[ARCHIVED THREAD] - President Bush (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 6/2/2007 3:45:46 PM EDT
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I remember 1999. I became an adult during the Clinton Administration. I was 16 when he entered office and I was 24 when he left. During that time I was terrified for the future of this country. I saw the 1994 AWB, Ruby Ridge, Waco, the retreat from Solmolia, the inaction after the USS Cole bombing and BJ's buddying up with the UN as steps towards the end of American sovergeinty. Then in 1999 George W. Bush stepped onto the scene. I remember how hopeful that I was back then. Then Governor Bush had promised to cut taxes, reform Social Security and put an end to the UN guided nation building that we were doing all over the world. I was enthusiastic about the prospect of having this man as president. I felt like it was an opportunity to undo all of the dammage done by the Clintons. I voted for Governor Bush with enthusiasm. President Bush's first term went wonderfully. He cut taxes, took on the UN, repealed many of Bill Clinton's attrocious EOs (like using federal tax dollars to fund abortions in other countries), allowed the 1994 AWB to sunset, took out the Taliban which was harboring our worst enemy, sent Al Queda on the run and went after Saddam Hussein in an expertly conducted invasion. When things started going badly in Iraq, I like every other conservative felt that we needed more time and that the "cut and run" solution being offered by John Kerry would have been disasterous. I over looked things that I was principly opposed to like the $15 Billion aid to Africa to fights AIDS, and the Medicare Prescription Drug Handout because the winning the war and preventing new gun control were higher priorities. President Bush was still my cantidate. I volunteered to work for his campaign in 2004 and spend many evenings at my county's Republican headquaters calling registered voters and urging them to vote for President Bush. He unfortunately lost my state of Michigan (at the time), but won the general election and was sworn in for another four years. At first things were once again looking good. President Bush appointed two men to the Supreme Court who seemed to be the type of people that would interpret the constitution strictly rather than invent new rights while discarding dearly held rights. But now that has all changed. It seems to me like President Bush has abandon conservatism completely. Any hope of Social Security reform died a long time ago, and the miscalculation that Iraqis would embrace democracy and side with us for freedom seems to have put us in a situation where establishing a democracy in Iraq is going to be impossible. Now we have the betrayal on the border issue, with our president attacking the people who supported and defended him most vigourosly in the past while President Bush pushes a plan which would seem to doom any hope for a return to conservatism in America. In 1999 I voted for a man who pledged to fix Social Security, end our practice of nation building, reduce federal spending and restore honor to the White House. Today we our Social Security system is still swirling the bowl, our largest attempt at nation building is about to result in a failed state, federal spending has sky rocketed, we are further than ever from energy independance and energy costs are on the verge of putting us into another energy crisis. On top of all of that we are now being faced with an amnesty plan that would cause an enormous shift in our social and political landscape, put even greater pressure on our Social Security system, encourage hundreds of millions of people to come to this country illegally and basically execute our over burdened health care and educational systems. How did everything go so terribly wrong? |
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Hmm, I'm just a couple years older than you, I joined the military in the run up to the first gulf war, and served out my enlistment in the hostile environment of the early Clinton years with the peace dividend and massive cuts. I was a huge supporter of the GOP generally in the contract with America days, following the AWB and the Waco tragedy. I was always libertarian leaning, I believed in small government, personal responsibility, and that the big government socialists were destroying the republic. I thought the impeachment of Clinton was foolish, but I also thought he was guilty of plenty of crimes that just couldn't be proved. I gave GWB money, I posted on message boards, argued with friends and family, I even knocked on doors on election day. I knew almost right away we were in serious trouble. I think you guys who feel like the first term went pretty well would feel differently if you'd lived through it without giving him the benefit of the doubt on everything. We got a couple nominations that were certainly better than they would have been under Gore for sure, but other than that his record is just one missed opportunity and dismal failure after another. Any president, even Gore, would have engaged Al Queda and the Taliban,and I think most would have had more success. That isn't an accomplishment. I'm seriously concerned at this point that he'll melt down completely under the pressure of a job he was never qualified for, and nobody wants him doing, and do even more damage to the nation before he goes. 18 months is a very long time. |
In all honesty, I am ready to support a complete withdrawal from Iraq, should this amnesty abomination go through, just to seal the fate of George as a complete and utter failure. This is after much soul-searching and not meant as disrespect to those who served and were wounded or died in the conflict, their memories will never be tarnished. I do however have serious questions about the fitness of POTUS for duty. Since September 11th we have been told that there are legions of terrorists out to get us, yet our borders have remained utterly undefended. Witness the TB jerk waltzing through the border in Canada, even though he was on the list to be held. One must ask how seriously the administration (and Congress) take the threat, and correspondingly, how great the threat actually is. For a nation supposedly at war, our leaders sure don't act like it. 
