The Bush Years in Retrospect

[Mr. Thomas Teague]

Um...almost the entire justice department?
Not cabinet level, but perhaps more important?

Yes, Bush did have the largest debt in history, but that is a tag that can be laid on every president that came before him, since the U.S. trade deficit continues to add to the debt even during years of budgetary surplus.

There is no evidence that corruption in government was higher than the norm under President Bush. No cabinet level official of the Bush Administration was indicted or even forced from office under ethical cloud. Of what other president in recent times can that be said?

President Bush left Iraq all but won. To suggest it was mismanaged lacks context. Yes, over 4,000 soldiers died during the war, many due to poor tactical decisions, but 4,000 dead represented a bad afternoon in just about any other war we've ever fought. By comparison, Iraq has been almost sanitary compared to one day blood baths such as Gettysburg, Iwo Jima, Normandy and other battles.

[mborgia]

So where is the invasion? Can terrorists commit one act and therefore we are perpetually invaded and at war for all eternity? People with visas are invaders? This is getting just inane.

A neoconservative supports expansion of the military, interventionism especially in the Middle East, support welfare programs to a lesser degree than democrats, The spread of democracy and American values to other countries, Revulsion of the counterculture of the 60s, nation building, Strong support for Israel, and opposition to political realism.

Social security is going to be paying out more than it takes in as early as 2012. It is failing. Reagan did not save it was my point. You are right it will be insolvent.

So because you depend on the banks I have to pay for it? You depend on the banks for everything? Does the bank pay your bills or do you work for that? Does it pay taxes for you? Does it help raise your family? What do they do for you other than give out loans and have a place to store your money?

How is it consistent with the constitution? Where in that document does it give the president the power to declare an American citizen an enemy combatant and have that person detained without trial and due process of law? Acts cannot grant the president new powers only an amendment to the constitution can do that. Due process of law is granted to every American citizen by the constitution and cannot be taken away.

My opinion on Lincoln stems from the fact that he was responsible for the deaths of 600,000 American lives. His disregard for the constitution and the people of the United States. Suspension of Habeas corpus. The fact that the United States was a voluntary union and therefore if a group of states wanted to leave they could voluntary leave as well. The States were sovereign and the Federal Government was dependent on the states. Lincoln changed that. He installed the income tax.

You cannot deny that terrorists invaded this country and killed three thousand of our people. It is an established fact that there were more here ready to commit more acts of terrorism as well had they not been stopped, including an attack on the Brooklyn Bridge that would have been at least as bloody as 9/11. Bury your head in the sand if you must. Thank God President Bush did not.

Your description of a politician who supports Israel, spreading American values such as freedom and self determination, a strong military and belief in a hand up without a hand out are main stream conservative beliefs. Neo-conservative remains exactly what I said it is, a perjorative created by the liberal media after 9/11 to try and destroy Bush' then soaring popularity by trying to make him into something different from what Reagan was. And as for opposing political "realism", who are you to determine for the rest of us what "realism" is. That statement is just beyond ego-maniacal, but well within keeping with the liberal-libertarian mindset in the inate intellectual superiority of their own beliefs.

As for the banks, I should point out as an example that I also depend upon the electric company as do we all. If it goes bankrupt, should we just all live in the darkness, with no light and for many of us no heat. Should children cower frightend in the darkness? Should the elderly be allowed to freeze in their homes? Should the government allow that to happen? Of course not! Just the same, the Bush Administration acted wisely to prevent a catastrophe that would have destroyed the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans. Your life, my life. Everything we have both worked for our entire lives would have been wiped out. Are you actually saying Bush should have let that happen because you don't want to pay taxes?

Reagan and O'Neill worked together to keep Social Security alive for an extra fifty-five years. I will conceed that "save" may not have been the right word to use, when measured against the long term. Unfortunately even I at times tend to look at events as many Americans do, no further down the line than the next election. But yes, its true that if the economy does not recover, Social Security will begin to deficit spend within the next three years, not another decade as originally thought.

