Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Why the Bush presidency may be remembered as a failure
Published on November 6, 2005 By Draginol In Republican

George W. Bush is on the brink of having his presidency remembered as a failure.  His poll numbers are very low -- less than 40%.  That's worse that Reagan's at the height of Iran-Contra and Clinton's during impeachment.  How did it come to this?

Simply put, Bush's character flaws and poor judgment finally passed an unspoken threshold in which people, even those inclined to support his policies, have concluded that Bush is a lost cause.

The straw that broke the camel's back was Hariet Miers. His nomination of her to the supreme court might as well have been a confession that Bush's detractors were right on some of their points: Bush is a shallow, unintelligent, old rich boy who is so far removed from ordinary people that he has few of their values.  That nomination demonstrated croneyism at its worse and given how much under the microscope modern presidents are, it revealed a mind boggling arrogance.

Sure, Miers is no longer in the running. But it doesn't matter. The damage is done.  We no longer know whether Bush is driven by what is best for the country instead of doing favors for his friends.  The reason things like Halliburton never stuck the the President (other than in the minds of the whacko left) is because it was unimaginable that the administration would be so stupid and corrupt to send deals to their friends so brazenly.  There's so many other reasonable and more likely explanations about Halliburton that the charges of excess make no sense.  But yet...now...there's that tingling of doubt.  Anyone who would appoint their own personal attorney to the supreme court...you never know... 

Then there's the botching of fiscal policy.  Conservates like tax cuts because A) the government is too inept to really help people effectively (Katrina kind of sent that message home) and hence people are better off having as much of their money as possible to spend more wisely. And In theory, tax cuts force the government to become smaller.

But look out, here comes Bush. He'll cut taxes and have party.  With Republican control of both houses and the Presidency, the conservatives should be able to institute their long-claimed desire of smaller government and effective fiscal policy.  Instead, we have deficits that bordering on insulting in that congress and the President want to throw money at everything. 

Then there's the war in Iraq.  I supported the invasion.  I am glad we went in there.  I am still glad we toppled Saddam.  The idea in a post 9/11 world that we'd allow a guy like Saddam to stay in power in a strategically vital region is nuts.  He had to go.  But he's gone now.  And over two years have passed and it's still a mess over there.  Yes yes, we're still over in Korea, Japan, and Germany and pretty much everywhere else we've ever fought a war.  But we're not having to keep 150,000 combat troops those places.  We're not having to suck down the National guard in those places.  At some point, Iraq is going to have to sink or swim on its own.  If their people don't care enough about freedom and keeping themselves from becoming a terrorist state, then there's nothing we can do about that.  Not to make too fine a point on it but it was relativley cheap to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq the first time.  The rehabilitation of Iraq is proving to be far more costly. 

Until recently, I had hoped that the administration had quietly let the Iraqi's know that they have until say next May to get their act together because at that point we would declare victory and start to bring troops back (not all of course, 10,000 here, 10,000 there).  I just don't have the confidence that Bush's team knows what they're doing over there. 

If there's any "anti-war" people reading this, don't get your hopes up that I'm coming on your side.  My complaint is that we're not being tougher.  I would have the "glass surface nation" policy if I were emperor. Deterrence may not work on terrorists but you can bet your ass that it would motivate the host countries of these terrorists to weed them out.

But on this and many other policies Bush wants to have it both ways.  Sometimes you have to make a tough decision and go all the way.  Half-way usually fails and satisfies neither contingent.

It's not so much that any of these things on its own is enough to cause me to lose faith in Bush.  It's the combination.  When put together (particularly the Miers nomination) it gives credence to the belief that Bush really is just a pampered good old boy of sub-normal intelligence who really has no business being President but is only President because the left-wing of American politics took a sanity vacation (which they're still on) and gave us no viable alternative (I mean what the hell were you left wingers thinking? Michael Moore sitting next to Carter at the DNC?? Hello! Goddam nutballs need to take your noses out of Cindy Sheehan's rear end and get your act together and realize how pathetic your party is when you can't beat someone like Bush). 

American politics has to be near the bottom it's ever been.  You have the Republicans in full corruption croney-loving mode.  And the Democrats are taking pride in their new status of being the party of victims and losers (as if that's a good thing). 

We need a viable third-party.


Comments (Page 3)
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on Nov 07, 2005
Told you so before the last election.... But some people take longer to see the truth, unfortunately.
on Nov 07, 2005
Brad,

Everything you state is precisely why I am trying to gain influence within the LP. I don't hold the party line on 100% of the issues, but believe that, of the existent parties, the LP comes closest to representing my views. While being part of a third party may seem quixotic, it is FAR LESS quixotic than the thousands of pretenders trying to "invent" a party from the ground up that represents the views of the majority of Americans.

My hope is that at least a few of the Republicans who feel as you do will find a new home in the LP.
on Nov 07, 2005
Brad,
Thanks for expressing what I have been feeling for some time now. In the military circles I live and work in, voicing such can be misconstrued as near treason.
on Nov 07, 2005

Thanks for expressing what I have been feeling for some time now. In the military circles I live and work in, voicing such can be misconstrued as near treason.

Nah!  just ask Texas Wahine's husband!

on Nov 07, 2005
totally off-topic but...is that a green tree frog? (i shoulda got outta those cybersex chats a couple months sooner cuz i'm apparently goin blind.)
on Nov 07, 2005
On the other hand, would our alternative have done better? I'll not pretend that I believe in Bush as much as I used to, but I don't think there was ever a better choice availible. We live in a Republic; all we do is vote and then hold our collective breath for four years.

