It’ll be ugly around here whether Bush or Kerry wins.
This is not ugly.
This beautiful.
The electorate should always go after politicians “tooth and nail.”
I may be misunderstanding something, but are you saying that
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Democrats are less likely to be hypocrites, or
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Democrats care more about being perceived as hypocrites?
Neither really,
I’m saying that if they don’t want to be percieved as such then they have to treat Kerry’s mistakes in the same manner they treated Bush’s.
True enough. But, who knows, maybe President Kerry won’t make any mistakes! 
After all, President Bush hasn’t! Just ask him!
The premise here is that no one is ever willing to criticize candidates from their own party. This is ridiculous. Bush supporters have been weirdly defensive about their man, but that doesn’t mean that Democrats are going to pick up this habit. If you’ll think back a few years, there was all sorts of criticism of Clinton from Democrats, both in government and on this board, and certainly in public life and above all in the media. 56% of all newspapers endorsed Bush for president in 2000, even!
But many of those of us who voted for Clinton once or twice (I voted for him twice, and then for Al Gore) kept criticizing Clinton throughout his presidency. Personally, I was interested in a real debate about what Clinton was doing, policy-wise, but all anyone seemed to want to do was screech, “He’s a liberal!” and “He got a blow job!” Feh. Who cares? And he was no liberal. His endorsement of NAFTA always bothered me, and I’m still critical of that. He also signed the offensive and unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act. On the whole, I do think Clinton did a decent job, but his policies skewed too conservative. Selling us out to NAFTA was a terrible move on his part, but he did turn the deficit around, ramped up the pursuit of terrorist groups (which all his predecessors had ignored,) bailed out Mexico’s economy, made an acceptable appointment to the Supreme Court, and maintained a fair tax code that didn’t require the states to go into debt and cut services. So Clinton did good, in a lot of ways. NAFTA is a big criticism, and I think history will judge him harshly for it. I think it’s a big enough issue that he’ll be remembered as a mixed bag.
See, where the boring, wonky policy stuff is concerned, that’s where I’m interested. I don’t care that he lied about a blow job; what does that have to do with government? Clinton was okay, for a conservative, and I criticized him where it was necessary. I’ve been harsher to Bush because I find almost everything he’s done completely appalling, and he doesn’t seem to give a damn about what anyone else thinks. Should Kerry get elected, I’ll fault him where I feel it’s necessary, but I’ve never been one to discuss a failed president before that president’s Inauguration Day, much less before his Election Day. (I remember talk of Clinton’s failure and impeachment back in the autumn of 1992, well before Election Day. That does not speak well for Clinton’s detractors. I never liked Bush Junior, but I’ve never even thought about impeachment of him until it was shown that he lied about why he invaded Iraq.)
I think it all comes down to a major difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans believe that only Republicans are qualified to govern; Democrats believe that no one is.
Oh, I dunno. Bush has admitted that he’s consistently assumed that his policies would be less successful than they actually were! So, um, that’s sort of like an admission of error, or something.
So, do you perceive Republicans as hypocrites for not treating Bush’s mistakes the same way they treated Clinton’s, or do you see something special about this particular election?
UncS: The Kerry supporters around here will be forced to criticise him for any and all mistakes he makes, as they did Bush. Or they will be called hypocrites.
Since I’ve heard from many a poster that he is merely the lessor of two evils he should be attacked in a regular manner on these boards, as Bush is.
Hear, hear! In fact, I’ve been provisionally drafting a Pit OP, to be posted if Kerry wins, entitled “No Gloating. No Complacency. No Honeymoon.”, exhorting my fellow SDMB liberals to let go immediately of all their grievances about the Bush administration/campaign and jump with both feet into focusing on the current problems and how they ought to be fixed. That includes being extremely aware and critical about Kerry’s performance, from day one. I agree that he’d be inheriting some nasty problems, but he knew what he was in for when he applied for the job, and if he gets it then I, for one, want it to come with very high expectations and lots of pressure.*
Even if Kerry wins, no doubt many people will still criticize many of Bush’s policies from time to time, just as many people (including me) have sometimes criticized Clinton’s policies during his successor’s administration. But IMHO the general attitude should be all about where we go from here. I really hope I get to use that post.
*Yes, I know that the expectations of the folks here on the SDMB don’t really have any detectable direct effect on the President. But I do think that the tone and content of discussions among even a few dozen or hundred smart, politically engaged people can generate a small but nonzero impact on the broader public perception of the issues.
I was referring to the members of this board, not the general public. I am not familiar with any discussions before roughly two years ago on these boards. I think the vast majority of us (conservatives) here have accepted the Iraq mistakes, acknowlidged them and are ready to move on in the best manner that we can.
Since many of his social/fiscal policies are only mistakes in the ‘partison’ way in which they are percieved, what you may consider a mistake I may consider a success. So, I’ll assume for the sake of discussion that you are referring to the mistakes made in Iraq. And yes, we should also consider the manner in which the mistakes were made, how they were realised, and what actions were taken to remedy them.
