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Democratic National Convention tonight...
- Thread starter GodsTyro
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Sirpopopop
Member
Astro - Links please.
Oh yeah, I also need some links on Bush's health care plan - specifically costs and the like. I remember, there was some pretty horrifying stuff which came out about his plan that no one in the media really picked up on.
Oh yeah, I also need some links on Bush's health care plan - specifically costs and the like. I remember, there was some pretty horrifying stuff which came out about his plan that no one in the media really picked up on.
MSW said:
Way to read and understand the whole article, super-scholar.
How about I just break it down into nice, simple quotes for you:
The Bush administration, once on the side of patients (in fact he touted it as a shining example of his compassionate conservatism), now joined the side of the HMOs arguing basically the exact opposite of what he argued before.
Oh wait, let me guess, it was just misinformation.
Wrong. He also slashed the government's tax revenue, then started leeching off of the social security surplus just to make the numbers look SOMEWHAT bearable. And he's always been pushing tax cut, tax cut, tax cut. Surplus in the budget? Bush wanted to cut taxes. 9/11? Bush wanted to cut taxes. Recession? Bush wanted to cut taxes... and yet even though keynesian deficit spending is something that's normal for a recession, Bush has made it abundantly clear that his cuts are NOT keynesian. He wants them PERMANENT.
Of course, you could go along with Dick Cheney, who said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter", but then you'd have to ignore the blatant lie Bush recently made in a campaign speech: "Were going to continue to bring fiscal discipline to Washington, DC."
http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/reagtxct/reagtxct.htm
By they I mean Reagan and congress.
In real dollars revenues doubled.
Here you see that cutting taxes shifted more of the burden to the rich people.
By they I mean Reagan and congress.
In real dollars revenues doubled.
Here you see that cutting taxes shifted more of the burden to the rich people.
On the other hand, the share of total federal taxes, if one includes the Social Security payroll tax, declined for four groups:
-For the second-highest 20 percent of taxpayers, from 22.2 percent in 1980 to 20.8 percent in 1989;
-For the middle 20 percent of taxpayers, from 13.2 percent in 1980 to 12.5 percent in 1989;
-For the second-lowest 20 percent of taxpayers, from 6.9 percent in 1980 to 6.4 percent in 1989
-For the lowest 20 percent of taxpayers, from 1.6 percent in 1980 to 1.5 percent in 1989
ConfusingJazz
Member
Coming from a Texan, our state government does basically shit. The state constitution was written right after we kicked out the carpertbaggers after reconstruction, and it was designed from fear during that period, moslty a strong state government, especially the governor. Half of the executive branch is elected, and its a widely held belief that the lieutenat governor actually has more power because he heads senate commitees and selects the committees.. Trust me on this one, being governor of texas is a pretty sweet deal if you can get it. All the governor can really do is veto legislature, and pick judges if a post is vacant between elections.
I am much more impressed with a US Senator then with a Texas Governor
I am much more impressed with a US Senator then with a Texas Governor
Some Congressional Budget Office tables I found...
Now, what "effective" actually means I can't say, so while I can't be sure what the ACTUAL numbers where, it's not a slamdunk ordeal.
ANYWAY... none of this lets Bush off the hook for knowingly plunging the nation into record deficits.
