I'm not talking about "everybody" from a voter standpoint. For all practical purposes, most voters are ignorant and only vote based upon spurrilous qualities such as looks, speaking ability, popularity, etc. When I say everybody, I mean the decision makers. And one of the main things I like about Bush is that he doesn't go with the tide of public opinion. He does what he thinks is best for the country and you and me. Unfortunately, approval polls are taken from idiots. Obama is real popular. Why? What are his qualifications? Hillary? She was in charge of the kitchen and bedroom at the White House. Yet, they are both ahead of Bush in approval ratings.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/IraqCoverage/story?id=3210351&page=1 Uggg. This assessment would have been identical in 1991, the elder saw it as a quagmire and stayed out. They sent in the UNSCOM team which destroyed all the WMD they found, about 97% of what they thought ever existed. Much more effective way to go than Bush the younger. Bad judgement, now 3,500 have paid the ultimate price.
I understand this and agree to a certain extent. I have never thought that Bush was insincere, indulgent, or not doing his best. Only that his best is not up to the job and that he has performed abysmally. What I don't understand is why some keep riding the hellbound train when it is clear to all that he has failed, despite his best intentions. The man has extraordinary resolve. But resolve is only a virtue when one is succeeding. Resolve when one is failing becomes a vice and can only lead to more failure. A President cannot rule by poll opinions, you are quite correct. But it is vital for a President to recognize and respect any mandate from the people on issues as important as war, international affairs, domestic tranquility, the economy, and liberty itself. He cannot put political party and personal ideaology above the national interests of the people of the United States of America.
If that's true, then democracy is of no value. We should just scrap it and go totalitarian. I don't think it is true that Americans have no stomach for war. We did pretty good for ourselves and the free world a mere 65 years ago in WWII. If we are truly threatened, we'll get it on. What we have no stomach for, nor should we, is BS political wars that are quagmires where we are bleeding out for little benefit to long term US strategic interests. I think the people are a little slow in figuring out the truth, but eventually they "get it". They are slow to figure it out, because much of the true information is hidden from them, and we are fed propaganda in the news. Then eventually, the truth starts to leak out. My observation is in the long run, the people get it right, and the most strategically misguided and unskilled of our presidents end up opposed to most of the people. See LBJ, Nixon, Bush II.
I'm not so sure. Print media was not free to report on all the death and destruction WWI and WWII, we didn't have TVs in every home, and certainly didn't have 24/7 news coverage and the internet. I often wonder how Americans would have reacted to so much death and destruction if we had such coverage back in those days. I hope to never see WWIII, but I suspect the images won't be pretty. I expect we'll see much more opposition to that war than we saw 70 or so years ago.
I agree with you and disagree with Houtiger here. Imagine the press reporting on the training mission when 300 died in one exercise. Make no mistake about it, pick any news network you want. They would call D-Day and anything like it suicide missions, crazy. Same for Battle of the Buldge, we didn't win that one with the troops and the equipment needed, press and anti-war fanatics would've ate our lunch on that one. Sabanfan is right, I said it like 1 or 2 years ago, Americans don't have any stomach for war, Vietnam now this. One thing they both have in common, Liberals are trying to derail it! They are trying to re-live the glory days and Bush is making their day! BTW a democrat started Vietnam, I thought of Johnson while reading Red's post of a president should respect a mandate by the people. Did truman have a mandate by the people to drop the bombs btw? Shouldn't that also be applied for that situation? Shouldn't a president rule by mandate of the people then or just certain circumstances?
