Rush, Obama, Terrorist, Traitor and Cindy Brady

[Cats Cats Cats]

"Destroying the economy in order to bring us closer to One World Govt."

Right because he was in power the last 8 years.

Everybody knows that Bush tanked the economy in order to have us in such a horrific debt that we couldn't afford ANY social programs.  Thus cleaning the United States of any social programs or schooling for the poor and middle class.  You are obviously wearing your a nickel foil hat.  Put the tin foil back on and change the channel back!  Totally different voices!

[Neptune]

I think he tanked the economy at the behest of oil company CEOs under executive order 911, aka "Damn the economy, that money is ours!"  He hoped the illusion of stability would last until his administration ended.

Oopsy!!

Seriously though, anyone who thinks Bush was intelligent enough to be remotely diabolical, wasn't paying attention.

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by Neptune


Seriously though, anyone who thinks Bush was intelligent enough to be remotely diabolical, wasn't paying attention.

I don't think Bush is as dumb as people like to think. And he certainly surrounded himself with diabolical types.

Not that I think he deliberately tanked the economy. He just followed the party line of less regulation, less taxes, more war, and on and on.

[Neptune]

quote:Originally posted by nathanm

I don't think Bush is as dumb as people like to think. And he certainly surrounded himself with diabolical types.

For me the line between diabolical genius and moronic puppet wasn't crossed.  The president has the power to do a lot of things that are not legal.  That he crossed every one of them except one, makes him the moronic puppet type in my eyes.

That line being; he didn't suspend the gov't and declare himself dictator.  Any diabolical genius would have gone all the way.

[Gaspar]

He's only a couple of weeks in, and is struggling to put together a decent leadership team.  This always takes a while, and judgment should be reserved.

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by Neptune

quote:Originally posted by nathanm

I don't think Bush is as dumb as people like to think. And he certainly surrounded himself with diabolical types.

For me the line between diabolical genius and moronic puppet wasn't crossed.  The president has the power to do a lot of things that are not legal.  That he crossed every one of them except one, makes him the moronic puppet type in my eyes.

That line being; he didn't suspend the gov't and declare himself dictator.  Any diabolical genius would have gone all the way.

I always looked at Bush as something of a tragic figure.  A conventional thinker plunged into highly unconventional times.  So what happens?  He can't handle the rigor the times demand so defaults to ideology.  The tragedy is that, instead of his Dad's (moderate) folks, it was the neocons that got ahold of him first.

[Cats Cats Cats]

quote:Originally posted by we vs us

quote:Originally posted by Neptune

quote:Originally posted by nathanm

I don't think Bush is as dumb as people like to think. And he certainly surrounded himself with diabolical types.

For me the line between diabolical genius and moronic puppet wasn't crossed.  The president has the power to do a lot of things that are not legal.  That he crossed every one of them except one, makes him the moronic puppet type in my eyes.

That line being; he didn't suspend the gov't and declare himself dictator.  Any diabolical genius would have gone all the way.

I always looked at Bush as something of a tragic figure.  A conventional thinker plunged into highly unconventional times.  So what happens?  He can't handle the rigor the times demand so defaults to ideology.  The tragedy is that, instead of his Dad's (moderate) folks, it was the neocons that got ahold of him first.

Cheney, Rumsfeld chose Bush to run because they knew they could mold him.  They knew they could ride him in to office.

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by cmatt1

quote:Originally posted by we vs us

quote:Originally posted by Neptune

quote:Originally posted by nathanm

I don't think Bush is as dumb as people like to think. And he certainly surrounded himself with diabolical types.

For me the line between diabolical genius and moronic puppet wasn't crossed.  The president has the power to do a lot of things that are not legal.  That he crossed every one of them except one, makes him the moronic puppet type in my eyes.

That line being; he didn't suspend the gov't and declare himself dictator.  Any diabolical genius would have gone all the way.

I always looked at Bush as something of a tragic figure.  A conventional thinker plunged into highly unconventional times.  So what happens?  He can't handle the rigor the times demand so defaults to ideology.  The tragedy is that, instead of his Dad's (moderate) folks, it was the neocons that got ahold of him first.

