You’re right. All that talk about Bush stealing the presidency was just a joke.

No it wasn’t a joke but it also predated the Iraq invasion and even 9/11. It was the direct result of the disputed 2000 election and the manner in which that dispute was resolved: Judicial Fiat.

Such criticism was muted in the aftermath of 9/11 but it was inevitable that the issue would re-emerge if the Administration’s policies proved unsuccessful. In the event, they proved to be far worse than unsuccessful. Catastrophic is more like it.

Now you appear to be insisting that the “stolen election” meme was something cobbled together soley to undermine Bush for the “stated purpose” of bringing about an American defeat. This is anachronistic nonsense. “Hail to the Thief” signs were abundant at the first Bush inaugural years before the war and before there was any idea of the GWOT.

I don’t doubt that you see this as just one stitch in a seamless garment of irrational, partisan Bush hatred which you would like to blame for the collapse of hopes for a “conservative” ascendancy. Nevertheless, in light of the actual train of events it simply won’t wash.

The American people have turned against Bush and by extension the GOP because, after 6+ years, they are’nt satisfied with job he and his party have done. The Iraq fiasco is largely, though not entirely, responsible for this. Your attempts to shift responsibility by re-writing history are painful to watch, as are all such instances of public self humiliation.

Pathetic.

You’re obviously too stupid to tell the difference between questioning someone’s judgment and questioning their patriotism.

You are doing both.

So Democrats question GWB going into Iraq, question what he has done there and by your reasoning, THAT is why the war has gone badly and he is undermined. Not those minor details of incompetence running this war which will cost us billions to restore our damaged military hardware and near trillion to take care of the soldiers we are damaging physically and mentally. And most certainly not his reckless disregard for the history of the region which has been at war with itself for thousands of years - and marching us in their in the first place.

No, it was the Democrats all along. Is that right?

All I’m asking is that you admit the obvious – that from day one you and your friends sought to undermine the Administration’s legitimacy.

He didn’t need any help to do that.

I would have loved to see him succeed but the tragedy is, he was not interested in succeeding any other way but his own way. He took no advice and changed no course even after it was becoming glaringly obvious that one was needed. It didn’t help that he surrounded himself with bobble heads that would back him and support him even over a cliff - which is where we are going now. In the end, he was out to prove himself right and everyone else wrong.

So sorry, but I don’t have to admit anything. He did it to himself. No one who had been riding at 90% approval and then squanders it as entirely as he did was “undermined”. He did it to himself.

I really wished his brother had president instead of him. Now that is a wish that will never happen.

What’s so hard about that?

For YOUR sake, cut the teenage drama queen act and say with a straight face that the deliberate attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the President as well as his authority has been done to injure his standing with the American people, thus delegitimizing the war in their eyes.

Since only a bald faced liar would be able to do so, I assume you won’t try.

In fact, liberals are employing a strategy that attempts to obscure their stated desire that the United States lose the war while at the same time, deflecting attention from a 4 year effort to convince the American people that trying to bring democracy to Iraq was a hopeless exercise in wishful thinking and that the war has been a lost cause from the start.

Looking for liberals to blame that were hiding under the bedsheets gets very tiring. Your foray into saying “blame Bush and his people for what they should be blamed for; the incompetent prosecution of an ill-planned war…” and “I’m not ignoring the correlation between everything that has gone wrong in Iraq and a loss of will of the people to continue what by all accounts has been a botched effort to win the peace…” as a way of convincing everyone you are just a reasonable person who is calling them as you see them doesn’t wash. You accuse others of being conspiracy theorists and then come out with this crap?

For your own sake, give it up.

At some point, Rick, I think you really need to ask yourself.

Why do you hate America so much?

We are a strong country, our military is solid, our economy is steady; unemployment low, stock market high. Our problems are political. Our Democrat elites hate Bush more than they love their country or their children.
This is strange and dangerous, but at least now we know.

Ok, let’s take it easy now. I understand that each side takes their own axioms as a given and judges the other side on their own, not the other side’s, tactics. That’ll never change.

But GIVE ME A BREAK.

I accept NO GUILT criticizing the war, none. I didn’t want it, and I watched as my fellow “Americans” tried to squelch discussion and dissent as best they could by throwing around words like treason from day one.

We may differ over the war’s necessity, justness, etc. But I don’t accept your invoking of Camus as some sort of explanation. Get real.

If some thought this country was heading in the wrong direction in the way we went to war, then it is our moral duty to speak up. You don’t seem to understand that simple point. And, in fact, the critics were right. This is probably the point that pro-war types cannot comprehend, they struggle so very hard with it.

You seem to think of morale as an unqualified good. What if it’s misplaced? Misdirected? Then undermining of it is a very, very good thing. Maybe the GWOT is too diffuse and unwinnable, as defined, just as your criticisms of the ‘left’ are too diffuse to defend or concur with.

I won’t bother trying to divine what ‘most’ lefties or righties think, nobody really knows and neither do you.

But if you think that Bush Derangement Syndrome is some cute and accurate name for irrational Bush hating, well, I’d say you haven’t been paying attention to the contempt this Admin. has shown its republic for the past 6 years. But if you want the “Left” to be ashamed of undermining morale, not a chance in hell.

20% of the US still think that Saddam had DIRECT involvement in the planning of 9/11. This is the kind of morale that needs to be punctured. Americans who think that ‘victory’ is possible - but won’t support another hundred thousand troops for another 10 years - who seem to think that 6 months can stitch together a working coaltion in Iraq - well, let’s just agree to disagree. But I say it’s unrealistic, and this kind of morale needs to be dismantled. Patriotism, one thing. America-haters who cry out for conformity in time of war - don’t know what America is, and are tentative Americans in the first place.

Your post is pretty long, too long for me to really comment on. This one was disappointing, but the one on race was pretty insightful. But that’s another commment…

R