I am again going to have to express my admiration for your thoughtful, “self-examining” words.

While most of us strive to be “moderate” on this site, very few–including myself–ever reach that goal.

I honestly think you have done just such and deserve our kudos.

After reading some of the most recent light-weight, shallow guest voices, it would be such a pleasure to see you more fully develop your thoughts as a guest voice.

Mr Joe G., are you reading/listening?

Thank you,

Dorian de Wind

Right after the 2004 election when I looked to someone to blame I seized on myself first. It was my fault that I did not more effectively communicate. It was my fault that what was actually anger at being ignored and called partisan when I pointed out the wrong doings of the Admin in power came off too emotionally and played directly into the hands of people like Rush and Beck that do not want their listeners engaged, they want them screamed at since that is the only way you can look like the cartoon they paint.

I do not think we will ever see justice nor a real investigation over these issues but the history books will support many(note not all I am sure I am wrong as well) of my arguments which gives me comfort for our nations future which is really all I care about on the matter in the first place. In other words I am trying to learn the lesson that the socially liberal voters failed to after the 1960's, they won and won big but failed to realize it and came off like bullies shutting down all social discourse on the issue and forcing us into opposing camps.

I had a mini-melt down the other day around Obama's speech when I realized that it seemed many conservatives were not going to support him in this endeavor which I think our security is reliant upon. After a good deal of soul searching I came to the conclusion that it was my fault(I do not think anyone listens to me over themselves but every revolution starts with yourself and then how you engage others therefore when you lose and your ideas lose it is at least partially your own fault). I think if those on the right understood the real and rational reasons behind our opinions of the Bush years instead of what they hear from their chosen media and the cartoon we look like when we engage them emotionally not only would they understand though disagree they also will begin to see what they perceive as an encroaching army of ideological warriors opposed to their every idea is actually just Americans with a few differing views of how to build the best nation for all of us. After all Americans as a rule agree on almost everything and then we debate to the death on really small issues in most cases. If they stop seeing me as scary then they may also begin to see the rest on my side as a good deal less scary then the screaming heads paint us(I know for a fact that the right is not the cartoon that Olberman and Maddow paint) and in the long run may get us back to a more rational national debate and discussion. It is also just possible that if that is successful they may begin to see Obama more as a president that on some issues they may agree with and on some issues they may disagree with instead of some monolithic socialist firebrand marching his army of leftists against all that is good and holy.

I will still fight for my side(whatever that is since I am a libertarian that votes Dem) and I am sure I will stumble but I am trying to make a concerted effort to go back to rational discussion and leave my blasting away ideologically and screaming for the people I feel really deserve it, the talking heads and those with a national voice(like for instance Mr. Reagan that I recently blasted on another thread). Otherwise if I want my nation to heal its wounds and come together again I consider it my job to start and my responsibility when it fails.

I tend to think that he wouldn't have made it to the governorship of Texas without his father's backing or his father's money. He was relatively successful as governor because he was a genial, hands-off delegater. That style didn't suit his years in the WH particularly well, and many, correctly felt that he handed off our foreign policy decisions in the first term to Cheney.
The 2004 reelection campaign was filled with fear-mongering and warnings about new terrorist tactics, so I believe Bush won because folks were too scared to change leadership in the middle of a war.

Its also especially hard considering a few of the people in the Admin had also been involved in pumping up Russia's military might on paper in the 70's(when they were actually falling apart) to either excuse the ballooning of our defense budget or because they believed their fevered nightmares more than intelligence from the CIA. From my point of view the blame lays with either the CIA or the Admin and I fail to see an advantage for the CIA and would also note that they have and continue to rail against the charge that it was their fault. Personally I do not think they did it out of malice but instead they believed their fevered nightmares more than reality, something the Islamists suffer from as well, and after 911 they over reacted in such a huge way that they tarnished our nations honor. Not because they wanted to but because they were afraid but acting out of fear still makes you a coward and reacting instead of calmly and rationally looking at the evidence still makes you and your actions reactionary. Then again I still think if Bush had not stopped listening to Cheney we would also be in Iran right now on top of our two other occupations and due to oil prices we would have been in an even worse situation economically. I have often questioned though if Cheney did this because it had Bush's name on it so who cares or if he was really that paranoid, I think it was actually a little bit of both.

One other trick that was discussed in the media after 04 election but not before and is usually not discussed now is that they would have the CIA plant stories in the foreign press(technically illegal to do it in the US press) and then when questioned about the assertions of WMD's and the other reports the Admin would smile and agree that this was likely true. in other words they used CIA propaganda on US citizens legally by getting the media to ask about it instead of doing it themselves which would have been against the law but the result was the same. It was a lawyers trick but a telling one. Speaking of propaganda some investigative reports are saying(they are from left wing sources so take it with a grain of salt) that the DOD used its propaganda arm in the run up to Iraq by “suggesting” what “analysts” would be best for the MSM(which of course would explain the lack of balance on the discussion). If that is true I find it hard to believe that the Iraq invasion was anything but an illegal war(this is the only thing I would like trials about, it is against international law to go to war on trumped up intelligence, I would not try anyone for torture nor the rest but the illegal war thing if guilty is a travesty).

