President Bush's re-election bid is offensive

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President Bush's re-election bid is offensive 05.21.04 (3:38 pm)   [edit] No, not because of images of war in the campaigns, not because of ugly rhetoric (that's the sad standard in political campaigning- just browse the tblog politics section), and not because images from 9/11 were used early on. It is a sense of direct, personal offense that I get when I see a Bush campaign ad. I recall feeling a similar sense of offense during the presidential campaign of 2000. I thought, "How could this guy honestly think he could be our president, and how dare he insult the American public by even running?" Looking back, it doesn't seem as though I had much reason to be concerned (well, overly concerned) or to be offended by the mere notion of the then Governor of Texas running for president. Now, as I see ads on television for the Bush campaign, I feel justly angered and insulted. While war wages, soldiers are killed, insurgents riot, and scandals surface in Iraq, President Bush is seeking re-election. I personally resent this. With all the errors Bush has made from the onset of the war in Iraq up to this point, with Iraqi self-rule looking uncertain, it is difficult to swallow the messages Bush is using to campaign. Fine, not everything that is going or has gone wrong in Iraq is Bush's fault. Maybe he is the best candidate for the task of succeeding in the war in Iraq. But I highly doubt it. Not only was he wrong about there being stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, the justification given for an urgent war; he and his administration have been wrong about the difficulty the soldiers would face in Iraq, the level of involvement the war would entail, the severity of the battles, and the way things would be handled. For starters, it is bad policy to invade a country based on false pretenses, then claim the intention is to liberate the country's citizens. It is particularly bad policy to declare war on a country with few allies supporting the decision, and with great dissent among the world community. With the economy suffering for the past few years, it is hard to imagine Bush has done a commendable job, even so much as to deserve to run for president again. The messages of the Bush campaign are not about demonstrating the strong leadership he has shown as president, or detailing the good he has done for the nation, as there are very few strong points to his presidency. The hope for Bush is to attack his opponent enough and to pinpoint every reason against voting for John Kerry so that the voters will be persuaded to re-elect Bush. I find this insulting. Given that there are extremely few aspects of Bush’s presidency that are remotely good, how could he attempt to win re-election? Now, I am possibly even less a fan of John Kerry than I am of George W. Bush, but when the incumbent has to resort to petty attacks on his opponent so early in the campaign, that says something. Bush has very little to run on as President, very few accomplishments, and a great amount of negatives. What upsets me the most about his attempt at re-election is that he could very well win. As much of an insult as I find his poor attempt at remaining in office, America may allow that to happen. He does not have a very high approval rating, nor will he likely be leading by a large margin at any point in the presidential race. But many Americans simply feel they must choose between the lesser of two evils. That is the only way Bush can win. A vote for Bush or Kerry is a wasted vote, to me. Neither deserves to even run for president.   posted by: therealspartacus007 (reply) post date: 05.21.04 (3:22 pm) Bush doesn't even care about his one values or party- if he wanted to get re-elected he would at the very least fire Rumsfelt and Cheney and pick up John McCain before Kerry does. posted by: reducto (reply) post date: 05.21.04 (5:25 pm) Dragon, you betray your youth. Or stupidity. No president ever waged war perfectly....the rehearsal for Normandy cost the lives of thousands of people. It happens all the time. It's a sad fact of life. You need to grow up and deal with that. No one, for example, thought Vietnam would be the REAL quagmire that it was. Secondly, Bush has done the only thing he can do for the economy-- lower taxes to spur consumer spending. THere's not much else. You need to get a brain and prove how Bush 'destroyed' the economy like every other leftist says, or don't imply or make the accusation. And you also need to check yourself on the 'false pretenses' garbage. The pretense was the UN's honey-- blame them, too. But prove it as being false. If you can do that-- and I've yet to read a blog from you or anyone else proving the "false pretenses" stuff-- you need to refrain from the accusations. I find your willful stupidity offensive.... You say "The hope for Bush is to attack his opponent enough and to pinpoint every reason against voting for John Kerry so that the voters will be persuaded to re-elect Bush..." That is a fair definition of how candidates run campaigns...what the hell do you think Kerry and his George Soros media blitz is doing? I mean, do you even care how dumb you sound? Worse, you say that Bush's "attacks" are "petty"-- um, dear, Bush is remarking on Kerry's record as a Senator-- the only one that matters. Kerry's votes matter because they indicate what his politics are and how he'd lead this country. Kerry's speeches as an anti-war activist do the same thing. That's not petty. In reality, the only way for Kerry to win is convince enough people that Bush is evil. Apparently he has succeeded with you, while offering