I didn't like Bill Clinton. Thought of him as a highly capable politician packaged in the soul of a low class human being.

But many of the criticisms of him were so over the top that I often found myself in the uncomfortable position of defending him.

Bush strikes me as being, if not Clinton's polar opposite, at the very least a completely different type of person. Rather than leading by poll numbers he seems, if anything, too deeply rooted in his own value and belief system to ever be anything more than a mediocre leader.

And yes, as an old fogey with a Phd. in military history I am fully aware that truly great leadership does require a firm dedication to your beliefs, but that dedication must also be tempered by an intelligent pragmatism and flexibility towards a big picture accomplishment of your goals.

If Bush ever had that, he certainly seems to have lost his way.

But he's neither the root of all evil or the totally incompetent Cowboy that many portray him to be.

So, once again, I often find myself defending someone for whom I have little respect.

Such has become the nature of American political discourse.

" It would be refreshing if one of these folks could point out some hard evidence of the vile things Bush is accused of doing."

Mike, get with the program, dude. What do you call MesSNBC, Chris Mathews, and the Clinton News Network? Not to mention the hard hitting journalism of Imus and Larry King. And who can discount NPR?... Daily Kos?...Move-On?

That Valarie 'what's her name' thing that kept Mathews busy for two years?... Just a fluke.

I wish those who hate Bush so much would devote their time to developing alternative ideas to better our country and express them to us, perticularly the politicians, I would listen.

After this November, there will be no more major electins till '08. Bush isn't running, contrary to what some people think. Why waste so much time on a lame duck president instead of formulating ones own ideas? Because the opposition has few ideas other than Bush is bad, evil, Hitler, etc.

Certainly I will be labelled a Bush apologist, etc., despite the fact that Bush hasn't been my favorite president. He has done nothing about illegal immigration and excessive govt. spending. He isn't a genius when it comes to conveying his message and Iraq is just sitting there with no clear plan to win IMO.

Every president screws things up. I didn't care for some of Clinton's policies, but I certainly didn't let my life be dominated by hateful rage against the guy.

In a way I ready for '08 when Bush leaves office. I can't wait to see what the Bush haters are going to do with their lives after being consumed by rage for 8 years. Gotta go work now.

BTW, everyone blamed Bush when gas prices were hovering around $3. Haven't heard any thanks for him dropping them. It costs me $10 less to fill up my SUV.

Please excuse the typos in the previous post, I'm typing in my hotel room on a small table.

Neo, also, now that Bush/Rove is out of the woods in this CIA agent outing nonsense, Matthews says that story has become "too complicated" to talk about.

In general, I've come to believe that Presidents are not chosen because they are the best man for the job. They are chosen so they can be controlled. The powers that be don't want a strong president. They want somebody like Clinton who has a sexual weakness or Bush who has a weakness in intellect. That way they can control them.

Who are 'they'? I can't tell you. They're watching.

Mike,
You are doing exactly what the other "apologists" do on this blog--claim Bush is just a "victim".

Why don't you start by telling us WHY GWB should be revered.
Tell us WHY the President is so great, after choosing to politicize 9/11 after doing a stellar job of laying wreaths at the sites? Wouldn't the wreath laying alone have been a classy way to show respect without going after your political opponents?

Tell us the connection between Iraq and the WAR ON TERROR?

Tell us why flag burning and gay weddings are such big issues when we are at war in the most volatile region of the world.

And finally, tell us why GWB's immigration policy is so great!

The real question is, WHY are you so enamored with the President that you cannot admit one mistake?

Reminds me of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell claiming "Christians are being persecuted in this country" whenever they are called on the carpet for their hypocrisy or their fundraising campaigns. The Bush apologists claim that it is the media or the Democrats while ignoring the facts right in front of them.

Nit,
Here is a good Newsweek link to oil prices going lower:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14788769/site/newsweek/

At the time, I wasn't happy about Clinton, but the current administration makes one wax sentimental!

