I Miss Bush - Page 5

spudcon · 11-02-2010, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete Zicato

True. I should have payed more attention to the date specified.

Still had nothing to do with Bush.

C'mon guys, haven't you heard 9/11 was Bush's fault too?

Pete Zicato · 11-02-2010, 08:22 PM

And he killed Cock Robin. But that's not what we're discussing here.

xoxoxoBruce · 11-02-2010, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

No different than what the Dems did 4 years ago; you are correct, very effective.

Maybe in Georgia, but not here. This was a completely different campaign season. I was watching former Governor Dupont, from Delaware, on PBS tonight. He was saying pretty much the same thing, in that he was amazed how different this campaign season was from anything he'd ever seen.

Spexxvet · 11-03-2010, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I think most people barely knew who he was or what he was about since he had really only been in office 9 months.

Yet you knew who Obama was the day after he was elected. Riiiiight.

Sheldonrs · 11-03-2010, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spudcon

C'mon guys, haven't you heard 9/11 was Bush's fault too?

Not his fault but he was warned and chose to ignore it.

Spexxvet · 11-03-2010, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

I disagree with you, sarge. I think the bush years were worse, and I think the facts support that. I do, however, agree that most Americans feel the same way that you do.

I was incorrect. The Dems held the house, so I guess More Americans did not agree with you.

glatt · 11-03-2010, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

I was incorrect. The Dems held the house, so I guess More Americans did not agree with you.

Huh? Do I need to go running off to the news sites? The Dems barely held the Senate, it wasn't even close for the House.

Happy Monkey · 11-03-2010, 09:14 AM

The Dems held the Senate.

Spexxvet · 11-03-2010, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt

Huh? Do I need to go running off to the news sites? The Dems barely held the Senate, it wasn't even close for the House.

I figure if most (more than half) of Americans agreed, the pubes would have take the senate, too. They didn't, so they don't.

Spexxvet · 11-03-2010, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

I was incorrect. The Dems held the house, so I guess More Americans did not agree with you.

Excuse me: the dems held the Senate

classicman · 11-03-2010, 10:31 AM

It's the R's turn again... If they don't get "it" done, they'll be out next election.
Political patience of the people seems to be at near zero.

footfootfoot · 11-03-2010, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Bush certainly squandered that quite spectacularly, when he invaded Iraq and tried to equate support for that to patriotism.

Not to mention that bit of exquisite legerdemain where he managed to conflate 9/11 and his old family friend Bin Laden with Al Quaida and Iraq. That was sweet.

Beest · 11-03-2010, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by classicman

It's the R's turn again... If they don't get "it" done, they'll be out next election.
Political patience of the people seems to be at near zero.

They were saying on the radio this morning that this is another pendulum swing of the large moderate group who is just dissatified with the the way things are and reacts against who is in power hopeing for seomthing better.

I guess next time it will be a competetion as to who can claim credit for anything good that happens, unemployment falling, or pin the blame on the other guys for anything bad, house prices still in doldrums.

footfootfoot · 11-03-2010, 12:50 PM

Maybe this will bring back more fond memories:

Published on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 by the Times/UK
The United States of America Has Gone Mad
by John le Carré

America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bushjunta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.

But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer s pocket? At what cost because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people in Iraqi lives?

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.

Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam s downfall just not on Bush s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.

God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another s, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas.

Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God s work.

In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that somebody was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr s cry: That man tried to kill my Daddy. But it s still not personal, this war. It s still necessary. It s still God s work. It s still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people.

To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won t tell us is the truth about why we re going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil but oil, money and people s lives. Saddam s misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn t, won t.

If Saddam didn t have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart s content. Other leaders do it every day think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.

Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam s weapons of mass destruction, if he s still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.

The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair s part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can t get out.

It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that s Britain s tragedy, as it is America s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. Blair s best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world s greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant s head to wave at the boys?

Blair s worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.

There is a middle way, but it s a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship.

I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.
But will we win, Daddy?
Of course, child. It will all be over while you re still in bed.
Why?
Because otherwise Mr Bush s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him.
But will people be killed, Daddy?
Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people.
Can I watch it on television?
Only if Mr Bush says you can.
And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more?
Hush child, and go to sleep.

Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: Peace is also Patriotic . It was gone by the time he d finished shopping.

piercehawkeye45 · 11-03-2010, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by classicman

It's the R's turn again... If they don't get "it" done, they'll be out next election.
Political patience of the people seems to be at near zero.

I could see it both ways. The democrats still hold the senate and Obama is still in the White House so if the tea party can convince people that they couldn't do anything because of that, it may work in their favor.

Also, many moderate democrats got the boot so this upcoming 2 years should be even more polarized. I am interested to see what they will do with the budget.

11-02-2010, 08:22 PM	#62
Pete Zicato Turns out my CRS is a symptom of TMB. Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Chicago suburbs Posts: 2,916	And he killed Cock Robin. But that's not what we're discussing here. __________________ Talk nerdy to me.

11-03-2010, 09:14 AM	#68
Happy Monkey I think this line's mostly filler. Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: DC Posts: 13,575	The Dems held the Senate. __________________ _________________ \|...............\| We live in the nick of times. \| Len 17, Wid 3 \| \|_______________\| [pics]

11-03-2010, 10:31 AM	#71
classicman barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy. Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 23,401	It's the R's turn again... If they don't get "it" done, they'll be out next election. Political patience of the people seems to be at near zero. __________________ "like strapping a pillow on a bull in a china shop" Bullitt

11-03-2010, 12:50 PM	#74
footfootfoot To shreds, you say? Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: in the house and on the street-how many, many feet we meet! Posts: 18,449	Maybe this will bring back more fond memories: Published on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 by the Times/UK The United States of America Has Gone Mad by John le Carré America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War. The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press. The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bushjunta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions. But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer s pocket? At what cost because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people in Iraqi lives? How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election. Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam s downfall just not on Bush s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy. The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist. God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another s, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas. Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God s work. In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that somebody was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr s cry: That man tried to kill my Daddy. But it s still not personal, this war. It s still necessary. It s still God s work. It s still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people. To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won t tell us is the truth about why we re going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil but oil, money and people s lives. Saddam s misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn t, won t. If Saddam didn t have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart s content. Other leaders do it every day think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt. Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam s weapons of mass destruction, if he s still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad. The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair s part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can t get out. It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that s Britain s tragedy, as it is America s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. Blair s best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world s greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant s head to wave at the boys? Blair s worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy. There is a middle way, but it s a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship. I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar. But will we win, Daddy? Of course, child. It will all be over while you re still in bed. Why? Because otherwise Mr Bush s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him. But will people be killed, Daddy? Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people. Can I watch it on television? Only if Mr Bush says you can. And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more? Hush child, and go to sleep. Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: Peace is also Patriotic . It was gone by the time he d finished shopping. Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Ltd __________________ The internet is a hateful stew of vomit you can never take completely seriously. - Her Fobs Last edited by xoxoxoBruce; 11-03-2010 at 02:52 PM.

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