I remember back, oh I suppose it was 1998 or 1999. There was still some speculation about who the major parties' candidates for President would be. A fellow from Tennessee who used to be part of a group that I chatted with on Prodigy was a staunch conservative. Said he kinda liked that George W. Bush fellow down in Texas. He liked the sound of "compassionate conservatism." I remember, too, that this fellow, whose nickname on Prodigy was Max, wasn't very happy with Bill Clinton. Something about having our military all over the goddamned place and spreading it out too thinly, leaving us at risk.

Prodigy disbanded not long after that, unwilling to compete with AOL in the free mailer assault on our great nation. I haven't heard from Max in quite a long while. Not since 9/11 I'm pretty sure.

But I've wondered often what Max thinks now, about that George W. Bush fellow from down in Texas.

It seems to me that it's the Maxes of the world who should be the most angry. We were all lied to, but they believed it.

Our generals now tell Congress that our military can not handle one more significant conventional threat. Putting aside the fact that this public confession cuts far closer to the bone of national security than any FISA court secret opinion ever could, the confession scares the daylights out of me.

It's much worse than Max from Prodigy thinking that a few NATO jets in Bosnia stretched us a tad thin.

Cheeses of Nazareth, people, frickin' Canada could invade us right now if they wanted to. Mexico could take back Texas.

Wait.....

No, nevermind.

Our military can not handle one more significant conventional threat.

This is bad, people. God love ya', you may think Clinton was bad. This is bad.

Max? You out there, buddy?

Again with the "he lied". That line is so useless and empty. All the "impeach Bush" signs, all based on this "lie". Would that be the WMD lie? The one where Clinton's intel said that Saddam had WMD's? Where Hillary was caught on tape saying that she herself studied the intel and believed Saddam had WMD's and was a direct threat to national security? So that makes Hillary a lier too. Of course that was back when she actually voted to go to war, based on her hubby's intel, that she said she studied so hard. Convenient how you skip over all that. Of course Hillary learned from the stunned silence after her speech that she would need to change that little bit of history, knowing you guys would willingly wipe your minds' clean and believe she has been against this from day one.

As far as Canada invading, those of us who actually respect the U.S. Constitution, have sidearms for personal and if need be, militia protection for American citizens. You can hide behind me, I'll still cover for you.

The "lie" that my friend Max might be upset with would be that a vote for George W. Bush was a vote for "compassionate conservatism."

Can you name one single goddamned thing Bush has done in his presidency that would fulfill that campaign lie?

The "lie" that my friend Max might be upset with would be that George W. Bush would be "a uniter, not a divider."

Get a grip, my friend. George W. Bush is a liar. Through and through.

And if you think your sidearm will do you batshit's worth of good against, oh, let's say, a Blackhawk or Apache attack helicopter, not to mention any of the other dozen or so nightmare weapons that any decent national army has to bring to bear against your sorry ass, well, you and your pop gun can hide behind me. I'll still find you a therapist.

If you remember back to 1998 or 1999 as you say, surely you must realize how ridiculous your argument is. Are you forgetting that on September 11, 2001 that our country changed forever when CIVILIAN CITIZENS were attacked without any warning or provocation and that almost 3,000 INNOCENT lives were taken? Do you really believe that our pre-September 11th foreign policy tactics can work to keep our country- including the close-minded, one-side-of-an-argument-seeing­, propaganda-toting citizens- safe? We not only have the civil obligation to protect this country, its citizens, and financial interests, but a moral obligation to do so as well.

Remember THAT!

What you do not and, I suspect, will not see is that our misadventure in Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with September 11 nor any way in which the events of that day might properly have changed our foreign policy. In fact, our mismanaged, murderous misadventure in Iraq has distracted our military from its proper activities, and has stretched our military to the breaking point to boot.

In other words, by invading and occupying Iraq, Bush has run the wrong way.

Both at home and abroad, Bush has (at least after the first unforgiveable 7 minutes) grossly over-reacted to 9/11, to the great glee of every terrorist -- it's exactly what they want.

So, sure, juls, I remember September 11. And I wish we had a President and a government that were adequate to the task set before us that day.

Bush thinks that his popularity will rebound as the long years slip by. It will not. History will regard with shock and shame that his popularity is as high as it is right now.

Hey RonB52...

Somehow in my mind's eye I can see you sitting on some porch in the Ozarks, chewing a piece of weed, and drinking from an old brown jug with your trusty dog by your side.

I love the picture. However, I also detest the ignorance you display with your one sided mutterings that beg for correction.

You seem to have forgotten the airplanes striking the WTC and the look on GWB's face in the classroom of children when he was informed ot the happening.

No other president has been faced with that brand of terroristic strike on this soil. Not your Liberal idols nor any other president, Republican or Democrat.

You and your ilk will go on and on blaming GWB for everything from the amount of rain we have had in Texas to the bridge collapses both here and in China.

You will never understand compassion and I wouldn't want someone like yourself to even try. So keep on whining. It makes you look pathetically pitiful.

