Of course he walks on water! He can’t swim!
So Sam comes along to almost make it look like Eluc had a point.
No, its reasonable although not fully relevant. Bush ibn Bush is not a great man, yet. He might be, but hereto he’s been medium.
Yeah, two. So, what do I prove by that? Nada. I’ve been inside the “great” institutions, it’s nice and helps with the job search but it ain’t a mark of greatness.
Near-sighted and never in the military, but flying a National Guard fighter jet in non-combat situations is not “greatness.” It suggests he’s a competant pilot, yes, not that he’s “great.”
Appartenly poorly and didn’t get their on his own sweat and blood. I’ve been responsible for projects in the Middle East and entrusted with making sure things worked right in whatever circumstances, and no help from daddy or what not.
Again, in his circumstances this does not make him great. It may suggest that he is far more competant than his bashers want to admit but not an argument for greatness.
Warren Buffet, there’s an argument for greatness in business terms, for example. Even our MS boy.
Sigh, well if one abstracts away from a whole raft of things, such as the first president to lose the popular vote in a century or more, then… no this still is not greatness.
Might get there still, but there’s no need to make the argument he is already “great” anymore than pretending he gives good speeches.
No, something reasonable like replace Ashcroft, continue a fairly decent prosecution of a complex conflict and do a beter job of reigning in the Delays of Congress to the benefit of republican statesmen & women. Managing to keep together international consensus in the next two years and getting a well-balanced fiscal stimulus bill through without it being overloaded with pork or ideologically driven nonesense would get us up towards greatness as opposed to being merely fairly competant. Not that this is a bad standard.
Bah. I don’t any argument would wash for you Sam.
After being refused entrance to U of Texas law school. Pity, really, he’s a natural born Aggie, should have tried there first.
proving excellent hand-eye coordination and reflexes. Granted. Probably kills on Nintendo.
into bankruptcy
Ever been to Texas, Sam? You got any idea how tough it is to be a liberal in Texas? The power and money centers there are just to the right of Kublai Khan! The miracle is that Ann Richards was elected, not that she was defeated. She just barely beat one of the biggest boneheads in Texas political history, and, thats saying something!
By minus half a million votes. An historic acheivment, to be sure.
- Fire Dick Cheney
- Replace him with Colin Powell.
- Resign
Okay, so this boils down to, “I don’t like him, so he can’t do anything that I’ll accept as an achievement, unless he takes action in government that I agree with.”
The fact of the matter is that it is not easy to become the governor of any state, regardless of how much money you have. People have tried to buy offices before and failed. Ask Steve Forbes. Or Ross Perot. Or Rockefeller. And by the time you get to high office, most of your competitors have big bankrolls too.
Sure, it’s tough to be a Democrat in Texas, but Ann Richards WAS, and she was very popular. Bush was a huge underdog in that race, and came out on top.
And don’t forget, before he gets to that position he has to defeat other members of his party along the way, just as he did in the Presidential election. And to win re-election you have to do something right in the eyes of the voter. Who your daddy is might get you a key to the old boy’s club, but once you’re inside, you’re going to have to answer to the voters.
Collounsbury: The comparison to yourself means nothing, unless you think you haven’t achieved anything in your life. By the accounts you’ve described, you certainly have. You have my admiration for the things you’ve done, even if we don’t agree on a lot of issues.
And sure, none of the things Bush has done can be taken by themselves to be indicative of ‘greatness’, but when you look at the whole package I think even a rabid partisan should be able to accept that the man has a history of accomplishment.
My take on Bush: He’s slightly above average in intellect, and has a gift for making powerful friends. He was a bit of a wild youth, spent some time carousing and drinking (but not enough to seriously screw up his life - he did manage to get a couple of degrees while doing that). At some point, he had a change of heart and straightened his life out. Probably some personal crisis like a threat to his marriage or something caused him to change his ways.
