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The Swiftboating of John Kerry by the Coward George W Bush is, along with the Iraq War Redux, the events that made me decide the Republican Party would never get the benefit of the doubt from me. What a bunch of loving ghouls. Also the best (worst?) thing about Operation Enduring Freedom is that it was originally going to be called Operation Infinite Justice but they decided that was a bit too on the nose for the 21st Century Crusade they wanted to embark on (well that and a bunch of religious people complained that "Only God can dispense Infinite Justice" but w/e )
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Apr 12, 2018 17:53
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Eh. I wasn't too big on Dean. Young me was a bit suspicious of how the media was coronating his nomination, and Kucinich and Sharpton were the crazy catharsis guys who said a lot of things that I wished weren't considered fringe. (Yeah I know there aren't that many D&D defenders for them these days.) Unsure how much of the party maneuvering to block Dean from the nom foreshadowed the party blocking Bernie twelve years later. I kind of felt like Dean's campaign lacked some fundamentals that Bernie had in 2016, despite how the former had front runner status and respectable endorsements. And I thought Kerry got a worse rap from liberals (not even counting the leftist critics here) than he deserved. I thought his life story was compelling by conventional liberal standards. And his biggest mistake wasn't that apparent at the time; picking Edwards. The thing that really pissed me off about 2004 was that many Bush voters weren't voting for Bush or against Kerry. They were voting against the people who were supporting Kerry. It wasn't the first successful campaign driven by petty tribalism obviously, but it was the first election when that was quite apparent for me. Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 18:12
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Echo Chamber posted:Eh. I wasn't too big on Dean. Young me was a bit suspicious of how the media was coronating his nomination, and Kucinich and Sharpton were the crazy catharsis guys who said a lot of things that I wished weren't considered fringe. (Yeah I know there aren't that many D&D defenders for them these days.) Why is this? I don't really have much of an opinion one way or the other, but I'm wondering if there's some specific reason why peoples' opinions of them dropped in D&D (assuming that's the case).
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Apr 12, 2018 18:23
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Ytlaya posted:Why is this? I don't really have much of an opinion one way or the other, but I'm wondering if there's some specific reason why peoples' opinions of them dropped in D&D (assuming that's the case). I think it's because Sharpton went on to be an MSNBC shill and Kuschinich did something which outed him as a crazy person. This was years ago and someone else will have to say what.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:30
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Iirc Kucinich was/is into a lot of woo bullshit? Believed in UFO conspiracies? That kind of thing. He kind of was the kooky liberal that Sensible Conservatives love to strawman.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:32
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Iirc Kucinich was/is into a lot of woo bullshit? Believed in UFO conspiracies? That kind of thing. He kind of was the kooky liberal that Sensible Conservatives love to strawman. He's also really pro-Assad and pro-Gaddafi. He appears regularly on Fox News too.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:40
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Iirc Kucinich was/is into a lot of woo bullshit? Believed in UFO conspiracies? That kind of thing. He kind of was the kooky liberal that Sensible Conservatives love to strawman. He also spends a lot of time as the token liberal on Fox News. He's a loon without much actual credibility.
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Apr 12, 2018 18:40
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he also said things like "trans people are people" back when the Liberal Orthodoxy demanded they be treated as disgusting, freakish punchlines, so the usual suspects in the We Must Appeal More To Republicans wing of the party had an axe to grind with him
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Apr 12, 2018 20:17
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Ze Pollack posted:back when the Liberal Orthodoxy demanded they be treated as disgusting, freakish punchlines [citation needed]
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Apr 12, 2018 20:21
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Small correction, but back in 2002 it wasn't Angela Merkel (yet) as chancellor of Germany, but her predecessor Gerhard Schröder, whose refusal to join the war was a major factor in getting him reelected that year. Merkel actually... well, she didn't outright call for war, but due to her party's old pro-American reflexes she never managed to fully reject Bush and his warlust either, instead trying to find the sweet spot in between "not being seen as a warmonger at home" and "not pissing off the Americans". She pretty much failed on both accounts back then. Also, one of the Americans' major "sources" for their claims that Iraq manufactured WMDs was "Curveball", a dude from Iraq who had been passing information about the WMD program to German intelligence in order to be granted asylum in Germany; the BND quickly realised that the guy was full of poo poo, though. Despite the Germans' repeated warnings, the CIA took all of Curveball's tall tales for gospel and more or less passed them directly on to Bush's desk. Curveball eventually managed to get German citizenship and lives in Karlsruhe, I wonder how he deals with his bullshit stories having been a major groundbreaker for the eventual destruction of his homeland. Thanks for your excellent writeups, by the way! 
