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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (15169)	11/4/2003 7:26:55 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793603

So if you don't like his beady little eyes and smirk, or his piety, or his strut, I can understand. No, I don't like any of them, but I'm not basing my assessment on that. <g> Of course I think Iraq is the main disaster, so I can understand why we don't agree. I'm still aghast that my country invaded another country for what seems to me little more than spite. There are three problems with that, which give most of the weight to my assessment. One is the precedent that it sets that it's somehow OK to go around unilaterally invading countries. We can no longer stand on principle when, say India decides to invade Pakistan. They'll just bring up geese and ganders. I prefer to think of my country as the good guys. The other problem with that is that it indirectly establishes how the world will operate post cold war now that we're the only super power. We've been dithering about that. Now we've set our course. Might makes right is the new paradigm. I would have liked to see some debate about that rather that establishing it by the back door. I happen to think that selecting a posture for the US post cold war is a big deal. We're talking paradigm shift here. The third problem is that we may have started WWIII. We don't know that yet, but we might have. I happen to think that's a big deal, too. Next, he's gotten us a massive budget deficit. We just got out of decades of budget deficit. It was lovely to be out from under that. And here we go again, sunk in that mire. Next, the war is such a distraction that nothing else is getting done. I was hoping that he'd be the one to do something about immigration. We will pay for that. And lastly, there's the stem cell thing. I consider that a disaster, as well. Not only are we losing potentially life saving research, what research is going on is going on elsewhere in the world and we are behind the curve on the next big wave of human advancement. Look how long it took us to catch up with the Japanese on transistors and cars. He's flushing not only health but prosperity. So that's my list. I'm pretty mellow about the typical ups and downs about presidencies. I take a long term view. The items I listed are all big deals, not tiny issues, and they're all long term. There's a good chance that we won't recover in my lifetime. That's the basis for my assessment.

To: LindyBill who wrote (15169)	11/4/2003 8:20:41 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793603

Nice post. I think rather than focusing on whether Europeans "like" our leader, we should focus on whether they believe our leader is strong. Europeans have a history of liking leaders that, in retrospect, maybe they ought not to have liked. Not just the fascists, but weak leaders like Neville Chamberlain. They believe in discussion and compromise, and we are up against a mindset that views discussion and compromise in an opponent as weakness to be exploited. I haven't studied Kyoto closely enough to comment other than to say that many others thought it was bad as well. Russia's pullout does suggest Bush was not alone there. What is unfortunate, in my view, is that he pulled out and doesn't seem to have proferred an alternative approach to the issues other than to say maybe they don't exist (the evidence, though not 100 percent clear, does seem to suggest there is a significant greenhouse gas problem to be dealt with). I think where Bush could use some improvement is in offering alternatives to the things he opposes. On the economy he is being blamed for an inherited problem. If you look at our economic history you see that slowdowns in growth precede increases in joblessness by several quarters, and increases in growth precede improvements in unemployment by about that same time period. The last four Clinton quarters were marked by a rapid descent in the growth rate (from 4+ percent to 1.something percent). Every quarter in 2000/early 2001, growth declined significantly. The Nasdaq declined 2400 points in 8 months before Bush took office. No one could have inherited that situation and avoided a slowdown in employment and job creation. And deficit spending is usually the way that government addresses that situation. Throw in 9/11 and the deficit spike seems unavoidable, though he probably could have mitigated it some. Iraq is something which will divide people for a long time. I think it was the right thing to do though obviously the planning of the occupation phase was not stellar. But to brand him the worst President we've had in generations, or the one who has done the most damage, I just don't see that at all.