What do you think of our current President?

[renrich]

This may not belong here but no use in starting a new thread. There is an interesting ad running on tv funded by something like "vets for finishing the job in Iraq" It features a number of vets that have served in Iraq (?) names them and is saying we need to finish the job in Iraq regardless of who is elected president. Does not endorse anyone. Has anyone else seen the ad and what do you think?

[freebird]

Originally Posted by renrich

This may not belong here but no use in starting a new thread. There is an interesting ad running on tv funded by something like "vets for finishing the job in Iraq" It features a number of vets that have served in Iraq (?) names them and is saying we need to finish the job in Iraq regardless of who is elected president. Does not endorse anyone. Has anyone else seen the ad and what do you think?

Seems fine to me Ren, this thread can be a "general political discussion". Not much time today, but a more detailed reply to your previous tomorrow.


With all due respect to the vets, I don't think that they have an unbiased point of view. A soldier that comes to know the people in the place they serve will almost always have an emotional attachment to the people there. I would think the same opinions could have been found about Somalia or Bosnia. When the US & Allied forces pulled back the soldiers would have known that the people would suffer greatly as they left.

Much the same reaction as MacArthur, when ordered to leave the Phillipines for Australia at first he wanted to refuse. Ultimately the soldiers have to accept that political realities cannot always allow them to "finish the job". As Chris said earlier {IIRC} they didn't want to go to Bosnia at first but later came to have great affection for the people.

[freebird]

Originally Posted by renrich

Oh well. You know all about opinions and other things. Everyone has one. Time will tell. if I was going to be here 25 or 30 years from now I would make you a sizable bet about the judgment of histroy.

Ren, I think 10 or 12 years will answer the question whether this will work. If things are all rosy in Iraq in 10 years, I will be happy do buy you a beer {to wash down the crow I will be eating!}

Originally Posted by renrich

By the way it wasn't amnesty in any sense of the word. There were a bunch of hoops that no way were 10 or 20 M illegals were going to jump through. It is amazing to me that so many so called conservatives use the same tactics that liberals use by describing something they don't like in disingenuous terms so that it will be unpopular.

They are polititians, everything has a spin! {but you already knew that}
I would have liked to see Bush work more closely with the Republican Senate on this one, I think a deal was there to be had. It was just folly to leave this matter incomplete as a "time bomb" for the next President.

Originally Posted by renrich

I have never heard of any war plan, battle plan or business plan that did not have flaws in it and truth to tell, there has never been one. It won't make any difference how successful the Iraq deal turns out the Bush bashers will never give Bush any credit. Thank goodness we had him and not Gore.

The problem was that Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld ignored sound military advice when making their "plan". Here you have 3 guys who never served a day in actual combat, telling Generals with 30+ years experience how they think the war should be run!

Seriously, this is ridiculous! Imagine if I bought an aircraft and had FlyboyJ or DerAdler do the maintainence. can you imagine if I would tell them how I think it should be done?

If by some miracle Iraq turns out to be a success 10 years down the road I will happily give him credit for an amazing "Hail Mary" pass. However I think it is more likely Iraq will be dominated by the likes of Al-Sadr and a toady to Iran.

Originally Posted by renrich

I see nothing wrong with letting a foreign country taking some of the money they have earned in the oil business and investing it in the US, just like they do every day with our government securities. Dubai has been a staunch friend of ours for sometime.

It just looks bad Ren. Instead of threatening a veto to ram it through, he should have looked for a compromise solution. {have it run by a US subsidiary or whatever} Again just politically "Tone deaf"

Originally Posted by renrich

FEMA is a typical big government agency. It makes no difference who is president or who is the director, it will always be a unwieldy bureaucracy. Who says they botched up the New Orleans Katrina deal, the media and the dimocrats.

Oh come on! "Who says they botched it"?? I saw a live interview with the FEMA director 4 days into the crisis, he didn't know there were people dying of exposure in the Dome! Meanwhile he is sending texts asking his asst. about his wardrobe! It just looks terrible thats what.

Originally Posted by renrich

What does being a Texas governor have to do with anything. Does that mean that no one from Texas can be "smart" enough to be president.

No, it means that I think he was too inexperienced to be President at that point. In 2000 I thought McCain would be a better President than Bush, I still think that is true. His lack of experience directly resulted in errors of judgement because he did not understand all the ramifications of foreign policy. IMO

Originally Posted by renrich

How does one know that Harriet Myers would not have been a good Supreme?

Because the rating for her was "barely qualified". The fiasco of having his own party torpedo his nominee, and his crony Gonzales resign due to incopetence just makes the White House look weak and foolish. Did he not think to consult his own party before he made a nomination?

