No prize for second place, I’m afraid. (Well, there may be a book deal or something.)
What of them? GW ran on platform X. He was elected on platform X. It makes no sense to expect him to then switch to platform Y. You aren’t the first here to express that sentiment, though. I am just perplexed why people would expect him to piss off those who voted for him to appease those who voted against him.
Right then. All you have done is list some general grievances with GW. How does that pertain to the quoted material?
Yes, as I mentioned in post #11 of this thread. The rationale is that Bush isn’t going to bother pushing for the amendment, at least until the courts have ruled on DOMA, because it wouldn’t have enough Senate support. (Of course, it was obvious since last July 14, when the Senate voted to block the White House-backed proposal for an amendment banning same-sex marriage, that he didn’t have enough support. And it was equally obvious that the 2004 elections weren’t going to provide the extra 19 radical-right Senators he would need to pass such an amendment. But of course, this wasn’t admitted until after the elections were safely over.)
‘Winner takes all’, eh? We are a nation founded on compromises. In order to gain support of the minority, the majority must make concessions. If they don’t, then we don’t have a democracy; we have despotism. In the present case, there is a very large minority. Ignoring such a large minority can have repercussions down the road.
For example, Bush (with his slight majority) has turned much of the world against us. Some of them were against us anyway; but now our friends are antagonistic toward us. He has turned a surplus into a record-breaking deficit. He has made millions of people cynical about our political system, which can lead to ‘tyrrany of the majority’.
Basically it’s like this: Our system is not designed for a ‘winner takes all’ attitude. The larger the minority, the more concessions the majority are expected to make.
Here’s an analogy. You have two kids and a large muffin. Each kid wants to divide the muffin, so they toss a coin to see who gets to do it and a winner is declared. Now, being kids, each one wants the ‘bigger half’. But if the winner says, ‘I’m the winner, so I get to cut the muffin and I can take the bigger piece if I want to because I’m the winner,’ then there’s likely to be a fight that will destroy the kitchen. So you reach a compromise. The winner (‘majority’) can cut the muffin, but the loser (‘minority’) can choose which half to take. By being aware that a concession must be made to the loser, the winner will be very careful to cut the muffin exactly in half.
That’s where we are now. Bush gets to cut the muffin, and he’s claiming that he can cut it wherever he wants and is not responsible for destroying the kitchen because he is, after all, the winner. He doesn’t seem to understand the concepts of sharing and compromise that are the foundation of this country.
To say that Bush was elected was a ringing endorsement of his Iraq policies is silly. First of all, the election was rigged. But of many that did vote for him, it may have been a backlash against gay marriage. Or it may have been because people lack the maturity to insist on fiscal responsibility, they just want to keep draining money out of the treasury. Or they may have faith that for whatever reason the Republicans might someday outlaw abortion (the very last thing they want to do). The point is that platform X included many planks, the election wasn’t merely a referendum on Iraq.
Of those that did vote for Bush based on Iraq, many were duped. If they thought that Iraq had any connection to 9/11 *, they were duped. If they thought Iraq posed a threat to the US, they were duped.
Bush is a frightening figure. He now believes that 51% of the vote, however rigged it was, is carte blanche to do whatever he wants with no accountability. No president that I know of ever uttered anything close to this in its arrogant hubris.
At least he admits to the collusion and complicity of the two major parties in their monopoly on American government. Though I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.
The goal of this thread is NOT to determine if GWB made any mistakes. There are millions upon millions of other threads debating that fine subject and they all end in way: the total annihilation of any rational thought.
No, the goal of this thread is to ask one question: IF the president has made mistakes in the past (or, indeed, makes mistakes in the future) within his role as Commander-In-Chief, should he be held accountable?
To give you an example from the other side of the aisle, Marion Barry was caught on camera buying and using illegal drugs. But he was reelected! Does that mean he shouldn’t have been held accountable for breaking the law merely because the voters saw fit to keep him as mayor? That would have been an interesting approach for him to take, but no. The laws don’t work that way. Courts don’t work that way. He served a 6 month jail term for the crimes he committed.
Is your position that Bush is above the law or that 51% of the voters determines what the law is?
So, re. the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Brutus first asserts that:
Then, as evidence for this assertion, he offers a quote from Colin Powell, which says:
So, in Brutus’s mind, a statement by the Secretary of State that no concrete evidence exists of the connection, constitutes evidence of the connection.
I do still hold him accountable, but that and 25 cents will get you a bag of chips. We should have held him accountable when it would have made a difference, the election. Whatever insane shit he goes and does now is not on my hands, that’s all I’m saying. What the fuck is holding him accountable going to do now?
Normally, I don’t even comment on political threads like this, but I feel the need to respond to this one. The reason we need to hold him accountable now is because of his current attitude. Bush believes, or at the very least is saying, “Well, people won’t hold me accountable. I can do whatever I want.” Ergo, we -seriously- need to keep any sort of check on him, even if just in public opinion. Otherwise, we prove his assumption right.
Before the election, I remember (although not the exact quote) Bush saying that he did not regret going into Iraq against UN ruling, and would do it again. To me this said that he would see re-election as an ‘okay’ from the US voting public to do just that. Lo and behold, that seems to be exactly his attitude. Until this past election, I have been far, far from politically active. But this time I needed to go out and vote. I have never been -angry- at a president until the interview that made up the basis of this thread. There has to be accountability. There has to be. Otherwise, we pave the way for any tin-pot dictator, legally elected or not, to jump up any cause and just say, “Hey, I was elected. Whatever I do is okay.”
I shake with sadly impotent rage over this. There’s little I can do but rant, and try to convince others to keep their eyes open so that things like this won’t happen again. Not if I can help it.
His current attitude? We’ve been saying for years how much of an asshole this guy is. Years! If people had listened to our “crazy” asses before the election we could have eliminated the reign of King Bush.
Again, we’ve know this for years. Why do you think we hate the fucking guy? Hmmm perhaps because he’s a stubborn, fixed in his ways, and doesn’t listen to his electorate?
Lot’s of good this “checking” is doing wouldn’t you say? We’re sending mixed messages to a guy that only listens to what he wants to hear. You know what he heard? 99% of the country must agree with what I’m doing, they reelected me. He doesn’t see nuance, he doesn’t see 51% of the country elected him, so he better try to please the 49% as well. He will rule as if 100% of the country voted for him, and people act surprised?
The assumption has already been proven right. Accountability? That’s like closing the barn door after the horse has been stolen.
That’s exactly his attitude, and you know what? We’ve proven him right!
So… any conservatives OTHER than Brutus want to defend Bush here?
Oh, and Brutus: there are at least two glaring flaws in your logic:
(1) The 2004 election wasn’t a referendum specifically on the Iraq war, it was a choice between (primarily) Bush and Kerry. For all we know, 95% of Bush voters had the attitude of “well, I really don’t like most of what he’s done in Iraq, but MY GOD I hate that Ketchup woman”. If there had been a nationwide vote in which voters were asked “do you approve of EVERY SINGLE THING that the Bush administration has done in Iraq, yes or no”, and 51% voted yes, then you’d BEGIN to have an argument
(2) The other major flaw is that the voters did not have perfect information. If it turns out that Haliburton has broken some law or ethical standard, but the information wasn’t available to every single person who voted for Bush, then how could their votes possibly have been a statement of approval of that violation?