 |
View Old Forum Thread
Old Forum Index » Other Stuff » Off Topic » Keith Olbermann's commentary
sycophantman
Last night on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" there was a special commentary at the end of the program that so perfectly articulated all the bile that this current administration causes in me that I wanted to reprint it here and discuss it with like minded folks. If you disagree, fine, though I cannot see how a rational person could disagree. This thread isn't for you, go off somewhere else and crow about how great 'your guy' is and leave us adults alone...
This commentary is inspired by the Clinton interview on Fox News last friday. If you haven't heard about this then you need a newspaper subscription. [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092300928.html]You can start here, if you want to catch up...[/url]
[size=1]Commentary below by Keith Olbermann[/size]
The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.
It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.
It is not important that the current President?s portable public chorus has described his predecessor?s tone as ?crazed.?
Our tone should be crazed. The nation?s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation?s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would?ve quit.
Nonetheless. The headline is this:
Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.
He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.
"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "That?s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."
Thus in his supposed emeritus years has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by any one, in these last five long years.
The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.
The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.
The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."
The Bush Administration did not try.
Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest ?pass? for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!
President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs?some of them, 17 years old?before Pearl Harbor.
President Hoover was correctly blamed for?if not the Great Depression itself?then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.
Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War?though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.
But not this president.
To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.
That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.
But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.
Except for this.
After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts?that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton?s.
Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.
As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.
Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.
Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is?not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.
The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.
It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired?but a propagandist, promoted:
Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.
And don?t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for ?e-mailing? you the question.
He told the great truth untold about this administration?s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.
He was brave.
Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.
The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.
Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with "The Path to 9/11." Of that company?s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: someone there enabled an Authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush?s new and improved history.
The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.
The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it?who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews?have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.
Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden?s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?
That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog."
Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton?s judgment.
Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri?the future attorney general?echoed Coats.
Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.
And of course, were it true Clinton had been ?distracted? by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?
Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?
Who corrupted the political media?
Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air, the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us, here?
Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, ?All Monica All The Time??
Who distracted whom?
This is, of course, where?as is inevitable?Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.
The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.
But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it?s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.
The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected President.
Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.
Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since?a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.
We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.
And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles wrong.
Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:
You did not try.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.
Then, you blamed your predecessor.
That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.
To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.
That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair?writing as George Orwell?gave us in the book ?1984.?
The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power...
"Power is not a means; it is an end.
"One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
"The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power? is power."
Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln?s State of the Union address from 1862.
"We must disenthrall ourselves."
Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln?s sentence.
He might well have.
"We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."
And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.
The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.
You did not act to prevent 9/11.
We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.
You have failed us?then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.
You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.
And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.
And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn?t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.
And there it is, Mr. Bush:
Are yours the actions of a true American?
[Edited on 9/26/2006 by sycophantman]
Keith Olbermann's commentary
September 26, 2006 at 12:16PM View BBCode
This was simply far too stirring to not note here, among friends, on Sim Dynasty. I sincerely hope that this thread doesn't get closed out-of-hand for daring to tread into political discussion.Last night on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" there was a special commentary at the end of the program that so perfectly articulated all the bile that this current administration causes in me that I wanted to reprint it here and discuss it with like minded folks. If you disagree, fine, though I cannot see how a rational person could disagree. This thread isn't for you, go off somewhere else and crow about how great 'your guy' is and leave us adults alone...
This commentary is inspired by the Clinton interview on Fox News last friday. If you haven't heard about this then you need a newspaper subscription. [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092300928.html]You can start here, if you want to catch up...[/url]
[size=1]Commentary below by Keith Olbermann[/size]
The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.
It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.
It is not important that the current President?s portable public chorus has described his predecessor?s tone as ?crazed.?
Our tone should be crazed. The nation?s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation?s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would?ve quit.
Nonetheless. The headline is this:
Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.
He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.
"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "That?s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."
Thus in his supposed emeritus years has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by any one, in these last five long years.
The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.
The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.
The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."
The Bush Administration did not try.
Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest ?pass? for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!
President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs?some of them, 17 years old?before Pearl Harbor.
President Hoover was correctly blamed for?if not the Great Depression itself?then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.
Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War?though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.
But not this president.
To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.
That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.
But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.
Except for this.
After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts?that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton?s.
Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.