Have you forgotten that the WTC was previously attacked?

Have you forgotten that before the second WTC attack, Bush attended an economic summit in Geneva in which air traffic was suspended due to the threat of someone hijacking an airplane and crashing it into the building.

Have you forgotten that Sam Byck tried to kill Richard Nixon by flying an airplane into the White House?

Have you forgotten Pearl Harbor where planes crashed into our naval fleet?

This idea that "no other president has been faced with that brand of terroristic strike on this soil" is disingenuous at best.

Despite being told directly that Al Qaeda was the single biggest threat to this country, Bush refused to have a single meeting on them. Despite being directly warned that Al Qaeda was planning on hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings, Bush refused to respond.

Simply put, if Bush had not been in the White House, there's a good chance that 9/11 wouldn't have happened.

George Bush didn't lie about WMD. He assumed that his opinion was correct. Maybe he had bad evidence. There is little doubt that the evidence was over-hyped. Some consider the President's Famous 16 Words in the SOTU address to be a lie. The CIA disapproved of using the faulty yellowcake intel in the speech.

Whether Iraq had weapons of mass min or mid destruction is irrelevant. That assertion alone was not adequate cause to attack. We didn't attack Israel, Russia, Pakistan, India nor North Korea for those reasons. Did you ever wonder why not?

Iraq was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. There has been no evidence found to the contrary. Iraq had no ties to Osama Bin Laden nor Al Qaeda. There has been no evidence found to the contrary. Saudi Arabia was deeply involved with 9/11 and Bin Laden. Do they have WMD? I think we just sold them some.

The Bush/Cheney team planned to invade Iraq before entering office. This plan was out in the open for anyone to see. Just google PNAC. Most people brushed this plan off as idle sabre rattling and think tank chatter. When the administration went to Congress with the military force authorization, (We are not at war.) most of the representatives that voted for it considered it a bargaining chip for the UN. War would be an option if Saddam refused to cooperate with inspections. This was the first big lie.

Our only true justification for war with Iraq was the fact that they had refused to comply with the terms of surrender from our previous military engagement involving Kuwait. Whether that invasion was justified was never really debated. We kicked ass and got the hell out of there, so nobody complained.

The first big lie became manifest when the administration cancelled the weapons inspections and began bombing Iraq.

The next lies began pouring forth as we began to hear different justifications for the war and different stories about what our long term plans for leaving were. It seems more apparent with each day since the famous Mission Accomplished speech that the long term plan never involved leaving Iraq.

The only thing I would add is this: To those who would spread democracy at the end of a gun, or build nations so, or cure crumbling dictatorships with war, or whatever the heck Christopher Hitchens is belching as his justification du jour for the invasion, we used to have to go into this long explanation about why it's a very seriously bad idea. An explanation probably too long to hold the attention of either Hitchens or Bush. Now, we just have to point to Iraq.

I guess that's Bush's legacy.

RonB52:

The only thing I would add is this: To those who would spread democracy at the end of a gun, or build nations so, or cure crumbling dictatorships with war, or whatever the heck Christopher Hitchens is belching as his justification du jour for the invasion, we used to have to go into this long explanation about why it's a very seriously bad idea. An explanation probably too long to hold the attention of either Hitchens or Bush. Now, we just have to point to Iraq.

I guess that's Bush's legacy.

Well, with the exceptions of Japan, Germany, South Korea, the Phillipines, and Italy (to name a few) this would be true.

aside from the other times this country has faced attacks on its soil, some of which have already been pointed out to you, that if I were President of the Ozarks Brown Goddamned Jug Festival and I was sittin' around with some young'uns larnin' to read, and my assistant came and told me we were under attack, I wouldn't sit there for anything like seven seconds, much less seven minutes.

I want you to sit at your keyboard for the next seven minutes and do nothing. I want you to count out every second.

I want you to think, during those seven seconds, what if there's something the military can do but has to do NOW?

What if the attackers, who can find out my itinerary by reading any newspaper, are going for me next?

Should I, maybe, get out of a frickin' SCHOOL?

Come on, try harder. I know you can.

attention span than Hitchens or Bush. If you think WWII is a good analogy for what we're doing in Iraq today, I am going straight to church and praying that you never get higher up in government than dog catcher.

Ya know, the problem with Liberals is that they breed.

If your argument can't rise above, 'Bush is to blame for everything', then you are truly an unarmed man in a gun fight. And to try and explain to you why you have no real grasp of your own arguments is this, even Obama is now saying it is not all Bush's fault.

Oh yeah, I forgot the ripped Union Jacks, the corn cob pipe, the bare feet and the stupid straw hat.

Have a good day out there following the yellow brick road to Liberal Land.

Oh and by the way... have you read the latest issue of the Ozark Express... seems that the approval rating of congress is lower than Bush's.

While neither one is really great, I just thought I would mention that little bit of information for your entertainment.

And you would never know that I am a moderate Conservative.

that makes you think he's a liberal?