Bush is not stupid and the people around him aren't either. He knows that this war has to end at some point, but he doesn't have to be the one to end it. That will fall to either the Democratic congress or the next (probably Democratic) president. As long as he continues to say that victory is at hand, when this war does end badly (and what are the chances that it won't?) Bush (and Republicans, in general) will claim that we were soooo close to victory, but then those Democrats screwed everything up. By doing this, they are sacrificing the good of the country for the good of the party.

This war began as a political ploy (eg, scheduling a congressional war debate 2 weeks before an election), why wouldn't its end be any different?

Am I mistaken or did Bush not already declare victory several years and thousands of US soldier lives ago.? The war is over, but the rape of Iraq continues and the new replacement for the cold war has begun. Perpetual War is not a term used often, but it is implied by Neo conservatives and the ChickenHawk politicians that have been bought and paid for. Has America defeated Communism only to mirrori the worst aspects of the old USSR? This nation has exhausted it's moral capital under the leadership of Big Oil and theirProxies in the White House. Did the public think Ike was joking when he warned of the Military Industrial complex?

Why has the Media been blasting war critics, especially Jeremiah Wright without giving consideration to the points he was making? The media has abandoned its investigative duties and do little but Orwellian Propaganda now. Chasing carrots on sticks and afraid to ask the big questions anymore. The fourth estate has literally become the whore of Babylon.

You are mistaken!

Did you seriously start this threat with "Bush is not stupid"?

Thread, not threat. You know, you try to zip in a witty remark, and end up eating foot.

Honestly though, there is a question about Bush that has always deeply troubled me to contemplate. The man has devastated the economy, forced the nation into massive debt, started a few wars, made terrifying progress in the legal destruction of the environment and done it all with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. So, the REAL question for me is; is Bush Stupid? Or is he Evil?

I mean, it has to be one of the two. He is either a misunderstood fellow who is trying to do the right thing and is simply profoundly stupid on a level no one had yet dared to imagine... or he is evil. Evil, and just playing dumb to mislead us.

Troubling, no?

So as to provide full disclosure, I'd put my political views as Libertarian, now with that out of the way evil or shall we say not the brightest bulb in the house, nor the sharpest knife in the drawer, or perhaps that old standard, dumber then a box of rocks? Actually there is a third option, perhaps he's far more brilliant then the rest of us and hence sees things we don't thereby having a superior viewpoint which allows him to put things into a historical context that we are incapable of seeing. He might see Iraq becoming a Mideast paradise, is cognizant of the fact the current economic situation is merely laying the groundwork for a future where everyone will own a home and be wealthy, providing enough tax revenues to pay off the debt and shore up government entitlement programs. He sees global warming as the solution to the current high price or energy by reducing the need to heat homes, and with the introduction of greenhouse gases especially carbon dioxide the solution to world hunger by increasing the bounty of the fields.

Or maybe he hears the voice of god, I think they call that borderline schizophrenia

Bush didn't exactly devastate the economy by himself. The national debt has been building for years, and with Democrats and Republicans alike unwilling to cut spending at all, especially in welfare, which already makes up 49% of the budget, and defense, which makes up like 25%, something just had, and has, to be done. Cutting the value of the dollar helps, in that the size of the debt is thereby reduced to a fraction of what it would have been. At the same time, it means that American goods are cheaper, helping our exports, and it puts the thumbscrews to foreign countries that get rich by pegging their currency to ours at an unreasonably low rate, especially China. The Yuan is unreasonably low, and would have been floated long ago but for the sophistic excuse that her banking system "wasn't ready." The situation meant (and means, still) that the Chinese get an unfair advantage in pricing AND cash to buy up a bunch of shiny new guns to scare the Taiwanese and Japanese and Koreans AND buy a ton of US bonds to get an unfair stranglehold on the US. "Push us too hard, and we'll call in the markers on your debt," they would say. However, we've actually got them now. They've drunk too deeply, to the point where if we go down, they go even harder: the deflation of the dollar's value is grinding the Yuan, making those bonds less and less valuable (still potent, no doubt, but less so every day), and we come out smiles and sunshine. Right?

