Why would any Republican try to defend Bush? This is like a Democrat trying to defend Carter. Both were utter disasters as president. The Republicans should try to get as much distance from Bush as possible. Attempts to defend him just show intellectual dishonesty. Between his misguided housing dream act, Iraq invasion, and AIG that dumb-as-rocks moron nearly bankrupted the US. No need to claim Bush better than Obama. Better for Republicans to claim Reagan>Clinton>Obama. Why have Bush as the poster boy for your party? Silly really.
Question for the Republicans
-
4227,
Oh, Bush went into Iraq for oil? Well, where is it then? Oil production there remains well below what it was before we went in, and our companies do not even have all that many pieces of what action there is. This is really a joke.
Carter at least gave us the Camp David agreement, something truly historic, even if he spent too much time worrying about rabbits attacking him and monitoring who used the WH tennis court.
As for now, well, if Bush made Reagan look good, Perry makes Bush look good. Just general degeneration going on in that party, crazier and crazier (and I am another former Republican, btw).
-
Plenty of democrats defend carter. They are usually the most liberal ones.
Plenty of republicans they are the most retarded ones.I'm democrat, but I really applaud 8adb for demonstrating some intelligent views. I was always anti-war on Iraq, but the P.O.V. isn't that irrational. There is a more important philisophical debate about at one point is it correct to step on another nations soviergnty in an interest of natural security.
I have a hart time viewing that oil could be the central motivation for invading iraq. Subsidizing Defence Contractors maybe.
http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1947.gif -
There is a more important philisophical debate about at one point is it correct to step on another nations soviergnty in an interest of natural security.
This argument, when a dictatorship is being considered, always rang empty to me. Why are we supposed to consider these borders so sacrosanct when they are essentially lines drawn in the sand decades ago by colonial agencies, within which a certain person or group has managed to acquire total power by brute force and treachery? Does North Korea have "national sovereignty", considering the country is essentially one man's playpen?
-
God, Republicans have become SO stupid from their willingness to blindly defend Bush. Reagan, your hero, wisely criticized Carter for conducting a naive moralistic foreign policy. And that is what Bush and you guys appear to favor. "Bush liberated the Middle East." No he did not--and worse, even if one was capable of doing so, you would bankrupt the US as well as kill off so many of its young men. Ever heard of the national interest? Why don't we try to convert the world to Christianity while we are at it? After all, America's resources are limitless. I used to think the Democrats did not understand the concept of opportunity cost, but now it is Republicans who seem not to understand it.
-
Nobody is defending Bush, he wasn't a good president. But as an economist, I have to believe people had reasons for what they did, especially when we're talking about a high-impact decision that involved lots of deliberation. Attributing decisions to stupidity is lazy. If oil was the reason, then it would have been a serious and utterly naive miscalculation, since he didn't get any, and it's hard to see how he could have. So we'd be back to assuming he was just stupid. Defense contractors? That makes more sense, since Cheney's Haliburton did benefit. But I still think it stretches credulity. Especially when there are perfectly logical explanations - namely, that you have to enforce inspections. Why reject a plausible explanation for an implausible one?
