Who's Got The Bigger Big Tent?
There's this idea that people on the left are tolerant and that it's those on the right who are intolerant. Does the data support this? Arthur C. Brooks has a very interesting piece in the WSJ:
In 2004, the University of Michigan's American National Election Studies (ANES) survey asked about 1,200 American adults to give their thermometer scores of various groups. People in this survey who called themselves "conservative" or "very conservative" did have a fairly low opinion of liberals -- they gave them an average thermometer score of 39. The score that liberals give conservatives: 38. Looking only at people who said they are "extremely conservative" or "extremely liberal," the right gave the left a score of 27; the left gives the right an icy 23. So much for the liberal tolerance edge.Some might argue that this is simply a reflection of the current political climate, which is influenced by strong feelings about the current occupants of the White House. And sure enough, those on the extreme left give President Bush an average temperature of 15 and Vice President Cheney a 16. Sixty percent of this group gives both men the absolute lowest score: zero.
To put this into perspective, note that even Saddam Hussein (when he was still among the living) got an average score of eight from Americans. The data tell us that, for six in ten on the hard left in America today, literally nobody in the entire world can be worse than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
This doesn't sound very tolerant to me -- nor especially rational, for that matter. To be fair, though, let's roll back to a time when the far right was accused of temporary insanity: the late Clinton years, when right-wing pundits practically proclaimed the end of Western civilization each night on cable television because President Clinton had been exposed as a perjurious adulterer.
In 1998, Bill Clinton and Al Gore were hardly popular among conservatives. Still, in the 1998 ANES survey, Messrs. Clinton and Gore both received a perfectly-respectable average temperature of 45 from those who called themselves extremely conservative. While 28% of the far right gave Clinton a temperature of zero, Gore got a zero from just 10%. The bottom line is that there is simply no comparison between the current hatred the extreme left has for Messrs. Bush and Cheney, and the hostility the extreme right had for Messrs. Clinton and Gore in the late 1990s.
Does this refute the stereotype that right-wingers are "haters" while left-wingers are not? Liberals will say that the comparison is unfair, because Mr. Bush is so much worse than Mr. Clinton ever was. Yes, Mr. Clinton may have been imperfect, but Mr. Bush -- whom people on the far left routinely compare to Hitler -- is evil. This of course destroys the liberal stereotype even more eloquently than the data. The very essence of intolerance is to dehumanize the people with whom you disagree by asserting that they are not just wrong, but wicked.
In the end, we have to face the fact that political intolerance in America -- ugly and unfortunate on either side of the political aisle -- is to be found more on the left than it is on the right. This may not square with the moral vanity of progressive political stereotypes, but it's true.
Cathy Seipp would've agreed.
I clicked on that Cathy Seipp article and I remember reading that when it came out. It was sad to see her go soooo early, she was less than a year older than me. She was a great writer and could always come up with a different perspective. I liked her a lot and read her often.
I have always been of the opinion that our political persuasions are based on our 'left brain - right brain' characteristics. Ironically, right brainers tend to be more artistic, sensitive, visual, feelings driven, emotional types who usually turn out to be liberals. Left brainers are more logical, mathematical, orderly, reality based, practical and safe type people, and that defines the conservative side. The reason I think there is a 'hatred' variation is that hate is more emotional and feeling and a logical calculating person doesn't really live there. I don't even think that most conservatives,(or left brainers) are really ever haters because hate is a useless inefficient use of brainpower. We tend to get agitated by people acting like children, but we don't hate them personally, we just think they need to be more rational. They think we need to have more compassion. We think they need to grow up.
The problem with liberal politics is that you can't convince people that their feelings are wrong. When some politician gets up and says, "I feel your pain" or "It's all for the children", they are playing to the weakness of right brain people, VERY deliberately, and ironically, it is usually some cold, calculating left brain self centered egotist who is doing it! And being emotional people, the liberal right brainers swoon while left brainers like me roll our eyes! (off topic: don't ever do that in front of a pentacostal evangelist).
