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</p>
<p>Heck, I’d be the first to say that they all suck. And that like I said, fool me once… YOU CAN’T AGAIn!!!.1!>1.</p>
<p>‘History. We won’t know,’ he told the journalist Bob Woodward in 2003. ‘We’ll all be dead.’"</p>
<p>Correct - Bush and Darth Vader will bomb Iran, starting WWIII, and he will be proved correct (and history likes prophets). </p>
<p>Driver, better get used to that indoor tennis court - the one 35 levels down in the bunker. </p>
<ul>
<li>Cassandra</li>
</ul>
<p>I believe Bush is a great president, given how he’s handling terrorism and the economy. God should bless America with a third term for Bush.</p>
<p>Anyone with “Klan” in their name is probably worth listening to. I’m looking at you, 67% of American’s who don’t support Bush. It’s going to be awfully hard to get that third term without at least 49% of the vote.</p>
<p>enjoy</p>
<p><a href=“http://decider.cf.huffingtonpost.com/[/url]”>http://decider.cf.huffingtonpost.com/</a></p>
<p>then why was he re-elected?</p>
<p>A campaign of smear and fear does a lot. Funny, anyone noticed that we haven’t had any elevated terror alerts lately? Whereas we had several during the election year…I guess they’ll start cranking them up again soon. Of course, only a schlump would think that a 51-48, one-state margin of victory constitutes a “mandate.”</p>
<p>It’s pale satisfaction to know that Bush would have his ass handed to him today even if it were a re-run of Bush vs. Kerry.</p>
<p>Driver-you missed my point entirely. I’m not questioning the phantom black and female Presidents-obviously they don’t exist. My point is that he deliberately included as many Presidents as possible in his book simply to sell more copies. There is absolutely no analytical reason and his book is full of nothing more than useless facts meant to obsure the reality of 19th century politics. Frankly, his narrative style is increadibly dull and if you actually read the book, you would know that he isn’t writing a biography but a comprehensive political history of early Republic. While no female or black Presidents existed, blacks and women played important symbolic roles in politics.</p>
<p>Phampson, you missed my little joke entirely. Smiley-faces for you, from now on.</p>
<p>Since you recognize that in The Rise of American Democracy Wilentz isn’t “writing a biography but a comprehensive political history of the early Republic,” I wonder at your complaint that “his book is full of…useless facts meant to obscure the reality of 19th-century politics.” What is “the reality?” What was obscured, and by which “useless facts?” How can a “comprehensive political history of the early Republic” fail to include discussion of the era’s significant political leaders? Why would you assume that cramming “dead white presidents” into a history would “sell more copies?”</p>
<p>Could it be that you prefer the social and cultural histories for which Wilentz was noted earlier in his career? There is a time and a place for them. However, the fact remains that the big political story in the antebellum US was the rise of political participation by ordinary, working white men, the political movements in which they participated, and the leaders they helped elect. That’s the history Wilentz was telling in this book.</p>
<p>Driver, yes, the story he is telling is the rise of white male inclusion into the political system. However, what Wilentz obscured is that this inclusion is predicated on the deliberate, symbolic, and often violent exclusion of African-Americans, women, and, to a point, native-Americnas. That is why these groups are important and the “facts” that Wilentz includes-for example the Eaton affairs gets more attention than the Cherokee removal, serve little apparent purpose. As more white men gained the vote-women and free blacks who initially voted (the ones that owed property) lost the vote.</p>
<p>I love the President on a very personal level. My fundamentalist Christian friends are happy with the Administration’s values agenda even if their economic prospects are dimnishing annually, their health care is costing more each year, the oil price spike is pinching their pocketbooks and their employment security is increasingly uncertain. Well ya can’t get everything you want.</p>
<p>For me this Administration’s tax cuts and energy policise have been like a well lubricated money machine stuffing cash into my pockets!!! And just think, our son will be able to inherit our estate currently values at about $3,500,000 totally tax free!! </p>
<p>The only thing I regret is that the children of my middle class friends will be asked to pick up the bill for the gifts Pres Bush has bestowed on our family. THANKS Y’ALL. Thanks President Bush, Tom Delay, Senator Frist too!</p>
<p>GWB-the best President ever.</p>
<p>originaloog in 2008!</p>
<p>Nice post :)</p>
<p>oog - </p>
<p>That was a great post, though there may be some people who don’t see the humor… ;)</p>
<p>Had GWB only been a bad President, it would be one thing. But the damage he has done to our country and its future is unforgivable. And most egregious (don’t worry - I have plenty of blame for all the other Republicans and Democrats) is that the spending of not just current money but future money is absolutely out of control. The hole is so deep that we will be a looooooong time digging ourselves out.</p>
<p>My two biggest criticisms of the president are that he hasn’t vetoed a spending bill, or appropriately addressed border security.</p>
<p>“That was a great post, though there may be some people who don’t see the humor.”</p>
<p>Neither do I find the Three Stooges particularly funny. On the other hand, Moe and Curly conveyed more political and economic wisdom in each one of their episodes than OOG’s post.</p>
<p>According to the latest poll, only 32% of Americans approve of Bush’s performance, 60% disapprove, and 8% (who may or may not have been smoking something) aren’t sure. It doesn’t look so good for Dubbya.</p>
<p>Well, he’s not running, is he? </p>
<p>Whereas those Democratic suck-ups…</p>
<p>There was a commentary on WTOP this morning about revealing classified information, and the commentator ended with the word “Traitor.”</p>
<p>Think there’s a chance we can get rid of this guy and not have to suffer his presence through the next few years?</p>
<p>Digi (#34), spot on.</p>