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Apr 12, 2018 22:03
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System Metternich posted:Small correction, but back in 2002 it wasn't Angela Merkel (yet) as chancellor of Germany, but her predecessor Gerhard Schröder, whose refusal to join the war was a major factor in getting him reelected that year. Merkel actually... well, she didn't outright call for war, but due to her party's old pro-American reflexes she never managed to fully reject Bush and his warlust either, instead trying to find the sweet spot in between "not being seen as a warmonger at home" and "not pissing off the Americans". She pretty much failed on both accounts back then. My bad. Fixed. Thank you! And I loving forgot about Curveball! Great, now I'm pissed off all over again  (By the way, I am open to any corrections/addendums/whatever that anyone wants to add. This should be a team effort, guys.) Fritz Coldcockin fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 22:08
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axeil posted:[citation needed] http://www.cc.com/video-clips/cphr4a/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-queers-vie-for-the-straight-tie 2:30. the video at large is also quality as an artifact from before everyone in the democratic party "evolved" on gay marriage, and the idea that gay marriage would ever pass in this country was in and of itself punchline-worthy. Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Apr 12, 2018 |
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Apr 12, 2018 22:17
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axeil posted:[citation needed] It isn't exactly a secret that the Democratic Party wasn't nearly as "tolerant" of sexual/gender minorities pre-Obama as they are now, though I can see why someone who became an adult post-Obama might have a kind of distorted perception of the Democrats as having always been supportive of that subset of social justice (though I want to say you're older than that IIRC?). Alter Ego posted:He's also really pro-Assad and pro-Gaddafi. He appears regularly on Fox News too. After looking into this, thing only thing that I've found that really seems to matter is the things he's said about Assad*, which admittedly are pretty drat bad (there are ways to oppose US intervention/regime change without defending Assad personally). Though I find it strange that many of the same liberals who will rightfully condemn Kucinich for his views on Assad don't apply the same sort of condemnation to other Democrats with far more harmful foreign policy views, like Schumer with regards to Israel or Clinton (when she was in the government) and a number of other Democrats with regards to being in favor of intervention in Syria (or supporting intervention in Libya or the Iraq War if you go back further - this sort of thing is obviously a trend). At the end of the day, Kucinich's views in question are stupid and he should be faulted for them (Sanders is good because he has most of the benefits without most of the goofy/dumb beliefs), but they don't translate into an actual harmful outcome in the same way more "mainstream" harmful foreign policy views do. * I can't find anything actually bad regarding Kucinich and Gaddafi; Kucinich goes there to meet him at one point and opposed the intervention (which by itself puts him above most other Democrats on that issue), but I found nothing specifically defending Gaddafi as a person.
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Apr 13, 2018 03:30
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“I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.” - Kenneth Adelman, member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 2/13/02 “Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder.” - Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02 “Desert Storm II would be in a walk in the park... The case for ‘regime change’ boils down to the huge benefits and modest costs of liberating Iraq.” - Kenneth Adelman, member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, 8/29/02 “Having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world’s sole superpower.” - William Kristol, Weekly Standard editor, and Lawrence F. Kaplan, New Republic senior editor, 2/24/03 “The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark.” - Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/27/03 “I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us keep [troop] requirements down. ... We can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark...wildly off the mark.” - Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the House Budget Committee, 2/27/03 “The idea that it’s going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990. Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.” - Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 11/15/02 “I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?” - Bill O’Reilly, 1/29/03 “It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could be six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” - Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/7/03 “It won’t take weeks... Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there’s no question that it will.” - Bill O’Reilly, 2/10/03 grover, March 18th, 2003 posted:How long will it take to capture Baghdad? 2 days
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Apr 13, 2018 05:30
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Grouchio posted:I spend a good amount of time contributing to alternate history timelines with other writers on another forum - like if 1980s Britain was magically transported back to 1730. I like the one where McKinley not being assassinated leads to the US becoming communist in the 1930’s. (de Leonist anarcho-syndicalism if you wanna get technical).
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Apr 13, 2018 05:38
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Alter Ego posted:
I am one of those liberals. I was a Sanders supporter who voted for Clinton in the general and I did not like doing that. In 2008 Clinton's vote for Iraq invasion was an albatross and for life of my I don't understand why it wasn't in 2016.
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Apr 13, 2018 06:44
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I’m one of those liberals, and also my cousin got dead because he wanted college too hard and walked over a bomb. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHUUUHJUJJIUUUUUUUUUCK dubya!
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Apr 13, 2018 06:51
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We should never. EVER. forgive them for their votes to enable the Iraq war. -Iraq/Afghanistan veteran HootTheOwl
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Apr 13, 2018 15:07
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I’m one of those liberals, and also my cousin got dead because he wanted college too hard and walked over a bomb. A guy I worked with burned to death in Afganistan for the same reason. gently caress our wars of choice.
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Apr 13, 2018 15:09
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Guys, I'm writing Part 5 right now. It's gonna be a LONG one. Stay with me. It includes Abu Ghraib, the 2004 election, Katrina, the 2006 midterms, and Bush's descent into Trumanesque unpopularity. I love the commentary and crosstalk this is generating and the extra traffic that's been coming in. Keep it going!
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Apr 13, 2018 15:22
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Alter Ego posted:Guys, I'm writing Part 5 right now. It's gonna be a LONG one. Stay with me. It includes Abu Ghraib, the 2004 election, Katrina, the 2006 midterms, and Bush's descent into Trumanesque unpopularity. Looking forward to part 5. I hope you include the social security shenanigans that Bush tried to pull, since I think that along with Katrina began his big popularity slide.
