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Subject: 
Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:55:07 GMT
Viewed: 
909 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:

  
   There has been a tendency, thanks largely to Dubya’s inane “with us or against us” mentality, to equate patriotism with blind faith in the righteous (some might say “God-given”) infallibility of the Bush administration, which is of course idiocy. The US would be a stronger nation, both morally and in the eyes of the world, if it had the integrity to admit its national errors and transgressions. Instead, we have a lockstep administration stridently clinging to its policies regardless of truth or evidence.

   I’m not one to even remotely come close to throwing Dubya a life line, but which president in recent history wanted to develop a consistant foreign policy? Not even Bubba attempted that task. The Saudis are ‘always good’, for one example.

And Israel is always the oppressed party, no matter how many Palestinian civilians they “accidentally” kill. Again, your point is good.

“Consistent foreign policy” is hard to address simply because there are so many variables from nation to nation. But I’d suggest that Dubya is unique among our recent Presidents in his utter disregard for the sensibilities of any other nation when it comes to furthering his agenda. The UN wasn’t “irrelevant” until it dared to disagree with Dubya’s crusade, but suddenly it’s relevant again now that Dubya needs his administrative butt hauled out of the fires of his own stoking.

Dubya’s other dubious distinction in this regard is his absolute unwillingness to admit that other interpretations might legitimately differ from his own. He’s not simply saying “I disagree with that assessment;” he’s declared that such disagreement is equivalent to helping the terrorists (ie, “not with us, so you’re against us”). That’s not even a good strategy for the captain of a gradeschool dodgeball team, let alone the appointed leader of the most powerful nation on Earth!

   I don’t know--maybe there’s something inherent in the system--that ‘re-election’ desire outweighs the ‘do what’s right’ desire.

I support term limits for exactly that reason. Additionally, it troubles me to see Dubya out stumping for Republican legislators in a disturbingly incestuous mixing of two nominally distinct branches of the government.

Dave!



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
 
(...) I'm not one to even remotely come close to throwing Dubya a life line, but which president in recent history wanted to develop a consistant foreign policy? Not even Bubba attempted that task. The Saudis are 'always good', for one example. I (...) (21 years ago, 21-Oct-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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