Dan
on Nov 07, 2005
What we need is for Americans to wake up and quit looking to the federal government for everything, ignoring local government's importance in the process.

We have been conditioned to think in terms of federal everything, when our system of government puts the emphasis on the smallest jurisdiction possible to handle the situation.

Local governments have the most direct effect on our lives, yet we seem to pay the least attention to what they are doing.
on Nov 07, 2005

On the other hand, would our alternative have done better? I'll not pretend that I believe in Bush as much as I used to, but I don't think there was ever a better choice availible. We live in a Republic; all we do is vote and then hold our collective breath for four years.

I told you that you were wise beyond your years! Excellent.

on Nov 07, 2005
How Bush lost your support...lol..you must be kidding or you dont know what you are talking about.
on Nov 07, 2005
But while I did support him, I was hardly what you would remotely call an "outspoken advocate"

I could drag out long-forgotten posts-circa-election-peak-euphoria, Draginol, and claim you to be an ardent supporter of Bush administration policies and, by extension, Bush's re-election, but that wouldn't be fair.

An, outspoken Bush proponent, in my rationalization, would have been any person that claimed Bush and his administration deserved another four years after what I saw to be exceedingly poor judgement within the first four years to which any choice would have been better then HRH' s royal bumbling. It wasn't even that he or his buddies were stupid, but that they simply caused so much damage and acted in such a way that was a disservice to America and it's people that he and his cronies deserved to be removed from office - regardless of the choice. I.e.; we the people aren't going to take any more of this sh*t and whomever else follows will suffer the same fate if they don't do well by us and / or the majority of our better judgement.

The second reason as to why I voted for Kerry was to send a message to Washington; that message being, hey, if you are so damaging to we, the American people, Bush & Co., then you deserve to be gone from our sight and your astonishingly bad judgement needs be laid rest to serve as a precedent to other 'leaders'.

Finally, I lay protest to the direction of this country as much as I do the direction of this thread, if not much, much, more.

*patriotic music ends*

Seriously, guys,why have we continued, instead of head-off, the continuence of poor direction our country has navigated?

Vote for the status quo or vote for the status NO!


on Nov 07, 2005
Agreed, Deference, four years of Bush's devastation should have been more than enough for even conservatives.
on Nov 07, 2005

However, Democrats failed to put forward a viable alternative.  I still wouldn't vote for Kerry.

on Nov 08, 2005
As a foreigner I am assuming that Bush was largely re-elected because he was the one more trusted to wage the 'war on terror' which, rightly or wrongly the American electorate selected as the most important issue in the first presidential election since 9/11.

While I don't buy into the 'Bush is totally dumb' idea (the fact that he was able to turn his life around from drunk frat boy to successful statesman argues for a certain sort of intelligence as well as genuine personal integrity) to be frank, no-one of his intellectual calibre would ever get elected to a leadership position in a western European country. Just to hear him bumbling alongside an articulate and confident Tony Blair in a press conference was enough to re-inforce that point for me. Of course intelligence in itself guarantees nothing: Chirac and Berlusconi are probably rather more corrupt and sleazy than most anglophone elctorates would ever tolerate.

Perhaps because American electors expect to feel closer to their politicians, they are more attracted to those who can come across as ordinary plain spun folks (like the Connecticut-born WASP millionaire re-invited as a good ol' Texan). It was even argued that his famous 'Bushisms' worked for him, helping to cement an image as a 'man of the people'. By contrast I was really amazed, for example, to read the fact the Kerry speaks French used against him by conservatives here. Not even the British, the closest to Americans in terms of instinctual anti-intellectualism, would be that asinine.

The English-speaking world does seem to share to place a strong premium on questions of 'character' (by contrast the idea of a French President getting into trouble 'merely' for having extra-marital sex is unimaginable). Bush the teetotaller, not currently known for getting blown by interns in the oval office, and usually in bed by 10:00 pm seems to have enough character to satisfy even the most puritan tastes in this most puritan of western nations.

I am an outsider, so I don't know enough to comment on his domestic policies. My guess though is that Bush's 'base', religious conservatives, military hawks and 'neo-conservatives' is not large enough to have secured his 2004 victory and that he owes as much to 9/11 for his re-election as Margaret Thatcher owed to the Falklands invasion for her re-election in 1983.
on Nov 08, 2005
Finally even true believers are beginning to question the wisdom of having a right wing neo conservative like Bush II set the American agenda. George Bush II has been an utter and complete failure in every department of governance: Katrina, War on Terreorism, Iraq,, he has been unsuccessful evenm in pushing his neocon agenda the Meirs nomination just shook the daylights of his supporters.
on Nov 08, 2005
boo hoo hoo ... my emperor has no clothes ... boo hoo hoo

cry me a fricking river. you are NOW (after 5 years) discovering what many
of us knew from the get go?

but I guess based on polls most of "us" are waking up to a few simple facts:

1) we are AMERICANS first .. our loyalty should be to country not to any
one man or party (the democrats AND republicans be damned)

2) we are heading off the cliff ... every part of government is failing
and failing miserably.

3) there is NO light ahead ... its not going to improve without a major
reshuffle or the dawning of "common sense"

4) the republicans are hypocrites and completly and utterly correct. The
concept of small government and conservatism and do for yourself DOES NOT
EXIST .. its a party slogan

The funniest thing I read recently was a transcript of Abramoffs friends
... referring to christians as "right wing wackos"



They use these bible thumping fundermentalists and their causes to bring
them into power ... then abandon them completely.

But maybe even THOSE "wackos" will wake up eventually.
Better late than never I guess!
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