My take is that Bush has never been a details man nor seemed to be one. He seems to dislike criticism but I wouldn’t say he likes “yes men”. His conservative gang appears to prefer true beleivers and dislike “no sayers”. (reality based perception people especially) Which means that the “yes men” end up naturally becoming a bigger part of the administration.
Actually being hands off makes a lot of sense for a president… I just think Bush hasn’t controlled his “subordinates” to well… and the internal bickering was the result. (Divide and Conquer ? )
It was the president’s own NSA that asserted that “The president is not a fact-checker,” expressly because he was not aware that the footnoted information in a report on Iraqi weapons capacities contradicted the conclusions of the report.
Only partisans and fools would buy into, let alone try to perpetuate, this idea that Bush is a detail oriented wonk.
I also cannot believe that an adult would put forth the argument (per xtisme) that “[t]he problem has been that the Left/Dems have been yammering for so long about this ‘heliedheliedhelied’ crap that it has distracted from the core issue.” The argument must boil down to whether, when he made horribly incorrect statements about Iraq’s weapons, he believed them to be true or not. The idea that a rational, thinking adult would be distracted by an assertion that he actually knew these things to be false is unbelievable. Are you saying you are so partisan that you cannot help but argue for his honesty when it is questioned? Are you saying that you are so partisan that you are less troubled by the incredible inaccuracy of the statement than you are about whether someone else believed they were knowingly false statements? Jesus. That is scary.
You know, de-nile isn’t just in Egypt. Sorry to tell you, this adult thinks thats EXACTLY what happened. The focus on ‘heliedheliedhelied’ allowed the Pubs to defend THAT instead of the more realistic ‘he was wrong and is responsible for his bad decision’. I can’t help that you don’t see whats plainly obvious to me Hentor…YMMV of course.
lol…no, rational adults are NEVER distracted. :rolleyes: Get real. Rational adults are distracted all the time, and they certainly WERE distracted by the constant and loud yammering from the left about how evil, stupid, lieing, blah blah blah Bush was. If you didn’t catch that then you were obviously asleep the last several years…and you certainly weren’t paying attention on this board. The issue pretty much revolved (and to this day CONTINUES to revolve, though some have finally wised up) around the ‘fact’ that Bush lied…while ignoring the deeper issue of whether he lied or not he was wrong and responsible.
Wrong and responsible=no re-election…yammering hand waving screeching about ‘lies’ that can’t be proved=4 more years of Bush in the drivers seat. Again, so sorry you don’t see whats obvious to me. Guess its cause I’m not an ‘adult’ like you…
Am I so partisan? Its to cry really. I can’t stand GW and have ALWAYS seen that whether he lied or not is irrelevant and distracting from the central issue…because you can’t PROVE that he lied, and the easiest explaination (in most peoples minds, given the facts we DO know) is that he was wrong. Since you can’t PROVE he lied its partisan yammering to keep going on and on about this ‘fact’ when the central issues is HE WAS FUCKING WRONG AND GOT US INTO A WAR UNNECESSARILY…AND THAT ITS HIS FUCKING FAULT AND HIS RESPONSIBILITY!! It has successfully allowed the Pubs to address that issue and ignore the central issue that Bush was wrong. Obviously YOU still don’t get that. Who is the partisan here Hentor?
Hardly. The fuckup itself was excused by citing George “slam dunk” Tenet. With or without the aspect of whether or not Bush knowingly told falsehoods about the matter, those supportive of Bush were going to blame everyone except Bush. If it is just a fuckup, then the CIA is at fault. Let’s give Tenet a medal!
Blaming those who framed it as an intentional act on Bush’s part is moronic to the extreme. It’s just sickening how often the left is blamed for speaking up. Any fault-finding is shrill and caustic. Any event is the fault of the left. Kerry lost because of critics on the left turning people off. Bush got off because people who suggested that he (or the Administration) lied about matters. Blame the opposition.
It doesn’t make any sense, yet so many people spout it. I suggest it takes some kind of impairment to believe it. It is a juvenile response. “It’s your fault - you made me not be able to think straight!”
