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

Sorry, not “take away” (except in Massachussetts) - deny

Well, he made us all laugh when he did those pratfalls on SNL back in the day.

I think your OP nicely illustrates just how out of touch the left really is. It might likely surprise you how many people (qua voters) would list faith in God among the qualities you have enumerated as being significant and important. And they would list George W. Bush, Carter, Reagan, Truman, and others as having it. It had not occured to you that such an attribute might be positive.

The other attributes I can see as being positive for the leader of a country. Having faith in God I can’t.

As I said, it shows how out of touch you are. You are among a rather clueless minority. Not here at Straight Dope, of course, but among the general American population.

Right. So maybe you can tell me why I’m “out of touch” for not seeing belief in God as a positive attribute for a leader, as opposed to having served in the military (relevant to his position as Commander-in-Chief), coming from humble beginnings (hopefully meaning he’d understand how hard people work and not show contempt for the economically impoverished), etc. etc. Oh, I don’t doubt that many people see this as a positive attribute in a leader (if that’s why you claim I’m “clueless”); but I don’t see how that makes it a valid criterion.

Oh, and p.s. - Maybe people (here at the Straight Dope, of course) would take you more seriously if you weren’t such a smug, condescending cunt, as you were in your reply to me.

p.p.s. - Oops! How un-Christ-like of me! Guess I’ll never get elected to office.

You responded with, “The other attributes I can see as being positive for the leader of a country. Having faith in God I can’t.” as an immediate reply to “It had not occured to you that such an attribute might be positive.” All you did was confirm what I said. The people who voted for Bush — i.e., the people with whom you are out of touch — believe that faith is important because they prefer that God guide their leaders. Perhaps you heard of that “values” thing that was all the buzz just after the election.

Your condemnation of smugness, cuntness, and condescension might carry more weight if you didn’t do it yourself.

So which god exactly does the asshole have faith in? Baal? Mars? Jupiter?

Have you seen the asshole do anything, you know, Christian like? Ever is his entire life? Seen him go to church regularly? Anything at all?

Oh, it had occurred to me that many voters saw Bush’s religious beliefs as a good thing. But preferring that “God guide your leaders” is, I think, a position that would be considered crackpot by the majority of the people on this board, regardless of their political/religious beliefs - the majority of the people on this board, from what I’ve seen, being quite rational. So I took the OP’s question to mean what non-crackpot positive attributes does Bush possess that makes him a good leader? Maybe I’m assuming too much, or giving people too much credit. But I’ll proudly admit to being out of touch with those who wish God to determine national policy.

When someone speaks to me in cuntish, smug, condescending language, I try to reply to them in their native tongue, just like I used my pidgin French when I visited Paris. It’s out of cultural respect, and to avoid miscommunication.

Good. Now, please keep your wits about you in the future.

So your argument boils down to:

The left are out of touch, because they don’t recognize that most people in the US are crackpots. :rolleyes:

Don’t put yourself down for not having a college degree, Airman Doors . A college degree is not a definite indicator of intelligence. My former boss has an MBA (graduated with honors even) and she’s one of the stupidest people I know when it comes to business, and just about everything else.

I would also like to say that if a person has an advanced degree in business, and is an incompetent business person, it does make the MBA less noteworthy. He went to college and was taught all kinds of things about being a business person and nothing sunk in. Maybe he had other people write his papers (my boss had her husband and former secretary, not me, write hers) and cheated on tests. Intelligence has more to do with being able to think and use facts to solve problems than it does how much education a person has.

No, it boils down to Bush having faith, a character trait that a good many people find admirable.

I may not agree with them or even like them, but President Bush’s moral values and religious conviction have to be considered positives simply because they worked.

So everything that wins an election is by definition positive?

What? So did Hitler’s, so did Stalin’s Is success the meaure of morality/convictions?
WHAT religious convictions? Where? He peppers his speeches with references to Revelations, but other than that–where?

IMO, he is perceived as having faith–and he has milked that to his advantage over the years. In contrast, I see Carter as truly, visibly struggling with his faith, and growing in it.

It is not for me to say whether or not Bush is one of the faithful, but then again,
I have yet to see/hear Bush say/do one thing that supports his claim to be “Christian”.

But you’re right about the shrub–he’s damn good at that!

Also, I expect a bit more from the leader of the Free World than a measly MBA.
I expect them to have travelled outside of the American continent, to be at least somewhat conversant in a foreign language (phrases used for domestic chores do not count), and I expect them to oh, I dunno–read a book or two per month (start small and work up).

As to JFK and questioning his war record–here we go again! I dunno what happened in the water, but JFK was THERE, fighting.

Bush? Now, where was he?

Why do folks think that tearing down a vet’s war record work to build up a champagne unit deserter’s? It’s silly.

Ah yes, of course. That’s exactly what I was saying. Good call on that.

Og knows I wasn’t trying to clarify Liberals position and maybe cut through all the knee jerkery. Nope. No sir.

Now go on ahead and preach on about how stupid those beliefs are and how foolish it was for people to vote for him because of them. It’s all very helpful and constructive.

Tell you what, you’re all so smart. Tell me how, if this is soooo great of a negative, it worked for him.

Man, I knew agreeing with Liberal was a bad idea. Doesn’t matter that he’s actually right. Still never a good idea. :stuck_out_tongue:

Well, the point here would appear to be that just because many peope consider something a positive doesn;t necessarily make it so. But apologies if that is an unhelpful, non-constructive or irrelevant point to make here.

Of course not. But Bush’s faith is a positive to a majority of Americans. The out-of-touchness has to do with being unaware of that fact. The OP listed a number of things he found to be positive about a number of presidents, and then pleaded for some inkling of understanding as to what people could possibly find positive about GW. I told him what some of them think.

Nothing is positive all by itself. A man can be a brilliant Rhodes scholar and still be a slimy tyrannical hack. A man can be a great speaker and still be a clueless asshole. A man can have great faith and still oppress people, just as Bush is doing.

This may just be me, but I think that Bush has a great deal of faith. It may very well be misguided faith, but he has it. Most people, judging by the election results, feel that his faith reflects their own.

My point, and this is what I think Liberal is saying also, is that simply rolling our eyes at his faith and talking about how unintelligent it may be isn’t helping anything.

I don’t like it either. I really really really really really don’t. I think that picking a president based on his religion is a terrible idea, but in the country right now I’m in the minority.

It’s worked for him twice. It sucks all to hell, but it should be viewed as a postive.

Hope that clears up my view on the subject.

But you’re assuming Bush’s faith is why he won. I think it had more to do with Kerry’s utterly ineffectual campaign and, possibly, by swing voters being turned off by a minority of the left’s intolerant harrassment tactics, the same tactics used by the far (ultra-religious) right.

And even still, like I said, I took the OP’s question to be: what reasonable qualifications do you think Bush has that makes him fit for office (taking his original list of previous presidents’ attributes as a model, I thought it was a fair assumption)? And I’m sorry if you’re taking it as bashing people’s religious convictions, but I just don’t see a logical reason why Bush being religious (just like every single other major candidate has claimed to be) would put him in the same company as the others mentioned.