[QUOTE=kawaiitentaclebeast]
Wiki on popularity of Iraq war.
It would seem to me that Bush was simply acting in accordance with public opinion. Draw your own conclusions about the current teeth-gnashing and the implied intelligence level of the American electorate.
[/QUOTE]
As the Arthur Smith , the British comedian said last week “War is God’s way of teaching Americans Geography”
[QUOTE=Heckxx]
It seems its really easy to hate the guy nowadays. Now, I’m not really big into politics, but like, didn’t we elect him twice? How popular was he when he won against Kerry?
[/quote]
He lost the popular vote against Gore and was installed as President by the Supreme Court under dubious circumstances. A lot of weren’t exactly delighted with that but it’s not why people hate him.
Against kerry, his popularity was middlin’ at best. He won by a very close margin with an electorate that was more or less evenly divided. There were also some questionable results involving electronic voting machines, but that’s not why people hate him.
Now you’re getting to the core of why people hate him. The answer is no. The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism. Iraq had no involvement with 9/11 or with al Qaeda. The official justification for the war was that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction which they intended to use against the US and US interest, that it therefore posed an imminent threat to the US and that the only way we could defend ourselves would be by invading the country and removing Saddam.
There were also some stretched attempts to suggest that Saddam had connections to al Qaeda and a lot of obfuscatory rhetoric about Saddam being a really evil prick (no argument here), but the main reason was WMD “imminent threat” (self-defense being the only legal justification for regime change under the UN Charter).
The White House cherry-picked and cooked intelligence reports in order to sell the war to Congress, to the American public and to the international community. We know that Bush cited evidence which he KNEW was false, unconfirmed or speculative, while the administration and its supporters simultaneously villified critics, dissenters and skeptics as being “unpatriotic” or “for the terrorists.”
They also said that the Iraqi people would greet US troops as liberators, that they would (literally) throw flowers at our feet, that we could do this thing quickly and on the cheap, that Iraqi oil would pay for it all and similar claptrap.
They refuse to consider the possibility of fighting an insurgency, despite the advice of every military expert in shouting distance that a sustained insurgency was inevitable. They made no plans for how to conduct the occupation after “Shock and Awe’” was over and they still have no plan for how to get out.
Bush apparently made no attempt to educate himself about the sectarian divisions within the country or make any plans on how to deal with them. He reportedly had never even heard of the distinction between Sunni and Shia Muslims until the day before the invasion. When told about them, he reportedly said “I thought Iraqis were Muslims.”
Well, as you must kno by now, there were no WMD in Iraq, there’s been a sustained insurgency and now a sectarian civil war. The oil has paid for nothing. More than 3000 US troops have died there (and that’s not counting the thousands more who have been wounded or maimed). Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed and there’s no end in sight.
Then there’s all the stuff involving the internment and torture of innocent people in Iraq and Guantanemo Bay, the erosion of civil rights, the disdain for Habeus Corpus, the illegal wiretapping, the outing of an undercover CIA agent as revenge for her husband exposing a lie told by Bush in a State of the Union Address, the pandering to the religious right, the political exploitation of homophobia, he “We hate Fags” Amendment, the Flag Burning Amendment, the attempts to sidestep Congress with “signing statements,” and other tactics designed to arrogate authority to himself, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” his inability to accept responsibility or admit mistakes, “Free Speech Zones,” Sitting stupidly in a classroom reading about a goat after he was told about 9/11, man the list goes on.
In short he is a dangerous mix of dubious intellect, adminstrative incompetence, spoiled self-entitlement and deluded grandiosity.
And there’s also the lack of personal charm, the smirk, the bumbling, slow-witted attempts at oratory, the ego, the hypocritical religiosity and, of course, that fucking monkey face.
The above is not really a very detailed response. I’m barely scratching the surface here. The dislike for Bush goes beyond the partisan. I genuinely think he will be remembered as one of the worst Presidents in history.
Mr Smirk?
What galls me most is that he thinks nobody is on to him, because he goes to hand-picked events and the press never asks him the questions the way other people ask them.
[QUOTE=According to Pliny]
Mr Smirk?