Code:
Combined federal and payroll tax rates (1993 dollars):
---------Avg. Income Total Tax Rate % Change, $ Change,
Quintile 1989 1980 1989 1989 taxes 1989 taxes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
First 20% $8,642 8.1% 9.3% +15.1% +$104
Second 20% 20,743 15.6 15.7 +0.6 +21
Third 20% 33,659 19.8 19.4 -2.0 -135
Fourth 20% 49,347 22.9 22.0 -7.6 -444
Fifth 20% 112,700 27.6 25.5 -7.6 -2,367
Top 1% 576,553 31.9 26.2 -15.0 -32,864
Code:
EFFECTIVE TAX RATES BY POPULATION DECILE
Individual Income Tax
Decile 1980 1984 1988
First -.5% -.4 -.8
Second .2 .3 -.4
Third 2.6 2.8 1.7
Fourth 5.5 4.8 4.1
Fifth 7.2 6.3 5.9
Sixth 9.1 7.8 7.2
Seventh 10.4 8.7 8.3
Eighth 11.6 9.7 9.0
Ninth 13.2 10.9 10.4
Tenth 18.0 15.1 15.5
Top 1% 22.9 18.8 19.7
Social Security Tax
Decile 1980 1984 1988
First 3.4% 4.4 5.0
Second 4.3 5.0 5.9
Third 6.4 7.5 8.6
Fourth 7.8 8.3 9.4
Fifth 8.1 8.9 9.8
Sixth 8.6 9.4 10.4
Seventh 8.9 9.6 10.5
Eighth 9.0 10.0 10.9
Ninth 8.4 9.7 10.6
Tenth 5.9 5.6 6.0
Top 1% 1.5 1.7 1.8
All Taxes
Decile 1980 1984 1988
First 6.9% 10.3 9.7
Second 7.8 8.7 8.6
Third 12.1 13.4 13.3
Fourth 16.2 16.1 16.5
Fifth 18.3 18.0 18.5
Sixth 20.3 19.6 20.2
Seventh 21.8 20.7 21.4
Eighth 23.1 22.0 22.3
Ninth 24.3 22.8 23.4
Tenth 28.9 24.8 26.6
Top 1% 34.6 26.9 29.3Now, what "effective" actually means I can't say, so while I can't be sure what the ACTUAL numbers where, it's not a slamdunk ordeal.
ANYWAY... none of this lets Bush off the hook for knowingly plunging the nation into record deficits.
Okay, so here's what I've learned -
1) Fiscal Policy is synonymous with the economy, and the president has no control over it.
1a) Except when passing through tax cuts, as this is a free lunch solution to everything and the presidents with the wisdom to see this are awesome.
2) Bush took credit for a bill he opposed because of 9/11 before 9/11 happened.
3) Experince as a legislator is insufficient for the white house because we need executive experience.
3a) Lt. Governor's don't count, they don't do anything, everbody knows that, don't be stupid.
4) Revenues doubled under Reagan!
4a) It is unnecessary to control for inflation.
4b) It is unnecessary to control for long term growth.
4c) The impact of payroll taxes and cutting loopholes should be ignored, reducing marginal rates explains everything.
4d) Because the laffer curve was so clearly effective when the highest marginal rate was 70%, it obviously still applies when the top rate is 38.5%.
5) Dealing with dangerous regimes before they become too powerful is necessary.
5a) Iraq was the only country that met this standard of necessity.
1) Fiscal Policy is synonymous with the economy, and the president has no control over it.
1a) Except when passing through tax cuts, as this is a free lunch solution to everything and the presidents with the wisdom to see this are awesome.
2) Bush took credit for a bill he opposed because of 9/11 before 9/11 happened.
3) Experince as a legislator is insufficient for the white house because we need executive experience.
3a) Lt. Governor's don't count, they don't do anything, everbody knows that, don't be stupid.
4) Revenues doubled under Reagan!
4a) It is unnecessary to control for inflation.
4b) It is unnecessary to control for long term growth.
4c) The impact of payroll taxes and cutting loopholes should be ignored, reducing marginal rates explains everything.
4d) Because the laffer curve was so clearly effective when the highest marginal rate was 70%, it obviously still applies when the top rate is 38.5%.
5) Dealing with dangerous regimes before they become too powerful is necessary.
5a) Iraq was the only country that met this standard of necessity.
Baron Aloha
A Shining Example
MSW said:
Kerry was a LT Governor and you obviously have no clue how laws are passed. Many times several pieces of legislation are tacked together in order to get several laws passed at once. Anyone who has spent 19 years in the senate is going to find them selves on both sides of many issues. Sometimes to pass an important law you will have to also pass laws that you previously did not supprt because you wanted the main piece of legislation to go though. Likewise, you might also have to stop supporting something because it gets tacked on to a really crappy bill. Also, the politcal climate can change rapidly. What was good for our nation one day may not be good for our nation the next day.
