The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace

[Larry]

If you want to see evil, study Saddam Hussein and his sons and consider what the world would be like if they were in power for the next 50 years.

:2cents:

Yep, I shudder to think of the possibility of America being ruled by inherited power in control of kidnapping squads who drag people off to secret torture facilities.

[Special K]

name the sewage plant after him once he gets out of office

Figured I'd get a flippant post like that from poster such as yourself.

[EersSkins05]

A correction here.

I said I didn't agree with those statements, but I was conceding them for the sake of argument.

Even GIVING Bush all that, his record isn't 1/10th as impressive as Truman's. Throwing Truman's name around to justify horrific approval ratings is the latest bad cliche' that's just completely unsubstantiated by history.

Truman had low approval ratings b/c he fired an extraordinarily popular general because he believed his judgment was more important than that of the President in the administration of a war.

Bush's popularity (or lack thereof) is directly related to his performance and the results we see in his policies. Favorably comparing him to Truman is ignorance defined.

[brianm23]

Explain how exactly you go about respecting the office of the Presidency while you are trashing the person in that position?

IMO respecting the office off the Presidency means to NOT trash, insult, etc. the actual President. Disagree vehemently, yes. Insults no.

Why should we respect the very man who's insulted the American people and its system for 8 years now? Just curious.

[Gibbsisgod2006]

Yep, I shudder to think of the possibility of America being ruled by inherited power in control of kidnapping squads who drag people off to secret torture facilities.

What Saddam and his sons were doing were far worse comparison. You have to get the intel some way. You think that terrorist are going to tell you right off the bat?

[Special K]

Why should we respect the very man who's insulted the American people and its system for 8 years now? Just curious.

Uh, because you should respect the office of the president.

Listen, I'm not saying people shouldn't disagree with him. I'm not saying people shouldn't be upset about what they think has been the mishandling of our country over the past 8 years. That's fine. But when it devolves into personal insults, naming sewage plants after him, etc., that's not fine IMO.

[Prosperity]

Figured I'd get a flippant post like that from poster such as yourself.

I reciprocate

[mjah]

You reap what you sow and Bush has been far from a great president but the left went way over the line.

First of all, Bush probably has an equal chance of being judged a bottom-5 president vs. a top-20 president. He was a disaster. "Far from a great president" doesn't begin to cover it.

Second, the Bush White House went way over the line. That's the major line-stepping you should be worried about. Nothing the Democrats did compares with Bush's idiotic behavior on torture, civil liberties, Katrina, Iraq, etc., etc. The list goes on and on. At one point the White House seemed to be questioning the fundamental patriotism of anyone who didn't buy their supposed connection between Saddam and 9/11. I mean, seriously.

My biggest complaint is democrats being so dishonest about the Iraq war and WMD's.

Bigger than your complaint about the Bush Administration being so dishonest about the Iraq War and WMDs?

As McCain would say: Remarkable.

Many supported Saddam's removal (and expounded on the existence of WMDs) for years before Bush even took office, they voted for the war and when it became politically convenient to turn on him, they took the opportunity and stabbed him in the back.

Dude. First of all, Congress is full of sheep, and if you look at Bush's approval ratings you'll notice that even most of your fellow Republican citizens have "stabbed him in the back." So don't limit your vitriol to the Democrats. What you're really saying is that you have an issue with the vast majority of Americans who call a spade a spade after being duped, bullied, and coerced into supporting unnecessary war by an overreaching, overconfident, speculative, and incompetent White House.

You will get precious little sympathy for that point of view.

Granted the war was run badly and Bush should be called out for that but Democrats all act as if they were lied to - if that was true allot of those democrats were lying before W was even elected.

You need to consider that when it comes to war, there's a world of difference between words and actions.

It's one thing to engage in tough rhetoric accusing Saddam of harboring useful, dangerous, deployable WMDs -- without any hard proof to back it up. It's quite another thing to start a war that costs trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and a nation's credibility, based on nothing but that same unsupportable rhetoric.