absolutely no reason whatsoever to vote for him. Why not write a blog about how much you "resent" Kerry running for president? You say he doesn't deserve it, so write a blog about that. But you don't. You are falsely equivocating to portray yourself as objective. You're not. What a ridiculous, ignorant, blog entry. posted by: jbfs (reply) post date: 05.22.04 (4:57 am) Reply to: reducto "You need to grow up and deal with that." It's a sad day in my eyes when people accept the loss of hundreds or thousands of lives as being the status quo. But if you really want to make a comparison to Vietnam, compare it to Korea. Lowered taxes? For whom? Wasn't he following trickle-down economics? The pretenses were the UN's? Is that why we violated international law to invade Iraq? Is that why the UN basically said, "No, Bush, don't invade Iraq. Give us more time." Sounds like the UN was really pumping us going to war. I haven't seen a single campaign (thankfully), so I can't comment on them, but why is it that we accept personal attacks from candidates as being the standard campaign format? I don't know about you, but if I'm going to listen to two candidates, I want them to tell me about the issues, not about how so-and-so smoke weed in high school, or how so-and-so is an ex-coke-head/ex-alcoholic/ex-what-have-you. Your personal attacks on DragonBait jeopardize the validity of any point you were trying to make. If you have a problem with the person, confront him or her to his or her face. If you have a problem with the person's points, then do your best to prove them wrong. Mixing disproval with vehement disapproval only makes you look ignorant in the end. posted by: jbfs (reply) post date: 05.22.04 (5:04 am) In some perverse way, I actually hope Bush does get re-elected. Why? Because I think it would cause more deterioration of the current state of things. It would cause more people to care about what's going on. It would possibly set up him getting removed from the office by impeachment, which I think would make a much louder statement than him just not getting re-elected. The general populace's interest has been piqued by what's going on, but they haven't been pushed to action yet. People haven't, en masse, moved towards changing the things that are broken right now. I think, if nothing else, Bush can get that to happen through his own incompetence. It might hurt us in the short term, but it could very easily help us in the long term... (of course, we would be on razor's edge with his imperialism err foreign policies...) posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 05.22.04 (5:43 am) Reply to: reducto "Dragon, you betray your youth. Or stupidity" Is that supposed to make sense? Moving on, of course I understand that there will always be casualties in war, that no war has been waged with no errors made, and that standards change in wartime. However, it is absolutely not acceptible to simply shrug off the loss of lives as a common fact of life. "Secondly, Bush has done the only thing he can do for the economy-- lower taxes to spur consumer spending." Wow, I really hope that's not the only thing that could be done to help the economy. If it is, we're completely screwed. I'm no economist, but it seems pretty obvious to me that lowering taxes only helps things when there are also budget cuts. Taxes are used to enable government programs to work. When the government expands its operations, it must be funded, through taxes. You can't increase the government's size while also cutting taxes. It simply won't work. "You need to get a brain and prove how Bush 'destroyed' the economy like every other leftist says" Well, I never said Bush destroyed the economy and I don't think that would be an entirely fair accusation to make. But it is evident that he has not been effective in aiding the economy. And, um, I'm not a leftist, no matter how much you'd like to equate me with all leftists. "The pretense was the UN's honey-- blame them, too." You can't have it both ways. You can't say that we just rightly went along with the UN when it comes to determining justification for war, then turn around and say that the UN's approval is unnecessary for invading a nation. You're wrong on both accounts, anyway. I do blame the UN as well as the US for being mistaken. But the UN didn't invade Iraq, thus I hold the US to a higher standard in regard to the false, yes false, pretenses for war. Even if Saddam did have WMD, there was no urgency to the war. No matter what, it was an unnecessary and unjust war. As for the campaigning, I never said that John Kerry's ads were any better. I never said that it isn't typical of politicians to veer from the issues and simply attack opponents, in fact that is what I said is standard. All I'm saying is that it is pathetic that that is how our campaigning is done, be it by George W. Bush, John Kerry, Al Gore, or anyone else. "In reality, the only way for Kerry to win is convince enough people that Bush is evil. Apparently he has succeeded with you, while offering absolutely no reason whatsoever to vote for him." Honey, there's not a chance in hell I'll vote for John Kerry. He hasn't convinced me of a thing. In case you missed it, I said that I likely dislike Kerry even more than Bush. "Why not write a blog about how much you "resent" Kerry running for president?" Well, um, I can only write one blog at a time. I was considering writing a blog on reasons no one should vote for Kerry, but now I don't know. I'd hate to mess up your little DragonBait hate fest. Speaking of which, if you'd like to discuss issues with me, rationally, you're more than welcome to. But, being that you are considerably older and supposedly