Thats because it goes towards his character. Bush is a slacker who to this day never takes responsibility for his actions.
Read what I typed again. I said late 80s/early 90's. This is quite accurate. At no point did I use the word "most". I said "much", meaning he spent a lot of his time dedicated to this cause and it is true.
You are reading way too much into what I typed. I'll keep it short and sweet. Six embryonic stem cell lines is not enough. We have no way of knowing the full potential of embryonic stem cells if we aren't willing to fund the proper research. It's shortsightedness on Bush's part and the only reason he is doing it is to please folks like Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson and all of their flunkies.
A couple of things. #1 Iraq was never an immediate threat. I suspected from day 1 that Iraq never had WMDs and that this entire war was just a ploy to get us over into Iraq so that Bush could avenge his daddy and so that Cheney's former company, Haliburton could make billions. Let me ask you something. If the real reason to go to war was to find WMDs, then why did the administration's reasons for going to war change after only a few days? We were in Iraq for less than a week when suddenly the administration started using the line "we are here to free the Iraqi people". Now wait just one minute. I thought we were there to find WMDs. It seems to me that if the administration really was looking for WMDs that they would have looked for them for more than a week before changing their position. #2 The administration did not sell the war to the country by saying that our purpose for going to war was to free the Iraqi people. Freeing 25 million people is all well and good but it isn't the reason we went over there. We didn't send 900 soldiers over there to die so that the Iraqi people could be freed. We sent them over there because we were told that we were in imminent danger. Bush fucked up. It doesn't matter what the CIA said. He should have known the exact location of those weapons (or at the very least a rough idea) before going over there instead of speculating on their existence because of whispers and whatnot. He ultimately made the decision to go to war and the buck stops with him.
So you mean to tell me the president doesn't have any control over the federal budget? Our nation is in debt because of Bush's tax cuts. The president should have held on to the surplus in case our nation ever had a crisis but instead he threw most of it away with the first round of tax cuts. Then, when our nation entered a crisis we didn't have any money so we had to go into debt to pay for the war. And then to top it all of, after our nation was already strapped for cash because of the war, Bush did another round of tax cuts that mainly benefitted the top 1% and the second round of tax cuts was even bigger than the first!!!
It was 3 million only a few months ago and my point still stands. He is still very much in the hole. The fact is, this so called "recovery" has done nothing for the average american and theres nothing amazing about it.
It MATTERS. America has for years, proclaimed itself the moral compass for the world. When our government starts pre-emptive wars it hurts our reputation and increases the hatred for us in the world. This does nothing but breed more terrorists. Mark my words, Iraq will not be a peaceful place in 10 years.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Come on. There were clearly millions of people who were skeptical about what evidence they were showing.DJ_Tet said:
JoshuaJSlone said:
Come on, he's used WMD in the past. The International Community was convinced for years, as was Clinton. Why is everyone's memory so damn short? This has been a problem for many years, we haven't found them. Know why? They aren't there anymore. Iraq has documented that they did have WMD. They do not have documents that they were destroyed. What's so hard to grasp?
Are you really trying to convince people their opinions should have been wrong a year ago?
At any rate, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had had them, but the evidence that was being presented in order to sway me (and others) from holding that position as an assumption to believing it to be fact was flimsy at best. I also think you overestimate the conviction of 'the international community' even at the time.
At any rate, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had had them, but the evidence that was being presented in order to sway me (and others) from holding that position as an assumption to believing it to be fact was flimsy at best. I also think you overestimate the conviction of 'the international community' even at the time.
KilledByBill
Member
With this kind of mentality you could be our President.
Seriously now, the argument surrounding the second Iraq war wasn't that Saddam had used WMD in the 80's (back when he was our anti-Islamic/Communist ally) but whether he still had them in 2003 and whether that constituted a threat to the U.S.
