With all the talk about President Bush, and all of the equal talk about Clinton, I’ve been wondering: with Bush, you get the sense (or at least I do with the right wing message boards I sometimes peruse) that in some eyes, he can do no wrong, and has never done anything wrong. The same thing with both Clintons, in the last administration and now.
So, what kind of evidence/event would it take for YOU to denounce the most prominent figure in your party/philosophy? What SHOULD it take, for both you and the average Joe? (Note I’m not talking about politicians themselves; they obviously have a vested interest to loyalty.) By my eyes, one poor member doesn’t, shouldn’t, and can’t stain an entire party. So why the reluctance to call someone on it?
If GW appeared on prime-time television, messily eating the freshly roasted haunch of Senator Daschle, and proclaimed himself ‘The Cannibal Lord of America’, I would denounce him.
Contrarily, that would be his first act that commanded my respect. “Respect,” as in undivided attention, which is the way I ordinarily use that word. As things are, I just wonder why his momma didn’t slap him more when he misbehaved.
I don’t think what it should take is always the question. When you agree with a political leader, it’s usually to your practical advantage to defend them. So you also have to raise the question of at which point someone else’s behavior/opinions become so egregious that it’s worth an innocent party making a personal sacrifice to get at them. Not that that never happens, but it’s a much higher standard.
For instance, you couldn’t really say “Hey, Hitler’s a real evil guy, but I do like the Autobahns.” But “Clinton’s a tomcat, but I do like a stable economy” is pretty reasonable. Not to start a Clinton economics thing, it’s just an example.
Were there many fervent Clinton supporters as the OP put it ? Still seems that Bushitism is more common than Clintonism ever was to this poster personally.
I often cringe at the fact that so many of the people I generally support politically are such blowhards.
If you went strictly by voting record, Tom Delay is one of my favorite Representatives. He’s also the biggest ass in the House and has no problem resorting to underhanded politics to get his way.
On the other side, I often wonder how liberals can hold up Ed Kennedy and Bill Clinton as examples of great men. Sure, they have political views that liberals often agree with, but great and moral men? Please.
There are some liberals who although I disagree with them, I admire them. Henry Waxman, Bob Graham, Dianne Feinstein, Ernest Hollings, John Edwards, and Max Cleland come to mind.
If any one of them were running against Tom Delay for President, I would vote for them even though I’d probably curse their political decisions for the next four years. But at least I wouldn’t have Tom Delay on my conscience.