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(Doug Miller) wrote in message . com...
In article , (Nate Perkins) wrote:
"Mike Fairleigh" wrote in message
...

... I've yet to hear
a Bush criticizm that was anything other than vitriolic wishful thinking,
wild speculation, and hatred for someone who happens to belong to a
different political party.

Well, I belong to a different political party, but only since GWB
started leading the Republicans. :-)

To answer your question about a Bush criticism that was anything other
than (...), how about this:

1) He misled the country, either willfully or through incompetence,
in multiple claims that Iraq had WMD.

Evidently you haven't been paying much attention to the news the last
twelve years. Iraq *did* have WMD; Saddam even admitted to some of it.

If you mean that Saddam had active WMD programs prior to the *first*
Gulf War, I agree. I think you will agree that the inspections
following the first Gulf War were effective in uncovering and
destroying much of this capability.

I think you will admit that our forces in Iraq have not found any
evidence of an active chemical, biological, or nuclear program from
any recent period. Nor did the UN inspectors prior to the second Gulf
War. Remember, this was the main justification for the second Gulf
War. We were told that we had to invade Iraq because it was on the
brink of developing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. This
has been proven false. Maybe you believe Bush received bad
intelligence and bad advice, or maybe you believe he intentionally
misled the American people. At the least, its illustrative of his
poor judgement and the incompetence of his administration.

2) He got us into Iraq with no apparent plan to get us out. I think
the people deserve a more specific answer than "As long as it takes."

Wouldn't it be nice if we could all predict the future?

Yes. But it would be more immediately nice if the Bush administration
would provide Congress and the American people with realistic
estimates of the cost and timeline for engagement. Success without a
plan is mostly luck, and hardly great leadership.

4)

Was there a 3) ?

No, I forgot to renumber. :-)

He severely damaged our longstanding relationships with our allies

News flash: the French are not our allies, and they never were.

Eh? Our NATO allies invoked Article V of the charter after 9/11
(that's the mutual defense clause). First time in the history of
NATO. To believe that our NATO allies are not historical allies is
ridiculous.

with his insistence to pursue a bull-headed unilateral approach in
Iraq.

You mean with his insistence that *somebody* needed to enforce the multiple
United Nations resolutions concerning Iraq.

Here's the main reason that the French, Germans, and Russians are ****ed off:
they were doing a *lot* of business with Saddam's regime, in violation of the
UN sanctions, and all that came to an abrupt halt.

No, it is true that French, Russian, and German companies had
contracts with Iraqi companies that would take effect when sanctions
were lifted. It is not true that those countries were violating
sanctions -- can you demonstrate otherwise?

Had France, Russia, and Germany participated in our invasion of Iraq,
they would probably still have some of those contracts. They had the
choice of winning economically by partnering with us on the invasion,
or of losing out on existing legal contracts. They chose to lose out
on legal contracts that were otherwise theirs.

All three of those countries expressed skepticism at the "evidence"
being presented that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Those
countries were right, and Bush was wrong.

5) His tax policies have produced no appreciable stimulus (corporate
capital investment is still at historically low levels despite a 1%
prime), but have produced record deficits that will stick with us
until at least 2008.

It's a bit early to evaluate that, you know, since the vast bulk of the tax
cuts have not yet taken effect.

Perhaps I missed something, but I don't think that Bush sold us on the
idea of tax cuts based on the proposition that they would take years
and years to be stimulative.

6) He's created a staggering long term debt for the nation.

News flash: Bush didn't cause the September 11 attacks, which came just as we
were beginning to emerge from the recession that Clinton started.

Sept 11 is a minor contributor to the current spending debacle. Bush
likes to claim 9/11 as an excuse for everything. But he increases
spending across the board, everything from military spending to new
government departments to crop subsidies. Bush spends worse than any
Democrat in recent history.

7) He has significantly increased the size of government (both in the
number of departments and the number of employees).

Even if true, that hardly distinguishes him from most of his predecessors.

No, the number of employees decreased under Clinton. It has increased
faster under Bush than under any modern president. Again, he spends
worse than a Democrat.

8) We've lost a couple of million jobs (especially in the
manufacturing sector) to overseas, and most economists think that
because the productivity level remains high, the jobs will not come
back. Laissez faire economics in action.

Why do you blame Bush for a recession that started under Clinton?

Why do you blame Clinton for all of Bush's problems, and credit Reagan
for all the good work that Clinton did? The best thing about Bush is
that the buck never stops with him.

9) He repeatedly exaggerates links between 9/11 and Iraq, or uses
9/11 as an excuse to rally his latest cause regardless of whether
there is any truthful link to 9/11.

Do you suppose there's any possibility that the President knows something you
don't?

Perhaps, but so far most of what he has presented on this score has
proven to be incompetently prepared or misleading evidence (al Quaeda
in Iraq, aluminum tubes, drones, mobile labs, uranium from Niger).
Bush's poor track record in producing accurate evidence has earned
some skepticism for many of us.

10) He's taken record amounts of corporate and special interest
money.

So what? His predecessor, and his opponent in the 2000 election, accepted
record amounts of illegal contributions from foreign governments, specifically
the Communist Chinese. Do you find that preferable?

No, no president in modern history has gained more campaign
contributions from special interest or has spent more on elections
than Bush has. Bush is in a league of his own here.

At the same time, he's been an opponent of campaign finance

A demonstrable falsehood: he signed the McCain-Feingold reform bill.
reform.

Are you seriously going to claim that Bush is an advocate of campaign
finance reform??? He found it politically expedient to sign that,
because the political backlash against not signing it would be too
great.

11) He acted hypocritically with regard to positions on farm
subsidies and steel tariffs.

OK, you finally got one right.

12) He uses a double standard with regard to North Korea, which is a
greater threat than Iraq ever was.

Double standard how? The point of the action in Iraq was to *prevent* that
state from becoming a greater threat such as NK already is.

If NK is such a danger (and I agree it is), then why does Bush
consistently downplay the situation in NK, while he exaggerated the
situation in Iraq?

13) His initial post-election decision to withdraw Dennis Ross from
the Middle East and his lack of ability to restrain Sharon's
government have led to collapse of any prospect for peace in Israel.

Explain to me exactly how the hell it ever became *our* responsibility to
ensure peace in the Middle East.

It was Bush's responsibility because Bush *volunteered* his unwavering
committment to insure peace in the Middle East. Remember the Rose
Garden photo ops with Abbas? Bush set his own goal here, nobody
forced him to do it. But having set his own goal, I think you will
agree that he failed miserably at it.

14) He sponsored the Patriot Act.

And your point would be... ?

The Patriot Act is undemocratic and an infringement on our rights.
Not something that many of us are in favor of. Only the second time
in the history of this country that habeas corpus has been suspended.

15) He publicized, promised, and then reneged on funding for
education.

What the hell are you talking about? He let Teddy Kennedy write the damn bill,
and because you don't like the results, you're complaining about *Bush* ?

Heh, if I had claimed that Bush was not pro-education, you would have
pointed to his support of this bill as evidence that I was wrong. Now
I point that he withheld the funding for it, and you claim it wasn't
his bill. My point is that he worked in collaboration with Teddy and
others to draft the bill, and then he reneged on the funding. Teddy
found it duplicitous, and it seemed that way to me, too.

In short, Bush has a long record of poor judgement, incorrect
decisions, and a history of stubbornly sticking to bad positions. At
the rate he is going, George Bush is going to be the best thing that
has happened to the Democrats in a long time.

Best thing that happened to all Americans in a long time.

Opinions will differ :-)