As far as Clinton goes, I think a lot of his improprieties were calculated and pre-meditated. I found the way he handled them to be immoral.
I guess I just couldn’t respect the man because of the things he did within his social circles. Not a big deal to some but to they are to me.
Bush on the other hand seems to have a more business attitude towards the Presidency. More structured, things are more black and white with him. I think at the time he honestly thought his checklist of ‘things that need to be true’ for going to war in Iraq were actually true. Don’t laugh, that’s my view, I could be wrong. I think the way he is handling the mistakes and lies that have been uncovered is the proper way to deal with them now, at least until we’re in the clear. I have no problems with the way he treats his wife, his family and his fellow employees. I don’t agree with many of his fiscal decisions, but I also think it’s too early to tell with some of them. He just doesn’t strike me as being shady or underhanded as Clinton did. Now, if it turns out that he knew from the get-go that Saddam was not holding any cards then I will view him differently. I will be pissed.
He let gays serve openly in the military? I must have missed that.
If he makes mistakes, he’ll get criticized. What exactly is the problem with that? You want we should worship the president?
Kerry’s a landlord? 
Doing worse than Bush would be quite a challenge.
Geez - he hasn’t even won the election yet, and you’re already slamming him. Why don’t you give the guy the benefit of the doubt? At least wait 'til he screws up to start bashing him.
I think you’ve not read the entire thread.
Too late, check post #9
Probably, but that isn’t any of my points.
I’ve not slammed him once, this thread is about US, not them.
It doesn’t even matter if President Kerry makes a mistake or not – anything he does is going to get pounced on by the right-wing spin machine, with a fervor and zeal that will make the Clinton years seem like a love-fest by comparison.
If President Kerry were to announce that he had negotiated a worldwide peace initiative and unilateral disarmament treaty, Fox News’ leading headline would be, “**Kerry Surrenders US Nukes to Communists”…
…and three minutes later, some SDMB resident conservative will start a thread entitled, “Kerry weakens nation, proves Bush was right.”
The sentence to which I responded is in your original post. IF there is something later in the thread that mitigates it (which I haven’t seen), pray tell how you were able to see into the future when you wrote the OP?
Obviously. It was my response to your sentence which said Kerry is “playing Monday morning quarterback”, and “could screw things up worse”. So we’ve established that my response is not your point. That was useful. :rolleyes:
Sorry, don’t know what you mean by “us” and “them”.
I wasn’t around this particular board when Clinton was in office, but I assume the board seemed more conservative then. Whoever is in power gets criticized, no matter whether he is on the left, right, or in the middle. This is the nature of the beast, particularly on internet message boards. If Kerry wins, it will seem like the board has swung to the right due to criticism from all sides, not just the right. If Bush wins, the board will stay as it is or swing to the left even more.
It is human nature to complain about those in power. Though Kerry or Bush could reduce the complaining and criticism by doing a better job than Bush is doing right now, it will still be here, no matter which one is elected. The notion that liberals won’t complain about Kerry is pretty silly to me, particularly since we’ve already seen liberals complaining about him on this board. It would be just as silly to say that conservatives don’t complain about Bush. Some don’t, but many have and probably will continue to complain about him, his policies, or his actions.
Leaving out the specifics/details and referring back to the thread title -
On a scale of ugliness, IMHO the ugliness now is around 10. How much uglier could it get?
Most of it is directed at Bush and his team (full disclosure, I’m a proud Bush hater), but there is sufficient commentary on Kerry to merit mention.
But whichever side you are on aside, really now, how much uglier could it get?
I’m talking about the reaction of the board (US) if Kerry gets elected, not the press or the general public.
You said: If he makes mistakes, he’ll get criticized. What exactly is the problem with that? You want we should worship the president?
I expect him to get criticised. By YOU, no less. That is the subject of the thread in a nutshell. I’m hoping your principles rise above your partisonship.
OK, now try to relate to the topic and the ideas I’ve expressed (in several posts)rather than nitpick one line at a time, …please.
theR, thankyou. That is my point exactly (similar to what I said in post 14). (See blowero, others have grasped)
I dunno, but bookmark your post and check back in a year from now. I suspect it could get uglier around here.
Well, so far I’ve not seen one Kerry supporter say they won’t criticize him if they disagree with him. And I fully expect Kerry to admit mistakes, if and when he makes them. And he will, because being a president means making decisions on incomplete information. Being a good president means always checking to see if you made the right one, and correcting it if it turns out you haven’t.
Which is why Bush is the worst president in modern history. He ignores results and facts, and he lets his ideology drive his policy exclusive of whether it works. Many right wing dopers (but not all) follow right along, and claim the decision was right even if it was based on incorrect information and has had disastrous consequences. If George Bush were a programmer, every incorrect output would be considered a feature, and he’d ask for a raise for getting his code right the first time.
This has nothing to do with being a Republican. Nixon changed direction when he needed to, which is why he was a much better president than Bush.
George W. Bush: The President Qualye we never had.