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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (6093)	12/3/2005 12:51:08 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Respond to of 542192

Karen responded that the reasons certainly gave his basis for Bush being a poor president, but didn't set up a hierarchy or comparison of why he is the worst, which would be necessary for the use of the term WORST. I buy that argument based on the logic, but think that he gave enough information on his reasoning to remove the term WORST from the hyperbolic category. (Karen and I tend to like the nitpicky stuff more than many.) I think hyperbole suggests there is intent to exaggerate to make a point. I don't think Pizzo thought he was exaggerating when he said Bush was the WORST president ever. There have only been 42 Presidents before Bush and imo Pizzo laid out the case where you couldn't easily refute Pizzo's argument by just providing one example, such as, "what about Richard Nixon - he had to resign and his Vice President was convicted of a felony". Pizzo thought he pre-empted that by listing all the harm that he thought Bush brought on to our country - which could not be matched by any other President. Whether he was right or wrong could be debated. But, it would be difficult to debate his thought process and the rigorousness of the reasons he gave for his argument. There are very few things that are said (opined - I hate that word) that has as much detail and rigorousness in the thought process. Of course it is not the same as an opinion from a Justice on the SC issuing a formal opinion. We can't go around expressing ourselves as if we were Justices on the Supreme Court. .

To: Rambi who wrote (6093)	12/3/2005 1:26:05 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 542192

You and I have talked a lot about human rights abuses, and what to do about them. Further, we've seen a shifting in the rhetoric on Iraq ( from certain quarters) to include an emotional appeal to the human rights value of our little Iraqi adventure. We've talked about what one can do about these kinds of abuses, but after some reflection I think I know what I would consider logical. There are so many brutal regimes in the world, I think the UN (with leadership from some country that really cared, and happened to be on the security council) could go after the low hanging fruit first. Go after the genocidal brutal dictators that no one cares about, whose countries don't have much of a strategic interest. Why? To establish a precedent for such intervention, and to build up a structure that works to support such intervention. Taking Iraq as a first strike was stupid- and I don't know if that stupidity can be overcome. But if it can be, then we should proceed in future as I outline above. I think it makes the most sense, if one wants to build a good system for tackling genocide with force- which I agree with, as long as the Us isn't acting alone, or acting as the only big wallet.

To: Rambi who wrote (6093)	12/3/2005 2:06:55 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 542192

I'm having a discussion elsewhere with someone not recognizing/condoning hyperbole on the other side, someone who seems to think "un-American" is an reasonable label for someone who subscribes to following the law on church and state re Christmas displays. I guess it can be hard to separate one's intense attachment to a hyperbolic message from the either the heuristic or the abstract notion of hyperbole. On one hand/on the other hand is an unnatural exercise for many.

To: Rambi who wrote (6093)	12/4/2005 7:11:01 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 542192

:-) Guess what I found? ........... news.yahoo.com IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT -- EVER? By Richard Reeves Fri Dec 2, 8:13 PM ET PARIS -- President John F. Kennedy was considered a historian because of his book "Profiles in Courage," so he received periodic requests to rate the presidents, those lists that usually begin "1. Lincoln, 2. Washington ..." But after he actually became president himself, he stopped filling them out. "No one knows what it's like in this office," he said after being in the job. "Even with poor James Buchanan, you can't understand what he did and why without sitting in his place, looking at the papers that passed on his desk, knowing the people he talked with." Poor James Buchanan, the 15th president, is generally considered the worst president in history. Ironically, the Pennsylvania Democrat, elected in 1856, was one of the most qualified of the 43 men who have served in the highest office. A lawyer, a self-made man, Buchanan served with some distinction in the House, served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and secretary of state under President James K. Polk. He had a great deal to do with the United States becoming a continental nation -- "Manifest Destiny," war with Mexico, and all that. He was also ambassador to Great Britain and was offered a seat on the Supreme Court three separate times. But he was a confused, indecisive president, who may have made the Civil War inevitable by trying to appease or negotiate with the South. His most recent biographer, Jean Clark, writing for the prestigious American Presidents Series, concluded this year that his actions probably constituted treason. It also did not help that his administration was as corrupt as any in history, and he was widely believed to be homosexual. Whatever his sexual preferences, his real failures were in refusing to move after South Carolina announced secession from the Union and attacked Fort Sumter, and in supporting both the legality of the pro-slavery constitution of Kansas and the Supreme Court ruling in the Dred Scott class declaring that escaped slaves were not people but property. He was the guy who in 1861 passed on the mess to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan set the standard, a tough record to beat. But there are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will prove to do that, be worse than Buchanan. I have talked with three significant historians in the past few months who would not say it in public, but who are saying privately that Bush will be remembered as the worst of the presidents. There are some numbers. The History News Network at George Mason University has just polled historians informally on the Bush record. Four hundred and fifteen, about a third of those contacted, answered -- maybe they were all crazed liberals -- making the project as unofficial as it was interesting. These were the results: 338 said they believed Bush was failing, while 77 said he was succeeding. Fifty said they thought he was the worst president ever. Worse than Buchanan. This is what those historians said -- and it should be noted that some of the criticism about deficit spending and misuse of the military came from self-identified conservatives -- about the Bush record: He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process; He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich; He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state; He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign; He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign ( Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida); He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity; He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress; He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime. Quite an indictment. It is, of course, too early to evaluate a president. That, historically, takes decades, and views change over times as results and impact become more obvious. Besides, many of the historians note that however bad Bush seems, they have indeed since worse men around the White House. Some say Buchanan. Many say Vice President