Ross, I choose to critisize the President on issues different from you, and you call my type an "apologist". There's a difference between an outright Bush hater like yourself and people like myself and others you call apologists. We make distinctions in our disagreement with the man instead of pure hate for all things bush.

Also, we put no merit in what other's think, via the manipulations of the masses in polls. (pop culture).

DD, I might ask you, why you so hate this president that you can not admit one success? And do not tell me there haven't been any because altho you are rude you are not stupid. And why is he and he alone blamed for "taking us into Iraq" when it was a near unanimous vote by both houses of Congress and both parties? And please do not say that the speech he gave from the oval office on the 11th. was politicizing the war in Iraq, It was a thoughtful and sincere analysis of what we have done in the fight to avenge those who died on that fateful day five years ago. More important it was a president pleading with his countrymen to see the danger of another ideology to our civilization and to do something before it is too late. The Democratic Senators who spoke after him had previously prepared speeches that they in their "politicizing" would have given no matter what President Bush had said. You are intelligent enough to know this so why are you parroting their drivel? The few times you have given well reasoned criticism I have been willing to listen, but when you revert to the "party line" I am ashamed of you. BB

Honestly, I saw no need for an Oval Office address to the country. Visiting the memorials or sites of destruction was enough. I thought Bush could have been much more partisan in his comments and I'm glad he wasn't. But, it's hard to imagine that there wasn't some political motive behind that speech.

Nitpicker, Of course the speech was political in that begging Congress to protect the American people from future terror is inherently political. This was not the time for partisanship and the speech was carefully crafted so as not to be. As for the speech from the oval office at the same time he had spoken to the public from that chair five years previously, it was highly appropriate. On this much publicized fifth anniversary the president was expected to make some grand gesture while keeping in good taste and sufficiently solemn; he did that. A mere visit to the memorials would have been seen as not enough and he would have caught hell for that too. BB

BrendaBee,
GWB's dad spent a lifetime building coalitions with our previous enemies. He went a long way in cementing the great relations we now enjoy with a communist country called China. He built one of the GREATEST coalitions ever when he personally worked the phones to get Iraq thrown out of Kuwait. Some in my camp will get all over themselves about us going the extra mile to defend what amounts to a ruling royal family, but I will give credit where credit is due. What W has done is to tear down all the work his dad spent a lifetime on. Sure there were plenty of folks who went along with Bush on his foray into Iraq---does that make it right???? I think not. So don't start the "Democrats voted for it too" when I could care less and hold them equally responsible. Trouble is, we went to war with the WRONG people in the WRONG country. Was Saddam a bad man? Who would say no to that question!
My point is and always has been:
Bush had a gift that any President would give their left arm for, and he let the neocons squander the goodwill and the lead us down the wrong road. He thinks if he keeps saying Iraq is part of the war on terrorism, we will eventually believe it! If Iraq becomes a part of the war on terrorism, it is BECAUSE of the neocons and the President who listened to them.

As for me parroting anyone, you can lay that to rest. Bush could have laid the wreaths and been thought of as a very classy fellow. Instead, someone convinced him that he had to ask for television time, and here's the clincher, tell the press and the American people it would NOT be a political speech! Sorry, but that dog doesn't hunt. What would all of those people you say had scripts already written have done if Bush cancelled his speech saying it was not the right day to do it on? What would they have done if he just paid homage to the families and loved ones who were directly affected by the tragedy on September 11th?
My guess is you would have heard many talking heads break with the norm and praise the President for taking the high road. The fact it would be so out of character would make an even greater impression on the vast majority of Americans who are a lot smarter than the two parties give them credit for being.

What do we get? We get a President who cannot come to grips with a failed policy. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result--sure fits the current situation and those who continually apologize rather than question. Where is the backbone of the Republican Party to stand up to Bush? Lindsay Graham of South Carolina let him have it about trying to skirt the constitution on trying the detainees. My hat's off to him. Where are the others? Since when is Party loyalty more important than doing what is in the best interest of America? Oh, sure, both sides are guilty, and we can all agree. But where are the people like Howard Baker during Watergate? Where are they? A minority party cannot do anything EXCEPT make trouble and lob grenades from the back row---so the party in charge of the White House and Congress is the party who is responsible.

