The net was just beginning while Clinton was president. Some had it, many didn’t. Even those who did weren’t actively participating in mesg boards and groups such as moveon.org in numbers like we see now.
In any time, there are going to be extremists who hate everything about the president. They’ve always existed. However, since these types are only one in a hundred or so, they usually were watered down by the rest of the folks who aren’t so hateful.
The net brings these people together. With Clinton being president we saw the beginning of the trend. Far right nutsos were able to communicate and trade tales of Vince Foster and draft dodging, etc, etc. With Bush, this phenomenon has really picked up steam. The extremists bounce ideas of eachother over and over basically in a vacume where no normal person is allowed to or would enter. The result is a lockstep, illogical view of the world where Bush is responsible for all evils. (For examples please take a look at Democratic Underground and Free Repulic.)
The funny thing is, both Clinton and Bush aren’t bad presidents. Both are moderate, competant guys. They both shine when you compare them to some past presidents from the last century. I have my share of issues with both of them, but there really is nothing to justify the overwhelming hatred that they get.
Anyway, then you get OP’s like this one: Somebody comes out of the extreme hatred fringe for a moment and asks why Bush supporters are in lockstep? It’s so obviously silly and ironic that I don’t even know how to respond.
Sure. Got a copy of Janis singing it at Woodstock.
And I’m not pleased with Bush, but I certainly like some things he’s done. Support for NASA, support for nuclear power, for example. Of course, you don’t remember the things he does right as long as you do the things he’s done wrong.
Which is probably why I can’t think of much else I think he’s done right.
So, here ya go, Mambo. You asked why conservatives on this board don’t hop up and decry Bush as much as they should. And in 40 posts, we have:
16 posts from actual conservatives stating their positions and discussing the issue.
14 posts from non-conservatives offering their opinions on what conservatives should think.
8 posts that are little more than insults or wingnutting. (Hentor: “People of conscience are in short supply on the right” E = MC: “With NewYork Times reporter still in jail for refusing to disclose her sources, what’ll happen to Jennifer Luce and Don Gentile, authors of the Bush exposè when the Administration gets on their tails” Elv1s: “Partisanism consists, in part, of ignoring facts when they make your guy look bad. Thanks for the demonstration.” Elv1s again: “Facts is facts. Wishing them away, as you’re doing, makes the OP’s point” BobLibDem: “Bush is the utter personification of evil” jayjay: “I had to read the quoted paragraph three times to make sure I’d read it correctly the first time, it made so little sense” Fear Itself:“Unfortunately, when one party dives into the gutter and starts slinging nothing but partisan mud, the only thing you get by trying to take the high road is incessant, unending muck from below. It worked for the GOP, why in the world would you expect the left would not watch and learn?”)
So, if a thread that specifically requests conservative and Bush-supporting posters can’t even get a majority of their posts from that group, and if for every 2 posters discussing the issue rationally there’s another demagouging, what’s the point of a rational, moderate discussion? Someone like Hentor or Elv1s is just going to wander it, loudly revel in the points we concede, and demagouge about how their point is absolutely correct and none shall assail it.
Actually, we DON’T have a military that can “go anywhere in the world in 24 hours…”. We might be able to scramble a few jets to do a bombing run in 24 hours, but I don’t think that would’ve helped the folks in NOLA very much.
The folks who didn’t notice the partisan sniping at Reagan didn’t notice it because they were on the side of the snipers, and the snipers were “right”. It’s that simple.
But back to the OP… how do you expect anyone here to explain the behavior of these unnamed friends or acquaintances of yours? I don’t know a single person who blindly follows Bush*, and I know a lot of very conservative folks. If you can find even one regular poster in GD who acts as the OP describes, then let’s talk. Otherwise, your entire OP is a strawman.
*although I know some guys who blindly follow bush…
As a “Bush Supporter” I’ll respond to the particular questions from the OP. (I say “Bush Supporter” in quotes because I’m not sure what the OP means by this. I did vote for him twice, so I figure that counts.)
I first want to deal with this. You assume that some people were silent at first because they lacked talking points. I suggest that if they were silent, it was because they were waiting for the facts to come in.
It turns out now that most reports from the chaos of NO were exagerated at best, and simply not true in many cases. The widespread reports of rapes were largely untrue. The piles of hundreds of bodies simply didn’t exist.
I remember watching the news coverage right during the confusion of the storms aftermath. The reporters were talking about tens of thousands of dead. But, they kept showing the same old lady, dead and in a wheelchair outside the convention center. I asked myself at the time why they would keep showing this one body if there were in fact thousands more bodies to choose from. I was skeptical from the beginning, but wanted to reserve judgement. Likewise with the federal response. The media widely critized Bush, but that means nothing. Most in the mainstream media are liberal and will attack Bush no matter what. After the facts came out some time later it turns out that the local and state response was much more lacking than the federal one.
First of all I disagree that the Hurricane response is anywhere near the top three issues to define the Bush presidency. It’s a footnote compared with 9/11 or the war in Iraq.
I wouldn’t say anything Bush has done is “flawless”. There’s always room for improvement. I woud say that his handling of the 9/11 response and war against terrorism is something that I approve of and support. He’s done a good job on this front. Likewise, I supported the war in Iraq. It turns out the WMD’s were a mistake, but it was made in good conscience, IMO. I liken it to a cop shooting a dangerous suspect with an empty gun. Sure, if you knew at the time the gun was empty you wouldn’t have fired. But, having limited knowledge it’s reasonable to err on the side of caution.
