Funny how you think that being president is an indication that someone is more trustworthy. I tend to think it is an indication that he is significantly less trustworthy. I sometimes think this is where the fundamental divide between liberal and conservative lies. You guys actually believe your leaders when they say they want what is best for this country. It’s probably also why most Democrats were so blase about Clinton’s perjury. Of course he lied. Did anyone actually expect the President of the United States to be honest? Honorable? Even vaguely decent? Of course not! If he were any of those things, he’d never have survived in politics long enough to get elected.
And whatever else you want to say about him, George Bush sure is good at politics.
I don’t know if you care about my opinion or not, Bricker, but with your conduct in this thread, you’ve lost me as well.
Bush is either lying scum or hopelessly, cluelessly inept. There’s no other way to read it. And either way, no matter whether you interpret the evidence to reveal Bush as (a) evil or (b) stupid, it makes him a terrible president. And your continued impassioned defense of him and his administration on the simple grounds that the R after his name matches yours is, well, indefensible.
There are moral, ethical people who hold views politically opposed to mine, and I respect them for the forthrightness of their position, based on alternate philosophy.
You are no longer one of them, because your position is evidently based on myopic greed and nothing more.
I honestly have no idea how you look yourself in the eye in the mirror every morning.
I don’t know if you care, but I felt I needed to say something.
You never called me a traitor. Never claimed that.
I never called you a coward. Never claimed that.
But you have been called a coward.
And I have been called a traitor.
Yet somehow yours is relevent and mine isn’t? Care to explain that?
Unless, of course, you’re going to move some goalposts (when is the hernia going to finally hit?) and claim that only happenings on the SDMB matter.
Or you could just admit that you just threw out that comment because you were hoping to toss out a throwaway for some sympathy. Because if there’s anyone who needs sympathy it sure is you, huh?
Now let’s carry that one step further… “You chose to downplay the significance of the WMDs and were correct in hindsight, because any other possibility would suggest that I have had an enormous bolus of smoke blown up my ass…”
See, GW has been totally obsessed with finding out who outed Valerie Plame. So much so that when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld stuck his head into the Oval office to ask “Mr. President? er, we’re still waiting for some direction on how to deal with Saddam, sir?” W. snapped back “Dammit, Rummy! Do I gotta do EVERYTHIN’ aroun’ here? You and Dick and Carl and Condi do what you think best…I got bigger fish to fry!!,” as he turned to the stack of documents in front of him, muttering…“If there was only some way to get Novak to talk…hmmm…maybe if I force him to masturbate and took polaroids…”
Heh, I remember that exchange. I also remember thinking it would be IMPOSSIBLE for any human being (I assume correctly?) to possibly get ALL the information available. 'Specially sitting in your chair in front of a computer screen, or reading whatever sources you had available to you. You probably had a bias going into your ‘research’ and was able to find the all the information in the world that was able to support what ever it was you wanted to find. Maybe not, maybe you are of utmost character and went in with both eyes open and would accept any ‘truths’ you found even if it meant that GW was (or thought he was) telling the truth. Not likely either. I suspect you were unsure, like the rest of us, and your research led you to your conclusion. However, there is no way on Og’s green earth you were privy to the same information that the administration was. The same data from the UN, and the same reports from the field units, and all the cumulative information that the sum of all the inspectors collected. You did a fine job, and not to downplay your efforts, but in the grand scheme of things I think you got lucky. No disrespect, but I don’t think you would have bet the mortgage on a wager.
I just want to make sure I have things straight here.
Pres: Iraq’s got WMD’s, we have to invade.
Anit-war: What? No he doesn’t. That’s bullshit.
Pro-war: Hey, the President wouldn’t lie to us. If he says there’s WMDs then there’s WMDs.
Anti-war: This is going to come back and bite us in the ass, I just know it.
Pro-war: You’ll change your tune once we find all the WMD’s.
Boom – bang – shoot – kill – explode – die – arg …
Pres: Well, there were no WMDs. Oops. But we still had to invade so it’s all cool.
