So who's part of the 29%? (1 Viewer)

[SaintsFan11]

You're right, and I intended to add that, but I had to go to work! Who else would be able to leave their family/business/farm etc. but the wealthy?

No system of government is perfect, but ours certainly could use some modification. We can start with one and done for term limits.

While I agree that we need a return to the ideals of civic republicanism, I don't necessarily think term limits are the answer. If I tend to be self-serving in my service in Congress, and all of the sudden I'm term limited and no longer have the ability to face the voters I'm going to go wild with self-indulgence.

Slapping term limits on politicians does nothing to remedy the fact that it's the voters who send worthless incumbents back time and time again. Our politicians are doing what they can get away with. If there is a problem, it lies with the voters. All of the money in the world doesn't buy a seat in Congress. It just buys a better campaign than the other guy, which is enough to persuade the voters who don't pay enough attention to get past the glitz. As much as America harps on individual responsibility, it seems we'd rather point the finger at our elected officials (onus on the word elected), than at the people electing them time and time again.

 

[Saint Anthony]

- I'm sorry, but I have to agree with those who are saying that GWB does not deserve respect. He has made a mockery of the office of the Presidency in more ways than I can count- so IMO he has squandered any respect that one would normally give to the office itself...

And Clinton didn't make the office a mockery? He lied under oath and got (mod edit ****) from interns while in the Oval Office. I just want to make sure that when you say Bush made a mockery of the office and doesn't deserve your respect, you are applying the same standards to other Presidents before him.

 

[Taurus]

Aye, Clinton also demeaned the office, but for my part I'm not so down on him because his mistakes didn't have to do with being incompetent. Just a pantyhound.

 

[saintmdterps]

While I agree that we need a return to the ideals of civic republicanism, I don't necessarily think term limits are the answer. If I tend to be self-serving in my service in Congress, and all of the sudden I'm term limited and no longer have the ability to face the voters I'm going to go wild with self-indulgence.

Slapping term limits on politicians does nothing to remedy the fact that it's the voters who send worthless incumbents back time and time again. Our politicians are doing what they can get away with. If there is a problem, it lies with the voters. All of the money in the world doesn't buy a seat in Congress. It just buys a better campaign than the other guy, which is enough to persuade the voters who don't pay enough attention to get past the glitz. As much as America harps on individual responsibility, it seems we'd rather point the finger at our elected officials (onus on the word elected), than at the people electing them time and time again.

good point. I don't know the answer, but I agree with you about voters. After voting for Nader, I heard the comment from one man "Well, I would have voted for him, but I didn't think he'd win." Now THERES someone who should lose his voter registration card!

All I do know is that I feel very let down by politicians on all levels. they say what they with very few exceptions need to say to get elected, then do what they have to to get re-elected as opposed to trying to effect any meaningful change.

Regarding bush and Christianity, he has stated on many occasions he is a Christian. I am just asking how his lack of empathy for his fellow human beings demonstrates his Christianity? Lets face facts, the man is not terriically bright. Well-educated, probably, but not intelligent like Carter (MS in Nuclear Phyics from the Naval Academy) and totally devoid of Carter's compassion for his fellow americans. Carter, I believe, is also a Christian and is certainly a much better representative of the faith than Bush.

I stand by my earlier post. History will not and should not be kind to him. He has failed Americans, except the wealthiest 2-3 percent, on every level and his polls refect this. He stands a good chance of winning the booby prize for worst president ever.

That being said, he was democratically elected, at least we think so.

 

[gumbeau]

Aye, Clinton also demeaned the office, but for my part I'm not so down on him because his mistakes didn't have to do with being incompetent. Just a pantyhound.

An individual's attitude towards a sitting president is much more indicative of the individual than the president.

Presidents cannot be judged in the moment. Presidents are privy to a whirlwind of information that influence their every waking moment.

It is impossible to accurately judge a sitting president, especially through the prism of an agenda driven media (as all media is now)

So teaching your children to despise a sitting president or teaching your children to glorify a sitting president is dangerous and only indicates a lack of understanding of the lessons of history.

