The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace

[Larry]

Just want to point out that you are completely full of ****.

Again ignoring the attack . . .

I sure seem to remember things that way. But although Google returns thousands (if not millions) of hits, even as "neutral" and "factual" sites as wiki seem to agree with you.

(And the ES search feature, which allows filtering things by date, doesn't seen to find anything between 2003 ans a few months ago.)

I'm gonna have to say that the evidence I can find doesn't seem to support things the way I remember them.

[IbleedBnG83]

Bush....is an idiot. Lets be serious.

[bj252004]

Again ignoring the attack . . .

I sure seem to remember things that way. But although Google returns thousands (if not millions) of hits, even as "neutral" and "factual" sites as wiki seem to agree with you.

(And the ES search feature, which allows filtering things by date, doesn't seen to find anything between 2003 ans a few months ago.)

I'm gonna have to say that the evidence I can find doesn't seem to support things the way I remember them.

Larry MadMike is right.

[bj252004]

Again ignoring the attack . . .

I sure seem to remember things that way. But although Google returns thousands (if not millions) of hits, even as "neutral" and "factual" sites as wiki seem to agree with you.

(And the ES search feature, which allows filtering things by date, doesn't seen to find anything between 2003 ans a few months ago.)

I'm gonna have to say that the evidence I can find doesn't seem to support things the way I remember them.

Here is another from 2007.

[Mad Mike]

Again ignoring the attack . . .

I sure seem to remember things that way. But although Google returns thousands (if not millions) of hits, even as "neutral" and "factual" sites as wiki seem to agree with you.

(And the ES search feature, which allows filtering things by date, doesn't seen to find anything between 2003 ans a few months ago.)

I'm gonna have to say that the evidence I can find doesn't seem to support things the way I remember them.

Dude. I'm a smart ass. It's what I do and who I am. If you were my best bud and we were debating the merits of cotton candy, I would respond the same way. Quit whining.

Good to see that you can admit you were wrong.

Now, can you admit that Bush did a smart thing when he corrected his initial strategy?

[PeterMP]

Again ignoring the attack . . .

I sure seem to remember things that way. But although Google returns thousands (if not millions) of hits, even as "neutral" and "factual" sites as wiki seem to agree with you.

(And the ES search feature, which allows filtering things by date, doesn't seen to find anything between 2003 ans a few months ago.)

I'm gonna have to say that the evidence I can find doesn't seem to support things the way I remember them.

Larry, you aren't completely wrong- just a little confused. Some Democrats early in the Iraq war called for more troops. Bush resisted. By 2006, the violence in Iraq had gotten so bad that most believed withdraw was the only option.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/11/ldt.00.html

We all know that Murtha called for us to leave Iraq because we were losing, but before that back in 2004, he was actually calling for increases in troop numbers:

"MURTHA: Well, I've been struggling with this for the last six weeks. And I'd written to President Bush in November. I got an interim reply in January and then got a reply from an assistant secretary of defense in April or May and he said, everything is going all right.

About 100 of us wrote a letter to the president in November, in addition to this letter, and said, look, you miscalculated. You have much more opposition than you thought. You need to reconsider and send more troops, and, of course, no reply at all. So there's an arrogance there in the White House that's disturbing. And I usually don't speak openly about these things."

"MURTHA: Well, let me put it this way. We can struggle along with the number of people we have.

And they keep saying, well, it's just a handful of people. Well, just a handful of people in this prison caused this international disaster. These handful of so-called opponents or so-called handful of people are causing us terrible problems. When you look at Fallujah, when you look at the areas where there are IEDs, they're spending thousands of dollars and we're spending billions of dollars in this fight.

We've spent $200 billion in this fight in Iraq and it wasn't supposed to cost us anything. So when you say, it is realistic to pull out? It would be an international disaster I think if we pulled out. But the alternative is, we're going to struggle along, get more and more young people killed. And I go out to visit the hospitals every week or so.

I go to Bethesda one week. I go to Walter Reed the next week. And I see these young men and women who have been maimed and hurt so badly. And I'm saying to myself, you have got to have better security. You have got to give these forces what they need in order to fight this war."

You could say that some Dems, like Murtha, were for the surge before they were against it and Bush was against the surge before he was for it.

[PeterMP]

Here is another from 2007.

Try going back to 2004 and even 2005 and look at who was calling for more troops.

[mjah]

Hey, you have any respect for Lincoln? He took a giant "poo-poo" on the Constitution. He suspended Habeas Corpus which allowed him to jail reporters and political adversaries and illegally allowed the creation of West Virginia.

If you are about to compare the Civil War with 9/11, I'm going to respectfully inquire as to the color of the walls inside your padded room at Arkham asylum.

The Civil War was an all-out conflagration that cost perhaps 700,000 American lives and came close to literally splitting the country in two. Aside from the general notion of "national security being threatened," which is WAY too broad to use here as a precedent, there's no reasonable comparison between the Civil War and 9/11 on the topic of civil liberties. None.

