[quote]Lumpy wrote:
No, I’m not talking about the Democrats. During the Democratic primaries, people criticized the candidates for taking the same policy positions. There wasn’t enough arguing amongst themselves, for the Republican’s tastes. Democratic voters picked the candidate who seemed to be the best choice, from a group that overlapped on many issues. The stereotype that “Democrats want Anybody But Bush” glosses over the fact that Democrats are in solidarity on many of the issues.
No, when I refer to Anybody But Bush I’m talking about how the president is always willing to pass the buck, and how the Republicans bend over backwards to excuse Bush for his own dismal record![/quote]
These are kind of amusing, really.
[quote]America lost over one million jobs (net) under Bush’s command! Dubya’s the first president to oversee a net loss of jobs, since Herbert Hoover was president (1928-1932) during the Great Depression!
(But somehow, that has nothing to do with George Bush… it’s “Clinton’s bad economy”! LOL!)[/quote]
Well, let’s look at Clinton’s economy for a moment. He inherited an economy that was growing from Bush Sr. The mini-recession that cost Bush Sr. the presidency (combined with Perot, of course) was over, and the economy was expanding, a full quarter before Clinton took office.
Clinton passed to Bush Jr. a receding economy. The stock bubble burst, and the economy began retraction, before Clinton handed the reins to Bush Jr.
However, even given that, I would like to ask you a question: What do Presidents do to create jobs or lose jobs? Then, more specifically, what did W. do to lose jobs?
[quote]Under Bush we have a record deficit, that will take decades to pay off, after Bush took office with a record surplus!
(That’s not Dubya’s fault! When it came time to veto some spending bills, Dubya couldn’t find a pen!)[/quote]
Agree with you that the federal government is spending too much. Especially on No Child Left Behind and the Prescription Drug Benefit. That was not the sole, or even primary cause of the deficit though. As I have explained to you previously, the economic recession and the burst of the bubble combined to greatly lessen the federal government’s take from capital gains and income taxes.
Also, please explain to me, given the other articles I posted on the deficit, how Kerry would be any different, given his announced economic plans? Kerry’s plan would spend at least as much, if not more, than Bush’s plan.
BTW, I love the allocation of blame here: House passes bill, Senate passes its version, joint version goes to President, and somehow it is the President’s sole responsibility that the spending occurred because he did not veto the bill.
[quote]Bush is the first president since the EPA was started in the early 70s, who is credited with making the environment worse! Some presidents have been better on the environment than others, but all of them made progress. Bush is the first president to actually make air pollution and water pollution worse!
(That’s not Dubyas fault though! Those wacky environmental groups have taken this clean air thing too far!)[/quote]
This isn’t even true, so there’s nothing to rebut.
[quote]Bush was in charge during the worst-ever attacks on America.
(Had someone told Bush that terrorists were going to attack the World Trade Center with commerical airliners on the morning of September 11th, he would have moved heaven and earth to prevent it!)[/quote]
I suppose FDR was responsible for Pearl Harbor? The mere fact Bush was in charge at the time does not infer he was responsible.
[quote]Worst ever intelligence failure in our history, regarding WMDs in Iraq, causing us to invade a sovereign nation on false pretenses.
(George Tenet said ‘slam dunk’! The Russians said they thought Iraq had WMD. So did “Agent Curveball”! So don’t blame Dubya!!)[/quote]
I’m not even going to rehash this, and all the embedded premises, all with you again. I’ll refer you to the innumerable previous threads on which this has been discussed, and remind you that simply repeating something over and over, chanting like a medeval monk, doesn’t make it true.
[quote]Whenever Dubya bungles his duties as president, he’s always willing to pass the blame off on someone else, or refuse to acknowledge a problem. There’s no responsibility that Dubya can’t shirk! The buck always stops somewhere else!
When it comes to accepting responsibility, it’s Anybody But Bush![/quote]
If you could build a convincing case on any of the above, you’d have a point, but simply throwing out allegations and assuming that Bush should “take responsibility” when there isn’t any reason to allocate responsibility to the President.
Why don’t you, instead of tossing out a bunch of general allegations, challenge some of the things the President advocated and pressed, bills he introduced, or actions he took (we’ve done this on Iraq – what about some other things)?