He’s probably a bit of a slacker at heart, but he has channeled that into an instinct for surrounding himself with hard-working people and giving them lattitude to get the job done. That serves a president well. Clinton, on the other hand, was apparently a bit of a workaholic, spending plenty of late nights in the Oval Office studying and planning. But he surrounded himself with lightweights who weren’t really up to the job. Dee Dee Myers? Madeliene Albright? Thomas McLarty? Donna Shalala? George Stephanopoulis? (who I like, and who I think is brilliant, but he was awfully inexperienced for the position he was put in at the time, and it showed)…
They are different men, and each one had strengths. But the bottom line is that Bush has climbed the political ladder all the way to the Presidency, something only 42 other humans have ever managed. That IS an accomplishment, and a big one.
I’m just thinking about the last few Presidents, and which ones could rightly have been said to have accomplished more before becoming President than Bush has. Certainly his dad. Clinton? Nah. Aside from his Rhodes scholarship, he really hadn’t achieved much if we are going to discount being governor. Reagan? Didn’t have as much education, was president of SAG, and a two-term governor of a large state. Call that one a draw. Carter? Nah. Undergrad degree, governor of Georgia. Nixon? Whoo boy, before becoming president he had a history of losing elections and making whiny, self-serving statements about it. Ford? LBJ? Kennedy?
I think you have to go back to Eisenhower before you can point to a president who had achieved anything remotely resembling ‘greatness’ before actually becoming president.
Eh, luck. Accidentally in the right place at the right time now and again. The comparision with myself was simply to say that the facts cited don’t mean greatness. By any stretch of the imagination. Some basic competance, sure. I’ll even accept the charge (of basic competance) in re myself. Greatness, no.
As you know, I’m not holding any truck with the Bush ibn Bush is a fuckup line. Clearly it doesn’t hold. He’s woefully unprepared in some areas, but no one can be everything.
Now, Sam, you’re not saying I’m a partisan are you?
He’s got a history of accomplishment but enough of that is tied to privilege to discount it to a degree. On the other hand a total rich-boy slacker might not have gotten so far.
Oh, average. Average.
I have no arguments or interest in his personal life. That some of his supporters are too willing to cut slack for their guy and not keep the standard level for the opponent is no surprise. It does appear to me that the “Religious Right” has made hypocrisy in this area something of a specialty but that doesn’t discredit the right per se.
Myers. Eh, dunno. Albright? Come on now, I hate her but she’s not a lightweight. I think she was wrongheaded but not a lightweight. Much like my opinion of Rice, who is clearly smart but I think she’s trapped, like Albright in a world that no longer exists. Shalala? Why would you say she was a lightweight? I can’t think of anything justifying that charge. George. Now there I agree.
Fine, but stop making the over-the-top claims on Bush. It’s both unnecessary and unsupportable. Scylla’s estimation was much more fair. Give him time. He might live up to greatness or he might not. Too early to tell.
More strawberries, Lt. Keefer?
No, thanks, but please stop rattling your balls like that, it upsets the crew. Sir.
Well, I let myself get a bit trapped there by quoting the line that said Bush hadn’t achieved ‘greatness’. Maybe not, but the main thrust of this thread was not that Bush hadn’t achieved greatness, but that he had achieved nothing before becoming president. Failed businessman, got through College on Daddy’s name, election bought for him, that kind of stuff. Bush portrayed as a goofball who got lucky, or who is a doofus figurehead controlled by shadowy interests in the background. My main argument is against that characterization. No one gets to the pinnacle of American Politics without having some qualities that set him above the pack in some way, no matter how much money he has.
He is above average in intellect. Not by much - his SAT scores indicate an IQ of around 120 or so, which would probably put him slightly below average for the average Harvard or Yale man, and probably about average for the Straight Dope Message Board. Clinton’s got him beat in the brains department by at least 20 points.
Sure they do. All the time.
rjung, can you provide me a cite wherein George W. Bush, or his campaign people, ever once described himself as a “paragon of virtue?” Thanks.
Then, for followup, can you please describe how the lip-baiting, pain-feeling, rags-to-riches Man From Hope was not attempting to portray himself as virtuous and saintly? Thanks again.
???
I don’t agree at all.
Remember, he said “the pinnacle” – that is, the Presidency. Are you saying that “all the time” people achieve the Presidency while having no qualities at all (excepting money) that “set them above the pack”?