I’m quite content with my judgement that Bush did in fact lie to us about Iraq. However, that doesn’t mean that shouting that particular truth from the rooftops didn’t give the righties the opportunity to start chanting ‘he didn’t know’ and ‘Clinton thought so too’, to the detriment of the debate over the central issue of the president’s competence, or lack thereof.
The righties laid a trap, and the more strident members of the left walked right into it.
But it WAS shrill and caustic…in the extreme. And to quote you ‘moronic to the extreme’ as well. There were plenty of reasoned arguements against Bush and the last 4 years, and mountains of them dealing with the Iraqi war…instead the left and the Dems focused on the ‘he lied’ meme and when it was pointed out that there was no PROOF he lied it just got more shrill. And it distracted from the key issue that Bush WAS wrong, that we had gone to war on incorrect information, and that Bush was responsible.
:rolleyes: I guess you never heard the one about this boy who cried wolf…
Exactly. The central issue was the presidents competence or lack thereof…and his responsibility for leading the US into a war on incorrect information. ‘He lied!’ might make you feel better, but with no proof to back it up, just speculation, its left wing porn…and it muddied the waters when clarity would have served you much better. And it gave the Pubs an out…and an easy out at that.
Actually I think they merely took advantage of the situation that the left made for itself with their very stridency. I seriously doubt the righties planned for this or laid a trap for it…they merely saw the oppurtunity to use the meme against those spouting it and to shift the debate onto territory that could be defended…and easily defended. It would simply break down along partisan lines with no proof of the lie.
So are you asserting that without the stridency, the response of the right would have been … agreement? Contrition? What was it that the right avoided because of the fools who fell into the trap?
If the uniform response from all critics would have been, “Well, mistakes were made. Errors about the pre-war intelligence occurred,” are you saying that Bush, the administration, and the right would have said, “Yup, that’s Bush’s responsibility.” What consequences or remedies do you think they would have offered?
Come on, man. When have you seen anything remotely resembling an acknowledgement of responsibility from the responsibility party? Do you really believe that that is my fault, because I told people I believed Bush lied about the reasons for going to war?
Without the argument over what the definition of ‘is’ is, they’d have had to defend on the much less favorable ground of Bush’s competence in making the wrong decision.
But why wouldn’t they just do what they did - blame Tenet and give him a medal? We actually have history to tell us how they would “defend on much less favorable ground.” Turns out, they didn’t bat an eye. Please tell me why they would have done anything differently if I had not been saying “Bush lied.”
Who gives a shit what the adminstration would or wouldn’t have done? I thought the goal was to get rid of Bush and elect someone else to be in charge. Are you telling me your agenda was for Bush et al to do good now??
So, again, your agenda was to score points on the right and not win the election? Interesting. Perhaps I’m giving you too much credit. Myself, I would have wanted to WIN the election and put my own guy in charge. To do that you needed to appeal to the center…and the center was watching the tennis match of ‘Bush lied!’ ‘No he didn’t!’ going on between the left and the right and scratching their head saying…‘well, it really doesn’t look like he lied.’ See, if you wanted to win you should have wanted the center to be saying something like ‘Bush took us to war on incorrect data. Its all his fault. Buck stops here and all. Lets elect someone new!!’
But you want agreement, contrition, whatever other fantasy stuff from the RIGHT?!? Well, whatever floats your boat. 4 more years I guess.
I can’t let this competely erroneous comment go by the wayside.
During photosynthesis, trees absorb carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. Reagan, IIRC, got this backwards, and was ridiculed for the comment. Can you seriously be saying that you believe that “it is very true trees produce many times the greenhouse gases of cars”?!
We’ve been over this. Liberals may have screamed this on message boards and weblogs, but it was hardly something that the mainstream right, or the mainstream center, was exposed to (the center was split almost evenly between Bush and Kerry).
MUCH more relevant causes were Kerry as a weak candidate with a weak stated plan, and the emphasis on what I’ll term “Christian” issues by the Bush admin. THe left simply wasn’t motivated and didn’t show at the polls, while the right was in a frenzy.