Anti-war: Well, no shit. Isn’t that what I said in the first place?
Pro-war: Lucky guess. You had the same information the president did. Based on that information, we had to invade.
Anti-war: Fuck you.
Pro-war: Fuck you, back.
So the president has carte blanche to do whatever the fuck he wants as long as he gives a good reason … because after the fact, even if the reason is bullshit … at least he gave us one. Those who were after the truth in the first place get to tote the Lucky Guess trophy and need to just shut the fuck up about it.
Jack, you’re being a little disingenuous here. Very, very few people actually thought that there were NO wmds. Most thought that that just wasn’t enough to justify a war. Nice spin though, that the anti-war crowd knew all along that there weren’t any WMDs, very nice. Admit it, you were holding your breath.
I’ll admit that I was anti-war. But not because I knew there were no WMDs, but because I didn’t trust that Bush knew that there were.
I said then, and I stand by it, that Saddam was contained, and containable. We could have squeezed Iraq for years and he would have crumbled, and there would have been a lot less dead Americans and a lot less dead Iraqi’s.
Of course there also would have been a lot less Halliburton contracts, but, oh well.
Bush’s war charge of, “He’s got WMDs and he’s going to use them any minute!” I absolutely considered bullshit. It was sore spot that the Bush administration poked to get the war machine moving.
It reminded me of that South Park episode with the hunters. “A rabbit! He’s coming right for us! Get 'im!”
Looking back, that’s clearly what should have happened.
We gave too much weight to the failure of Sadam to comply with the numerous UN resolutions and not enough weight to simply, more pressure and more time.
I was at fault for that as were many others.
I really don’t get this repeated assertion about Hussein not complying. His history was one of prior non-compliance, no doubt. However, we were bulldozing rockets and inspecting any building we wanted by the time Bush a’called Hussein and sons out. It’s just bullshit to pretend that Hussein wasn’t complying (and Bush must have crapped his pants that he couldn’t justify an attack for failure to comply. No, I take that back. He probably didn’t give a shit because he knew there were just enough Brickers and Uncommon Senses out there who wouldn’t think twice about it. Or even once.).
If we had continued to pressure Iraq, the only downside would have been to be proven wrong. As we would have, of course. But look what we might have gained!
For all the world to see, America is shown to be patient, temperate and commited to peace. We would have shown that we could be trusted! That the most powerful nation in human history is humane, intelligent, and trustworthy!
How many undecided moderate people might we have brought to our side? How better to answer charges of colonialism and bullying? We would have proved ourselves worthy of leadership, proved our enemies and detractors wrong, proved that great military force and great intelligence in one nation is the greatest hope for humanity in history! That’s what I want for my beloved country, that, and nothing less. Think what we might have done with that!
I hope to Christ that that country’s ‘Government/Democracy/What-have-you’ stays intact and we’ll have a semblance of stability in the area, you know, when all the instability dies down.
I have limited expertise. Perhaps friend Doggyknees or Polycarp can direct our attention to the Scriptural passages concerning pre-emptive strikes on false pretenses.
HTB: this is why posts 41 and 50 were flat out lies. Yet, every time we have one of these threads, one of the pro-Bush turds will repeat the same lie that Hussein wasn’t complying, and then say, “If only he had cooperated…”, etc, etc. Like the people who are reading are irretrievably stupid and ignorant.
It’s not just tiresome, it’s insulting to one’s intelligence to have to see the same BS repeated over and over and over and over. Repeated iterations of bullshit are still bullshit.
Y’know, after all this time Bricker’s pretty stupid (or hopelessly gullible) for expecting rational and courteous debate in an Elucidator “Bush lied” pit thread.
Having renounced my Republicanism I still say you’re all a bunch of idiots for harping on this tired old crap. Me, I’m focussed on the more important international issues, and I come down squarely in favor of the Brazillians.
On the basis of the last five years, and on the further basis of discussions with persons who knew him (primarily persons of his own party who knew him before he went to Washington), the two options are anything but mutually exclusive.