Originally Posted by renrich

All the negatives about Bush add up to the fact that he is a human being and not infallible. If the qualifications for being president include being infallible, we should abolish the office, because there is no one out there.

No, I think it means that if you elect a stubborn President who does likes to ignore good advice, you end up with problems! There are good human beings who are not suited to be President, I'm sorry to say I think he is one of those. {at least he was in his first term} He didn't understand that in Washington you can't just dictate to people what to do, you must learn to work with them.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by renrich

I will tell you why I think Bush has been a good president, not saying and have never said, the greatest. He took office when the economy was in recession ( a real one, not like the one the dimocrats and the media has been saying we were in for the last year.) He got through congress a tax cut which undoubtedly helped the nation recover from the recession and resulted in 52 months of GDP growth, a record. During his office the nation had to deal with 9-11 and two very destructive hurricanes and the economy has done well on the whole. He appointed and got confirmed two conservative supremes. If they had not been there I believe we would be dealing with a real problem now regarding our second amendment rights. He tried to deal with our social security problem(which is a time bomb) but congress would not face the problem. He likewise tried to deal with border security and illegal immigration but there was too much wrongheadedness in Congress and among conservative voters to have success in that area. Since 9-11 there has not been another terrorist event in the US. The US and our allies have deposed a brutal dictator in Saddam and have killed many Islamic terrorists both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Our military appears to support the mission in Iraq as evidenced by reenlistment rates and according to anecdotal evidence. The office of the presidency has not been held up to ridicule because the occupant appears to be an honest and moral man. Those are all facts and you can dispute them if you like but they are facts not opinion!

I agree.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by freebird

Sorry Ren, he is not ridiculed for being a honest & moral man, he is ridiculed for being seen as an arrogant

Name a politician that is not arrogant, Obama?

stubborn,

Not necessarily a bad characteristic.

dim-witted

A Bush-bashing party line instigated by a Democratically controlled media. He is not fluent, but not being fluent is not a sign of dim-wittedness. I have known many non-fluent people where very intelligent and I have know many fluent people who spoke nothing but air (including mostly politicians). Bush scored higher on his military entrance intelligence test than Kerry (no big deal). He also piloted a high performance jet fighter which requires a quick mind in order to stay ahead of the aircraft and where being slow and “dim-witted” leads to a smoking hole in the ground (See previous entry on the Bushs flying career).

Texas Governor who is under the thumb of the Neo-cons

I don’t think any Neo-cons, whoever they are, would claim Bush.

I don't think you can use re-enlistment rates as an indicator of the Armed forces support for the Bush's leadership, because many support the mission but are disappointed with the poor planning and weak leadership at the top during the war. {I think that is what DerAdler was saying}

It seems the planning and leadership seems first class now.

I think the main duties of the President, and what he will be judged on:

1. Foreign Policy

2. Military Leadership {as Commander in chief}

3. Judicial Appointments

4. Executive managment

5. The "Veto power"

6. Policy leadership {ideas, working with Congress}

7. Legacy

I think your analysis here is incorrect.

History will judge presidents more by results than by lower level accomplishments or failures

1. Foreign accomplishments
2. Domestic accomplishments
3. Economic accomplishments

In foreign accomplishments, Bush will be judged by Iraq. If Iraq turns out to be a stable democracy (this looking good but still risky, the answer won’t be known for a long time), then this will weigh as a significant accomplishment. To change a brutal dictatorship to a democracy with the loss 4 or 5000 is, in reality, a historically amazing accomplishment (55000+ lost in Vietnam in a losing cause). So, if the course is maintained, i.e., no rash removal of troops, and Iraq stabilizes, Bush’s legacy will be a new democracy and will be a positive foreign accomplishment in spite of what people felt at the time (Truman was disliked when he left office, but history reveals something different) and what other nations think. If it does not, Bush will have a failed foreign policy. If the new president alters events, this could be removed from Bush’s onus (we were winning when he left office). Judging the performance of a leader during the time of his leadership is fraught with danger

In domestic accomplishments, everything shrinks to insignificant in comparison to the war on terrorism. If Bush completes office with no terrorist attacks against the US, the efficiency of his policy will be inescapable, except by the hard Bush haters.
Second impact will be immigration where he greatly misunderstood the intent of the population and will not have accomplished a lot in his terms. Although illegal immigration is now being reduced significantly, I do not think he contributed much.

As I have said before, the economy has also been amazing. In spite of speculation burst in the Dot.coms, big business corruption (Enron), 9-11, two wars, Katrina, skyrocketing fuel prices (which, by itself, caused large recessions in the past), and speculation burst in housing market, there has only been a slowdown and, so far, no recession at all. I cannot foresee anything that could affect that by the time he leaves office. In spite of that, democrats claim the economy has failed. Anyone who thinks this economy is a failure is economically uninformed.

