The latest C-Poll is closed. You can read all about it here!
September 30, 2009
Yes, some.
Making the rounds…
He was wrongheaded (albeit well-intentioned) on many things, but at least he wasn’t into the total radical transformation of the global economic and political systems.
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
No, I can't say I miss W. His father, maybe. Many great men before him, definitly. But W's incompotant mismanagment of the country has done more to harm the Republican party since Herbert Hoover. For those who disagree I point to a few of his famous decishions that helped turn America to the left: 1- Lying about the reason to invade Iraq. 2- Warnentless wiretaps on Americans. 3- The lack of planing that lead to the Iraqi Civil War. 4- The mishandling of Katrina. 5- The compromise of a CIA Agent for political reasons. 6- The crashing of our ecconomy by overzelous de-regulation of the banking industry.
I know America will one day have another Republican president. I pray we don't have another stupid one.
I Think W's greatest sin was failing to articulate a conservatism that actually distinguished the GOP from the Democrats. For example, his enthusiastic support of the Medicare prescription drug entitlement put him in the company of FDR and LBJ as champions of reckless-spending big government. And big government isn't even the big issue -- it's a serious disregard for the constitutional limits on federal power.
To me, this is the big deal. The points you raised are, IMO, mostly a misrepresentation of history. I'll see if I can address them briefly.
1 - Did you know that at one point even the Dems insisted that Saddam had (or was developing) WMDs? 2 - PATRIOT Act was and is a definite problem, from the points of view of the Constitution and liberty, BUT it was passed by CONGRESS, not instituted by presidential decree. I've always believed that this was a dangerous tool for Congress to give any president. We haven't seen the worst of this one yet. 3 - Specifics, please? Saddam, through brutal force, kept a lid on age-old ethnic/tribal rivalries. I'm wondering what planning could have prevented the resurgence of these rivalries once Saddam was gone. 4 - Tell me how local and state governments in Louisiana did everything they were legally and morally supposed to do, and then tell me specifically why W is responsible for the Katrina debacle. 5 - The water is still quite muddy on this one. I don't know what really happened, and I don't think you do either. I don't wish to minimize the seriousness of the leak, but don't be so naive as to suggest that the W admin was uniquely bad because someone there (I don't know why you're certain that W himself was in the loop) used privileged, confidential information to damage an opponent. This happens in every administration. You only hear about it when it's done by an administration despised by the media. 6 - Tremendous oversimplification of the events leading up to the crash. There were many contributing factors. Yes, deregulation was in the mix, but so was OVERregulation going back to the Clinton administration and beyond.
2 comments:
No, I can't say I miss W. His father, maybe. Many great men before him, definitly. But W's incompotant mismanagment of the country has done more to harm the Republican party since Herbert Hoover. For those who disagree I point to a few of his famous decishions that helped turn America to the left:
1- Lying about the reason to invade Iraq.
2- Warnentless wiretaps on Americans.
3- The lack of planing that lead to the Iraqi Civil War.
4- The mishandling of Katrina.
5- The compromise of a CIA Agent for political reasons.
6- The crashing of our ecconomy by overzelous de-regulation of the banking industry.
I know America will one day have another Republican president. I pray we don't have another stupid one.
Hi, Anonymous -
I Think W's greatest sin was failing to articulate a conservatism that actually distinguished the GOP from the Democrats. For example, his enthusiastic support of the Medicare prescription drug entitlement put him in the company of FDR and LBJ as champions of reckless-spending big government. And big government isn't even the big issue -- it's a serious disregard for the constitutional limits on federal power.
To me, this is the big deal. The points you raised are, IMO, mostly a misrepresentation of history. I'll see if I can address them briefly.
1 - Did you know that at one point even the Dems insisted that Saddam had (or was developing) WMDs?
2 - PATRIOT Act was and is a definite problem, from the points of view of the Constitution and liberty, BUT it was passed by CONGRESS, not instituted by presidential decree. I've always believed that this was a dangerous tool for Congress to give any president. We haven't seen the worst of this one yet.
3 - Specifics, please? Saddam, through brutal force, kept a lid on age-old ethnic/tribal rivalries. I'm wondering what planning could have prevented the resurgence of these rivalries once Saddam was gone.
4 - Tell me how local and state governments in Louisiana did everything they were legally and morally supposed to do, and then tell me specifically why W is responsible for the Katrina debacle.
5 - The water is still quite muddy on this one. I don't know what really happened, and I don't think you do either. I don't wish to minimize the seriousness of the leak, but don't be so naive as to suggest that the W admin was uniquely bad because someone there (I don't know why you're certain that W himself was in the loop) used privileged, confidential information to damage an opponent. This happens in every administration. You only hear about it when it's done by an administration despised by the media.
6 - Tremendous oversimplification of the events leading up to the crash. There were many contributing factors. Yes, deregulation was in the mix, but so was OVERregulation going back to the Clinton administration and beyond.
Post a Comment