Liberals are convinced that anything that feels right is the right thing to do, they are hard wired that way. Conservatives constantly ask questions like, how would that work? how are you going to pay for it? what will be the unintended circumstances? and liberals look at them like, what the hell does any of that matter?!? Its for the children you cold hearted asshole! How could you even think of saying no?!?
The thing that bothers me is that the left will usually come out winning the overall balance of the fight because there are some left brain crossover people who are such devious lying schemers, that they will exploit the emotionalism and lack of logic and maturity on the left to get what they want. Again, "I feel your pain." Bill Clinton was a perfect example of a left brain guy using right brainers like a tool. But it doesn't really work the other way. An emotionally based person cannot use analytic, calculating people because they ignore the feelings and see thru you in a microsecond and disregard you. Jimmy Carter who was all feeling never appealed to ONE conservative except religious zealots, but then zealots tend to be left brainers. Zealotry is emotional. Hell, look at the current political situation going on, conservatives are ready to throw John McCain to the wolves because of his past ACTIONS, not his promises. While John McCain is appealling to liberals with hints that he will do what they want.
Ask dems or reps what they think of the debates, liberals will tell you how they felt about what was said and conservatives will tell you what they heard what was said.
Welcome to politics 101.
We are two different species, which side have the body snatchers taken over??
Bikerken at January 23, 2008 1:38 AM
Who's Got The Bigger Big Tent?
I wonder if they asked this question on Brokeback mountain?
Bikerken at January 23, 2008 4:23 AM
After thinking about it, I think that it actually came up twice, once in the evening, then in the morning.
Forgive me lord, I'm having too much pun.
Bikerken at January 23, 2008 4:31 AM
I could write comedy for a living, if only I could find enough people with a lousy sense of humor.
Ok, I'm really done now.
Bikerken at January 23, 2008 4:37 AM
> the moral vanity of progressive
> political stereotypes
It ain't moral vanity, it's plain vanity. Consider the stink over the Goldberg book: It's simply not permitted to say that liberals might do bad things.
Crid at January 23, 2008 5:49 AM
I posted on this on another thread, but it's more appropriate for this one. It's at the bottom of the comments.
http://www.advicegoddess.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=4915
Flynne at January 23, 2008 5:54 AM
Who's Got The Bigger Big Tent?
I wonder if they asked this question on Brokeback mountain?
This is most especially cheeky, considering that Heath Ledger was found dead in his NY apartment yesterday afternoon. (But that doesn't keep me from wondering...o_O)
Flynne at January 23, 2008 5:57 AM
Flynne, thanks for trying to be polite, but please feel free to reposte here, as it's right on topic.
Amy Alkon at January 23, 2008 6:11 AM
Thanks, Amy! I didn't want to take up too much space with it, but since I got your go-ahead, here goes:
I present to you all:
Flynne's History Primer
Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter. The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer.
These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
1. Liberals and
2. Conservatives.
Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to barbeque at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly barbeques and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as "girliemen". Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that the conservatives provided. Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant.
Liberals are symbolized by the jackass. Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.
Disclaimer: YMMV o_O
Flynne at January 23, 2008 6:31 AM
I'll expand a bit on what Bikerken said above about the right/left brain. If you scroll down this link Myers-Briggs Type Indicator you'll find
"Thinking and Feeling are the decision-making (judging) functions. Both Thinking and Feeling types strive to make rational choices, based on the data received from their information-gathering functions (S or N). Those with a preference for Feeling prefer to come to decisions by associating or empathizing with the situation, looking at it 'from the inside' and weighing the situation to achieve, on balance, the greatest harmony, consensus and fit, considering the needs of the people involved. Those with a preference for Thinking prefer to decide things from a more detached standpoint, measuring the decision by what seems reasonable, logical, causal, consistent and matching a given set of rules."
