ran a guns n' butter policy. They gave you tax cuts and abortion lip service and pumped up spending to enrich themselves and unlocked the cabinets with the goodies in them.
Let me give you a little hint here: If you don't cut spending, tax cuts are just as much a handout as welfare.
The conservative message that resonates with the American public is small government, strong defense and self reliance. You had eight years of Republican rule to implement those ideals and you compromised with yourselves and you FAILED.
Just in case you check back to see if your act fooled anyone.
You ask what ideological twaddle?
I ask: What isn't?
Almost everything you say is over the top simpletonism.
Then you act wounded, and want to play 20 stupid questions.
I was quite clear about what I was saying. So was Mr E. You play "oblivious Rwinger," and ask further explanation for what was clearly stated.
Have you considered another hobby besides politics?
Your greatest hits :
"This is not socialism; this is not capitalism. This is totalitarianism. Fascism." ....................Drama queen!
"Instead of adhering to our principles, we acquiesced to stupid policies, we compromised unreasonably and we allowed ourselves to be bullied by eight years of bitching and lying and whining by those of you on the left."
That quote is in competition for politically oblivious statement of the year.
A medley of assbabble:
"Lie in it, and endure the abuse as your Messiah's fuckups become more and more obvious every day.
Lie in it, as public anger grows over worsening economic conditions and actual, real suffering begins, with no end in sight.
Lie in it, as people start to realize that weak, inane and infantile foreign policy invites terrorists and despots to embarrass or attack our country. "
There's more, all as poorly thought. Rwing radio spew, nothing adult about it.
Since you asked..................................
DaveinTokyo: Yeah, the only way I can make that prediction is to base it on the garbage I've had to see and listen to for a long time now. You're right about that, but with Obama, my prediction is that it'll be based on actual suffering, as opposed to manufactured grievances.
You're also right that a lot of the corruption that crept into the Republican party and a lot of the compromises they shouldn't have made were with themselves. And they didn't need the blue blood, Cape Cod faction (which is all but extinct) to compromise with. A lot of times is was just the temptations of power. But the poor compromises were with Democrats too.
A lot of what you say about deficits is right on. But I've been around long enough to have figured out that it's always the minority party that harps about deficits. You'd have to have a mighty short memory not to remember back before 1995, when the Democrats had a 40-odd year stretch of running things. And honestly, the Republicans did help to put a check on deficit spending for 2-3 years at the most, which Clinton gets the credit for but which probably wouldn't have been possible without Newt Gingrich.
But as many good points as you make, you can't reduce Bush Derangement Syndrome to deficit spending. You can't even reduce it to Bush's actions in office, good or bad. It's so much bigger than that. This thing has dealt the coup de grace to American political discourse, because the left used the running political conversation as a lavatory for eight years.
And, as you know, I didn't ask you about "ideological twaddle." I asked you, since you accused me of "quoting ideological scripture," to tell me what scripture I'm quoting. Well? Any time you're ready sweetheart.
John summed it up neatly-- it is how I felt about things over the last eight years. It wasn't any one thing, it was all of them combined.
As to why I felt Bush was an idiot-- all I can do is misquote Forest Gump, "an idiot is as an idiot does."
As to why I felt he was evil-- which is true, I do, but I would like to note for the record that *I* did not call him evil in any of my comments here thus far, it was actually *YOU* who said he was. In fact, when I was writing my last comment, I had started a couple of paragraphs about how I felt he was evil and specifically deleted them because I didn't want to take the conversation in that direction. *YOU* called him evil. I'm just agreeing with you.
I'm happy to have a conversation with you about these issues and discuss this in greater depth, but I'm having a hard time understanding how I could be clearer, or what additional information you would like to have? His record is what it is. In my view the only really GOOD thing he did for this country was LEAVE OFFICE.
I don't hate Republicans-- and note I used the party's correct name. and I don't hate Democrats. I'm going to paste in a complete exerpt from another thing I wrote, privately that I think will go a long way toward helping you understand my point of view:
"Are republicans bad people? Nope, not on an individual level. But you'd never know it when they get together. And the same can be said for the democrats. Both sides have allowed the rhetoric to ratchet to the heavens completely out of control to the point that neither party has any respect or tolerance for the other party-- and all OTHER parties are completely squished out of the picture entirely. They are like plants that have completely overgrown their beds and desperately need pruning in order to keep from destroying the rest of the garden.
