OK, great. We’ve dispensed with FDR.
Next candidate?
Bricker, while I appreciate your general point, I think in specific you are really triyng hard here to avoid any actual comparisions or trends that might single out the Bush presidency as different in some regards than what’s come before. As such, this “well, it’s all the smae, nothing ever changes” line seems self-serving, rather than illuminating.
I don’t agree. When someone speaks passionately about the President’s supposed lies, and suggests that mere technical truth is not enough, that a President should not simply be another civil servant, but an extraordinarily trustworthy steward, characterized with “I can do this, I can shoulder this nearly superhuman burden. I can be trusted not to mislead, not to lie,” I think the natural reaction of the reader is to agree. After all, this idealism resonates with us. But it’s not realism, and this thread is intended to show that the reality is that virtually NO President fits that bill.
James Garfield?
Well, as long as you get to score the points at the end, sure. But the deeper point is that Presidents claim for themselves a degree of moral authority, and they are entrusted with a pretty important duty. If every President has failed the standard here and there, that’s one thing. But if a President has been systematically deceptive, pioneering a new range of PR techniques and doublespeak, that might be noteworthy. But in your world, the point seems to be that it cannot be noteworthy: history has no trends, they all do it and you’re all goofy for calling attention to this guy.
No one said that politics wasn’t a dirty, nasty business. But then, no one said that that meant we shouldn’t try to hold them accountable anyway. You pick your exact subjects, the only ones you’ll address directly, very carefully Bricker, very carefuly.
Oh…I see. I should have looked at that other thread more closely. I see where this is coming from now. I didn’t realize this was about Bush…but I guess all roads converge on the Dark Tower, and all threads in GD revolve in some way or another around Bush. There needs to be a new law like Godwins about Bush…
While I agree with you that sometimes its necessary for a President to withhold information or to make decisions to commit the US to actions that perhaps the majority of citizens wouldn’t be in favor of, the responsibility for those actions still falls directly on the President. In Bush’s case the information he used to convince the Congress/Senate and the citizens of the US to invade Iraq was wrong. The responsibility for using that information and for committing the US to war falls squarely on GW’s shoulders…its his responsibility. It doesn’t matter that the information was wrong, or that he THOUGHT it was right…HE is the one responsible for our actions because he’s the president.
I don’t know how history will judge GW. We are too close to all this, and tempers and partisanship are too high right now. But if history judges him harshly and puts the blame for invading Iraq squarely on his shoulders, its no more than he deserves. Whether or not he thought it was the right thing to do, whether or not he thought the information he had was solid, the fact remains that he took us to war on incorrect information…and the responsibility was his.
-XT
I agree completely. Responsibility rests with him. But nothing you wrote above could not also be applied to FDR – he got us into the war because he was convinced the right thing to do was eliminate the Third Reich. He was right, even if some of the information and tactics he used to move the country towards war were inaccurate.
And if history judges him well for eliminating Hussein and setting up a stable Arab democracy in the Middle East, from which other democracies arise, then it’s also what he deserves… yes?
Funny, I thought we got into the war against Germany because Germany declared war on us, in support of their ally Japan. Surely you’ve heard of Pearl Harbor? There had been German agressive hostilities toward the US even before - surely you’ve heard of the Reuben James? Where are your equivalents? This stretch of yours for yet another “Well, other people have been as bad as my guy” is the most audacious, and, as Apos points out, extremely selective yet.
Damn big If there - any signs that will happen? You do revel in hypotheticals, certainly, but you’re engaging the “reality-based community” here instead.
To the purported point of your OP: Yes, every President has been human, subject to human failings. Yes, *Dave * is Capraesque fiction, and so was Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Both movies do show an ideal for a public servant to try to emulate, the closer the better.
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
Funny, I thought we got into the war against Germany because Germany declared war on us, in support of their ally Japan. Surely you’ve heard of Pearl Harbor? There had been German agressive hostilities toward the US even before - surely you’ve heard of the Reuben James?
The Reuben who now?
Um, yes.
That was the ship that Germany sunk for no reason at all.
Except that it was escorting a convey bound for Great Britian, a country with which Germany was at war, and it was doing so on FDR’s orders, which violated United States law. Surely you’ve heard of the Neutrality Act? And the convoy was carrying lend-lease materials to Great Britian – weapons, munitions to a country with which Germany was at war.
C’mon. FDR got us closer and closer to war by subterfuge. He did it for good reasons, because we NEEDED to go to war. But he did it.
Fine. But then don’t trot out lines about pure and noble behavior when you know that EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN’ PRESIDENT (possibly excepting Harrison) was guilty of them same. There’s a line, and you can certainly argue that Bush crossed it. But don’t hold him up to this impossibly high standard that no President has ever achieved.
I am invoked, I rise.
Your thread has an agenda, as naked as a needle. “No President has ever measured up to Luc’s impossible, starry-eyed, Pollyannish standards, therefore we must conclude that they are irrelevent.”
I freely acknowledge those standards are daunting. As well they should be. The President is not drafted, he puts himself forward, he solicits our vote, which is to say he solicits our trust.
No virgin is elected Queen of the Harlots, too true by half. But comparing Bush to Kennedy or FDR is comparing a courtesan with a two-dolllar crack whore.
As I’ve said elsewhere, if I suffer from constipation, I simpy try and imagine if Bush had been President during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and relief is instantaneous.
