What are you talking about? I don't see any constructive criticism in your response to my point .

If you want to read an actual guide to political manipulation instead of insinuating that I'm engaging in conspiracy theorizing, bone up on Machiavelli.

Reading some books on the topic would be your first step to "argue with any of this." After that, you can engage me with why you think his writings were wrong and/or are not being adhered to by those in political power.

I've seen Bush criticized countless times for supposedly injecting his Christian belief into policy. Now he is getting it for doing the opposite. Beautiful.

Actually, I don't think that is the opposite. It would seem a citisicism for injecting christian belief into policy......Badly. But you are correct, he does get alot of flak for pretty much anything he does, I wonder what this is an indication of?

Easy. Democratic payback for eight years of right wing Clinton bashing. Bush just happens to be the Republican that got the hotseat (Presidency). He could be the best president that this country has ever seen, and he would still be criticized for blowing green boogers. In my own little opinion, the only way that the Republicans could've avoided it would've been to have nominated McCain back in 2000.

actually i'm giving him flak for playing politics with religion and being a hypocryte.

George Bush has assembled one of the best teams of Presidential advisors in US history. His handling of the responsibilities of his office has been inspiring and rock solid. He is a great man and a great President.

Given the nature of this board and post, and my memory of Art's posting past (which could be wrong), I am forced to throw this quote out there...

Simpsons:
Comic Book Guy: A sarcasm machine, thats a good invention
Frink: Glaven! Its off the scale! <machine blows up>

sarcasm Art?

well IMO you would be horribly wrong right now...

cut the sarcasm yourself, yeah?

...no sarcasm here.
thanks.

No wonder we had security failures and terrorist attacks on our soil.. If our own government relies on what CNN says in order to stay informed I'm sorry to say we are all doomed. CNN is reality TV at its worst. Only a foolish polotician would watch mainstream news programs in order to stay informed. One of the few reasons I could see them doing so would be in order to see exactly what the people outside of polotics see. To see themselves from the peoples perspective.

Sorry that was completely off topic. The only downside to Bush for me is he seems to support the increasing authority that law enforcement and government enjoy through bills like the patriot act, DMCA etc. This is a trend that started in the Clinton era and Bush/Congress has kept it going strong.

Well said, Art. I believe history will agree with you. It will be very interesting to see (in the future) all the details about the current situation that aren't available for public consumption. I strongly suspect the vast majority of criticism toward his actions will have no legs to stand on.

I wonder if there is truth to that science article saying that Democrats and Republicans are different enough so as to have different MRI scans when watching the same data and imagery. Here's how I would write it:

George Bush has assembled one of the worst teams of Presidential advisors in our history. He has presided over two of the worst intelligence failures in our history. His handling of the responsibilities of office has been troubling. Instead of focusing on a successful conclusion to the war on terror (Bin Laden and his top deputy remain on the loose, and Afghanistan is devolving into pre-Taliban rule-by-warlords), he took us on a hastily planned unnecessary diversion into Iraq. He may well be a warm, compassionate man, but he is no great President.

My opinion is definitely similar to Art's observation, Spar. I think any failures were inherited. I also think that he's doing the right thing in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's dirty work that should have been done years ago.

Seems like you're contradicting yourself. First you say the Democrats would've gone after *any* Republican President, then you turn around and offer a Republican who they wouldn't have gone after.

So either:

(1) The Democrats are acting completely out of spite and would have bashed any Republican including McCain, or

(2) There is something about Bush, besides his party affiliation, which invokes this reaction from Democrats.

So which is it?

he's probably suggesting c) McCain is the only one who gets respect for what he's done versus the new order of Republicans

Aside from disagreeing politically on various issues, I support Bush and generally denounce Kerry.

c = 2.

If there is any Republican who wouldn't get bashed, then it doesn't make sense to claim Democrats are acting out of spite. In particular, if it's true that McCain wouldn't get bashed then the following isn't true:

(fixed typo)

I could go on and on about how i "dislike" Dubya.... but one of the major things that stands out is what i heard a few days ago, this is not an exact quote but ill get the point across.

Bush said somthing that he doesnt make his decisions based on polls, but the polls are the people of our country! so basically hes saying he does not listen to US. punkvoter.com is a great anti-bush group founded by Mike of NOFX, its very intersting.

That's similar to what I say to my father-in-law when he criticizes Clinton for "pandering" to the polls--don't you want someone who represents your interests?

Seems to me to be self-defeating if you vote someone in after you know he won't pay attention to the needs and wants of the people--but it's more silly to chastise an elected official for doing it!

Whats right is not always easy.

Its funny how the "left" (hate to play that card) bitches that Bush doesn't listen to the polls, and that he should, yet when it comes to the homosexual marriage issue, which over 60% of the country is opposed to, you get all pissy.

Abortion is another issue. I know that mostly its a 50/50 issue as a whole. But if you look at the general pro-life platform (which allows for incest and rape and late term women's health), the majority would prefer limiting it to that.

Thats just something I find interesting, only when it suits you and your agenda.

An elected official must walk a fine line with polls and the public's "wishes".

While he/she should listen, they should not be as a flag in the wind.


By analogy, when you hire a surgeon, you tell them what you want, but you do not try to run the operation, because part of what you are paying for is the surgeon's expertise in doing the "right thing".

This is the same for politicians.

We (try) to pick the best ones to run the country and then we put the job in their hands.

If we don't like the job they did we can "fire" them at the next election.

The founding fathers set up a constitutional representative government for the express purposes of avoiding tyranny by monarchy, oligarchy, aristocracy, and also - in fact - the tyranny of the majority as well.

Elected leaders are entrusted with decisionmaking power. They are not elected to be puppets of some arbitrary series of constantly fluctuating poll data. This is quite elementary.