The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

Needle in a haystack. So they didn't find any WMD- awful lot of sand out there.

two things:

1. I watched "no WMD" explode for 4 strait hours one afternoon in the middle of the Iraqi desert

2. you've got to love a report with the line "Of those saying they disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job, 777% say getting worse, 3% say getting better, and 19% say staying the same."

every story is a hit piece, every poll is stacked. in fact, the reason why so many people disapprove of the way that Bush is handling the war in Iraq is that he isn't hawkish ENOUGH.

I care nothing for polls. I can make a poll say whatever I want it to say. gimme a vote, and I'll believe it.

I dunno that Bush saved anyone's hide after 9/11. The decisions he made and actions he took were pretty obvious. Pretty much everyone in the world was thinking the same thing: Find out who did it, and clean 'em out. I can't imagine any President in history not doing that.

I think his falling approval ratings are somewhat linked to the media, but I also think that its a reflection of a general frustration with his subsequent decision-making since that time.

Terrorism won't go away as long as there are violent nutcases. We need to be more like the other countries that have had terrorism problems and not live our lives in fear of it. Of course that'd naturally entail more common sense measures such as border security and deportation of all Saudis...

I thank you for the link (random as it is), and I feel like a heel for making this the first post on a visit to what seems to be a wonderful weblog hosted by a neat person. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's possible to disagree with the statements in your post any more than I do.

By attacking Afghanistan as a nation, taking those people who were marginally negative towards us and lumping them in with those who had planned the attacks on us (as well as attacking a nation that has decades of experience fighting a higher-tech enemy and making their lives hell), he made hatred for the US fashionable among moderate Muslims. Lest we forget, the Taliban asked us three times: twice directly, then once through Russia, practically BEGGING us the third time, for any evidence whatsoever against bin Laden, so that their own people wouldn't tear them apart when they handed him over. But Bush turned them down, every time, refusing to hand it over, yet still saying the whole time he had it. Lest you doubt that gesture, think about it carefully: Afghanistan was the Soviet Union's Viet Nam. Afghanistan went to RUSSIA, our new ally, and the people who invaded them and turned their country into a blasted ruin, because they thought that would prove how seriously desperate they were. And Russia BELIEVED them, and came to us with their request. And Bush turned it down.

By then attacking Iraq, under what seem to be false pretenses, lying to us and the world, he's managed to make US-bashing fashionable even among moderate secular Arabs. If that poster above saw these weapons exploding, then just why wasn't that evidence shown to the entire world to save our good name? Either 1. It's a load of tripe and there were no WMDs, or 2. He doesn't care that the rest of this country's citizens have to live with the reputation he makes for us. And by invading with too few soldiers (firing the generals who said that we weren't going in with enough), and ignoring the after-war plan of the ONLY PERSON in his administration who was involved in the LAST war we had in Iraq, ensured that his "being greeted with flowers" scenario would not happen.

By telling the U.N. they were irrelevant, and shoving most of our traditional allies aside (France has been on our side since the Revolutionary War, it doesn't get more traditional than that :P) to rush to Iraq, we completely, and I mean completely, flushed all the sympathy, goodwill, and support we had going for us after 9/11 right down the toilet. I mean it. We were the world's innocent as far as international terrorism was concerned, given that we'd only suffered one remotely serious one, the 1996 World Trade Center bombing. And 9/11 took the cake for the worst attack of suicidal/homicidal freaks EVER. Almost everyone was on our side, because it was obvious who was right and who was wrong. No-one deserved what we got that day, and everyone who had two brain cells to rub together that weren't steeped in xenophobic dogma was right with us. And then, right there atop it, he, in a recess appointment, puts John Bolton, the man who on video said at the U.N. that the only relevant power in the world was U.S. power, in the position of Ambassador to the U.N.

Now this country is viewed with hostile suspicion, and that's on a good day. And George W. Bush is the primary reason for it.

Now, let's turn to domestic issues for a moment. By cutting funding for the last 2 years for the New Orleans district command of the Army Corps of Engineers... well... Hurricane Katrina wasn't his fault, but the lake deciding to take a tour of the city sure as hell looks like he and Congress can divide a lion's share of the blame between them.

By having the National Guard out in Iraq, their members there for multiple tours and overextended, there is neither the manpower nor the equipment to address the rescue operations that we need. By letting DHS feed on itself, we've got some of the best SAR teams in the world (some of which were here for the efforts at Ground Zero) sitting on their hands while the paperwork for them to enter the country trudges along at a snail's pace.

And yes. No-one is infallible. But there is not one mistake George W. Bush has ever admitted.

Not one.

Go back to the presidential debates leading up to the 2004 election, and remember when he was asked to name three mistakes he'd made, and how he rectified them. The main thrust of his reply was a defense of Iraq, and that it was absolutely the right decision. When asked a similar question in another debate, what he brought up was a vague reference to making a poor choice in appointing someone, without wanting to name names because he didn't hurt anyone's feelings.

You may think this is a small thing. I think it's insane. Someone who effectively holds the power of life and death over this nation who considers his only mistake to be allowing the wrong person to act in his name (which is what a political appointment is)? And who otherwise refuses to admit to his mistakes? That no longer scares the living crap out of me, as it did five years ago. Now I'm just emotionally numb. But unless concrete evidence is shown that everything he's said publically is a complete and total lie, and that he's been suppressing the evidence for all his decisions (which is possible, I think a case could be made for him being marginally insane) I'll never believe the man "saved" us, in any way, shape, or form.