They could not execute him. They knew what he wanted for his last meal.
You have a gift for missing the point. Read it again. Perhaps you’ll grasp that my point is Bush didn’t have the wit to deal intelligently and maturely with a question he didn’t know the answer to. I don’t know if Al Gore would have known the answer either at the time, but at least he would have: a) understood the significance of the country involved; and b) not have said something that made him sound like a smarmy adolescent.
Your question about Dan Rather makes no sense. Are you asking if I’d vote for Dan Rather for President? Don’t think so; smart, but too egotistical and hot-headed.
ETA: On reviewing the thread, I see that Martiju already made my point. Sorry 'bout that.
How about a deep interest in foreign affairs, then? Is that a big qualification?
If you think so, then how could someone else best assess the level of that interest? If not by asking a few questions about the identities of the key players, then what?
Bush showed not only a lack of knowledge about the subject, which is fixable, but a lack of interest, which is not. Yet it’s still, inescapably a central part of the job he was applying for.
(The reporter was Dan Rea of Boston’s WBZ-TV, ftr, not Dan Rather)
Thing is, Burma is not a trouble spot. They don’t threaten us; they don’t threaten our allies. The junta (which, by the way, renamed the country for political reasons, and I would expect that it will be renamed again whenever the junta is gone) contains their trouble within the country. While I would expect someone running for president to have an idea about Burma - oppressive regime, undemocratic, opposition leader under house arrest for decades, etc. - knowing the name of the leader of the junta is not really relevant.
I’m idly curious. What was the response to, “Can you?”
You know what, I hate Bush as much as anyone but I think you should be pitting the electorate for being a bunch of ignorant, arrogant, uneducated, hate-filled, xenophobic morons and electing him twice.
Well, then at least Starving Artist will get to jerk off all over the SDMB as it declares that the Dubya Admin kept trying to fight the deficit till the bitter end.
He could, but you’re forgetting that the likes of Malnourished Pooflinger would consider everything in your list a compliment.
-Joe
Not particularly, in my opinion. Far more desirable is the ability to select conpetent advisors, get up to speed quickly on trouble spots, understand them and their concomitant complications, and then take the appropriate action/inaction as the situation dictates.
Wrong yet again. Not only did Rather say it, but I was turned in at the time and saw him do it myself. It transpired thusly:
*During the presidency of Richard Nixon, critics accused Rather of biased coverage. At a Houston news conference in March 1974, Nixon fielded a question from Rather, still CBS’s White House correspondent, who said, “Thank you, Mr. President. Dan Rather, of CBS News. Mr. President… Mr. President…” The room filled with jeers and applause, prompting Nixon to joke, “Are you running for something?” Rather replied “No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?”[9]. *
Rather has been famous as a result of this for decades. I’m surprised you didn’t know it.
I think Nixon turned and muttered it under his breath to an aide, and was something along the line of: “I want that motherfucker audited!”.
Once.
Huh?
There is a faction of people who believe that the Supreme Court essentially gave the 2000 election to Bush when they kiboshed the Florida recounts. Some believe those recounts would have given Al Gore the necessary votes to carry the state and be Prez.
I have nothing in particular to add except a snarled “fuck you” to the creeps who went around saying “you leftists who hate the US will be on the wrong side of history when there’s a democratic government in Iraq and pink fluffy unicorn bunnies are grazing on the banks of the Tigris.”
So they were right about the pink fluffy unicorn bunnies. Big deal.
Oh ok. Sure. But even if that were the case, there’s stil a massive number of people who did vote for him that year even if it was just short of the majority.
And why not pit the group of voters who still think “4 more years!” and give him an approval rating of 23%. I mean, that’s almost 1 in 4 people who actually think Bush is doing a great job… 1 in 4!!
Well, for one thing an approval rating of 23% doesn’t mean 23% think he’s doing a “great” job - just that overall they approve of the way he’s performing in office.
And in my estimation there is a significant percentage within the other 77% who, while they may disapprove of his performance overall, still think he’s a good man doing what he (and they) may think is right, but not necessarily doing a good job of it.
Further (and any readers with a heart condition may want to take their medication before reading further :D), it also very likely includes a significant number of people who feel he hasn’t done a strong enough or effective enough job of being a Republican president, and/or who feel that if he’d done a better job Obama would not have been elected President.
