BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 03:04 PM

"Popular."

"Popular" as defined by?

If the answer is liberals, I would say this thread is well named.

If the answer is the American people, I would say it is mis-titled. Fifty-four percent of Americans (according to the major polls) approve of the job the president is doing.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 02:53 PM

Hi Teribus,

Your question,

"Those plans, formulated by Centcom commander General George Zinni, had been made in 1998 while Bill Clinton was in office?"

is easilly answered. Obviously if plans had been made, they were rejected by the Clinton Administration and revived by the
Bush Administration.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:31 PM

Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:22 PM

The Bible.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,The B-I-B-L-E Was Once The Book For Me...
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:20 PM

"I don't consider it a reliable source of information"

Are you talking about your friends quote or the bible?

The B-I-B-L-E Was Once The Book For Me...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:12 PM

TBWOTFM:

I don't know. I don't consider it a reliable source of information.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 12:50 PM

Here are some interesting comments about Bush and Co: "The US is now in the hands of a group of extremists" - by George Soros, who isn't exactly a lefty. The link is to "an edited extract" pubished in today's Guardian, from "The Bubble of American Supremacy",a book by Soros published this week.

"We have fallen into a trap. The suicide bombers' motivation seemed incomprehensible at the time of the attack; now a light begins to dawn: they wanted us to react the way we did. Perhaps they understood us better than we understand ourselves.

"And we have been deceived. When he stood for election in 2000, President Bush promised a humble foreign policy. I contend that the Bush administration has deliberately exploited September 11 to pursue policies that the American public would not have otherwise tolerated."

I especially agree with his judgement that what has happened since Seoptemer 11th has been precisely what the people who organised it and took part in it wanted to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,The B-I-B-L-E Was Once The Book For Me...
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 12:33 PM

Amos:

Are those biblical verses you quoted above about marriage really in the bible (don't have one handy to check the authenticity of those verses. Maybe a Mudcat biblical scholar can verify those).

The B-I-B-L-E Was Once The Book For Me...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 11:31 AM

Thanks Amos.

Quoted from the above link:

[But Zinni vows that he has learned a lesson. Reminded that he endorsed Bush in 2000, he says, "I'm not going to do anything political again -- ever. I made that mistake one time." ]

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 11:16 AM

I think it is incumbent on us out of respect for the truth to see the whole descritpion by Zinni when he spoke out.

Here's an article that describes it.

Zinni's perspective is clearly that our resident Veep is just a liar, or a badly misled biped at best.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 09:49 AM

Wait up a minute:

"...Zinni says that after he oversaw the bombing of Baghdad in 1998, he thought Saddam was on the verge of falling, so he drew up a detailed plan for occupying Iraq, called Desert Crossing."

So the "revelation" by Paul O'Neill that GWB had the invasion of Iraq on the table from day one (2000) is incorrect. Those plans, formulated by Centcom commander General George Zinni, had been made in 1998 while Bill Clinton was in office?

Hmmmmmmm as Bobert would say.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 09:13 AM

An interesting dissertation on "Bush As Ali Baba" can be found on this page which characterizes him as a thief.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 03:46 AM

Ex-Treasury Chief Says He'll Probably Vote For Bush In '04

Not just the kind of witness a prosecutor would wish for.
But still the publication is quite damning at least for one aspect of the Bush government in my eyes. WMDs have never been the real motive for the war against Iraq. But at the time of the publication this didn't really come as a big surprise, but then, perhaps to some it did.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Ineptitude at the Top: Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 07:07 PM

From the N Y TIMES:

Former Official Describes Bush as ‘Disengaged’

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 11:11 AM

From Slate's "Today's Papers" site:

The Post's Style section profiles former Centcom commander General George Zinni, who endorsed Bush in 2000 and has become one of the fiercest critics of the invasion of Iraq. "I think the American people were conned into this," he says. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground." Zinni says that after he oversaw the bombing of Baghdad in 1998, he thought Saddam was on the verge of falling, so he drew up a detailed plan for occupying Iraq, called Desert Crossing. Concerned that his plan wasn't being properly considered, before the war Zinni called a Centcom general, asking, "Are you guys looking at Desert Crossing?" The general responded, "What's that?"