Which agrees with what Bikerken says about decision making being hard-wired. However, one would assume that "Feelers" would eventually figure out that they've been lied to, and lied to for years by the Democratic Party, much the way the "Thinkers" have figured out that they've been lied to for years by the Republicans.
The Republican Party has a revolt ongoing, the Democratics not so much. Why? The answer, I think, lies in the topic of this post. The Democrats keep ratcheting up the rhetoric to prevent their "feelers" from reflecting on their past decisions and what the candidates are actually saying. By bombarding their voting bloc with never-ending predictions of calamity the candidates keep their voters in emotional turmoil which deprives the voters of the "quiet time" needed to "process" all of the information. In addition, the better things are the worse the predictions of pending disaster must be. It's easy to create fear and angst during times of real turmoil, it's much more difficult to create them when things are going well so much more extreme rhetoric must be employed.
Curly Smith at January 23, 2008 6:32 AM
Intolerance abounds in the left and on the right and what that really reveals is how both parties are filled with ignorant and arrogant jackasses. But the article itself is biased bullshit nonsense.
I know of no one that compares Bush to Hitler, routinely or otherwise.
jerry at January 23, 2008 6:41 AM
jerry: You don't? I do, and I see the comparison on left-wing sites not infrequently. Google "Bush Hitler" (though not with the quotes) to see thousands of examples.
Flynne: Originally, domesticated cats were vital in holding down the rodent population that otherwise would have run unchecked through stored grain and the like. The lack of cats in England due to their reputation as being witches' familiars is linked to the outbreak of the Great Plague, in which germs were spread rapidly by rodents. It's only as humans have urbanized that cats have gone from vital assistant to pampered pets (I'm one of those pamperers, so I know whereof I speak). So I must take issue with that part of your treatise - proto-conservatives would have sided with the cats, whereas proto-liberals would have sided with the poor little misunderstood rats.
Otherwise, good stuff. :)
marion at January 23, 2008 7:32 AM
Seriously, can I give Bush a -8? (Please note: Hitler is more like 1 -100, Saddam a -50.) Please? He is not benign. Or do you really think the waterboarding, Camp Cuba and all those record executions in Texas before he became President have nothing to do with that insane, dumb fuck?
That off my chest, Bikerken, you were right on (and I appreciated the little necessary spin into cornball humor after; I like cornball humor). What scared me is this observation of yours: "They think we need to have more compassion. We think they need to grow up." That also details in a nutshell the problems I'm having with my 25 year old daughter. I'm having to resist the urge to pound some freaking common sense into her skull. I can resist it because I know it wouldn't work.
Personal problems aside, now I'm in a quandry. I guess I'm more conservative than I knew and two things are actually getting in the way of that: the religious right and having been born into poverty. But I do know this, I am fed up with the far left. Anything goes; no matter how ridiculous or self-damaging. I am also fed up with the far right. Nothing goes, nothing can be tolerated.
Seriously, how about a middle-of-the-road policy. Welfare as a last resort but so horrible to be on you wouldn't go for it unless you had absolutely no other choice. None of this rewarding criminals and "women" who have several babies by the time they're 20 with a college education. Or coming here illegally with amnesty and money hand-outs instead of deportation.
But, on the other hand, minimum wage should be something at least one person can live decently -- note decently, not lavishly -- on. Let's unhook health insurance from the employer with affordable premiums. And while I'm fantasizing, how about taking control of medicine out of the hands of the insurance companies and big pharma so doctors can get educated instead of brain-washed at medical conventions once again and decide instead of the insurance companies just how much treatment their patient needs.
I guess that's why I tout voting third party so much. I really want to see polticians that aren't knee jerk (i.e., intolerant assholes) one way or the other. I want something reasonable, something middle of the road.
