Why should I vote for Bush?

[scotandrsn]

@John Mace

Joe has a few hard-core Dem friends. He really gets turned off by shrill comments like “America is going down the tubes” and “Bush is just like Hitler”. Joe has a good job. He’s proud of America and thinks we are a force for good in the world. All this screaming by his friends affects him on an emotional level and tends to reflect poorly on the Democratic candidates.

And, believe it or not, he has this one friend who keeps saying “Shrub stole the last election”. Can you believe it? Can you believe there are people who are that patisan? Joe wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t heard it with his own ears.

Actually, Joe has at least a 1 in 30 chance of having no sort of job whatsoever these days (11mil out of work divided by a population of 290mil). He has lots of time to read, and realizes that Bush is crowing about his ability to get things from horrible to better-but-still-nowhere-as-good-as-he-found-them.
It reminds him of the way Bush boasted about his ability to get Texas schools from the bottom 5% in the nation to the bottom 10%. He has time to remember that we still haven’t found the man who masterminded the worst attack on our country, and wonders why we should be satisfied with overthrowing only one of several dozen dictators throughout the world who collectively have had zero effect on our safety. He begins to wonder why he should back a man who is so proud of his ability to underachieve.

His minute tax refund is long gone, and the bills still aren’t paid. There are no jobs available that will pay the bills, and the president has just announced he plans to bring several million people who crossed the border illegally out of hiding to drive wages down even farther.

He is not partisan. He is not out to “get” Bush. He just wants someone in office who will represent his needs. While he may not find a Dem who fits the bill, he’s have to have a pretty sorry excuse for a brain to think that Bush is suddenly going to look out for him when he has failed to do so for three years.

[John_Mace]

@scotandrsn

Actually, Joe has at least a 1 in 30 chance of having no sort of job whatsoever these days (11mil out of work divided by a population of 290mil).

Is that supposed to be scary? 1 in 30 turns out to be under 4% unemployment. That is extremely low by historicial standards in the US. Do you even know what you are talking about? How many years have there been out of the last 25 when the unemployment rate has been less than 1/30? Go here and set the timeframe for the past 25 years. It looks like there was a brief moment once (in early 2000) when the unemployment rate was < 4%.

[ElvisL1ves]

No point here, just a chuckle over seeing “Mars” and “alien immigration” in the same sentences.

We gotta keep the damn greenies out or they’ll take all our jobs.

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

@rjung

I’d like to say you’re right, because I think a big part of California’s energy and financial crisis can be laid on Enron’s doorsteps, but at the moment, the layman’s view of the matter is that George’s pal “Kenny boy” is getting away scott-free.

Then the layman’s view of things is idiotic. What would you have the DOJ do? Summary executions? As long as the accused has pesky little advantages like the presumption of innocence, a right to a jury trial, and a right to confront his accusers, prosecutors will have to be sure they can marshall an airtight case to secure a conviction. In a case like Enron, involving highly technical accounting and finance issues, that will take time. There’s simply no way around that. We are not a society founded on frontier justice.

Meanwhile, other corporate crooks like Martha Stewart get trussed up and plastered on the front page of the newspapers lickety-split. Why can’t the same efficiency be applied to folks who are pals of the Pres?

Because the case against Martha involves a substantially simpler set of facts than does the Enron affair. Comparing building a case against Stewart to building a case agaist Lay is a little like comparing building a soap box derby racer to building an Indy 500 car.

In any event, we’re still left with the glaring notion that a convicted monopolist is getting off the hook with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, and plays into the overall impression that the Bush Administration is more interested in shielding George’s billionare friends instead of taking care of the average citizen.

The direction and outcome of the Microsoft case and its attendant settlement are consistent with past antitrust actions taken by the government. I do wonder, however, just exactly how familiar you are with the case, and in what way exactly you think that Microsoft is getting off easily.

(The case itself is largely absurd, but that’s another argument entirely).

[jshore]

@Brutus

Extremist policies such as…? If ‘many’ of his policies are extremist, I am sure you will not have trouble pointing out one?