As for your commentary about the Constitution, the courts have heard all this and ruled in favor of President Bush. The power to declare individuals as enemy combatants is within the inherent powers of the President in his role as commander in chief. The Supreme Court has affirmed this power.

Your claim that President Lincoln is responsible for the deaths of 600,000 people is simply ignorant. The south seceeded from the Union, the south formed the Confederacy and the Confederacy started and advanced the war. If you believe that Lincoln should have simply let the south walk away, well then there's no point in continuing this debate because you believe in something very different from the rest of us.

By the way, the income tax you speak of was temporary in nature, established to finance the war and was abolished after the war. Subsequent attempts to reinstate it were found to be unconstitutional. The income tax we know did not become law until 1913 when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by the states. Witholding of income tax began in 1943.

The fact that Abraham Lincoln was one of our greatest, if not the greatest of our presidents is beyond dispute. We do not build monuments to failures, we don't engrave their faces in mountains and on our money and we don't celebrate their birthdays as holidays. We did all of that for President Lincoln and with good cause.

[mborgia]

Um...almost the entire justice department?
Not cabinet level, but perhaps more important?

Where was the entire justice department forced out? Fantasy Island?

[samspade]

Where was the entire justice department forced out? Fantasy Island?

I believe he was actually referring to Clinton's firing of attorneys.

Clinton Fired Attorneys Too

Or perhaps the firings by Obama

Hot Air Blog Archive Obama has fired 2 IGs in 2 weeks, leashed another

Actually it has been three fired.

But who is counting?

[mborgia]

Bill Clinton in his first week in office fired all 58 U.S. attorneys. What was unusual about Clinton's action is that he did not allow the existing attorneys to close out their business, which most presidents will do. In retrospect, we now know that Clinton was trying to short circuit an investigation in House Ways And Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. Fortunately it did not work and Rostenkowski lost his seat and went to jail.

Bush fired a handful of attorneys expressly for cause...in that they failed to follow his orders to aggressively combat voter fraud. They were fired for insubordination. But that in itself does not matter. The U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and he may fire any or all of them at any time. This is true of any official of the executive branch with the exception of the Vice President.

[Arion45]

You cannot deny that terrorists invaded this country and killed three thousand of our people. It is an established fact that there were more here ready to commit more acts of terrorism as well had they not been stopped, including an attack on the Brooklyn Bridge that would have been at least as bloody as 9/11. Bury your head in the sand if you must. Thank God President Bush did not.

Your description of a politician who supports Israel, spreading American values such as freedom and self determination, a strong military and belief in a hand up without a hand out are main stream conservative beliefs. Neo-conservative remains exactly what I said it is, a perjorative created by the liberal media after 9/11 to try and destroy Bush' then soaring popularity by trying to make him into something different from what Reagan was. And as for opposing political "realism", who are you to determine for the rest of us what "realism" is. That statement is just beyond ego-maniacal, but well within keeping with the liberal-libertarian mindset in the inate intellectual superiority of their own beliefs.

As for the banks, I should point out as an example that I also depend upon the electric company as do we all. If it goes bankrupt, should we just all live in the darkness, with no light and for many of us no heat. Should children cower frightend in the darkness? Should the elderly be allowed to freeze in their homes? Should the government allow that to happen? Of course not! Just the same, the Bush Administration acted wisely to prevent a catastrophe that would have destroyed the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans. Your life, my life. Everything we have both worked for our entire lives would have been wiped out. Are you actually saying Bush should have let that happen because you don't want to pay taxes?

Reagan and O'Neill worked together to keep Social Security alive for an extra fifty-five years. I will conceed that "save" may not have been the right word to use, when measured against the long term. Unfortunately even I at times tend to look at events as many Americans do, no further down the line than the next election. But yes, its true that if the economy does not recover, Social Security will begin to deficit spend within the next three years, not another decade as originally thought.

