quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Therefore, it is probably inaccurate to assume one knows the beliefs of anyone on a topic they haven't posted.
Didn't you say earlier that silence is a form of consent? I myself was going to make this assertion above if you hadn't beat me to it. It is also very difficult to guage the opinions of a person who is only interested in playing referee in a particular discussion. It would be nice if you made it clear (for us less perceptive participants ) that you were arguing on a point of fact instead of a point of belief or opinion. If you feel annoyed that others continually express their frustration with the government by making legal arguments, then remember that you often encourage people to substantiate their claims this way. Society often encourages people to make the distinction between "right" and "legal," (hence the anti-drinking ads aimed at underage college kids in California which list legality as the main reason why it is wrong to drink) This is also the only way that some people feel they can make their ideas sound more credible, even if they are mistaken about the legal details... You can hardly blame a person for being confused about that.
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quote:And he would have chosen far different judges for the Supreme Court bench.
Yep.
Perhaps Dag, you should wait and see what the Bush appointees do before you smile. Supreme court justices are notorious for disappointing.
True, but based on what I know so far, I'm at this point in time far happier than if Gore had appointed two justices (although O'Connor might not have quit).
Further, I have far more faith in each of these than I ever did in Souter. And there's still time for Kennedy to step back from the brink.
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Just imagine if the Democrats hadn't provided the necessary pressure to make Miers withdraw, Dag .
I'm happy with Alito, I remain skeptical on Roberts. I'm pretty certain Gore (no idea on Kerry) would have appointed a judge just as good as Roberts.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It's certainly one of the ironies of the Bush reelection. He screws up a bunch of stuff, then tells the nation to have enough faith in him to fix his own mistakes, and America believed in a second time, this, after going back on most of the campaign promises he made the first time around. America has only itself to blame I think, for falling for it.
Emphasis mine. Do you wanna back that up, Lyrhawn? I think it's more likely that he kept more campaign promises then he broke. If you want to jump on Bush, that's fine. Just please do it with the facts handy instead of just dogpiling.
I'm going to point you back to the post I made maybe three or four posts after that one:
quote:As for campaign promises, are you serious? Serious? Bush campaigned as a small government, domestic policy president who started a bunch of losing foreign wars aimed at a Christian themed nation building after specifically saying in the second debate in 1999 that he thinks nation building is wrong, and NOT the correct use of American troops.
He said he would eliminate the "death tax" and when Congress failed to kill it right out of the gate he let it die without so much as a mention at a press conference. He's overseen the greatest expansion of federal power in the last fifty years. If he had campaigned on the positions he actually took, on the surface you'd think he was a 1940's democrat. He most certainly did not live up to the majority or hell, even a minority of his major campaign promises.
Maybe if you just looked around more...?
I did look at that. You offered anecdotal evidence, no links, just more of your opinion. Nothing to back up the "most" part of your claim. I just did a google search, taking me 20 seconds. Here's what I found: Bush made 46% of his 2000 campaign promises after four years in office. "Despite his mixed record of success, the president has at least tried to follow through on nearly all of his commitments. Most have been presented to Congress as part of his annual budget or as legislation." Do you call going back on something as presenting it to Congress? Do you call most 54%? I was wrong about it being a majority the other way, but it's not like Bush didn't try at all. I chose that link because it actually listed the campaign promises. A lot of sites had rhetoric that didn't list the actual promises from 2000.
Thursday, September 2, 2004 Washington Post: "Thursday night, President Bush will accept the party's nomination for a second term here with a mixed record on those hard issues. On some -- tax cuts and education -- he made enormous progress toward his goals. On others -- Medicare, the military and his "compassion" agenda -- he made partial progress. And on the rest -- Social Security and attempting to "change the tone" of Washington -- nothing much has changed." And that was with 9/11 happening, radically changing his preidency. "Mixed record" is certainly not most. Tha man's no peach, but you're hardly being fair.
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Well, technically I was still right, and it wasn't opinion or anecdotal evidence, it was a statement of fact, regardless of the fact that I didn't offer a link to back up the now proven fact that I was right. And yeah, I'd call a majority "most." Maybe not the decisive number I was looking for, but still good enough.
Plus that list doesn't include the rhetoric that he used in the election, unless you contend that rhetoric doesn't count as a campaign promise? I think it does. He said the American military would be used for nation building, and in dramatic fashion he reversed that promise and spend hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives to do so. He said he was for small government, instead he reversed that decision and oversaw the greatest increase in the government since FDR. Those are not anecdotes or opinions, they are facts. Facts that I don't think anyone disputes.