 

[saintmdterps]

An individual's attitude towards a sitting president is much more indicative of the individual than the president.

Presidents cannot be judged in the moment. Presidents are privy to a whirlwind of information that influence their every waking moment.

It is impossible to accurately judge a sitting president, especially through the prism of an agenda driven media (as all media is now)

So teaching your children to despise a sitting president or teaching your children to glorify a sitting president is dangerous and only indicates a lack of understanding of the lessons of history.

I beg to differ, Gumbeau. We elect 'em (allegedly), we can judge and criticize their actions. Supposedly elected officials serve those who elect them. Yes in some cases, history may bear out that we were overly harsh in the moment, but I don't think that willl be the case with Bush

 

[DadsDream]

I beg to differ, Gumbeau. We elect 'em (allegedly), we can judge and criticize their actions. Supposedly elected officials serve those who elect them. Yes in some cases, history may bear out that we were overly harsh in the moment, but I don't think that willl be the case with Bush

Saintmdterps, we've had this discussion frequently in the past year, particularly in relation to the "Worst President Ever" tag, which you'll recall was a MoveOn.org slogan and bumpersticker for the 2004 election.

As Gumbeau pointed out, there's so much we do not know at this point that it's most definitely wrong to draw valid conclusions at this point.

For a few samples, we don't have to look very far.

FDR had polio and couldn't walk without assistance, but any cameraman taking a picture of FDR in his wheelchair quickly got his camera (and his arm) broken by the Secret Service. It was long after his death before pictures emerged of him being carried around, loaded and unloaded from cars and trains. The American public that voted for him didn't have a clue at the time.

The press corps was well-aware of JFK's dalliances with Marilyn Monroe in the White House, but he was dead for 20 years before that information saw the light of day.

We are still in the process of declassifying the deaths of Air Force crews that were shot down spying on Russia in the 1950s and 1960s. That only happened after evidence began emerging in Russia that they captured some of those men and they eventually died in prison in Siberia.

Lyndon Johnson created the Tonkin Gulf Incident which led to a 98-2 Senate vote to authorize the use of force in Vietnam. It would be 30 years before the information was declassified to reveal that the entire incident was a CIA operation.

Why wouldn't we declassify all the documents on 9/11? Well, to answer that, we'd have to know what operations were being run from offices in the World Trade Center, wouldn't we?

If the operations are still classified, the locations of those offices are still classified and so are the documents relating to 9/11 that refer to those offices and even the names of the people who worked in them.

Did you know that there are certain military courses which issue you a new Social Security Number when you graduate?

 

[RazorOye]

so, DD, you think there's a possibility that W. will be vindicated by what the future bears out?

Hypothetically speaking, what sort of de-classified material will be released, do you think, that will 'correct' current opinion of him? Seems that he has a huge number of screw ups and the released information - down the line - will have to cover a wide gamut of issues and decisions to repair all the damage he's done to his image.

All of the references you make are pretty singular. FDR not wanting his physical disabilities made known - I don't see a huge problem with that, even if he had to break a few arms to do it. Athletes do that these days all the time and we see the footage, so maybe we are more desensitized to it.

The only thing I see on your list as comparable to the point you're making is LBJ's role in Vietnam, but that seems to work against your argument - what came to light years later made LBJ look criminal.

If I had to guess, I would expect that in the future, any released "classified" information would do more to impugn Bush and hurt his image even more.

How often has declassified information improved a past President's image?

In ever example you cited, the later-released image hurt the President's image more than it helped. So even those examples cited in his defense really don't do much to convince me that he'll be exonerated in the future.

Can you cite me examples of released information that improved the image of a President universally perceived as poor, and not the other way around?

Time may indeed work in his favor, but I think the only way it will is the further we get from his tenure, the more we'll forget.