This is my first experience of the word “estimation” being used to mean “wildest dreams” or “deranged fantasies”.
Too bad Bush had no good qualities. Thanks asshat for the ruined economy, and the war crimes. Your ilk are the cancer in America. Liberals might be rude, but conservatives send Americans to poverty. Asshole you’re worse then Osama. He couldn’t do the kind of damage your kind did.
Youre nothing but an insane old fool and everyone here knows it. Go get medicated.
Not that old. I’m only somewhat older than Equipoise, I’m younger than Zoe, and I don’t hear anyone calling them old. (It’s obvious when comes to such as you that “old” is merely a function of politics, anyway.)
And besides, haven’t you heard: 60 is the new 40!
So deal with it! With luck I’ll be putting the lie to idiotic bullshit like “conservatives send Americans to poverty” :rolleyes: for many, many more years yet.
If you truly believe conservatives send Americans to poverty, perhaps you can explain why roughly 50% of Americans vote for them; why the percentage actually in poverty is so relatively small; why even those Americans in poverty still have bigger and better houses, better cars (or cars at all, for that matter), and more material possessions and luxuries than most people in other parts of the world; etc., etc., etc.
And it it isn’t that liberals are rude (plus there’s far more to the issue than mere rudeness). It’s that liberals have created a country where everybody is! (Which reminds me; I’ve gotta get back to that Pit thread soon. My apologies to those still waiting for answers.)
Yeah, that would have been nice, too. Instead, he appointed unqualified cronies, unqualified friends of cronies, obscenely rich people living in a PNAC fantasy, and also people who might have been competent but who were ideologically opposed to the very posts to which they were appointed.
Hacks, crooks, religious fanatics, would-be-aristocrats, crypto-fascists, and honest-to-God imperialist warmongers (lot of overlap among those groups), all doing a crappy job of implementing poorly-thought-out decisions based on horribly bad policies.
All of which seems to be your cup of tea.
Only Bush didn’t do that, did he? He did the exact opposite of that. Like the retarded child of privilege he is. Third series of Bush Bashing threads— Can he pick them or what?
Wow, doing that search showed me just how angry Bush as made me over the last 8 years. What a fuck up. I will be so glad to see the back of him.
Yep. My only question is how he managed to assemble such an amazingly diverse and thoroughly evil conglomeration of lackeys and supporters in the first place, let alone so quickly. Doesn’t that speak volumes for his ability and organizational talent?
Now seriously, do you have any idea how ridiculous all that sounds? (After reading this board for awhile, it has become obvious to me in ways I never knew before how something as atrocious and murderous as the French Revolution could take place.)
In short, get a grip!
Regardless of whether he did or didn’t (and I think you’ll agree that we are likely not on the same page there), that isn’t the point. The point is what qualities are to be expected of presidential candidates in advance of their election to office, not what Bush may or may not have done afterward.
My contention is that foreign policy experience, or even a particularly strong interest in foreign affairs is not necessarily a requirement for someone seeking the presidency. Of all the presidents in my lifetime, only Nixon in my opinion was a true foreign policy wonk, and what did that profit him among the country’s liberals? (GHWB was probably the next most experienced president in terms of foreign affairs and what did it profit him among the country’s liberals, either?)
And then we had Reagan, a former actor, SAG president and governor of California, and he inspires the entire country with his optimism and can-do attitude, projects true but lovable and dignified presidential gravitas, and essentially brings Russia to heel.
So, foreign affairs interest and/or experience is not a reliable predictor of performance in office.
And then there is the question of what would be accomplished by it even if the candidate had the interest or desire. Have you had first hand knowledge of an event that was reported in the news? Hell, half the time they can’t even get dates, names or addresses right. No one, and I mean no one, at the civilian/state government/lower-level-Congressional level gets sufficiently weighty or accurate information about what is really going on with regard to foreign affairs to have any realistic idea of how to proceed with regard to them.
In my opinion, judgement, discipline, executive ability, wisdom, etc. are far more important qualities to look for in a presidential candidate. A true ability to inspire is probably the most important thing in terms of a candidate’s ability to really get the people behind him and effect major change, but that is a rare quality and not really necessary in order to perform well in office. Still, in my opinion it’s probably the most important singular quality a presidential candidate can have in order to actually accomplish what he says he’ll do…or what we hope he’ll do.