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Apr 13, 2018 15:36
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Cactus Jack posted:Looking forward to part 5. I hope you include the social security shenanigans that Bush tried to pull, since I think that along with Katrina began his big popularity slide. poo poo. Now it's gonna be even longer.
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Apr 13, 2018 15:42
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At the end of Bush II's presidency I thought Reagan/Thatcher-style conservatism had finally been publicly discredited as a serious governing ideology. The unnecessary wars, the abortive attempts to gut the social systems on which society at large relied and above all the deregulation-enabled financial crisis were all undeniable evidence of a failed approach to governance. Whatever followed, I believed Bush II had proved that the Republicans would need to radically reform following the very public failure of their principles in action. This obviously didn't happen, and instead the recent shift of the Republican party to all but explicitly endorse authoritarian and white supremacist principles directly follows from Bush II's failures. There was nowhere else for the party to go in 2008. And absolutely no forgiveness ever for any politician who voted for the Iraq war. I understand the Republican party not holding their representatives accountable, but I don't understand why every single Democrat who voted for it hasn't been chased out of the party as a matter of justice.
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Apr 13, 2018 15:43
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Nocturtle posted:I don't understand why every single Democrat who voted for it hasn't been chased out of the party as a matter of justice.
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Apr 13, 2018 16:15
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Nocturtle posted:At the end of Bush II's presidency I thought Reagan/Thatcher-style conservatism had finally been publicly discredited as a serious governing ideology. The unnecessary wars, the abortive attempts to gut the social systems on which society at large relied and above all the deregulation-enabled financial crisis were all undeniable evidence of a failed approach to governance. Whatever followed, I believed Bush II had proved that the Republicans would need to radically reform following the very public failure of their principles in action. This obviously didn't happen, and instead the recent shift of the Republican party to all but explicitly endorse authoritarian and white supremacist principles directly follows from Bush II's failures. There was nowhere else for the party to go in 2008. Probably a lack of people to replace them/bigger fish to fry. If the 08 financial crisis hadn't happened then maybe the party spends it's time purging the Iraq War supporters. As it is almost all of them are gone from Congress and Hillary's been completely ruined as a politician thanks to her losing to Trump plus she lost the 08 primary because of her vote to approve it. Here's the list of everyone who voted for it, those still in the Senate in bold. quote:The full roll call on H.J.Res. 114, 107th Congress, A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq, is here. The vote count was YEAs 77, NAYs 23. The only notable name on the list still in the Senate is Schumer. So long as they are willing to repent for their mistake and vote in a way that shows they have learned their lesson I'm willing to forgive the Dems who voted for the Iraq War, but Schumer having voted for it and being Minority Leader is a real slap in the face. edit: Kerry's name is really the most surprising on that list and it breaks my heart. He's the only liberal (other than Clinton) to vote yes and you can chalk Clinton's Yea up to her being from NY and pretty hawkish. Kerry had no goddamned reason to vote Yea and it ended up really, really harming his campaign in 04. axeil fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 17:27
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Trump just pardoned Scooter Libby. Alter Ego, hopefully you've got the whole Plame Affair in your write-up as it's about to suddenly be relevant again.
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Apr 13, 2018 18:32
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Scooter's pardoned. Where does the Plame Affair fall in this Bush II review? Edit beaten Edit 2: I remember the story of this billboard popping up after the '04 election. 
Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 18:32
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axeil posted:Trump just pardoned Scooter Libby. Alter Ego, hopefully you've got the whole Plame Affair in your write-up as it's about to suddenly be relevant again. gently caress. I don't. Can I add it as an addendum? E: this is now a CRAAAAAAAAZY long update that might have to be split into two consecutive posts. Fritz Coldcockin fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 21:11
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Alter Ego posted:gently caress. Sure! My knowledge of the whole thing is fuzzy so if you/anyone else want to chime in, feel free!