Hugh, I think you've made enough of a spectacle of yourself, so quit calling me "Ross". I am not Ross Smith, but if you want to continue showing your rear, we'll all ignore you.

I don't suppose that anyone noticed that the anniversary or 9/11 has become an extravaganza in Bush bashing, a reminder that President George W. Bush is the most compelling and easiest media target for a generation. His blunders in Iraq are a fundamental part of the post-9/11 story. In a speech I read given by John Howard PM of Australia , he nailed the problem when he said: "It's a very strange thing to start the dialogue with Iraq rather than start the dialogue with the attack on the 11th of September."

In fact, it's not strange at all for you see this is the progressive mind( my nice word today for farleftnoids) in action. For the progressive mind the source of the problem is Bush. The real story is the Iraq war. The dynamic driving the terrorists is Bush's aggressive tactics and they can't stand that. So where else would you start and end but Iraq?

The progressive mind(leftwingnoids) is profoundly uncomfortable with the nature of the 9/11 attack. This is an event that invokes God, moral absolutes and cultural divides, a trinity of ideas totally anathema to progressives who know that God is dead, moral absolutes don't exist and multicultural diversity is utopia.

The progressive mind, supreme in our media, treats 9/11 as a human interest tragedy that inspires homilies on the meaning of life. This conceals the reality: 9/11 is an epoch-changing event not because nearly 3000 died (more people have died in many other events) but because it was a transforming political, cultural and strategic event.

This is what the progressive mind cannot accept.

It begins with the enemy. Yes, there was an enemy, though, of course, but don't mention it as it offends polite company to admit this. The truth was summarised in the US 9/11 commission report (often at odds with Bush) when it said: "The enemy is not just terrorism, some generic evil. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism, especially the al-Qa'ida networks, its affiliates and its ideology." Some on this blog and others would love to forget that these words were ever spoken. They seem to have put these aside as just another error by the commission, however they are very true.

The 9/11 commission argues the challenge is more than a war on terrorism. The enemy (of which al-Qa'ida is a manifestation) is a global ideological movement.(Another idea which the progressive left can not accept) The threat is millennial: "Bin Laden and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the 'head of the snake', and it must be converted or destroyed."

For the progressive mind, this is hysterical or an exaggeration or both. The progressives cling ferociously to the claim that terrorism has been around for years and nothing much different is happening now. Their entire position depends on such a fiction. The more the origins of 9/11 are documented, the more this is exposed. So, better stick with Iraq.

Consider the causes. The more the causes of 9/11 are revealed in a global ideological movement operating in the mosques and the schools and feeding off deep-seated resentment across the Muslim world towards the US, all implanted well before Bush's Iraqi venture and even before Bush entered the White House, the more difficult it is to sheet home responsibility to Bush. But it appears that the left has forgotten this or chooses not to regard it as truth. So, better stick with Iraq.

Consider the consequences. The more the strategic implications of 9/11 are ventilated -- the fact al-Qa'ida wants to acquire a nuclear capacity; that Osama bin Laden met Pakistani nuclear officials to plan further attacks; that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and bin Laden considered but decided against striking US nuclear facilities "for now"; that Harvard University's Graham Allison, after his forensic analysis, concludes that a "dirty bomb attack is overdue"; and that Bush, above all, in everything he has done, has been driven by his fear of an attack by weapons of mass destruction the more apparent is the unprecedented danger and the more understandable is the strength of Bush's reaction. So, better stick with Iraq.

Consider the moral dimension. The more the Islamist attack against the West is depicted as a plan to kill as many innocent men, women and children as possible in a self-declared war against US power and ideology, the more the US seems wronged rather than guilty.Horrors that a progressive would admit that. So, better stick with Iraq.