Now I will tell you why I think Bush has been a disaster for the Conservative movement in the US.

Probably not as much as you think. After any two terms there are often changes in government (examine history). It seems it is the American way. Bush has been ransacked by a liberal media because of the close and perceived cheating victory over Gore (however, LA times, NY times, and Washington post determined during a post election recount that if Gore requested recount had been approved, Bush would have won). News organizations give more than 15 times more money to the Democrats than Republicans and 80% of newscaster say they vote Democrat. Tough obstacles.

While the USA is tied up in Iraq, the "Axis of Evil" have been emboldened to challenge the world with nuclear developments.

I think you will find that Iran and Korea started its nuclear programs during the Clinton Administration. If anything negative, Bush, reeling under criticism, let the Europeans try to deal with Iran.

Russia, which along with China have also taken advantage of the weakened military power of the US. What I mean by this is that with 100,000's of troops tied up in Iraq {either serving, returning or preparing deployment} the rest of the world knows that US threats of large intervensions are not possible while still dealing with Iraq.

I don’t think we have a weakened military. We are only stressed because we try to fight wars without stress to living a normal life. With 1.4 million active military and 1.4 million reserve units and 48% of the world military budget, it hard to imagine that committing less than 5% of our forces would make us weak. I am sure surging to do necessary added combat would only stress us a little.

The problem was that Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld ignored sound military advice when making their "plan". Here you have 3 guys who never served a day in actual combat, telling Generals with 30+ years experience how they think the war should be run!

Seriously, this is ridiculous! Imagine if I bought an aircraft and had FlyboyJ or DerAdler do the maintainence. can you imagine if I would tell them how I think it should be done?

Many leaders make bad decisions to start, only to turn thing around. Lincoln lost battle after battle with one bad general after another until he found one that could win. Roosevelt threw many an American to their death at Kasserine Pass. Churchill had his Dieppe. Eisenhower and Bradley failed to anticipate the Battle of the Bulge and got 19000 soldiers killed. None of these are considered bad leaders. Bush started badly, not with war, which was brilliant, by botching the following peace keeping effort. However, he learned and changed a commander, finding one that knows how to win. Things seem to be going quite well now.

If by some miracle Iraq turns out to be a success 10 years down the road I will happily give him credit for an amazing "Hail Mary" pass.

It would not be a by a “hail Mary’ pass but tenaciousness. Like Grant, even when faced by defeats by Lee at The Wilderness and Cold Harbor, and a bloody stalemate at Petersburg, was stubborn and continued to fight on to the victory. He was considered stubborn, and great.

Oh come on! "Who says they botched it"?? I saw a live interview with the FEMA director 4 days into the crisis, he didn't know there were people dying of exposure in the Dome! Meanwhile he is sending texts asking his asst. about his wardrobe! It just looks terrible thats what.

I’m not defending that idiot FEMA director, but there were only six deaths in the dome. I believe one heart attack, one drug overdose, one suicide, three natural causes. No deaths by exposure. Just more lousy reporting with many gobbling it up.

You realize that the federal government cannot provide help until requested by the state, right? The democratic governor of Louisiana waited 24 hours to grant permission even when pressed by the government. A critical 24 hours. This wasn’t reported very much, only blame given to Bush.

No, it means that I think he was too inexperienced to be President at that point. In 2000 I thought McCain would be a better President than Bush, I still think that is true. His lack of experience directly resulted in errors of judgement because he did not understand all the ramifications of foreign policy. IMO

Strange. Had as much experience as Reagan, Carter, and Clinton.

Because the rating for her was "barely qualified". The fiasco of having his own party torpedo his nominee, and his crony Gonzales resign due to incopetence just makes the White House look weak and foolish. Did he not think to consult his own party before he made a nomination?

Of course this is because Bush was foolishly trying to do what you said he didn’t do below, work with “them”. In this case he took Sen. Reid’s, Senate minority leader, advice and nominated Harriet Myers.

No, I think it means that if you elect a stubborn President who does likes to ignore good advice, you end up with problems! There are good human beings who are not suited to be President, I'm sorry to say I think he is one of those. {at least he was in his first term} He didn't understand that in Washington you can't just dictate to people what to do, you must learn to work with them.

And exactly who in the government today does this? Maybe he learned his lesson with Myers.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by davparlr

I don’t think we have a weakened military. We are only stressed because we try to fight wars without stress to living a normal life. With 1.4 million active military and 1.4 million reserve units and 48% of the world military budget, it hard to imagine that committing less than 5% of our forces would make us weak. I am sure surging to do necessary added combat would only stress us a little.