This resulted in the liberals on the web to start taking very basic points and saying “how can you not see this?”, which you say is why they lost.
You know, you continue to spout this notion that the Dems needed to appeal to “the center” and “failed”, but you haven’t got a factual basis for it. Kerry didn’t lose because he was “too liberal” (or leftist, or whatever). The numbers, polls, and admitted strategy on the part of the GOP don’t bear out your contentions.
Do you ever consider or cite facts to back up your opinions, or are you content to just project your own personal desires, add “IMHO” or “YMMV” on the end, and leave it at that? Seriously?
Agreement would be nice… from YOU. Considering that the Right was, as you yourself have admitted, WRONG not to hold Bush responsible for his mistakes - why weren’t you in the forefront requesting that they do so? I mean, why did you spend all your time denigrating the Left, who had no power, rather than try to reason with the Right for their failure to hold Bush accountable? (I asked you this in another thread, but you declined to answer there)
When did I set calling Bush on his lies in the context of the election? Shouldn’t the goal always be to have the president of the United States do the right thing?
Apart from that, I was suggesting that you would never get contrition from the right, so it is foolhardy to argue that some more desirable outcome would have resulted if we had just kept our mouths shut. It would be great to have a president take responsibility for such greivous errors, but I can confidently say you will never see this president do so.
Well, we may have been over this, but I hardly think its a resolved issue just because you seem to think so. Do you have anything to back up your assertion that its only the elite of the right and left that were hearing the ‘heliedheliedhelied’ meme? That it never reached the mainstream? That mainstream folks never go on things like moveon.org…or that message boards and weblogs were the only place the ‘heliedheliedhelied’ meme/debate raged?? Until you can actually SHOW something I think this is far from resolved.
Why was Kerry ‘weak’? Why was his campaign ‘weak’? (These are questions just to get the feel for why YOU think they were…I tend to agree that they were but probably for different reasons). What ‘Christian’ issues did the Bush Admin push…the Bush Admin mind you, not Republicans or other groups supporting Bush.
Are you seriously stating that the left wasn’t motivated and didn’t show up at the polls?? What do you base THAT nugget of wisdom on? Simply the fact that Bush won?? Is this another of your patented ‘sky is blue’ things or do you suppose you could go into some detail here?? From my perspective the frenze was all on the left for the last few years, and they were WAY motivated to get to the polls. While I also think the right was motivated, I’d hardly call it a ‘frenzy’…at least with respect to what I was seeing spewing out of the left.
No…one of many reasons they lost was because they pretty much cried wolf from the time GW was first elected (hell, even before that…when he was just nominated) to the election…and eventually people stopped paying attention to them. They allowed emotion to cloud their judgement and underestimated Bush time and time again. They allowed emotion to cloud their judgement and hooked their arguements against Bush on unprovable emotional appeals (i.e. the He Lied! meme), and failed to get as much traction with the greater populace…they were singing kumbya to each other and preaching to the converted instead of making inroads to the undecided.
This election should have been a slam dunk for the Dems…yet they lost it. You can keep thinking it was because the Liberals just weren’t motivated to oust Bush (snort), or because Kerry was ‘weak’ (I’d probably tend to agree with you there, but probably not for the reasons you’d pick), or perhaps because of the Great Republican Spin Machine™ or the stupidity or religious fervor of the American people or frenzy by the Right. Perhaps you are right (well, except about your outrageous statement that the left wasn’t motivated to vote this election…still wiping coke off my screen after reading THAT pearl of wisdom :)). I don’t think so but I’ve been wrong before and will be again. I admit that in my own theory as to why Bush won and Kerry lost, the ‘heliedheliedhelied’ constant drone played only a minor role…not a major factor. But IMO it still WAS a factor.
Posting on the internet makes you part of the elite? Cool!
I believe burden of proof is on your shoulders here, that either CNN and Fox and MSNBC obsessively spammed HELIEHELIEDHELIED, and/or that the mainstream right reads moveon.org.
