http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-01-bush-cover_x.htm That's not the reaction you want from your president.
Boy, you carved out the one small paragraph that is only mildly negative of Bush in the article. The rest of that article reads very, very positive to me and I suggest everyone read it before drawing conclusions from your post.
Re: Re: disturbing paragraph about Bush Are you on crack? Here's the second paragraph: "People who know Bush well say the strain of war is palpable. He rarely jokes with staffers these days and occasionally startles them with sarcastic putdowns. He's being hard on himself; he gave up sweets just before the war began. He's frustrated when armchair generals or members of his own team express doubts about U.S. military strategy. At the same time, some of his usual supporters are concerned by his insistence on sticking with the original war plan."
Re: Re: disturbing paragraph about Bush Must be still trying to bridge the gap between the doves and the hawks.
Really, Scooey and Superdave, you will take ANYTHING out of context, and say to yourselves, "Gee, this guy is awful." Ian is absolutely right -- this is a positive article. Moreover, if it is true, and the article gets it right, I am a LOT more confident about the general direction we are taking. It seems to me this guy is balanced, and centered -- here's why: --it clearly pains him that people die, but it isn't wrenching him into an emotional knot. --he is on top of the details, but isn't micromanaging. --he continues to hear diverse opinions from his staff, but is not afraid to make decisions. --he's not perfect and the strain shows sometimes. In sum, he's an imperfect human being trying to do the best chief executive job he can do. You know, so many liberals sneer at him -- his mispronunications, his lack of oratorical polish, the earlier indiscretions of alcohol and drugs -- and engage in vitriolic invective about his ostensible lack of intelligence. But when I read something like this, and compare that to what I read from others, I know EXACTLY who to sneer at, and who to respect.
This isn't the goddamn boyscouts and it's not a Horatio Algiers story. It's the presidency of the United States. I've never seen such a stooping to praise a President as you've just performed.
> Ian is absolutely right -- this is a positive article. The entire article is based on what his friends and political appointees say about him. That it would be positive portrayal is beyond doubt. That it shows even this much strain is still worrying.
I could give a rat$ ass about his grammar, his drugging, his alcoholic family, and his other personal faults. I actually find such humanizing defects likable (as I did with Clinton). It's his righteousness that I find personally repulsive and politically dangerous. This article is another example of that. And I don't read this as a "negative" article, per se, but it certainly isn't "positive." It may say things you like to hear, but that does not mean it's a "positive" article. The article clearly intimates throughout that this war is wearing on the President, so my quote wasn't out of context.
Here's the most disturbing part: "Bush believes he was called by God to lead the nation at this time, says Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a close friend who talks with Bush every day." What a ************ing looney our president is. I mean, even the British monarchy ditched the idea of divine rule...how many hundreds of years ago?
He thinks he is a Texan. That should have been a clue to most. Now, I think some context is needed. If you think that "called by God" means that God told Bush to go to war, then you are correct. I think that when crap hits the fan and going to war is one of those times, we all turn to God in one way or another. It is like that movie Signs with Mel Gibson (who has a religious agenda mind you). In the end, dude turned (back) to God when it was needed most. While references to God during a war against (what the spin is...Mulsums) Iraq is not going to win favors from the Arab Street or White House interns. I mean, God leading our leaders? It's not like Congress has a prayer before each day's sessions or any references to God is in the Inaguration of the President of the United States of America. Are you Joe Pak's sockpuppet?
> Like LBJ had it easy? LBJ didn't have it easy, but if Bush the Younger would continue talking to people while he took a crap, my opinion of him would go way up. Bush is totally concerned with his new perpetual war. If he isn't careful, the tanking economy is going to cause him to lose the election, and the new guy will get the benefit of the cheap Iraqi oil. Kinda like what happened to the president we had before Clinton... um, ol' what's-his-name.
page turn So, you are saying that Bush the younger is more concerned in winning the war than any election? Kudos to Bush.
