<p>Well, since the reality turned out to be far, far worse than anything either Faux News or BB considered at the time, it turns out in hindsight to have been even more callous than either she actually said OR intended.</p>
<p>you cant blame Barbara Bush for your own inability to read or your own stupidity and rush to judgement of a person</p>
<p>I like George Bush because at least he HAS convictions. And will stick to them.
Unlike a variety of democratic candidates whose convictions change with the most recent poll. And Laura is wonderful.</p>
<p>" Reading the entire Snopes analysis shows what Mrs. Bush meant - she was dismissing media speculation about potential military action. It bothered her."</p>
<p>Nope, I read the whole thing. I still can’t stand the way she phrased it. I don’t think it’s improved by quoting the whole thing, but if you do - whatever floats your boat. </p>
<p>I like Laura Bush BTW.</p>
<p>Well, when you have a viceral hatred for the politics of a President (from whichever side opposite your own happens to occupy the Oval Office for the moment), it’s tempting to tar with the broad brush. Anybody that happens to be connected with that President (by party, by family affiliation—it’s all the same, isn’t it?) MUST be deserving of your utmost distain as well, right? Why bother to examine quote context, or evidence of actual character, when a verdict of “Guilt by Association” is so quick and easy, not to mention intellectually non-taxing.</p>
<p>Did you know Laura Bush was raised in a [staunchly</a> Democrat](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/e2147.htm]staunchly”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/e2147.htm) family?</p>
<p>He now lets his generals speak their professional analysis. Four more years at force level 140,000+ in Iraq.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I can not come up with one single reason why I like the man. His mama is a mean woman. She, of all people, should know when to keep her yap shut. I used to like her before I heard her say the things she said about the Katrina victims.</p>
<p>An objective analysis of the Bush presidency will come soon enough. </p>
<p>It is not partisan; what Kerry would do. I don’t think much of Kerry.
I too am embarassed by Clinton’s depravity and last minute pardons.</p>
<p>It will become apparent that Bush was in way over his head. God help us.
Who in American political life do you tell your children is deserving of their respect, because of their altruism? The most deserving Americans are working two jobs to feed their families and not in law or politics.</p>
<p>Well, we clearly can’t cut and run like those Defeatocrats want. Of course we have to maintain the troop level…since we’re winning the war and all (oops, I think we won it three years ago? So what the heck are we still doing there?)</p>
<p>I like him because he’s introspective; “I’m also not very analytical. You know I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.” —George W. Bush, aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003.</p>
<p>Democrats of old , especially those in the south - Dixiecrats - were never liberals of today’s ilk. Back then Republicans were associated with the North and rich folks. Southerners tended to be Democrats due to vestigial Civil War reasons. African-Americans tended to be Republicans because that is the party of Lincoln.</p>
<p>How times have changed.</p>
<p>Laura Bush being from a Texas family of Democrats in no way implies she’s from a liberal family…merely a Southern one.</p>
<p>Scidoc, that’s interesting. Bush will either be found to be in over his head or decisive like Harry Truman.</p>
<p>In retrospect, I wish he’d left Iraq alone…maybe. But no one knew for sure so we went in - even Democrats voted for it. Then I think of the Kurds, and I’m glad we ousted Saddam. The sectarian violence was started by the terrorists - now they are reaping the whirlwind. The Iraqis must decide to establish peace. </p>
<p>If they don’t, and soon, then even a conservative like me will want our people out. I suspect Saddam’s departure merely uncovered rifts already there - and historically bloody.</p>
<p>Many may not remember, but Ronald Reagan was severely criticized by Democrats. There were just as many Reagan haters during his presidency as there are Bush haters now. He was accused of:</p>
<ol>
<li>escalating the cold war against the Soviets by placing Pershing missiles with nuclear warheads into Europe</li>
<li> Being a “cowboy” for doing that.</li>
<li>Being unrealistic for dreaming of a “Star wars” type space based defense to protect us against a nuclear attack.</li>
<li> Being a “cowboy” for sending troops into Granada to rescue Americans trapped there.</li>
<li> Using voodoo economics because he cut taxes to stimulate the economy.</li>
<li> Being unrealistic to think that we could win the cold war.</li>
</ol>
<p>We were told at that time that he was leading us to a confrontation with the USSR and possibly WW III.</p>
<p>And how does history treat Mr. Reagan now?</p>
<p>Mr. Bush has followed a consistent policy during a period where he has faced some of the most difficult problems any President has faced in a long time, possibly since 1941. These are not problems that can be solved easily, and thus despite the overwhelming criticism and hatred out there by many groups, I have heard no consistent or reasonable alternate plan from the democrats… they have none.</p>
<p>History will judge. But think about this… Al Gore walking through the smoking ruins of 9/11. What would he be doing, measuring the effect on global warming? I shudder at the thought.</p>
<p>"In retrospect, I wish he’d left Iraq alone…maybe. But no one knew for sure so we went in - even Democrats voted for it. "</p>
<p>Only because they were lied to.</p>
<p>I think this thread could have stopped at the first post. For those of us who saw the reality of this administration early, it’s a stretch to find anything likeable in it’s leader.</p>
<p>My observation of this thread is that the defenders of GW seem to share many of the characteristics of their leader - they stand by their convictions no matter what anyone says, even when presented with indisputable facts. They attack, belittle, and dismiss anyone who disagrees with them. ( hold on before you say the Dems do the same because it’s very different when the person or party with the power is doing the attacking) They also seem to have a vague sense of history and a hard line view of their party that keeps them from evaluating events and situations from an objective point of view. </p>