When did America become a "two-party system"? Its not in the constitution, its not in any of the supporting framing or founding documents and literature, and its not supported by any court decisions, supreme or otherwise. Why are Americans consistently and systematically being denied their right to hear, consider and vote on OTHER ideas and opinions? Why is it that the TWO parties both demand "fairness and equal time" except for other parties that don't have major representation? Why is it that we don't get to hear from other parties in debates? Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, Harry Brown, Bob Barr... remember any of them or their issues? A few of them have managed to squeak into a debate or two here and there but ONLY after suing for access and only after direct supreme court intervention which sided with them on protocol technicalities-- but have otherwise consistently ruled that the debates are NOT a national PUBLIC forum where all must be heard but rather a PRIVATE forum where candidates may be INVITED to speak. Thus it is the OWNERS of these forums that control the content and range of critical ideas presented to the public. The debate forums (owned by the major respective national media companies) have, for their part, learned from their mistakes and tweaked the rules accordingly so they continue to have the ability to pick and choose the candidates and exert power over the message.
The Republican party wasn't even INVENTED until 1854. Until then it didn't even exist. Before then the nation was alive with a multitude of parties-- Federalist Party, Democratic-Republican Party, National Republican Party (note that neither were the same as, affiliated with, or were the forerunners of- the current Republican party), Whig Party, Socialist Party of America, Opposition Party, American Party, Home Rule Party of Hawaii, Liberty Party... just to name but the merest few-- historically American politics has been teaming with different parties and affiliations cranking out all sorts of ideas and opinions for people to consider and choose from amongst.
Somehow modern politics has managed to subvert and pervert the original goals of the founders for a menagerie of ideas into a tired, beleagured, corrupt two-party system which pretends that it has somehow embraced and encompassed all of the others and are the sole heirs and arbiters of the American political system.
And the American people-- including you and me-- are too stupid, clueless or apathetic to call them on it.
They have been steadily, busily, eroding American values, principles and core beliefs and building up bulwarks of rhetorical nonsense, legal obfuscations, and downright bullshit intended to misdirect and refocus our attentions toward something else."
In the immortal words of Dick Cheney: "Fuck You".
And I'm not saying them to you personally. I'd like to know what gives ANY elected official for ANY office from DOG CATCHER on up the right to say THAT to ANY American (or to any person) ?
Sure he's human and people say dumb things. So apologize for it and lets move on-- but he didn't. Its still hanging out there and will always linger around him like a nasty greet fart that just won't clear the air. That's Dick Cheney for you.
Then there's George W Bush flipping off the camera. Giving America (maybe the world) the big fat bird. Flying high-- the President of the good ole' U.S. of A. flipping everybody off, on camera, recorded for all posterity.
And you want me to say he's NOT an idiot?
I like you. You're too clever for your own good :)
Brian,
You seem like you have some brain cells-- you should take 'em out, polish them off and try them out some time.
"I tell you what: In the spirit of "reaching out" and "mutual understanding," why don't you take one thing, just one issue, to talk about, but in a very substantive way."
This is an example of what I mean. It seems innocent on the surface but is instead a very subtle and insidious ploy to shift the focus of the conversation, transform the message and re-characterize the participants. It is a good attempt though-- kudos to you-- well formed, well-phrased, and you didn't bat an eyebrow during its delivery.
Any normal person reading along would think "Gee, that's a good suggestion-- Mr. E would be a fool to turn that down, let's hear what he has to say..." And yet, the real motivation on your part is to let Mr. E. ramble on, pontificating about this or that, and laying it all out in black and white-- so you, at your leisure, can go back, parse the words, check the facts, and CATCH Mr. E saying something blatantly wrong (whether intentionally or not) so you can POUNCE on his statement and whirl it around your head like a mace and pound Mr. E over the head with it like a club in a clear demonstration of your moral and intellectual superiority and thus, in a single stroke, reducing Mr. E.'s arguments and talking points to a mere pile of rubble.
Of course, what makes your ploy so effective and damnable at the same time, is that its remarkably difficult to detect reliably, and when it is, its craft construction and savvy subtlety permit you to recoil in mock offense and sputter out that you meant no such thing at all-- why, perish the thought! You were just attempting to reach out-- in the spirit of mutual respect and cooperation and all-- and extend a gentlemanly hand out and have a nice intellectual discussion and debate the particulars... in fact, why don't we step out onto the veranda and have ourselves a good smoke in the process!
One of the things I strongly dislike about modern politics is the attempt to marginalize the opposition. Instead of dealing with it head-on, the game is to bandy it about back and forth until one side or the other makes a mistake and then "boom" its all over-- because clearly you can't make a mistake about some little item and still be right about the overall view.
Of course on the other hand, there's the OTHER half of your little ploy-- what happens if I *DON'T* accept the challenge... then you're able to accuse me of refusing to debate-- that you were there and ready but I wouldn't participate and somehow in the process I would be conceding you the moral high ground and you would have "won" your points by default. When in point of fact, you would have "won" nothing at all since no debate, discussion or review of the various details ever actually took place. But of course that part wouldn't matter since its really all about PERCEPTION. If you appear to be ready to show up, make a good showing, say the right words with just the right inflection and can do it without busting out laughing-- then the point goes to you automatically if the opponent flubs the return.