If you can't see the difference between those two, then for the rest of your life you will wonder why Bush gets such a bad rap for the way he went into Iraq. That's a long time to wonder.

Democrats voted for the Iraq War because they thought they politically had little choice. Bush whipped up the totally fake Saddam-9/11 connection, plus Curveball and the rest of that obviously bogus nonsense, and got a hurting, vengeful nation behind him. Congressmen had intense pressure from the White House, with the willing participation of the press by the way, and then Congress had intense pressure from the people too. So under siege from all sides, they did what Congress does best: They said "Baaaaaaaaaaaaa" and lined up for their fleecing.

The right thing to do would have been to read the NIE and vote against the Iraq War -- but guess what? That goes for Bush too, given that he alone would have comprised a one-man Executive majority that would have stopped our generation's greatest foreign policy disaster before it even began.

Ultimately, as Truman himself said, "The buck stops here." Not in Congress, not at DNC headquarters. Rather, it stops right on Bush's desk. Truman, the one and only well regarded president whose legacy Bush has even a snowball's chance in Hell of sniffing, basically shot him down some 60 years ago.

Blaming Democrats makes zero sense, when the Democrats were merely sheepish enablers of Bush's disaster. Little wonder, then, that Bush lost all credibility with them once they saw what he had bullied them into.

I'm trying to live up to my new sig... I'm really trying... but the go-Bush delusion... its power is ...so... great... must confront it...

[Special K]

I reciprocate

Of course you do. Your immaturity on this subject speaks volumes.

[dockeryfan]

Personally, I think his treatment of the United States has been a disgrace. What a horrible leader in such trying times. I hope history remembers him as such.

[Art Monk Fan]

I'm trying to live up to my new sig... I'm really trying... but the go-Bush delusion... its power is ...so... great... must confront it...

Don't bother -- I suspect the country is NOT purple, it's more blue than red.

[The 12th Commandment]

He bent us over and gave it to us. He gets what he deserves IMO. Maybe it will change in a 100 years but it won't be me changing.

[Mad Mike]

Yep, I shudder to think of the possibility of America being ruled by inherited power in control of kidnapping squads who drag people off to secret torture facilities.

I'm sorry but if you don't understand the difference between the nature of torture under Saddam and his sons, and the harsh treatment of terrorists you have lost all touch with reality and sanity.

Anyone who in any way thinks Bush is in any way like Saddam is a moron.

[Prosperity]

Of course you do. Your immaturity on this subject speaks volumes.

look we are both partisans and that leads to clash, but do you really think that this particular position makes me immature and you mature?

[Larry]

I'm sorry but if you don't understand the difference between the nature of torture under Saddam and his sons, and the harsh treatment of terrorists you have lost all touch with reality and sanity.

Anyone who in any way thinks Bush is in any way like Saddam is a moron.

Then explain the difference, moron.

[mjah]

Don't bother -- I suspect the country is NOT purple, it's more blue than red.

Only by a handful of percentage points, though.

Truth is, the US is ALWAYS purple.

[Hubbs]

This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans.

I stopped reading after that. There are many reasons, some fair and some unfair, for the rampant hate against Bush. But this is way, way down there on the list, if not completely off of it.

[Gibbsisgod2006]

Then explain the difference, moron.

Well lets see Saddam's son would rape thier victims wife's in front of them afterwards would chop up the women after they were done with them and throw them in to the Tigerus River just one of the many things Saddam and his sons did.

[desioreo87]

I hate Bush.

He is the worst president in our nation's history.

He is an *******.

So yeah, he deserves it.

[Vicious]

The treatment of the American people by Bush has been a disgrace. The entire Colin Powell UN thing. Iraq trying to get nuclear material from Africa in the state of the union speech. I will NEVER forget I was lied to so he could go to war and the American public better be very wary of this sort of thing in the future.

