The debate is this: how bad is another term for the Bush Administration likely to be?
I’m not interested in how good another term might be. I’m not interested in comparing a Kerry term. I’m not interested in one in a million scenarios but rather likely outcomes for another ride with W. Yes, Bush in a drug addled rage calling for the “football” after a night of snorting coke off some hooker’s ass and a nasty confrontation with Kim Jung Il would be a nightmare but I don’t consider that likely to occur. And no, I’m not interested in arguing over whether or not Bush has been bad. The argument is over how bad another term might be.
Because I just thought about it tonight for the first time and it seems to me that it shouldn’t be all that bad. Congressional Democrats and the media are unlikely to roll over for Bush like they did the first time around. What damage he can do to the Executive Branch has already been started if not done. ( I’m thinking mostly of the privatization of our government. ) Granted, another term would give him more time to complete his nefarious plan but that’s just a matter of degree.
Same with the Judicial Branch. Democratic opposition means no free pass on Supreme Court nominees. If the Repugs manage to keep control of the Senate they might eliminate the 3/5 cloture rule to get an anti-Roe v Wade judge on the high court but I doubt they would. They know that tradition is the only thing holding the line on cloture and if they cross that line there is no going back. They wouldn’t be able to filibuster when the Dems regain control. More ultraconservatives on the lower courts hurts too, of course, but not like another Scalia.
That leaves the damage Bush might do with ( rather than to ) the Executive Branch. While I don’t doubt he is capable of starting another useless war I don’t see it as likely. He has energized recruiting for Al-Qa’ida and since he already has the entire world hating us he can’t get much more unpopular. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure Bush would manage to get some people killed. Seeing the occupation of Iraq drag on under his incompetent hand is bound to kill a lot of folks. Some of them would even be Americans. I feel sorry for those ( as yet hypothetical ) folks. They are the ones I see paying the price for Four More Years. A terrible price to be sure. But at some point Americans, even Republicans, will ask if the price is worth it and the occupation will end. Iraq won’t become another Vietnam. Americans won’t allow it.
As a strong opponent of the 22nd Amendment I do believe that a 2 term president would be more responsible to the people if he were eligible for another term. But that doesn’t mean a president in his 2nd term is completely unresponsible. The president’s people aren’t all going to retire with him. They want to go on having a career in politics and that tends to restrain the president. Plus there is the Republican Party. Bush is their posterboy. If his numbers go south that hurts them in the Senate at least and if they lose control of some state legislatures then in the House as well. And lets not forget that there is another Bush with presidential hopes. The last thing W wants is to drag the family name through the mud. A capable, strongwilled, independent, and persistent president might consider himself free to try anything he liked in his 2nd term but I don’t believe any of those descriptions fits our current misleader.
Lets see, in his first administration, with a mind on getting re-eleceted and NOT pissing people off, he managed to get the country into an illegal war by lying to the people bold faced, and proposed a constitutional ammendment restricting the rights of a minority group. Remember, trying to NOT piss people off.
Really, I don’t know how he could follow up that act, other than digging up Mother Teresa an- well, lets not finish that thought. shudder
Can we expect more “throw money at churches”? Can we expect more religion in government? Another constitutional ammendment? More tax cuts for the rich? Somehow making Iraq WORSE? Provide material for another Moore movie? Maybe track down Osama’s mother and piss in her mouth on TV? No, wait, he likes the bin Ladens, I forgot.
Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s hit bottom already, and it can’t get worse. I’m afraid that it can and will, though.
There was a young lady friend of mine back in 2000 from Arkansas. One of Bush’s companies bought up all the housing and kicked her family out (they were rather poor), so she had something personal against him. She warned everyone about how evil he is. We used to write “Fuck Bush” in Russian everywhere. We stayed up all night during the election bruhaha, first celebrating, then crying. But still, I could have never predicted how abysmally low the Bush Administration has fallen. Some things are mainstream today that I never thought would get beyond the fringes - and with nothing left to lose, I’m terrified what may come.
Funny, that’s what you say, but then it seems to me that you make the opposite case:
Why? What’s gonna make the media grow a pair of balls all of a sudden?
Why are you assuming the Democrats will regain control? They might oppose Bush’s nominations, but he’s sure as hell not going to appoint liberal judges. He will continue to stack the courts and get closer and closer to his goal of a pro-Christian, anti-abortion, anti-gay judiciary.
Why not? You think he’s gonna show any more self-restraint when he’s not worried about re-election? Did you think it was likely before he started the current war?
Everyone already hates us, so we might as well keep doing what we’re doing? I don’t buy that at all. As far as we’ve come, there’s definitely room for things to get worse. Isn’t it time to start undoing the damage?
You’ve really made my point for me already. Bush will continue to stack the courts, keep us in the Iraq quagmire, possibly get us in more quagmires, and do nothing to get us out of the foreign-relations pickle we’re in.
See, you’re way more optimistic than I am. I would have said that at some point, Americans would get tired of being lied to, but it’s just not happening. What makes you think it’s going to happen all of a sudden in Bush’s second term?
