quote:When retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey criticized the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war three years ago, he was lambasted as an armchair general and deemed an adversary by the Pentagon. So even McCaffrey was surprised to find himself in the Oval Office this week giving President Bush his thoughts on Iraq.
A White House long accused of squelching internal dissent and ignoring outside viewpoints has been reaching out in its moment of weakness to prominent figures who have disagreed with the president. Bush just hired a Treasury secretary who opposed his policy on global warming and a press secretary who dismissed his domestic agenda as timid and listless.
The article goes on to list meetings with former Secretaries of State (including M. Albright.
There are so many thoughts running through my head.
- would we be in Iraq right now if he'd done this from the start?
- why the sudden change?
- is he listening or is this window dressing?
- hiring critics in top jobs is probably easy when there are so many critics. It might difficult to find qualified people who agree...
- ah look, our little Georgie is growing up!
- about effing time!
- NOW can we know who helped set the Nation's energy policy back in the first term, pretty please?
- I told you the pod people had kidnapped the President!
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posted
Yeah, he's been known to invite critics to these sorts of talks for a while. I think its better than not doing it, but it hasn't seemed to have any particular effect except to give him guidance in managing public opinion.
I mean, all the treasury secretaries he's appointed have had pretty good credentials, and have worked hard at managing the economy responsibly. However, that's gotten them fired, so far. There are rumors that the new treasury secretary extracted a pledge of a certain degree of independence in exchange for taking the post, since until the announcement the general consensus was none of the well-credentialed people were willing to take it because they'd be overly constrained.
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Although there's some hint that this is the influence of the new Chief of Staff, Joshua Bolten.
It'd be nice to think that the insular group that President Bush started out with is finally breaking up. I fear their influence on another future GOP presidency, frankly.
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If the Democrats will refrain from nominating a northeastern liberal, then they could win with practically anyone, I think. Northeastern liberals have the best shot at the nomination, because of the way the Democratic primaries are structured, but they have the worst shot at the presidency of any flavor of Democrat. The last one who won was Kennedy, and I wonder if even he would have won without his opponent being Richard Nixon, who was so adept at shooting himself in the foot.
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If the Democrats will refrain from nominating a northeastern liberal, then they could win with practically anyone, I think. Northeastern liberals have the best shot at the nomination, because of the way the Democratic primaries are structured, but they have the worst shot at the presidency of any flavor of Democrat. The last one who won was Kennedy, and I wonder if even he would have won without his opponent being Richard Nixon, who was so adept at shooting himself in the foot.
Esp. Hilary. If Hilary's on the democratic ballot, we'll have a third GOP term.
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My first thoughts are that he wants to get more complete information from his detractors, so he can better search emails and phone records for "sedition."
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IIRC, most Democrats that run for high office, particularly those that win, are Southern. Of course, keep in mind that Hilary is Southern, too :-) .
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Yes, I always vote for them, (the northeastern liberals) and they always lose. They are not centrist enough, I suppose, and fail to appeal to the broadest cross section of the public.
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She's Southern, but...she's not really identified as Southern, so far as I can tell, in the minds of the people. Well, mostly because she's from Illinois.
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I wish the Democrats would come up with a real platform, and some issues beyond "We're not Republican."
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Well I think the trouble is that the Republicans have compromised on so many issues in the "neo-con" movement, that alot of what Democrats used to stand for is now the common American vision. In other ways, certain parts of the old conservative line are a big part of the democratic ideal now too. The parties shift with time just like anything, and I think at this point its very difficult to know what makes Democrats different from Republicans, except that we're NOT them, and don't want to be.
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Hillary is more centrist than most give her credit for, but she's been painted so marvelously well by Republicans as a radical leftist that I doubt anything she can do now will change the mind of the public. Even looking at her voting record should do it, but I doubt anyone would take the time.
And yeah, considering she's only been in the northeast for the last six years, I'd find the lable amusing if it weren't for its effects.
Quite frankly, I'd love to see Russ Feingold run, but I doubt he'd ever get the nomination. Too much of a maverick for mainstream America, which sadly seems to demand that it's Presidents fit a mold, instead of having new good ideas. That and he's had two divorces, which kills his popularity with the values voters. I think he'd lose based on that, which is sad, as a senator he's been stellar in my opinion.