 

[DadsDream]

I cannot and will not speculate on what information may or may not be released that could change public opinion because I simply don't have a chrystal ball that can see that far ahead.

RazorOye, here's one prime example of something we didn't know for 30 years.

We did not know at the time that the Politburo had, against Khruschev's wishes, authorized the Soviet ground commander to use six tactical nukes if the U.S. landed troops in Cuba.

We had detected missiles and launch sites for intermediate range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. We had not detected and did not know that the Soviet ground commander had small, battlefield nukes at his disposal.

Had Kennedy followed the recommendations of his highest commanders and actually attacked Cuba, our troops would have been hit with Soviet nukes and WWIII would have begun.

Khruschev communicated that info directly to Kennedy, warning that he had no control, that the Politburo had issued the nukes and the orders and it was out of his hands.

That information was not made public until the 1990s, when Soviet archives became available, forcing the U.S. government to declassify to confirm or deny the information.

The revelations make JFK look like a genius and silences the critics who say we should have attacked. It also explains the Bay of Pigs fiasco and reveals why JFK withheld U.S. forces, even though he had promised them to the CIA-trained Cuban ex-patriot forces.

 

[DadsDream]

See the bald guy in the middle? That's Winston Churchill walking through the ruins of Coventry, Britain.

According to conspiracy theorists, he knew two full days before the attack that the Germans were going to bomb the city and didn't issue an evacuation order. The Ultra Secret, the cracking of the Germans' Enigma cypher machine code, had to be kept.

The Ultra Secret from the 1940s was not revealed until the late 1980s.

The Churchill Center and various scholars disagree about Coventry. They say Churchill had some intel, but it was random and non-specific and only after Coventry had been hit did the pieces all fall into place. Sound familiar?

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=107

 

[RazorOye]

But in the example you cite was because Kennedy had a singular resolve against the wishes of those in his cabinet.

It seems just the opposite with Bush on his entry into war - he listened to all the wrong people, those whose views seemed to coincide with his personal wishes.

Even if something came out that showed his motives in the Middle East were, in retrospect, acceptable or even admirable, there are a lot of other issues that he has managed to foul up and take the blame for, wrongly or not.

Which is why I find it so hard to believe that the future will vindicate him - so much information would have to be de-classified on many different things for him to be remembered as a competent, effective leader.

I think his current opinion as a bad President is justified and we have plenty of reason to. And I think the burden of evidence to convince perpetuity and posterity that he is otherwise is entirely too great.

 

[DadsDream]

No, the example I cite proves that Kennedy was privy to info that the American public did not have and would not have for 40 years and that his critics, especially those who condemn him for screwing up the Bay of Pigs, were totally wrong.

 

[champ76]

We did not know at the time that the Politburo had, against Khruschev's wishes, authorized the Soviet ground commander to use six tactical nukes if the U.S. landed troops in Cuba.

We had detected missiles and launch sites for intermediate range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. We had not detected and did not know that the Soviet ground commander had small, battlefield nukes at his disposal.

Had Kennedy followed the recommendations of his highest commanders and actually attacked Cuba, our troops would have been hit with Soviet nukes and WWIII would have begun.

Khruschev communicated that info directly to Kennedy, warning that he had no control, that the Politburo had issued the nukes and the orders and it was out of his hands.

That information was not made public until the 1990s, when Soviet archives became available, forcing the U.S. government to declassify to confirm or deny the information.

The revelations make JFK look like a genius and silences the critics who say we should have attacked. It also explains the Bay of Pigs fiasco and reveals why JFK withheld U.S. forces, even though he had promised them to the CIA-trained Cuban ex-patriot forces.

Fascinating. Do you have any sources/ links to more on this? I wonder if this is in our school's history books or if there is no room because of all the politically correct information that must now be included.

 

[RazorOye]

which helped us avoid a war... not embroil us in another one

and he stood up to his cabinet members - his access to privy knowledge notwithstanding

I still don't see how Bush taking us to war in Iraq under those pretenses is akin to Kennedy avoiding WWIII