<p>I honestly don’t understand how anyone at this point in time could admire Bush for “sticking to his guns” or think that he will go down as one of the greatest president’s ever. What I’ve observed about greatness in any form is that latent greatness doesn’t usually have such strong opposition or such all consuming power and attention. Latent or unrecongnized greatness seems to come from those who are stretching the boundaries of something and are way ahead of their time, like Beethoven.( at least I think it was Beethoven) They are people or things that somehow go unnoticed because there are brighter or more recognizable stars getting all the attention. All Bush has done is taken an old fashioned idea of war and taken it to a new level - premptiveness . Out of fear and incompetence he has allowed others to lead for him and not had the intellectual capacity to understand that he was misled by his little cabal of neocons. If you understood anything about history, you would understand that the party of George Bush is not the party of Reagan. The same goes for the Dems.</p>
<p>Curiously Liz,</p>
<p>…or any others who find it incredulous that there are those who (largely Republicans) are waiting to see; who see signs of goodness and error simultaneously in this administration and presidency…</p>
<p>**What was your opinion of Ronald Regan in 1987<a href=“middle%20of%20Iran-Contra”>/b</a> **and how well does it wear with the<a href=“up-to-now”>/b</a> judgments of history?</p>
<p>Honestly, if you could.</p>
<p>I myself am of mixed opinions over this administration; the libs here are anything but mixed or nuanced in their opinions of our current leadership…more like absolute and doctrinaire lock-step. </p>
<p>I don’t know, but I’m guessing that the lib view was, more or less, identical in 1987.</p>
<p>FS, sure, Ronald ReAgan had his own special little brand of Reagonomics, which Bush II has tried to emulate, as well as scandal aplenty in the Executive branch. But since the Berlin Wall, and ultimately the Soviet bloc, fell during his presidency (whether he was instrumental in its fall is still debatable), the truth is, Reagan’s approval numbers remained relatively stable (high) during his entire presidency, including Iran/Contra. </p>
<p>Of course the Democrats hated him, but currently 2/3 of the country distrusts Bush…it’s not quite a valid comparison. Good try, though.</p>
<p>Really? a vague sense of history? Can you elaborate?
How about backing that up with something.
Exactly right Fountain Siren… the views were similar in 1987.
And we don’t all walk in lockstep as the dems would like to think.</p>
<p>But their plan is the same as always. NO plan. Criticize everything the other side does. Doom and gloom for the US. Retreat to our borders and cower at the terrorist threats.</p>
<p>And this is what you take from Bush’s strategy Liz? Premptiveness (sic)?
Isn’t that when someone starts a war without being provoked?
UMM, 3000 Americans died on 9/11. More than at Pearl Harbor. Yes I know, we’ve heard it a million times, Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. But actually, we invaded Afghanistan first, and that’s where Osama Bin Laden and his friendly Taliban hosts were. And based on the intelligence the President had at the time, he felt Iraq was a threat. It’s a global war, and it started that day. Whether we fight them in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or any other chosen country, it doesn’t matter that much.
In order to win, we have to defeat them everywhere that they threaten us.
If we don’t fight, they consider us weak, and will press the advantage.
It’s not really that difficult to understand. As I said, history will have the last say.</p>
<p>FountainSiren:</p>
<p>I’ll tell you what I thought about Reagan in 1987. I thought that he had been incredibly successful in enacting his domestic agenda, and that it was beginning to bear fruit in terms of prosperity and growth, although I still had a lot of doubts about his poverty strategy. I was beginning to suspect that his confrontation with the Soviet Union had not been as irresponsible as it seemed, and that that was going to be a success. I thought Jim Baker and George Schultz were two of the most skilled cabinet officers of my lifetime (and I noticed that over Reagan’s first term, Reagan hardly seemed to have aged a day, and Baker had aged about 20 years, which gave me a sense of whose finger was really on the button). I thought Iran-Contra was a travesty of foreign policy, the work of a bunch of clowns. I still think that. Bill Casey was NOT one of the most skilled senior bureaucrats of my lifetime.</p>
<p>Funny you should mention Iran-Contra. What were we doing there? Selling arms to the mullahs to fund an insurgency against an elected government in a meaningless country (one that is probably about to re-elect the same leader we were trying to undermine)? How’s that for having your eye on the ball? Reagan wasn’t perfect. But Iran-Contra was a sideshow. At the time, neither Iran nor Nicaragua mattered other than symbolically.</p>
<p>The contrast with George W. Bush is pretty stunning. It’s hard not to respect Cheyney’s and Rumsfeld’s IQs, but I think in objective terms they have been the most incompetent leaders the U.S. has had in the past century – far worse than the oft-reviled Carter, who did nowhere near the damage they have done.</p>
<p>And I had to guffaw at this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You “suspect” that, huh? Were you not paying attention in the months leading up to the Iraq invasion, when a chorus of international experts was predicting just that? (Oh, but of course they were experts, so they couldn’t be right, and besides “no one knew for sure,” so why not roll the dice with a few hundred billion dollars and a few hundred thousand lives?) Or how about when Bush pere decided not to press on to Baghdad during Desert Storm? That was just wimpiness, right?, it couldn’t have had anything to do with actual intelligence and responsible decisionmaking.</p>
<p>Please. I’m not going to pretend to be a conservative, but if I were there wouldn’t be a circle of Hell low enough to satisfy me as a destination for W and team. Their recklessness and obtusity has done harm to this nation on an unprecedented scale, and they have been the greatest gift anyone could have given to the left.</p>