Convince my conservative dad to dislike GWB

[Contrapuntal]

@Stratocaster

How about (c) they weren’t very good at this?

Then, the corollary would be, what the hell are we paying them for? Why initiate a war that you are unable to prosecute?

[Revenant_Threshold]

@kanicbird

And I don’t care to argue that SH had WMD’s, it’s been done plenty of times.

“When i’m right, i’m perfectly happy to debate a subject that’s been repeated so many times before. But when i’m clearly wrong, I can’t be bothered to go back and debate a subject that’s been repeated so many times before”.

[GIGObuster]

@Stratocaster

This is an area where there is certainly room for opinion. Whether WMDs existed was an issue of fact. We see how it played out, but it was an issue of fact nonetheless.

The fact was that the few WMD found were found to be coming from the end of the previous gulf war and they were either abandoned or useless because of the chemicals degrading or by a lack of maintenance.

In any case, it was because of the differences how other countries saw the threat of Saddam that I opposed the war in Iraq, it was all coming from the context that all countries before did agree in attacking Afghanistan because all the intelligence they had agreed that the Taliban was protecting the perpetrators of 9/11

Then “Virgin Combat Boots” Bush *decidered * that he needed to take Iraq for similar reasons and then suddenly that intelligence of other countries had different positions, to me it is silly to hang around the point of being WMD or not, the point is that the intelligence was not the same and that they were more correct than the US was. It should still be a shame for this administration that very little was investigated regarding why the US got it so wrong compared to what other countries’ intelligence groups told them.

Heck, regarding the OP one has to point this that IMO is related:

When the Plame thing hit the fan, Bush told the American people that he was going to check if any members of his administration were involved. Only to have in the latest hearings the man in charge of the security in the White House confess that there was never a serious effort to do so.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Cardinal

ElvisL1ves, thanks for the quote.

Any time. It’s from this interview, for the cite-sticklers.

RTF, thanks for carrying the ball there.

@Stratocaster

How about (c) they weren’t very good at this?

How much worse at it could they be than to completely forget the fundamental purpose of the war in its first few days? How can any non-vegetative human be *that * “not very good”?

[ElvisL1ves]

Also from that 2003 Wolfowitz interview:

Q: And then in the next few days, then there was the statement which now looks remarkably [prescient] when you said this is a campaign. At that point, I think it was the 13th, at that point was Iraq sort of moving into the scope, under the radar screen? What was your thinking at that point?

Wolfowitz: I know my thinking at that point was that the old approach to terrorism was not acceptable any longer. The old approach being you treat it as a law enforcement problem rather than a national security problem. You pursue terrorists after they’ve done things and bring them to justice, and to the extent states are perhaps involved, you retaliate against them but you don’t really expect to get them out of the business of supporting terrorism completely.

To me what September 11th meant was that we just couldn’t live with terrorism any longer.

Throughout the '80s and '90s it was sort of, I’ve never found quite the right words because necessary evil doesn’t describe it, but a sort of an evil that you could manage but you couldn’t eliminate. And I think what September 11th to me said was this is just the beginning of what these bastards can do if they start getting access to so-called modern weapons, and that it’s not something you can live with any longer. So there needs to be a campaign, a strategy, a long-term effort, to root out these networks and to get governments out of the business of supporting them. But that wasn’t something that was going to happen overnight.

Q: Right. So Iraq naturally came to the top of the list because of its history and the weapons of mass terror and all the rest, is that right?

Wolfowitz: Yes, plus the fact which seems to go unremarked in most places, that Saddam Hussein was the only international figure other than Osama bin Laden who praised the attacks of September 11th.

Q: So now there is the much-reported, I just want to make sure I get it right, famous meeting at –

It’s been reported in a couple of different ways, and I’d like to get it in your words if I can, the famous meetings that first weekend in Camp David where the question of Iraq came up. I believe the President heard you discussing Iraq and asked you to elaborate on it or speak more about it. Can you give us a little sense of what that was like?

Wolfowitz: Yeah. There was a long discussion during the day about what place if any Iraq should have in a counterterrorist strategy. On the surface of the debate it at least appeared to be about not whether but when. There seemed to be a kind of agreement that yes it should be, but the disagreement was whether it should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first.

There was a sort of undertow in that discussion I think that was, the real issue was whether Iraq should be part of the strategy at all and whether we should have this large strategic objective which is getting governments out of the business of supporting terrorism, or whether we should simply go after bin Laden and al Qaeda.

To the extent it was a debate about tactics and timing, the President clearly came down on the side of Afghanistan first. To the extent it was a debate about strategy and what the larger goal was, it is at least clear with 20/20 hindsight that the President came down on the side of the larger goal.

