I'm willing to debate you on this subject IF you actually read the link I added to my last post...instead of ignoring it because it doesn't fit in with your preconceived notion of why the people of Tennessee were willing to vote Republican just to keep Gore out of the Presidency

They had perfectly valid reasons why they could not accept Gore as President and it had NOTHING to do with how "Liberal" he was

I did MY homework too..I don't vote solely along party lines myself...I check these guys out THEN make my decision who I'm willing to support

In general I don't listen to the rabid partisans on EITHER side

At the time we had for all practical purpose TWO choices...Bush and Gore(the other candidates not withstanding)...of those two Bush was clearly the better option...not because Bush was so superior but because Gore was so inferior

Gore had already risen to his level of incompetence as a Vice-President...there was no way no how he could of made even a mediocre President

I know some believe GWB is a awful President but face it...it's too early yet to say one way or the other...not enough time has passed(Hell barely enough time has passed to judge whether his father was a good President or Clinton either)

The ironic thing about all the controversy surrounding any presidential administration is that ONLY after enough time has gone by can we really tell whether all the noise and fury was because the man dragged us kicking and screaming down the right path and acted like a LEADER should(there are plenty of examples of Presidents who were HATED while in office but NOW we consider them some of the finest men of our history) or will he be judged a screw up?

Anyway back to my point...Gore had ALL the advantages in that election...he was coming off of eight years as an incumbent Vice-President...he had plenty of money...he had practically all of Hollywood backing him...he didn't have to overcome the natural queasiness of a possible dynasty that Bush did(I know of people who didn't vote for GWB simply BECAUSE his daddy was already President so soon before)

For all the talk about what went on in Florida...jeez neither side was acting in the best interest of the country in my opinion but like I said before if only Gore had won his own home state none of that would of even mattered

Bush didn't steal the Presidency...Gore gave it away

Well, I'm glad that you do not believe GWB was responsible for the occurence of 9/11. Although, you did say, in the post to which I replied, and I quote:

"What's gone well under Bush's Watch?  

We've been attacked by Terrorists with 3000 deaths on OUR soil"

So you can see why one might infer that you believed otherwise.


And I do agree that much of Bush's fiscal policy is imbelic. Pandering to senior citizens and other statist elements by increasing Medicaid entitlements, instead of addressing the absolute necessity of entitlement reform, is totally irresponsible and, yes, imbecilic. I do, every now and then, wonder who will be elected President in the year 2020, when the Social Security trainwreck draws near. May God, or whatever diety, have mercy on him - or her.

However, under the lesser evil theory, Bush is the best that's presently on offer, as any of the other contenders would just be leading us even faster down the road to a total welfare state. Don't know about you, but I do not relish the idea of returning to a top marginal tax rate of 70% - perhaps even higher when we baby boomers start feeding at the federal trough. Talk about killing an economy!

Oh, and BTW, the Iraq War began in March, 2003, not "late 2002."

As a small business and corporate lender I can say that your arguement is flawed and uneducated.



--- He spent us into the worst deficit in U.S. History, thus fundamentally weakening the capital markets perceptions of future profitability, hence leading to almost NO venture capital funding for the past 2 years.

++++Deficits are not a bad thing first.  The only danger is if they continue to grow at such a large clip over the next year.  Don't measure it by gross amount but rather by rate of growth.  The reason you have not seen a large amount of capital lending is that while we were on a hangover from the late 90's, we got sucker punched on 9/11.  All that funny money flying around during the 90's made lenders and investors that much more intelligent.

---He has FAILED to exert any leadership whatsoever in getting domestic tourism back up Post 9/11.

+++ Gee I didn't know he was in charge of travel agencies now.  

---He has discouraged free trade through a range of unwise tarrifs, particularly in steel, AND through the use of the Bully Pulpit to demean our European and Asian allies.

+++ Hey you can blame unions for this one.

---He turned a blind eye and a TOTAL lack of leadership with respect to the various stock scandals which have rocked Wall St over teh past 2 years, thus discouraging investment by non-millionaires into the stock market because they recognize that it's a rigged game.  Arguably, these stock scandals have had a MORE negative effect than 9/11 on the financial markets, and have acted as a substantial lag on the recovery.