Why should I stop at one? Here, courtesy of the NRDC, is a summary of the Bush record on the environment. You can read all about the weakening of the clean air act, the “healthy forests initiative”, the misguided energy policy, etc., etc. On global warming, Bush has done basically nothing and has bad-mouthed hard-working people within his own executive branch when he derisively said that he had read the report put out by the bureaucracy (a statement that turned out not to be true anyway since he had only been briefed on it…He hadn’t read it.)

Here and here are stories about what Bush has been doing to stack scientific committees that advise the government.

Then, of course, there is the extemism on tax cuts that is creating a fiscal disaster and leading even former advisors like Paul O’Neill to believe things have gotten excessive.

I’m sure we can come up with many other examples if we think about it.

GW launches an initiative to fight AIDS in Africa? He must be robbing other programs to accomplish that!
Sure, you don’t actually have a cite for that, but gut feelings should be enough in GD!

Well, there appear to be two issues concerning the AIDS funding, one being that he hasn’t fully funded his own initiative and the other being proposed cuts to other international public health and relief programs. I haven’t followed this issue that closely but here and here are a couple of links to get you started.

I would say that overall the AIDS funding is actually one of the brighter spots in this administration. Still, if you compare this sort of money to the amount being spent on the Iraq war (or the amount of the tax cuts or …), you can see that we are not talking very large amounts here.

Dot.com bubble burst? Bush’s cronies in action! Hey, who cares that it happened under Clinton’s watch?

Well, Ken Lay was a friend of Bush and a big contributor. But, hey, I will admit that there is enough blame to go around here. It was bipartisan crony capitalism at its best!

California enacts moronic legislation that cripples its energy sector? Holy poop! The fell hand of GW flipped out the lights in Cali! :rolleyes:

Well, if you start making up claims that haven’t been made here as far as I can see then you can come up with things that might sound silly. A few notes though:

(1) Claims were made by conservatives that the problems in California were due to insufficient investment in new energy plants and that this was the fault of environmentalists. These claims were wrong on a variety of different levels but that did not stop them from being made. [I don’t recall exactly how far people within the Administration went in making these claims but they certainly did use California as an example of why we need to step up production of fossil fuels.]

(2) While the legislation may have been bad, it was bad because it allowed (not in a legal sense but in a practical sense) companies to “game” the system. The fact that the companies then took advantage of this means they are largely to blame too.

[Hammer]

Anybody know or have a cite for who “Joe” really is? That would really help frame the discussion. I’m mostly see the same ole arguements for and against. Give that we have identified him is as Joe I guess we can assume sex is male? How old? Where does he live? What party affiliation? What race? I can make some decent assumptions but if there is a real statisical basis for “Joe” that would help. I really think people here are too plugged in to identify with Joe and what may or may not motivate him to vote for Bush.

So What?
White
Male
45ish
Employed
High school Grad
30/60 minutes of News a day (all forms)
North East
Married
2.2 Kids

[pervert]

@jshore

Here [is a] storie[s] about what Bush has been doing to stack scientific committees that advise the government.

I didn’t go into all of your cites (you do like to shotgun them don’t you ;)). But I did want to comment on this paragraph from this one.

A third committee, which had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, has been told that nearly all of its members will be replaced – in several instances by people with links to the industries that make those chemicals. One new member is a California scientist who helped defend Pacific Gas and Electric Co. against the real-life Erin Brockovich.

To which I say: “Good!” Someone has to do something about this sort of bad science. It has always seemed odd to me that “scientists with links to industry” are somehow disqualified while scientists who cannot get industry jobs are deified. I actually owe you a debt of grattitude. My suport for Bush had been flagging. After reading this, he gets my vote.
As far as Joe is concerned, he might feel as I do that many of the environmental laws have gone a bit overboard. While I’m sure he does not want to scrap them entirely, I’m also sure that he is not taken in by the rhetoric of the NRDC that “Americans voted for many things in November, but they didn’t vote for a sweeping attack on the environment.” I’m sure that he does not feel the need to identify with the hyperbole that Bush’s policies amount to an attack on the environment.From here.
I only looked into their claims about wet land reclamation because I am aware of some abuses of this environmental law. Their objections seem to center around the idea that Bush wants to focus on replacing wetland function instead of merely acreage. I’m not sure at all that this is such a extremist position. Especially since the “Compensating for Wetland Losses Under the Clean Water Act, National Academy of Sciences, 2001, and Wetlands Protection: Assessments Needed to Determine Effectiveness of In-Lieu-Fee Mitigation, General Accounting Office, May 2001” which they cite as supporting thier position seems to agree partly with the president (I could only get summaries of the report without paying) that accounting for function is important as well as acreage.