I don't consider myself one way or the other and that's interesting in connection with this article. I'm very logical much of the time, pretty much common sense. But I'm also, as I put it (I put it nicely and go easy on myself), very passionate. I feel things very deeply. I have a short fuse and my ire can get up pretty easily and blow sky high pretty quickly (I'm working on this). I have a weird tendancy to see saw back and forth between reason and emotion. So I don't know what the hell that makes me. I guess that's why I find myself so often muttering at some dumb thing (from either the right or the left) "Middle road, people. Middle road."
Flynne, the only thing I can disagree with in your post is giving the left credit with domesticating cats. Uh uh. Cats are, like Clinton, left brainers taking cold, calculating advantage. They domesticated themselves in ancient Egypt after they spied the rats drawn to the stores of grain. To this day, they expect to worshipped for the privilege of killing easy prey we consider pests. Modern cats have come so far as to get us to give them food instead of having to hunt for it while avoiding being the trainable slaves dogs are. They're no fools. They know an exploitable species when they see one.
Donna at January 23, 2008 7:55 AM
The reality is there needs to be a balance between liberal and conservative values for any government to function appropriately.
I find this notion of conservatives as "thinkers" and liberals as "feelers" completely disregards everything that has gone on in the past 8 years and simply works on an absurd steroetype.
"Conservatives constantly ask questions like, how would that work? how are you going to pay for it? what will be the unintended circumstances? "
Right like the Iraq war? Because that was so well thought out. It was also cheap and effective too.
Or abstinence only sexual education? That must have been really well thought out and not based on any "feelings." I mean study after study shows hows its completely ineffective, but we're still paying for it.
Conservatives against Gay-marriage? That couldn't possibly based on some sort "feeling" that gays are wrong. That one must be based on pure logic.
Also the fact Bush has increased spending while cutting taxes for the rich? That's not exactly logical or terribly conservative. It's just creating future debt.
The War on Drugs anybody? That paradigm of conservative values that wastes billions. How millions and millions many have been wasted for busting medical marijuana stores because some coservatives "feels" its wrong, even though government scientists continue to classify it as less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. How many more billions must be wasted on what study after study shows has done absolutely nothing to lower drug use or even raise the cost of drugs?
I already know the response I'm going to get to this post. The conservatives are going to say that "well those aren't real conservative values that I believe in." Well fine you may not believe in them, but don't paint with such an absurdly large brush that says all liberals are just "feelings." Conservatives, especially these days, can be just as winy and "feelings" oriented or as the conservatives call them "values voters."
flighty at January 23, 2008 8:17 AM
At this point I consider the choice between Democrat or Republican to be similar to the choice between chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Either way, you're still getting the same stuff, just with a slightly different flavor. In other words, they are all morons.
However I do think that there is a key peice of information missing from this analysis. What score do conservatives give The Bush Administration? And What score did liberals give the Clinton Administration?
Essentially this article is saying that Liberals are more judgemental and closed minded because they hate Bush more than conservatives hated Clinton. However, this completely ignores Bush's current approval ratings on Both sides of the aisle. It is entirely possible that conservagives also dislike Bush more than liberals dislike Clinton, meaning that the difference between the groups may not have changed. (I don't know I"m just speculating.)
I have known many former Republicans who have left their party after the events of the last eight years, but very few Democrats who did the same after the Clinton years. I just don't think this is a valid comparison without somehow indexing it to the feelings of the same party about their current president. Especially when the approval ratings of the two presidents are so far apart.
This article proves nothing except that someone is good at manipulating statistics, and that the rest of us are good at being manipulated.
Shinobi at January 23, 2008 8:23 AM
You're half right Flighty. Those are all stances that the Republican party has taken.
But the Republican party hasn't been what I would call 'conservative' in a long time.
Elle at January 23, 2008 11:07 AM
> Seriously, can I give
> Bush a -8?
Does this ever end?
Yes, absolutely: Bush is a shitty president.... Perhaps an historically shitty president. But eventually people have got to stop whining that no human population ever suffered as much horror as the contemporary United States citizen?