As for that actual list of broken and fulfilled promises, on a cut and dry manner the numbers bear me out. However, not every issue is equally important or carries equal weight. A farm bill initiative isn't the same thing as the war in Iraq. The list is too long to do line by line, but I'll go back later and cover the major issues.
I give him a bit of a break for 9/11 happening, but that's not a carte blanche excuse.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Just imagine if the Democrats hadn't provided the necessary pressure to make Miers withdraw, Dag
Last time I checked alot of republicans were scowling when Bush announced Miers was being selected.
I still hold Buchannan as the worst president in American History.
Watched with his head in his hands as the Union crumbled, and the only assertive thing he could do was send an Army to Utah on the strength of 3 witnesses (I mean no need to send an official government inspectiion commitee), just send an army have them ignore the mini civil war going on in Kansas and go to Utah.
Oh and when people actually start succeding from the Union, dont use troops then, just sit around dispondent in office.
Apprently he said to Lincoln while he was leaving "If you are as happy going into the presidency as I am leaving it, you are truely happy."
quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: You think Gore would not have reacted militarily to 9/11? Or that, had Gore been elected, he wouldn't have attempted to provide disaster relief in Indonesia, Pakistan and New Orleans?
Did I say any of that? No. But it's unlikely he would have used the spectre of 9/11 to push for a unilateral invasion of Iraq. The costs of that have been so high they don't even acknowledge parts of the budget. It also seems unlikely he would have attempted to bribe U.S. taxpayers with paybacks that would later end up taken back by local taxes in many places. It's just remotely possible we would have had some tiny fraction of the surplus built up during the Clinton presidency left when the various disasters hit.
If the article's claim that Bush has built up a larger deficit than every president before him combined is true, Bush has performed with a truly stunning level of financial incompetence. Or perhaps stunningly well, if he's following the alleged neoconservative agenda of crippling the federal government to the point it will be incapable of action.
Ultimately, fair means or foul, Bush took office. Anything Clinton or Gore would or wouldn't have done remains speculation. But even by a fairly generous standard, Bush's performance has been abysmal.
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BlackBlade: yeah, but its likely neither side would have had the oomph to force her away if the other side hadn't opposed her.
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quote:If the article's claim that Bush has built up a larger deficit than every president before him combined is true, Bush has performed with a truly stunning level of financial incompetence.
There is no doubt that the Bush administration has overseen an enormous increase in the national debt, but it's not greater than all presidents before him combined. In Sept. 2001, the national debt was 5.8 trillion dollars. (This would the be the beginning of the first fiscal year under Bush's leadership). As of today, the national debt clock says the debt 8.35 trillion. If the debt continues to grow at the same rate through the end of Bush's presidency (assuming he does not leave office prematurely), the National Debt will be around 10 trillion, not quite double what it was when he entered office.
For comparison, During Reagan's administration (9/81 - 9/89), the debt rose from 1 trillion to 2.89 trillion. During Bush I administration, (9/89 to 9/93) the debt rose from 2.89 trillion to 4.4 trillion.
Reagan wins hands down for the largest % increase in the national debt. Bush I oversaw an impress growth in the debt but he still comes in behind Reagan in terms of percent growth and behind his son in terms of dollars per year in office. Bush II is way out in front in terms of total dollars added to the debt.
[ May 03, 2006, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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I bow to your superior research, Rabbit. Especially in the face of my current lethargy with regard to doing research. (Forgive me, I'm recovering from stomach flu.)
" I just did a google search, taking me 20 seconds. Here's what I found: Bush made 46% of his 2000 campaign promises after four years in office."
I bow before the divining power that is google...but this such a subjective judgment, you can't really claim it as "evidence." Think about what that statment assumes, even if it from a major newspaper. Which promises are counted as being made, and which how must a promise be kept? What is a promise and not a goal? What is a categorical pledge?
There is no great big list called "campaign promises" with a bunch of items next to check boxes. If you're trying to imply that what you did is research... I wouldn't be too sure.
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quote:posted by The Rabbit: There is no doubt that the Bush administration has overseen an enormous increase in the national debt, but it's not greater than all presidents before him combined.
The article didn't say he increased the national debt more than all other presidents. It said he borrowed more between 2001 and 2005 (about 1.05 trillion) than all other presidents combined.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: JohnynotsoBravo:
" I just did a google search, taking me 20 seconds. Here's what I found: Bush made 46% of his 2000 campaign promises after four years in office."
I bow before the divining power that is google...but this such a subjective judgment, you can't really claim it as "evidence." Think about what that statment assumes, even if it from a major newspaper. Which promises are counted as being made, and which how must a promise be kept? What is a promise and not a goal? What is a categorical pledge?