I've given up hope of Democrats coming together to come up with any sort of a message. They just need one person. One person with some charisma, energy, electability, and some great ideas who can totally take over the party, and force them all to join his/her bandwagon. Without one unifying force, I really don't see them coming together to do anything but villify everything Republicans have to say, even when they come up with the rare good idea. I am hopeful for 2008, and even for the midterms ("midterm elections, they come right in the middle! midterm elections, they matter quite a little!") in 2006, but with each passing day of Republican downslide, and Democratic lollygagging, my hopes dwindle a little bit more.
As to the topic of this thread, I'm really not impressed. If anyone watched when Madeline Albright was on either the Daily Show or Colbert Report (can't remember which), she said that she and a lot of other Secretaries of State were all called back to have a round table discussion or sorts with Bush. She sat right next to him. They were all asked to give very short opinions on how they felt Iraq and other international events were going. Albright gave her honest opinion of his failures. At the end of the meeting, Bush thanked them, and then more or less told them that he was still going to stay the course, but he appreciated what they had to say.
Listening for the sake of listening is useless.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Was Gore a Northeast Liberal? Democrats end up nominating Northeast liberals because that's where the good schools are, among other reasons, and the better part of the long conversation of democracy and citizenship in a free society, and the attending virtues and problems of those institutions, has occured in the Northeast. Northeast liberals are a varied bunch, but I happen to like Bill Bradley and Howard Dean, and I believe that both would have carried out the office of President with more dignity and wisdom than our current president.
I just happen to think that too many Americans don't believe that such concerns, like the problems of democracy and the demands citizenship, should matter in a Chief executive. When push comes to shove- and since we do have violent enemies, there is going to be shoving -they want a ruthless person in the position of executor, a precarious position for any democrat, someone who will cut taxes and kill our enemies, or at least talk about cutting taxes, real or imagined. It's how Ike beat Stevenson, twice, it's how Bush won, twice.
In a deep way, Americans want a President who is not slow to kill non-Americans, in the same way that those same people want a DA and Sheriff who can be considered tough on crime. Americans don't want "fair on crime," or "thoughtful on crime," they want "Tough on Crime."
I think it's a shame on the character of this country, and I think that it degrades the quality of our life, but I don't see it changing anytime in the future, unless the Republicans nominate someone like Alan Keyes.
I actually think that it takes queer kind of courage to vote for a Democratic President, the kind of courage that Kennedy talks about in Profiles in Courage.
Voting for Stevenson, Mondale, Dukakis, Kennedy, Gore, and the Clintons is a leap of faith, faith in humanity, education and our better angels. Whereas voting for Ike, Nixon, Reagan, or the Bushes was like voting for known commodities. These guys would keep the world safe, even if it meant punishing everyone but you in doing it.
I've made some overly general assertions, but I do truly believe that fear is what casted votes for Bush in the last election, not all of them, but a too significant percentage, and it's tough to believe that I live in a nation of political cowards.
It's the same sort of cowardice that requires loyalty oaths and screens prickly questions at Town Hall meetings. One would think that the nation would revolt from such a candidate out of principle, but no, we embrace it and vote for it, paving the way to our own degradation.
I think this unique brand of political courage is the reason why so many journalists are liberal. It's not a physical courage. I happen to think that it's more human than physical courage. It's the courage of Seymour Hersh or Adlai Stevenson that's different in quality and kind than the courage of Pat Tillman.
_____
I do worry that many Democrats, especially strategists, are losing this sense of courage in the name of winning nation wide elections.
posted
Was there some planet on which President Bill Clinton was known for being tough in the use of America's military against enemies of the USA? It can't be planet Earth at least.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Actually I'm not talking about Republicans-one potential response to my question would be, "Of course those who voted against him wouldn't think that."
I'm asking that about the people who voted for him, who are generally most often believed to have been voting in substantially part due to the economy.
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quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: Was Gore a Northeast Liberal?
I might be wrong, but I was under the impression that Gore was from Tennessee or somewhere like that.
As far as the original question on the thread, I think the whole answer lies in Bush's poll numbers. His popularity is at a low ebb, and he wants to be perceived as being open to new ideas. Of course, since Bush is all about image and not so much about substance, I'm not fooled.
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I don't consider Gore a Northeast liberal, either. Then again, I consider people from Texas southern, so geography isn't everything.
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Doesn't matter where they are from originally. So long as they went to Harvard or Yale, the Republicans can pin the Ivy League elitist label on them.
Regardless of the fact that Republicans went there too, including Bush, who by the way actually IS from the northeast.
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