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 10:43 AM

Here's a scary story from the Times documenting Rumsfeld's special envoy duties visiting Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and letting him know we were against chem warfare in general but we weren't mad at him and didn't want to compromise our relationship, yadda yadda...the implication of which is that it was Bush Senior and Bush Junior between them, who managed things in such a way as to necessitate the Iraq war and all the deaths concomitant thereunto.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/23/international/middleeast/23RUMS.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 — As a special envoy for the Reagan administration in 1984, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the defense secretary, traveled to Iraq to persuade officials there that the United States was eager to improve ties with President Saddam Hussein despite his use of chemical weapons, newly declassified documents show.


Mr. Rumsfeld, who ran a pharmaceutical company at the time, was tapped by Secretary of State George P. Shultz to reinforce a message that a recent move to condemn Iraq's use of chemical weapons was strictly in principle and that America's priority was to prevent an Iranian victory in the Iran-Iraq war and to improve bilateral ties...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: kendall
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 04:53 AM

Re elect Gore in 2004.

What scares me is that so many people now believe that it's ok to pull a "first strike" on a POTENTIAL enemy! And, they don't see the similarity between Iraq and Pearl Harbor.\They destroyed the towers, so, we get to destroy their whole country. The problem with that "logic" is; THEY didn't destroy the towers!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 01:39 AM

Today I saw a bumper sticker on a parked car: RE-DEFEAT BUSH! Made me feel like hunting up the driver to make his/her acquaintance.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 12:08 AM

Here's a wonderful sport for those who have some time on their hands: sign in and review this colorful series of 30-second quick messages by a wide span of artistic talent found at "Bush in 30 Seconds". They are a puredee hoot.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 10:49 PM

U S   U N D E R   A T T A C K

       WASHINGTON OBSERVED
       Blind fury that sparks bloodlust
       Sep 14 2001
       Peter Hartcher

Nine out of 10 Americans support armed retaliation against the forces that struck New York and Washington this week, even if it means getting into a war.

And a quarter of this group endorses launching military strikes immediately - without waiting to find out who is actually responsible.

In the absence of a known enemy, whom and where would the US attack? Should it be random, with a pin on a map directing a hail of missiles? Or should it be racially based?

Surely only an infuriated minority of rednecks would propose such blind bloodlust? Not at all.

Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli has an idea for dealing with the
absence of a known perpetrator. He proposed yesterday that Congress
authorise the President to open "general hostilities" and assault 10
terrorist organisations around the world immediately.

"Given the enormity of the attack against our country, I think we're
entitled to take action against each of them," he said.

This is despite the lessons of history.

The last time the US launched massive and hasty missile strikes against a terrorist, Osama bin Laden, in 1998, "all we managed to do was bounce some rubble around in Afghanistan and raise the level of anti-Americanism", in the words of Milt Bearden, a former CIA agent who worked in Afghanistan.

The missiles apparently killed six children, but missed bin Laden, who survived to become the prime suspect in this week's atrocities.

For many in the US, the fury is so deep that it is blind and irrational.

For most Americans, it is beyond the reach of civilised restraint. The Gallup poll found that 66 per cent of the US public favours armed action "even if it means that innocent people are killed".

For the US at war, this fury is normal. "Once wars begin, a significant element of American public opinion supports waging them at the highest possible level of intensity," writes the US scholar Walter Russell Mead in the journal The National Interest.

And the key to understanding this war frenzy, he argues, is the same key to grasping other aspects of the American popular psyche, such as the national fetish for guns.

And that key is Jacksonianism - the tradition named after the sixth US president. Andrew Jackson was a Scots-Irish immigrant who was orphaned on the frontier, fought in wars against American Indians and the British, and suffered as a prisoner of war - all by the age of 15.

He was an intense hater, with crazy blue eyes, fearless in battle and "mad upon his enemy", said his biographer Robert Remini.

He was poorly educated, but a brilliant strategist. At the Battle of New Orleans he shattered an invading British army of 5,000 men, dealing them a staggering 2,000 casualties, with the loss of only a dozen or so of his own troops.

Nicknamed Old Hickory for his wiry toughness and known by the Indians as Sharp Knife for his tactics, Jackson had no control over his temper.

One of his contemporaries, Thomas Jefferson, said of him: "When I was
president of the Senate, he was Senator, and he could never speak on
account of the rashness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it
repeatedly, and as often choke with rage... He is a dangerous man." But as the country's foremost war hero, he could not be denied the presidency.