There is no great big list called "campaign promises" with a bunch of items next to check boxes. If you're trying to imply that what you did is research... I wouldn't be too sure.
Read the article. It very clearly said it was talking about specific statements made by then Texas Gov. Bush while campaigning. Knight Ridder has been compiling these kinds of articles about campaigns for a while now. It very clearly lists the specific promise that was kept or not. The article did not deal in vague generalites like making American government honest again or something like that.
If you don't trust newspapers, take a journalism class and find out what you have to do to meet standards at a major newspaper for research. When I did at the University of Washington (which isn't high on the list of schools who give Communications/Journalism degrees), anyone who so much as misspelled a name (as you did my username above) in their written article got an "F" for that piece.
I didn't call what I did research. I merely offered more evidence than opinion about Lyrhawn's claim. I did the very minimum to get Lyrhawn to clarify, as he did above, that "most" only meant a majority. To me, "most" means "almost all" or at the minimum "greater than 75%" otherwise I would have used "majority." For example, "Joe, eat most of your dinner before you get dessert," would mean eating almost all of dinner.
I understand that the article's measure seems subjective in that it involves some judgement, but then I would venture to ask which of the claims you would question, and what evidence you would have of those claims being false. Is there evidence of partisanship or bias? Or are you objecting to the article purely on principle and not practice?
Also, if there is no measure of whether a candidate has fulfilled his/her campaign promises, why would you vote for a candidate at least in part on his/her campaign promises? No measure of whether a campaign promise was kept would also mean that Lyrhawn's comment about broken campaign promises was meaningless because one could argue that they were ALL kept.
quote:posted by The Rabbit: There is no doubt that the Bush administration has overseen an enormous increase in the national debt, but it's not greater than all presidents before him combined.
The article didn't say he increased the national debt more than all other presidents. It said he borrowed more between 2001 and 2005 (about 1.05 trillion) than all other presidents combined.
Juxtapose, The increase in the National Debt and the amount the government borrows are, to the best of my knowledge, the same thing. The only way the national debt can increase is by borrowing.
At the beginning of Bush first fiscal year (9/30/2001), the outstanding federal debt (i.e that cumulative amount borrowed but not repaid by all previous presidents was 5.8 trillion dollars). Bt 9/30/2005, that amount had increase to 7.9 trillion. Unless there is someway to incur debt without borrow, the numbers indicate that Federal Government, under Bush, borrowed 4.1 trillion dollars between 2001 and 2005. This is much more than the number cited in the article, but still not more than all his predicessors combined.
I'm not claiming, by any means that Bush hasn't been singularly irresponsible in his fiscal policy. He has borrowed more than any other single president, even when adjusted for inflation. But Reagan and Bush I borrowed so much that its no longer easy for any president to borrow more than all others combined.
It would be accurate to say that Bush I and Bush II combined borrowed more than all other presidents combined. It is also noteworthy that Reagan, Bush I and Bush II combined, borrowed nearly three times the amoung borrowed by all other presidents combined.
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quote:Juxtapose, The increase in the National Debt and the amount the government borrows are, to the best of my knowledge, the same thing. The only way the national debt can increase is by borrowing.
I always kind of thought the same thing. But when a Princeton professor of History uses it to mean something different, I'm willing to take his word for it unless/until I learn differently. Perhaps in the context of government operations only certain kinds of transactions qualify as "borrowing." I'm trying to do a search on it now, so we'll see.
EDIT - He might not have been counting government bonds. Bonds are nearly always spoken of as bought or sold. If so, he could be considering them commodities for sale, rather than loans, though I'm not sure. The search continues.
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quote:Originally posted by JonnyNotSoBravo: If you don't trust newspapers, take a journalism class and find out what you have to do to meet standards at a major newspaper for research. When I did at the University of Washington (which isn't high on the list of schools who give Communications/Journalism degrees), anyone who so much as misspelled a name (as you did my username above) in their written article got an "F" for that piece.
It my experience, the "rigorous" standards of major newspapers can't save journalists from being blissfully ignorant of what is important, or relevant or human about any given story. A paper can be "correct" and can pass muster based on hard standards for accuracy, but as you must know if you took a jouralism class, or if you are a human being, this is not going to stop the journalist from getting almost everything wrong. Wrong in a different sense than is plainly important to a major paper or a news network though, wrong in the sense that doesn't stop selling papers and ads.
Its hard for me to be too specific about this because it is a generalized observation and complaint about the media, but I feel that the media's perception of itself, its place in the fabric of our lives is far different from the reality. If you've ever been the focus of a newspaper article, you'll probably agree that the picture painted in that article is different from what you felt was important. The fact that you remember spelling as the life or death of an article tells me that form and presentation were emphasized, rather than the real world value of the content.
