I think that a bumper sticker that said "I'D RATHER HAVE BUSH'S THIRD TERM THAN JIMMY CARTER'S SECOND" would be a hot seller, assuming that Obama is the nominee. Note, contrary to convention wisdom, I still don't assume that. There's this little thing called a "convention" coming up that will determine that.
Too bad Bush doesn't have as much power as Putin, then he could stay in control indefinitely like you wish...
Too bad Bush doesn't have as much power as Putin, then he could stay in control indefinitely like you wish...
"Like I wish..."?
What mental aberration would cause you to think that I wish such a thing? I can't wait to see the last of George Bush. Unfortunately, his replacement will probably be even worse.
MZ
It is a play on the regurgi-point the Obama kids are spewing that a vote for McCain is a vote for a third Bush term.
Ah of course, Mike.
I'd rather have:
Return To Sender 08
You would sell twice as much since it can be applied to both parties.
"I can't wait to see the last of George Bush."
Should I ask, "Et tu, Rand?" Is there anyone left (or right) who has not come down with Derangement Syndrome? With regard to all of the remarks, I am not sure how to begin.
I first considered George W. Bush, with his kind of frat-house unseriousness about debate preparation and his fractured speech syntax as something of a preppie rube, with thoughts of "Oh my, 8 years of Bill Clinton and what are getting into now", but with 9-11, my thoughts were, "Omigosh, we came just that close to having Al Gore as President."
Politically, with my roots in an Islamic country, a consider myself in a broad sense to be a "Miami Cuban." If the friction the U.S. is experiencing with extreme factions within the Islamic world the result of our Western arrogance and high-handedness, is the friction experienced by the Russians and Ethiopeans the result of Orthodox Christian arrogance and high-handedness, the Israelis the result of Jewish arrogance and high-handedness, that experienced by India the result of Hindu arrogance and high-handedness? My version of American exceptionalism is not the surprise many expressed as to "why we are so hated" but rather the surprise that a particular strain of hate that has been making the rounds in many parts of the world has so belately but so suddenly and violentrly arrived on our shores.
The central outcome of the Bush Presidency was the recognition that after getting whacked about the head by clue bats from Bin Laden and others that have been at war with an enemy that is perhaps still politically-incorrect to name, so this war goes under the rubrik GWOT.
Given the habits and history of the part of the world my parents immigrated from, that the U.S. is in a "quagmire insurgency war" in Iraq and perhaps Afghanistan as well, is not anything I would pin on anyone's incompetence: my sense of surprise is that the War in Iraq has gone as well as it has with as few casualties, many as the casualties of Americans and our Iraqi allies have been.
As to calling the McCain Presidency "Bush's 3rd term", I see that not as a bug but a feature. Of course I know Presidents are term-limited by Constitutional Amendment, but even with term limits, one can elect someone who will continue policies that need to be continued or elect someone who will take us in the direction of a Charlie Foxtrot.
But Rand, what do you and others have against George W Bush? He lowered taxes in ways that I liked, he ballooned the deficit by increasing discretionary spending in ways that I don't like, but 9-11 left at least a trillion-dollar hole in the economy that needed some kind of action to repair. There is not a mean bone in that man's body, and perhaps his one weakness is standing by friends, be it Brownie, Harriet Meiers, or Rummie for perhaps too long. Not a single scandal in his adminstration apart from that stupid, stupid Plame thing made up by the left.
I guess I also see myself as a political pragmatist -- you are never going to get everything you want, but if you get one main thing, you are far ahead. I see people on the Right who are just as whiny and clueless about the perfect being the enemy of the good enough as the Kos Kids on the left.
Rand makes an interesting contradiction when he states this: "I can't wait to see the last of George Bush. Unfortunately, his replacement will probably be even worse."
I'm not sure how one "can't wait" to see the last of a President when he is pretty sure that his replacement will "probably be even worse." If I thought the second statement, I would certainly not think the first.
Should I ask, "Et tu, Rand?" Is there anyone left (or right) who has not come down with Derangement Syndrome?
My unhappiness with George Bush isn't based on derangement (i.e., I don't believe that he plotted 911, or loves to torture people, ignored Katrina because he hates black people, or any of the other deranged things that the left believes about him). It's based on very real things like No Child Left Behind, expanding Medicare, disarming pilots, signing McCain-Feingold, having no coherent follow-through strategy for the Middle East after removing Saddam, his fantasy notion of the "peace process" in Israel, his seeing a soul in Putin's eyes where there clearly is none, "when people hurt, the government's got to move," Harriett Miers, keeping Clinton holdovers like Norm Mineta and George Tennant and giving the latter a Medal of Freedom, Leon Kass, shamnesty, etc., etc., etc.
I could come up with a lot more if I thought about it. I'm glad that he won instead of Gore, and I'm glad that he won instead of Kerry. But the fact that all of the candidates on tap will probably be worse doesn't make me regret his departure, per se. I'm just tired of him, like much of the country is, but for much different (and sane) reasons.
You forgot this new one: Signing a uranium deal with Saudi Arabia the week after he repeated his equation, negotiation = appeasement.
On the other hand, if you say that his successor will be even worse, you might consider your own relationship to that sour prediction. You failed to vote for the only plausible candidate that you liked, and that candidate in turn sank his chances through inaction.
...if you say that his successor will be even worse, you might consider your own relationship to that sour prediction. You failed to vote for the only plausible candidate that you liked, and that candidate in turn sank his chances through inaction.
Yes, Jim. Surely had I voted for Fred Thompson, he would have won.
[I think I'm going to get repetitive motion injury from rolling my eyes at Jim Harris' idiotic comments. Perhaps, if they have the same reaction, all the readers here should institute a class action suit against him.]
Surely had I voted for Fred Thompson, he would have won.
I'm not saying that you did it single-handedly. What I meant is that Thompson's campaign was self-defeating, and you played your own small part in that. Thompson did in fact quit based on the results in Florida. I don't think that you were alone in your immobile admiration for the immobile candidate.