It's now 2004 and we never found any of the supposed weapons and "Coalition" forces easily swept away Saddam's forces and his gov. So maybe the UN weapons inspectors really did their job and destroyed all of Iraq's WMD's after the Gulf War. Or maybe Saddam himself destroyed any WMD's he had because he figured that the Bush administration would use them as a pretext for an invasion. And clearly what was left of the Iraqi army after their defeat in the Gulf War and a decade of sanctions and containment was no imminent threat to the U.S. at all. What's so hard to grap?
KilledByBill said:With this kind of mentality you could be our President.
Thanks
I know it's easy to blame Bush because we can't find the WMD that Iraq admitted to having, but that's the easy way out. I'm sure they weren't well hidden, in country or out. I mean, it's been so easy to find Saddam and Osama, I can't imagine why we can't find some inanimate objects on the face of the Earth, or below it. If you want to attack Bush because he changed the focus mid-war, that seems more reasonable than attacking him for information that he had and everyone not named Richard Clarke believed in.
Bizarro Sun Yat-sen
Banned
The share of income taxes paid by the upper class increased during the 80s because their share of income increased markedly over that period. In other words the rich paid more taxes because they got richer, and the poor didn't.
Yeah because those inanimate objects moved themselves and no one put them there, so there would be no leads whatsoever as to where they were moved. Despite the fact that if they were not properly sealed (assuming they were the kind of WMD that are actually worth thousands of lives, and not the kind that would have been painfuly useful in the war), they'd probably be making people sick by now.
Seriously, that argument is getting a little tired.
Seriously, that argument is getting a little tired.
videogamer
Banned
DJ_Tet said:
Well, the world is still waiting good solid evidence for the WMD's. The kind of WMD's that pose an imminent threat. As time moves on, the "hidden WMD" or "WMD's in Syria/Sudan" sound more and more like conspiracy stories.
no more of a conspiracy than "they'll fly planes into our buildings"
it's sad how easily some are influenced.
No one doubted that Iraq had WMD. Hell they used them in the past. Revisionist history is the easiest type. I'd love to pull a John Titor and ask "Who thinks that Iraq has WMD?" in 1999. It would be over 3/4ths of you easily, god forbid any of you are Iranians. Were we misled into this war? Perhaps. Did Iraq have WMD? Most definitely. Why haven't we found them? Your guess is as good as mine, and I HOPE we don't find them before the election. Who knows what chain of events that would start, it might be worse than if we find Osama before the election.
I hope for OUR case we find one or the other though, even if it means Kerry is in office at that time.
it's sad how easily some are influenced.
No one doubted that Iraq had WMD. Hell they used them in the past. Revisionist history is the easiest type. I'd love to pull a John Titor and ask "Who thinks that Iraq has WMD?" in 1999. It would be over 3/4ths of you easily, god forbid any of you are Iranians. Were we misled into this war? Perhaps. Did Iraq have WMD? Most definitely. Why haven't we found them? Your guess is as good as mine, and I HOPE we don't find them before the election. Who knows what chain of events that would start, it might be worse than if we find Osama before the election.
I hope for OUR case we find one or the other though, even if it means Kerry is in office at that time.
videogamer
Banned
DJ_Tet said:
Did I ever say it was a "conspiracy story"? If you look at my sentence, you will find that the "hidden WMD" excuse "sounds" increasingly like a conspiracy story. I never said that it is one. There's a difference between noting that something sounds like a conspiracy story and saying that it is one. It's the relationship between the argument and the current available information that makes the "hidden WMD" sound like a conspiracy story to me. It's assumed that as time goes on, the WMDs would be more readily found as things are cleared out. However, even David Kay concedes that WMDs may not be found. With all the pre-war hype, it has certainly been a letdown.
Oh, and are you referring to me as being "influenced" and how so?
