[spence]

Originally Posted by Cool Beans

Problems I had with Bush:
1. Spent way too much money

Agreed, the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill was very lame. And the Iraq War is/will be 10X the investment pitched to the taxpayers when it's all said and done.

Funny how a Republican couldn't find the VETO pen until the Dems won control of Congress in 2006.

3. I have mixed feelings with Iraq/Afghanistan. We waited too long to hit Afghanistan and could have handled Iraq better.

Agree on both. Our delay in Afghanistan allowed the Taliban to melt into the countryside and mountains. The civilian incompetency and idiological blind faith in Iraq was mindboggeling.

We tipped our hand way too early, giving them almost a month to get rid of any wmd's. Don't say there weren't any, friends of mine gathered up several hundred 40mm rounds loaded with mustard gas or similar nerve agents. I've seen plenty of satellite images of suspect convoys moving across borders to know they
did have em and moved them prior to us attacking.

Saddam having some WMD's wasn't ever the issue. It was that he didn't have meaningful stockpiles of useful weapons, ongoing weapons programs, relationships with terrorists or genuine motive to cause us harm...that was the issue as it was Bush's entire justification for war presented before Congress and the voters.

As for ferriting them across the border...Bull%$%$%$%$.

To date, every investigation by the UN or even Bush's appointed people have turned up nothing more than relics of an old program.

I saw plenty of satellite photos claiming to be WMD equipment, turns out they were all water trucks. Oops...

4. He was for that immigration bill that almost got passed.

One of the things I thought Bush had right. Get ready cause Obama is going to push it even further this year, perhaps too far...

5. After 9/11 he was doing great, but seemed to use it to push other crap
through.

That's an understatement.

6.No child left behind........

A well intentioned program that has fallen short of expectations. Perhaps a good argument here to keep the Feds out of our schools.

There are lots of things he made mistakes on, but we should never apologize for being "arrogant" in protecting our country and standing up for America. We seem and are arrogant, because this is the best, strongest and most free country in the world. We shouldn't bow to anyone. If you cross America, it should be known that us arrogant a-holes will kick the living crap out of you.

I still don't understand this entire "apology" flap. I've listened to most every speech on this trip and I never once heard what I'd consider an apology.

To state that our country has behaved in a derisive manner and that's not who we really are isn't an apology, it's a jab Bush and Cheney. I'd wager that a majority of American people believe we indeed did behave in a derisive manner under Bush.

It takes a bigger man to be willing to stand up and say it like it is than just keep in denial that your own shyte doesn't stink a litte.

This has done great harm to our National image, Obama is working to repair that, while at the same time using the opportunity to challenge others to up their own behavior.

As for arrogant, pick up a dictionary

Arrogant: making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights; overbearingly assuming; insolently proud: an arrogant public official.

The neo-con element of the Bush Administration was indeed arrogant. America has a pretty good track record of leading by example, not claiming superiority and using that claim to legitimize your behavior.

You guys appear to think that arrogance is good, and that America is by our right an arrogant country. This logic has caused us more problems than we can count. Perhaps you guys need to pay more attention in church.

We seem as a country, too scared to be ourselves and stand up for our beliefs, because we are worried about offending someone. That's part of free speech, you will always offend someone, and it's their God given right to not agree with you. Americans seem to have lost our backbone on things like this. Obama is very PC oriented, it seems he will say exactly what his audience of the moment wants to hear.

No, we're to greedy to give up what we think is important. The liberal PC argument is a sham, it's used by all sides as a defence mechanism.

-spence