If Bush were literally presiding over the disintegration of the Union, and facing a press/political cabal that often actually supported the destruction of the nation, invoking Lincoln would be an interesting point. Versus the looming reality of NO UNION, a temporarily more imperfect Union would certainly be the favorable option to me. Thankfully, Bush did not face that scenario, so your comparison doesn't work here.

While 9/11 was awful and tragic, frankly it WAS NOT the Civil War, for crying out loud.

And speaking of temporarily more imperfect -- when did Republicans like Bill Frist, echoing the policy of the White House, say the Patriot Act should expire?

"Never?"

Wow. Remarkable. I guess he thought we'd be at war forever. Literally, forever.

What about the 99% of Dems who voted for the Patriot Act? Are you Judging them as harshly?

As harshly as the guy who was president at the time?

Okay, you tell me which individual Democratic congressman (sheep, by the way, just like the Republicans) deserves more blame than Bush or Cheney for the objectionable subset of provisions in the Patriot Act. The objectionable subset of provisions that the White House insisted upon.

Or maybe your argument is that the entire Congress, taken as a whole, has an equal share of blame vs. Bush by himself. Hundreds to one.

Either way -- who's the standout here? The guy who bears (on average) 1/538th of the Congressional blame, or the guy who bears ALL of the Executive blame? It's not too hard to figure out why people quite appropriately single Bush out for withering criticism. Bush represents an entire branch of the Federal government. He alone (unless you consider Cheney co-president) shoulders at least as much blame as the entire Congress for the civil-rights-averse sections of the Patriot Act.

Interestingly, Biden authored an early version of the act that, as I understand it, did not have the massively controversial measures. Only under pressure from congressional Republicans and the White House did the more draconian content get stuffed in there.

There is a historical precedent for the Federal Government to suspend civil rights when National Security is threatened. I would consider 9-11 a threat to our national security. Wouldn't you?

Oh Lord, you did go there. I would have expected better.

A threat to national security, by itself, is not sufficient grounds for suspending civil liberties. In the US, you don't just get to check that box and then start taking away rights. You know better than to claim otherwise.

Either tighten this argument up considerably, or just throw it out!

[bj252004]

Try going back to 2004 and even 2005 and look at who was calling for more troops.

I would agree, but the dems were against the latest troop surge. They said it wouldn't work and it did. Bush has been a victim of bad generals and a bad sec. of defense until General Petras which has been fantastic. I can't remember but I believe when the democrats were saying we needed more troops his generals were saying that we didn't need more troops. I know Mcain was saying more troops the whole time. I do not remember that far back.

[ross3909]

History isn't going to grade him much different unless there are multiple terrorist attacks (or one REALLY big one) in this country in the next 4 years (none of which can come in the next 9 months).

He's not escaping torture, being wrong/lying on WMD, errosion of the right to privacy, or the economic downturn. On carrying out Iraq, he MIGHT turn out to be "okay", but even there, there will always be the "what if" he'd have canned Rumsfeld sooner (or even from the beginning) and used more troops.

I know you would love to hang all of that on Bush, but the economic down turn may just end up around the Democratic Congresses neck if the facts come out about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. As for being wrong about WMD, he will just have to join the world on that one. And the Dems should watch out for being remembered as the party that gave comfort to the enemy while American troops were in harms way. Bush will be just fine in history because people will compare it to the complete train wreck that the Obama presidency will be.

[PeterMP]

I would agree, but the dems were against the latest troop surge. They said it wouldn't work and it did. Bush has been a victim of bad generals and a bad sec. of defense until General Petras which has been fantastic. I can't remember but I believe when the democrats were saying we needed more troops his generals were saying that we didn't need more troops. I know Mcain was saying more troops the whole time. I do not remember that far back.

You realize that Gen. Shensheki said that it might take 300,000 troops in post-Saddam Iraq in Congressional testimony BEFORE the Iraq war.

Paul Wolfowitz, a civilian in the Def. Dept. w/ no military experience, testified after him that he was wrong.

Then Shensheki was retired.

I'd agree that he had a bad Sec. Def., but that's Bush's fault because he named him.

I think the Gen. were probably fine, and learned their lesson after Shensheki.

[PeterMP]

I know you would love to hang all of that on Bush, but the economic down turn may just end up around the Democratic Congresses neck if the facts come out about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. As for being wrong about WMD, he will just have to join the world on that one. And the Dems should watch out for being remembered as the party that gave comfort to the enemy while American troops were in harms way. Bush will be just fine in history because people will compare it to the complete train wreck that the Obama presidency will be.

1. How many people know who had control of Congress prior to the Great Depression or what actions they took to cause/worsen the Great Depression? I'll bet less than 5% of Americans.

2. The rest of the world didn't invade Iraq.

[Sticksboi05]

There is one thing that shines about the Bush presidency and that is he's done more to help the continent of Africa than any President in the 20th Century by a long shot.