Jacksonianism is a populist folk culture that has its roots in the sense of identity among the Scots-Irish who settled much of the American West.

It distrusts elites, favours rugged individualism, loves guns, loathes multilateralism and prizes courage.

Ronald Reagan tapped it more successfully than any modern president.

Understanding Jacksonianism is to understand the American attitude to war. According to Mead, "the first Jacksonian rule of war is that wars must be fought with all available force. The use of limited force is deeply repugnant."

This school also draws sharp distinction between honourable and
dishonourable enemies. In the case of dishonourable enemies, "all rules are off". This was the fate of the Japanese. Jacksonian America had no compunction about using the atomic bomb against civilians.

Jackson's cultural heirs believe that the chief object of warfare was
breaking an enemy's spirit. "It was not enough to defeat a tribe in battle; one had to pacify the tribe.

"For this to happen, the war had to go to the enemy's home. The villages had to be burned, food supplies destroyed, civilians had to be killed. From the tiniest child to the most revered of the elderly sages, everyone in the enemy nation had to understand that further armed resistance to the will of the American people... was simply not an option."

Mead argues that this strand of public opinion determines how America
fights and wins wars, or, if it is denied, how it makes and breaks the presidents who defy it.

Truman, Johnson and George Bush senior all defied the Jacksonian code by trying to wage limited war, and none survived the decision.

The choking rage of Jacksonianism, now fully roused by a dishonourable enemy, will demand the ferocious and unrestrained prosecution of this next American war.

And George W. Bush will defy it at his peril.

As one of Jackson's intellectual heirs, General Curtis Le May, the man who dropped the atomic bomb, once said: "I'll tell you what war is. You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough, they stop fighting."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 10:11 PM

My brother sent me this:

Bumper Sticker ideas for the GOP for 2004:
Bush/Cheney '04: Four More Wars!
Bush/Cheney '04: Assimilate. Resistance is Futile.
Bush/Cheney '04: Apocalypse Now!
Bush/Cheney '04: Because the truth just isn't good enough.
Bush/Cheney '04: Compassionate Colonialism
Bush/Cheney '04: Deja-voodoo all over again!
Bush/Cheney '04: Don't Change Whores in Midstream
Bush/Cheney '04: Get used to it!
Bush/Cheney '04: In your heart, you know they're technically correct.
Bush/Cheney '04: Leave no billionaire behind
Bush/Cheney '04: Less CIA -- More CYA
Bush/Cheney '04: Lies and videotape but no sex!
Bush/Cheney '04: Making the world a better place, one country at a
time.
Bush/Cheney '04: Or else.
Bush/Cheney '04: Over a billion Whoppers served.
Bush/Cheney '04: Putting the "con" in conservatism
Bush/Cheney '04: Thanks for not paying attention.
Bush/Cheney '04: The economy's stupid!
Bush/Cheney '04: The last vote you'll ever have to cast.
Bush/Cheney '04: This time, elect us!
Bush/Cheney '04: We're Gooder!
Bush/Cheney: Asses of Evil
Don't think. Vote Bush!
George W. Bush: A brainwave away from the presidency
George W. Bush: It takes a village idiot
George W. Bush: Leadership without a doubt
George W. Bush: The buck stops Over There
God Save the King!
Let them eat yellowcake! Vote Bush!
Peace & Prosperity Suck -- Big-Time
Vote Bush in '04: "Because every vote counts -- for me!"
Vote Bush in '04: "Because I'm the President, that's why!"
Vote Bush in '04: Because dictatorship is easier
Vote Bush in '04: It's a no-brainer!
Vote for Bush & You Get Dick!
Who would Jesus Bomb?
Vote Bush in '04: "I Has Incumbentory Advantitude"

My favorite is:
BU__SH__!

In summary, I can't stand the guy. I agree with what the Dixie Chicks said before they were forced into a retraction.
But most people I know think he's wonderful.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 09:26 PM

That one line nearly immortalized Benson in my mind. Benson signature is also still found on a lot of dollar bills out there. I thought he would have made an excellent VP...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 09:07 PM

"...I knew Jack Kennedy, he was a friend of mine... and let me tell you, Mr Quale... You're no Jack Kennedy..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: toadfrog
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 09:31 PM

With all due respect, guys, there were a lot of Clinton jokes too. The only nationally known politician I can remember that there were no jokes about was Benson, the guy who was not elected Vice President in 1988. Who remembers Benson?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 07:53 PM

These both made me laugh so hard, that that I broke my 'bummed out' 'lost it' card...


Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German." -- Bill Maher, on Schwarzenegger running for Governor...


"The United States is putting together a Constitution now for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It's served us well for 200 years, and we don't appear to be using it anymore, so what the hell?" -- Jay Leno ...
Thanks!, Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Gareth
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 07:37 PM

And not one word on the practicalities !!!!!!!!

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:51 PM

Depends what you mean by "workable" I suppose. ;>)

Queen of Fools, turn around, life will be your folly
Wave your wand at those who will waste away and worry
Play them for the fools they are, make their steps up for them
A clock that's shaken hard enough, it cannot stay in rhythm.
Pat Sky The Dance of Death

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: AliUK
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:44 PM

Here in Brazil they were a little bemused that Arnie was going in as a candidate for the Governership of California...they were under the impression that he was already the President of the US of A.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:41 PM

I read and recommended the Bush Dyslexicon earlier but let me repeat here that it is highly worth reading.

Greg -- I believe that people will grab any information in a storm as long as it will hold things still for a bit -- a religion, an authority, or some other conclusion, rational or not, as long as it fends off confusion. Perfectly workable as long as you don't mix it up with truth, eh?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:22 PM

Well, Amos, when you've got fundamentalist "Christianity"[sic] to explain everything for you, and to obviate the necessity of rational thought, who needs science? Not just Dumbya, but his whole crew.

THAT'S grim.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Reiver 2
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 07:21 PM

Thanks for those Amos. Have you checked out the Bushisms on http://home.twcny.rr.com/felicity/bushisms.htm

The Bush Dyslexicon by Mark Crispin Miller, subtitle: Observations on a National Disorder, is good too.

Absolutely the worst president in the history of the U.S. You might enjoy some of the posts I've made on my blog site:
http://news-opinion.blog-city.com

Reiver 2

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 07:10 PM

That last one is really grim...the track record of interference with science.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 05:43 PM

AND HERE

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 10:43 AM

That boy has generated an awful lot of fertilizer, considering he isn't going to reap more than a whirlwind, hasn't he?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: TIA
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:52 AM

And here....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 08:46 AM

And also here...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: curmudgeon
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 08:41 AM

For a different take on the Resident's campaign of mis-information, look here.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:19 PM

From a friend:

"It was recently mentioned that the Presidential Prayer Team is
currently urging us to: "Pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on
how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be
according to Biblical principles. With many forces insisting on variant
definitions of marriage, pray that God's Word and His standards will be
honored by our government."

I'm sure any good religious person believes prayer should be balanced
by action. So here, in support of the Prayer Team's admirable goals, is
a proposed Constitutional Amendment codifying marriage entirely on
biblical principles:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one
man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5.) Marriage
shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his
wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

B. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin.
If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed.(Deut 22:13-21)
Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen
24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

C. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the
constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be
construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

D. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the
widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does
not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise
punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut
25:5-10)

Yes, it is time to PRAY for divine intervention with our president...."

Big sigh...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: NicoleC
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:01 PM

Well, Don, a lady I work with has a picture of GWB where most people keep family pictures. (And yes, she has a husband and several kids. No pictures of them.) She practically worships the guy. On the other hand, when pressed she doesn't much seem to agree with him on much of anything -- it's perplexing. But don't insult HER president! He's FLAWLESS!

Truth is, many people will worship almost anyone elevated to a leadership position regardless of merit or ability or what they actually do. And I'm not just talking about politics. (Many of the others will hate anyone elevated to a leadership position etc., etc. Any conversation about Bill Gates will troll up people who rapidly hate him, without having any good reasons why.) It's human mob mentality.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Alice
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 07:51 PM

Have you ever read www.bushwatch.com?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 06:34 PM

"From a pure-science point of view, embryonic stem cells are more powerful than the genome project," says Johns Hopkins pediatric oncologist Curt Civin. "They could tell us what each and every gene actually does. And they could be used to cure cancers, Parkinson's disease, diabetes." You name it. But by and large, American researchers must stop there—at the hopeful act of recognizing the potential. Their ability to study actual stem cells is hobbled by the federal regulation triggered in 2001 by President Bush's famously faux-Solomonic—tear the baby in half!—decision to limit the cells a federally funded researcher can study to those coming from the 78 cell lines cultured prior to the date of the regulation. In practice, though, only 11 approved lines have been made available to researchers. It's like handing an oceanographer a cup of salt water and saying, "Study only this."