[kwildcat]

My compliments to Brutus and Mace for so eloquently toeing the Bush apologists’ party line, most especially with regard to the current economic condition of the U.S. and the (un)employment rate. Basically what they have said (and I have no reason to dispute the statistics John Mace cited), is "historically speaking, things were a lot worse, so things right now really aren’t so bad."

I cannot tell you how delighted the aforementioned Joe Public will be to learn that the measuring stick for the highest elected office in the land, not to mention the most powerful individual on the face of the earth, is to not fuck up quite as badly as some of the really bad presidents. “Well, Joe, look at it this way - only two men raped your wife. Coulda been three!”

What the administration apologists so conspicuously neglect in their rush to provide “context” to today’s unemployment numbers and GDP rates is that the net conditions that exist today are still definitively worse than they were at the beginning of this administration. If Joe Public is sufficiently nuanced to disassociate this downturn from Dubya because “the President, and the government, doesn’t really have the ability to affect the economy”, then Joe will likely base his choice on either social policy or some more visceral basis, like “character” or “patriotism” or even “lesser of two evils”.

If Joe Public believes that the goal of each generation is to leave his children in better shape than him, then there’s little chance he would choose Dubya, and for the simple, unadorned, nonpartisan reason that the public policy of the administration has not and will not foster that goal.

[kwildcat]

Minor aside for Pervert - I don’t expect to ever again read foolishness like “scientists that can’t get industry jobs”. A patent lie. In one of the hottest regions of pharmaceutical and biomanufacturing in the world, Research Triangle Park, NC (Merck, Biogen, Syngenta, Lilly, Glaxo, ad nauseum), the overwhelming majority of senior researchers in the industry do their “residency”, if you will, in either academia or government service. Much like a politician may start in local city council or county government, then with experience and credibility be able to move up the ladder to nationally elected office, so a college postdoc may begin an academic career, and if he/she chooses, try to trade that expertise and experience for the $$ available in private industry.

The whole thing is cyclical, NOT a heirarchy. A significant number of industry scientists will likewise choose at the ends of their careers to return to the less stressful climes of academia, just like a professional athlete might retire from playing and become a coach.

Any inference that the minds and research in academia is inferior to that in industry is an ignorant falsehood. You cannot have the one without the other. If academia does not produce qualified scientists, then industry fails.

[pervert]

@kwildcat

Minor aside for Pervert - I don’t expect to ever again read foolishness like “scientists that can’t get industry jobs”. A patent lie.

[…]

Any inference that the minds and research in academia is inferior to that in industry is an ignorant falsehood. You cannot have the one without the other. If academia does not produce qualified scientists, then industry fails.

?This is not what I meant at all. After re reading my post, I can see how it could be interpreted that way. So let me explain a little. I was only trying to object to the opposite lie to the one you point out. I was not trying to suggest that academian research is worthless. Only trying to counter the equally silly notion that industry research is worthless. Specifically the cite provided by jshore complained about Bush changing some scientific commitees partly because some of the new scientists had “ties to industries”. I object to this sort of thing for reasons similar to the ones you complained at me about. Apperently I let my passion about the subject get the better of me.

So, for the record, I do not ascribe scientific validity to independant, industry affiliated, nor activist affiliated research. I tend to prefer to judge such things on their merits (to the best of my abilities anyway).

Anyone who took my earlier comment to indict all academic research, I appologize.

[netscape_6]

@pervert

To which I say: “Good!” Someone has to do something about this sort of bad science. It has always seemed odd to me that “scientists with links to industry” are somehow disqualified while scientists who cannot get industry jobs are deified. I actually owe you a debt of grattitude. My suport for Bush had been flagging. After reading this, he gets my vote.