There you have it. The war was predecided, and 9/11 merely gave an excuse to do it. The administration was even considering invading it BEFORE Afghanistan.

But wait, there’s more:

This is sort of the two very small, well, they’re big questions but I don’t expect you to give me extended answers to the questions of the day. One is there is some question as to whether the Pentagon underestimated Iran’s readiness to intervene in Iraq and whether that upset the plans at all, the post-war plans.

Wolfowitz: That’s nonsense.

Right, can’t upset something that isn’t there.

I think the two most important things next are the two most obvious. One is getting post-Saddam Iraq right. Getting it right may take years, but setting the conditions for getting it right in the next six months. The next six months are going to be very important.

That in fact may be the first use of the term, even though Thomas Friedman is more responsible for popularizing it.

Q: Was that one of the arguments that was raised early on by you and others that Iraq actually does connect, not to connect the dots too much, but the relationship between Saudi Arabia, our troops being there, and bin Laden’s rage about that, which he’s built on so many years, also connects the World Trade Center attacks, that there’s a logic of motive or something like that? Or does that read too much into –

Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason,

So the real purposes had more to do with propping up the Saudi monarchy, and incidentally obeying Bin Laden’s wishes, than anything to do with Saddam himself?

I took a very different view of what the argument that removing Saddam Hussein would destabilize the Middle East. I said on the record, I don’t understand how people can really believe that removing this huge source of instability is going to be a cause of instability in the Middle East.

How’s that workin’ out for ya, Wolfie?

[Sevastopol]

@Stratocaster

Right. And so was the intelligence of every other western country in the world.

I started a thread on this very claim quite recently.

Debunked.

[jshore]

@RTFirefly

3. As Elvis said, no attempt was made, in the invasion, to secure Iraq’s supposed WMD sites. This would suggest that either (a) Bush didn’t believe whatever WMDs Saddam had would constitute a threat if they should have fallen into terrorists’ hands, or (b) he conducted a war that was designed to produce the very consequence we were told it was to prevent - to make it possible for Saddam’s WMDs to fall into the hands of terrorists and be used against us.

Damn…I came in here wanting to make my favorite point only to find out it has already been made. Oh well!

@Stratocaster

How about (c) they weren’t very good at this?

This attitude really puzzles me. Here it is, we start a whole war, costing thousands of American lives, tens (or perhaps hundreds) of thousands of Iraqi lives, and $300 billion or so and counting because we want to keep WMDs out of the hands of terrorists…and we actually make it easier for them to get into terrorist hands (only we are lucky enough that there turn out to be none to get into terrorist hands) and we’re supposed to think “No harm, no foul”???

Anyway, the final point I want to make is that one thing being ignored here in the assessment of intelligence is that the weapons inspections provided us the golden opportunity to get some feedback on the quality of that intelligence. Sure, it is hard to prove a negative (“He has no WMD”) but it is not so hard to prove that one’s reasons for believing a positive are bogus. And, that is exactly what the inspections were apparently showing, as this article from about 4 weeks before the war demonstrates:

While diplomatic maneuvering continues over Turkish bases and a new United Nations resolution, inside Iraq, U.N. arms inspectors are privately complaining about the quality of U.S. intelligence and accusing the United States of sending them on wild-goose chases.

…

U.N. sources have told CBS News that American tips have lead to one dead end after another.

…

So frustrated have the inspectors become that one source has referred to the U.S. intelligence they’ve been getting as “garbage after garbage after garbage.” In fact, Phillips says the source used another cruder word. The inspectors find themselves caught between the Iraqis, who are masters at the weapons-hiding shell game, and the United States, whose intelligence they’ve found to be circumstantial, outdated or just plain wrong.

[Stratocaster]

@Contrapuntal

Then, the corollary would be, what the hell are we paying them for? Why initiate a war that you are unable to prosecute?

A reasonable question.

[Stratocaster]

@jshore

This attitude really puzzles me. Here it is, we start a whole war, costing thousands of American lives, tens (or perhaps hundreds) of thousands of Iraqi lives, and $300 billion or so and counting because we want to keep WMDs out of the hands of terrorists…and we actually make it easier for them to get into terrorist hands (only we are lucky enough that there turn out to be none to get into terrorist hands) and we’re supposed to think “No harm, no foul”???

How are you inferring a “no harm, no foul” attitude from me??? How does suggesting that the war was executed poorly lead to an inference that they aren’t accountable?

[Sevastopol]

Returning to the OP:

Cardinal “Isn’t a relief that we’re free from the Saddam’s threatening nuclear arsenal?”