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Apr 13, 2018 21:32
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Part 5: There’s a Monster at the End of this Book (Or: All The King’s Horses and All The King’s Men Couldn’t Fix Your Approval Rating) When we last left our heroes, Dubya had sold one of the biggest lies in history to the American public and invaded Iraq for no reason, ignoring the advice of the UN, our allies, and even some of the military commanders. All because of an unsubstantiated report from the early 90s about Iraq supposedly plotting to kill his daddy. You know, most people would just get therapy. Now, between the years of 2003 and 2008, a lot of loving awful, terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad poo poo happened. George W. Bush, I’m happy to say, went from beloved to one of the most universally reviled Presidents this country’s ever had in that short span of time. Let’s touch on some of the lowlights, but first we’re gonna visit an iconic event from 2003. (As always, guys, I’m sure I’ve left a lot out. Feel free to add to it, especially if you are someone who is old enough to remember all this stuff enough to hate Bush for it.) The Mission Accomplished Speech On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush gave a speech that would haunt him for the rest of his political career--as well as becoming the subject of almost as many Internet memes as that cat that wants cheezburger. His administration had concluded that for all intents and purposes there was only mop-up duty left in Iraq at that point, so he decided to pull out all the stops. Strapping himself into a flightsuit (and no doubt stuffing his crotch with socks), he boarded an S-3B Viking jet and flew out onto the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln just off the coast of San Diego.  I think this picture still makes Chris Matthews orgasm when he sees it. As if that wasn’t absurd enough, this was the backdrop for his speech. Considering the events of the next, oh, FIFTEEN loving YEARS, this looks even more absurd now.  Yes. George W. Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” in front of hundreds of servicemen and dozens of TV cameras, and the media proceeded to cream their slacks with adulation. Former Dan Quayle speechwriter Lisa Schiffren gushed about how sexy he looked in the flightsuit and how powerful he looked as a Commander-in-Chief. In case you wanted any more confirmation that all Republicans need in life is a strong daddy figure to spank them when they’re bad, look no further. The Curious Case of Abu Ghraib We know that it only took a couple of months for Saddam’s regime to collapse (most of the poo poo that went godawfully wrong came after Baghdad fell). Afterwards there was a shitload of looting--and even the prison Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were jammed into 12x12 cells that were basically holding pens, was not immune. The place was stripped almost bare. When the U.S. rolled in they gutted and rebuilt Abu Ghraib--new cells, new floors and windows, a brand-new medical center, toilets, and showers. It became, for all intents and purposes, a United States military prison. The inmates ranged from “common” criminals swept up at security checkpoints to enemy combatants who had actually fought United States military personnel, as well as a few high-value targets. In charge was Lt. General Janis Karpinski, the only female commander in the Iraq theater. It’s important to note that she had no experience handling prisoners and nor did the 3400 Army reservists she was now commanding. We don’t know who started it. We don’t really know who the first victims were. All we know is that a month later Karpinski was suspended, and Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, Iraq’s senior commander, began an investigation into the prison. What they found was truly shocking. I’m quoting now from a report written by Gen. Antonio Taguba: quote:Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee. The most disgusting and reprehensible part was the photo and video evidence Taguba found of GIs taunting Iraqi prisoners, forcing them to strip naked and pose. Six suspects were found and charged with conspiracy, dereliction of duty, assault, and mistreatment of prisoners, among other charges. There was a seventh suspect, however, and she was perhaps the most famous.  Private Lynndie England was charged but re-assigned to Fort Bragg in North Carolina after she got pregnant. She is in several of the disturbing images obtained from the prison, grinning and standing arm-in-arm with her fellow soldiers as detainees are horribly humiliated. This article explains the horrors discovered at Abu Ghraib better than I can. I’m not posting the images because some of them are rather disturbing: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib It describes the utter ineptitude of the commanders, the neglect, and the culture of corruption that pervaded Abu Ghraib. And guys? This is just one of the many reasons why George W. Bush and his whole motley crew of stinking chickenhawk neoconservative assholes are irredeemable. When this information was brought to their attention, did they react with shock and righteous anger? Did they immediately shut the prison down and prosecute everyone involved? Did they ensure that the detainees were treated humanely? No. What did they do? They went “Well, technically abuse is different than torture.” I’m quoting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: quote:"My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture...I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word." Yes, you heard right. Our President decided that the best response was the ol’ Fishmech gambit. Ugh. I can’t even write any more on this subject. Guys, feel free to add anything you think is necessary. I gotta stop before the anger stroke sets in. The Election of 2004 Oh yes, we get to talk about my favorite subject again--elections! Dubya had to do what Daddy couldn’t--win a second term. I guess you could argue that he hadn’t really won the first one, though. In any event, this time, his opponent was this guy:  Wait, gently caress, wrong picture.  