Consider the cultural dimension. For bin Laden, the ideological fixation is against the US as a cultural and religious entity ("the worst civilisation witnessed by the history of mankind"), while for Bush the war is not against Islam but against the Islamist terror groups. This distinction, central to the meaning of 9/11, is blurred by Bush's misconceived Iraq war. So, better stick with Iraq.

Now perhaps the so called progressive mind is better understood and brings understanding as to why there are so many letters and comments negative toward the war on terrorism , Bush, the US, and anyone who has the brain to understand the connection of 9/11 and the war on terror.

Produce, great comment!

Ross, do you think Produce's comment is that of an apologist?

From the "60 minutes" interview with the president of Iran. This could have been Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or Howard Dean talking:

"I think that Mr. Bush can be in the service of his own people," Ahmadinejad said. "He can save the American economy using appropriate methodologies without killing people, innocents, without occupation, without threats. I am very saddened to hear that 1 percent of the total population is in prison. And 45 million people don't have a health care cover. That is very sad to hear."

Are they on the same page or what???

Bumper sticker seen in Summerfield this AM:
"10 out ot 10 terrorists agree: ANYBODY BUT BUSH"...

Nice catch, Neo.

Hugh,
'You can't make this stuff up' !!! lol

I must commend Mr. Produce for his cut and paste skills.
Hugh, give it up. Ross is yesterday's news--they already have me as a financial consultant today. No lie, go up a thread or two!
*****

What some can't comprehend is that Iraq has absolutely NOTHING to do with September 11th. Sorry Mr. P, but even Bush, when backed in a corner, had to admit it. While we could have been fighting the ones who took down the towers, we were taken to Iraq. For what? Remind me again, what the reason is. It's kind of like my identity, it seems to change with the wind. I will start you off though:

1. WMD
2. Saddam is a bad man
3. Freedom for the Iraqies
4. Mission Accomplished
5. Dead enders
6. Last throes
7. Hugh's hypothesis that Bush knew all along about Iran,and he is only using Iraq as a staging ground.
8.???????

DD, you forget Iraq's previous association with terrorists.

DemonDeacon 9/13/06:
"quit calling me "Ross". I am not Ross Smith"

This LTTE writer is so far "out there" that it deserves no other comments!

Shalom

Hugh,

"DD, you forget Iraq's previous association with terrorists."

That’s interesting that you said that. Just this week the CIA confirmed that no such tie existed in a report released by the Senate. The fact that some don't understand that yet just blows my mind.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/08/iraqreport.ap/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5328592.stm

"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support," it said.

Sorry, DD, you are the one that said that you were a financial consultant and despised the rich people for whom you worked on their portfolios. You are also the one that said he lived in a RICH neighborhood full of Republicans and you despised them. I believe that there is such a neighborhood in High Point. So, are you going to disavow your own words? I think that it is known who you are, and your clients and neighbors wouldn't be pleased to learn your identity, now would they? Was that a Kinley you were riding in the Tour de Tanglewood? This sounds something like a person that had a vendetta with the ABC group a few years ago, which you said was led by a bunch of thugs. Yeah, you better protect that identity. Exposure wouldn't be good for business, would it?

Stevie, I posted the Iraq/terrorism links a week or three ago on a thread where you and DD both posted and both of you ignored them. Not going to dig them out now.

There are things to dispute in the senate report, but it's a pointless effort that won't change anyone's opinion, just another pissing contest and this rain is making me care less today.

DemonDeacon 9/13/06:
"quit calling me "Ross". I am not Ross Smith"