Cardinal “Oh dear another 6 marines today killed by a bomb in Iraq. Still, imagine how much worse things would be if we hadn’t invaded that country.”

Cardinal “I’m so glad our military has something to occupy itself. And the price is entirely reasonable considering the necessity.”

Cardinal “Hey dad, did you hear on the news we finally caught Osama Bin Laden?. Sorry my mistake, the scores from last night’s game. No doubt Osama’s due any day now.”

Cardinal “You know, I never much liked New Orleans, thank god it’s been up for urban renewal nowdays.”

[Measure_for_Measure]

75% of Republicans approve of the job GW Bush is doing. We have our work cut out for us. We need a better quality Republican.

Bush lied, people died doesn’t cut it. There’s the obvious problem of motive: why did he lie?

Answering that question in this thread is a waste of time though.

@RTFirefly

3. As Elvis said, no attempt was made, in the invasion, to secure Iraq’s supposed WMD sites.

This bears repeating. And repeating.

---

Still, it’s going to be a long haul. Republicans believe that they can be for lower taxes, higher military spending and lower budget deficits all at the same time. It wasn’t always this way: Reagan persuaded conservatives to ignore arithmetic.

Now usually, Republicans won’t come out and say they want to abolish social security and medicare (though they might mumble about privatization, which doesn’t address the budgetary issue-- indeed such proposals make it worse). They don’t say this because most of them actually don’t want to stick it to the elderly. For good reason, I might add.

Anybody who is naive enough to believe that, “Waste, fraud and abuse” are going eliminate the red ink and even allow additional tax cuts will have no problems accepting the remaining nonsense. It’s even worse for those who call themselves “Fiscal Conservatives” and point to the Bridge to Nowhere as proof that they don’t “support” the Republicans on everything.

We have our work cut out for us.

---

Here’s a pithy take on the US budget situation: “The US government is a huge pension plan that happens to have an army.”

Even in the case of Medicaid, the medical program for the poor, a substantial share of that spending is directed at elderly occupants of nursing homes, who have spent down their assets but have spent most of their lives in the middle class.

[Measure_for_Measure]

Here’s one method:

Figure out the year your Republican turned 20, then focus on the Republican President that they admired at the time.

Bush compares unfavorably to Eisenhower and Nixon. And his father: you can like Bush I and you can like Bush II: but you can’t like them both at the same time.

(Except on an emotional level. Which matters for those with sentimental royalist tendencies.)

Reagan is more complicated. Bush compares unfavorably to Reagan’s actions (after all, Reagan increased taxes after he cut them, in order to offset the budgetary damage), but not Reagan’s rhetoric. Bush II’s weird mix of ideology and propaganda fit well with Reagan’s words.

So for conservatives those who formed their original voting beliefs during the Reagan Presidency, the problem is more difficult.

[Sevastopol]

@Measure for Measure

75% of Republicans approve of the job GW Bush is doing. We have our work cut out for us. We need a better quality Republican.

Bush lied, people died doesn’t cut it. There’s the obvious problem of motive: why did he lie?

Answering that question in this thread is a waste of time though. This bears repeating. And repeating.

Not necessarily. It is only in the mind of analytical and educated people that he did lie.

The necessary proofs of the lies are simple to demonstrate. But in doing so you exhibit blindness and deafness to what the base Republican’s heard in Bush’s speeches, It’s

you: Bush: “We know as a matter of complete certainty that Saddam Hussein is putting the finishing touches on his nuclear, sarin gas ICMBs before lighting the fuse that projects them into every suburb from shore to sainted shore”

base Republican audience: Bush: “We’ve been attacked by some foreigner Arabs and now we’re going to look strong the way we know how, go kill some, no foreigner or book-learnin’ is going to tell us any other way.”

[Measure_for_Measure]

Yeah, but W actually says is something like, “Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”

It’s a lie only insofar as the President presented a stre-e-e-e-tched version of the existing intelligence. And then our modern conservative wonders whether reasonable people can disagree.

Traditional conservatives demand competence and performance. But modern conservatives need only have their feelings massaged.
No. What we need to do is to persuade conservatives to hold all politicians to a minimum standard of competence, rather than taking refuge in bromides like, “It’s the government: of course it doesn’t work!”

Some administrators --and CEOs-- simply perform better than others. The US will continue to bear these burdens until conservatives digest such realities.

[tomndebb]

@ElvisL1ves

How’s that workin’ out for ya, Wolfie?

Great! He is collecting his millions being the head of the World Bank while his (willing) dupes Bush and Cheney are taking all the flak for the war he promised them would be so successful.