As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.
Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.
Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is?not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.
The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.
It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired?but a propagandist, promoted:
Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.
And don?t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for ?e-mailing? you the question.
He told the great truth untold about this administration?s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.
He was brave.
Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.
The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.
Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with "The Path to 9/11." Of that company?s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: someone there enabled an Authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush?s new and improved history.
The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.
The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it?who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews?have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.
Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden?s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?
That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog."
Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton?s judgment.
Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri?the future attorney general?echoed Coats.
Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.
And of course, were it true Clinton had been ?distracted? by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?
Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?
Who corrupted the political media?
Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air, the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us, here?
Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, ?All Monica All The Time??
Who distracted whom?
This is, of course, where?as is inevitable?Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.
The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.
But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it?s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.
The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected President.
Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.
Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since?a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.
We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.
And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles wrong.
Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:
You did not try.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.
Then, you blamed your predecessor.
That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.
To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.
That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair?writing as George Orwell?gave us in the book ?1984.?
The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power...
"Power is not a means; it is an end.
"One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
"The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power? is power."
Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln?s State of the Union address from 1862.
"We must disenthrall ourselves."
Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln?s sentence.
He might well have.
"We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."
And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.
The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.
You did not act to prevent 9/11.
We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.
You have failed us?then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.
You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.
And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.
And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn?t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.
And there it is, Mr. Bush:
Are yours the actions of a true American?
[Edited on 9/26/2006 by sycophantman]
farfetched
September 26, 2006 at 01:15PM View BBCode
Goddamnit. Give me time to read this after class, and I'll assess the situation. Most posts (*cough* AnPoL *cough*) aren't this kind of marathon, but I'm sure it's worth the wait.
farfetched
Granted, I can't do it for another 13-14 years, and believe me, I'm going to work my way up to it as foolhardily as I can. But we can't sit here and mince words anymore. Wanna change the world? Do something about it.
September 26, 2006 at 04:35PM View BBCode
It bothers me that every argument since 9/11 has been so one-sided. Don't get me wrong; I have plenty of reservations about the way this country's been going for the past 5 years, but aside from placing blame, what we need to do as liberal-minded folk opposed to the way things are going is to find who we feel is capable of doing a better job (insert joke about primate here) when the upcoming election is held and let the candidate stand up and say what we all want to say on the grand stage.Granted, I can't do it for another 13-14 years, and believe me, I'm going to work my way up to it as foolhardily as I can. But we can't sit here and mince words anymore. Wanna change the world? Do something about it.
FuriousGiorge
The way you overcome inertia is by changing the course of the dialogue. And then you go to the ballot box in November. That's the extent of your civic duty, and that's the most useful thing you can do. You stand up for what you believe in the public discourse, and then you put your money where your mouth is by pulling the corresponding lever. It's foolish to think that anything else you can or should do is either as powerful as those two things, or as pure.
September 26, 2006 at 04:56PM View BBCode
That's just liberal hand-wringing. "We should stop talking about these things and do something about it." Talking is doing something about it. Sure, I guess any of us could volunteer to work for a campaign, and some of us do/have done that. But the truth is that doing that has nothing to do with changing policy, all you end up doing is licking envelopes and cold-calling voters, and the closer you get to an actual political campaign the worse it smells and the more you begin to despise politics. The only way an individual citizen can affect any real change by themselves is if they have money.The way you overcome inertia is by changing the course of the dialogue. And then you go to the ballot box in November. That's the extent of your civic duty, and that's the most useful thing you can do. You stand up for what you believe in the public discourse, and then you put your money where your mouth is by pulling the corresponding lever. It's foolish to think that anything else you can or should do is either as powerful as those two things, or as pure.
farfetched
September 26, 2006 at 05:00PM View BBCode
So we putting Olbermann on the platform, or what? :)
kannc6
In my job I come into personal contact with almost every elected official in our state government. From the governor to freshmen state reps. I know if people actually knew their elected officials in many cases they would be appalled. This goes for men/women on both sides of the aisle.
Politics should be more than Blue/Red. Sound bites and TV commercials. Unfortunately most Americans are too lazy and if a commercial says the other guy is Anti-whatever then, people just accept and vote that way.
