The LAST Bush-Bashing thread .. until the next one.

The BBQ Pit
1

The thread about the Liberal Media http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=295821&page=2
seemed to decline into a series of Bush-Bashing posts (yes, some were my own), so I figured it’s time to start up another thread ALL its own.

For those that think I dislike “Dubya” for his political agenda, it goes far beyond that.
I’ve posted some of these reasons before, but for the 2 or 3 “Dopers” that might not have seen this list the first time around, let me “recap”.

I’ve found that with every President (or even Presidential candidate), there has always been some positive quality (or qualities) that they possessed.

** Eisenhower, Kennedy, & Bush Senior were war heroes.

** Reagan, Kennedy, etc were tremendous public speakers.

** Many Presidents (and candidates) came from humble beginnings. (Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Dole).

** Some Presidents demonstrated extremelly high intelligence. (Carter was a nuclear submarine officer, Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar).

Okay, so would someone please tell me anything positive about “Dubya”?

I don’t like him because I feel he is an embarassment. He has none of the above qualities and I think he is astonishngly bland. People have said that he took charge after Sept 11, 2001 and led our nation through a difficult time. Really? What rousing speech did he make? Has he made even ONE quote that is truly memorable? (You know something like '“Rendezvous with destiny”, “Ask not what your country can do for you”, “Mr Gorbachev, tear down that wall”, etc) Can anyone cite a forceful quote he made during his inauguration? Well, he’s got one more chance for that in a little over a week.

What is so admirable about Dubya? Is he a great role model for America’s children? For someone who is supposed to be the “Education President”, that learning should begin at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It isn’t an alleged “liberal media” that has made “Dubya” appear to be a fumbling, goof who trips over his words. No. At least in this respect, Dubya is a self-made man.

Well what do you folks think?

2

He can clear brush with the best of them!

Oh.

He takes his boots off before he comes in the house.

What more can you ask?

3

But the shit is on the inside of his boots…

4

There aren’t words strong enough for the antipathy I hold for this man.

I can’t even go here–even in the fun of the Pit…

5

He made a funny, funny joke to “Dick” Carlson about executing Karla Faye Tucker, did an impression of her begging, and everything! Now that’s “edgy”! Take that, South Park!

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elucidator
Good example. Even though I am pro-death penalty and admittedly Ms Tucker took part in a grisly murder, you would think the Governor of Texas would behave in a much more serious manner regarding someone who is scheduled to be executed.
Doesn’t “Dubya” remind you of the spoiled neighborhood kid? The one who would shoot your house windows with a BB gun; the one who barely got by in grammar, high school, college; the one whose parents would always buy a brand new car only for him to get ticketed / arrested for speeding, drunk driving, etc. Yes, this “model citizen” had the rich and influential parents to make sure he’d always do well in spite of himself.
And what usually becomes of this kid? He grows up to be a School Principal, the Superintendent of Schools, the Mayor, etc.
Let’s face it. We’ve all known spoiled kids like this and have been aggravated at their undeserved success in later life but I never thought we’d get one as the President of the United States.

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“Bring it on!”

So stirring tens-of-thousands of Iraqis decided to oblige.

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Doubts exist about Kennedy’s war record.

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Just one positive thing, you say?

He has an MBA. A lot of you like to discount that, but even if you chalk that up to legacy (which I’m not inclined to do) you still have to figure that he has an MBA and most people don’t even have a college degree (including me, although I started rectifying that yesterday) .

He may have been an incompetent businessman, but that doesn’t make an MBA any less noteworthy.

10

I’ve long said he’s a very chummy dude. He’d make a great greeter at Wal-Mart. Why he isn’t there now is the big mystery for me.

I suppose, if nothing else, he’s an inspiration to C-average students everywhere. :wink:

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Sounds like he didn’t get his money’s worth. Which would tie in to that “incompetent businessman” bit…

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Really? Who doubts that his PT boat was sunk? Who doubts that he swam his crewmwmber a considerable distance to an island, thus saving his life?

