<p>The quickest way to diminish someone is to label them as deficient in some way, or to label them in a way that they can’t defend. History is full of examples of people (usually women) being accused of being “crazy” or “senile” in order to denigrate them. I don’t have a problem with people disagreeing with Bush’s policies, but I find it disingenous to accuse him of being somehow mentally incompetent.</p>
<p>I see the new echo being started in the echo chamber is Bush’s mental health. First it was “Bush lied - people died” which is now taken for granted in the echo chamber. Of course there’s also the “Bush planned on invading Iraq before 9/11” which has become a truism among the left. Which of course leads directly to “Bush planned 9/11 as a reason to go to war”. </p>
<p>You folks need to step out of the chamber once in a while and get back to reality.</p>
<p>I think he is a criminal, a liar, a deceiver, a cheat, a malfeasant, inept, and deadly. And in these ways, I think he has been very consistent.</p>
<p>But that has nothing whatsoever to do with perceived changes in his speech patterns.</p>
<p>SJ, have you seen this? His speaking is even worse now than in 2004.</p>
<p><a href=“http://ia300136.us.archive.org/0/items/BrainTenYrs/BrainTenYrs.mov[/url]”>http://ia300136.us.archive.org/0/items/BrainTenYrs/BrainTenYrs.mov</a></p>
<p>There are lots more like this. Just watch,a nd compare.</p>
<p>Don’t forget the “bunker.” Hunkered down with Cheney and Condi–totally detached from reality, talking to the portraits on the White House walls.</p>
<p>AM and mini ARE the hard left. This is obvious to anyone who has read their rants over the past months regarding the war. The fact that they think nothing of furthering the “mental deterioration” and “bunker mentality” slander only shows how low they are willing to sink to further their cause. Calling this propaganda being “disingenuous” is being more than kind.</p>
<p>mini: you are going to have a ball with Rudy G. ;)</p>
<p>I didn’t even know there WAS a mental health deterioration slander. Thanks for telling me about it. I am always more shocked when perfectly healthy human beings like Bill Clinton make decisions to kill children and commit genocide, or perfectly healthy human beings like Colin Powell decide to get on international tv and lie baldly to the rest of the world, or when perfectly healthy human beings like Rudy G are too cheap to afford a motel for their tawdry affairs and instead choose to expose their young children to them at public expense. This seems like perfectly normal mental stuff to me, which makes it all the more shocking.</p>
<p>What I have heard from GWB recently is not in the same category (and, as noted, has little to do with the content of what he is trying to say.)</p>
<p>Anyhow, just listen.</p>
<p>TheDad:</p>
<p>With the Republican escalation of the US involvement in the Iraqi civil war scheduled to last at least 12 more months, I would guess that a lot of new states may be in play during the 2008 elections.</p>
<p>AM, that is dramatic. I think he’s stressed from propping up a lie - that combined with his bubble of unreality shrinking daily.</p>
<p>liz: the video posted by AM is a traler of upcoming movie,“America this is how I shrunk my Brain”</p>
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<p>I don’t think he’s any more incompetent than he always was. Back in 2000 there was a consensus among his critics that George was mental lightweight who was electable mostly due to his family connections rather than any merit of his own, and that he’d be in over his head in the job of being President. The past 6 years have made the wisdom of that consensus abundantly clear.</p>
<p>If we could get away for a moment from the “Bush is ■■■■■■■■” to the “no he isn’t” schools of thought, what’s everyone’s take on John Edwards going after the Clinton Administration in his recent interview with Tim Russert?</p>
<p>Russert challenged Edwards pretty hard on his vote for the war in Iraq while Edwards responded with a statement that he checked out the info that the intel committee had been given with representatives of the Clinton Administration…and the Clinton folks ended up agreeing with the info that the intel committee had received.</p>
<p>Does he think that this will help him strategically on the road to the White House by claiming that the Clinton people viewed intelligence on Iraq the same way that Bush did? My guess is that he does and that it will help him with those in the Party who are the least fond of Bush and the war.</p>
<p>“Russert challenged Edwards pretty hard on his vote for the war in Iraq while Edwards responded with a statement that he checked out the info that the intel committee had been given with representatives of the Clinton Administration…and the Clinton folks ended up agreeing with the info that the intel committee had received.”</p>