You sound like industry jobs are somehow better then goverment jobs. I would say goverment jobs are usually better as goverment scientist usually get to do unbiased science, indeed I would say anything biased is not science but propaganda.
Tell me Sammy scientist who works for Exxon is going to do unbiased work about automobiles and global warming.

[Lissa]

@pervert

I was not trying to suggest that academian research is worthless. Only trying to counter the equally silly notion that industry research is worthless.

<snip>

So, for the record, I do not ascribe scientific validity to independant, industry affiliated, nor activist affiliated research. I tend to prefer to judge such things on their merits (to the best of my abilities anyway).

I have to ask this question: do you believe that it’s possible that scientists with financial ties to companies are more likely to be biased in favor of their employer?

I don’t believe anyone would claim that industry research is worthless. Even the most poorly-done study may have the merit of inducing another scientist to study the issue, if only to debunk the previous findings.

I thought this was an interesting article on the subject:

Dr. Blumenthal, who studies the ties between academia and industry, said that scientists who failed to report conflicts generally “believe that they are people of integrity, and they feel they can separate their work from their financial interests.”

But research suggests otherwise, Dr. Blumenthal said. Studies have found that scientists with financial ties to the companies whose products they study are more likely to write favorably about those products.

This paper from
Center for Science in the Public Interest was also pretty interesting: (PDF)

In 2003, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, a small professional association, accepted $1 million from Coca-Cola. The academy became a laughing stock when the public (and its members) learned of the deal—imagine, an organization ostensibly concerned about children’s teeth taking money from arguably the world’s biggest producer of sugary foods. But the situation got worse when AAPD President David Curtis defended his group. He stated: “Scientific evidence is certainly not clear on the exact role that soft drinks play in terms of children’s oral disease.”

Also:

Another such organization is the International Society for Regulatory
Toxicology and Pharmacology (ISRTP), which serves to “inform and educate
scientists, policy makers, the media and the public about the scientific issues
affecting the regulatory process.” ISRTP publishes the scientific journal
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise one that its sponsors include Dow AgroSciences, Eastman Kodak, Gillette, Merck, Procter and Gamble, RJ Reynolds Tobacco, and other corporations that have an interest in weakening government regulations of toxic chemicals. The journal’s editorial board is dominated by industry lawyers and scientists who consult for industry. In one egregious episode, the journal’s editor was paid $30,000 by the tobacco industry to write a paper—which was published in the journal—downplaying the risks of second-hand smoke.

While I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the findings of industry-related scientists out-of-hand, I’d certainly put more faith in a research group which doesn’t have financial ties to the company/product they are studying.

[pervert]

I realize this is a hijack, so I will only add 1 other post on this here.

@Lissa

While I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the findings of industry-related scientists out-of-hand, I’d certainly put more faith in a research group which doesn’t have financial ties to the company/product they are studying.

But this is harder to determine than you think. Re read the Blumenthal article you cited and realize that he does not even mention the possibility that Scientist might get money from activist groups. Specifically they might get financing from groups which are enemies of “he company/product they are studying.”

This is exactly the attitude I was talking about. Look at the quote you included from Blumenthal and ask “more likely than who?”. More likely than scientist with ties to regulatory agencies? More likely than scientist with ties to activists who favor heavy regulation? Or, only more likely than scientists who do not have ties to the industry in question?

Again, I am not trying to say that industry scientists are more likely to be honest than “non industry” scientists. I am merely saying that Political influence of science occurs accross the board. It happens to govenrment scientist (when for favoring popular or politically useful ideas), to activist scientists (when they get funding for proving the activist’s case), and it happens to industry scientist (when they prove that their employers are not so bad). Sometimes these associations are irrelevant. That is research favorable to those who pay for it does not always imply false research. But sometimes it does. I agree that such associations are circumstantial proof of a motive. But it is hardly proof of invalidity. However, that is how it is commonly viewed.

OK, I’m done with this hijack.

[jshore]

@pervert

To which I say: “Good!” Someone has to do something about this sort of bad science. It has always seemed odd to me that “scientists with links to industry” are somehow disqualified while scientists who cannot get industry jobs are deified.