By extension, do the American people consistently elect the wrong candidate for President? A bunch of “middle-of-the-pack” types? Time and time again? “All the time,” as you put it? Forget this past election, I mean beforehand … 1996, 1992, 1988, etc. You could perhaps argue that intelligently, but you’ve put nothing forward, moon but your personal dogma. As have many others here.
Look, from what I’m reading, nearly everyone has dogmatic beliefs about the quality or legitimacy of any given President. Focus on whatever bolsters your opinion and you can see whatever you want to see in George W. Bush. This thread really resembles a religious debate to me.
I’d like a cite of W or his aides skirting the cocaine question. Has the stock reply been anything other than “no”?
Well, I’m sure they said more than “no”, but I would like to evaluate for myself whether or not W or aides “skirted” anything. Maybe I’d read it as a good, legit answer.
How come the only place I ever hear about Bush & his alleged cocaine use is on the SMDB? Where are you guys getting hard evidence from? Hell, I’ll settle for circumstantial evidence, even. Sounds like Bush’ alleged past cocaine use could have been a press bonanza — and the press could have dug far enough into Bush’s past to have proven cocaine use conclusively … couldn’t they have? How well could it have been hidden? Of course, if it all was only hearsay, and there was no evidence, then that’s a horse of another color.
I would have thought his repeated vow to “restore honor and dignity to the White House” during the 2000 campaign was sufficiently obvious, myself.
A quick Google search turns up:
Bush’s Cocaine Question and the Drug War:
“Bush started by digging an impenetrable Maginot Line in front of rumors about his drug use. But it didn’t take too much press persistence before he sounded retreat faster than Corporal Agarn on ``F-Troop,’’ lobbing lame, Clintonesque evasions as he scrambled for cover. He swore he’d not used drugs for seven, no, 15, no, make that 25 years – but wouldn’t go farther than that. (Man, that must have been some 28th birthday party!)”
Cohen, Washington Post, 8/19/99
“I happen to think Bush is a Fifth Amendment cokehead. If he had not used the stuff, he would certainly say so. After all, it’s not as if he is such a reticent fellow. He has told us much about his past – his drinking, his carousing, his lost youth, his meandering career path and how he gave up booze and found God. … He tells us, for example, that he never committed adultery but becomes indignant when the pesky press asks about cocaine use. It is an inconsistent position and leaves us all a bit in the dark: What, if anything, has Bush learned from the life he once led?”
Drug Bust, Friday, August 20, 1999:
“George W. Bush said he hasn’t used drugs since 1974. On Wednesday he vowed never to discuss his drug history. On Thursday he admitted that he had ‘made some mistakes’ and ‘learned from those’ but said he would have passed a 15-year background check in 1989.”
Bush, cocaine, and character:
“…over the last two weeks, as the allegations about George W. and cocaine use have spread, we have again missed the point. George W., by dancing around the question - addressing it sometimes, avoiding it at others - has made the issue a real one in the 2000 campaign … After a series of non-denials about using the drug, his final answer was that he may or may not have done it, but if he did, it was at least 25 years ago. … The only problem is George W., who has had little to say about issues, has been running a campaign centered on his personal integrity - the no-bull man from Texas who’ll look you straight in the eye and give you the truth, no polling needed.”
And my personal favorite, a Tom Tomorrow cartoon. 
If you ask me, the media has been giving Bush a free ride.
The whole argument about Bush’s fitness for presidency is circular: he got elected because he is extraordinary, and he is extraordinary because he got elected.
But nobody can show anything that Bush has done to warrant him gaining the highest office in the land, other than the fact that he has become president, and you can’t become president without doing something good, …
Another rjung dodge! Never answer the question if you can leap to one side!
So, in other words, he never said it, right? And it’s patently obvious that once can vow to “restore honor and dignity” without being a “paragon of virtue,” right? Jimmy Carter, who admitted to lusting in his heart after other women, did not need to be a “paragon of virtue” to “restore honor and dignity” after Nixon, right?
It is fun watching you dodge, though. Especially when you know damned well you can’t provide the cite.
Upon preview, I see you can’t actually provide any evidence for the coke use, either. Nice link to the opinion columns, though.
Rjung, those sources establish that Bush & his team were somehow squirmy on the cocaine question. I wish they contained quotes, but that’s just a nitpick.