There’s the one! Massachusetts Senator John Kerry was, at the time, the junior Senator from his state (hard as it was to believe, since he’d served almost 20 years, but the other guy was, y’know, TED loving KENNEDY). His running mate, Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), was a fellow traveler from the primaries and a rising star in the Democratic Party at the time (until they found out after 2008 that Edwards cheated on his wife and impregnated his mistress). He had served in Vietnam and earned a Silver Star AND a Bronze Star for bravery, as well as a Purple Heart for being wounded in action. No matter what else you thought of Kerry (and many people had issues with his stiff, rather aloof manner, his uninspired delivery in speeches, and his IWR vote), he was a bonafide war hero. After earning a chest full of medals Kerry had come home and testified in front of the Senate Armed Services committee against the Vietnam War, a committee he would one day chair himself in 2006 when Democrats took back the Senate. Guy was a loving badass. So if you’re George W. Bush, a guy who (barely) served in the Texas Air National Guard, up against someone who went to Vietnam and paid their loving dues AND came home with a bunch of medals, how would you proceed? Would you: a)...make it very clear that while you respect Senator Kerry’s service and applaud him for his bravery in combat, that you believe you are the best candidate to lead the country because you believe that your foreign policy will lead to better results, or… b)...start a shadow campaign wherein you fund a bunch of loving lying-rear end DICKS to smear Kerry’s service in Vietnam, call him a coward, and trivialize the sacrifices he made? If you picked “A”, you are not George W. Bush and Karl Rove is not your campaign manager. Karl Rove decided to take John Kerry’s greatest asset--his wartime service--and turn it against him. Through a series of ads funded by a group calling themselves the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth”, Rove’s minions slowly turned the narrative around on Kerry. WARNING: The following Youtube ad may cause you to smash several breakable objects and scream really loud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqOuEhg9yE This was just one of many ads the group ran. They lied, stretched the truth, and exaggerated small details to the point where Kerry’s story became unrecognizable. And it didn’t end there. At the Republican convention that year, these little numbers were handed out to further trivialize Kerry’s sacrifices:  gently caress this loving bitch. As axeil and others mentioned earlier in the thread, the woman in this image is dead now and the world is a better place. If there was really a God, every rear end in a top hat in the convention hall who put one of these on should have been hit by a bolt of lightning. Still, like in 2000, this one came right down to the wire and centered around, yet again, two key states: Ohio and Florida. That loving shitwaffle Ralph Nader was once again on the ballot for the Green Party, but liberal voters had wised up and largely abandoned him. The 2004 election did produce an anomaly of its own, however--the biggest screwup in exit polling history: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22188-2005Jan19.html When exit polls were conducted it appeared that John Kerry was going to carry the night, but, sadly, George W. Bush achieved his lifelong dream: to be better than his daddy at something.  Four more years  . Democrats were driven into the wilderness--a 10-seat minority in the Senate and a distant minority in the House.The Attack on Social Security Historically, second terms do not go nearly as well as first terms. In Dubya’s case, that was doubly true, because there was no way he was going to climb back to the mountaintop he was at in late 2001/early 2002. Flush with victory, George W. Bush set out to accomplish the Holy Grail of Republican politics--destroying the cornerstone of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, Social Security. Dubya had decided that he had enough political capital to sell an “overhaul” of the program to the American people. But he miscalculated. Severely overestimating his political mandate, two critically important things happened: --Bush tried to make something that, according to Gallup, was the driving force behind a whopping 1% of the electorate in 2004. People hadn’t voted for him because they wanted Social Security overhauled. Terrorism, the economy, and gay marriage were at the top of the list that year. --Democrats did something amazing: they grew a spine. They estimated correctly that Social Security is the third rail of politics for a reason: touch it and you die. They chose to oppose Bush to a man rather than play “Let’s Make a Deal”--and it worked. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), the newly-minted Minority Leader, decided that Bush’s plan struck so devastatingly at the heart of the social safety net that, in the words of his spokesman Jim Manley, “There was no other option but to fight it.” The result was unprecedented backlash. Democrats pushed back on every conservative argument: there was no imminent crisis with the Social Security fund, that private accounts would, in fact, make things worse, and putting people’s retirement money at the whim of the markets made everyone squirm, conservative or liberal. It worked. Even the red-state Democrats such as Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) who normally tended towards compromise became hardliners after taking their constituents’ temperatures. Privatization was a loser however you sliced it. In January, 55% of voters disapproved of Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. His campaigning for it didn’t help. In April, that number had grown to 64%. It was quietly abandoned as events moved forward, especially considering what happened next. Hurricane Katrina In late August of 2005, the second of several events that would lead to the undoing of George W. Bush occurred in the form of a massive hurricane that slammed into the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina brought nearly 140 MPH winds and untold devastation to the coasts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. The storm caused more than $100 billion in damage and displaced thousands upon thousands of people. Yes, it was godawful. However, disaster-level events are, usually, a chance for the President to play Healer-in-Chief. It usually results in a rise in their approval ratings as they go survey the damage, hug some of the victims, promise them they will get the help they need, then direct FEMA to begin the cleanup and take care of the people who were displaced. The problem, of course, is what happened in New Orleans. Sure, the Louisiana coast, Mississippi, and Alabama took a beating, but the events that transpired in the city of New Orleans were what ended up being the biggest post-hurricane story. See, New Orleans is below sea level. As a result, in any major storm, it’s a flood risk, so the city has a series of levees and flood walls built to protect it. The problem? The Army Corps of Engineers had screwed up building them and was still in the process of fixing their screwup when the storm hit. There were over FIFTY loving FAILURES in the levees and flood walls as water overwhelmed them and flooded 80% of the city, as well as all of St. Bernard Parish. The city nearly drowned as panicked residents fled their homes for the relative safety of the New Orleans Superdome, the football stadium that played home to the New Orleans Saints. Mayor Ray Nagin had designated it as a last resort shelter. By nightfall, the city was almost 80% evacuated, and 10,000 people had sought sanctuary in the stadium. A disaster of these proportions called for a tough, experienced head of FEMA. George W. Bush had appointed this man.  