Hrmph! You’re gonna rely on Bush’s self-restraint? Sorry, can’t go along with that.
There was a speech by some smart guy that was getting press recently. Basically he said that the world is waiting. Right now the Euro countries don’t blame the US for Bush. They know that he barely won in 2000, so they blame GWB for his insanity and not us.
But what will happen if Bush wins the election for real this time? We will have endorsed his policies and attitudes. That will be disaster for America.
For the first time in my life, I have encountered animosity on the part of others toward my nationality. I met an Indian guy on the train, and when I told him I was from the US, you could see a sad, scared change in his facial expression.
We ARE becoming the bad guys because of this petty tyrant chimp, but the damage is not quite yet undoable. After another 4 years, however, I cringe to think what America’s reputation and reality could be.
Don’t sound too smart to me - Euro countries don’t blame you for Bush, well this Euro-trash do blame you for Bush. You going to vote according to what some people in other countries think is right? Well that’s mighty nice of you and all, personally I don’t give a damn about what the US thinks when I vote, and voting somebody new into the white house isn’t going to make a whit of difference re. anti-Americanism and how some idiotic people will hate you for no other reason than being American. So some stupid Indian you met on a train hates you or is scared of you, without knowing anything else about you, for being from America. So what else is new? Anti-Americanism isn’t something new, or brought on by Bush. This season everybody is screaming at Bush or Cheney or oil barons or whatever, next season it’s gonna be somebody else (ketchup barons). My hippy parents dragged me to America-go-home demonstrations all through the 70’s. Hate the big guy. It’s just human nature. Got nothing to do with Bush, and not going to go anywhere just because you vote in Kerry.
One of the things that scares me about four more years is how Bush seems bent on destroying the civil service. There were good rules about how one got a civil service job, mostly designed to avoid patronage, and that was just thrown out the window with homeland security. With more stuff being rammed into homeland security, I wonder what will be left of the civil service.
The same goes to the way contracts are awarded. I used to worry about “lowest bidder”=crappy stuff, but now with no competition, what quality assurance do we have at all? The former system was not ideal, but what replaced it is worse.
Truly scary is what would happen if another country gets up his nose, or worse, if some country chose to make real aggressive moves against the US. Our military is stretched thin already. We are not without defenses, but a lot of that is stuff I would rather not ever be used.
I am a Bush supporter and will chime in here about the worst case seneraro.
By standing up to terrorism and oppressive dictatorships that support terrorrisom, the terrorists will become be emboldened and attach harder, smarter. Possible leading to a nuke or 4 being set off.
I do find this highly unlikely however since history has shown that when you stand up to evil w/ overwhelming force evil will colapse (cold war is one exmple).
Also I don’t think the worst case is really worse then the alternative, to allow terrorism to continue to grow in other countries to the point down the road that, again we are attacked, but this time by terrorists who are better orgnized and equipted.
It’s like risking a small to medium size war in the next 4 years to stop a world war 3.
as a trained economist and someone that worked in the financial markets for 8years, I am very worried about another 4 years of Bush on the economy. Bush is not a tax-and-spend democrat, nor is he a fiscally responsible and conservative republican. Bush is a cut-tax-and-spend republican.
If bush gets re-elected I will try to vote ahead of the markets and move every penny I have out from USD linked linked asset I can.
Weirdly enough an economist working for an important international organization (a Vietnamiense) told me exactly the same : that he’s going to sell any asset libelled in US dollars he owns if Bush is reelected. So you could not be ahead of the markets, assuming there are enough people like the both of you…
To you, I say Bullshit. Folks I know all over the world are watching the upcoming election. They hate Bush, they dislike American, but they don’t hate Americans. Yet.
If Bush wins this next election (ie, doesn’t steal it), with Americans having been exposed to what he is truly capable of, I think you’ll find world attitudes toward Americans are very different than if Bush loses decisively.
So basically you’re saying vote Bush or we’ll hate you?
Europe is more left leaning (well the whole world is) than America. Many Europeans like Democrat presidents because they perceive them as more leftist (even though Kerry would still be extreme right wing in most European countries). Clinton was often described as a European president. Is America more disliked and hated today than under Reagan? I doubt it. In any case this isn’t a popularity contest. I don’t see why Americans should be moved by whatever people around the globe may or may not think of them. They should vote for what their conscience tells them and what they personally think is correct and right. Do US popular sentiments of your politicians have a prominent position in the mind of Canadians when they vote? Personally I’m fairly pissed off at the result of your last election. Perhaps I should start hating you.
I’m afraid this is simply an argument from ignorance.
You appear to be suggesting that the way to combat terrorism is to ‘stand up to it’ (as opposed to what, taking it lying down?) and to wage war on oppressive dictatorships that support it.
You also appear to be concerned that if you refrain from this course then terrorism will be fostered in other unspecified countries, resulting in larger scale, organised attacks and ultimately world war.
(You also seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that the cold war was won through the use of overwhelming force.)
