Time’s Person of the Year

President George W. Bush

President Bush

11 Responses to "Time’s Person of the Year"

Ghost Dansing says:

December 20, 2004 at 8:58 am

Within the Bush White House lies an ugly beast that never gets acknowledged: The administration misled the American people, either purposely or out of incompetence. This is not a minor matter, because war, with all its unforeseen consequences, is not itself a minor matter — nor is the loss of some over 1200 American lives and 10,000 seriously wounded and disabled.

“I have no confidence in Rumsfeld’s leadership,” Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) of Nebraska said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I think those in the Pentagon, specifically the civilian leadership, failed this country in addressing a post-Saddam Iraq.” While Senator Hagel stopped short of calling for Rumsfeld to resign, he said he found it “astounding” that no one at the Pentagon has been held accountable for the poor planning.

He joins other prominent Republicans – including Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi – who have said they’ve lost confidence in the Defense secretary or called on him to step down eventually. Other Republican senators agreed Sunday that Rumsfeld should be held responsible, but asserted he should keep his job – in part because switching Defense secretaries in wartime causes its own turmoil.

But then, why should Rumsfeld be held accountable when the author of the miscalculated foreign policy was not held accountable by every American who cast their vote for Bush in the November election.

Trully, the Bush miracle is that he was elected at all, given all his demonstrable failings and liabilities. He surely has made America’s bed for the next two decades. Unfortunately, everybody has to sleep in it.. even those who recognized incompetence when we saw it.
CavalierX says:

December 20, 2004 at 6:31 pm

Oh, please. Stop your crying; it’s embarrasing. Here’s a tissue. Dry your eyes. Bush won; get over it already. As for Rumsfeld: he’s doing a bang-up fantastic job. If he even thinks of leaving, Bush ought to have him chained to his desk (what’s the difference; he usually works 12 hours a day anyway). He’s overseeing the biggest reorganisation of the military since Marius while prosecuting a wildly successful war against terrorists and those countries which harbor and support them. How many battles have we lost so far? 1200 dead to take an entire country? The ghosts of former Secretaries of Defense (War!) are turning green with envy. I’m glad you sniveling little whiners weren’t around during WWII. When the Japanese kicked our butts in EVERY SINGLE BATTLE for six straight months after Pearl Harbor, your kind would have had us learning Japanese, the better to get along with our new masters.
CavalierX says:

December 20, 2004 at 6:33 pm

As for Lugar and McCain: those two media suckups are only missing their usual counterpart, Lugar. I’m a bit surprised at Lott, though. Guess he’s trying to kiss Liberal butt for reasons of his own.
Ghost Dansing says:

December 21, 2004 at 8:11 am

The defense secretary has become the symbol of an accident-prone Iraq policy ,and even more, of the administration’s refusal to admit or learn from its mistakes. The man who bears ultimate responsibility for Iraq policy isn’t Rumsfeld, of course, but Bush. But the president has just won reelection, and obviously isn’t about to fire himself. So Rummy makes a convenient scapegoat in chief.

Oh, by the way.. this isn’t WW II. And, it is really tough to make a comparison. Like.. just start with the basic fact: Saddam didn’t attack the United States. The cadre that did are still scampering around the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Rumsfeld gets many of the little things right, but he has gotten the big thing wrong. Like McNamara, he realized that the war he had advocated was turning into a “long, hard slog.” And like McNamara, he was unable to find a way to alter strategy in the midst of that conflict.

The Republicans that are criticising this Republican administration are correct in their criticism. And the Republican administration is playing its cards as it always has: lie.. keep lying.. deny ’til you can deny no more.. admit a problem after it’s too late to fix it.. then say “oopsy” and press on to the next miscalulation.
Uptown Girl says:

December 21, 2004 at 6:16 pm

Time could not have chosen better
CavalierX says:

December 21, 2004 at 8:20 pm

>accident-prone Iraq policy

Elaborate. List the “accidents,” and then lay out precisely how each one should have been avoided using then-current and then-available reports instead of Liberal 20-20 hindsight.

> this isn’t WWII

Thank God. You Liberals would have us learning Japanese and German by now. Instead, you merely want to do whatever would make the enemy happy, like firing the best Secretary of Defense in decades and running away from a fight because it’s too tough for your sensibiities. I’m buying stock in Kimberly-Clark (the makers of Kleenex).
Ghost Dansing says:

December 24, 2004 at 12:33 pm

The “accidents” term was a sarcastic metaphor for incompetence. It actually isn’t an “accident” at all, but a tragic lack of foresight on behalf of this Republican administration that has led us into these unfortunate set of circumstances in Iraq.

Aside from the fact that the selection of Iraq as a front in the war on terrorism was itself an error (at least creating a breeding ground for international terrorists, where there was none before), there are numerous professional reports and articles demonstrating lack of foresight and incompetent planning. *snip*

http://www.csis.org/features/iraq_deviraqinsurgency.pdf

But then, if one cannot differentiate characteristics between different wars in history.. it might be hard to follow.

WARNING from Sister T: Please do not post an entire article in the comments section. A link will suffice.
Ghost Dansing says:

December 24, 2004 at 12:49 pm

The term “accidents” was actually a sarcastic euphemism for unfortunate events resulting from lack of foresight and general incompetence.

There is a professional report available in .pdf format at this URL:

http://www.csis.org/features/iraq_deviraqinsurgency.pdf

And it is absolutely necessary to learn from history, and be able to differentiate between the various wars within the context of the factors involving their occurance and conduct. Iraq is not WW II. The comparison is apples and oranges. However, there are some significant parallels to Vietnam, and mistakes made there, and even Colonial wars conducted, for example, by the British when they ruled the region that is now Iraq as a Colonial power. But WW II was a totally different genre.
Ghost Dansing says:

December 24, 2004 at 3:29 pm

Duplicate post (edited)
CavalierX says:

December 24, 2004 at 4:42 pm

Doesn’t take long for Lefties to make their inevitable Vietnam comparisons. Every time a US soldier sets foot on foreign soil, he’s an imperialist; every time someone shoots at him, he’s the aggressor; every time a war takes more time to resolve than a half-hour sitcom-plot mentality can handle, it’s a quagmire. Liberals are getting boringly predictable. What? We’ve been in Iraq for almost 2 years and haven’t totally rebuilt their society from the ground up yet? Hey, Ghost… I wonder whether you consider Kosovo a quagmire at 5 years and counting. Iraq is already ahead of them in terms of rebuilding. I wonder why you have nothing to say about Afghanistan. I wonder whether you considered Germany (5 years) and Japan (7 years!) quagmires? It’s sad how few Liberals even know history, much less understand it. It’s all about hatred of America, Republicans, the military and George W. Bush.
Ghost Dansing says:

January 1, 2005 at 8:22 pm

LINK

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