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quite simply W is not conservative. period. end of story.. and there is nothing like a newt to provide direction to any extant republicans or give voice to conservative ideals.. so the republicans in congress have been wandering about the desert since whitewater. the good thing is the democrats are even more confused and directionless... those who would have preferred gore though.. give me a break. bush has been ineffective.. bure gore is a flat out loony-tune and struck me that way when he was running back in the day... and kerry.. horse-face idiot one of most liberal congress-critters extant.... one wonders how things might have gone had bush stayed out of iraq.. containment over war... he might have been more effective with some of the more liberal (like the border issues) and in some ways made things even worse.. but look at it this way.. we got some decent judges in.. the economy isnt doing too bad.. could be worse.. and will be if the beast is allowed to ascend the throne... |
You know.... I was all for G.W that is up until people started comparing the occupation of Iraw to the new Vietnam.... then i started having second thoughts.  2004 was the first year i was of legal voting age and i just couldn't bring myself to choose between a flip flopper and an absolute fucking moron, the lesser of two evils is still an evil by any means. At this point hes just dragging the war in iraq on for as long as possible so when he leaves office in 2008 at least its horrible end wont be totally his fault.  Looking back i might have voted Clinton a third term in 2000 if it wasn't for my love or firearms. 
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I agree with most of your post, but that is a little like cutting off your nose to spite your face, isnt it. Even though we have a traitor in the white house, we do need to suceed in Iraq. Piece of shit leaves office in Jan 09, hopefully the Republic will go on. |
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You know.... I was all for G.W that is up until people started comparing the occupation of Iraq to the new Vietnam.... then i started having second thoughts. 2004 was the first year i was of legal voting age and i just couldn't bring myself to choose between a flip flopper and an absolute fucking moron, the lesser of two evils is still an evil by any means. At this point hes just dragging the war in iraq on for as long as possible so when he leaves office in 2008 at least its horrible end wont be totally his fault. Looking back i might have voted Clinton a third term in 2000 if it wasn't for my love of firearms. All the guy did was get a BJ in the oval office... who could blame him?? 
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did they repeal the 22nd ammendment whilst i was asleep.. and it woulda been his 3rd term..he aleady had 2.. |
If you think Iraq and Vietnam are in anyway alike, you shouldn't be voting anyway. Looks like pot might actually affect your brain functions. |
motown, Although I can't answer your question... It's funny you should post such a topic today. I sent this email out to my Uncle today.
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many differences... but.. was talking to a family member that served in nam.. for which i have a lot of respect and he's a sharp guy.. when this started.. like the week or whatever when they went in.. and some folks were saying 'it's vietnam'.. i had one comment.. that it could be like vietnam if the folks we are trying to liberate/save don't do their part and create a government that can stand on its own and bring order and stability and opposed external forces that try to fuck things up.. and he agreed.. far as i'm concerned we never lost in vietnam. we kicked total ass for as long was we were there. i heard will killed 1 million northvietnamese.. i dont know if thats true. but we didna loose. after hangin around for just about forever, we concluded some sort of peace and drew down our forces.. and the north rolled in and over the south.. that wasn't our fault. and it wasnt our loss... so is iraq like vietnam? depends of the iraqi people... |
Yeah it is, but maybe it will take the threat of that to bring him to his senses over amnesty. My gut says he made a deal with the Dems: Stay in Iraq in exchange for amnesty. The question then is which is a greater threat: Iraq in civil war or our country inundated with illegals. |
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One point of order, first: Ruby Ridge was during George Herbert Walker Bush's admin. George Bush the 2nd has been correct in fighting an implaccable enemy on roughly our terms on THEIR territory, keeping them approximately on the defense. If we were not in Iraq, engaging AQI and their allies on a daily basis, while also whacking the Taliban moles in Afghanistan, I am certain that there would have been multiple follow-on attacks on our soil after September 11. There could still be attacks despite all this. I think, from what I see from Michael Yon and Bill Roggio et al, that we are slowly winning and demonstrating ourselves to be the strong horse in Iraq, and I think the Iraqis are slowly getting it, but time could run out for them and us. Stay tuned. We HAVE to succeed in the Middle East, and by that I think we should hope for some secular democracy in Iraq and an Iran that is constrained or contained by its