What galls me most is that he thinks nobody is on to him, because he goes to hand-picked events and the press never asks him the questions the way other people ask them.
[/QUOTE]
Just give him 30 minutes with either Jeremy Paxman or John Humphries, two of the BBC’s finest interviewers. They don’t take no for an answer, and are as persistent as a terrier with a rat.
I despised him from the first. It is said that he’s the kind of guy people want to have a beer with. For me, he’s the kind of guy I want to punch in the face. I had never voted for a Democratic candidate from the time I started voting in 1972 - until 2000.
Then he turned out far worse than I ever could have imagined. Besides his acceptance and encouragement of incompetence (and all Dio’s fine points, he appears not to have the slightest shred of curiousity. If someone tells him something he wants to hear, he never, ever asks a question that might disturb his already formed conclusions. It’s not surprising how he’s destroying the level of expertise in the agencies. Don’t question the party line, or else.
Of course, he’s a coward also as his “war” record shows.
He’s a perfect example of the idiot son of the successful man, put into the company business , given respect because of his family, but having to be bailed out time and time again.
Richard Nixon was Abraham Lincoln compared to this clown. And I lived through Watergate.
Damn Nader, all those voters should have voted instead for a candidate they don’t remotely agree with. It’s a dangerous, dangerous day when citizens vote based on belief rather than inertia.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
I’ve often heard it said that he’s the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with. I think he’d be horrible to have a beer with.
[/QUOTE]
Since he is an alcoholic, having a beer with him would end up a pretty intense night.
Well, as you know, you have to go into the election with the candidate you have, not the candidate you want. 
[QUOTE=Rayne Man]
Just give him 30 minutes with either Jeremy Paxman or John Humphries, two of the BBC’s finest interviewers. They don’t take no for an answer, and are as persistent as a terrier with a rat.
[/QUOTE]
I heard an interview with the public relations head for Enron on BBC. They jumped on him immediately and made him answer some questions. I’m starting to dig the BBC much.
[QUOTE=Lama Pacos]
Damn Nader, all those voters should have voted instead for a candidate they don’t remotely agree with. It’s a dangerous, dangerous day when citizens vote based on belief rather than inertia.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
Although it turns out that Nader voters had a lot more in common with Gore than they thought.
Opposition to using a terrorist attack to launch a war of choice somewhere else in the Middle East, opposition to the idea that the Executive branch can designate anyone an “enemy combatant” and arrest them and hold them indefinitely, opposition to the idea that the President can write out a statement appended to a law passed by Congress which effectively negates it, and support for the Kyoto Protocols.
FTR, I don’t hate him. I think he went into Iraq with the very best of intentions. Unfortunately, he was stupid to think that we could help a culture we don’t understand. And now he’s in way over his head. Add that with a healthy dose of Texan pride, aka stubbornness, and you’ve got the debacle that is the current administration.
I’m in the minority here, but I do think he honestly believed that Hussein had WMD in Iraq and he thought he’d go gunslinging in there and keep the United States safe. Unfortunately, once it was revealed that the WMD did not exist, it opened him up to all sorts of criticism, both domestically and abroad. Whatever his motives were, I think it’s pretty clear that invading Iraq was a mistake. Alienating the international community was a mistake. The Iraqis don’t want us there and instead of promoting peace and stability in the region, we’ve made it worse. We’ve bulldozed our way into the middle of a hornet’s nest and have no honorable way of extracting ourself without lots of innocent people dying.
The Middle East is a very tricky situation and it will take someone with the right combination of wisdom and cajolery and diplomacy to forge peace. Unfortunately, George Bush isn’t the man. I pray that the new President, whoever he or she is, will make amends with the international community, extract us from Iraq with as little upheaval as possible, and work towards stability both at home and abroad.
[QUOTE=mack]
In general, he seems to have only a superficial understanding of what he’s doing, and into the void rush determined men with long-simmering agendas that know how to work him.
So we’re dealing less with a strong President riding herd on his staff and more with a weak leader in the thrall of stronger men grabbing all the power they possibly can, and exercising it very poorly.
[/QUOTE]
This sums up my feelings pretty well. He just seems to be a puppet of smarter men. And those men do not have the country’s interests at heart.