I concede that WMDs may not be found. Hell almost four years have passed since "we" (meaning the free world) knew Saddam had them. If he was half as smart as he is, he would have hid/moved them out of the country.
edit: I agree it was a letdown, and I was not referring to you exclusively as "influenced", rather the American public who on Sept 14 2001 was pretty damn sure Iraq had WMD. It's sad we couldn't find them, but not in the least incoincidental.
edit: I agree it was a letdown, and I was not referring to you exclusively as "influenced", rather the American public who on Sept 14 2001 was pretty damn sure Iraq had WMD. It's sad we couldn't find them, but not in the least incoincidental.
videogamer
Banned
DJ_Tet said:
Or maybe he got rid of them like he was supposed to.
eggplant said:
If that was the case why didn't he document it? What possible reason could he have for NOT documenting that?
I think he 'got rid of them' too, by moving them out of the country. Think about it, he disposes of them, documents it, and stays in power. Even if he didn't stay in power, he'd at least have an ace to pull in court. I can see no advantage to disposing WMD and not documenting that fact when the whole world is watching.
videogamer
Banned
DJ_Tet said:
Didn't the Iraqi government always claim that it got rid of the WMDs? Also, keep in mind how disorganized and corrupt the Iraqi government could be. I don't remember the link, but for example, Iraqi scientists would mislead the government on the progress of different projects so that they could get funding without actually doing anything. From what I've read in the news, Saddam was very uninformed for a leader. His underlings were afraid of him, and thus oftentimes made extravagant claims for stuff that they did not do. Saddam didn't have a total grasp of what his country was like. Even Aziz said that in the past couple of years Saddam became more and more involved in writing his novels than ruling his country.
What's the advantage to hiding it out of the country anyways when he's not going to be around to use them? We are going in way hypothetical territory here. Anyways, even during the run-up to the Iraq war, there were doubts being expressed about their existance (at least the heavy scary ones). The African uranium claims were questioned, and Hans Blix indicated that he didn't find any smoking guns, which opponents of the Iraq war used in their arguments.
KilledByBill
Member
DJ it sounds like you're the one taking the easy way out. You keep saying the same line again and again....
No one doubted Iraq had WMD's when? In the 1980's? You keep trying to shoe-horn the fact that Saddam had and used WMD's in the 1980's as "evidence" that he still had them in 2003. That's not the kind of logic that will convince most people to launch a war that cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives.
You also sound like the one who seems to have the short-term selective memory, as you seem to completely ignore the intense international and domestic debate about the Iraq situation in the run-up to the war. Our administration laid out very weak evidence that Iraq was hiding weapons and any and all leads we gave the UN inspectors turned out to be bogus. There was also plenty of internal disagreement within U.S. intelligence about Iraq's WMD capabilities.
That assumes that Iraq's WMD programs from the 1980's were highly documented in the first place, which after the Gulf War it became clear that they weren't. That didn't stop the UN inspectors from finding and destroying so many of them though.
Also, who is to say that documents related to Iraq's destruction of its remaining WMD's weren't destroyed in the widespread looting and pillaging of Iraqi government buildings as the Coalition forces stood by on the sidelines.
There's no real evidence to support a claim like that. That's just a saying: "we really thought he had them and if the UN couldn't find them and we couldn't find them than they must be somewhere else." It's a weak out, nothing more. An excuse to avoid admitting that the WMD's were either nonexsistant or had been destroyed as Saddam claimed all along.
What country would even take them anyway, knowing that the U.S. was prepared to use force to topple the Iraqi government to find them. Iraq's old friends in Iran maybe? Please....
No one doubted Iraq had WMD's when? In the 1980's? You keep trying to shoe-horn the fact that Saddam had and used WMD's in the 1980's as "evidence" that he still had them in 2003. That's not the kind of logic that will convince most people to launch a war that cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives.
You also sound like the one who seems to have the short-term selective memory, as you seem to completely ignore the intense international and domestic debate about the Iraq situation in the run-up to the war. Our administration laid out very weak evidence that Iraq was hiding weapons and any and all leads we gave the UN inspectors turned out to be bogus. There was also plenty of internal disagreement within U.S. intelligence about Iraq's WMD capabilities.