I mean, do you really, really think that public affairs has been darker than it is today?
I think one big reason the Presidency is so powerful today is that the economics of mass media make it so much cheaper to focus on 1 guy (White House) rather than 100 (Senate) or 436 (House of Representatives), let alone all those little wretches in the statehouse. And as these mass media have penetrated deeper into our lives, it's easier for the enfeebled whinnying of an NPR reporter to find an echo with the daily disappoints in our own lives (my husband didn't take out the trash, the pretty girl at the coffee cart didn't smile at me today).
How old are you? I'm 48. Have some fun, and write down a list of the presidents of your lifetime in order of ascending relative shittiness. You'll find that list is fat on the bottom.
There's no reason for this campaign to have already been going on for a year except that something, maybe the internet, has cranked the American capacity for OCD to a new and frightening throughput. Kaus belives in the Faster Feiler Thesis. I believe people are full of shit.
There's no reason
Crid at January 23, 2008 12:27 PM
Shinobi, in fairness to Bush, the entire national-level GOP has spent the past eight years making it crystal clear there's no longer any room in the tent for libertarians and fiscal conservatives.
That said, I agree with you're basic argument that it's not an apples to apples comparison and doesn't really tell us anything. Most conservatives would agree the country was at least in no worse shape after Clinton than before. On the other hand, I think even the most extreme conservatives would agree you can logically argue Bush has been a failure.
SeanH at January 23, 2008 1:31 PM
Sean -
Bush has been a failure in what way?
Are you worse off now than you were 8 years ago? I'm not. I now own a house, my car is paid off, my bike is paid off, my company is growing.
The country isn't in any worse shape, much as the media want it to be. I mean, they've gone and spooked an entire planet into anti-recession tactics on the basis of a few highly-touted stories of economic ruin, but it just ain't so.
Now, as a CONSERVATIVE, Bush has been an abject failure. But that's only because he isn't a conservative. And any conservative that voted for him expecting him to be anything even remotely conservative was a fool. I only voted for him because his opponents were so hideously bad that I couldn't countenance supporting them.
brian at January 23, 2008 2:16 PM
Brian,
I don't think evaluating whether or not an individual is worse off than they were 8 years ago is a valid way of evaluating a presidency. I personally am worse off, but that is because of life events that had nothing to do with the Bush Administration, and even if I were better off I would hardly credit Bush for it.
I think you need to do more research on the current issues facing the housing/mortgage industry if you think talk of a recession is just hysteria. The subprime crisis is only the beginning of the mortgage problem, for the next two years millions of ARMs will be adjusting upward and more people will be losing their homes. These foreclosures affect everyone, the mortgages were repackaged and resold many times here and overseas meaning it is seriously tied up in the financial markets, and now all that money is gone.
If you really think that Bush is doing a great job, well I hardly see how listing his failures will convince you. I just have to wonder which planet you've been living on.
Shinobi at January 23, 2008 2:42 PM
I agree with most of what you say flighty, but the gay marriage thing has been varnished with so much religious and moral rhetoric that the real reason is gone.
>
The real reason for the opposition to gay marriage from a policy standpoint is $$$. Sure there are people who will say it's a "sin", "abomination" and such. The policy makers feed that rhetoric because it works, but the real reason to deny gay marriage is so you can deny benefits. Pure and simple. Is it right, of course not. Is it effective, hell yes.
Aardvark at January 23, 2008 2:42 PM
>>Are you worse off now than you were 8 years ago? I'm not. I now own a house, my car is paid off, my bike is paid off, my company is growing.
Maybe you're not worse off, but someone's going to have to pay the bill for this blood-sucking war.
I think the disparity between approval ratings for Bush/Cheney vs. Clinton/Gore has to do with the real harm to our standing in the world and our Constitution in the last 7 years as opposed to an illicit blow job.