Let me get this straight: BOTH political parties voted to go to war with Iraq (a war I opposed by the way). And now the war they ALL voted for has become the battleground with the Islamist whom we are, or should be, at war with (911 Commission Report) one party for political reasons wants to cut and run turning Iraq into just exactly what you "talkers" say it wasn't but if we go it will surely become: a hotbed of fanatics who will consider our leaving the battlefield a defeat with Muslims mobs all over the world cheering and burning our flag. We aren't to keep the party in who will finish what was started but will reward the party who voted for it and then reneged.
The Islam fascist (for lack of a better word) movement is world wide and the United States will have to fight them somewhere eventually. We can not talk to them as there is not organized governing body who can speak for the various groups even if they and we wanted to talk. So my question: where would you rather this battleground be: in Iraq or North Carolina?
DD, Open your eyes and look at the entire picture here. Bush One did not have the same enemy. He had a standing army to stand toe to toe with and then they all blew it by not going into Baghdad after Saddam. So don't praise the old man to me. Reagan Bush One and Clinton allowed Americans to be killed by these thugs and did nothing. Bush Two went after the thugs, which is not a standing army easily defeated. Your comparing day and night. Iraq has been a great learning experience for our armed services.
And, the most important question which I have never heard anyone answer: What do you think our leaving Iraq will accomplish? What will happen in Iraq? The Middle East? To us? Again and again people a whole lot smarter than your or I have analyzed this situation and warned not to leave Iraq until it is a stable country able to function and protect itself. DD this question is for you since you are the one on this thread wanting to cut and run. What do you think will happen? before a move is made out of any situation a considered choice of actions and their consequences should bve considered. I haven't heard or read a plan from the party you would reward. BB

janherman,

I found your first post of the day interesting, and I have read it many times to try to understand it.

I understand your view as to why Bush is a mediocre leader because he lacks flexibility, but if I understand your rationale, Bill Clinton couldn't even be considered mediocre as he had no value or belief system to guide him. He was made decisions by taking a poll. That may be safe as a politician, but it is not leadership. And, we are starting to learn that he avoided making the hard decisions and let his lieutenants make them, then take the fall when they went poorly. Ex:Reno-Waco.

Sorry, I didn't notice them Hugh. But this particular report came out last Friday, not “a week or three ago”. I understand why you don't want to debate it now. That makes sense.

BB at least you comprehended what you read in my post today. Thanks to the editorial skills of my wife it reads much better than what I usually write. I am not much on editing and she is a stickler and professional having edited books and articles for writers for a good number of years.
Unfortunately there are some who read but do not comprehend or at least will not admit that what they read is very factually based. As was pointed out these people are so fixated on Iraq that they can not see anything else. It's a state of mind and unfortunately an unalterable one at that.

Oak Ridge Runner,

For the sake of clarification, I was not in any way attempting to portray Bill Clinton as an exceptional president, and in that I used the phrase "accomplished politician" intentionally I feel sure you can ascertain the difference.

My post was in reference to the prevailing level of political discourse in our nation, and when I referred to defending Clinton and Bush I was specifically addressing my responses to some of the totally outrageous and unfounded charges that have been leveled at both.

I hope that clears up your confusion.

BB,
There are no easy answers, but one thing is for sure: Staying the Course is NOT working.
Options:

Institute a draft immediately to make the politicians answer for this.

Go to our allies whom we urinated in their faces and make the case for a REAL coalition to secure the broken country of Iraq.

Pull out to the periphery so that the factions can solve their own problems--quarantine the country and go back in if need be.

Call on the UN to send in a massive show of Blue helmets to secure the border with Iran while we do whatever needs to be done to secure the area.

Bottom line for me is, that like you, I opposed the war, but hoped for the best when we went in. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz & Cheney are the architects of this, and in my opinion should answer for it--The President should first fire Rumsfeld to show that he's serious about going down a different path to secure the country.

Gotta hit the road to Georgia---hope I didn't wander too much.

After watching the meeting between the president of Iran and the president of Iraq, I'm understanding less and less exactly what we're doing in Iraq. Not that I understood it a whole lot before.

"DemonDeacon 9/13/06:
'quit calling me "Ross". I am not Ross Smith'"

Maybe we should just start calling "him" Marti, then.

As a democrat, there are a few things bothering me about my party.

The sad fact is: The oldest continuous political party in the world is bankrupt. While the Republican Party is far from perfect and could do much better on immigration, domestic spending and other issues, it does stand for principles beyond winning.