That assumes that Iraq's WMD programs from the 1980's were highly documented in the first place, which after the Gulf War it became clear that they weren't. That didn't stop the UN inspectors from finding and destroying so many of them though.
Also, who is to say that documents related to Iraq's destruction of its remaining WMD's weren't destroyed in the widespread looting and pillaging of Iraqi government buildings as the Coalition forces stood by on the sidelines.
There's no real evidence to support a claim like that. That's just a saying: "we really thought he had them and if the UN couldn't find them and we couldn't find them than they must be somewhere else." It's a weak out, nothing more. An excuse to avoid admitting that the WMD's were either nonexsistant or had been destroyed as Saddam claimed all along.
What country would even take them anyway, knowing that the U.S. was prepared to use force to topple the Iraqi government to find them. Iraq's old friends in Iran maybe? Please....
DJ_Tet said:
So you're saying he moved radioactive materials, biological agents, all by himself with no help from any of the lieutenants or scientists in his government that we've captured and are now rotting in gitmo? Or are they all so incredibly loyal to their complete wack job of a president that they'd never say, even though it won't help him now to keep quiet?
I'm sorry, but what you're talking about sounds like a deep conspiracy to me. You're insisting that these weapons are so well hidden, that everyone involved has incredibly tight lips, that there is no paper trail, and that ALL OF THIS incredible conspiracy to hide these incredibly dangerous weapons and not use them to actually defend himself was to own his old arch enemy's son. How is that any better than believing that Bush wanted to go there to avenge his daddy?
Apparently Saddam is the greatest criminal mastermind in history.
ConfusingJazz
Member
Lathentar said:
There is a HUGE difference between Kuwait and Iraq. Seeing that Baghdad has the twice the population of Kuwait, Iraq has ~25 times the landmass, and that Kuwait is a much more homogenous nation. They don't have the shi'ites and the sunnis and the kurds and the christians beating that shit out of each other. These are some of the reason that if you go to a small arab nation, like Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, and Kuwait, its not really as bad and typically pro western. Its much easier to control the populace and easier to spread the money around.
If they were able to actually fix Iraq, it will most likely be something like Egypt. Egypt is technically a democracy, but the presidents somehow win elections for 30 years in a row before dying in rather dubious elections. It is far from the democratic haven that Bush wants, but still quite stable at the moment.
However, they still can turn into a rather theocratic state like Iran, and that would probably be the worst thing to happen outside of Anarchy, where we just create another soverign state that dislikes us.
Because Saddam's control over Iraq was based upon Iraqi citizens and the world's belief that Hussein had a powerful arsenal of weapons. The rest of the world wasn't going to go charging in to contest that, and neither were the Iraqis. People give Saddam too little credit, this man managed to protect his regime by claiming to have weapons that he actually didn't have, or at least once had and has seemingly destroyed. That's pretty impressive.DJ_Tet said:
He wouldn't have documents proving that he got rid of his weapons because it would jeopardize his control of Iraq. The only problem is that Bush eventually called Hussein's bluff. That was Saddam Hussein's big gamble, and it worked for a pretty long time. In truth, if the world's intelligence had been able to confirm that Saddam had no weapons, there would have been fighting in Iraq anyway. There'd be no question that there would be revolutionary action taken, although it would have been anything but quick and successful.
In regard to Hussein protecting his own hide for as long as possible, he did just about everything right. I hate to say that as the guy was a crazy dictator, but played his cards pretty well. He only started losing his bet when 9/11 happened and Bush began publicly looking to tackle Iraq, and Hussein's bluffs weren't quite enough to keep the US out at that point.
seismologist
Banned
Wow you guys defending president Bush must be pretty well off. Because unless you're making a $200k+ salary, having a republican in office does absolutely nothing for you.
(Unless you think that $150 tax rebate check is actually significant.)
(Unless you think that $150 tax rebate check is actually significant.)