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Well, to be fair he was a college educated business guy who leapt into the Texas awl bidness, which is like smearing yourself with hamburger and jumping into the piranha exhibit.

You remember when his name first came up? It was like the Pubbies were scrambling to find somebody…anybody!..

“Well, we could run Bob Dole again…”

“Oh, fuck you! Just fuck you! You mention his name…”

“How about George Bush?”

“He can’t run, you moron, he’s already been the fucking…”

“No, no, his son!”

“Oh, great, up to his tits in banking scandals, yeah, good thinking, dipshit!”

“No, not the smart one! The other one! Been governor of Texas, executin’ the shit out of everbody in sight! Good hair! Nice wife! Marketable!”

Do you remember like, it was just days before the money started to rain down on him, and a couple days later it was all over! The anointed!

My one paranoid political rant: Texas has way, way too much influence on our nation’s politics.

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roger thornhill
The one doubt I heard about Kennedy’s war record concerned the fact that a fast PT boat was run over by a slower-moving Japanese destroyer at night. From what I have heard the engines may have been left in neutral (I have no idea WHY anyone would do that). And from what little research I did at this late hour, I found a discussion at “Free Republic” a somewhat right-leaning website
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1202083/posts
Note how many people say it was a US Destroyer that rammed the PT109. (Hey “Dopers” may have different political opinions but we get our facts straight).

Airman Doors
I’d say it definitely was legacy that got “Dubya” into Yale, but I’ll concede the fact that having an MBA is an impressive scholastic achievement. (Yeah, I do like to discount that.). And congratulations to you Airman Doors for pursuing your own college degree. Good luck.

Oh and since roger thornhill spoke of “doubts about Kennedy’s war record”, people have also questioned George Bush Senior’s actions when he bailed out of his Navy Avenger, abandoning his crew and having his plane crash into the sea. My response to that (and Kennedy’s ‘questionable’ war record) is that it is so easy for folks to make judgments when we are not seconds away from death. Yes, I’m usually willing to cut military personnel a little slack especially under battle conditions.

Airman Doors, since you are an airman, is ditching a plane at sea the smooth, gentle procedure that civilians envsion it? It’s really dangerous isn’t it?

So roger thornhill I think we should ease up on questioning war records.

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I remember the Cuban missile crisis. I was an Air Force brat, living on a SAC base, and the atmosphere was…a bit tense. (Bird colonel’s kids didn’t go to school. They were sick a lot, for about a week. I went to school.)

Anyway, Kennedy was a war hero for having enough guts and sense to stop one. His behavior in this instance was superb. I remember him saying how his actions were influenced by his reading The Guns of August by the late, lamented Barbara Tuchman, her whole treatise about how machinerys are set in motion than cannot be controlled, that lead to horror.

Whenever I think I might need a laxative, I try to imagine GeeDubya in that situation. And then I’m cured.

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If his chimpy little head got blown off of his funny little Barbara-gibbon body, it would be simple turnaround of his own policy of assassination, which I find utterly abhorrent.

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Not to get this into a hijack, but as a card carrying ABB voter, I’d have given Bush kudos if he did overturn the EO banning assasinations.
In my mind, the work of an assasin is infinitely more humane than waging an entire war.

YMMV.

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Sorry to hijack, but with regard to the OP: any such saving graces for LBJ and Ford?

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So be it, but note that that skirts extremely close to advocating outright terrorism like, say, flying a plane into the Pentagon (the passengers being unfortunate ‘collateral damage’, of course).

20

Thanks to Vietnam, everyone seems to forget that LBJ fought the hardest of any president to bring about civil rights for blacks and other ethnic minorities. I don’t have any cites on hand at the moment, but if you’re ever in Austin check out the long wall in the LBJ Library dedicated to all his civil rights policies. What could have been a great legacy was destroyed by a terrible decision over a bad war.

Compare that to Bush the Lesser who is campaigning to take away rights from the gay population of America, and I think you can say LBJ certainly had saving graces.

Ford I can’t help you with though. I know next to nothing about the man.