Melissa asked for facts. Well, I’ve got facts. They’re all the things that Bush has done in office that should disqualify him from being our President. Here goes… (the sources aren’t the only ones, just the first ones I found in my frantic scurrying over the web)
George W. Bush’s (and his Administration’s) Record:
- George W. Bush has presided over the largest deficits in this country’s history by any measure, after coming into office with the largest budget surplus in history.
- While I can understand why the Bush administration doesn’t bear all the blame for not stopping 9/11 from happening, they let Abu Ghraib happen. Abu Ghraib is the largest stain ever on our ever-decreasing reputation. It’s an international crime the scale of which our country has never committed. That people far up the chain of command (ie: political appointees) were not held responsible by the President is unbelievable.
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George W. Bush lied to the American people about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The evidence bears no other conclusion.
- There was no working relationship between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government.
- Both Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice lied about Iraq’s nuclear threat, yet another case of them abusing and twisting available intelligence to fit their desired conclusion.
- The meeting between Mohammed Atta and the Iraqi Secret Service never took place, because Atta was in the US at the time.
- Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (see upcoming US Inspection team report.).
- Iraq had no programs for creating them past the theoretical phase (there were a couple dozen countries closer to having both nuclear and biological weapons than Iraq).
- Iraq was far less of a threat to our national security than North Korea or Iran.
- The “intelligence” used by the White House was taken from unreliable sources, and most of it had been thoroughly debunked by our own intelligence agencies. (lots and lots of information here and here)
- Dick Cheney is still being paid by Halliburton, the largest recipient of no-bid contracts in Iraq. Sources: CNN and CBS News
- Tom Ridge hold sizable amount of stock in companies with contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. Source: Congressional Quarterly
- The Bush Administration resisted the formation of the 9/11 Commission and fought their requests for information at every turn. Only when the commission members went public with the stonewalling did they relent. Source: BBC News, here and here
- George W. Bush has spent 27% of his first time on vacation. Source: Yahoo
- The Administration refused to listen to the advice of experts at the Pentagon about the aftermath of the war, and failed to plan for the contingencies those experts thought most likely to happen (and have been proven correct). This is backed by General Tommy Franks’ memoir about the war, and the statements of both Pentagon personel and Administration officials. See timelines linked above.
There is, of course, more.
John Kerry is the only other viable option. George W. Bush and his Administration have proven they are unfit to lead this country. They have proven to be incompetant, inflexible and seemingly prejudge every situation, deciding a course of action before reviewing available facts, and then refusing to change course, even when their present course proves unsustainable.
I’ll work on getting facts on why you should vote for John Kerry instead of just voting against George W. Bush, but I wanted to get these out.
Okay, I’m convinced!
(well sure, i already was… but it’s nice to be super duper convinced.)
CBS and Yahoo? Come on. BBC, I accept. But CBS, Kevin? I thought we’d talked about media info. They sell to the people. They sell to what they think the people want to hear. They also have to think about their contributors. I think I’m going to look up and see if CBS is sponsored in any way by Heinz. Do you think that makes a difference? Or are you so jaded as to think the news is unbiased?
The CBS stories are AP service stories. I just happened to find them at CBS.com. The Yahoo one has links to its sources as well (the Washington Post). I think most claims of bias, especially of sources like AP, Reuters and the hard reporting of the Washington Post and NY Times is an easy excuse to ignore information that doesn’t jive with that person’s world view. Everything I linked to is available from multiple sources if you don’t happen to trust the one I linked to, Google will be happy to point you to a dozen other corroborating sources.
And, looking at my post, I linked to CBS once, and provided CNN as backup. I linked to Yahoo because it provided the best summary, and provided the best list of supporting sources.
As I am still not convinced, I want to assure you that it is not your fault. You’ve done a superior job trying to change my mind. But I think we’re very stubborn people. Plus, I’m a woman who’s got enough Irish in her blood to justify the rampant emotional response.
But really, do you not agree that Kerry supported Bush’s ideas just a few years ago? Can you not admit that maybe just a little of his platform is pandering plain and simple? Is there anything, any tiny thing that you agree that Kerry might actually be wrong about or inconsistant about? What about one tiny thing that Bush may be right about? Anything?