Well, there's a downside. All this means that there are now more dollars floating around, particularly in the US, with little place for them to go. So what the hell do we do then, now that all responsible people can readily get mortgages and car loans and student loans to go to Princeton? The only thing we can: give them to people with credit that might be described as "subprime." Well, no problems there, right? And that's where the fun starts.

I've thought a lot about this too. Here is my personal opinion:

Bush is not very bright, but VERY egotistical. He has surrounded himself with evil (and equally egotistical) people who know just how to play to his ego in order to get away with their evil deeds. And he's too dumb and/or focused on himself to know he's been played.

Oooo... the dumb guy with evil friends hypothesis. He isn’t dumb (just a horrible public speaker) and they aren’t evil. You just disagree with them/him. By calling him dumb and them evil you have set yourself up nicely to be the one who is intelligent and good at the same time. Nice trick, but kinda self serving. Just say that you disagree them and explain why.

Split-S. She was giving an opinion, that is what this forum is about. Your attack, on the other hand, was more personal than not.

Besides, she was responding to my post, so if your looking to pick a fight with the concept, then you aimed to high. My post was the root. Strike again, I'm sure you'll get it this time.

Low brow I know, but my brow is tired today.

Hellifiknow,

There is more than what you are saying which needs to be said. The biggest thing...

Bush sort of did devastate the economy by himself. The previous office had decreased the national debt and secured a surplus. He did not inherit this problem, but rather birthed it, and then nurtured it and helped it to grow up big and strong. His father did something similar, but on a much smaller scale. No, in this instance, his hand in "devastating the economy" was massive and significant.

You have some good points, but that which you point to is only part of it. People are often loathe to admit it, but a part of the Dollars value is psychological. At this point, we are disliked and barely trusted. We have recently backed out on treaties and agreements that we swore too as a nation. We are perceived as war crazy and a rash of recent import related health problems makes our Government seem understaffed and incompetent. Now if you had heard all that about a company you wanted to do business with, would you still want to do business with them? Our financial problems are growing from far more than just our financial choices. Much needs to be done if we are to grow past where we once were.

You're right Den, I should have responded to you. I'm not trying to pick a fight, I just felt this thread needed a voice from the other side. I did respond to your question though, my opinion is that he is neither dumb nor is he or they evil (I’m not religious so the whole evil thing just doesn’t jive with me). The fact is you all merely disagree, and it is easier for you to claim that he is evil or dumb that way you never have to conceder that you may in fact be wrong! Don’t worry, when Obama is president there will be plenty of others claiming that he too is evil, oooo- so scary.

Evil in contexts of the bible. I had never even considered that, but it does bring up an interesting philosophical point. What is evil? A bit steep for this forum, so allow me to explain my previous comment without getting too deep into any thousand year old debates.

Bush's actions are... astounding. He added drilling on to the list of acceptable leisure activities for national parks. He actually went out of his way, to institute a bill, that put drilling and mining in with fishing, camping, and hiking. He made drastic cuts to environmental laws, you know, so we could reduce the negative effect of our pesky planet; with its providing life and air... yeah, we gotta put a stop to that. He declared war on a nation who's leader was put in power by the U.S., after an attack that said nation had nothing to do with, for a reason that was not a mistake... but a lie. His signature is on papers showing he was told there was little to no chance that Iraq had WMD's. He was present in meeting where that fact was broken down for him and he instead chose to use reports that were years old and had since been updated so he could hold something up when making; what he knew to be, false claims. He created tax breaks for companies who stopped employing Americans in favor of utilizing less expensive labor oversees where labor laws were not as humane. He increased the national debt more than every other president combined, in the entire history of the nation. He cut $12billion from college scholarships, you know how that darn education of the nation corrupts us. So easy to be confused and think that thousands more college graduates was a positive thing, but Bush is protecting us from that.

Do you see where I am going with this? It is not a matter of Bush saying that green is the best color, but I disagree so I state he may be stupid or evil. It is a matter of Bush taking presidential steps to cut education spending, reduce legal protection of the environment, authorize the destruction of ecologically necessary preserves and of course, start a war. It is a war that has resulted the deaths of over a million human beings. While defending this war, and the torture of still more humans, Bush strives to prevent medical research involving stem cells; INCLUDING stem cells that are in no way related to abortions. That is not very pro-life, it is sort of anti-life actually.