[Predicto]

The underlying premise of this article is that President Bush tried to reach across the aisle and tried to govern as a centrist, and was punished for it.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and History will not view him that way. The GOP has governed according to Karl Rove and Tom DeLay's "50% plus one vote" strategy. It is insulting to our collective intelligence for this WSJ piece to say "This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans." It is ridiculous, dishonest, complete flim-flammery. Was the K Street Project anyone's idea of reaching across the aisle?

I do NOT blame President Bush for all of the things that have gone wrong during his presidency and yes, he faced more than his share of difficult challenges... but this particular effort at whitewashing his legacy is pathetically weak.

[Mad Mike]

Then explain the difference, moron.

Here you go genius.

http://espn.go.com/oly/s/2002/1220/1480103.html

In the history of the world, an expanse that covers Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler and other despots both past and present, there is no shortage of absolute rulers whose human rights records compare with that of today's designated pariah, Saddam Hussein.

Since being charged with overseeing the Iraqi National Olympic Committee in 1984, Uday Hussein allegedly has made sport of imprisoning, torturing and murdering athletes. There may never have been a sports official, though, as brutal as his son, Uday.

As president of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee, Uday allegedly tortures athletes for losing games. He sticks them in prison for days or months at a time. Has them beaten with iron bars. Caned on the soles of their feet. Chained to walls and left to stay in contorted positions for days. Dragged on pavement until their backs are bloody, then dunked in sewage to ensure the wounds become infected. If Uday stops by a player's jail cell, he might urinate on his bowed, shaven head. Just to humiliate him.

http://fdd.typepad.com/fdd/2006/01/alert_saddams_c.html

As the trial of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein resumes, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is posting 4 videos of actual torture and murder that took place under Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Iraqis pour out tales of Saddam's torture chambers

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-04-13-saddam-secrets-usat_x.htm

The secrets of Saddam Hussein's reign of terror are beginning to emerge. Iraqi civilians who had longed feared speaking out about the alleged atrocities for fear of government retribution are revealing in detail what the Iraqi dictator and his regime inflicted on some of the country's 26 million people.

They paint a picture of arrests, killings and torture that have led human rights groups to condemn the Iraqi leader in the strongest terms. The groups have charged that tens of thousands of Iraqis, from Kurds in the north to Shiites in the south, were tortured and killed after Saddam seized power in 1979.

Saddam's mass graves

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/2785095.stm

http://www.usaid.gov/press/mediaadvisories/2004/ma040722.html

TAIMOUR (LAST NAME WITHHELD)

Taimour was only 12 years old in 1988 when he survived the Anfal massacres of an estimated 180,000 Kurdish Iraqis - men, women and children including 110 members of his own extended family who were slaughtered by machine guns in mass graves. He fled to the United States and started a new life. He hopes to testify in the trial of Saddam Hussein.

Taimour's father was a farmer in the remote village of Kulejo; about 20 minutes drive away from the town of Kallar, northeast of Baghdad. One day Iraqi troops took everyone in the village to a military garrison near the Iran border and ten days later to Topzawa jail in Kirkuk.

After a month, vans took the villagers to the desert near the border with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where they were pushed into graves dug by bulldozers and shot. Taimour was shot several times but managed to crawl away and with the help of Bedouins and others made his way back to Kurdistan.

Because he was perhaps the only victim to witness the Anfal mass killings and survive, rumor reached him that Saddam Hussein had put out a contract on his life. He fled to the United States in 1996 with the help of human rights advocates.

IBRAHIM (LAST NAME WITHHELD)

Ibrahim was born on January 1, 1967 into a much respected religious (Shia) and political family in the Kadimiyah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq. He completed Secondary School in Baghdad in 1982, but was unable to attend college. He became active in a cultural and social organization which opposed the extremism of the Ba'ath Party. For their activities, thirteen of its members were murdered - two of whom were tortured to death.

