# A Question For Fellow "Liberals" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 8, 2004, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814 "2004-12-08T21:04:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/21 "2004-12-09T01:55:55Z")
I’ll also agree that going after the Taliban was the right thing to do. But that was pretty much a no-brainer, wasn’t it? They were protecting our attackers. I doubt any US president past or future would have done differently. Praising somebody for such an obvious choice is faint praise indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/22 "2004-12-09T02:21:05Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > He had to do something to get 51% of the popular vote. > > I think his removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were good moves. These were 2 of the worst governments on earth according to Freedom House. > > I remember a year or so ago Bush saying in order to promote democracy in the middle east he was going to reward the more liberal countries with aid packages. > > He slightly increased the pell grant Wes, he’s asking for liberal opinions. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/23 "2004-12-09T02:23:33Z")
The attack on Afghanistan was justified and well carried out, though the follow-through has left a lot to be desired, largely due to the absoutely brain-dead attack on Iraq. IIRC he cranked up the U.S. funding to fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa, something that desperately needed doing. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/24 "2004-12-09T02:25:40Z")
According to my realtor, I have Bush to thank for the fantastically low interest rates. My rate will likely be 4.5% with a SONYMA, which is astonishingly good and will probably look even better in the future, when we have a president who achieves a robust economy. He’s also proven that the Democratic party has its head up its ass and needs to yank it out and take a good look at what it’s doing wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/25 "2004-12-09T03:03:28Z")
I like his comittment to the space program. That takes some vision and some guts at this point in history. His immediate handling of Afghanistan was… Adequete. I would’ve liked to send more troops and of course stayed longer. But it’s doing all right. And that’s about it for four years, which is sad. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/26 "2004-12-09T04:16:26Z")
> [@glee](#): > > 1. Was the Department of Homeland Security lost? (Sorry!) > > 2. “A violent resurgence of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan is putting U.S. soldiers and international aid workers at increasing risk, especially in the southern part of the country, the back yard and birthplace of the Taliban.” > > [http://www.news-leader.com/\_sunday/0801-Talibanrea-146191.html](http://www.news-leader.com/_sunday/0801-Talibanrea-146191.html) > > 1. “Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, may be one of the most recognizable politicians in the world, but that didn’t stop some airport screeners from treating him as a potential security risk.” > > [CNN.com - Kennedy: Airline security risk? - Aug 19, 2004](http://us.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/19/kennedy.airlines/) Better resurging in one corner of the country than controlling the entire thing, eh? As for the airport security issue, I’ve seen lots of isolated incidents of people complaining about their treatment at airport checkpoints, but no statistics that more people are getting held up for longer periods of time on a nationwide basis. > [@](#): > > 1. He has successfully thrown about 10% of the population out of work. Unemployment was around 4.5% when he entered office, never above 7% during his four years in office, so… ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/27 "2004-12-09T05:09:14Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > After four years in office, he was judged by the American people to be only three quarters of the President that Bill Clinton was. This is SO fertile… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BoringDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@BoringDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoringDad)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/28 "2004-12-09T05:24:33Z")
Gave me more money for having kids. It was wrong to give more money to folks on welfare for having kids, but it is noble and Pro-family to give money to middle class people for having kids. In Bizzarro World. Afghanistan- a job that needed doing that was carried out badly. Can’t say that I approve of that any more than I would approve of taking my car in to get washed and having the carwash rub sand all over the car to get the dirt off. If the end result is no improvement over the prior situation, then have you really gained anything? Other than cheap heroin? ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/29 "2004-12-09T05:36:23Z")
Currently, there’s a minimum taxable income for Americans living overseas. If you earn less than (I believe) US$85,000 overseas, you don’t pay anything to the U.S. (though you still file). Anything over that and you have to pay tax on your full income. Around 2000 or so, a bill was up before Congress that would have eliminated that minimum, meaning I’d be taxed double on my entire income (first to Japan, then to America). Bush came out against this. Granted, it died in Congress before ever reaching him. And it still leaves the US as one of the only countries that taxes its residents living overseas. But at least we agreed on something. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/30 "2004-12-09T06:33:57Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > His 9/11 speech, especially “Don’t blame Muslims, blame terrorists.” Yeah, that. Too bad that’s pretty much the highlight of his political career, unless you count “Making Richard Nixon look good by comparison” to be another. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/31 "2004-12-09T06:51:14Z")