So does that mean that we broke international law supplying Israel with weapons and munitions while in a state of civil war? Does that mean that it is OK for Palestinians to kill Americans?
I hardly see the subterfuge comparison between FDR and Bush… or do you not understand the term “pre-emptive war”?
You know the difference between a *line * and a scale, I trust? Well, maybe not, considering the time you’ve spent here trying to convince us that all lies are identical. The world is not the pure good-vs.-evil dichotomy that Brother George has preached to you, and most people are not Manichaeans. If you are, if you persist in seeing every topic in such purely simplistic terms, you’ll have a damn hard time finding the good anywhere or in anybody.
So what does your ability to declare a line, or a standard, that nobody passes mean? Not a damn thing, really.
And in Iraq, we didn’t need to. Is that also a line you insist your boy hasn’t crossed?
Oh yeah, your insistence that FDR was acting on “subterfuge”. You’ll note that the Reuben James convoy was operating as part of the Lend-Lease program that had been authorized by Congress, with full knowledge of the facts of the situation. There was no pretense about the reasons for his actions, preserving the sensibilities of the isolationist wing notwithstanding. What subterfuge do you charge him with? What lies did he tell about the threat Germany presented? What offensive military actions did he undertake before Germany declared war?
Is THAT all you got? I’ll admit, firing Marston was a political move at the request of one of the congressmen under investigation. It should not have happened and I would wager that Carter would acknowledge his mistake. The PLO meeting with Andrew Young I have no problem with. To admit the meetings occured could have done more harm than good at the time. I would also be willing to bet that Nixon had some of his people meet with the Chinese in secret before moving to normalize relations. In diplomacy, sometimes you need to meet in secret and deny that you did.
So in four years we have one US attorney fired for political reasons as the biggest moral smudge on Carter’s record. I’ll take that in a heartbeat over the many many moral failings of George W Bush. In Carter and Ford we had two presidents of high moral character and honesty. Sure, they may each have had a bad decision or two. But to compare these two with the clown we have now is like night and day.
Who mentioned international law?
No - it’s not OK for Palestinians to kill Americans. Glad we could settle that perplexing question.
I’m arguing that before Germany declared war on the US, the US took actions against Germany that amounted to acts of war. I understand the term “pre-emptive war” quite well, and I argue that it applies to our actions preceding WWII with respect to Germany.
No.
The Lend-Lease program did not authorize US Naval vessels to escort convoys carrying lend-lease materials to England. The Lend-Lease program authorized lending/leasing munitions/weapons/etc to England (the famous “garden hose” analogy). So the transfer of guns, tanks, and bombs to England was legal. The use of the US Navy to get the stuff there explictly violated the Neutrality Act.
FDR violated US law, and lied about it.
I’m only making the point that no President can meet the “I can do this, I can shoulder this nearly superhuman burden. I can be trusted not to mislead, not to lie,” standard. Yes, I agree that President Carter was a generally upstanding and honest guy, more so than the majority of his brethern. But even he fired an offical to prevent an investigation and then lied about it. And even he lied for what he perceived as good reason in the cause of diplomacy. I’m not arguing that everyone’s equally dirty - I’m arguing that no one is squeaky-clean.
And for the record -that’s not “all I have” with regards to President Carter. Shall we discuss Bert Lance, and the President’s muscling Congress to suspend federal ethics laws so that Lance could continue his banking operations in Georgia while still serving as OMB director? And you’ll recall how well THAT little adventure turned out.
I’m having real difficulty understanding the point of this thread. **Elucidator **made an overly broad post in another thread, and now we are supposed to be interesting in picking it to pieces?
Bush pushed strongly for the invasion of Iraq as a central part of the War on Terror. To date, it looks like a huge mistake. I suppose that 25 years hence, if we see a peaceful, largely democratic M.E., people might argue how much Bush’s policies were responsible for that fact. And history will judge Bush by how wise his decision were-- this decision being one of his most significant.
Had we found large caches of WMDs and/or piles of documents linking S.H. to al Qaeda and its plans to use terror tactics against the West, Bush would be wildly popular and generally be viewed as a man of great vision.
As it stands, we have neither the hardware (WMDs, terror links) nor any broad social change (democracy spreading in the M.E.) to show for the war. There really is no other conclusion at this point than to call the Iraq War a failed policy. That’s the crux. Pointing out other miscues by other presidents doesn’t change that fact.
At least refuting it, yes. Or at least in general agreement that it was overly broad, and not a useful standard for real-life measurement of a president.
Agreed on both counts.
How the fuck did Bush get involved in this thread anyway? The question was whether the US had ever had a President that was honest to a fault. I think everyone, including Bush supporters, agrees that Bush doesn’t meet that standard. No problem. Everyone’s happy. So why jaw on about him? Can’t we have one political thread that doesn’t degenerate into a partisan fight over Bush?
Please?
The violations of US law are as may be. But you accuse him of not of violating the law, but of *lying * about it. What lies were those?
You accuse him of subterfuge. Where? What was he doing in secret, and who did he mislead?
And, for that matter, are you going to tell us if you do or do not recognize the existence of a scale in terms of all Presidents’ human strengths and weaknesses, or only the line you insist your boy hasn’t crossed?
At this point, we might even settle for your acknowledging that there’s a line between necessary and unnecessary warfare. We did, after all, hang people at Nuremberg and Tokyo for crossing *that * line.
There is no such general agreement among those whose worldviews are not binary.