Michael Brown, the current head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, had previously been the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association. Yes. You heard right. New Orleans was drowning and dying and a guy who used to judge horse shows was in charge of cleaning it up. The result was predictable. FEMA was days late in establishing ground headquarters in New Orleans as more and more refugees crowded into the Superdome. Supplies began to run scarce, so people turned to looting. It was impossible to leave the city--people who tried were turned back by cops armed with shotguns. As the situation deteriorated, criticism of Brown intensified. It was then that George W. Bush, in his infinitely Forrest Gump-esque way of inserting himself into (what would be) historical events, gave the press another quote that would haunt him until the end of his tenure in the White House. In an attempt to praise Brown and defend him from his critics, he said: “Brownie, you’re doin’ a heckuva job.” Innocuous as the quote may seem (given Bush’s tendency to give his staff dumb, folksy nicknames), it grew in significance as it stood in stark contrast to the events unfolding. The hurricane killed nearly 2,000 people and injured countless thousands more. It drowned an entire city and to this day New Orleans is still picking up some of the pieces. The Superdome was trashed--to the point where the Saints could not play their home games there the following football season. Brown was eventually removed as head of FEMA operations, but the damage was done. The narrative was that Bush had fiddled while Rome burned. His image was becoming more tarnished by the day and his approval ratings began to plunge. In mid-September he hit 42%--the lowest he’d been rated yet. Those of us in that tiny minority who never approved of him were beginning to feel some very strong feelings of vindication. The Midterms And Mark Foley’s Naked Puzzle Basement The odds were increasingly getting stacked against Republican prospects in the 2006 midterm elections. Bush was becoming increasingly unpopular after loving up the Social Security privatization rollout and completely botching the government response to Hurricane Katrina. You know the Freep thread motto? “There is always more and it always worse”? Here’s how much worse. It was discovered that something was rotten on the floor of the House of Representatives. On September 28, 2006, a 16-year-old House page reported that he had received some vaguely inappropriate emails from a Florida congressman by the name of Mark Foley. Foley asked for, among other things, a personal photo, his age and birthday, and what he’d like for a birthday present. Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww.  This is Foley, by the way, giving off his best “creepy, greasy uncle” vibe. _____________________/ "Hello, young man...would you like to see my 'funny bunny'?" It freaked the page out, and he sent the emails on to his sponsor, Congressman Rodney Alexander (R-LA). The story made the news, needless to say. Where it really takes off is what happened next. Other pages, refusing to give their names, came forward with stories of sexually explicit messages they had received from Foley as far back as 1997. It was reported that in 2002 Foley had invited one page to stay at his home in exchange for oral sex and that he had asked another boy for a picture of his erect penis. Remember: these are 14, 15, 16-year-old teenage boys. Eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww. In 2005 the initial emails were leaked from Congressman Alexander’s office to the St. Petersburg Times, Fox News, and the Miami Herald. All of them passed on publishing the story, deciding that perhaps Foley was just being “creepy” or “overly friendly”. However, after that the next wave of messages came out, and they were much less vague and much more suggestive. The story gained momentum and pressure mounted on Foley and Congressional Republicans. Once the scandal broke fully, Speaker Dennis Hastert (!) and NRCC chairman Tom Reynolds (R-NY) told Foley that he either had to resign or they would actively try to expel him from the House, but it was later revealed (before the midterms) that they had known for a long time about Foley’s escapades. Read the story about the page who outed Foley in 2005 in secret: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/the-page-who-took-down-the-gop-mark-foley-dennis-hastert-213378 The GOP was taking a huge beating and Democrats were reaping the rewards. In November 2006 the Democrats galloped to victory gaining 5 seats in the Senate and 31 seats in the House, which gave them control of both chambers for the first time since 1994 when the two Independent senators, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) agreed to caucus with Democrats. Republicans were turfed out everywhere. Such luminaries included Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH), Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Sen. George Allen (R-VA), as well as Congressmen Charlie Bass (R-NH), JD Hayworth (R-AZ), and John Hostettler (R-IN). George W. Bush was facing a hostile Congress for the first time in his Presidency and his approval rating was sliding even further. Early 2007 saw him hovering in the mid-30s. Bush rode out the rest of his lame-duck tenure, but irreparable harm had been done to his legacy by his incompetence, his inaction, and his stubbornness. So for all you young readers and kids out there wondering why we react to seeing Bush’s approval rating hovering around 61% in TYOOL 2018? This is why. George W. Bush does not deserve redemption. His Presidency did lasting harm to every facet of governance that we hold dear. We struggle even today with what is and isn’t executive privilege because of him and we are still trying to dismantle what was known as “The Imperial Presidency”. (Apologies to Patton Oswalt for "Naked Puzzle Basement") --- Post-script: The Valerie Plame Affair (Guys, I wrote this at the speed of light. Please, please add to it. Anything you can think of.) Remember that picture of Scooter Libby earlier? Remember how I mentioned he was the only one of these assholes who actually suffered criminal consequences? Well, this is why. In 2002, there was a report that said Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger with the intent of manufacturing a nuclear weapon. A diplomat named Joseph C. Wilson was deployed to Niger to investigate the veracity of the report. Niger’s Prime Minister at the time said he was unaware of any such transactions, so Wilson reported that there was nothing to the rumor. End of story, right?  