Gee, I wonder if our nation being attacked on 9/11 had anything to do with it?

I wonder if whoever was president on 9/11 might not have received such poll numbers..

I wonder what happened to Bush's approval ratings every year thereafter…

And the election was invalid because certain Americans held the wrong opinion? That's a stretch now isn't it. Elections 'don't count if the American people are not well informed'. Is that a new rule somewhere that I missed. How about all those people who thought Obama would close Gitmo during his first year? Does that make the last election invalid too?

OK, you don't like the election results but you are happy to cherry pick the poll numbers you like. You want to talk about the poll numbers of Bush at the end of his term but to ignore those in his first years as President in which he united the nation with a 91% approval on Gallup, a remarkable achievement indeed. In fact the best of any President ever in the history of Gallup, and at least 40 points higher than Obama has now. But you don't like those polls so you instead cherry pick those from his second term which are more comfortably consistent with your world view. Hey, that's ok, I won't attack you for cherry picking. A lot of people do it.

What is inarguable is that he was re-elected and served eight years, and was never impeached despite having opposition party majorities in Congress during his last two years. And he is now retired. And — I'm guessing — the facts on that just drive you crazy. So you join the original author in fantasizing about a future election in which you can 'get' Dick Cheney in your make believe world. Pretty harmless, I'd say, but don't expect anyone to take it seriously.

I mean you no harm. I didn't like a lot of things about Bush myself. But facts are facts no matter which ones you choose to focus on.

The only poll that counts is the election and Bush was handily re-elected. The faulty intelligence was well known by that point and incorporated into the judgement of the electorate. The Bush/Cheney team remains undefeated and has now retired. Better put some ice on it.

First of all, Bush was not “handily re-elected.” Bush defeated Kerry by an electoral vote of 286 to 251 and a popular vote of 50.7% to 48.3%. Historically speaking, those are some of the smallest winning margins ever in a presidential election.

Secondly, the idea that faulty intelligence was “incorporated into the judgement of the electorate” is something I find extremely dubious, given the fact that in April 2004, 57% of Americans polled said they believed that Iraq was “directly involved” in carrying out 9/11. If 57% of Americans erroneously believed in an Iraq-9/11 connection seven months before the election, it makes me seriously doubt that Americans (in general) were well informed regarding Iraq at the time of the election.

It seems to me, DaMav, that you are deliberately cherry-picking the numbers you want in a rather poor attempt to substantiate your point. The 50.7% that Bush won in the 2004 general election represents the apex of his polling numbers during the last 4 1/2 years of his presidency. Following the 2004 election, Bush's poll numbers steadily dwindled down to 30%–a fact that seems at odds with your “Bush was resoundingly vindicated” claim.

This would ring a lot truer if you had ever called for accountability for the crimes committed by Cheney and others in the Bush administration.

Ok, I have done so, being a huge critic of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld in the past, so I'll say it with a slight modification:

“The only time most Dems will want to talk about accountability for what happened is when they aren't in power.”

and I'll add

The only time most Republican will want to talk about accountability for what happened is when they aren't in power.

Hypocrisy is not limited to one party by any stretch of the imagination. I call out my own party and I call out the other one. Now lets see who will do so as well, and who will only look to Think Progress or Rush Limbaugh for talking points to spread, and will find times to agree with valid claims of the other side, not just with a further out on the wing element of your own party.

Of course if they actually won by some travesty of justice, the brightest dream could quickly turn into a nightmare of Nixonian proportions. Hmmmm maybe Howard Baker, Fred Thompson and Daniel Inouye are still available for “Watergate– The Sequel”.

Clearly, that is not what I'm saying, since I have written here critically about certain things our government continues doing now, which Bush and others did before.

Your comment would ring a lot truer if you start holding a Dem president to the same standards you hold the Repubs to. Perhaps for your next post you can give us a broad rundown about how hard it must be for you to support a president who does stuff that you once raised holy hell about.

I have, as I said above. And as for Glenn Greenwald's summary, I could not agree with him more — or you if you are agreeing with him. I don't know where you've been, but apparently it hasn't been near my posts.

And of course, Glenn has a lot more credibility writing that paragraph, since he *did* criticize Bush for all these things that he is now also criticizing Obama for. You have not done that.

The adjudication of the invasion of Iraq and other Bush actions and policies already occurred in 2004, and Bush was resoundingly vindicated. History has moved forward and Bush and Cheney have assumed the role of senior statesmen for their honored eight years of service.

Are you serious? Bush won with a mere 51% of the vote, and that's supposed to make us believe that his decision to invade Iraq has been vindicated? Perhaps you stopped paying any attention to polls after 2004, because polls since then have consistently shown that the American public does not believe that the United States should have gone to war in Iraq.

All the things that Bush & Cheney claimed Iraq had before the war–the WMDs, the aerial drones, the mobile bioweapons labs, the yellow cake, the aluminum tubes–none of them were never found. But, go ahead and keep telling yourself that Bush & Cheney have been “vindicated.”