To Brutus, this is a true statement.
No. You are starting with the presumption that he has some long list of bungles, and he thinks they were magic’d away with the election results. The other (and correct) view is that the people can see the same action as being correct or incorrect, and the election results show that more people believe the actions were correct.
I don’t think you’ll find any argument on that point. Where you will find argument is when his actions are wrongly labeled as ‘bungled’ or whatnot.
No magick dude, obviously the American people refused to hold him accountable. Or, rather, 51% of the voters did.
Yes, but those who see the actions as being correct are incorrect. (duh).
How was it correct for Halliburton to overcharge us on gasoline? How was it correct to cherry pick intel? How was it correct to staff delicate positions with college grads just because they were Republicans? How correct was it to…
Living in a dream world doesn’t make you right. Bush fucked up. And now it’s go-time. Are you loyal to your nation and the world, or to your Leader?
This is binary. 1) He meant to do good but fucked up, and thus bungled. 2) He didn’t mean to do good, and aimed for this hell.
Either way, your Leader fucked up.
So:
[ul][li]You think that Bush was correct in conflating Al Qaeda with Iraq?[/li][li]You think that Bush was correct to rush to war in Iraq before the UN search for WMDs was complete?[/li][li]You think Bush was correct to ignore intelligence that contradicted evidence of WMDs in Iraq?[/li][li]You think that Bush was correct in starting a war before all of his forces were in place?[/li][li]You think that bush was correct that Iraq posed a serious thread in spite of the fact that the CIA gave him a report saying that Sadam Hussein would not be a threat unless attacked?[/li][li]You think that the Bush Administration is correct in fearmongering among the American public?[/li][li]You think that it was more important to persue the non-thread of Iraq than to persue Al Qaeda?[/li][li]You think it’s okay that the C-I-C can claim that whatever he does is right, simply because he was elected by just over half of the people (and to hell with the other 49%)?[/ul][/li]Sounds like a ‘long list of bungles’ if you ask me.
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
So:
[list][li]You think that Bush was correct in conflating Al Qaeda with Iraq?[/li][/QUOTE]
I don’t think that was a bungle. I’m pretty sure he meant to do that.
prove it!
those results could just as easily prove that the majority of americans don’t give a fuck how many brown people die in their name, as long as we keep them homosexuals from gettin married.
I’m waiting for someone who voted for Bush to join the rest of us in condemning this statement.
Friends of Dubya, you don’t have to say you hate the man.
You don’t have to agree that he’s a lousy president and an embarrassing excuse for a human being.
You don’t have to say you’re having doubts about your “man”.
Just admit he said an INCREDIBLY FUCKED UP thing this one time.
Please?
I have a hard time believing that no one from the Pro-Bush side can do this one little thing.
Golly, but I do love your loaded questions. There were proven contacts between the two. Both were a threat.
‘Rush to war’? Damn, is H.Dean whispering these in your ear? Regardless, yes. If anything, I fault him for going to the UN in the first place. While the UN does a fine job with certain international regulatory bodies, when it comes to matters of war, they are useless gaggle of bueracrats, and GW should have known.
I don’t know that he ‘ignored’ any intel on the matter. And in the given situation, it is better to err on the side of caution.
What forces came in after? We couldn’t control the not-so-bright move by the Turks to block the 4ID, and it seems that yes, Iraq did fall, so I don’t really know what you are talking about. (Unless this is a varation on the ‘We need more troops!!!’ theme)
They also gave him reports that SH was spanking out WMD left and right.
:rolleyes:
We stopped persuing Al Qaeda? News to many people, I am sure.
Unequivocal yes. Hell yes. GW made election promises; We expect him to keep them. You expect him to turn himself to war crimes trials. You guys are entertaining some sort of fantasy that unless he bows to your will, he is obviously a wrong, since only your view can be right.
Besides, it’s not like he turning blue staters into soylent green. Yet.
You, and the rest of the American electorate, were asked. It’s just that a certain percentage is still in denial about the answer.
You keep on keepin’ on, MrFantsyPants. With ideas like that floating around on the Left, I am stunned that you guys keep losing elections!
Only because your views on the matter are so prejudice that you cannot comprehend that the other side is right. Common mistake for lefties.
There were a couple of contacts that lead to nothing. This is enough to link Iraq with the WTC attacks? :rolleyes:
‘Might makes right’, eh? We’re all for law and order, until it’s inconvenient for us. Even though the UN Charter expressly forbids wars of aggression, we can decide that it doesn’t apply to us?
To err on the side of caution would be to not go to war!
The military said it would be unwise to attack Iraq until there were more forces in place. If war was necessary, then more time should have been allowed to position the forces. But then, that would allow the UN inspectors to complete their jobs and discover that Iraq had no WMDs. Can’t have that! Better to rush into it, than to risk being shown to be in error!
Nevertheless, they said that SH would not use them unless attacked.
So you do think that the government should use fear to manipulate people.
It’s like the South Park bit with SH. ‘Hey guys! Look over there!’ Or Wag the Dog. We couldn’t find bin Laden, so SH suddenly became a priority. It’s a shell game that over half the AMerican public fell for.
He is obviously wrong. Just because he was re-elected does not mean that he bears no responsibility for the errors he has made. Oh, I forgot. The only error he’s made was appointing a certain minor person to some post. :rolleyes:
Once again… It’s not about whether he was elected. That’s undisputed. It’s whether he should take responsibility for his actions. He has said, as quoted in the article, that he will not take responsibility for his actions. This can only be described as cowardice.