That's what I love about politics-- and by "love", I mean "despise". Its all about petty parlor games and one-upsmanship and nearly all of the time ignores the real issue and treats it like a mere fruit tree from which to pluck an occasional juicy plum. While instead the fruit tree in question is in reality some actual issue with real ramifications and as often as not will affect real people in some true, actual and substantive fashion.
Nero would be proud. Rome is busy burning and all of the politicos are sitting around fiddling. More interested in scoring their points and jockeying for position that actually rolling up their sleeves and getting to work fixing the problems.
So what shall we debate? I have already listed a whole host of potential possibilities, as have others here as well. Not all of them Democrats I can also note. What items can we debate that will show your party's true nature and in its best light? Or your own for that matter?
You would be surprised to discover that for myself, I am far more conservative than you might think at first glance. And I do not align myself with either the Republicans OR the Democrats. Personally I think BOTH parties are rotten to the core and need to be removed from power.
I would like to know why it is that we only ever get to frame things in "Democrat" or "Republican" viewpoints?
Its like Lou Dobbs bleating out on TV that he's an "independent"... and yet, for some really strange reason I have yet to put my finger on-- you never see any independent candidates on his show, or hear about any independent viewpoints. I just can't quite figure that out.
So really, I'd just like to know what you have to say that will exonerate you and your views (assuming you're a Republican and/or align yourself with those views) and absolve yourself from responsibility for the situation the country is in today? And I'll happily concede you probably had some help in one way or another from the Democratic side.
And more importantly-- what are WE-- that would be YOU and ME and all the REST of us going to do about it?
Because in the end, that's the TRUE and MOST REAL political reality-- people like you and me and all the rest of us get to sit around and debate this stuff for hours on end ad nauseum and vent all our fire and fury in these containment forums while those REALLY in power continue to do what they do unabated and unchecked and stick the rest of us-- that's YOU and ME with the bill while they get away scott free.
But sure, what the hey-- let's debate. Would you prefer the deck chairs over HERE or over THERE?
It's nice that you think :) I'm clever, but that was diminished by what I thought was a gratuitous cheap shot at Brian, don't you think?
And would add while you are fading into the horizon of insignificance: "Don't let the door hit you in the ass"...except that I hope it hits you repeatedly.
Then, about midway through such tangents, most of these folks tell me that I'm trying to trick them.
You're say that you don't understand how you could be clearer. I can help you with that: Take another shot at giving specific answers to the questions I asked.
You wouldn't want to take me on on your best day.
I've been eating Rwing radio airheads as appetizers since before you were born.
You're another who has the enthusiasm for "debate," but has had the rug of knowledge jerked out from under them.
You say "Pseudo-intellectual masturbation."
I know you have no frame of reference to know what is intellectual, but don't doubt your qualifications on the rest of the term.
Here, Mr e keeps offering up debate topics, you throw out tidbits like "Bush Derangement," because you are obviously not knowledgable enough to counter his points.
You make the challenge, then suddenly hear Mom calling when it's time to actually engage. The truth is you aren't prepared to do it, are you? (rhetorical Q)
So, like I said, it's an act. A word game for you, like Pig Latin.
Ookieray.
That's interesting, since the Fairness Doctrine was still in effect when I was born, and talk radio as we know it now wasn't even invented until I was a teenager. But you haven't got a clue about any of these things, have you? But your image of eating people as "appetizers" is extremely creepy, given the implications of some of the bloated prose I found on your blog.
I've asked mre questions that so far he's avoided answering, though he has gone on lengthy tangents about different things and expanded at length on his emotions about Bush. But I don't think he's done that on purpose or with a deliberate attempt to not answer them.
You, on the other hand, have called a lot of names and made a lot empty, windy, pompous noise, but you haven't addressed one single point I've raised, and you've failed to make a single point of your own.
Something else very serious needs to be said here: Animal torture is not "normal" for little boys, your effort to make it appear cute and charming notwithstanding. Children are not endowed by nature with a desire to abuse and kill animals. Quite often, children who abuse animals are being molested, and are at risk of becoming child molesters or sex predators themselves when they grow up. This is how Jeffrey Dahmer started out.
You may have thought that you were just writing a cute little anecdote about you and your "uncle." What I saw was a subconscious cry for help from a man who is unable to master his own disgusting, unnatural urges. In this light, even your avatar picture is a troubling window into your mind that I wish I hadn't had.
I definitely have heard just about everything you're saying before. There are a LOT of people who feel the same way you do.