September 26, 2006 at 05:26PM View BBCode
FG. I agree with most of what you say, but I think you forgot the MOST important role of a citizen in a representative democracy. That is to be informed.In my job I come into personal contact with almost every elected official in our state government. From the governor to freshmen state reps. I know if people actually knew their elected officials in many cases they would be appalled. This goes for men/women on both sides of the aisle.
Politics should be more than Blue/Red. Sound bites and TV commercials. Unfortunately most Americans are too lazy and if a commercial says the other guy is Anti-whatever then, people just accept and vote that way.
krusecontrol
did it feel good to get all that off your chest, syco?
talent wasted in the wrong place
September 26, 2006 at 05:28PM View BBCode
wow, you guys should be posting at huffington-post or dailykos or du.com .... your true talents are being wasted on a sports site.did it feel good to get all that off your chest, syco?
farfetched
September 26, 2006 at 06:15PM View BBCode
Those are excerpts from Olbermann's take on a Clinton article, kruse.
kannc6
September 26, 2006 at 07:01PM View BBCode
Kruse, who says I dont visit Kos, Redstate and other sites. In fact I subscribe to about a half dozn political blogs of both parties
bobcat73
I also would like to note that Olbermann is growing into a very good lefty fire eater of Carville magnatued without the insanity.
September 26, 2006 at 08:15PM View BBCode
My respect for Bubba has gone up a lot in the way he responded to that ambush. Although I would point out that the tents we fired missles at were known at the time to not be the location of Osama, they were a training camp but the attack was not "an attempt to kill" Bin laden. I am not sure if he was saying that attack was such an attempt or he was pointing out his attempts to distrupt AQ.I also would like to note that Olbermann is growing into a very good lefty fire eater of Carville magnatued without the insanity.
sycophantman
Kann is right, our most important duty as citizens is to be informed. The fact that the republican machine is hard at work with subtley twisting facts and spinning every opposing viewpoint as foolish, or unpatriotic, or confused, is one of the worst things they've done as an administration. Yes, Bush is one of the worst presidents we've ever had....
September 26, 2006 at 11:39PM View BBCode
Clearly Kruse is not in argeement with the original excerpt, but like most bush backers, far more willing to belittle those disagreeing with him rather than notice the fraud of a president behind you.Kann is right, our most important duty as citizens is to be informed. The fact that the republican machine is hard at work with subtley twisting facts and spinning every opposing viewpoint as foolish, or unpatriotic, or confused, is one of the worst things they've done as an administration. Yes, Bush is one of the worst presidents we've ever had....
bobcat73
Bush sure ain't doing a great job, but I won't be moving to South Africa just yet.
September 27, 2006 at 01:04AM View BBCode
Sorry but Bush does not count in the top 10 of worthless Presidents. I think the rating of Presidents is pretty subjective but I am sure some egg heads somewhere have a honestly and Objective measurment that shows we have had a lot worse then this clown.Bush sure ain't doing a great job, but I won't be moving to South Africa just yet.
indychris3
September 27, 2006 at 01:28AM View BBCode
wow okay i dont have time to read that but maybe i will get to it tommorow. wait i wont get home from work till 11 tommorow never mind
FuriousGiorge
Most of the worst Presidents are those who are incompetent, or swallowed by circumstances and unable to fight the current, people like James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover. Not many Presidents have actively harmed America by their misguided policies like Bush and his administration has. Bush is one step above the deliberately corrupt Presidents like Nixon and Ulysses Grant (and even he was more of a weak-willed patsy than an actively harmful executive).
September 27, 2006 at 02:44AM View BBCode
Originally posted by bobcat73
Sorry but Bush does not count in the top 10 of worthless Presidents. I think the rating of Presidents is pretty subjective but I am sure some egg heads somewhere have a honestly and Objective measurment that shows we have had a lot worse then this clown.
Bush sure ain't doing a great job, but I won't be moving to South Africa just yet.