In his State of the Union speech in January 2003 Dubya repeated the now-debunked claim that the British government had learned of Iraq’s intent to purchase yellowcake uranium from Africa. Understandably, Wilson was alarmed. He assumed his report had either not been read or misunderstood. After the invasion began in March, he subsequently published a series of op-eds, including this one, wherein he concluded that much of the “evidence” used by the Bush people to justify invading Iraq had been at best exaggerated and at worst completely fabricated. This wasn’t the scandal. The scandal was what happened next. Journalist Robert Novak, then a commentator at CNN and a contributor to the Washington Post, published an article in mid-July about Wilson and not only named Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, but loving OUTED HER AS AN CIA OPERATIVE WHILE SHE WAS UNDERCOVER: quote:Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me Novak has since emphasized that he had no idea Plame was undercover at the time or he never would have named her in his article. However, it wasn’t a secret which way Novak leaned--he was decidedly pro-administration and that began to stoke the fires of speculation: did the Bush administration leak classified information to a journalist in order to get back at one of their critics? Cause, like, that would be illegal as gently caress. In September the CIA asked the Department of Justice to investigate, and the FBI was put on the case. Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case, handing responsibility to this fellow, who should look awfully familiar:  Yes! James Comey was the newly-minted Deputy Attorney General and responsibility for the investigation fell to him. He appointed a Special Counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, to investigate the matter. While no criminal charges were made concerning the leak itself, Scooter Libby got caught in the prosecutor’s web. He pled guilty to one count of obstruction of justice, one count of perjury, and three counts of lying to federal investigators. He resigned shortly afterwards and was sentenced to 30 months in jail. ...which was commuted. Then a few hours ago, Trump pardoned him for no reason. I hate this loving country. Burn it all down and piss on the ashes. E: I hope you have enjoyed reading this screed on George W. Bush. I mentioned Jimmy Carter as my next subject earlier, but someone else mentioned Chester Arthur. Which would you guys rather have? Fritz Coldcockin fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Apr 13, 2018 |
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Apr 13, 2018 22:08
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Nader was an independent in 2004. David Cobb, Jill Stein's future campaign manager, was the Green nominee.
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Apr 13, 2018 23:46
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joepinetree posted:I am familiar with that part of the history. I never argued that he was good. Only that he was substantially better than what came before and after him. Well yeah he's less of a war criminal than Nixon or Reagan, but it seems crazy to single him out for doing something positive for Latin America in particular given his record. He made the choice to arm right wing death squads to overthrow a popular leftist movement, knowing what the consequences would be. How much does it matter that he was less brutal and rhetorically chauvinistic about it than his immediate predecessor or successor? Sorry I just really don't like the rehabilitation of Carter. It's a sticking point with me.
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Apr 13, 2018 23:47
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I'd rather have Chester Arthur. Your stuff on Carter would be interesting, but I keep forgetting President Arthur existed. edit and this is basically the spiritual successor thread to the QuoProQuid "goons declare John Adams permanent and hereditary king, then elect the Anti-Masonic Party" thread
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Apr 13, 2018 23:50
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I was only a kid when we invaded Iraq. I was in the fifth grade, and Bush giving that final ultimatum speech will always be one of my most vivid memories, and it's one of the first times I remember thinking about things critically. I just could not understand what the gently caress justified, in all these adults' minds, what we were doing. And I was terrified of what the consequences would be. I had military family. My family had come to the US from France in the wake of World War 2. We are jewish, we were supposed to be fleeing persecution, violence, and hatred for the land of peace and freedom. My dad was one of the first of us to suffer for that, having paid in blood in Vietnam (yeah my parents had me super late so I'm a 90s kid with a Vietnam vet dad). America was the global good guy. We don't invade places. And my fears were confirmed when my uncle's firstborn, one of my childhood heroes, a great guy who never had anything but love for my nerdy little goon self, paid the ultimate price for "freedom". Everything I thought I knew about America was just... dumped in the garbage by the Bush administration's actions. Yeah it wasn't the first bad thing the US did, or the worst, but it was loving bad, and it was the first thing during my lifetime. Lies and slander and a personal grudge between two lovely heads of state got thousands or millions of people killed and the world is still reeling. My mom and others are still not sorry for voting for him even in '04. And they're otherwise liberal as hell. My mom believes Obama to be the greatest president of her life. But something something Bush had no choice. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 00:51
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I was behind the curve back in March 2003. Like, I knew at that point the evidence of WMDs was bogus, but high school me still rationalized it by thinking "why shouldn't we take out the bad guys anyway?" Somehow, my transformation by 2004 was rapid and substantial. While I was still maintaining a lot of respectability politics in regards to the flag and the troops, I knew the war was unjustified and that Bush had to be voted out of office. I'm not sure if it was Jon Stewart or Michael Moore or John Kerry or someone else that got through to me, but I'm glad I made that journey. I couldn't eat for a day or two after Bush won re-election.