People have already responded to your “scientists who cannot get industry jobs” comment and you have clarified it…But, I will add a personal comment: As a scientist working in industry, I can safely say that it was much easier for me to get this industry job than an academic one. My 1 application to industry landed me a job at what is almost certainly amongst the top 20 industrial research laboratories in the country. My 50 applications to academia led me to one job interview (and possibly a job…I accepted the industry job before they decided) at a quite obscure academic institution. Obviously, such anecdotal evidence does not provide great statistics but I know others who did a more extensive search in industry and the several job offers they got were like manna from heaven after their job search in academia had made them feel that thier talents were not needed. Admittedly, this may be a function of time…I was in the market at a time when the economy was pretty good but the academic job market was not and the story might be quite different these days. However, I have never in physics heard of a market where academic jobs were thought of as consolation prizes for those who can’t get into industry!

As for the issue of the committees, note that the quote you cited says that nearly all the committee members will be replaced and that “many” of them have direct ties to the industries that make the chemicals. We are not, as far as I can tell, talking about balance here…We are not talking about committees that were previously stacked with scientists with links to NRDC and Sierra Club. Historically, these committees have managed to be kept pretty much out of the political process with appointments made mainly on the basis of scientific credentials. There is strong evidence that the Bush Administration is making these appointments much more on the basis of holding the right connections and ideology. When you say “Someone has to do something about this sort of bad science,” what evidence do you have that this committee was previously doing bad science?

Actually, here is a site prepared by Democratic Senator Henry Waxman concerning science in the Bush Administration. Sure it is a partisan site but some of the basic points have been endorsed, for example, in an editorial in Nature [Vol 424, p. 861 (Aug 21, 2003)], which along with Science are almost certaionly the two most prestigious multidisciplinary science journals in the world. The title of the editorial was “No way to run a superpower” and the last paragraph reads “On major policy issues such as global warming, ballistic-missile defence and stem-cell research, Bush committed early on to an ideologically driven approach and has stuck to it. In an age when science pervades so many aspects of government, this is a remarkable, and remarkably ill-judged, approach t setting policy.” It was written just after the release of the full report that Waxman put out and while it doesn’t accept the report uncritically, it notes that it deserves to be taken seriously and its points responded to but that so far the Administration had not taken it seriously at all but had summarily dismissed it by saying Waxman was just “playing politics”.

By the way, fortunately the federal courts have been increasingly blocking Bush environmental rule changes on the basis of them flauting either the rule-making process or the science. Here is a New York Times editorial on the latest example, rules regarding efficiency standards for air conditioners.

[jshore]

@pervert

I only looked into their claims about wet land reclamation because I am aware of some abuses of this environmental law. Their objections seem to center around the idea that Bush wants to focus on replacing wetland function instead of merely acreage. I’m not sure at all that this is such a extremist position. Especially since the “Compensating for Wetland Losses Under the Clean Water Act, National Academy of Sciences, 2001, and Wetlands Protection: Assessments Needed to Determine Effectiveness of In-Lieu-Fee Mitigation, General Accounting Office, May 2001” which they cite as supporting thier position seems to agree partly with the president (I could only get summaries of the report without paying) that accounting for function is important as well as acreage.

By the way, I haven’t had a chance to investiage this wetlands issue you raised but I did want to point out that you can usually read for free the full reports from the National Academies online and this one is no exception: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309074320/html/ The full GAO report also appears to be available as an online PDF (warning: pretty big file) here.

[jshore]

@jshore

It was written just after the release of the full report that Waxman put out and while it doesn’t accept the report uncritically, it notes that it deserves to be taken seriously and its points responded to but that so far the Administration had not taken it seriously at all but had summarily dismissed it by saying Waxman was just “playing politics”.

I did a search both in google and at WhiteHouse.gov to see if there has been any response to the Waxman report and didn’t manage to turn up anything. Others can try and see if they have any more luck. I highly recommend the report. It makes pretty chilling reading. Here are a couple examples:

Opposing Qualified Experts. The Department of Health and Human
Services rejected a widely respected expert’s nomination to a grant review
panel on workplace safety after it became clear that she supported rules to
protect workers from musculoskeletal injuries, rules that the Bush Administration opposes. The head of the panel called the rejection “directly opposed to the philosophy of peer review, which is supposed to be nonpolitical and transparent.”

