I was directed to this article yesterday and found it very disturbing. It reports
quote:President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”
Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
I'm generally sceptical of reports where the sources are unidentified but if this is even vaguely true then things are even worse than I'd feared in Washington.
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
Yeah, this does sound pretty spurious on its face.
Though I've got to ask, how would any of US deal with the barrage of hatred and criticism that has been directed at Bush since he entered the race, particularly right after he took office, and since the beginning of the Iraq War. I think I'd be a little nuts Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
I've already pointed out that the same site of full of crazed rants and advertisements for more crazed rants--apparently not from any particular point of view, but anti-semetic ones look most common.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
The scary thing is I think that article might just be true... Too frightening to think about... I'm not some hysterical anti-Bushite... Mostly I am looking for the truth... Especially with election day fast approaching.
Posted by Jalapenoman (Member # 6575) on :
Hmmm, a post on Bush's mental state......I guess that this assumes that Bush is "mental." The truth, however, is that there is not form of mentality in that brain dead body.
Look closely and you might see the strings!
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Well, your well-reasoned, balanced posts have certainly convinced me that you're highly intelligent, Jalapenoman. I wish you could be our president.
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
That is sarcasme.
Posted by Jalapenoman (Member # 6575) on :
But I don't want to be president, I want to be emperor!
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Sorry. To be emperor you have to do more than hurl poorly constructed insults at political opponents. Maybe you can find a baby to kick?
Posted by Jalapenoman (Member # 6575) on :
But the title of the thread lends itself so much to the cheap insult!
I also don't kick babys. If they are badly injured, they cannot grow up to be my loyal subjects.
By the way, I feel just as stronly about Kerry, his potential running mate (Bill Richardson-my Governor), and Cheney. I find them all to be loathsome and immoral men. I feel that, once again, the better candidates were defeated early in the primarys in favor of the politicians.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I also don't kick babys. If they are badly injured, they cannot grow up to be my loyal subjects.
The you can't be emperor. It requires a certain ruthlessness.
I think I can find you a nice Duchy to rule...
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
I passed a duchy some time ago. It was on the left-hand side.
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
I didn't know you were from Senegal, Moose.
Somehow I don't buy the article. But, then, I believe the best about people until I see otherwise from their behavior, firsthand.
Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :
Sometimes you wish there was some sort of rule or screening process to make sure that every president was a great man, a great person. I don't think George Bush or John Kerry are either Great men. I think they are both men who have aspired to potray greatness so that they might hold power. That to me is a sad sad thing.
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
The problem with that is that we'd only actually have a president once every thirty or so years. Being a great president is an arcane mix of charisma, intelligence, knowledge, experience, and a desire to lead.
Most of our elected presidents had at least an above-average amount of one of those things, but not enough of anything to be of note.
Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :
Here is the thing though, I can find a man like that in every city of a million, they aren't all that rare. Whats rare is for them to become involved in politics and have the push to become president.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Papa Moose: Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
Black Fox: Right. They lack the will to want the job. That's the sheer pin in the whole thing. If a person doesn't want the job, they'd never make a good president.
The problem is that most people who want the job are ill-suited. The power involved attracts the worst sort of folk. Police officers are often not-nice people because they're attracted by the power and not the desire to be an entirely positive force in the community.
[ June 06, 2004, 11:03 PM: Message edited by: WheatPuppet ]
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
In Benedictine monasteries, if a man wants to be abbot, he is never elected to abbot. It's men who posses the qualities of abbot and who don't WANT to be abbot who are most often elected.
Poor souls.
Posted by kerinin (Member # 4860) on :
quote: to make sure that every president was a great man, a great person
i hate to be sacrilegious, but when have we had a "great man" as our president. history tends to rose-tint our past, and god knows that they teach us in middle school is only half the truth.
perhaps we've had presidents who did great things, but even these have been tempered with great failings and oversights. the truth is that presidents are just like everyone else; they're people who try to do their job as best as they can; sometimes they do better than others, sometimes not. as much as i disagree with bush and am bored with kerry, i have no doubt that they both believe that their plan for america is the best of all possible plans.
[ June 07, 2004, 11:27 AM: Message edited by: kerinin ]
Posted by Jalapenoman (Member # 6575) on :
Sorry, but I cannot go along with the idea that each president believes their plan is best for America. What they probably believe is that their plan is best for themselves and their cronies.
An overly obvious example of this is to be found in Mexico, where the president serves for six years. When Jose Lopez Portillo was elected president, he was worth about $1 million in U.S. dollars. When he left the office, he was worth about $600 million.
While I don't think our presidents are affected on such a grand scale, I think such graft still goes on (think Cheney and Halliburton).
Remember: absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
What about Cheney and Haliburton? He's not getting anything out of that realtionship -- it's just political dead weight.
Posted by ssywak (Member # 807) on :
Papa Moose,
Are you sure that the Duchy was on the left-hand side? Or did you pass it on the left-hand side, making it a Duchy on the right-hand side?
I do wish you would think these things through before you go about making such blanket statements!
Posted by kerinin (Member # 4860) on :
quote: absolute power corrupts absolutely
true, but when was the last time you did something you found morally wrong? sure, people find really twisted ways of justifying what they do, but except in rare cases (which we usually refer to as psychotics) people's actions seem justified to themselves.
Posted by Jalapenoman (Member # 6575) on :
Sorry, but I don't consider myself right or left sided. I am repulsed by the far right and far left equally. I also think that most centrists are too much like fence sitters and are afraid to give an opinion. Politically, I consider myself an independent moderate who has voted for an equal amount of repubs and demos (but no libertarians or members of Perot's party-whatever he calls it).
In the last presidential election, I actually got a write in ballot and voted for my son. For the rest of his life, he will be able to say that he got one vote for president of the U.S. and came in fourth in the voting in Torrance County, New Mexico (after Bush, Gore, and Nader-Buchanan got no votes in our county). I could not justify a vote for any of the candidates, even as a "lesser of two evils" vote.
By the way, with all of the Florida mess going on, the major ballot fiasco in New Mexico got almost no national press. Did you know the winner in NM was changed three times? DId you know that there are two different final counts (depending on two different decisions)? One had Bush winning by 5 votes, the other had GOre winning by about 230 (the official count based on a court decision).
As NM only had 5 electoral votes and would not change the electoral count, regardless of the Florida problems, we were ignored.
Another by the way: Kerry can have our governor (Bill Richardson-former Clinton Energy Secretary) as his running mate. He is a terrible governor who had spent a major state surplus and has put the state in deficit spending and major debt in less than two years.
Posted by Black Fox (Member # 1986) on :
If you ask me it is a great man, or great person who is willing to not be a saint, the one who is willing to sully themselves for the greater good of that makes sense. Yes FDR, Reagan, Kennedy, and many others were great presidents. Were they anything close to perfect? No! What in my mind makes a great leader is not so much his perfectioin, but his ability to rise to excellencer in troubled times.
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