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Apr 14, 2018 01:05
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GreyjoyBastard posted:I'd rather have Chester Arthur. Your stuff on Carter would be interesting, but I keep forgetting President Arthur existed. That was fun but it got a little boring when it basically became a given that we were always gonna elect the socialist every time.
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Apr 14, 2018 01:16
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Alter Ego posted:Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case, handing responsibility to this fellow, who should look awfully familiar: It appears you've moved on from this time period so I'll butt in with an intermission. In early 2004, Attorney General Ashcroft was hospitalized for pancreatitis and had his gall bladder removed. Comey was acting Attorney General for this period. Another affront against the constitution Bush undertook during the post-9/11 period was warrantless wiretapping. The Ashcroft justice department had (amazingly) reached the decision that this program was, indeed, illegal, and should not be renewed. It was due to expire in March when Ashcroft became ill. While Comey was driving back from a visit with Ashcroft, he was made aware that Andrew Card, Bush's chief of staff, alongside the reprehensible White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales (Bush's legal apologist for war crimes and torture) were about to take advantage of the anesthetized Ashcroft to get his signature saying the DoJ certified the legality of the unconstitutional wiretaps. (Gonzales was such an incredible turd during hearings in the Senate that even the republican senator from Alabama took issue with his convenient inability to remember details about nefarious goings-on. It seems that senator learned an important lesson in dissembling that day for when he would become Donald Trump's attorney general). Comey raced back and beat them to Ashcroft's bed, literally running up the stairs and getting the head of the FBI to have his men guarding Ashcroft insist that Comey was not to be removed from the room. He tried to warn Ashcroft about what was happening, but the attorney general was out of it. Card and Gonzales arrived, ignored Comey, and tried to rouse Ashcroft. Stunningly, Ashcroft awoke, gathered himself quickly, and reiterated the Justice Department's position on the illegality of the wiretaps. He then said if they had any further questions, they can address them to the attorney general, who's standing right there (pointing to Comey). Then he farted for seventeen seconds and went back to sleep. Card and Gonzales slunk away without a word to Comey. A few minutes later, Card summoned Comey by phone to the White House. Comey refused to meet unless a witness was with him -- the solicitor general of the US, Ted Olsen. The meeting went nowhere, and the next day the White House re-authorized warrantless wiretapping without sign-off from the Justice Department. In protest, Comey and others in the DoJ, particularly the head of the FBI, wrote resignation letters. President Bush asked Comey for a private meeting, where Comey asked him to also speak with the head of the FBI. Bush did so, and then he reversed the re-authorization until the DoJ rewrote it so it would conform to the law. The head of the FBI at the time was another guy we'd recognize today: 
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Apr 14, 2018 01:51
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Alter Ego posted:E: I hope you have enjoyed reading this screed on George W. Bush. I mentioned Jimmy Carter as my next subject earlier, but someone else mentioned Chester Arthur. Which would you guys rather have? I'm personally biased towards the 20th century, so I vote for mister Carter, but really either way is good, these pieces of yours are great 
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Apr 14, 2018 03:27
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Zachary Taylor drank milk and died.
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Apr 14, 2018 03:49
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I'd rather have Jimmy Carter for a palate cleanse. I hope there are some younger readers here who now understand just how deeply Bush hosed everything up and why older folks, especially older millennials despise him. My main Iraq War memory was when I was 14 and driving around town with my Presbryterian Church confirmation sponsor, a friend of my mom's. She's a pretty leftist lady and we got on the topic of Iraq and I was arguing "well, if they have WMDs, then shouldn't we take them out" and she very calmly and clearly explained how all that was bullshit and turned me against the war before it happened. She talked about the Kosovo war refugees she and her family took in during the 90s and how war should really only be the last resort and only when something truly horrible/ethnic cleansings were going on like in WW2 or in former Yugoslavia where only violence can stop the people trying to harm the innocent. Really gave me perspective on things and was probably my first non-Hollywood look into what war is really like. So thanks Mrs. [REDACTED} for saving me from a potential lifetime of being a giant idiot about that. The Plame Affair shocked me deeply as a kid who did Model UN and was interested in diplomacy and intelligence. Even though I was only about 14 or 15 I knew the one thing you didn't do was name undercover agents unless you would like to get them killed. I am almost certain there were orders from either Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush to out her as a warning not to oppose the Iraq War and leak anything about how the "evidence" was made up but we couldn't prove it and all we had to show for it was Scooter Libby...who's now been pardoned. I swear to god if Trump gets impeached and whoever succeeds him tries to go the Gerald Ford route they need to be immediately ejected into the sun. That there was no follow-up and prosecution of anything Bush did by Obama is another huge gently caress up that pissed me off to no end. GreyjoyBastard posted:edit and this is basically the spiritual successor thread to the QuoProQuid "goons declare John Adams permanent and hereditary king, then elect the Anti-Masonic Party" thread That thread was an utter joy and I'm sad we never finished it...although I think it got dropped right after November 2016 so I get why we all may not have wanted to do fantasy elections any more. axeil fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 06:19
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