> [@Spongemom](#): > > I’m getting sick and tired of my people saying that the presidency of George W. Bush is a failure. With the string of successes he’s had, nothing could be further from the truth. Let me list a few: > Is that enough? So are you psychotic or just a really piss-poor humorist? ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/32 "2004-12-09T07:07:18Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > He had to do something to get 51% of the popular vote. But he didn’t get 51% of _my_ vote. I’m sure those 51% have long lists of things they approved of. So… I can’t think of anything off the top that has my unqualified approval. In the things I do approve of, there’s a huge “but” that must be added to the items. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/33 "2004-12-09T07:17:01Z")
Seeing as how this has quickly turned into a Bush Bash(gee, I bet nobody saw _that_ coming), I’m moving this thread from IMHO to The BBQ Pit. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/34 "2004-12-09T07:24:22Z")
Really the only specific thing I think I approve of is the conduct of the Afgan war. Some people have mentioned that things aren’t going well in Afgan now, but then, as opposed to the Iraq war, the point of the Afgan conflict was never really about improving the situation of the country. And Afganistan was always going to be something of a basketcase, so I don’t blame Bush for this as much as I blame him for the situation in Iraq. In a more general sense, I think the Bush admin has been good about recognizing and tackling some very difficult and long existing problems that had been hanging over our collective heads for some time. The space shuttle program has long been a money sink, SS and medicare need to be reformed, our military was in some ways a vestigial cold war artifact that needed revamping to be made relavant again and Saddam has turned Iraq into a hell hole over the last ten years and sanctions, while effective at keeping him in check, were causing great suffering to his people and needed to end, etc. These were all problems that Clinton and his Bush I admins had to some degree or another avoided. Of course recoginzing these problems and having the will to attack them is only half the battle, and Bush has seemed suprised by the fact that some of these hard-to-fix things were left alone because, well, they are really hard to fix. Many of his solutions either have, or I suspect will, end up being based on a little to much wishful thinking, and the whole WH these days smells a lot like a kitchen where somebodys trying desprately to cook up too many free lunches. Still, he gets some props in my book for at least trying to tackle the hard problems. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/35 "2004-12-09T07:26:22Z")
Dammit, I spend all that time typing up a concilatory defense of the man, trying to stay in the spirit of MPSIMS, and by the time I’m ready to post the threads in the BBQ. ---
**Author:** ![ShockingAlberto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ea924/32.png) [@ShockingAlberto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShockingAlberto)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/36 "2004-12-09T07:31:28Z")
He made a funny joke in Canada the other day. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/37 "2004-12-09T07:40:55Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > His actions after 9/11 and his invasion of Afghanistan were generally good, but I really can’t think of anything else I approve of. I agree. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/38 "2004-12-09T07:46:30Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > So… I can’t think of anything off the top that has my unqualified approval. In the things I do approve of, there’s a huge “but” that must be added to the items. That pretty much sums it up for me. ---
**Author:** ![Netbrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71e660/32.png) [@Netbrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Netbrian)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/39 "2004-12-09T07:50:45Z")
Hrm… He prevented us from making the Iraqi reconstruction package a loan rather than a grant (now, whether or not we use it is a different story). The handling of the recent Macedonian and Ukrainian elections has been commendable. The 9/11 speech was pretty good. I’m sure he’s done more things I agree with, but none that come to mind… ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2004, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814/40 "2004-12-09T08:39:43Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Seeing as how this has quickly turned into a Bush Bash(gee, I bet nobody saw _that_ coming), I’m moving this thread from IMHO to The BBQ Pit. On the contrary, quite a few really took it seriously and gave earnest answers. This poor thread’s getting bounced all over the place… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-for-fellow-liberals/278814.md?page=3)