1. My first question in response is, do you live overseas, or are you frequently around expats from other countries who live and work with you? Who are these people that you feel you're constantly having to apologize to for being an American?
I do not live overseas but I am in relatively frequent contact with persons from other countries who live or work with me. These people are normal people from other countries that have business with or in the United States, typically from other governments in a foreign-service type capacity or else here on a technical work visa.
2. Assuming that Bush is as bad as you say he is, why does that mean that you have to apologize to anyone? And apologize for merely being an American? I don't see that you owe anyone an apology for nothing more than the place of your birth.
If you have ever been in the situation of being in a mixed cultural environment-- and by that, let's define it as mixed race, gender or ethnicity-- where one of your friends, family members or colleagues starts acting or making inappropriate statements of a type that would be offensive. People are judged, fairly or not, by the company they keep. In such a setting a person might very well feel compelled to attempt to apologize or somehow otherwise distance themselves from the one being offensive.
In America, the leadership is elected out of the body of the people, by the people to preside over the people for some length of time. Thus by expectation as well as definition, an American leader "represents" and the people and in effect becomes the "embodiment" of the people. I think the American political system and culture is well-enough understood around the world for others to recognize that an American leader cannot possibly represent and embody every single value and precept of all of the people all of the time, but on the other hand is generally assumed to represent at least a fair chunk of the values and directions of the American population most of the time. Further, I think that most administrations-- regardless of the party-- actually do a reasonable job of representing the American people, their aims and objectives, beliefs and values.
But I have not felt that way about Bush and the people he has selected to assist him in heading up his administration.
3. You say that it's what Bush did in office that makes you angry, ashamed to be an American, etc. You're very eloquent describing your feelings, but what's missing is WHY you feel that way in the first place. Specifically, what did he DO that made you realize that he was evil or an idiot or any of the thousand other things that people say about him.
This is the part that's hard to know where to begin or how to sum it up in a reasonable length of time- so I will say right up front that you will have to accept my word for it that he has steadily eroded my confidence that he represents any substantial portion of my (American) values and as a result has caused me to become increasingly oppositional to the point of being openly hostile towards him, his administration, and the apparent direction he has attempted to steer this country. I will further have to refer you to Google, Wikipedia (or any other reference of your choosing) to review his record, people's reactions to his deeds, their summaries and vocalizations as to why they dislike (or occasionally like I suppose) what he's done or not done, and how he's characterized and represented the American people. And you will have to accept that my views and opinions are very much in-line with a lot of the people in this country who feel and vocalize and record their opinions for others to consider. And by this I mean that it is likely that anything I don't have room to address, say, vocalize or espouse an opinion on, someone else has probably already done so and quick Google will find it for you.
Starting from there, I'll attempt to flesh out some of my own views.
When Bush was elected, my overwhelming opinion was that he is an idiot. That he had somehow managed to wrangle the position for himself and then once he got it he didn't seem to have a clue what to do with it or how to go about it. But though that is distressing, it seems ultimately merely inconvenient and not overtly sinister.
Then 9/11 happened.
Bush's first reaction, as he sat reading "My Pet Goat" to a group of kindergartners seemed to be one of a deer caught in the headlights. But hey, he got hit with some really bad news-- not once but twice-- at a really unfortunate moment (in that same sort of way as having the doorbell ring while you're sitting on the crapper and noticing you're out of paper). Not the best reaction, not the best moment-- okay, I don't fault him for that, but it was certainly the first of many.
Like the rest of America-- and probably the world-- I was glued to the TV for three or four days straight agog at what had occured and wondering how we would react. My very first thought was sorrow for the people in Afghanistan since surely we would retaliate and retaliate hard that very night. Or the next night. Or the one after that. Or SURELY the next one. It seemed destined that we would have to go to war with Afghanistan in order to root out Bin Laden (who supposedly had done this terrible thing) and deal with the Taliban-- who as the news media were quick to point out were no saints themselves-- and to avenge our honor and our dead-- and I, like the rest of America stood poised to spring into action and do whatever it was my country needed done in order to support the war effort that was surely imminent and would be launched any second now... any second... here it comes... wait for it... now... no... okay, now....now... now...now....???
President Bush came on the TV to address the nation and gave the best speech of his entire life. He was IN his moment-- HIS moment-- OUR moment-- our collective and shared moment. I'm a big tough guy not prone to too much emotion-- but his speech that night brought tears to my eyes. Literal tears. In that speech he was able to sum up my feelings exactly and represented my views exactly and was the very vanguard and tip of the spear for my thoughts, feelings, directions, and goals. He had America in the palm of his hand, and in that moment, he WAS our leader.
Then he fucked it up.
My next mental image of Bush is him laid back at his desk in the Oval office, his feet propped-up and his obnoxious fake texas drawl saying we're gonna get 'em dead or alive, har har hardy har har.