I voted for the guy, but damn if I just don’t like him more and more. I don’t like the way he embodies much of what I don’t like about extremism: putting his agenda before common sense, suppressing dissent, refusing to listen to contrary facts.
I just wish the dems would put up somebody worth voting for.
I am reminded of the time that Richard Nixon was watching protests of him and his war. They were going constantly in those days. (I think this one was was in New Orleans for some reason) and he called over his press secretary (I think it was Ron Zieglar) and asked him, “Ron, why don’t they like me?”
Zieglar remembered to whom he was speaking, but felt he had to be honest also. “Well, Mr. President, I think maybe you’re just not very likeable.”
Maybe that applies to the Shrub. (nod to Molly Ivins)
[QUOTE=Voyager]
It is said that he’s the kind of guy people want to have a beer with. For me, he’s the kind of guy I want to punch in the face.
[/QUOTE]
See, I could never understand why people said this. I wouldn’t want to have a beer with a moronic Born Again Frat Boy who couldn’t string two intelligible sentences together.
[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
I don’t think Americans realized how incompetently the invasion would be handled.
[/QUOTE]
Meaning that they didn’t understand know anything about Bush, in addition to knowing little about Iraq.
[QUOTE=Rayne Man]
As the Arthur Smith , the British comedian said last week “War is God’s way of teaching Americans Geography”
[/QUOTE]
I think that’s originally a Mark Twain line.
For my part, I can’t stand Bush because he’s a liar with messianic delusions and little respect for our Constitution or the reality the rest of us live in. The pettiness he’s shown in recent years is also a turnoff.
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
Me, I hate the Nader voters, those who can’t stand Bush, those that would have voted for Gore had Nader not been a dick and ran. People smart enough to vote for Nader 
had to be smart enough to know that he had no chance to win, and his votes would only take away from their second choice, yet they did it anyway. Why? So the Green Party would continue to receive funding? Or just to excercise their rightas as a 'Merican?
[/QUOTE]
I voted for Nader because I wanted neither Gore nor Bush as president. So sue me. Gore has impressed me immensely more since 2000 than he ever did before, and I would vote for him today. It’s too bad he didn’t demonstate his qualities earlier.
Hate? I don’t hate the man — that’s a waste of energy. I hate his hypocrisy, his policies, his obfuscatory denials, his clueless smirk, I hate the antics of his followers, I hate the way he continues to behave as if Americans are ignorant children and he’s the Deciderer, and I hate the way he was propped up in the Punch And Judy White House Show on the grounds that he’d restore truth, morality and family values to the office; but most of all I hate intelligence-insulting the way his disciples are defending now the very behaviors in Bush that they condemned in Clinton, assuming we wouldn’t notice.
But hate him? Bush is so much a puppet that they use bluescreen technology to hide the sticks that move his arms. Why bother to hate him when he’s so obviously not in control?
What applied to Iran-Contra applies to Dubya: things are so wrong now that he’s clearly either some incompetent straw-behatted organ monkey, or he’s a sinister and malignant force for pure evil who is deliberately dismantling our Constitution. There’s not much room left for gray area.
[QUOTE=John DiFool]
I still don’t see the point of Nader’s run.
[/QUOTE]
Payoffs from the Republicans ? They certainly supported him; so the question would be was he a dupe or corrupt.
As for why Bush is hated ? What’s not to hate ? Mass murder, destruction, corruption and incompetence of massive levels in Iraq. Kidnappings. Torture. Lies. Stupidity. The smirk. Chickenhawkism. The ruin of America’s reputation and politacl capital. Turning a surplus into a deficit. Tax breaks for the rich. Arrogance. Katrina. Opposition to stem cell research and gay marriage. Grabbing more and more power for the Presidency, and putting it in the hands of an idiot and madman. The environment. Stealing the election.
There’s one reason that hasn’t been mentioned: retaliation for the attempted impeachment of Clinton.
[QUOTE=rowrrbazzle]
There’s one reason that hasn’t been mentioned: retaliation for the attempted impeachment of Clinton.
[/QUOTE]
What are you talking about? Bush wasn’t involved in Clinton’s impeachment process, was he?