neighbors. Meanwhile we can hope for (and covertly support) overthrow of the mullahs in Iraq. That is about the best we can hope for. As for George Bush, I voted for him twice and gave him money for his campaigns. However, he simply is not articulate, and has a certain arrogance about him that seems to imply that he shouldn't have to explain this to us or let us in on his thinking. When it is up to me/us to defend an increasingly unpopular war, with little apparent support from the administration, it doesn't help. He doesn't really seem to be inclined to defend himself, and sometimes it really pisses me off that he does not take an aggressive stance on the Dems and his liberal opposition. Early on, it seemed like a rope-a-dope strategy, and it was going to be successful in the end as the Dems overplayed their hands repeatedly. However, six years of letting the opposition define and control the debate has taken a huge toll. Remember, rope-a-dope left Ali with severe Parkinson's. I think he has lost a lot of good speechwriters and officials in the administration from sheer burnout. It's a long time to stay in Washington and operate where the air is toxic. I have not heard any stirring speeces since the 1st term. Maybe they are out there, and the mainstream media is filtering them out, but I am not hearing them. The Katrina debacle, though largely the result of a levy that had not been built and maintained by the locals with the federal funds given them, really set them back and put them on the defensive. They never caught up with the failure of state and local government to do THEIR part, and the media was all too ready to blame Bush for bogus snipers and baby killing feral savages reported by word of mouth. For some reason they never really seemed to fight back. Katrina was where the cronyism first came to be apparent. Brown was not as bad as made out to be, but he just didn't look like he knew how/what to do. When Bush canned him, it confirmed that he was not up to the job and they could never recover. The Supreme Court appointments have been superb, and could be one of his crowning and longest lived successful legacies. However, the current Attorney General is a clear affirmative action crony, and doesn't look like he has things under control. People are now longing for Ashcroft (or so they say). The US attorney debacle was unncecessary and showed the lack of understanding of the political process. If they had said that they tried to put in people who agreed with their philosophy after the election, as was their pre-rogative, then it would have been some huff and puff from the Dems for a week and that would have been it. Instead, they acted like they didn't think politically, then when caught having done exactly that, they looked stupid. One reason they probably didn't clean house the way a Clinton or Nixon or Johnson would have after 2000 was the sensitivity to the fact that they won the Electoral College but not the popular vote. This has continued to harm them to this day. If they had won the popular vote and the Electoral College vote, they would have been much better off. The economy is doing great, but we never hear the Bush team take any credit for it. If this were the Clinton gang, you would never hear the end of it. It is not unreasonable to think that we will be at/near a balanced budget by the end of this term, unless there is a major terrorist attack, for instance. With respect to immigration reform, I think he is motivated by his personal arrogance that this is the right thing to do (not just for the Mexicans, but for the North American economy/NAFTA), as well as the cynical estimation that the influx of cheap labor offers an anti-inflationary depression of wages, keeps trade unions down, and results in savings for the consumer. Further, these people send a lot of money out of the country, further keeping price inflation down. You also have to wonder if the influx of people buying entry level housing is what is pushing the housing boom. Would a substantial deportation of illegals tank the housing market? I don't know. As for international relations, they are getting better with the Germans and the French as they begin to shift away from the reflexive anti-American left to more reasonable people. Our relations with India and Pakistan have never been better, and likewise with Japan, which understands the need to contain North Korea until it implodes as well as the need to contain China until it is truly democratic. That won't be over in this adminstration or the next two or three, just like the Cold War. Despite all the good, I have really gotten tired of the militant attempt to jam this amnesty for illegals program down our throats, and as far as I am concerned, let them impeach Bush and put Cheney in. He could run for two more terms in his own right at this point if he were put in. I also think that the plan is to use the Dems as the bad cops to threaten the Iraqis with precipitous withdrawal and motivate them to get their act together before we pull back. Things will probably be at the point where our withdrawal to bases nearby would work out, even if the Shiites slaughter the Sunnis. Maybe the Sunnis are figuring this out and that is why they are getting on board with fighting Al Queda in Iraq, at least in Anbar. Bottom line: his sell-by date has come and gone, but if he were more articulate, and the mainstream media were not so biased our patience would have lasted longer. No two term president can sustain the pace from beginning to end, no matter what party. They all fade (Clinton, Nixon, Eisenhower, Nixon, anyone you name). I think history will be better to him than the current times, if we see a gradual change in the Middle East, and if the Amnesty for Illegals plan does not get passed. If it does and the country is transformed into a big Mexifornia cesspool, he will go from an underappreciated Truman who looks better and better over time to a Jimmah Carter who will always just be an asshat. You asked. |