So far I haven’t seen anything to change my mind that the Dems failed to appeal to the center. I’ve seen poll numbers, certainly. Just out of curiosity, are you claiming that the right was more motivated than the left in the past election…or that more on the right voted than on the left? Also out of curiosity, why DID Kerry lose then?
No…I don’t consider a cite to back up the ‘facts’ on political discussions. I find them a waste of time mainly and hardly ever even bother reading what other people cite about politics. You can find a ‘cite’ that will say whatever you want it to say, you can bend and twist statistics anyway you want to show whatever you want to show in politics. I’m content to read on my own, to form my own opinions and to express them here…to ‘debate’ them.
I think this board is cite happy, and while thats a good thing on some discussions (especially in GQ), and after following the board for years and seeing the various cites dance and sing as partisans on both sides attempt to make their arguements I remain unconvinced…IMHO. If it makes you feel better, whenever I post its my own opinion (especially about politics…I actually HAVE been known to use a cite or two in other discussions)…I didn’t get it from someone elses brain or steal their ideas. If they are goofy and it annoys you…well, don’t respond.
From ME? Why? I’ve said all along that Bush was wrong. Here: “XT SAYS BUSH WAS WRONG AND FUCKED UP BADLY BY TAKING US TO WAR WITH INCORRECT INFORMATION”. Feel better? Its easy for me…I’m not a Bush fan nor a Republican…I was one of those undecided centrists you wrote off.
However, its asking a bit much for the Right to hold Bush responsible for being wrong about Iraq for myriad reasons…just like it would be a bit unreasonable for the Left to cut one of their own off at the knees. Its called Partisan Politics…perhaps you’ve heard of it? By and large the Left and the Right are going to support their guy over the other guy…even if they guy fucks up. Unless he fucks up REALLY badly, then they are going to run for the hills, a la Nixon.
Though I know you don’t get this or agree, its appealing to the undecideds and the center that wins elections in the US. THEY are the ones that can be convinced that failure is failure without reguard for checking their political affiliation first. I know I know…radically wierd ideas I spout. Just call me crazy for calling a spade a spade.
Did you figure that the debate raging for the past few years happened in a vaccume?? If you don’t see that it had a bearing on the election then I don’t know what to say to that Hentor.
Define ‘the right thing’. I can find someone, somewhere that will think that its NOT ‘the right thing’. With reguards to Iraq there are many people who think that it was STILL the right thing to do…reguardless of the pretext we used. Ends justify the means and all that. The problem is, Hentor, whats ‘the right thing’ for you might not be ‘the right thing’ for me…and whats ‘the right thing’ for Bush is probably not right for either of us if Iraq is an indication. I have no doubt that Bush thought he was doing ‘the right thing’ by invading Iraq. So, in that light he did exactly what you think a president SHOULD do.
Again, you misunderstand what I’m getting at. Who GIVES a shit about contrition from the right? You wanted to appeal to the center and the undecideds instead of getting into a pissing contest about whether Bush lied or didn’t lie…something you couldn’t prove man! As you couldn’t prove it why get into it at all? Why not instead focus on reality…oh, I don’t know, like, say the FACT that Bush took us to war on incorrect data. Again, who said anything about keeping your mouth shut?? I’m saying to pick smarter battles instead of emotional feel good ones that get you no where.
As for the last, the President IS/WAS responsible for his actions. It would have been wise if the left had focused on THAT instead of trying to ‘prove’ that Bush lied about the pretext for war.
So you seem to be implying. Myself I think its a bit more widespread than you think it is.
Er…no. Not when I already said that they (i.e. the mainstream press and other news organs) didn’t, and even went to the trouble to explain WHY they didn’t. YOU are the one claiming it wasn’t a factor at all. I just wondered what you had to back that up. I don’t need a ‘cite’ btw…a more detailed explaination will do for me.
If it makes you feel better, whenever I post its my own opinion (especially about politics…I actually HAVE been known to use a cite or two in other discussions)…I didn’t get it from someone elses brain or steal their ideas. If they are goofy and it annoys you…well, don’t respond.