+++ The markets have and will weed this behavior out.  In addition the Sarbanes Oxley Act makes them accountable.

---He awarded substantial no-bid contracts to his cronies at Halliburton and Bechtel in the Iraq and Afghan wars, thus leading to substantial cost over-runs in the Iraq war, which is one of the largest contributors to the deficit.

+++Um for the record Clinton used these two firms almost exclusively in his regime because these two firms have greater economies of scale than any other could deliver.  As far as cost overruns go, this will be dealt with.

---He has failed to substantially use the Iraqui oil reserves to fund either the Iraqui post-war costs, OR to help lower oil prices domestically, which would act as a domestic economic stimulus.  Arguably, that's because his largest donors in the Oil industry would be less able to reap obscene profits if this were happenning.

+++He won't touch those reserves because those are the Iraqi people's and rightfully so.  We went there to liberate a people and not to pillage natural resources for our gain.

ABBA = Anyone But Bush Again!

-- Modified on 2/9/2004 5:59:19 PM

..a bit of comic relief is welcome in these political threads where the level of vitriol is more and more palpable as the verbal jousting increases in intensity.  I have posted on some of these threads in the past and particualrly on those having to do with the war in Iraq. I have to say that it sometimes just gets too tedious to even read through these because of the level of almost unabated polarization that develops. Actually it seems as if it is always there and threads like this just make us more aware of this polarization.

As polarizing as these "debates" on this board can be political discussion should not be marginalized simply because some have such narrow tunnel vision that they simply can't see beyond there own propaganda and there own efforts at revision of reality.

I have to say that I am convinced that those of us who tend to be left of center are far more able to take that introspective look at ourselves and far more willing to question even those among us who may share somewhat similar views.

There are some on the right who seem to confuse the word "right"
as with respect to a position on the political spectrum with "right" as with respect to some absolute , as in absolute truth.
Nothing of course could be more distant from the truth. Those on the right have no lock on absolute truth. They do not own the moral high ground in this country. Their ranks filled with the
evangelical christian moralists are often those who show the least tolerance for those who have different views than their own. The current attorney general John Ashcroft could be the poster child for the hypocrisy that permeates right wing christian extremists who want to preach looking out for one another but then tend to practice something quite different.

I am convinced that if it were not for the events of 9-11 the Bush administration would have meandered through the past several years in mediocrity on its way to being relegated to the dust bin of history with little of any substance as its legacy.

Unfortunately the events of the past several years have brought a certain "tragic infamy" to this administration. Those on the right I am sure would prefer to paint it as super patriotism of the highest order. Well there are over 500 dead American service men and women as a result of this "super patriotism" and I would argue that this country is not a safer place to any significant degree as a result of the sacrifice of the lives of those brave young men and women. Notably we have not found the dreaded WMD that were used to largely "justify" this action in Iraq. This administration has essentially coined a new meaning for WMD, namely "weapons of mass deception" in this pathetic attempt to try and justify their actions.

The curent administration took its collective eye off the ball
when it decided to go after Saddam instead of focusing on Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda along the Pakistani border. I would submit that the terrorist groups associated with Osama bin Laden were then, and are now, a far greater threat to our national security than Saddam ever was. Sure Saddam was a brutal dictator
responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of his own people. It is largely the people of Iraq who are the beneficiaries of his demise far more so than the world as a whole.

Of course the hunt for bin Laden was not going as well as hoped for, it wasn't flashy enough. Therefore take on a standing army in Iraq which presents an easier target to deal with and get the focus off the slow progress in Afhanistan. Then of course there would be these lucrative no bid contracts for Halliburton and Bechtel. There's no oil in Afghanistan, just a tenacious network of terrorists who remain elusive to this day and who are as determinined as ever to harm us when the opportunity presents itself.

In my view it is time for a change but then of course I am only expressing my own personal view, a view influenced by the tragic loss of over 500 brave Americans.

I would think that Republicans would recognize the disaster that his SPENDING policies have caused.  Perhaps not, because bombs and other high tech weapons systems are an acceptable form of lavish expenditures to Republicans, while public education appears not to be.