Let's just hope Jeb has enough of a mind not to even try to run.
Posted by tempus at September 26, 2007 08:47 AMAt this juncture, with Democrats seemingly playing their Prevent Defense, all we can hope to do is try and corral this President and try like hell to keep him from inflicting any more damage on our country's reputation in addition to do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn't undertake any more silly and unnecessary aggression.
With the administration winding down and Bush beginning to contemplate his legacy, it is certainly difficult, if not impossible to point to any signature issue which can be painted at this point as a success. Many, including the President, say we won't know for decades as to whether his Iraq adventure is a success. And I guess, technically speaking, that is probably true. But I think there is little doubt that the invasion of Iraq, and all the associated tragedies which have come as a result, were wholly unnecessary. I believe that the jury is already in that this was, without a doubt, a war of choice. It was a war which was sought after by this administration from its infancy. And nothing that comes later, whatever might be construed as success, will validate or justify the President's unconstrained desire to invade Iraq.
The rest of the world has already passed the judgment to which a lot of Americans are slow to evolve; that this is quite possibly the most criminal and authoritarian group to come along in modern times. This lack of awareness on our part is mostly due to the American media bubble , media enablers and the insider-the-beltway punditry which have worked tirelessly to prop up the image that this administration desired. But the stench emitted by this group has grown too strong. And try as they might you can no longer cover it up. The rest of the world has known for some time. The American people are finally getting a whiff of what everyone else identified a long time ago. That rotten smell is coming from Washington.
Posted by Mike at September 26, 2007 08:51 AMMike, the rotten smell is what comes from firing the White House chef, and hiring KKKarl of course...I wonder who's ass he copulating with these days? Actually it's probably Jeffy, and I really don't want to know...
Posted by tempus at September 26, 2007 09:09 AMMike - pockets around the world have known this about the US for close to a century. The US could have listened and learned from Vietnam, but we didn't. Instead continued to believe in our "exceptionlism." That we had a god given right to steal natural resources anywhere in the world that we found them. The rest of the world saw that and knew that before the Iraq invasion. Iraq was merely the most blatant power/resource grab and we're getting our just desserts.
Posted by Marie at September 26, 2007 09:35 AMMike
Interesting that everyone in the world understood who Ahmadinejad was referring to in his UN speech
Although many may agree that Ahmadinejad is a stubborn tyrant and and idiot"; it could clearly be confused as to which president one is referring to!
Posted by Diego at September 26, 2007 09:52 AMBut to then elect this same cabal in 2004 only reinforced to the rest of the world that Americans were no longer entitled to any respect, but instead had to now earn it back over a generation.This statement by Steve is key to this whole scenario. The American people might not yet realize it but by reelecting Bush in 2004, after all the information which had come out in regard to his lies and lawlessness, they unwittingly confirmed all the worst fears the world had about this country's commitment, or lack of one, to the principles on which it was founded. And it showed that going forward we would treat those principles as irrelevant, because in our eyes the world was completely changed. And our attitude of American exceptionalism was going to rule the day from that time forward.
The majority of this country might never come to accept the rest of the world's attitude as justifiable but we will have to live with the consequences for the rest of our lifetimes. This is not something which will be repaired easily or be soon forgotten by the world community. With any hope, this dark period in our history will be short lived and we can start working towards rebuilding the worlds trust in the American system.
I think back to so many things which I expressed to friends and family at the beginning of this Bush catastrophe. I look back at some things I wrote at that time and the fear I had that we were heading down a road which would deposit us at a place where we would be closer to a fascist state than at almost any other time in our history. And now, here we are, so many of my fears realized. And still, we have much more time to go before we can really consider changing our course.
The cognitive disconnect that so much of the American people have to this is frightening. Like many of you, I'm sure, I have been often accused by righties of suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, as they like to call it. But the thing about it is, they never really seem to dispute the facts. They just want to label you an American-hater and a treasonous liberal. We don't want to even consider the possibility that there is ever a time when we are not the guys in the white hats, saving the day.
Dangerous times lay ahead. We not only have to fight the demons of international terrorism, we have to fight our own internal demons here in this country. And the disconcerting thing is that we have not even yet begun to realize that the internal demons are even present in our country's midst. Until we come to grips with not only the last six plus years of insanity but our whole history; which is rife with a co-conspiratorial alignment with so many things the rest of the world sees as worthy of condemnation, we can make no progress toward reconciling with the rest of the world and repairing our sorely bruised and battered reputation.
Posted by Mike at September 26, 2007 10:32 AMBravo Steve Soto. Well said.
The world may have given the American people a pass after the 2000 election, but they now despise us for re-electing the most hated man in the world today. The truth is that at present the Muslims hate America and now, they hate not only its policymakers but most of the American people. Americans have proven, without a shadow of doubt, that they agreed with their elite by voting back into office, by a comfortable majority, the Bush administration inspite of it’s obvious record of lies and abuse of power.
If I have no respect for this Country, why would they?
Posted by Judith at September 26, 2007 12:00 PM"Oppose tyranny" says tyrant Bush.
Posted by james k. sayre at September 26, 2007 02:07 PM