I could tolerate any Republican now running (except Huckabee) in the White House exponentially more than I can tolerate two men who need to be tried for war crimes and perhaps treason.
Monica at January 23, 2008 3:25 PM
Flynn, great history primer. They should teach that in public school.
There are some real good comments on this thread. The only other thing that I would add is that I don’t think you can always put governmental policies or actions down as right or left because what comes out of DC is always a result of both sides, feelers and thinkers, which is I think, the way it should be. We need that mix, if all my friends were exactly like me, we would all hate each other. Most of my friends are liberals, but I live on the beach in southern CA, there’s forty year old guys down here that don’t have one pair of long pants.
As far as Bush goes, I kinda agree with Brian about him messing up some, but I’m not convinced that Bush is a left brainer. I think he might be a feeler more that thinker. I think most of the stupidest things that he has done have to do with him following his feelings instead of his head. Of course some of you might think he’s a no-brainer. Your entitled.
Bikerken at January 23, 2008 4:37 PM
Monica - "War crimes and perhaps treason"? The present administration pretty much parroted the intelligence of ever other country while making the case for invading Iraq. Name a country that didn't believe that Iraq had WMD in March of 2003. Even other Arab states believed and stated such. This whole "Bush lied people died" nonsense has to end.
If Bush/Cheney are such bad guys why does the left feel compelled to distort the record leading up to the war? Hillary, Edwards, Kennedy, et al are all on the record stating that Saddam had WMD and was trying to obtain more. Just because the intelligence of the international community was wrong doesn't make Bush a liar. (let alone a "war criminal"
What if Bush had ignored the threat in Iraq and Saddam gave some of the WMD everyone thought he had to a terrorist group that then released it in Los Angeles and killed 100,000 people? The same liberals who call Bush a war criminal today would be calling for his impeachment for ignoring such an "obvious threat".
By the way, be careful about throwing words like treason around, lefty. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, Jack Murtha, etc., and the majority of democrats did everything they possibly could to undermine the war in Iraq. That's what you're forced to do when you're irreversibly wedded to the defeat of your own country in a war against Isamists that want to drag us back to the 8th Century. All for short term partisan political advantage. I'll put it to you this way....is the success of the surge bad news for the Democrats? An honest answer should make you sick to your stomach.
Finally, your post pretty much makes the argument of liberals feeling, not thinking, their way through life. War criminal, treason, the world hates us, etc.
You, madam, are deep in the throes of "Bush Derangement Syndrome."
BDT at January 23, 2008 4:48 PM
Shinobi - I didn't say that Bush was "doing a great job". I think he's been a miserable president. I also think he's better than we would have gotten had Algore or Kerry won either election. I also chopped of part of my previous post because it didn't really fit so well, but the point I was going for with my circumstances is "If Bush is so damned awful, how come I'm not screwed?". The idea being that the president doesn't really have as much power to fuck up individual lives as many think.
So far as the sub-prime mortgage thing goes? I have no sympathy for someone who was dumb enough to buy more house than they could afford, and agree to terms they KNEW they would be unable to meet. We now have a massive pile of oversized McMansion eyesores, built for a bunch of would-be yuppies who thought they deserved everything at age 31. And on the other end of the sub-prime assfucking, we have the minorities who were put into mortgages they couldn't afford to satisfy the identity politics of Congress, who were trying to satiate the race pimps who are convinced that everything that happens to a non-white is part of some gigantic racialist conspiracy. I got a house I could afford, on a 30 year fixed. Is it huge? No. But then again, I don't have any hangups about my cock either.
Monica - I'm not going to bother trying to educate you on the need to tear down and re-form the middle east in a more modern image. If you do not understand the tremendous future costs of a nuclearized middle east, there's nothing I can say that will convince you. Just stick your head in the sand and hope it all blows over.