Here’s what I posted in the other “accountability” thread.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5725384&postcount=40
Bush and company expect people to blindly believe him, fight for him, so on and so forth, but does not have the grit to take ownership of what he created. Two faced, lying, worthless coward. He’d be first in line to take all the credit so why not the blame?
Why does this sound so…poultry? 
You do realize that the actual Iraqi government, whichever is “elected” doesn’t take over till Jan 1 2006 don’t you?
That is not what ‘roll eyes’ mean, you know. Or don’t know, it seems.
Now you are just making stuff up. Rules against that, you know.
Was it not Rumsfeld who said that we go to war with the army we’ve got and not the one we want? If we went without armoring all our humvees, that indicated some sort of rush, or urgency in time.
The whole idea was that we couldn’t wait, remember?
Should have known better than to attempt to win global support for our illegal and unjustified war? If you say so.
Why is it that so many of those who support Bush don’t realize that we can’t beat global terror if we don’t have allies?
There, now you know of intel he ignored.
People in the adminstration and who’re prosecuting this war have said we need more troops. Rumsfeld said that we went to war without all of our vehicles being armored because sometimes you fight with the army you have rather than the one you want. This indicated urgency. I’ve already disproven any reasons for urgency.
Can you please condemn Bush’s actions now?
Cite?
News to you at least.
[“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02](http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/2002/11/13_Laden.html)
Again, now that I’ve removed your ignorance, can you admit that Bush has fucked up?
Um… asking the american electorate doesn’t negate reality ya know. They’re still blunders even if 51% of voters cram their fingers into their ears and walk to the polls singing “La la la, I can’t hear you, la la la, everything is great, la la la, Bush is doing fine, la la la…”
So, really, the people who’re in denial about the answer are those who claim Bush is doing a good job.
~sighs~ Have you seen statistics? “moral values”? The anti-gay ammendments? A great many people were willing to vote for someone based on their stance on gay marriage.
But, the propaganda of an unformed Bush voter will sway the dems and help them win more elections, eh Brutus?
You’re not right.
Common mistake for you.
The implication was that you did not believe Bush was fearmongering. He was and is.
No I’m not.
The “other side” may very well be right, Brutus. They may be right about the righteousness of the war. They may be right about all the other shit I disagree with.
But for me, I can look at Bush’s quoted statement in the OP apart from everything else and see 100% wrongness. Bush could be Christ Himself, and that statement’s ludicrousness would still stand out in stark relief. This isn’t about his blunders, past, present, or future. This is about the nauseating hubris apparent in this one little quip:
Defend this. Explain to me, the prejudiced person that I am, why no administration officials should be held accountable for the very real mistakes that have occurred during Bush’s reign. Why should they be cloaked in a shroud of infallibility and impunity while the underlings they are responsible for overseeing get dragged in the media? Isn’t it the administration officials who are responsible for making the tough decisions? Why should they get the glory of all the successes but reap no consequences for their failures?
If Iraq turns out to be a success, will it not be Bush and his administration who receives all the praises?
Why then, when the mistakes and horrors continue to churn up from this quagmire, do they suddenly not deserve the scorn?
What will it take for you to admit to yourself that the war was mistake? Can you even fathom that it could be, or are you too prejudiced to conceive of the possibility of that the US can be wrong, just like any other country.
Explain this to me, if you can.
A lame duck shouldn’t quack too loudly. There are plenty of proverbial duck hunters out there with proverbial loaded shotguns, and some of them are Republicans.
Brutus, to add just a little item, there was fearmongering. Much of Bush’s campaign was a promise to protect us from the Bad Guys. Cheney, probably with Bush’s blessing, gave us that Vote for us or die snippet.
We have met the Enemy and he is us.
[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
Proven?
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin Powell reversed a year of administration policy, acknowledging Thursday that he had seen no “smoking gun [or] concrete evidence” of ties between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
“I have not seen smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I do believe the connections existed,” he said."
No, there I have an reprinted Op-Ed piece from the Hartford Courant.
You have disproven nothing. For one, it’s not like we could go in in the middle of summer. As it was, we probably should have gone in a few weeks earlier, but there you have it. As for the Humvees, they are being armored. Even we don’t have infinite resources, so it is a bit foolish to expect Rummy to wave his defense-rod and Presto! they will all be armored.
No.
Sure. Notice that isn’t some Op-Ed piece I am trying to foist off as a ‘cite’.
Bin Laden is Al Qaeda? Who would have thunk it? You are just showing the all too common lefty penchant for ‘feel good’ actions (get Bin Laden and call it quits). The fight goes on.
You have done nothing but imply that Bin Laden is Al Qaeda.
And leaving out the little ‘brown people’ quip that was made? Tsk tsk.
This has a really nasty implication, which you are content, thus far, to leave floating in the air like after pulling your uncle’s finger.
Are you saying the quote is bogus? But you use the same quote in rebuttal. Are you saying that because the quote is used in an opinion piece, that renders the quote unreliable?
Or are you trying to slither in an innuendo that a contrary poster is engaging in dishonest rhetorical devices? You can speak plainly, this is the Pit, after all.
A subdued and respectful apology is in order here, friend Brutus. You can do it, I have every faith in you.