Dubya's Resume

OK, guess we are not on the same page. Because I happen to agree with you. But you obviously have taken my words to mean what was not my intent. So either I do not have the ability to express myself adequately, or you have decided to interpret my meaning as you wish no matter what. Either way, we have crossed our signals.

Now I don't know about you, but I have been married twice. Once for 22 years, then widowed. Then now again for 5 years. During my first marriage I owned a singles bar for about 8 years. I had more opportunities to "cheat" come my way than you would believe possible. Never did. Never even considered it. Was it tempting on occasion? I won't lie and say it wasn't. But I could never do it because I could never live with myself knowing I betrayed my wife. And thinking about doing something is a far cry from actually doing it. I readily admit to thinking how cool it would be to just grab those bags of money every time I see an armored car making a cash transfer at the curb in front of a bank. But will I ever act on those thoughts? No, not ever. Now you can say..."sure, you would if you knew you could get away with it". But honestly, no, I would not. There is a big difference between fantasy and reality.

When I was single after my wife died, I was like kid in a candy store for 4 years. Lots of women, lots of fun. Now, married again, I know I could never be unfaithful. If I had it in me to be like that, I would never have re-married. Why bother? I am past the age of wanting to have more children. I am established in my way of life, as is my wife. So the ONLY reason to get married again at my age is for love. And "love" means fidelity to me. As I believe it should for everyone. Sadly, this is not how it is for so many. What can I say? They are not me, and I am not them. We all choose our own paths and our own morality. But I would not want my morality determined by legislation. Or for that matter, by anyone but myself. That is how it works in real life.

I don't know if Don Bright is any better or worse than other guys who do what he does for a living. If you don't think what he does is moral, then that's your call. I know nothing of DB personally. Never been in a Bright office. Don't even know anyone who has been. But I certainly know how the business works. And like any business, his depends on getting customers. And making money off the customers. Is he doing something immoral? What would it take to make you respect him? I know this is off topic, but I don't see how DB gets thrown into this discussion. Has he somehow personally damaged you? Have I somehow personally damaged Max401? I don't get these personal conflicts. But this....this really does confuse me a bit. Here we essentially agree that what Clinton did was despicable. But because I said that I believed Nixon did worse, you take this as me defending Clinton. I am not at all. Just pointing out that we have had our fair share of unworthy men in the White House. And while Dubya has not been accused of any murdering, drug smuggling or rigging of elections, it seems clear to me that his agenda is politics for profit.

Optionall, I think you should throw your hat in the ring for the '04 election. We need a guy like you. I would set my schedule around your press conferences. And I would assume you would have MrMarket on a little leash like Jabba the Hut had Salacious Crumb while you sat in the oval office. Time for some humor and morality in the White House. They need not be mutually exclusive.

Peace,
Rs8.5

 

Well, well, well. Now we know what MSFE/Wild has to say without cutting and pasting. Very eloquent and about as worthwhile as we all would have expected.

 

Dude, please get a grip! This is an anonymous message board. Its entire concept consists of unknown persons placing words on a computer screen. How on earth can you do any kind of harm to anyone in this medium?

 

Exactly right Max. Which is why it confuses me that at every opportunity Optional will slam Don Bright, and you will challenge whatever I say. Personally, it bothers me not at all. But it seems you search out ways to discredit my thoughts or opinions.

I was not aware that Clinton lied under oath? C'mon Max, you know I am not completely oblivious to history. You said I missed the whole point because of this? A lie is a lie. Is perjury different than a lie that is not "under oath"? Legally yes. Morally no.

So excuse me if Nixon's lies were not "under oath". The man was in a position of absolute trust, put there by the voting public. When he lied, what difference did it make if he was swearing to it over a stack of bibles, or whispering it to Elliot Richardson or Archibald Cox? In reality, he went on TV, just like Clinton, and lied to the nation. Just like Clinton. You can nit-pick all you want. The guy lied about having been a participant in breaking the law. Clinton lied UNDER OATH about sex, which as an act in and of itself is not a crime. Just the lie was. So yes, Clinton broke the law by lying. Nixon broke the law by his deeds. He did not have to commit perjury to be a criminal.

And as a last observation, for what it is worth, Clinton did pay for his crime. Optional said he "got away with it". He did not. He was disbarred. He was not convicted in the impeachment because his crime was not an impeachable offense. Nixon's crimes were. Had he not resigned, he would most certainly have been convicted in the Senate. And dismissed from office.

If this is a defense of Clinton, as Optional has been making it out to be, it is not my intent at all. I am just dealing with the facts. I am NOT saying Clinton was more "honorable" than Nixon. This is NOT what Optional would call the "Don Bright defense". This is just clear law. Opinions and politics are irrelevant in this case.