As for your commentary about the Constitution, the courts have heard all this and ruled in favor of President Bush. The power to declare individuals as enemy combatants is within the inherent powers of the President in his role as commander in chief. The Supreme Court has affirmed this power.

Your claim that President Lincoln is responsible for the deaths of 600,000 people is simply ignorant. The south seceeded from the Union, the south formed the Confederacy and the Confederacy started and advanced the war. If you believe that Lincoln should have simply let the south walk away, well then there's no point in continuing this debate because you believe in something very different from the rest of us.

By the way, the income tax you speak of was temporary in nature, established to finance the war and was abolished after the war. Subsequent attempts to reinstate it were found to be unconstitutional. The income tax we know did not become law until 1913 when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by the states. Witholding of income tax began in 1943.

The fact that Abraham Lincoln was one of our greatest, if not the greatest of our presidents is beyond dispute. We do not build monuments to failures, we don't engrave their faces in mountains and on our money and we don't celebrate their birthdays as holidays. We did all of that for President Lincoln and with good cause.

Germany Invaded France, the Moors invaded Europe, Alexander The great Invaded India on the other hand Terrorists did not invade Spain and bomb trains. They bought a plane ticket and entered the country. With your definition a group of people can enter our country at any time and commit a terrorist act and we are invaded. How do I know when we are no longer invaded? The founders wrote with an invasion of an army in our cities in mind for the criteria to trigger the suspension of habeas corpus. If you can not understand the definition of INVASION then we will have to agree to disagree.

My description of a conservative is believing in a very limited government, a strong defense, non interventionist foreign policy, conservation of traditions, decreasing taxes, strongly against social programs but the Fox News generation of conservatives has changed that. So you may be right, what I call a neoconservative may actually now be a mainstream conservative. This is why I now longer want to associate myself with being a conservative. Which I did at one time.

Forcing me to pay for the bank bail outs is no different than Obama forcing me to pay for the uninsured nationalized health care. With your example of electric companies I would let them go bankrupt. I think that the free market would handle the situation much better and afterward the company would be more efficiently run. But bailing out a failing industry keeps the failures in control and now we have a poorly run electric company that the tax payers gets to subsidize. My god these are basic conservative principles of free market economics I am explaining to you. Remember in my description of neocons where they have a higher tolerance of welfare and socialist programs?

If you think that the states should be forced through war to stay in the union against the will of people of those states then we are very different indeed. The states freely entered into an agreement to create a federal government and therefore as sovereign states can decide to leave as well. The Founders actually rejected the idea of placing into the constitution the idea that a state can be prevented from seceding.

[Susanna]

If you think that the states should be forced through war to stay in the union against the will of people of those states then we are very different indeed. The states freely entered into an agreement to create a federal government and therefore as sovereign states can decide to leave as well. The Founders actually rejected the idea of placing into the constitution the idea that a state can be prevented from seceding.

Like most people who are still fighting the civil war, you refuse to acknowledge that the first shot fired was by the confederacy.

[Mr. Thomas Teague]

Where was the entire justice department forced out? Fantasy Island?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fired several attorneys and then when asked why resigned after congress issued him a subpoena...welcome back to reality.

Yes, Bill Clinton cleaned out the justice dept.

But this was George's second Attorney General, and I am sure he did not want him forced out.

Incredible.

[samspade]

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fired several attorneys and then when asked why resigned after congress issued him a subpoena...welcome back to reality.

Yes, Bill Clinton cleaned out the justice dept.

But this was George's second Attorney General, and I am sure he did not want him forced out.

Incredible.

Loved how you skipped over that it was actually Clinton who fired many more and went directly to it was Bush's fault for firing 8 attorneys for cause.

[TxBrewer]

Fiddle fiddle while Rome burns boys and girls.
Ever hear of 'slight of hand'?