Democrats in this day and age have few policies beyond attacking President Bush and have long lost any legitimate right to claim they are a responsible opposition party. The "Scoop Jackson" Democrats of the 1970s who understood the need for a strong national defense are long gone, with few exceptions, like Sen. Joseph Lieberman, whose responsible statements on the war have led to his ostracism by the party elites. The 1970s Catholic, Southern and blue-collar Democrats who stuck by their traditional moral values are now mostly "Reagan Republicans."

In their desperation to regain the power they held for decades, Democrats have seized on a few isolated scandals and manufactured others, trying to paint Republicans as fostering a culture of corruption. But the real systemic corruption is in the Democratic Party, from its highest positions of leadership to the bowels of its Bush-hating, anti-war base.

The party's decline took firm root in the late 1960s and 1970s, but has accelerated dramatically over the last decade. Today's Democratic Party – the party of Al Gore, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Harry Reid, Joseph Biden, Edward Kennedy and Hillary Rodham Clinton – is the party that sacrificed all moral principle to defend Bill Clinton in the 1990s no matter what the scandal. It is the party that adopted the Clinton mode of conducting politics as an art of personal assassination – while accusing the other side of doing it.

It is the party that tried to steal the presidential election in 2000, then convinced itself that Republicans did steal it – and has been paralyzed with bitterness and conducting revenge politics ever since. It is the party that demands bipartisanship and reconciliation, but whips President Bush with the olive branch he extended at their behest.

It is the party whose ex-presidents routinely violate the long-standing tradition against criticizing their successors – and even do so on foreign soil.

It is the party that falsely claims President Bush is trampling on the Constitution – while making no secret of its own willingness to subordinate the Constitution to its own political ends, most notably through using the judicial branch to "legislate" policy it cannot achieve through democratic means.

It is the party that isn't honest about its core convictions, knowing that honesty will render it even less electable in a center-right America. It denies its liberalism in favor of the euphemistic "progressivism." But while "progressive" implies "forward-looking," Democrats are mired in the past, reactionary on issues from Social Security (don't change a bankrupt system) to Iraq (don't defeat a hostile dictatorship and try to make it a democracy).

It is the party of elites who look down their noses at red-state America. It is the party that snubs Christians and "values" voters yet claims to be their authentic representatives. It is the party that can't decide whether its electoral difficulties stem from its failure to effectively articulate its message or from the wholesale stupidity of an electorate that's too Christian, too much in favor of traditional family values and too patriotic.

It is the party that often doesn't even bother to offer alternative policies, but chooses instead to slander President Bush and obstruct his policies. In the last few decades the party has increasingly engaged in the destructive partisan politics of class and race warfare, further alienating and dividing Americans. But it has sunk to new lows more recently with the egregious practice of playing partisan politics with our national security.

These questions were asked by greater minds than mine, but I believe they are valid. I will have a tough time pulling the "D" lever this November

Nitpicker, I don't know what we are doing there either but I do believe that all involved Bush/Blair/etc believed in the need and in the WMD's. Blair staked his political career on it.
That said here is what I believe the meeting is all about: The only way the Sunni and Shia will get along is with a strong dictator forcing them to behave. This hate between them goes back 1500 years. The Prime Minister of Iraq (Nouri al-Maliki) got together with the Prez of Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) in hopes that P. Iran would help make P.M Iraq that dictator. The "elected" council in Iraq know by now there is no agreement possible between the factions and have all agreed to divide up the spoils. The Sunni and Shia will go on as they did before under Saddam. The Kurds will insist on having their own territory if only a tacit agreement. They have gotten accustomed to their freedoms. If a deal is made with Iran you will see everyone suddenly getting with the program and setting up a “free, democratically elected government”. To appease the voters everyone will remain in his “elected” position. They may even go on having regular “election” but it will be a dictatorship. The problem: Will Iran go along and what will they want if they go along? They can just wait until 2008 when the Dems might get in office and the US pulls out and then go in and just take over the country. This would be dumb of course because the Iranians and Iraqis don’t like each other and it will just be as quigmire for Iran. It would be to everyone’s advantage to choose the first solution I outlined above. BENEFIT for US: We can get the hell out of Iraq claiming victory in meeting our goals. PROBLEM FOR US: we still have the world wide terrorists that we will have to fight somewhere. But that will be the world with us which is not the case now because no one is going to come into Iraq.(DD's solution hasn't a snowballs chance--I think I'm going to blog on that) We may see door to door combat on our own soil rooting out the terrorist cells that are already established in this country. PROBLEM FOR ISRAEL: Israel will be forced to go to war with the entire Middle East and using nuclear weapons take out Iran’s nuclear program and threaten Damascus and Hezbollah and Baghdad with the same treatment. This will effectively set the Muslims back a half a century or so and all they will have is their oil to sell. They will of course sell us the oil because the guys who made all the agreements want their share of the spoils. Just my take of course. BB