And from there it was all downhill.
It was when Bush decided to invade Iraq that my opinion of him went from chuckle-head to evil man. It seemed clear from the gitgo that Bush didn't have any desire or need to invade Afghanistan-- in fact, now I'm REALLY dismayed over that since it seems clear to me that we're only at war with Afghanistan as a token effort. It has seemed apparent from the beginning that Bush's real aim and objective was to invade Iraq and seize their oil fields (in my view, for himself and his big fatcat oil company buddies), and to give Dick Cheney's Halliburton large no-bid contracts with no visibility or accountability of how the funds were spent or allocated. Even capturing or killing Sadaam Hussein and his guys seemed a token necessity-- a chit on a big "to-do" list... Sadaam Hussein.... got 'im.. check. And they handed out the Iraq playing cards-- woo hoo-- that just made it all the more farcical. (I understand that tactically a deck of cards is very easy for a soldier to hold and shuffle through in the field-- but that's the difference between perception and reality) The only problem remaining was how to sell it to the American people.
Bingo-- 9/11.
And it was just like that Saturday Night Live routine-- you know the one with the land shark? Candygram... "Oh we know you're just a land shark" until the shark finally says something and gets them to open the door.
That was how it went, week after week the Bush administration came out with a new attempt-- didn't get Sadaam the first time.... nope, didn't work. He tried to kill my daddy... nope, lead balloon... weapons of mass destruction.... (door opens cautiously) well maybe.... send Colin Powell to the UN with a vial of white powder and some tricked-up posters. Have him stand there, raise his right hand and swear that Sadaam has NOOK-YOU-LER weapons and is gonna use his SCUD missiles to lob a bomb into downtown Podunk.... ooh, now we're scared.
And that did it. The image of Colin Powell holding the vial of white powder and pointing to a poster of a "nerve gas truck" was enough to sway the American people that maybe Bush knew something we didn't and grant him the authority to go to war... to root out the weapons of mass destruction.
Then it came to pass that there simply weren't any weapons of mass destruction. And the Bush administration couldn't spin it in any other way, even though that's exactly what they'd been doing for weeks and months whenever rumors or suggestions came to light that maybe Sadaam didn't have WMD's after all...
Then the story changed. We weren't there any longer to root out WMD's, we were there to LIBERATE the people of Iraq. And how they would greet us with open arms and receive us warmly as their saviors and whatever other baloney the administration was pushing at the time.
Then it was clear that someone hadn't sent the people of Iraq the memo and they weren't all that happy to see us after all. In fact they were glad we got rid of Sadaam, but we really trashed their country in the process. And worse, now there was this big political hole in the middle of the country and a lot of heavily armed factions looking to fill it.... uh, Gee thanks Mr Bush...
And it just kept spiraling ever downward ad infinitum. I could go on for days detailing all this stuff-- but fortunately I don't have to-- its out there as a matter of public record. Just consult your favorite reference-- its all out there.
Abu Grave
Gitmo
Torture
Shaking the terror tree to pass legislation limiting freedoms, invading privacy and erecting a police-state infrastructure in the heartland of America.
Domestic spying
Outing undercover active-duty CIA operatives
Spending money like its going out of style, dragging the American economy farther and father into debt
The administration's lame-ass response to the Katrina disaster, or the tornadoes in Kansas, or tracking-down food-poison outbreaks, or not signing the Kyoto accords, or allowing logging companies to operate on Federal lands, opening up the oil fields in Anwar Alaska, the price of oil (gasoline & heating costs) shooting through the roof, tax breaks to the wealthy, the (apparent) rampant cronyism at every turn (Enron, Halliburton, Goldman-Sachs, the list is long), the decline in the economy, the loss of jobs and home foreclosures, the overwhelming sense of gloom and dread that is hanging over the collective American psyche--
There's just no way I can detail everything-- you can look it up and read the records for yourself. There's just an overwhelming body of ugliness related to the Bush administration.
All of that and nothing good.
Not a single redeeming feature that I can ascertain.
That's why I feel the way I do.
4. How did you know (and you say that this was your first feeling, even from the beginning) that Bush is an idiot? Because he looked goofy on tv, or because someone showed you a funny book of "Bushisms" or you consider his core beliefs to be preposterous and so antiquated as to be an embarrassment or what?
Yup, you nailed it. All of those.
The only thing I want to argue with you about at this point is that I really don't understand, I'm genuinely baffled that you feel like you have to apologize or be ashamed of being an American because of Bush. His presidency was something you had nothing to do with, and it was something you would have prevented if you could. I really can't understand feeling the need to apologize for something you were so totally opposed to and were powerless to prevent.
You're right-- so what other options did I have except to apologize and say "it wasn't me" ?