[BarnOwl]

In my opinion, you won’t convince your Dad that Mr. Bush has few redeeming qualities. For one thing, he can be a charming, courtly, and an utterly gracious gentleman. In fact, his demeanor is one of the many reasons I have unbounded admiration for the man.

For example, when he last visited England, President Bush extended a warm and dignified handshake to the Queen. Together they rode in a 1934 Bentley to the edge of central London where they boarded a magnificent 17th century carriage hitched to six magnificent white horses, and rode towards Buckingham Palace waving to the thousands of cheering Britons.

Suddenly the right rear horse let fly with the most horrendous earth-shattering fart and the smell was excruciating. Both of them had to use handkerchiefs over their noses. The Queen turned to President Bush, "Mr. President, please accept my regrets. I am sure you understand there are some things that even a queen cannot control.

George Bush - Presidential, as always - replied:“Your Majesty, please do not trouble yourself. If you had not mentioned it, I would have thought it was one of the horses.”

[vivalostwages]

In the minds of many, anything GWB does is okay because he was “ordained by God” to do it.
It bothers me no end that my college-age niece has accepted her dad’s/my brother’s belief in W’s righteousness.

[Key_Lime_Guy]

@Cardinal

… it’s the MIT engineer in him …

I would focus on basic issues of competence rather than policy or ideology.

The management of the war (not its underlying motivation), the management of Katrina, the management of Homeland Security funds, the escalating budget deficit, the poor personnel decisions. These things would resonate with true conservatives.

Ask him if he would trust George Bush to manage a small business for him.

[Sam_Stone]

This may seem obvious only to me, but you’re not going to get your conservative Dad to change his mind about Bush by spewing Democratic talking points. I’m sure he’s heard the 'Bush Lied - People dies!" line a million times already. He probably has his own opinions about WMD and the war, and isn’t about to smack his forehead and go, “I’ve been such a fool!” because you try to tell him otherwise.

You want to get a conservative to dislike Bush? Show him that Bush isn’t much of a conservative. Dad’s probably not going to be receptive to arguments about the war, but he might be receptive to things like this:

• Bush never vetoed a single bill until the stem cell bill. Despite Congress spending like drunken sailors and cranking out earmarks on an unprecedented scale.

• Reagan wanted to kill the Department of Education. Bush increased its budget by 30% in his first four years.

• Bush screwed the pooch on steel tariffs.

• Bush is a TERRIBLE communicator. One of the reasons his opposition has run amok is because he’s done absolutely nothing to counter their ideas. Communicating ideas is an important part of the presidency. Bush is the worst communicator since Jimmy Carter.

• The size of government overall has mushroomed since Bush took office.

• Conservatives at the very least should be good, clear-headed administrators and managers. The Bush administration is populated with political hacks and friends who were owed favors, and are generally incompetent.

• Harriet Miers. When a chance to help share the supreme court first came along, Bush’s instinct was to put a crony with an unknown record and no history of clear judicial thinking on the bench. It took a revolt of conservatives to get him to back down.

• The war on terror has been run incompetently. If you supported the Iraq war, you probably did so with the belief that it would be a beachhead in the region. Bush invaded Iraq, then did his typical Bush thing and vanished from sight which it was mismanaged dreadfully until it became a full-bore crisis. Now he’s lost so much political capital and respect in the region that the U.S. has almost no bargaining power left. A total screw-up.

• When deciding how to fight the war on terror at home, Bush immediately abandoned any semblence of conservative principle and created a gigantic new bureaucracy which has accomplished very little but spent huge dollars feathering its own nest and and ensuring that the U.S. will be saddled with a much bigger civil service for decades to come.

• Immigration. I have no opinion on this, but most conservatives hate Bush’s stance on immigration.

• On Bush’s watch, the Republicans went from being the party of Ronald Reagan, where their core beliefs remained small government, low taxes, strong defense, and economic freedom, and turned it into the party of the freaking 700 club.

Unless your Dad is an evangelical, this stuff should bug him.

[Measure_for_Measure]

If we’re not repeat the fiascoes and failures of the Bush administration though, we’re going to have to try to inoculate the Republicans against phonies.

Bush has been the perfect conservative: his 75% approval ratings among Republicans prove this. The problem lies not in Bush admin, but in the modern conservative’s tolerance for corruption, incompetence and logically impossible budgetary arithmetic.

Perhaps we should take a page from Karl Rove: identify W. Bush’s most electorally attractive aspect and attack that. Smears should not be necessary: after all, Bush isn’t really a cowboy, a businessman, a straight talker or even a regular churchgoer.