more mature than I am, I think it would be more productive if you'd lay off the unnecessary and crude personal attacks. I'm not stupid, dumb, or ignorant, though it was oh so clever of you to write such things. If you disagree with something I say, dispute it. But if you're interested in *not* looking like a jackass, I'd suggest laying off the name-calling. posted by: juniperflux (reply) post date: 05.22.04 (6:41 am) As much as I despise our current "regime" I have to say that I don't believe they misrepresented the level of involvement or difficulty of the war. Rather, I recall over and over hearing both the big guy and Rummy repeating over and over about how this was going to be long and hard and people would die, etc. In fact, I think that's one of the reasons why the WMD lie is so horrific... because he used it to justify what he himself admitted was going to be a terrible and costly war. However, I do agree with you that watching the ads is just sickening. Personally, I'm at loss. I'd rather cut off my own arm than vote for Bush, but the dems certainly have not provided a viable option. *sigh* posted by: jbfs (reply) post date: 05.22.04 (12:39 pm) Reply to: juniperflux How many people have died in Iraq due to American military presence? How many since Bush declared we won the war? I'm not looking for exact numbers here, but just think about it... how well has the war been represented? do you know how many civilian casualties there have been? http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18730 is an interesting read posted by: juniperflux (reply) post date: 05.22.04 (3:15 pm) Reply to: jbfs Thanks for the link... although, I have already seen it. The point I was trying to make earlier is that I don't think anyone claimed that this was going to be a quick in and out job... that's all. j posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 05.22.04 (6:31 pm) Reply to: juniperflux Rumsfeld said he was surprised that there were insurgents and so many Saddam loyalists that would fight against the US occupation. They planned to transfer power to Iraqis by June 30, but the nation is hardly stable enough to allow for a complete transference of power. The US will remain in Iraq to "maintain peace," though it is unlikely this will be an easy transition. Due to the seemingly unforseen insurgents, the involvement of the US will be greater than many expected. posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 05.22.04 (6:38 pm) Reply to: jbfs I kind of agree with you that maybe Americans would be forced to care if Bush remains president and continues to lead America in the absolute wrong direction. What scares me most about the possibility of Bush getting re-elected is that he would have a clear mandate this time around, no matter how close the election turns out to be. Seeing what he has done as President without having a mandate, I'd hate to even imagine what could happen when he does, and when he doesn't have to cater to groups of voters. Anyway, Bush constantly screwing up for another 4 years could stir the public to action, but it could also leave voters feeling even more disenfranchised. I'm certainly not voting for him... And thanks for backing me up- reducto's always full of nice things to say about me. ;) posted by: jbfs (reply) post date: 05.22.04 (10:31 pm) Reply to: juniperflux I unfortunately can't really argue this point with any real backing, but I seem to remember that the whole shock and awe thing was supposed to make our time there short, and our involvement limited. I also seem to recall being presented with the idea that the Iraqi people would gladly accept our presence and that anybody who was not part of the Iraqi military would more or less let us do our thing. Now, I could very well, in my own personal biases, be twisting what was actually said to something that fits my personal agenda, so I won't really argue that that's what was said. posted by: juniperflux (reply) post date: 05.23.04 (4:08 am) Reply to: jbfs and dragonbait22 Well... as jbfs said, "I could very well, in my own personal biases, be twisting what was actually said to something that fits my personal agenda" ~ it could be that I am just projecting what I knew to be true about the war onto what the admin was really saying at the time. I agree that the "shock and awe" aspect of the attack certainly did imply that we would be in and out of there quickly with the check mark of victory scratched indelibly on our side... but at the same time, I recall the President's press conference from the day the war began and how he repeated over and over again that this would be "long and difficult" and how I kept thinking at the time that, THAT was the one thing he was telling the truth about. *shrugs* Having said that, I do agree with Dragonbait's comment of how this entire "tranfer of power" thing does give a false impression of how long we are going to be there... and one thing that I do not think has been mentioned is the fact that more people have died since the "official end of major combat" than during the supposed war itself. posted by: jbfs (reply) post date: 05.23.04 (12:10 pm) Reply to: juniperflux oh yeah. now that you mention it, I remember him talking about a long drawn out war ... sad that I forgot about it since it's in the paper for my capstone course for my major.... oops! well brought up. thank you. posted by: soontobev (reply) post date: 05.23.04 (5:45 pm) Reply to: reducto "I mean, do you even care how dumb you sound?" Wow, do you know how rude you sound? Why get all pissy just because he's voicing his own opinion in his own blog? Your Name: Your Comment:

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