Most of the worst Presidents are those who are incompetent, or swallowed by circumstances and unable to fight the current, people like James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover. Not many Presidents have actively harmed America by their misguided policies like Bush and his administration has. Bush is one step above the deliberately corrupt Presidents like Nixon and Ulysses Grant (and even he was more of a weak-willed patsy than an actively harmful executive).
whiskybear
I bristle at the suggestion that Bush is excluded from the deliberately corrupt. He's circumvented our notion of justice and due process at Guantanamo Bay and in secret military prisons in Iraq, he's championed the use of torture in interrogations in violation of the Geneva Convention, his administration leaked the identity of a CIA operative, and he ordered us into a military quagmire in Iraq under the false pretense that Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. His administration has also attempted to forge connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, despite their being no evidence to link the Iraqi government to Osama bin Laden prior to the U.S. invasion. Post-9/11, the national discourse has been characterized by scare tactics and woefully misleading constructions such as "Islamofascists," meant to foster in Americans the impression that Muslims are equivalent to the Nazis. Just this week, in light of the leaked intelligent report that suggested that the invasion of Iraq elevated the terror threat posed against the United States, Bush insisted that the information had been misconstrued (he implied intentionally) by media for political gain.
He is deliberately corrupt.
September 27, 2006 at 03:41AM View BBCode
Originally posted by FuriousGiorge
Bush is one step above the deliberately corrupt Presidents like Nixon and Ulysses Grant (and even he was more of a weak-willed patsy than an actively harmful executive).
I bristle at the suggestion that Bush is excluded from the deliberately corrupt. He's circumvented our notion of justice and due process at Guantanamo Bay and in secret military prisons in Iraq, he's championed the use of torture in interrogations in violation of the Geneva Convention, his administration leaked the identity of a CIA operative, and he ordered us into a military quagmire in Iraq under the false pretense that Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. His administration has also attempted to forge connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, despite their being no evidence to link the Iraqi government to Osama bin Laden prior to the U.S. invasion. Post-9/11, the national discourse has been characterized by scare tactics and woefully misleading constructions such as "Islamofascists," meant to foster in Americans the impression that Muslims are equivalent to the Nazis. Just this week, in light of the leaked intelligent report that suggested that the invasion of Iraq elevated the terror threat posed against the United States, Bush insisted that the information had been misconstrued (he implied intentionally) by media for political gain.
He is deliberately corrupt.
whiskybear
September 27, 2006 at 03:49AM View BBCode
I forgot to mention the (at one time secret) program to employ warrantless wire taps, without heed to the U.S. Constitution. How positively Orwellian.
FuriousGiorge
[url=http://hnn.us/articles/5019.html]This[/url] is a couple of years old, but it's interesting reading nonetheless.
September 27, 2006 at 04:03AM View BBCode
I'm certainly not going to argue. I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk his poorly-thought-out policies up to a monstrously misguided sense of what his presidential duties are rather than a deliberate attempt to deceive the American people and circumvent the Constitution. But that's me attempting to be even-handed, and at the end of the day I'm not convinced it's true. I will say that when I speak of Bush I speak of the Bush Administration, and not simply the man who is the public face of it. There is plenty of blame to go around.[url=http://hnn.us/articles/5019.html]This[/url] is a couple of years old, but it's interesting reading nonetheless.
barterer2002
The current administration, on the other hand, has failed both domestically and internationally. Internationally the administrations bullying has alienated many of our allies as well as increasing hatred among the undecided but not to mention those already in the enemy camp. Domestically gas prices have risen from close to $1 when George took office to over $3 this summer. Regardless of what our "brilliant" economists are saying, this is causing inflation as the transportation of goods now costs more and as a resut all the goods now will cost more. Without even discussing the dishonest, illegal aspects of the adminstration which were mentioned by WB above this adminstration is a disaster.
September 27, 2006 at 12:40PM View BBCode
I didliked Clinton a great deal finding him to be morrally reprehensible but would vote for him in a second over the corrupt administration currently in place. I don't really give Bush much credit for being anything more than a figurehead for Cheyney and Rumsfeld. As an administration this group is one of two in my lifetime (along with Nixon) who either recklessly or deliberately harmed the country. Nixon at least had a postive record with international relations but his egomanical tendencies led him to cover up his subordinates midguided lawbreaking and destroying the nation's faith in the office of the presidency.The current administration, on the other hand, has failed both domestically and internationally. Internationally the administrations bullying has alienated many of our allies as well as increasing hatred among the undecided but not to mention those already in the enemy camp. Domestically gas prices have risen from close to $1 when George took office to over $3 this summer. Regardless of what our "brilliant" economists are saying, this is causing inflation as the transportation of goods now costs more and as a resut all the goods now will cost more. Without even discussing the dishonest, illegal aspects of the adminstration which were mentioned by WB above this adminstration is a disaster.