I take issue with this and would happily debate it with you but I must first ask the question: do you have any idea what you are talking about?
Well you know that if Bush is barely reelected by the electoral votes of a single state, he and the Republicans will trumpet how his reelection shows that America is 100% in favor of all his policies. :rolleyes:
How bad could four more years be? Well avoiding "I’m not interested in one in a million scenarios ", lets talk about one in 20 scenerios. (one in ten? one in five?)
Iran defies the UN on nuclear inspections.
BushCo. proclaims that Iran’s nuclear program is an “imminent danger” to the US, and coughs up some intelligence reports that “prove” it.
The USAF bombs some sites in Iran; the reformist movement in Iran is discredited, the mullahs delcare Jihad, and the entire nation of Iran is mobilized on a war footing.
Iran opens it’s borders to Iraqi resistance fighters and Pakistani Islamic militants, and those groups start operating out of camps in Iran.
After a speech denouncing Iran as a “rogue” nation, Bush authorizes US forces in Iraq to pursue Iraqi insurgents across the Iranian border.
A firefight breaks out between US and Iranian army units.
A general state of armed conflict breaks out on the Iraq/Iran border: the US claims that Iran is trying to overthrow the fledgling Iraqi government; Iran claims it’s defending it’s border.
In the “state of emergency”, the draft is reinstated. Suddenly it’s 1972 all over again, with hundreds of thousands marching in the streets chanting “Hell No, We Won’t Go!”.
USAF opens an air campaign against Iran.
A US force invades Iran and initially does very well; but it’s badly overstretched and suffers heavy casualties when Iran organizes a counter-attack.
At this point some what-ifs occur. One is whether Iran has actually been able to build a nuke yet. If it has, it uses it- and then the shiite REALLY hits the fan. If Iran uses a nuke against US forces in Iraq, then the use of tactical nukes is authorized: if they decide to target the US homeland, then we see something close to martial law in the US.
Another is whether non-Iran events happen concurrently: North Korea acts up, or China decides to suddenly act against Taiwan.
A third is whether the regimes in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are imperiled by the now virtually universal anti-US sentiment. If we suddenly have two vital “allies” turn against us, or if we have to prop up their governments against rebellion, then our problems triple.
A fourth what-if is just how pissed off at us the rest of the world becomes. Not just "votes of condemnation in the UN’ pissed off but sanctions, breaking off diplomatic relations, NATO broken up, and China or Russia deciding to take action on their borders.
Most of us non-Americans are pretty discerning. We understand the difference between a president, an administration and a nation of people. We also understand how unreliable stereotypes are and I hope that you don’t encounter too many people who judge you immediately as an individual based on your nationality.
Personally, while I am disappointed that as a nation you do not always live up to the responsibilities that should be expected of the single richest, most powerful nation on earth, I also take some solace in the fact that of all the great superpowers that have existed, yours will most certainly be viewed as the most benign. At least so far.
It seems that American foreign policy has taken a worrisome, aggressive turn. To a certain extent that is excusable, given the home-turf terrorist acts that rocked your sense of security. However, there is also a feeling that those events are often resorted to as justification for pursuing other more or less obvious, selfish objectives. The current administration definitely come across as bullying, bribing and punishing other nations, even allies, on what borders on diplomatic thuggery, not to mention a rather overeager use of military force.
I really don’t believe that this is representative of the majority of American people. Sure you can be a bit gung-ho at times but you’re actually very friendly and rather likeable. I hope that come November you choose to replace this lot and put your great country’s reputation in a safer pair of hands.
(adding the votes up properly might be a good start! ;-))
The judges Bush appoints will be on the bench FOR LIFE, handing down decisions that steadly constrict the Bill of Rights. And remember that the President appoints judges not just to the Supreme Court but at the trial and appellate levels in federal courts all across the US.
The next term can affect us for a lifetime through its lasting impact on the judicial branch. Please bear this in mind.
Basically, I am saying that voting Bush back in will greatly affect many people’s perception of Americans. If you meet an American on the streets of Morocco, it would be fair to say that there is a better than average chance that they support policies that you find unconscionable.
I would say yes it is. Absolutely. But I’m talking about Americans, not America.
I agree that you should always vote you conscience. That is the right way to vote. But I would say that if most of the world is out there protesting your choice of president, perhaps you should take some time to try to understand why, rather than dismiss them as a bunch of ignorant jealous busy bodies. (I am not saying this is your opinion, Rune, just that I have seen it expressed often enough.
Feel free to. But let’s be clear. I am not advocating hating Americans. Just that the outcome of this election will reflect the average American’s support for these policies.
You realize that midway through his 2nd term he will have this amendment repealed, right? All he’d need to do thenceforth is perfect the software that got him his second term and then he & his administration need not worry about a thing. And he will rule the world! MMMMuuuaaahahahahaha! And Jeb need not worry about the troubles the office of POTUS, he will be a member of the rOIL family–and isn’t that really good enough? The POTUS is just a figurehead for the real guy in charge. That’s right. Gerald Ford has been running things since 1973.