BTW, if Clinton had not depleted our military and FBI resources, not only would the reports (which Kerry and Bush both read, mind you) have be much more accurate, but we would have all the necessary manpower to do all of what Kerry wants. Speaking of which, why exactly would we want to send troops to North Korea? Aren’t they “negotiating” with us? I’m not being sarcastic, I kind of want to know.
Pandering? You can’t become one of the two parties’ nominees without a little bit of pandering. Both candidates’ platforms are full of them. I happen to agree with more of Kerry’s than Bush’s. Bush panders to large corporations and the Christian Right, neither of whom I agree with on almost anything.
I understand the Right’s claims about Clinton reducing Military strength, but they all seem to leave out the fact that Bush Senior started the trend after the Cold War ended. We went almost a decade without a major threat, and the Pentagon advocated a lot of the changes, so you can’t blame it ALL on Clinton. Yes, the Clinton missed a LOT of queues on both terrorism and upcoming threats, but they DID see them coming and gave the incoming Administration a plan to fight them – which W ignored.
Remember, it was the Clinton Administration that suggested the Department of Homeland Security. The Republicans fought it for years, W fought it, just like he fought the 9/11 commission… until it was no longer politically viable to do so.
Where did you find the stuff about the FBI? That’s not a charge I’d heard before.
K–There was no working relationship between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government.
S–This was already known. Saddam Hussein however was hiring terrosist to patrol and probe the Iran/Iraq border. Those terrorists had active ties to Al Qai’ida
K–Both Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice lied about Iraq’s nuclear threat
S–I can’t get to that article so I can’t argue it based on what’s presented there.
K–The meeting between Mohammed Atta and the Iraqi Secret Service never took place, because Atta was in the US at the time.
S–And? I don’t remember that being used as any primary reason for removing Saddam from power. He was intentionally harboring 4 of the most wanted terrorist we had already established were responsible for previous attacks on the US and other countries.
K–Dick Cheney is still being paid by Halliburton, the largest recipient of no-bid contracts in Iraq
S–Contracts which were awarded by the Clinton administration. Also, Halliburton is THE ONLY oile and energy services company in the world that has experience dealing with and putting out oil fires on the scale required. Which is why they were awarded the contracts by the Clinton administration. I don’t see any evidence of collusion or corruption based on the information that has beeen presented so far.
K–Iraq had no programs for creating them past the theoretical phase (there were a couple dozen countries closer to having both nuclear and biological weapons than Iraq).
S–Iraq also didn’t keep alot of documentation. Of the officials that have been interrogated the vast majority of them stated that Saddam had plans to resume the growth of WMD programs as the UN wasn’t breathing down it’s neck. However, it has yet to be determined where the WMDs we inventoried before leaving ended up since 1991.
K–Iraq was far less of a threat to our national security than North Korea or Iran.
S– North Korea and Iran will negotiate and communicate with us. North Korea and Iran are not under disarmament sanctions. North Korea and Iran do not yet warrant military actions since they have not used WMDs in the past and cannot yet be proven to having possession of WMDs.
K–George W. Bush has presided over the largest deficits in this country’s history by any measure, after coming into office with the largest budget surplus in history.
S– U.S. Constitution Section 8, Clause 2: [The Congress shall have Power] To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
The cost of September 11th alone would have created a deficit. Add to that the fact that we were experiencing a recession at the same time. What would you prefer? A record defecit. Or an extremely large tax increase to recover to the previous surplus?
K– That people far up the chain of command (ie: political appointees) were not held responsible by the President is unbelievable.
S– The instances are inexcusable. However, to hold someone accountable they need to have known that it was going on and done nothing to stop it. If you can point to this happening then I will concede this point.
K– Tom Ridge hold sizable amount of stock in companies with contracts with the Department of Homeland Security.
S– Did he hold them before or after Homeland Security was established? Did he specifically pick those companies? Where those contracts awarded by him or were they already standing contracts? Do those companies offer services that no other company competes for?
K– George W. Bush has spent 27% of his first time on vacation.
S– The president is never “on vacation”. He was at his ranch primarily for security concerns about half of that time anyways.
K–The Administration refused to listen to the advice of experts at the Pentagon about the aftermath of the war
S–I couldn’t find that in the timeline linked above so I don’t know how many experts at the Pentagon he “refused to listen to”.