I don't think he could - 'ole Slick ***** is too slick! He'd slide right away from anything too difficult! Clinton was/is a great public speaker, one of the presidential qualities that he had that Bush somewhat lacks. Don't get me wrong, Bush tries hard. His written speaches are "ok" but you can't credit him for that, not his work really. But get him in an open mic setting and yikes! he can sound dumb. "Is our children learning?"

 

That's why I want to see it. Slick is slick, and smart, but is a pathological liar. Cheney has the hard drive to sit there and destroy and discredit every whopper ***** would tell, which happens to be every single thing he says.

Hillary for that matter too. Making a speech to the Australians a few years back "I was named after Edmund Hillary" (the first guy to scale Mt Everest, who was an Aussie). Except he was an unknown prior to the feat, and Hillary was born prior to the feat. Just lie to lie, even with nothing to gain but momentary attention, what the heck.

 

Agreed. But, I'd rather have someone with their heart in the right place who looks not as good on tv, than someone who's a slick televangelist stickin' it to us behind the scenes.

 

If you think Big ***** was stickin' it to ya (that sounds so damn funny) then by all means, think that. I'm not gonna stop ya. I'd instead argue that Bush's policies are doing the same to America, albeit often indirectly.

 

Well, I can see that the moving of this thread has brought some new opinions to the subject.

Let's stir the pot a little further. Disregarding command of the military, the only true power of the president is what? Persuasion. The President's most prominent ability in office is the persuasive ability of the office itself. Taking this into account, can we really assume, having only been in office for four years, that any policy reflecting the influence of George W can really be seen yet? Or should we instead question whether the policy changes and economic effects being seen today are the last remnant of the unbelieveably strong influence of the Clinton administration and that those influeces of Bush's own administration are yet to come. In fact, if this idea truly holds water as so many political scientists contend, we could also infer that the first four to six years of the Clinton administration was merely a "surfing" of the remnants of Bush Sr.'s influence and that only now are we truly seeing what effects Clinton's administration have had.

More food for thought.

~HoundDog

 

It's not economically related, but I've seen a lot of posts stating that the democrats are all about taking freedoms away etc etc.... I've got 2 words for ya Patriot Act. Talk about violating our rights. I understand the intention behind this however, the anti-gun activists (which I am not) have the same intentions in mind.
BTW I'm not a democrat.

 

HoundDog

I see people make that point a lot - that the actions are delayed and that Clinton rode the back of a Republican and now Bush Jr. is struggling while we are on a $#itty economy that is the fault of a Democrat. Sounds like an excuse to me for Republicans having terrible ecomies while in office. Reason being - they try to 1)cut taxes and 2) fight wars at the same time. You can't increase spending by billions and cut income by billions at the same time. Think about if you did that to your personal checking account. Sure as hell don't work too well. The cutting taxes is (IMO) to get votes and the starting wars is sometimes legit and sometimes to get the mind of the public off of the sh!tty economy (why we pushed SO hard to fight Iraq in some way when absolutely nothing had changed there). It is well known that for our economy to be strong we need to spend a lot on the Defense budget - usually we do, and it just goes into researching and developing things we don't use too often, but it does what it is supposed to and creates American jobs and puts money back into the hands of Americans, helping the economy immensely. Remember that the Defense department is the #1 employer (indirectly) in the country. This is why.

The President not only leads the military but also proposes a ton of policy and leads his party into Congressional actions. That is where he has a huge influence in what goes on, by proposing what he wants to happen. Not that it always does, but often when the Pres says what he wants he gets some action.

Jerry, excellent point. People want to complain about the Dems taking freedoms away (which most of the time they complain about without substatiation) but they don't wish to consider the changes in law since 9/11 such as the Patriot Act that made big changes in privacy policies.

Until next time [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Thomez,

I find your post a little hard to follow as you change topics and views quite abruptly. What I seem to gather from your reply is that you are against tax cutting, for military spending, against war, and feel like presidential policy changes take effect almost immediately. I find these interests to be quite conflicting and I don't yet understand your true position. I agree that the military is the largest employer either directly or indirectly in the US. However, I can't concur with your opinion that we have done nothing for the situation in Iraq nor will I change my postion which I stated priorly about the lag in effect time of presidential policy influence.

Thank you for sharing your opinions.


~HoundDog

 

Sorry if that was confusing. I'll try to be more clear.

I think the budget should be balanced every year. No ifs, ands, or butts about it. Unless another 9/11 occurs, it needs to be balanced. Bush and other fellow Republicans policy is to 1)cut taxes and 2) raise spending. That means deficit, every time. Running deficits is bad economics. I think cutting taxes is often done because that is one huge selling point that the Republicans have on the average Joe that could care less about politics - less taxes? "sounds good to me" says Joe. Easy Republican vote.

I am not against tax cuts, rather, I'm against tax cuts that gives thousands and thousands to the rich and $200 or so to the other 95% of the public. I think that the wealthies Americans should pay higher % taxes, as they do. I think if tax cuts are made they should be to help the majority of people, not the few. If you left out the upper class from the tax cuts the lower and middle classes could get something substantial.

I am for Military spending because of it's function in helping the economy, as I described, this country needs to stay on a "wartime" economy to have a strong economy, no matter if we are fighting a war or not. Throughout history this seems to work.

I did not say that we had done nothing in Iraq but that nothing had changed to prompt our activity. You misunderstood that I think.

I do think that Presidential policies take effect faster than you. So much of the economy depends on investor and consumer confidence, which is spawned on a daily basis. Much of this has to do with present economic policy and the hope for the future, both of which the President effects.

Hopefully that is more clear. Thanks for being a civil person to type to, they seem rather rare sometimes ... lol

 

Thomez,

You make some very sound points and I agree with several things you have said. I do agree with your point that tax cuts make for an easy Republican vote and yes, that is a major selling point to the common public. I also agree that a war time economy is the healthiest economically speaking. However, you speak of seller confidence and its effect on the market. This angle must be taken into account when looking at a war time economy as well. In the last four wars (Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Operation Freedom) we have seen a major descent in public confidence in military action as each war has progressed. In other words, for each of these wars, voter confidence was very high in the beginning and dropped drastically as the war progressed. People are still looking for an explanation as to why this has been the case versus WWI and II in which voter confidence was relatively unchanged and in some instances even climbed throughout the duration of the war. This trend of loss of confidence in the military during wartime is destabilizing the wartime economy we so celebrate, meaning that we may be no better off economically during wartime than during peacetime.

As far as your comments toward nothing having changed in Iraq, I would have to take issue with you on that point. We have managed to overthrow a tyrannical government which only spelled disaster for our foreign trade agreements with the middle east. Though it will turn out to be a major expense in the long run, I feel that it was a necessity for this country to act now in the interest of preserving trade with the other countries of the middle east. I don't blame the US, but instead the UN for not stepping in and doing their job in both regulating the prior activities of such a tyrannical government and now for not stepping in to do their part to reestablish government in Iraq following the downfall of their prior system. The UN has proved that it has no more power than the league of nations and the burdon of reconstruction has once again fallen on the US as a result of the lack of responsibility of the other world powers.

I appreciate having someone to share views with and not have to fight off those who like to spew rash opinions with little or no knowledge on the subject. Thanks for debating with me.

Till next post...

~HoundDog