So now its your turn-- what did Bush and his administration do to give you such a warm and fuzzy?
Evidently you missed my point, an experience I'm sure you're overly familiar with.
I am negating the entirety of your knowledge, such as it is, and foreclosing on your wailings as irrelevant.
I'll be here for some time, feel free to bring your weak game to anything I write.
I can use an appetizer before engaging in a debate meal with somebody far more qualified.
I am negating the entirety of your knowledge, such as it is, and foreclosing on your wailings as irrelevant.
I'll be here for some time, feel free to bring your weak game to anything I write.
I can use an appetizer before engaging in a debate meal with somebody far more qualified. "
Spoken like a thrashed schoolboy, as he hurries to get away from his better.
I welcome the opportunity to take you down another peg, "O'Rourke." I only hope that I get to hear you repeating your refrain of "you don't want to take me on" while I'm kicking your ass again. That made an otherwise sad and pathetic situation into a funny one.
Thanks for the laughs. No go lick your wounds.
By the way, your lame attempt at insulting me further revealed the juvenile nature of your intellectual reach. You can't even insult like an adult.
I properly insulted your dog-chasing-tail "debating ability."
What condition did Mr e have to meet? An AAA roadmap and a police escort to the clearly stated topics he outlined?
You can only vamp for so long before the crowd realizes that's your entire shtick.
Now, post something up to show your chops.
Love the new name.
See you around, vir vacuus mens...
It's wonderful to hear a new voice (DII) to counter the sophistry of PJOR and even lesser lights.
Who'd a thunk it!?
The conflict over these issues are a false conflict. The conflict of govt intervention versus non intervention is moot. Even the "Supply-siders" know that intervention must happen. Their intransigence is merely to preserve political careers, save face, in front of people to whom they are selling themselves as "free-marketeers". No such things exists, and they know it. It always has been a false distinction, and now the Earth has eroded under their feet. The offer to join in the making of the important legislation is a way forward in stewardship of the country. The G.O.P. has poorly choses their "insurgency" instead. Insurgency was Sen. Session's word. Rest in pieces G.O.P.
From my point of view, Bush made a lot of mistakes, there were a lot of failures in his leadership, and he didn’t possess a lot of the talents that other presidents have used to make up for or hide their mistakes: He wasn’t a great speaker, his press operation may have been the worst in modern history and it seems to me that he surrendered the initiative to others during his second term. I get no “warm & fuzzies,” as you call it, from him.
But I don’t believe there has ever been a president that has had to endure so much abuse, so much unfair, unrealistic, baseless and often hysterical criticism. For eight years, I found myself defending Bush from completely unreasonable people, when I otherwise might have been criticizing the man bitterly.
The hysteria started before he even took office. The left took up the mantra that the election had been “stolen,” or that the Supreme Court had made him “the president-select.” The election in 2000 was extraordinarily close, and people on the (barely) losing side were bound to experience hard feelings. But that’s no excuse for abandoning all reason. In fact, in a democracy, it’s a responsibility of each and every person participating to think and to speak like an adult. It’s a fact that, in every recount that took place in Florida (and more took place than state law required) Bush had more votes than Gore. As for the Democrats’ lawsuits that wound up in the Supreme Court: Look at the makeup of the Court at that time. If that was a political decision, it went in a completely different direction from what the majority of the justices’ politics were. Of course, the left ignored all these facts entirely, and they swayed a lot of people with their shrill, irresponsible palaver. But it would get worse; much worse.
I remember the first Bushisms book that came out in 2001 some time. A woman I worked with showed it to me and we sat for several minutes laughing about his peculiar capacity for screwing up his words and saying the wrong thing. My favorite was “people talk about Social Security as if it were some sort of government entitlement,” or something to that effect. I can’t remember what she said to me about Bush as I stood up to go back my desk, but I was shocked at her sudden viciousness and the insulting, uncalled-for nature of the language with which she described him. I reminded her that the president is always under a microscope and his words are always going to be parsed and picked apart for everyone’s amusement, and that Gore had said plenty of dumb things, but he didn’t have the burden of being president. The truth is, though, that what she said had no bearing on anything in her book, and she would not have spoken this way about her worst enemy while sitting in the kitchen at work and talking to someone she barely knew. The truth is that this kind of vitriol was already a part of polite conversation when directed toward the president, and that was in the early summer of 2001.
I don’t know whether to be surprised about it, but I remember thinking a lot of the same things you say you thought right after 9/11. I also remember being surprised by the pettiness and childishness of people who criticized the president for continuing to read his book to the kindergarten students after being informed of the terrorist attacks. What did these people expect him to do? Panic? It was then that I realized that there were people watching his every move, his every word and every facial expression, just waiting for anything they could take and interpret as something that reflected poorly on the president. I also realized that, had his actions been the opposite, the same people would have constructed another narrative designed to make him look foolish.
