Quote:
|
Originally Posted by willravel
Bush is an amalgam of all the worst qualities in presidents in history, plus he added a few more like torture. He is worse than all of them. Bush is to Iraq as Lyndon Johnson was to Vietnam. Bush is to wiretaps as Nixon was to Watergate (only Bush is WAY worse). Unfortunately, trying to excuse Bush's mistakes by claiming that other presidents have made the same mistakes is a fallacy. If I kill someone, then you kill someone, you will have still killed someone.
Bush is guilty, and you're defending him. Did you defend OJ, too? Or Nixon?
|
I ask the question a third time. Are the standards you use to judge Bush the same standards that you use to judge other Presidents? Of the Presidents I have studied in detail (I don't claim to be an expert) there was more than just their "big" issue, most of the issues of the day people have forgotten. Johnson's administration was more than Vietnam, Nixon's was more than Watergate.
I like to think I am a realist, sometimes Presidents do and decide things that are unpleasant, it is true in just about every administration in our history. I don't make excuses for it, I just point it out. History will be the judge, for example we may find that when the next President goes into the White House with a promise to withdraw troops from Iraq the decision gets reversed the same as when Carter reversed his decision to withdraw troop from Korea.
Quote:
|
In early 1975, candidate Jimmy Carter declared that, if elected president, he would order the withdrawal of all U.S. ground forces from the Korean peninsula. Less than a week after his inauguration, President Carter vigorously moved to keep his campaign pledge. For two and a half years thereafter, in the face of increasing opposition, President Carter remained steadfast in his determination to withdraw all U.S. ground forces from Korea by 1981. In July 1979, however, after only 3,600 U.S. troops had been withdrawn, President Carter grudgingly announced the suspension of further troop withdrawals.
|
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...28/ai_82351485
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by willravel
Okay, you implied that Bush is being judged harshly and unfairly. I think most of the rest of us strongly disagree, and the main reason for that is the severity and volume of blunders and tragedies under Bush simply dwarfs the other presidents in our history. Nixon may have been involved in wire tapping, but he never suspended habeas corpus. JFK may have cheated to get elected invaded the bay of pigs, but he never wiretapped Americans or misled congress. FDR may have interned over a hundred thousand innocent Americans, but he never invaded without provocation.
This is about scale. Other presidents have made mistakes, but Bush has introduced a new level of folly and corruption to the office that is unprecedented. Again, he's not the first to screw up, but he's the first to screw up this big.
|
Talking scale, where would you put the use of nuclear bombs? Not once, but twice, used against babies, women, the elderly, the disabled?
These are the things I find difficult to reconcile. I don't minimize 120,000 Americans being denied their freedom. I bet they would have been happy with wire-taps rather than going to prison camps.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by tecoyah
Yet it would seem you are doing just that. Virtually every point you have used in the defense of Administration actions,
|
I think you miss the point. In my series of posts over the past couple of days I am not defending anything the administration has done. I just point out some historical points to help put things in perspective.
I know that those who hate Bush think that he is the worst President in history, everyone is entitled to their opinion on that question. I just ask - by what standard do you come to that conclusion? If you tell me it is mostly emotional, I'll shut-up because there is no response that I can make to that.