I wish Bush had had been more open about past indiscretions, but that’s 20-20 hindsight. Bush probably wouldn’t have won his party’s nomination had he admitted to early-70’s drug use with candor.
However, I wonder a few things after reviewing your cites:
-
All your cites were from left-of-center columnists. How did conservative columnists handle this stuff? What’s the other side of the coin? What am I not hearing (it’s up to me to find out)?
-
All of your cites were from late summer 1999. Well, heck – nothing further was established since then? Was the cocaine thing resolved one way or another between September 1999 and Election Day 2000? Why didn’t these and other columnists continue to harp on the cocaine angle?
After all your cites, I still think it was OK for Bush to comment on “bringing integrity back to the White House” (wasn’t that the issue at hand?). In the heat of campaigning, hyperbole and hypocracy routinely spring up from all campaigns – and I really can’t fault any candidate for it nor hold it against them for any length of time. As a campaign promise, and looked at on its face, “bringing integrity back” could be taken as a pledge to maintain integrity WHILE IN OFFICE. After all, Bush could not roll back time and erase his past mistakes (I won’t say “youthful mistakes”). I held neither Bush nor Clinton to that standard.
But what Bush can control is the integrity of the office – as carried out by him – from January 20th 2001 going forward. So AFAIC, it was OK for him to speak of “integrity” despite his seemingly likely past drug use or other indiscretions.
I don’t worry about whether a candidate’s past actions are morally pure or not, really, as long as they are not blatantly morally bankrupt at the time of election. I like to judge my candidates on their current political views and the way I think they will guide the country. How might they decide on Issue A or Bill B? That’s why I voted for Bush and stand in Bush’s corner now.
It’s no sweat to trash any politician personally if you dig deep enough. However, if that candidate, skeletons and all, still will approve the bills you’d like approved, and will act as President in ways you would like him to act, then why not back him?
Sigh
Humor me here, pldennison – show me where I said that George W. Bush specifically used the words “paragon of virtue,” willya? Because I sure can’t recall attributing those exact quotes to his lips, but I can certainly recall attributing that specific idea to his campaign.
And I’ll spell this out without polysyllabic words so you won’t “misunderstand” my point of view, okay? George W. Bush spent a lot of time in his election saying that he was more honorable and a better person than Bill Clinton and Al Gore. And because he spent so much time saying it, I think it is fair to look at the dirty things he may have done in the past, and wonder why he has not denied them (since he is willing to deny some, but not all, charges).
It’s fun watching you split hairs, since that proves you can’t deny the fundamental point of my argument above, and need to resort to nitpicking instead.
Oh, did I use too many big words there? Sorry.
Holy great Christ in heaven, is this weaseling. On this same page of this thread you said:
OK, so here you’re asking what Bush’s excuse is for not denying allegations of drug use. This is the first time the words “paragon of virtue” are used by you, and you aren’t claiming that Bush used them. Fair enough.
Then you say:
Now here, you aren’t claiming that he used those exact words, but you are most assuredly claiming that Bush ran as a “paragon of virtue.” But he didn’t–he simply claimed to be more honest than Clinton and Gore. If I claim I am more honest than, say, Ted Bundy, am I claiming to be a “paragon of virtue?” Obviously not–I am comparing myself to another person, not claiming to be the ne plus ultra of virtue. One would have to be a drooling Clinton/Gore sycophant, believing that they were angels bound to earhtly bodies, incapable of dishonesty, to think that claiming to be more honest then they were means one is claiming to be a “paragon of virtue.”
You then go on to say:
Dingdingdingdingdingdingding!!! Here, you are, if not attributing the words to Bush directly, at least claiming that he said something close enough to them to justify your stance on his possible cocaine use. So, do you want to think about this any more, or can we fairly classify this one as a dodge on your part? I sure think we can.
We won’t even get in to the twisted irony of you simultaneously stating that someone who claims to be a paragon of virtue better be ready to defend himself to you, then defending your inability to find a cite because you never said he said that.
::::::sigh::::::: Cite, please? He said he had more integrity and was more honest. We’ve established that. Now he said he was more honorable and a better person? Show me. And don’t say you didn’t say it, because you just did.