This is what's wrong with the country. Everyone is sitting there going, "what will the President do for me?" What happened to electing someone that was good for the country as a whole, be they Democrat, Republican or Vegetable? Everyone just wants short-term personal benefits in the form of lower taxes or rebates or whatever with no regard to how they affect the country's future.seismologist said:
I vote to support the country, not myself.
PS: this post is not a defense of Bush, but a general comment on the selfishness and narrowmindedness of the country.
seismologist said:
What an awesome post. You've completely changed my views. Truth be told, I'm against the Republican agenda when it comes to abortion and drugs. But I'm against the Democratic agenda when it comes to drugs as well.
Having Bush in office has been pretty good to me the last four years. He's better than the alternative. I just wish we had more alternatives. THAT's what's wrong with this country actually.
seismologist
Banned
DJ_Tet said:
I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just amazed that people are defending Bush with so much passion. I actually agree with you. The last four years has been pretty good to me personally. Republicans are known to cater to big business. That's why things like outsourcing have recently become a problem. Luckily it hasn't affected me yet so
I'm ok with the status quo. For me personally it probably isn't going to get much better with Kerry. It might get worse though. For a lot of people looking for jobs it might get alot better.
I dont see anything wrong with voting for the issues important to you. That's the whole point of voting. I dont see it as selfish.
seismologist said:
I'd love to know how many posts in this thread (biased because it is the DNC thread) and all other political threads on GAF would qualify as "Defending Bush with a passion" and how many would qualify as "Bashing Bush with a passion/Pimping Kerry with a passion."
I bet the ratio would be 3-1 in favor of bashing/pimping. Simply stating one's support of the President is not the same as "defending with a passion." There are a LOT of things Bush has done in his 4 years to cater for the Libs. They don't care, and all he's doing is pissing conservatives like myself off. His spending has been out of control. I merely find him to be the lesser of two evils at this point, which isn't a glowing review of Bush's presidency. I'll never forget what he was like during our time of need (after 9.11) though, and for me that's enough.
Bleh, we covered this with opa on the last version of the board...
Bush has NOT done a lot of things for liberals. People who think this tend to think that liberals measure the success of a government by the amount of money it spends, rather than by the problems it solves. Sure, Bush is throwing a lot of money at the prescription drug entitlement, but the bill was very flawed, and opposed by most Democrats.
As for Iraq's WMD's...
Your argument is that he had them in the 80's, and that people used to think he had them. Well, in the 80's he didn't have to deal with the crippling sanctions and the inspections and the no-fly zones and the bombing in 1998 and all that hoo-ha. When Kamel Hussein defected, he told the UN team that the WMD program had been dismantled. Scott Ritter said before the war that there was no WMD program, and David Kay said after the war there was no WMD program.
For over a year we've had access to all the possible WMD manufacturing and storage sites, and to anyone and everyone who would have been involved in the research, production, distribution, and training for WMD's. We haven't found shit because there ain't shit to find, and any other conclusions are felony violations of Occam's Razor.
MSW just posted way too many stupid things. That Cooter?
Bush has NOT done a lot of things for liberals. People who think this tend to think that liberals measure the success of a government by the amount of money it spends, rather than by the problems it solves. Sure, Bush is throwing a lot of money at the prescription drug entitlement, but the bill was very flawed, and opposed by most Democrats.
As for Iraq's WMD's...
Your argument is that he had them in the 80's, and that people used to think he had them. Well, in the 80's he didn't have to deal with the crippling sanctions and the inspections and the no-fly zones and the bombing in 1998 and all that hoo-ha. When Kamel Hussein defected, he told the UN team that the WMD program had been dismantled. Scott Ritter said before the war that there was no WMD program, and David Kay said after the war there was no WMD program.
For over a year we've had access to all the possible WMD manufacturing and storage sites, and to anyone and everyone who would have been involved in the research, production, distribution, and training for WMD's. We haven't found shit because there ain't shit to find, and any other conclusions are felony violations of Occam's Razor.
Instead of parsing this, I'll ask you to elaborate.
MSW just posted way too many stupid things. That Cooter?
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