And so far as treason goes, well, not so much. Murtha definitely lent aid and comfort to the enemy with his conviction of the Haditha Marines as murderers. And Jim McDermott, standing in Baghdad, claiming that Bush was lying about Hussein is certainly actionable. But Bush? What, was he supposed to tell all the intel agencies "you're all wrong"?
Oh, and as far as the whole "standing in the world" thing, you should get out more. We've been detested since the end of the cold war.
brian at January 23, 2008 5:26 PM
We are clearly worse off in our foreign relations, even ignoring Iraq. The economy is OK now, but he's saddled us with huge deficit spending, greatly expanded government, no reform of Social Security or other entitlements, and made that problem much worse with Medicare part D. He has done more to increase the tax burden on future Americans than any president since FDR.
That's just the huge things even conservatives agree he's screwed up. Off the top of my head, I'd add in things like moving the country backwards on free trade, the wiretapping, the torture mess, using PATRIOT Act powers to police nonterrorists, and actively undermining science policy across the board to push his political goals.
I'm not trying to bash Bush, I'm just saying it's silly to compare his term with Clinton's as if the opposite party's hostility should logically be anything close to equal. I'm an independent that until recently leaned slightly Republican and I think Bush is in the same ballpark as Carter and Nixon for crap presidents of the past century. The hatred is totally irrational, but one side rating Bush as crappy while the other rates Clinton as low-end mediocre is exactly what a nonpartisan would rationally expect in my opinion.
SeanH at January 24, 2008 8:15 AM
I also agree Kerry would have been worse and Gore no better, BTW.
SeanH at January 24, 2008 8:21 AM
And now you see my problem - Bush, being the lesser of two evils, has done less damage to future generations than either Gore or Kerry would have.
Which is like saying that being shot in the gut is better than being shot in the head, because you'll live longer.
Clinton was far worse than "low-end mediocre". For starters, he could have prevented 9/11. Which would have prevented the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, we would never have had the debate about torture, never had the PATRIOT act. Sudan offered the Clinton administration Bin Laden on a platter, and Clinton's Justice Department said "we don't have a legal basis to hold him". If they could come up with a legal basis to harass all manner of civilian folk, they could have kept Bin Laden on ice.
So, in order of total damage to the nation for recent presidents, I'd have to rank Carter #1, Clinton #2, Bush 43 #3, Bush 41 #4. Nixon would probably land somewhere between the bushes - price and wage controls - what was he thinking???
brian at January 24, 2008 9:05 AM
"I got a house I could afford, on a 30 year fixed. Is it huge? No. But then again, I don't have any hangups about my cock either."
This wins Quote of the Day, easily.
Pirate Jo at January 24, 2008 1:01 PM
"...two men who need to be tried for war crimes and perhaps treason."
Treason, huh?
Article 3 section 3 of the U.S. Constitution.
"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhereing to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort..."
Can you make an argument that Bush/Cheney did any of these things? If not, no treason, period.
winston at January 24, 2008 2:35 PM
I think the comments proved the author's point.
MarkD at January 25, 2008 7:56 AM
Wow! Bush is so bad, the best defense his supporters can come up is to imagine he's better than then two other guys would have beenif they were elected president, which they weren't. That's really stretching, don't you thnk?
DDT at January 25, 2008 5:55 PM
"Wow! Bush is so bad, the best defense his supporters can come up is to imagine he's better than then two other guys would have been if they were elected president, which they weren't. That's really stretching, don't you thnk?"
This would be the same Bush who was warned that "Bin Laden is determined to attack" and then went on a month-long vacation. The same Bush who then invaded a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. The same Bush who has turned a record surplus into a record deficit. The same Bush who had gutted environmental regulations, turned the DOJ into an arm of the Republican party and threw out the Geneva Convention.
You're damn right I hate what Bush has done to this country. I'm sick and tired of hearing my perfectly logical feelings of detestation referred to as "Bush Derangement Syndrome". AFAIC, the only derangement syndrome existing is found among Bush supporters.
JoJo at January 26, 2008 9:29 AM
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