In contrast, the sensible British have got it right, says Civin. Under strict regulation, and culling from IVF throwaways, doctors are allowed to create their own embryonic stem cell lines. "We're going to be trumped," says Civin. "I'd like to figure out everything there is about blood stem cells, but in all, the discovery is going to be slower, and as an American, I'm not going to be a part of it."

From a PopSci article on stem cell researcher's travails...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 02:38 PM

Good move, Bobert. I think that's the way to go, and I'm laible to join you once the job is done.

First priority: stop the country from circling the drain.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 01:30 PM

Well, fir those of you who think there isn't some serious grassroots organizing going on, one just need to look at what Howard Dean has done in a very short time with no real big money backers in his corner. Yeah, though I haven't beat on any doors for a Dem since McCarthey (no, not Joe)/Kennedy/Humphry in '68, I and many of my Green friends, are concerned enough about the dangerous folks who have highjacked the country that many of us are willing to do what it takes to get them out. And get America back from the Bushwackers... After that, we'll get back to pesterin' the Dems....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 01:04 PM

Well, lemme see. . . .

If these "significant numbers of people" are right, and Bush is truly the "leader of the free world" and actually does have "high moral qualities to him including courage and integrity," then I'm forced to the inevitable conclusion that God has a really atrocious sense of humor. . . .

It's gotta be some great, cosmic joke.

My first response to Amos's quote of Bill Maher's remark about Schwarzenegger running for California governor, "Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German." was to snicker and mutter "Right on!" My second response was "Uh-oh!" and a cold shudder. Too close.

I keep hearing about how popular Bush is in the polls (although lately, he seems to be slipping), and yet I don't actually know anybody who likes him or thinks he's doing a good job with much of anything. And not all the people I know are liberals. Where are all these people who think he's such a great president?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 12:30 PM

Yesterday I had an interesting two-hour conversation with a middle-aged, self-proclaimed conservative couple from Colorado. The name 'Bush' was never mentioned but it was implied in every facet of the conversation.

Their take on it:

The war should perhaps not have been begun "We'll never know", but now that we're there we must complete the process. We should "send the Iraqis back to the camel age". We should ("politically incorrect as it seems") obliterate North Korea NOW, so as to avoid inevitable war later. "China and South Korea are being blackmailed into sending millions of dollars in aid to North Korea." (Neither of them had a good answer as to why China would not instead send a vast army into North Korea NOW before North Korea has a working nuclear capability, rather than allowing itself to be extorted for years.)

"Why should we support those who don't work?" (Because, I quoted: A nation is judged by its treatment of the least among them.)

Lots more. They are a couple with a small business, and they seemed well informed on a great many issues. The conversation remained cordial throughout, but I'm beginning to understand why Bush's approval rating remains high, or at least where it's coming from.

I despair.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 12:01 PM

The great shame of this nation is not so much that Bush's machinery managed to railroad the election, but that almost half the people in the country thought he was eligible material, and a lesser, but still highly significant number, have supported him in his insanities since then.

There are significant numbers of people who call him the leader of the free world, no less; and attribute high moral qualities to him including courage and integrity.

All of which strikes me as shamefully backwards-minded.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: TIA
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:51 AM

To the great disgust of many, no.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:46 AM

Aren't the terms "Popular" and "Views of the Bush Administration" a bit of a contradiction ?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:37 AM

On another facet of the popular acceptance of GWB:

SEPTEMBER 12--North Carolina cops are searching for a guy who successfully passed a $200 bill bearing George W. Bush's portrait and a drawing of the White House complete with lawn signs reading "We like ice cream" and "USA deserves a tax cut." The phony Bush bill--a copy of which you'll find below--was presented to a cashier at a Food Lion in Roanoke Rapids on September 6 by an unidentified male who was seeking to pay for $150 in groceries. Remarkably, the cashier accepted the counterfeit note and gave the man $50 change. In a separate incident involving a different perp, Roanoke Rapids cops Tuesday arrested Michael Harris, 24, for attempting last month to pass an identical $200 Bush bill at a convenience store.

For a picture of the bill that was passed see http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushbill1.html.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: TIA
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 10:46 AM

Let's make it a very large bet, shall we?