Failing that, you'll acknowledge that the mere fact of the media, having the media present and the possibility of having an article written about something changes the nature of that thing. In the laws of human interaction, Heisenberg plays a key role. That is why I NEVER trust judgements like the one you posted, even though I read the articles and try to figure out why some of the things in them got there. I fear that few go that far, few think about why the article is written, who writes it and why. The power in media, the power of free speech is huge, beyond political power in the role of shaping public perception, but that power is virtually unfocused. That's not a bad thing, but it is an important thing, I feel, to keep in mind when dealing with what I am told.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: JohnynotsoBravo:
" I just did a google search, taking me 20 seconds. Here's what I found: Bush made 46% of his 2000 campaign promises after four years in office."
I bow before the divining power that is google...but this such a subjective judgment, you can't really claim it as "evidence." Think about what that statment assumes, even if it from a major newspaper. Which promises are counted as being made, and which how must a promise be kept? What is a promise and not a goal? What is a categorical pledge?
There is no great big list called "campaign promises" with a bunch of items next to check boxes. If you're trying to imply that what you did is research... I wouldn't be too sure.
Read the article. It very clearly said it was talking about specific statements made by then Texas Gov. Bush while campaigning. Knight Ridder has been compiling these kinds of articles about campaigns for a while now. It very clearly lists the specific promise that was kept or not. The article did not deal in vague generalites like making American government honest again or something like that.
If you don't trust newspapers, take a journalism class and find out what you have to do to meet standards at a major newspaper for research. When I did at the University of Washington (which isn't high on the list of schools who give Communications/Journalism degrees), anyone who so much as misspelled a name (as you did my username above) in their written article got an "F" for that piece.
I didn't call what I did research. I merely offered more evidence than opinion about Lyrhawn's claim. I did the very minimum to get Lyrhawn to clarify, as he did above, that "most" only meant a majority. To me, "most" means "almost all" or at the minimum "greater than 75%" otherwise I would have used "majority." For example, "Joe, eat most of your dinner before you get dessert," would mean eating almost all of dinner.
I understand that the article's measure seems subjective in that it involves some judgement, but then I would venture to ask which of the claims you would question, and what evidence you would have of those claims being false. Is there evidence of partisanship or bias? Or are you objecting to the article purely on principle and not practice?
Also, if there is no measure of whether a candidate has fulfilled his/her campaign promises, why would you vote for a candidate at least in part on his/her campaign promises? No measure of whether a campaign promise was kept would also mean that Lyrhawn's comment about broken campaign promises was meaningless because one could argue that they were ALL kept.
One could argue that yes, but it would be a ridiculous argument with no traction whatsoever. When Bush says that he doesn't think US troops should be used for nation building, that is a campaign promise to me. He doesn't actually come out and pledge it officially, he's telling you his position right there. When he changes it, it's a reversal.
When the president calls democrats irresponsible when it comes to the economy and spending, and then oversees a massive increase in the debt and budget without vetoing a single bill, and cuts taxes for the rich to boot, I call that a breaking of a campaign promise.
And these are major issues, that I give far more weight to than promising to make $500 dollars worth of school supplies deductable for school teachers. That, while important, cannot change the fate of the entire nation in a shot. You can't do that in a cut and dry method. Some promises are more important than others.
Orincoro is right too, in, what do you consider a promise? So far as I'm concerned, his rhetoric is a promise too. If he doesn't mean it, he shouldn't say it, or he's being dishonest, and should be held accountable for it.
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quote:One could argue that yes, but it would be a ridiculous argument with no traction whatsoever. When Bush says that he doesn't think US troops should be used for nation building, that is a campaign promise to me. He doesn't actually come out and pledge it officially, he's telling you his position right there. When he changes it, it's a reversal.
Technicalities aside, I still don't want troops used for nation building, so Bush's reversal on this issue is disappointing.
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I'm somewhat more ambivilent when it comes to nation building, but I think that any nationing building we may do with our troops should have a detailed plan behind it that that has undergone extremely intense scrutiny, rather than a general idea that everyone there is going to greet us with flowers and open arms. Said plan should involve, for example, having an ample supply of people who speak the language.
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) that you were arguing on a point of fact instead of a point of belief or opinion. If you feel annoyed that others continually express their frustration with the government by making legal arguments, then remember that you often encourage people to substantiate their claims this way. Society often encourages people to make the distinction between "right" and "legal," (hence the anti-drinking ads aimed at underage college kids in California which list legality as the main reason why it is wrong to drink) This is also the only way that some people feel they can make their ideas sound more credible, even if they are mistaken about the legal details... You can hardly blame a person for being confused about that.
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