Cheney, Rumsfeld chose Bush to run because they knew they could mold him.  They knew they could ride him in to office.

I don't know.  I think things were very different in 2000, including Bush and his team.  It was never a foregone conclusion that he would even take office, so I'm not sure I can see a grand conspiracy reaching back to the election.  

One of the mistakes I think we liberals make in understanding the Bush years is forgetting to take into consideration how 9/11 and the ensuing years reshaped both the Administration and GOP ideology in general.  Cheney wasn't always Darth Vader (even his friends -- like Scowcroft -- testified later that he'd become unrecognizable), and Rumsfeld had been tapped to be a reformer, not a wartime Sec Def.

[Neptune]

quote:Originally posted by we vs us

One of the mistakes I think we liberals make in understanding the Bush years is forgetting to take into consideration how 9/11 and the ensuing years reshaped both the Administration and GOP ideology in general.  Cheney wasn't always Darth Vader (even his friends -- like Scowcroft -- testified later that he'd become unrecognizable), and Rumsfeld had been tapped to be a reformer, not a wartime Sec Def.

I doubt that's a mistake.  There's a few problems there;

1) pre-911 it's nearly impossible to say what Bush and company were thinking.  Sure, outward appearance may have been all tax-cuts and games of golf, there's no telling what was going on inside.  They had about 8 months to form some kind of normal other than what happened in the last 7 years.  Given the amount of time this administration spent in Crawford Texas, it's hard to believe Bush was ever interested in being more than a place-holder and political mouthpiece.

2) Both Cheney and Rumsfeld have a pre-Bush track record.  Cheney in particular was all about abusing executive power.  Rumsfeld was a hawk with strong ties to Cheney and the architect; Wolfowitz.  All were interested in securing Middle Eastern oil.  All the military strategies they came to this job with, revolved around the Middle East.  And they were good buddies.  Their 30 year track record absolutely fits the last 7 years of the Bush administration.  They learned from Nixon, of all people.

3) Philosophically, if 911 caused "the good" to become "the evil", how good were they?  Paranoia is not an admirable trait in an executive.  Neither is abdicating power and responsibility out of lack of knowledge.  If 911 caused that kind of shift, what was the nature of the executive at the time?  Disengaged from reality?  Incapable of logic?  The gov't ends up looking like a prepubescent teen, they have zits, hairs growing in strange places, weird feelings; and by god their gonna take it out on somebody.  And when they're "right", you're gonna have to live with it because they aren't gonna change.

IMO, 911 has been taken into consideration.  It does not sufficiently explain what happened during the Bush Administration.

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by we vs us


One of the mistakes I think we liberals make in understanding the Bush years is forgetting to take into consideration how 9/11 and the ensuing years reshaped both the Administration and GOP ideology in general.  Cheney wasn't always Darth Vader (even his friends -- like Scowcroft -- testified later that he'd become unrecognizable), and Rumsfeld had been tapped to be a reformer, not a wartime Sec Def.

That's just revisionist history. Cheney was scheming from the first day, what with his secret energy task force and all.

And Rumsfeld, a reformer? That guy goes all the way back to Nixon.

So far, I'm willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt with his DC insider cabinet appointments. You do need folks who are familiar with how to beat a bureaucracy into shape. If there's strong leadership from the top, it's possible they can be prevented from slipping into their old ways entirely.

Bush was a weak leader back in Texas, so it was obvious that situation was never going to turn out well.

And yes, I certainly can believe given his surrounding himself with Chicago-schoolers, that the enormous run-up in debt was a deliberate plan to choke off social programs specifically and government in general. We've done it time and time again around the world through the IMF and World Bank. I don't, however, think that anybody's plan was to destroy the economy as a whole.

There certainly was a plan on the part of bank execs to sell mortgages to anybody they could so they could make out like bandits when they securitized and sold the mortgages, though. That they didn't think any farther ahead than that is merely further evidence of the unhealthiness of our current stock price obsession and how it forces execs to think about the here and now rather than long term implications of their decisions.

[guido911]

This is not the Obama I knew:

http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/phlog/archive/2009/02/05/barack-obama-is-tired-of-this.aspx

Is that really him?