Mr. Jano Rosebiani

Iraqi Documentary Film Producer and Expert on Iraq's Mass Graves

Mr. Rosebiani is a self-taught Iraqi-Kurdish/American filmmaker, born and raised in the town of Zakho in Kurdistan of Iraq. In 1974, then a seventh-grader, he along with his family joined the Kurdish uprising and took to the mountains of Northern Iraq. Two years later he became a refugee in the Untied States.

In 1995, following his college education in the United States, Mr. Rosebiani made his feature film debut with "Dance of the Pendulum," - an intellectual dark comedy parodying exploitation in Hollywood.

In 2002, he finished "Jiyan", his first Kurdish film which means "life" when translated into English. Jiyan is the first installment of a documentary trilogy intended to be a window into the world of Kurds in Iraq. Viewers are invited to see a glimpse of the Kurds, their daily life, their culture and their folklore. Most importantly, the film explores the human rights dilemma confronting Kurds living under Saddam Hussein. Jiyan has been a film festival and critics favorite, garnering numerous wards and four-star ratings by The Guardian, The Observer and BBC World.

Mr. Rosebiani's latest works are two documentaries depicting Saddam Hussein and his regime's crimes against humanity. They are "Saddam's Mass Graves" and "Chemical Ali." Saddam's Mass Graves was released in February, 2004, and recently premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Chemical Ali will be released in the Fall of 2004 and is expected to be released through major human rights film festivals internationally.

Other awards presented to Mr. Rosebiani for his work include: Special Jury Award - New Director's Showcase, Seattle International Film Festival 2002; "Man and his Environment" Award - International Film Festival Festroia 2002, Setubal, Portugal; Official Selection for Tiger Competition - International Film Festival Rotterdam 2002; In The Spirit of Freedom Award, In Memory of Wim Van Leer - 19th Jerusalem Film Festival 2002; Popular Jury Award - Rights to Have Rights Film Festival 2003. Modena, Italy.

Long story short. If Bush were like Saddam, you would have been tortured and killed after watching your wife being raped for speaking out against him.

Does that help?

[Special K]

look we are both partisans and that leads to clash, but do you really think that this particular position makes me immature and you mature?

Yes.

You are advocating (literally) trashing a president...but saying it's okay after he's out of office. Do you know that even when a president is out of office, they are called Mr. President still? No matter how long after Bush leaves office, he will still have been a United States president and he should still recieve respect b/c he still represents, in some ways, the office he held.

Advocating naming a SEWER plant after the man out of spite or advocating insultive behavior toward a president is not respectful: it displays a high level of immaturity on the behalf of that individual.

This goes both ways. I would say that people insulting Clinton or people insulting our President elect Obama suffer from a maturity level that lends itself to grade school playground-like behavior of calling others names.

And like I've said countless times already in this thread and throughout other threads is that it is inappropriate and immature to disrespect the office of the presidency like this. Again, vehemently disagreeing with the president, being upset about how he has run his office are NOT disrespectful...but devolving into name-calling, sewer plant-naming, and other insulting behaviors are.

[Larry]

Well lets see Saddam's son would rape thier victims wife's in front of them afterwards would chop up the women after they were done with them and throw them in to the Tigerus River just one of the many things Saddam and his sons did.

Which is clearly completely different from, say, forcibly lowering somebody's body temperature to the point of unconsciousness.

Or drowning people to make them talk. Or suspending people from their shoulder sockets. (Both of which, I'll point out, were defined as torture by the founders of this country.)

Sorry, but what I see is that your clear distinction (which anybody who can't see is a moron) is akin to "well, they both robbed banks, but one of them robbed bigger banks."

[Dan T.]

I base the following on listening to Barrack Obama's gracious homage to John McCain in his speech last night:

When Barack Obama speaks publicly about George Bush at some point during the transfer of power, he will demonstrate how you can express vehement disagreement with a man's policies and actions in office without denigrating the man himself. That is a lesson clearly lost on many people in this thread, and sadly, among many in the political climate today. Too bad.