Unqualified Persons with Ideological Agendas. The Department of Health and Human Services nominated as chair of the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drug Advisory Committee an anti-abortion activist who recommends that women read the bible for relief of premenstrual symptoms. The appointee’s principal credential appears to be his opposition to the abortifacient RU-486. The medical journal Lancet described his scientific record as “sparse” and wrote that “[a]ny further right-wing incursions on expert panels’ membership will cause a terminal decline in public trust in the advice of scientists.”

Suppressing Agency Reports. After the White House edited a discussion of global warming in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Draft Report on the Environment, agency scientists objected that the draft “no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change,” and EPA chose to eliminate the discussion entirely. A former EPA Administrator in the Nixon and Ford Administrations commented, “I can state categorically that there was never such White House intrusion into the business of the E.PA. during my tenure.”

[jshore]

@jshore

Sure it is a partisan site but some of the basic points have been endorsed, for example, in an editorial in Nature [Vol 424, p. 861 (Aug 21, 2003)], which along with Science are almost certaionly the two most prestigious multidisciplinary science journals in the world…

Lest I leave people with the impression that it is only the editors of the British journal Nature who have taken the Bush Administration to task for its politicization of science, I’ll add that the Editor-in-Chief of Science has also weighed in strongly on this point in an [url=]editorial titled “Epidemic of Politics”:

Americans have come to accept the role of politics in the appointment of certain kinds of public officials. Few of us are surprised, though some may be disappointed, when a federal judgeship is awarded because the candidate passes a litmus test of loyalty to some principle important to the president’s party. Scientific appointments, however, should rest on more objective criteria of training, ability, and performance–at least, that’s what this community has always believed. Thus we can view with relative calm the interrogation of a future secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) about his views on abortion. But it seems out of place when appointees to scientific advisory committees are subjected to tests of political loyalty. And study section membership, which involves peer review of scientific proposals, surely ought to be free of such barriers to entry.

…

The present epidemic, in which advisory committees are shut down and reassembled with new members, and candidates are subjected to loyalty tests, seems old hat to some observers. “After all, that’s fairly standard practice,” we have been told by officials in HHS. Well, it isn’t–or at least it wasn’t. What’s unusual about the current epidemic is not that the Bush administration examines candidates for compatibility with its “values.” It’s how deep the practice cuts; in particular, the way it now invades areas once immune to this kind of manipulation.

…

This stuff would be prime material for a Robin Williams comedy shtick, but it really isn’t funny. The purpose of advisory committees is to provide balanced, thoughtful advice to the policy process; it is better not to put the policy up front. As for study sections, deciding which research projects to support has always been a matter for objective peer review. Political preferences are for the pork barrel, and the Congress is already doing too much of that. Indeed, the applicable statute for all this–the Federal Advisory Committee Act–specifically requires that committees be balanced and “not inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority.” It would be a good idea for HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and the White House Personnel Office to read the law, and then follow it.

[See the full editorial for the paragraphs of examples which I have left out here. By the way, the in-print citation for this is Science, Vol. 299, p. 625 (Jan 31, 2003).]

[Evil_Captor]

@Dewey Cheatem Undhow

As long as the accused has pesky little advantages like the presumption of innocence, a right to a jury trial, and a right to confront his accusers, prosecutors will have to be sure they can marshall an airtight case to secure a conviction. In a case like Enron, involving highly technical accounting and finance issues, that will take time. There’s simply no way around that. We are not a society founded on frontier justice. Because the case against Martha involves a substantially simpler set of facts than does the Enron affair.

I think the real advantage that both Lay and Stewart have here is MILLIONS of DOLLARS. Seems to be the biggest advantage a defendant can have, under our present system.

[XT]

When (and in what society, ever) WASN’T it an advantage to be rich or powerful or both? Human nature, no? Reality check time…

-XT

[Quint_Essence]

The intentional ignorance of some republicans is absolutly astounding and entirely embarassing to patriotic americans everywhere.
Open your eyes and read for christ’s sake. The information is out there and easy to find. How can you idiots be so freaking blind?!?!?!