Peace, Max,

Rs7

 

So now you expect all politicians to tell the truth at all times. What color is the sky on the planet you live on?

You claim your wife is an attorney; I beg you to defer to her legal wisdom to impress upon you the vast difference between lying and doing the same after having taken an oath to tell the truth. Have her explain to you why the latter is infinitely more egregious.

 

Guys, FWIW, clinton's hummer has been debated pretty much everywhere else before, from radio talk shows to the tabloids.

It's unlikely we'll ever get anywhere with that...one half says he lied, the other half believes the whole thing was just an expensive witch hunt. That will never change...

I think the point of this thread is that there is a growing paranoia that dubya may not be the kind of dumb, innocent, well-intending creature that his supporters assumed he was, especially in light of Clinton's egomania and lack of integrity.

My concerns are that he simply doesn't understand the effects of deficit spending, an expensive war in a pseudo-recessionary environment, and the effect of tax cuts when it doesn't seem like the right time. The government can't simply fine-tune the economy as it sees fit; sacrifices must be made somewhere, and if no sacrifices are made, then deficit spending seems more akin to maxing out credit cards than taking a loan to grow at a time when business is booming.

I think that most people know all too well that a tax cut is poorly timed, and that is why you have democratic house reps and senators trying to get greenspan to give his opinion on the effect that the proposed cuts would have on the economy. This was the same exact thing the democrats tried right before the war, before they got scared of McCarthy-style attacks from the republicans and were forced to endorse the war as a matter of national security. What you had were democrats saying outright to greenspan, "what will be the likely effect of the war on the economy?" because we all knew that it would hurt the economy, while helping defense and oil drillers (as earnings have recently shown). It was partisan politics trying to put Greenspan on the spot to openly state the obvious. However, Greenspan is alot more professional than that...

 

Why is it that Clinton supporters always just say "gee, the guy only got caught getting a blowjob - that's not so bad"?

Ignoring for a moment the fact that in most corporations these days he'd have been fired over the whole getting a dumb lacky to service the boss thing and that he was using taxpayer dollars to pay his mistress's salary.

The whole "it was just sex" is a convenient way of glossing over all the other shady goings on, such as:

- Running the Lincoln Bedroom like a hotel to garner contributions

- Scamming Native American groups with promises of dealing with issues but first making them front a bunch of cash for his reelection fund before he'd meet with them - and then not doing anything for them or talking to them again

- One of the most aggressive abusers of using taxpayer dollars to subsidize campaigning (e.g., arranging a trip to give a 5 minute speech at some school so he could claim the trip was part of the job but then really attending a political fund raiser later in the day)

- Forcing a halt of all air traffic in/out of LAX just because he wanted to sit on Air Force One and get his hair styled by some Hollywood stylist

- The duplicity of his putting on the public facade of being the supposed champion for minorities even while he and his cronies routinely privately used racial epithets and treated the black White House staff like second class citizens

- Selling pardons and waiting until the last minutes he was in the job to try to slide them through hoping he wouldn't get caught

- Pushing through a new international airport in Arkansas (where one wasn't needed) at taxpayer expense as payback to big corporate supporters (one of which was also hooked into Hillary's little commodity trading scam while he was still governor) - they got to capitalize on land transactions and got a closer place to fly in their international cargo

Then there's:

- Offering no material response to multiple attacks on the US over a period of years, and by that inaction potentially encouraging further and more aggressive attacks - lobbing a couple of cruise missiles into the Afghan mountains and blowing up a milk factory hardly provided a deterance

- In eight years, formulating no national energy policy - thereby wasting the opportunity of a period of prolonged very cheap oil to take meaningful steps

- Mandating that the SEC not rock the boat, thereby setting up some of the most lax oversight exactly at the time more aggressive oversight was most needed in order to stem the tide of all the internet and other IPO scams and all the corporate book cooking

The list goes on.

Let's face it - all politicians suck, some suck more than others (some it appears get sucked) and some even get passes for their transgressions because the media chooses to go light on them or because groups of people are willing to rationalize and/or minimize the many violations of the public trust behind conveniently simplistic phrases.

 

Then you are debasing the taking of an oath. Among other things, one has the penalty of perjury attached to it. See RSX.X's wife for details. BTW, Clinton fulfilled both your parameters, he also lied on TV about Lewinsky.

I guess if an interviewer could have gotten a hold of him and knew of Slick Willy's lexicographic bent, he or she could have posed the question thusly:

"Uh, ok, Mr. President, you didn't have sexual relations with "that woman." But did she do anything that didn't involve sexual relations, for instance a blowjob which I would assume would have been performed on a platonic basis?