The few things that he has done, which could be considered “good”, he has done recklessly. Spending the money of hundreds of millions of people to the extreme excess of anything they will have for decades, is not smart. It is not good, and frankly, it fails to qualify for MEH/Neutral. His spending has been reckless to unprecedented extremes. That is not a drama word, or a metaphor or an exaggeration; for I am being literal. Unprecedented, as in, Never before has anyone spent so much, so fast, with no plan for recovery. None, no plan, none what-so-ever. Pay our debts? Never occurred to him, or at least, if it EVER has, then he has never spoken of it on record, or left any written account of it.

There are presidents whose leadership strategy one disagrees with, and there are presidents who make Atheists believe in the Anti-Christ, this particular president just happens to fall into that second category.

You see, I am not suggesting that I disagree with the way he is doing things so much as pointing out that his behavior is that of a madman, a generally lousy human being, or a moron. Still, if it is the word “Evil” that troubles you, then I shall retract that word and replace it instead with “Honor-less, gutless, self serving monster who would happily see a million innocents dead if it meant more power for him. One who would smile happily while he created environmental harm that would hurt generation after generation of his own nation and well beyond us as well. Not evil so much as person who would perpetuate war and then do nothing to help the veterans of that war when they were met with unhealthy-health-care. A greedy, gluttonous, lying, twisted mockery of a decent human being who gains wealth and power at a cost to others which is multiplied by billions.

So feel free to place the above statement in place of the word evil. The evil was never meant to conjure religious images, or to offend anyone. So my revised statement is; I often wonder whether Bush fits the above description, or if he is simply frighteningly dumb and somehow managed to do all that he has done though a series of errors containing no malice or personal greed. For surely, it must be one of the two.

That... was harsh. The world has a lot of problems and Bush is not the root of them all. Though what I said was true, the tone that it was said in was over the top. It is all too easy to get caught up in how very much is wrong with our society, to be angered by ones lack of individual power to make change, and to place blame.

While I believe Bush is the worst president in history, I know that he is not the root of all evi-- bad things. We face corruption and incompetence at every level of government and nothing that the current administration has accomplished for good or ill could have been fully carried out by one person. There is much blame, but I believe that blame is not the important part; and that only makes my previous post so much more out of line. The real issues are not who got us here, but what WE are going to do about. Focusing on that, is the best and most direct way to right our wrongs, and return this world to the next generation in better condition than it was when first we borrowed it.

Den,

I enjoyed your response. I often wonder just what is evil. I also want to go on record as saying that I love our national parks and the remaining wild areas in the US. I am a biomedical researcher too and believe that the stem cell ban is wrong. However, I accept that others see the stem cells differently than I do. Some see National parks as a waste of resources, I don’t but some do. It isn’t that they are bad men and women, it just means their perception is different, they value other things. Do I think they are wrong? Sure and I try to provide my perspective and explain how I feel as you have to me in your previous post. I am merely arguing that when you start claiming that someone is a “madman” or dumb or evil it can be seen as a tool to marginalize someones argument in a way that is unproductive. I don’t particularly like guys like Ted Kennedy and Durbin and crew (I don’t dislike all Democrats by the way, in fact I like HRC and Obama and wouldn’t mind at all if one of them is our next Pres.) but I don’t think they are evil or dumb. I do think they are wrong about many things and I disagree with what they want the USA to become. I think that you see many of the issues that you wrote about in very black an white terms and in that sense there is a bit of good and evil. For instance, I already told you that I love our remaining parks and wild areas. However, many of those areas hold resources used to build homes, buildings, fuel cars etc., as we become more populated we need more resources. Harvesting these resources creates jobs, so while I personally do not want to see these places touched I understand that there is more involved here than what I personally want. In a sense everything we have talked about here is related to control over limited resources. Indeed conflict be it human wars or survival between species is natural and healthy and drives the evolution of ideas, technology and species alike. Thanks for your post Den it was nice talking to ya.