I am going to have to disagree with you there. Our military is weakened right now. It is not at the breaking point, but it is getting there. Soldiers are being deployed for too long, too many times.

Example: My unit was deployed 10 months.

Came home and spent 4 months in garrison.

Deployed again for 14 months.

That is 24 months deployed out of 28 months.

Most units are on a cycle like this. Most units do not recieve eneogh down time after a deployment. This is dangerous for many reasons:

1. Stress level is to high on the soldiers.
2. Equipment is not being replaced or repaired quick eneogh.

To make matters worse, many many soldiers return from a deployment to Iraq and PCS to another unit that is going directly back to the desert. A friend of mine was with a MEDVAC unit in Iraq in 2003. 11 months into the deployment (about a month left before he would have gone home), the sent him back stateside so that he could PCS and move his house hold goods to Germany. 3 months later he was in Iraq with us for 14 months.

It is a fact:

1. Deployments are too long.
2. Equipment is no longer to standard.

You can have a military of 1.4 million soldiers but how many of them are not combat soldiers? How many of them are non-deployable soldiers?

That 1.4 million is a total for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Navy ships are going to do you know good in the sand. The Air Force is not going to win this war, because they are not occuyping the land. The ones who are bearing the majority of this conflict are the Army and the Marines and they toegether make up maybe 40 percent of the 1.4 millions soldiers you talk about above.

Not eneogh, doing too much.

Again our military is not about to break. Not yet, but if we do not do something quick it will get to that. I have serioius doubts about us being able to respond 100% to another conflict at the moment.

The Reserves are in just as bad of shape if not worse than the active duty.

[Amsel]

We have lost more liberties under Bush then all the presidents put together.Has anyone had the time to read Patriot act I & II?Bush paved the way for an ultra strong central goverment.

[ToughOmbre]

Originally Posted by Amsel

We have lost more liberties under Bush then all the presidents put together.Has anyone had the time to read Patriot act I & II?Bush paved the way for an ultra strong central goverment.

You sure about that? I think not.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus three times: first, on April 27, 1861, again on September 24, 1862, a few days after signing the Emancipation Proclamation, and finally on September 15, 1863.

Habeas corpus is the name of a legal action, or writ, through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of himself or another person. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

TO

[Amsel]

Originally Posted by ToughOmbre

You sure about that? I think not.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus three times: first, on April 27, 1861, again on September 24, 1862, a few days after signing the Emancipation Proclamation, and finally on September 15, 1863.

Habeas corpus is the name of a legal action, or writ, through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of himself or another person. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

TO

IMO that the patriot act suspends habeas corpus as well.But none cares anymore.

[ToughOmbre]

Originally Posted by Amsel

IMO that the patriot act suspends habeas corpus as well.But none cares anymore.

Tell me the names of the American citizens who have been denied habeas corpus. That's an unproven ACLU argument, and the ACLU is an enemy of the United States IMO.

TO

[Amsel]

Originally Posted by ToughOmbre

Tell me the names of the American citizens who have been denied habeas corpus. That's an unproven ACLU argument, and the ACLU is an enemy of the United States IMO.

TO

The ACLU is an enemy of the U.S. but not as much of a threat to the U.S. as our own politicians.I will look for and post some of the most damning evidence.Our gov. hasn't been for the people by the people since the 1960's.

Ron Paul is a strong man who opposes those who would change our bill of rights for safety.

For a nation of sheep begets a goverment of wolves.

Thomas Jefferson

[Amsel]

There are two glaring areas that need to be looked at
concerning this new legislation:

1. The secretive tactics being used by the White House
and Speaker Hastert to keep even the existence of this
legislation secret would be more at home in Communist
China than in the United States. The fact that Dick
Cheney publicly managed the steamroller passage of the
first Patriot Act, insuring that no one was allowed to
read it and publicly threatening members of Congress
that if they didn?t vote in favor of it that they
would be blamed for the next terrorist attack, is by
the White House?' own definition terrorism. The move
to clandestinely craft and then bully passage of any
legislation by the Executive Branch is clearly an
impeachable offence.

2. The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers
that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves.
Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First,
Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously
damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot
Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well
as many areas of state government under the
dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the
Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM
military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement
Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by
its very structure the definition of dictatorship.

I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act
and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights
and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the
act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a
giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into
every facet of our society. It strips American
citizens of all of their rights and grants the
government and its private agents total immunity

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by Amsel

I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act
and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights
and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the
act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a
giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into
every facet of our society. It strips American
citizens of all of their rights and grants the
government and its private agents total immunity

I'll remember that the next time I drive through the NSA roadblock manned by black fatigued Blackwater personnel located at the end of my street!