You express your revulsion at the image of Bush, feet propped on the Oval Office desk, “with his obnoxious, fake [fake?]Texas drawl, saying ‘We’re gonna get ‘um dead or alive.” I’m not aware of this ever actually happening, but I know that’s the image a lot of people have in their heads. The man was not hysterical. He didn’t need to act for the camera. Why do people always have to mistake intensity of emotion for depth of emotion? I don’t want to be lead by someone who’s going to pitch a fit, and I definitely don’t want to be lead by someone who feels the need to pander to the cameras, exchanging his true demeanor for whatever he feels the public expects to see.
As for Iraq, I felt it was a big mistake for Bush to make the whole case for war only about weapons of mass destruction, although anyone who was paying attention at the time knows damn well that Saddam had had them in the past, they knew he used them against the Iranians and they knew he used them against the Kurds in his own country. The question was whether he had had them since the Gulf War of 1991. And that’s really only a question now. In 2002, nobody questioned it. Every intelligence agency from any country that looked into it was of the opinion that Saddam was developing chemical weapons in violation of the terms that ended the Gulf War.
But there was so much more to it. Saddam had tried to have the elder Bush assassinated during Clinton’s presidency, and Clinton had fired a few cruise missles into Iraq, but had left the Iraqi secret police still operating in other countries. A foreign country had tried to kill a former president of the United States, and he happened to be the current president’s father. The president still has an obligation to act on that and it was as much a casus belli in Iraq as anything else. Democratic politicians thought this a serious enough provocation while Clinton was president, but, once the Iraq war went on longer than people anticipated and the war started to become unpopular, did nothing to dissuade the notion that for Bush to act on this basis was some sort of “family grudge.”
Then there’s the notion that Bush “used” 9/11 as a justification for war with Iraq, when his real motivation was supposed to be “seizing the oil fields.” Pre-9/11, there might have been some justification for thinking preemptive action against certain countries to always be wrong. After 9/11, there was no excuse for not acting preemptively against a regime that had used WMD, was currently trying to develop more WMD according to every estimate, had shown itself willing to assassinate a former U.S. president, that had sheltered some of the terrorists involved in the first World Trade Center bombing, had previously invaded neighboring countries and that had systematically used torture, murder and rape, among other tactics, in terrorizing its own people into submission. Yet the left seemed to want proof beyond the shadow of a doubt that Iraq was behind 9/11. Well, no one ever said they were behind the 9/11 attacks. The simple fact was and is that regimes like Saddam’s, and/or the terrorists we knew they were harboring weren’t going to put out a chivalric, 19th-century style declaration of war before they attacked us.
I’m familiar with the other issues and events you’re referring to here, and I’m familiar with the stance taken by either side. You mention Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, the Plame affair, “domestic spying,” and on and on, but you’re just listing them without going into any detail. I realize you have a life and you just don’t have time to list everything, but I think a lot of what you’re hearing about these things is simply not true. That’s why I originally wanted to talk about them one by one. Like you, I have way too many things to list where I feel like Bush was criticized unfairly.
I realize that, inadequate as my defense of Bush undoubtedly is, I probably made a better case in favor of the Iraq war in a few hours than Bush’s administration ever did in eight years. He did an equally dismal job in selling most of his policies, the one real exception being that speech that you mentioned, which he gave right after 9/11. I think he thought, foolishly, that the president has to be above the fray on everything, instead of realizing that it’s the president’s job to explain himself and his policies. I have no reason to defend him on that, and I have no idea why he, of all people, chose to operate that way.
The main thing we’ve lost in all of this is that the political discourse in our country, already on shaky ground when Bush took office, has become an utter wreck. Most people have abdicated their responsibility as citizens to use reason, and to speak responsibly. The press is completely partisan, with talk radio taking up hard right positions, Fox News operating from the center-right, and nearly everybody else taking up one position or another on the left side of the scale. Yet they all, with the exception of talk radio, still pretend to be “balanced.”
The effect of all this on people with Ph.D.s and master’s degrees has been devastating enough (and, in my experience, the highly “educated” have the greatest capacity for self-deception). But what do you think the effect is on someone with a high-school education?
As far as apologizing goes, I can understand if your brother or your spouse is acting inappropriately in public. But America is a big country, and you didn’t have anything to do with putting the president where he is. I still don’t get this compulsion to apologize, as if you’d done something wrong. Maybe you sense that that’s what these other people expect from you. That would only make me less inclined to apologize.
I've read over your post several times now and while I like reading it very much, its warm and human and direct, I don't see much in there to respond to. You're not saying anything I vehemently disagree with.
