First, Bush was an incompetent; many of the things he did were inconsistent and self defeating. The simple fact that he said out loud that he didn’t care about getting bin Laden is an example of that; actually saying that was idiotic. And second, there were plenty of people willing to build bin Laden into a bogeyman regardless of what Bush said.
That’s a very convenient, just-so story that can be used to justify any statement.
Here’s the logical reason, and if it doesn’t make sense it’s because Bush wasn’t logical.
I’m getting dizzy.
Which is something that makes it hard to tell whether or not anything Bush did was motivated by malice or just incompetence. When you are as incompetent as Bush, the two become nearly indistinguishable.
So, you don’t really know that Bush was trying to keep OBL alive for political advantage. I didn’t think so.
Not sure the relevance of comparing to Presidents from a different era. Sheesh, are there more than a handful of voters alive from your most recent benchmark? You’d have to be 90 something to have been eligible to vote during FDR’s last term.
Nor did I claim to. I was responding to the claim that killing bin Laden would give Bush a political advantage by pointing out that not killing him also provided a political advantage.
Yes you did, and no you weren’t.
Ironically, in retrospect this is exactly, word for word, what many people who initially voted for Bush, like myself, now wonder about our decision to vote for him the first time around in 2001.
The only people I ever saw/heard making the whole ‘Obama as Messiah’ claim where right wing Republicans attempting to mock him.
Ahh, Straight Dope-style debate. So informative.
You consider Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson “great”?! Holy goddamn.
It may not mean they’re false, but it sure as hell doesn’t mean they’re true. So just as a courtesy to the people you claim to want to engage in conversation, back up your assertions. Don’t be so fucking lazy.
Back in the good old days of Usenet it was considered proper to lurk in a newsgroup to see how it worked before opening your yap. You are an excellent example of why this was a good policy. You are hardly the first person asked for cites. You are claiming that something is a common statement of Obama and Dems, something most of us haven’t heard. A cite giving some examples might be nice, especially from an unbiased source.
If you claim the sky is pink with yellow polka dots, and we doubt it and ask for a cite, you had better be ready to go outside and take a picture.
This goes no matter who you plan to vote for.
Sorry if it doesn’t fit your agenda, but you’re wrong.
You’ve been here eight months, and you haven’t met Qin yet?
I don’t have an agenda. I’m just reading what you wrote and who you were responding to. Care to quote the part of the post you were responding to that claimed it would have been politically advantageous to Bush to capture or kill OBL?
Oh, and btw, I noticed you’re no longer defending your claim that Gore ran away from Clinton because he didn’t want to be overshadowed by him.
One of us has an agenda that conflicts with reality, but it’s not me.
Unless you investigate the historical record, particularly the book by Richard Clark and find out that the Clinton people repeatedly insisted and demanded that the incoming Bush people pay attention to Bin Ladin as a real threat and then how the Bush people, once in charge, stood down the intense systems of defense that the Clinton people had in place for Bin Ladin. The Bush team, the same people now on the Romney team, dropped our defenses. You can debate all you want as to why they did it, but the inconvenient fact is that they did drop the defenses and gave it low priority. To not despise their inaction in doing so, is to apologize that the executive branch isn’t responsible for external dangers that they choose to ignore.
Bush had control of all 3 houses for 4 of his 8 years in office or 50%. Obama has had control of all 3 houses for 2 of his 3.5 years in office or 57% of the time. And much of George Bush’ signature pieces of legislation were passed when he lacked control of the Senate, including The Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind & the creation of the DHS.
Yeah, boy, I remember those days when the Democrats could pass whatever legislation they wanted through the Senate over any objections of the GOP. I think there were about five of them, depending on what kind of mood Lieberman was in.
Obama never had control of the Senate, for reasons already explained here.