A question?

[darthdavid]

Why does everyone act like bush is the best president in history when clinton is mentioned but when when no one's talking about clinton bush becomes a dumbass again?

[kojikun]

because people are fucked up.

[Knife]

Why does everyone act like bush is the best president in history when clinton is mentioned but when when no one's talking about clinton bush becomes a dumbass again?

Bush is about as polarizing a Clinton is. You either hate him or love him, if you look at the polls on such things.

[Drooling Iguana]

They're both assholes. The only difference is that Bush is also an idiot. Clinton is just an asshole.

[Darth Wong]

Clique syndrome. People who identify with GW Bush on some issue tend to take it personally when you attack him because they think that if you knew them more, you might attack them as well. Therefore, they decide to counter-attack the socio-economic or political group to which the person making the criticisms probably belongs (note that the logical response would be to refute the criticism or (gasp!) deal with it and move on, but this is primarily an emotional response mechanism we're talking about).

In America, people automatically assume that anybody who attacks Bush must be a Democrat, thus leading to the irritating behaviour that all threads on GW Bush eventually turn into Republicans bashing Democrats. It's particularly ridiculous when someone like myself posts something and gets the usual knee-jerk Democrat-bashing in return when I belong to neither party and am not even an American.

[Iceberg]

I've come to the conclusion that GW Bush's policies harm America, and that's why I'm against his continued Presidency. He's got our military scattered across the entire globe, making us weaker militarily. Bush's discarded most of our allies, alienated experienced American diplomats, and done untold harm to the United Nations system (which was created to, and primarily does, serve the interests of the dominant global powers) in the process, making us weaker diplomatically. He's an extremely divisive and polarizing figure, making us weaker socially (especially as, Marina's protestations to the contrary, he sides socially with the Paleocons). Under Bush's tenure, 3 million jobs have been lost (over half a million this year alone, a bloodletting that hasn't ended yet) and countless amounts of slack have been introduced to the economic system that his policies do not speak on how to take up, making us weaker economically.

These are not the signs of a good presidency.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

(especially as, Marina's protestations to the contrary, he sides socially with the Paleocons).

No, he does not. His views, though hardly as progressive as some have hoped for the Republican party, do not in any way resemble those of the Paleocons--might I remind that most of them have defected to join Pat Buchanan in lala land? Granted, he speaks a moderating tone between the social conservatives like the old Dixiecrats, and the fiscal conservatives, but from a president one must concede the necessity of that. The recent progress in the Supreme Court isn't going to be undone, anyway, and we'll give it some time to settle and see what happens. Talk of legislating something that will never happen, also, is hardly something to define a person as a "paleocon" over--it's just conciliatory talk, which is what being a politician is all about. The actions so far have been quite tolerable.

[darthdavid]

You call millions of jobs lost tolerable? You call billions of dollars of deficit tolerable? You call his attempts at turning this country into a christian theocrocy tolerable?

[Joe]

(especially as, Marina's protestations to the contrary, he sides socially with the Paleocons)

I've been on the paleocon right, and Bush is no paleocon.

You call millions of jobs lost tolerable?

Not really Bush's fault. Are you familiar with the business cycle?

You call billions of dollars of deficit tolerable?

May I point out that Bush is hardly the first President to run deficits, and his are not the highest in U.S. history by a fairly long shot. And no, I don't really find the stupid, pointless Homeland Security spending tolerable, nor the Prescription Drug Benefit (on domestic spending, Bush is far from conservative; he embraces new spending projects with great ease, not the sign of a fiscal conservative).

You call his attempts at turning this country into a christian theocrocy tolerable?

Shut your pie hole.

[RedImperator]

You call millions of jobs lost tolerable?

Which wasn't his fault. I get sick to Goddamn death of this argument, especially when it comes from people who would (rightly) claim he had nothing to do with a good economy, if one existed.

You call billions of dollars of deficit tolerable?

No, it's not, but again, the deficit is partly the fault of a general economic slowdown that neither he nor any other president was responsible for. Nor is he responsible for the necessity of going to war (at least in Afghanistan, though I'll argue Iraq was necessary as well) or the general military buildup to reverse the decay that took place under the previous administration.

Now, all that said, that doesn't excuse him for a lot of his other spending, but the real problem is that the Federal budget has been growing faster than inflation for decades. The solution isn't to raise taxes, as most Democrats seem to want--it's to take a chainsaw to the Federal budget and shut down thousands of unnecessary Federal programs, mostly the kind that make liberals go all damp in the panties. Don't worry though. If I was ever in charge of the budget, plenty of conservative pet programs *coughWaronDrugscough* would go out the window, too.

You call his attempts at turning this country into a christian theocrocy tolerable?

Hyperbole serves your argument, such as it is, poorly. Which doesn't mean I approve of his pandering to the Paleocon right (he needs to throw them a few bones, because if they don't turn out on election day, the Democrats win, but he's gone well beyond the call of duty). Let's be serious, though. Shrub bases his policy positions on his Christian faith. That's not theocracy. Pat Robertson types who want the Ten Commandments made into Constitutional amendments are theocrats, and they're taken about as seriously by the Republican party as Maoists are by the Democrats.