Where is the evidence? Where? Please, I beg of you, show me the evidence. I am putting myself in a plum position here to be made a fool of, so go for it – show me.
You know, if I said something, then was asked for a cite on it, then denied I said it, then was shown that I did in fact say it, I for one would be a smidgen less smug about it.
I’ll have to simply disagree with you on this point – when Bush kept talking about “return[ing] honor and dignity to the White House,” I (and many others) interpreted it as saying that he was going to be a sterling role model for the job. Yes, it was meant as an obvious slam on Clinton and Gore, but I did not interpret it as Bush simply saying “I’m not as slimy as those guys.”
It’s not a particularly new tactic for him; he used his (allegedly superior) character in his run for the Texas governor post, too (one of the links I provided earlier has a cite, if you’d care to look).
pldennison, I suggest you make an appointment with your optimetrist as soon as possible, because you have a serious reading problem. Let me spell it out:
- “You” (as used in my quote above) is spelled Y-O-U.
- “George W. Bush” is spelled G-E-O-R-G-E-W-B-U-S-H.
For the record, I used the word “you” as a reference to the generic Man, the Everyman, the Anyone. How you misread that into a quote I “attributed” to George W. Bush is something for you and your psychiatrist to work out.
From where I’m sitting, you got hoist by your own petard, though I am sure you will some excuse to dodge this and try to blame me for your reading comprehension problems.
Normally I wouldn’t kick a person when he’s down, but you seem so eager.
Try Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President (by J.H. Hatfield) for a starting point (though the book may soon disappear, if the allegations here bear fruit).
And before you reply (as I’m sure you will) that that’s insufficient evidence, I’ll just remind you that Ken Starr got started with less. If we can spend $6 million to probe a Preisdent’s sex life, surely we could spend half of that to determine if these more serious charges are true, can’t we? After all, we’re trying to restore honor and dignity to the White House…
And here we get to the root of the problem. You aren’t concerned with what he said, you’re concerned with your interpretation of what he said, and getting pissed off because he isn’t behaving in a manner consistent with that interpretation. Does he know about this? I live 20 minutes from the White House; I’d be happy to drop of a message for you.
So, although the entire discussion – indeed, the entire thread – is about George Bush, you dragged out this hypothetical Everyman because . . . ? It had nothing to do with Bush at all? Had no connection to the statements on Bush? Right. Pull the other one, son, it has bells on it.
“If someone stands before me and says ‘I am a paragon of virtue,’ it justifies my interest in their private life. Fortunately, George W. Bush didn’t say anything like that, but I am nevertheless interested in his private life. I merely throw it out as a hypothetical.” Is that what you’re claiming you meant? Because if so, you’re getting a Pit thread today on how it’s not nice to be disingenuous or to assume that everyone else is dumber than you are.
There’s a forum for this kind of thing, and you are extremely close to finding yourself there.
You’re accusing me of dodging? You are closer to the other forum than you can imagine. I have never – never – seen you answer a question about Clinton with anything other than, “They did it too!”
You bet your ass it is. I already read all about it in Salon. “Some person whose name I won’t give who was allegedly close to Bush told some other person whose name I won’t give about blah blah blah blah blah.” That isn’t reporting; it’s muckraking. Give me some names.
{QUOTE] I’ll just remind you that Ken Starr got started with less.
[/QUOTE]
“They did it too!” Typical. The 10[sup]nth[/sup] iteration doesn;t make it any less tiresome, I’m afraid. Are you under some misguided impression that I’m a Starr supporter or something?
So something that someone who wasn’t even a holder of public office might have done 20-30 years ago is more serious than something someone did while he was President and then possibly lied about during a legal proceeding, then took steps to cover up? Boy, if I ever run from office 30 years from now, I hope I’m not held to the standards of what I do today.
The only way in which the possibility of Bush using cocaine is relevant to me is: 1) If he did it, did he learn anything from the experience, and 2) If he did it, does it have any bearing at all on how national drug policy will be conducted in the Bush White House? Other than that, I could care less what he put in his nose, his mouth, or anywhere else.
What’s this “we?” Did you vote for Bush?