> So, you are saying that Bush the younger is more > concerned in winning the war than any election? > Kudos to Bush. Why is that good? We live in a democracy. When a guy gets voted out, it means he was not serving the will of the people. And the bigger problem isn't that he is more concerned about fighting the war (winning is not the right word, as no one has any idea what it means to win a war against terrorism) than getting elected - he is more concerned about fighting the war than anything else. It's like a guy fighting an ant infestation in his house for years and years, and then one day he looks around and finds that the house has been rotted, burgled and burned while he was preoccupied.
I don't get you, but that is a good thing. You can take seperate issues and not mix in polarized party leanings. That said, if it were any other way, Bush would be taken to task for allowing polls to determine war stradegy. It burdens to say, but I agree with Ari on this one. Bush is burdened. War is top priority. If the economy were top priority, then Jesse would have created an Economy Sub-forum. The will of the people? Please. I, as a Blue Ribbon Citizen born in the USA, am willing to have the president be most concerned with actual lives of the troops. The troops who in turn allow me to sit at home and post on bigsoccer, drink French wines and piss on the graves...oh, wrong thread. I mean, Bill Clinton check the polls to see if he could start dating again.
No one else is troubled from a Constitutional perspective that Bush would give such a "speech" to Congressional leaders? No REPUBLICAN is troubled that he would give such a "speech" to GOP Congressional leadership? Who exactly does he think is going to pass his laws...or not? I wasn't there, and I don't know what the attitude was, but I'd like to say this, for Hastert, Frist and the rest: "Hey, at least I won MY f***ing election, Pretzel Boy."
OK, let me get this straight. There are people here who don't think it's a problem that Bush was "bouyant" on the day the war started. And those same people don't think it's a problem that his "consultation" with congressional leaders consisted of, hey, I'm here, I've consulted, now look at my ass. If you don't think that's disturbing, that's a gap that's impossible to bridge.
This isn't talking about ruling by divine right, it's talking about the doctrine of vocation, that is, that people have a calling or vocation from God to do whatever it is they do. An excellent book about the doctrine of vocation is Gustaf Wingren's Luther on Vocation.
Of course, he also won his election, but hey, that's beside the point I guess. Funny you should mention that in a post that's about strict interpretation of the Constitution. Huh. By the way, I am upset that you were picking on Davenport in your column, since I have been clamoring for an MLS team in the Quad-City area for years now and you gave me no credit. As to the actual point, I am a conservative and I guess a republican by default and I am sickened by this illegal and unconstitutional war, and just because somewhere along the line Congess decided to give up their power doesn't make it right, and I have railed against it on several occasions. Many times other people were present for those rants. Although I guess if those guys wanted to be treated like Congressman who control an equal branch of our federal government, they shouldn't have voted for the bill authorizing the use of force and thus given up their power.
Maybe he was buoyant at the real opportunity (that he'd just learned about) to take out Saddam so soon... Maybe he was buoyant at being at peace with the biggest decision of his life... Maybe he'd just laid the wood to Mrs. Bush... And if I read the article correctly, he wasn't in front of congress to consult them. They were expecting a detailed briefing, and were apparently annoyed like so many self-important journalists at CentComm that they weren't given the scoop... In any event, what could he have said there that he hadn't already said?
Those of you who hate him, and loathe him, you are going to hate him, and loathe him, no matter WHAT he does and WHAT he says and WHAT is reported about him. In fact, you'll look for the crumbs and the snippets and paragraphs out of context to support your very own hyperventilating disgust -- your view, which, admit it, you CAN'T deny, that you think he is EVIL. Is he the demon...or are the demons elsewhere? Rather than look at the intricacies of the situation, and the complex psychological factors that go into ALL of this activity and see it in a broad context, you'd rather just be disturbed, outraged, shocked, horrified, whatever. To me THAT's disturbing about the OPPOSITION to him. Of course, that contains the seeds of its own failure, because it so trasparently sells him short. Rather than structure a coherent logical argument about why you should oppose him, you simply resort to....loathing. If you want to get him out of office in 2004, you'd had better figure out something better than that. Or continue your secret internal hopes that --the war will be a diaster (VERY low probability) --the economy will collapse (low probability) --the post war Iraq will collapse in time to effect the election (also unlikely) Good luck.