This past weekend, I got the opportunity to witness the nauseating spectacle our present President Shrub, attempt to use the courage of our WWII veterans and the leadership of Ronald Reagan as a vehicle for his own political agenda.  

How can anyone stomach the hypocrisy of George Dumbya Bush basking in the reflected glow of our great but aging war heros on French soil, of all places, while attempting to equate the enormity of what they did under the leadership of Roosevelt and Eisenhower, to the selfish and misguided mission that Bush is having our current troops perform in Iraq?  The very thought of it made me cringe, I only wondered why he didn't dress up in a flight suit to give the speech.

And of course, Bush is also hyping up the pomp and circumstance in the State Funeral of Ronald Reagan this week, where not only will Reagan's Corpse fly back and forth to Washington before returning to California, to lie in state at the Capitol (Totally deserved, BTW), he will ALSO be trekked around the city in a horse-drawn caisson, which is normally something that is only done for someone who is struck down in their prime of life WHILE President -and so that their bodies can be taken FROM the Capitol to their final resting place in Washington - but Reagan is being buried privately in California, as befits a man who completed his national service over 15 years ago, and died in his bed after a lengthy and distinguished life.  This horse-drawn caisson to nowhere goes too far, and it is being done to create an aura about Reagan that Bush will attempt to bask in.  Reagan lived a full and extremely long life, and was a distinguished President.  He also, as President, created a role model that the current President Shrub falls woefully short of:

To start with, Reagan, while he was a very conservative man, never lost sight of the fact that he was everyone's president, and he worked WITH the opposition party to constructively govern the nation.  Reagan never failed to work WITH people, to insure that they felt symbolically included in his agenda for the future.  Reagan's success as President was NOT in his ideas, but in his leadership and in his ability to rally national consensus around his programs.  Bush shares many, if not MOST of Reagan's ideas, but NONE of his inclusiveness and leadership and personal connectivity with the citizenry.  If Reagan were measured JUST on ideology, he would be a mediocre President at best.  But as a leader, he was virtually unmatched in the 20th century (Roosevelt would be his only peer).  Bush cannot claim any logical succession from Reagan OTHER than Reagan's mediocre and overly simplistic ideas, and he provides NONE of the leadership traits that made Reagan an effective (some, not me, would say great) President far in excess of his ideas.

So to borrow a turn of a phrase from Lloyd Bentson, We knew Ronald Reagan.  And George W. Bush, You're NO Ronald Reagan.  And don't embarrass yourself and the nation pretending to be.

Although I'm not surprised that you would rip the President, I wish you wouldn't take the typical liberal tactic and politicize everything.

What is uncommon about the current President of the nation participating in a historical tribute and rememberance for D-Day? Did you feel the same way when Bubba Clinton was performing HIS duties of laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknowns? It was well known and acknowledged that the Clinton's weren't great fans of the military, yet I don't think it was inappropriate for that draft dodger to act in his capacity as President to pay honor to the war heros.

As for Reagan's burial, this IS custom for deceased Presidents, IF THE FAMILY SO AGREES. Again, it's that tribute to the former leader.

As I keep harping at you, your unreasoned hatred for this president is apalling, yet not unexpected.

If Kerry is elected in November, I fully expect YOU, and every other anti-Bush poster, to blame the Bush administration for ANY failure or incident that occurs during Kerry's admin. I also expect every Bush supporter to place blame squarely on the shoulders of Kerry and the Dem's.

This board isn't a political discussion, it's a gang war between yutzes and putzes-neither extreme side has a freakin clue-they just want to blame the other side.

seriously, who can't enjoy political discourse with some humor thrown in.  Obviously, disagree with most of the post, but I would think everybody would agree that the Y &P statement is good humor.  Can the Democrats be the "yutzes'?  Y & P is much easier to type than Democrats and Republicans, especially in my long-winded posts.

GREAT LINE!!

-- Modified on 6/7/2004 9:39:44 PM

I understand YOUR distaste for the ``political rhetoric'' of this board but I feel you are missing the point of all the ``hatred'' expressed towards Bush.

It is not important whether or not we hate Bush.  We can say we ``hate what he is doing'' or you can just continue to say we ``hate Bush''.  IT DOESN'T MATTER ! (as the Rock would say).  What matters is that there are those who feel Bush is a tiny little man who WE FEAR is capable of leading us into WW F'n III.

Oh, I long for the days when it was the usual R vs. D issues.  I wouldn't even mind if it was the R's that held the Presidency IF THE GUY ACTUALLY DISPLAYED THAT HE HAD THE INTEREST OF THE COUNTRY IN MIND or at least did a better job of feigning.

So, just who do we blame for Iraq ?  And yes, I will still blame Bush for the humongous challenges the next presidents will have (R or D) in the coming years and years and years for this disaster.  Or, is it Clinton's fault ?

I don't usually [yeah, right] agree with James86.  But on his post ``I miss Reagan'' I wholeheartedly agree.

You have every right to disagree with my posts, but I would appreciate it if you at least had the intellectual honesty to disagree with what I ACTUALLY wrote, rather than a misrepresentation of what I wrote that allows you to characature my actual position into some warped one so you can attack it.

First of all, I never said that I had a problem with Bush giving a speech to honor the D-Day vets.  That's part of his job, as you pointed out.  What I WAS offended by was his attempt to place his own misguided war in Iraq on morally equivalent footing with the mission that the D-Day vets accomplished in 1944.  That is simply arrogance in the extreme.  

Secondly, I do not begrudge Reagan a state funeral in the slightest, and I specifically SAID that it was well deserved.  What I objected to was the ridiculous use of a horse-drawn caisson, which, in this case, is going nowhere but around in a circle, simply so that BUSH can garner a photo-op as commander in chief surveying the caisson.  In other words, USING Reagan's deserved state funeral so that BUSH can bask in the afterglow of Reagan's accomplishments.  My point is that Bush has NO SHAME.  He has not the slightest guilt about USING the brave soldiers of D-Day, or the occassion of Reagan's fully justified state funeral, as occassions to STEAL the honor that those folks fully deserve, and to try to shine their spotlight on himself.  THAT is what is apalling, and nothing else.  I certainly never denigrated Reagan in my post, and I never questioned Bush's role in honoring the D-Day vets.  I questioned Bush's MISUSE of his own role in those services, to honor himself, RATHER than those deserving heros.

And, in fact, I will only blame Bush for any unfortunate events of Kerry's presidency when it is clear that Bush was the cause, such as for the pain we'll all need to feel from the fiscal remedies that Kerry will HAVE to institute to help us recover from Bush's irresponsible fiscal policy.  But for anything else, unlike Bush, I am sure that Kerry will have the character, like Harry Truman, to be accountable for his own actions in the White House.

The fact is, what you did demonstrates that you are either ignorant of the information, or intellectually dishonest.  Frankly, I think you are too well informed to be anything other than dishonest, but if you want to claim ignorance instead, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.


-- Modified on 6/9/2004 6:37:23 PM