I went online to see if I could find a video clip of the "mental image" I have of him doing the "dead or alive" bit. I remember he used that shtick several times over the course of a few days to a week-- probably until someone pointed out to him that it wasn't resonating well in middle america-- anyway, I was unable to locate the exact reference I had in mind-- and to be fair, I don't think he had his feet up-- (but as an aside, every site that should have had the video or image had a "missing image" there-- conspiracy??? :) My own recollection of the moment was a day or so after the original "dead or alive" reference in a moment where he was surrounded by reporters, he was seated they were standing, perhaps it was on AF1? So the camera angles made it appear very much like he was kicked-back, and that might be the true genesis of the gestalt mental image that folks have. Maybe someone else reading along knows the moment I'm referring to and can point out an online reference.
I think there's enough question about the election to keep historians and academics (and conspiracists) busy for a long time. Regardless and nevertheless, he was declared the winner by the surpreme court and for good or for ill was recognized as the president. Anything else is for the historians to determine.
As far as the observation goes that Sadaam tried to assassinate the elder Bush, regardless of the veracity of that (and I'm not disputing it-- I've heard similar claims elsewhere), why not just send a secret black-ops hit-squad to take him out? Would have been a LOT cheaper to have used a couple of bullets and spent a little political capital. Sure, I know its illegal-- presidential order against it and whatnot-- but if not directly, why not engage the Israelis to do it, it certainly isn't beyond _their_ political mindset and ability to accomplish...???
There was (is) a lot more to Iraq than revenge. And perhaps a lot less than an oil grab. I'll quickly concede I don't know what actually has transpired behind closed doors and in secret. All I know is that the apparent facts don't really add up very well, and there are a lot of loose ends that can be tied-up neatly with the assumption its an oil grab. There's plenty of speculation, and not just my own, that there is a large untapped oil reserve in the middle of Iraq that the oil companies are salivating over.
Mainly for myself, and a view which I've freely expressed in many places including here, I was not happy with Bush. I did not feel like he represented me, my values (as an American-- or personally either for that matter), seemed desperately ill-equipped for the job, seemed sophmoric and pedantic nearly all the time (whether that was for real or he was just portrayed that way-- how could I possibly know since big media controls nearly every source of information in this country???)
But I can say now that its over and Bush is gone, I'm very much relieved. I don't know whether Obama will turn out to be a great president or not. I know he seems sincere in his desire to try and turn things around. I also think the Republicans are being unnecessarily obstructionist (as another poster suggested) and petty at a time when the country is in great need.
As I've indicated here (and elsewhere), I don't think either the Democrats or the Republicans have a very good handle on true governance in this country, rather they are just firmly entrenched and the majority of folks are either too stupid, clueless, apathetic or busy trying to get by to know, notice or do anything about it. And in the absence of any real oversight they've done what all politicians do-- slowly and surely made rules and passed laws to shore-up and cement themselves into their offices and make it difficult for new-blood to challenge the incumbent.
I don't think all politicians are bad-- and in fact, I try to be charitable in my opinion and assume, giving them the benefit of the doubt, that most get into office with a true desire to do good, work hard, and accomplish much that is beneficial. But then they get there and discover there is a huge machine in-place that grinds down and seduces politicians with the seemingly sensible mantra of "go along to get along". Maybe politicians should be elected but then given some other district to actually govern. And maybe it could be switched-up now and again at random to keep it interesting.
I know it would go a long way to ban corporate interests from interfering with politics. I don't know how to accomplish that though since it would just go underground and employ dupes to shield the real players (wait, it does that now already...) Another facet is that money has become the essential ingredient in politics (as it does pretty much everywhere else too). People are so hungry to get by that it is almost impossible to comport ones self in a manner that is agnostic to money. Only the truly rich (financially independent) could even hope to try. I find it concerning that in a country so capable, so able, so blessed with plenty-- that our citizens find it paradoxically harder and harder to eke out a living and get by. More and more people are falling into poverty while the upper 1% gets richer and richer.
Whoever it is that really controls politics in this country knows that it is in their interest to keep the rest of us fighting amongst ourselves to keep us from noticing that we're getting (and have been getting for a very long time) the short end of the stick.
But we have 'freedom of speech'-- and the irony is you can say pretty much anything you want in America and people will go "uh-huh" (or "uh-uh") and then go right on doing whatever they were doing without a second thought.
Gang violence in LA? Uh-huh. Drug wars at the border? Yup, okay. Terrorists wanna blow something up? I heard that someplace. Schools falling apart, not enough teachers, not enough cops, crumbling roads and national infrastructure, Health care spiraling out of control-- doctors cutting off the wrong body parts, seniors can't afford medicine or food, children going hungry in the inner cities....? Mmmm hmmmm....
How about them Mets?