As far as other misteps of Bush’s presidency, I have a few. Bush should not have signed CFR. This is a horrible piece of legislation and deserved his veto, not his support. He needs to do more to control domestic spending, although I still think he’s spending less than Kerry would have. His decision, working with congress, to expand medicare with prescription drug coverage was a disgrace. I disagree with his support of the assault weapons ban. That’s four, I could come up with plenty of others if I kept thinking about it.
If you look at the conservatives on the SDMB, you’ll find me typical. Nobody that I’m aware of is lockstep with Bush at all. On the other hand, there are lots of posters who are lockstep in disagreeing with Bush.
And thank you for proving my point. If you adopt a position of integrity, it doesn’t matter what I have to say about it - it should remain the same. However, you acknowledge that you cannot say what you feel because of what I might say. This is truly sad.
And where did I revel in any points that may have been conceded? Concede or don’t, but act upon your own conscience. Oppositional behavior for its own sake is childish and pathetic.
I don’t believe any political leader has ever handled anything of magnitude “flawlessly.” I continue to be satisfied with Bush’s response to the September 11 attacks. The quick overthrow of the Taliban has contributed to our well-being, IMO.
I was in favor of deposing Saddam, and I still believe that the Iraq war has had a moderating, cautionary effect on some of the other players, Qadaffi among them. I am convinced that Bush’s efforts to justify this action were misleading, and that he should have simply stated the objectives and taken action. I believe that there was insufficient planning for the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam, and that this was a huge mistake on Bush’s part.
If I remember correctly, federal involvement in past hurricanes was pretty much limited to doling out money in the aftermath. That was FEMA’s primary role, I think. I don’t recall a hurricane that left behind persistent flooding; in all the ones I remember, the water surged ashore, then retreated, leaving wreckage. Given the fact that emergency response is primarily a local and state responsibility, and the rather rare (perhaps unprecedented) nature of the disaster in NO, I can understand the slow federal response. I’m not happy about it, but I’m not ready to overthrow anyone, either. An extraordinary response would have been a very good thing. We didn’t get that.
I know there are a few mindless, never-wavering Bush supporters on this board. There are some of them in the media, as well. I’ve never met one. Most people I know of both parties have actual criteria by which they judge political actions, not slavish devotion to a person or party.
What is truly sad? That I don’t walk into threads specifically looking to be mocked and insulted? I’m here to discuss and learn, not to be harassed and harangued by a self-important righteous blowhard.
And yet, here you are, pissing in the daisies again.
No, that you (1) refuse to consider inconvenient facts, and (2) mistake the presentation of them as your being “mocked and insulted”, instead of doing (as opposed to simply saying) this:
Part of the problem those of your persuasion have here is a rapid, apparently reflexive, ability to dismiss anything you don’t want to hear as a personal attack (and you’re not the only one who does it, of course).
If you have any refutation for the assessment of Reagan you caricaturized above, you’re certainly welcome to start providing it. That *would * be “discussing and learning”.
Give me a break. Have you ever heard of “damning with faint praise”? Well you have invented the bizarro version; “praising with faint damns”. You guys lob some softballs at Bush with your least import issues, as if this somehow makes you “fair and balanced”, then expect liberals to sit on their hands while you repeat talking points ad nauseum. Waaa, waaa, waaa. You guys really can’t stand any oppostion at all without whining, can you? I guess it comes from being out of power so long, now you don’t know how to handle the awesome responsibility of holding the White House and both houses of Congress without becoming a little defensive. As well you should be, you have much to defend. Come to think of it, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably whine too.
He asked, why do those who support Bush do so without dissenting on any point? They then demonstrated that this was an invalid assumption. So has every other conservative in the thread, and Fear Itself.
Pretty much everything else is an attempt by the Usual Suspects to turn the thread into another Two Minute Hate against Bush.
Which goes to show that the Left hereabouts cannot tolerate anything nuanced about Bush. Every thread has to be an undiluted scream of hatred for him.
And yet, somehow or other, it is always the Republicans who are mindless thought-controlled divisive simple-minded hate-mongering intolerant …
Might have been Joan. Might have been. Been a few years since I listened to it. And she dedicated it to Ronnie Ray-Gun. Always amused me, that. But it didn’t strike me as a song about him, just one pointed at him by the dedication. Course, I might be wrong.
In retrospect, I was probably quite foolish about Clinton. Of course, I was in high school when he was president, and held a much more idealistic view of the world that reality warrants. He was corrupt, but he was quite effective, over all. I disagree with some of his actions, and his ultimate failure to do anything about the rising spector of Islamic theocraism is a huge issue for me. OTOH, he was pretty decent domestically.
This is why I don’t like to talk about Bush on this baord. Having any opinion different from thge majority [about Bush, at least] is an open invitation to be called insane, vile, evil, mad, irrational, monstrous - with no repercussions. It’s acceptable to hate Republicans and conservatives.
And, well, as much as I pretend I don’t care about other people’s opinions, I do. It does hurt to be called names, to be publicly mocked, or even reviled. No one is interested in debate, so why should I bother? My time is limited, and frankly, spending it arguing over Bush is one of the biggest wastes I can think of. I post only those threads which interest me, and no others. Since there’s no point in debating with you and yours, I don’t.
Okay, even though this thread isn’t about liberals, let’s have all lefties step up to the plate and mouth something nice about Bush, just the way the righties have offered some limp criticisms to demonstrate they are “fair and balanced”. ElvisL1ves, Hentor, jayjay, and all the rest, throw Shodan a bone so he will abandon this silly argument. I know, I know, it’s a trivial thing, but it seems to be important to him somehow.