why would you say that the administration he was a part of did NOTHING against any of the acts of terrorism against us. |
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In 2000, George Bush ran on an anti-nation-building platform. Our military is not to be used to build schools, polish floors of foreign countries and feed people. We use it to kill people and break things. I really liked that about him (Cheney too) After 9-11, he threw that all away and has run our wars they way the globalists want. His inauguration speech in 2004 was the first time I said "holy shit, something is not right" with his "end of tyranny in the world" speech. That was a huge eye opener. Woodrow Fucking Wilson incarnate. No Child left Behind, Free Pills for Old Rich People, "33% is the most the .gov should take from anyone", ""Religion of Peace" amnesty for illegals, etc., etc. I really doubt the guy's ability to know what the right thing to do is. Could be the whole Skull and Bones thing. Maybe they're all assholes. |
It's not only about the war. "The War" went wonderfully. It was brilliantly planned and executed with amazing speed and efficency. "The Peace" has been a disaster. For the first few years I was willing to give them their time and believed that the Iraqis would eventually participate. Now it is clear that the Iraqis aren't interested in democracy, not when they can be killing each other and letting Al Queda run the country side. But as I said, it's not just about the war. It's about the failure to secure the border, abusing the Border Patrol into useless, granting amnesty to 20 million illegal aliens in this country, failure to fix the imminent Social Security disaster (which is even more pressing now that we're about to have 20 million more names on the roles), the looming energy crisis, the handouts to third world deadbeats who don't want our help, the exploding deficit and the prescription drug handout...for starters. |
| He's batting .750 in my book. He's FUBAR on the border issue. However, he kicked the Taliban out of Afghanistan, He killed Sadam, he allowed the AWB to sunset, he appointed conservative judges to the Supreme Court, and the economy is chugging along. Bottom line, he took the fight to the terrrorists, which IMHO, has prevented them from consolidating and striking us here again. Too, we have Iran surrounded on all sides. That's pretty good chess in my book, should we ever need to knock out their nukes (or allow Israel to overfly... IRAQ). |
You can say that because nobody is threatening to overrun North Dakota. Heck, ND leads the upper Midwest in Illegal Emigrants. Kidding - love the state, please continue to keep the Canucks at bay, carry on... 
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GOODIES??? I WISH THEY WOULD QUIT WITH THE FREAKIN' GOODIES ALREADY!!!!! |
What goodies would that be? We were told to "Go shopping America".."Don't worry"..Don't remember any goodies being promised at all..except those goodies in terms of monies going down the shitter by the billions.. |
INS had raids a few months ago and caught dozens of illegals. Illegal chinese working at chinese buffet's... |
hmmmm.... Chinese Lutefisk, eh? |
Yeah, sure, you betcha. |
I can only speak for the Iraqi government fiasco - It was terribly wrong to try and foist democracy upon people of an undemocratic mindset. From before the time of Persia vs the Greek city states, people from that part of the world have been hostile to the idea. Do I have a solution? No. |
the vietnam era domino theory was crap what kind of dominos will fall when we retreat from iraq? WTF do you think the iranians, saudis, and probably turks are going to do when their ethnic brothers in iraq are being slaughtered? theater war, anyone? the invasion was a mistake there was no AQ connection, and we knew it there was no immediate WMD threat, and we should have known that how much sharper would our special operations scalpel be if it wasn't dulled by years of overuse in a war that had nothing to do with our national security at it's onset? and finally, what would W's approval rating be at if he had secured iraq's oil fields and gas was stable at $1.25/gal? |
If you can't see this, there's no point in arguing really, however I'll spell it out. It will send a clear message to terrorists that if you kill enough Americans, you can get what you want. |
| Bush's legacy is three things. He put conservative judges on the SC, he really helped the economy get going, and he has kept America safe after 9/11. The border issue sucks, but maybe he just didn't know and decided to follow in the footsteps of the most popular conservative president ever, and asked WWRD. Its too bad the SS reform never took off either, but its not like he did anything to make it worse. Is he perfect? No. Is he the anti-christ that many here make him out to be? Hell no. |