<p>People forget that Clinton had more “butt to cover” than Bush did. His actions had already resulted in the death of a million people, half of them children under the age of five (more than in Rwanda), and so the need to fabricate was even greater.</p>
<p>I saw Russert’s interview with Edwards and I don’t recall him mentioning anything about Clinton. I heard him say that his vote was a mistake.</p>
<p>Okay, I was wrong. John Edwards did say that but I doubt that it was meant to win votes. Nonetheless, he has my vote so far - he has matured a lot since the last election. Here’s the excerpt: </p>
<p>“For the same reason a lot of people were wrong. You know, we—the intelligence information that we got was wrong. I mean, tragically wrong. On top of that I’d—beyond that, I went back to former Clinton administration officials who gave me sort of independent information about what they believed about what was happening with Saddam’s weapon—weapons programs. They were also wrong. And, based on that, I made the wrong judgment. I, I, I want to go another step, though, because I think this is more than just weapons of mass destruction. I mean, I—at the—I remember vividly what I was thinking about at the time. It was, first, I was convinced he had weapons of mass destruction. That’s turned out to be completely wrong and false. I had internal conflict because I was worried about what George Bush would do. I didn’t have—I didn’t have confidence about him doing the work that needed to be done with the international community, the lead-up to a potential invasion in Iraq. I didn’t know, in fairness, that he would be as incompetent as he’s been in the administration of the war. But I had—there were at least two things going on. It wasn’t just the weapons of mass destruction I was wrong about. It’s become absolutely clear—and I’m very critical of myself for this—become absolutely clear, looking back, that I should not have given this president this authority.”</p>
<p>I don’t think that anyone cares about getting into Iraq in 2002. I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that letting Bush invade Iraq with no plan was a mistake. That’s kind of a “well, duh” moment isn’t it?</p>
<p>What we want to hear about is how these people intend to get us OUT of Iraq.</p>
<p>Edwards is so short on foreign policy experience that he has a lot of work to do.</p>
<p>Before the October elections, Bush and Rumsfield had already agreed that Rumsfield was going to resign. Bush has admitted this. Yet he told the press just the opposite–Rumsfield was there to stay. Later he admitted that he didn’t tell the truth. Of course Bush lies to the American people to get what he wants.</p>
<p>Some of us may seem “hard left,” just as several of you come across as blindly, irrationally, and extremely “hard right,” supporting a reprehensibly dangerous political policy no matter what. … As for Bush … I’m not so worried about his mental health. That appears to be what it always has been. It’s his evil stupidity that bothers me most.</p>
<p>When I asked about a tax to support the war, no one here seemed interested. Here’s another question. I’ve posted links to lists of casualties in Iraq by U.S. state and per capita National Guard and Reserve mobilization rates by state.</p>
<p>How many of you who favor escalation would favor a resolution that the additional troops must be mobilized first from states that haven’t done their fair share, in terms of per capita mobilization rates? In other words, Hawaii doesn’t have to send anyone else till Florida has sent its fair share, and so on, till every state is affected about the same by the war.</p>
<p>My state is over-represented in both casualties and deployments, so Iraq is always close to our thoughts. It should be to everyone else too.</p>
<p>I was hoping, since this thread is about the Presidential Race, to get the comments back on that track rather than the ususal Bush rants and defenses.</p>
<p>This is what Edwards said to Russert: “I went back to former Clinton administration officials who gave me sort of independent information about what they believed about what was happening with Saddam’s weapon - weapons programs. They were also wrong. And based on that, I made the wrong judgment.” </p>
<p>This was follwed by: “Because what happened was the information that we got on the intelligence committee was, was relatively consistent with what I was getting from Clinton administration officials.”</p>
<p>Come on, most of you here are pretty politically savvy, what’s he up to? This isn’t happenstance. Yes, he had plenty of quotes that were damning of Bush, but that’s not my point. Why make the point that the Clinton people agreed with the Bush people, and why do it now?</p>