sycophantman
Bush openly stating the insanity that he is doing 'God's work', the administration's disasterous campaign to repeal the estate tax, overwhelmingly siding with big business in any issue imaginable, limiting stem cell research on religious grounds in a country founded upon religious freedom, abandoning the Kyoto treaty when America stands as one of the biggest pollution sources in the world, Discrediting Al Gore out of hand for daring to bring global warming into the discussion, "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie.", refusing to fire Donald Rumsfeld after his continued bungling of the Iraq war, a war that was promised would be quick, a war that would pay for itself, a war that will be supported by a populace that would greet us as 'liberators'...
Truly, the greatest irony of the Iraq war is the fact that it was later learned that Saddam Hussein hated al Qaeda almost as much as we do, and it seems he was doing a far better job fighting terrorists in his own country than we have yet to do. It is barely worth mentioning that he was a cruel dictator who deserved to be overthrown, but why him over all the other despots in the world?
It's overwhelmingly sad, to have to recount all the mistakes, all the corruption, and yet to hear people still defend this crime syndicate, that stands in the false image of a government, is sadder still...
September 27, 2006 at 12:50PM View BBCode
No doubt that this administration is at the forefront as far as the worst-ever is concerned. Whisky outlined many of the faults and misdeeds, yet sadly, there are many more we could mention...Bush openly stating the insanity that he is doing 'God's work', the administration's disasterous campaign to repeal the estate tax, overwhelmingly siding with big business in any issue imaginable, limiting stem cell research on religious grounds in a country founded upon religious freedom, abandoning the Kyoto treaty when America stands as one of the biggest pollution sources in the world, Discrediting Al Gore out of hand for daring to bring global warming into the discussion, "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie.", refusing to fire Donald Rumsfeld after his continued bungling of the Iraq war, a war that was promised would be quick, a war that would pay for itself, a war that will be supported by a populace that would greet us as 'liberators'...
Truly, the greatest irony of the Iraq war is the fact that it was later learned that Saddam Hussein hated al Qaeda almost as much as we do, and it seems he was doing a far better job fighting terrorists in his own country than we have yet to do. It is barely worth mentioning that he was a cruel dictator who deserved to be overthrown, but why him over all the other despots in the world?
It's overwhelmingly sad, to have to recount all the mistakes, all the corruption, and yet to hear people still defend this crime syndicate, that stands in the false image of a government, is sadder still...
FuriousGiorge
He knew. At the very least he gave it his implicit blessing.
September 27, 2006 at 02:18PM View BBCode
Originally posted by barterer2002
Nixon at least had a postive record with international relations but his egomanical tendencies led him to cover up his subordinates midguided lawbreaking and destroying the nation's faith in the office of the presidency.
He knew. At the very least he gave it his implicit blessing.
farfetched
I still see gold t-shirts across campus with that horrid "Eagles for Bush '04" written across the front. At first I figured this would be the harping minority in a traditionally liberal college town (regardless of how many old fogeys want to label H-Burg a "retirement city") but the more I walk around campus, the more I see.
I guess it goes to show you... Mississippians on the whole are about the most impressionable state populace in the union. I think Roosevelt was the last time we carried the ticket for a Democrat, and from our economic history, one would assume the leftist policies regarding the economy would benefit us the most.
But apparently, we'd rather have our guns.
September 27, 2006 at 02:53PM View BBCode
Well, shit, if only my newspaper didn't prefer I keep my topics local, I'd try to summarize and provide my own commentary on this in my next article.I still see gold t-shirts across campus with that horrid "Eagles for Bush '04" written across the front. At first I figured this would be the harping minority in a traditionally liberal college town (regardless of how many old fogeys want to label H-Burg a "retirement city") but the more I walk around campus, the more I see.
I guess it goes to show you... Mississippians on the whole are about the most impressionable state populace in the union. I think Roosevelt was the last time we carried the ticket for a Democrat, and from our economic history, one would assume the leftist policies regarding the economy would benefit us the most.
But apparently, we'd rather have our guns.
FuriousGiorge
September 27, 2006 at 03:01PM View BBCode
Carter carried your state (and most of the South) in 1976.