A rabid Republican couldn’t have said it better Mr. Reformed! Are you really, truly a Democrat? Aren’t you afraid the fingers that typed all those nasty things will wither up and never type again? I sure am glad that DD is on his way to Georgia or he would be having a stroke right after reading your post. Mr. P and Hugh and Dan and Bubba will be ever so grateful if this is the case. And of course they are happy to welcome you to their club. I would be a member too of course because of my views, but it’s a Guy Thing and no “girls” allowed in the tree fort. BB

Brenda,

It's OK if you want to question my party affiliation. Just remember that my party has traditionally been the one to fracture and question.

I don't believe I said anything nasty, either. I am merely making observations about my party leadership. If you think I have come to a wrong conclusion from my observations, please point them out. I believe nasty is in the eye of the beholder.

However, I do somewhat resent your assumtion of my gender. Maybe we could build our own treehouse? My fingers are fine, TYVM.

Am so sorry! I just assumed man. Yes let's start our own club indeed. I’ll bring the cookies and you bring the tea, ok?
I was really pulling your leg a bit. And then a bit more. I too was a flaming Liberal and Democrat for most of my life. But as I aged, or perhaps as the party aged, I just learned found myself moveing away and even becoming embarrassed by their antics. As well as disgusted by their refusal to take on the real problems most of which the Democrats created in the first place. In a previous comment I said the Dems won't fight and that is true. And Hillary is just toooooo much for my poor delicate tummy. If they are dumb enough to run her they deserve to be beaten by a landslide even if the Reps run a monkey.
Just a few points where I feel differently:
** You know I really liked Bill and I bet if he could run again he would be elected again. He could have been a much better president and achieved stateman status if he wasn't bother so much with the nonsense. The media and Republicans made an event of his dames. I could care less who he banged or where. Of course being a history buff I found Billy Boy rather tame!
** I don’t believe they “tried” to steal the 2000 election at all. In fact, I believe they won it hands down. I am from Florida and know about those miserable ballots that you have to bang to knock all the chads out after voting. Have also had to deal with trying to line up and figure out the “butterfly” ballots. I also know Palm Beach County and under no circumstances could Pat Buchanan get ANY votes there. Even he said that!
** I don’t feel they are any more or less corrupt than the Republicans. As far as I am concerned Samuel Clemens had it right when he said, “ "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."
Other than these few items I think you are right on. BB

Reformed, welcome to the blog. I don't claim Republicans have the answer to everything, both parties have their problems. Alas.

Your post, however, explains so eloquently what is wrong with the Democratic party at this point in time, particularly ex-Democratic presidents lambasting the president and our country in a time of war. Running around in foreign countries demeaning America and/or it's govt. only gives aid and comfort to our enemies.

Also, the lack of ideas except Bush is evil leads to nothing. Bush isn't running again, please look to the future Bush bashers!!

I have voted Democratic before, if I feel the candidate has integrity and ideas for the betterment of our country, state, county, or city.

I don't see that in today's Democratic leadership. No ideas, direction, leadership, inspiration. Bush is bad, plain and simple. That's our call sign!!

I'm still waiting for the country to unite and realize we have a common enemy, militant Islam. Alas, it may take a few more attacks on our soil for this unity to occur. Of course Babs & Michael may not jump on board.