Bush---the most unpopular Prez in modern history

This is what happens when you make decisions based upon your principles (or in GWB's case the principles of whomever is pulling the strings) rather than basing them on which way the wind is blowing, as it were.

I don't know of any president who used public opinion polling to influence policy decisions more than Bill Clinton. This definitely kept his approval ratings high. Did it make him a good president? History will tell us that.

I would much rather have a president with the integrity and fortitude to make decisions that run contrary to popular opinion when he truly believes he is right than one who does the politically expedient thing.

Of course that presupposes that we pick a president of superior discernment and extremely high moral fiber, and we as an electorate seem to be failing spectacularly at that as of late.

 

the truth is scary to some folks-

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Michtex--

You don't honestly believe that had WWII battles been covered to the degree of Vietnam or Iraq that public opinion back home would have been so positive? Even if you don't take into account the grisly imagery on the tube, the govt purposely gave false KIA and WIA numbers for various battles to make things look better than they were.

 

Interestingly the LBJ Library released more of LBJ's conversations from 68 , 40 years later

It is stunning to see how much history does in fact repeat itself as we see a man struggling over many issues that are still confounding us today.

 

Like Bush, did our President sanction the use of torture during WWII, or any other war ?

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Mitchtex - No, people did not know when WWII was not going well. Many reports were altered or made up to prevent just that. On the other hand, today we get reports within a few hours of a skirmish involving injuries or casualties.

 

Well I don't want to speak for anyone, but it seems that waterboarding and forcing people to stand in extreme positions for long periods of time are practices sanctioned by the pres and are now generally accepted as forms of torture.

I just don't think anyone in the WWII era would consider those practices torture. I could be wrong.

 

Marc Rich was pure sleaze in my humble opinion, when you however look at the prison saving efforts of GWB and indeed his father, you see much more potential for "co-conspirators" do you not?

Political sleaze < obstuction of justice - but hey that's my opinon

 

so, is it torture or deplorable to kill innocent civilians?

I think that MOST on here would say YES to that question.

Isn't that what we did in WWII when we dropped atomic bombs?

I know I am a minority on here, but I still find it sickening that the US is the only country to have used atomic weapons in war. Weapons that killed and maimed many civilians.

 

In reply to:

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If we had invaded by land, lots more people would have died.

 

triplehorn I neither condone what Bush let happen nor disagree with you about what is or is not torture. I simply pointed out that people during WWII would likely not have agreed that it is torture.

Also, you did not address how you feel the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki measure up to what GWB allowed to happen, which I think is pertinent given the fact you made the comparison btwn GWB's actions and those of Truman.

God damn ******* west maul

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"It is stunning to see how much history does in fact repeat itself as we see a man struggling over many issues that are still confounding us today. "

It's funny.. i don't get the feeling Bush is struggling with any of these issues. If anything, he is just ignoring them and instead making appearances on American Idol and Deal or No Deal. This seems to be the focus during this last year and for most of his Presidency. Shrug his shoulders, say it is hard and difficult and wish he had a magic wand to make it all better.

I seriously wonder what motivated GWB to want to be President. Has anyone ever asked flat out asked Bush why he wanted to be President?

 

I'm a dove, but if I were president during WWII, and it is us or them, I'm going to choose them. The civilians fully supported their governments in Germany and Japan, and their prejudices, genocides, unjust invasions of other soverign nations made the entire populace targets for retaliation.
Yes, it sucks, but this wasn't an extreme religious sect running around pulling off covert operations, it was the people supported government of those nations, it was their entire economic might, their entire military establishment.

 

"It's funny.. i don't get the feeling Bush is struggling with any of these issues"

Understandably anyone who hates Bush would feel that way.
Reality is you have NO idea what he struggles with anymore than people knew what lbj struggled with or FDR when things were going so badly for us in WWII or Lincoln when the south was winning and the Union was bungling every campaign costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
How sad that someone could be so shallow as to claim they know what a man is thinking based on their hatred of that man.

FIEV
In speaking about dropping the bombs on japan you posted, "If we had invaded by land, lots more people would have died. "

Was the cost worth it for the hit to our International reputation? the USA is still blasted world wide for being the ONLY country to using an A bomb And against innocent people.