I don't know Bush's inner motives and real intentions, do you? Of course not. What I do know is that I can count the number of times Bush has said he made a mistake during his administration on my third hand. Oh yeah, I don't have a third hand. So the answer is zero. Does this mean that Bush has never made a mistake during his presidency? I don't know about you, but I distrust people who claim that they are never wrong.
OK, so basically you would not have trusted one President in the history of the United States including Clinton. Interesting but how does that make Bush different from any other President or politician for that matter?
I would have trusted Washington and honest Abe. Other presidents admitted when they made mistakes. There is strength in admission of weakness, and weakness in denying where there obviously is weakness. That was Clinton's failing, if he had simply fessed up in the beginning, asked for forgiveness, the whole thing would have gone away without the hassle. Like placing a trade, we are convinced we are right when we place the trade, but we always know that we could actually be wrong. I think what many people have a problem with is Bush's projection of certainty that what he is doing is always right, when in fact self righteousness is typically not a good criteria for determing correctness of action. Here are two statements, see if you can tell the difference. "We are on the right side, and we will crush the evil doers." Next: "We believe we are on the right side, and we have faith that we are acting in the cause of righteousness and hope to crush those who commit acts of evil."
I would have trusted Washington and honest Abe. Other presidents admitted when they made mistakes. What? No they didn't. Give me a specific example when a President went on national TV or the radio and admitted to the American public he made a mistake. There is strength in admission of weakness, and weakness in denying where there obviously is weakness. What are you talking about. I bet you have never served a single day in the military. Ever heard of something called the chain of command? When you are leading troops into battle the last thing you can show is weakness, indecisiveness, or uncertainty. That was Clinton's failing, if he had simply fessed up in the beginning, asked for forgiveness, the whole thing would have gone away without the hassle. There are a million things Clinton did not admit to. How many rape allegations were there against him? How many people ended up dead in the Whitewater scandal? I think what many people have a problem with is Bush's projection of certainty that what he is doing is always right, when in fact self righteousness is typically not a good criteria for determing correctness of action. You are wrong about this. It's the projection of self confidence that he has that people respect him for. If he would go on TV and say things like "I think we should go into Iraq" or I don't know if I'm right about this but screw it, let's go in anyway" or I don't know I don't really understand all this intelligence data, let's attack anyway". That is not going to give our soldiers any confidence or the public. Here are two statements, see if you can tell the difference. "We are on the right side, and we will crush the evil doers." Next: "We believe we are on the right side, and we have faith that we are acting in the cause of righteousness and hope to crush those who commit acts of evil." See I disagree with this. Uncertainty is not what you want to project here. You want to be strong and firm in your beliefs. No leader would ever offer such hesitation.
Nixon in the following famous speech admits he "made my mistakes." http://school.discovery.com/lessonp...ntialspeeches/audio/aiff/nixon-watergate.aiff
What? No they didn't. Give me a specific example when a President went on national TV or the radio and admitted to the American public he made a mistake. You have no sense of history, do you: Richard Nixon's resignation August 8, 1974 President Richard M. Nixon -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good evening. This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter than I believe affected the national interest. I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only that if some of my judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the Nation. Full text of speech here: http://www.luminet.net/~tgort/resign.htm
Yes, after the fact and after he stepped down. No President is going to admit to mistakes while he is in office and has time left in his term. Many Presidents have admitted to mistakes out of office. Bush Sr admitted to several. I'm talking about in office coming out and going on national TV or radio and saying, yup, I f*cked up, sorry.
3/4/87 President Reagan responds to the Tower Commission with a 12-minute speech in which he: · Acknowledges that the Iran-contra affair "happened on my watch" · Says nobler aims of long-term peace "deteriorated...into trading arms for hostages" · Calls the deal "a mistake" As for his "management style", the problem was that "no one kept proper records of meetings or decisions," which led to his inability to recall approving the arms shipment. "I did approve it," says the President. "I just can't say specifically when." He adds, "Rest assured, there's plenty of record-keeping going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."
dude, you are totally insane. i stand by what i said earlier about not wanting to meet you the face-to-face. i was making the point that dumya said a few months ago (rumsfelon, too) that syria and north korea were immediate threats that also needed to be dealt with ASAP. it seems rather odd to me that almost overnight (a few months later) those threats from bush's supposed bastions of evil, anti-american hostility are like, gone from the dumya master plan. **my point is** that i find it a bit inconsistent with bush's (ashcroft's) argument that these nations were a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to our people three months ago, but now they are not?? this is an administration who paid a marketing firm thousands of dollars to study how to best sell the war to the american people! if the war in iraq was going well, we'd be on our way to north korea - NOT because they are a threat, but just because it's what our administration WANTS TO DO, right or wrong, for whatever reason they deem necessary, with satellites than can photograph a 3ft sqare piece of land at sea level with newspaper resolution, i'd think we'd have more of a clue about where the WMDs were. and colin powell wasn't exactly adlai stevenson at the UN when he showed those photos of what now has been shown to be a milk truck. i'd think that the republican party would've preferred to refund $87bil to the tax payers to stimulate spending, but again the whole "small government" thing is just a clever part of the republican whisper campaign. no, actually i think our soldiers are the finest the world has ever seen, with the single exception of the athenians who beat the hell out of the persian army at marathon. in fact, my opposition to the war was on 2 things: 1)soldiers are not for making money; 2)fiscally, this war is insane (and yes, 9/11 was extremely expensive, however, i think it is most appropriate to prevent another 9/11 rather than encourage it by attacking our immediate threats first, and dealing with saddam, who was NOT an immediate threat, later. the way to oust saddam was to support the locals to overthrow him and fight it out with each other and then deal with them). and it's not that anyone is sorry that saddam is gone, either. i am glad to see him out and many of his supporters dead (http://moneycentral.communities.msn...message&mview=0&ID_Message=47873&all_topics=1). that is not the issue. the issue is the fact that the US acts like it's OK for us to break the rules when we unilaterally deem it's necessary. its assinine that the UN is on our own goddamn soil and we ignore it. this sets a bad precedent for unprovoked war and we are the cause of it.