Ted, while I agree with your main idea -- and Hillary is merely my sixth choice for President, behind Gillibrand, Warren, Merkley, Klobuchar and McCaskill (more centrist than I like, but a real fighter) with Bernie in the teens -- I am actually going to say that, as bad a (mitigated) disaster Bush was, comparing him to any of the current candidates, including his brother, is an undeserved insult. The few 'mitigations' include his immediate and consistent repetition -- that from his history was truly meant -- that we were 'not at war with Islam.' (The one constant good thing about him compared to this year's crew was that he was never a racist or bigot,) The second was his ability, in the weeks after 9/11, to connect with the average person -- and particularly the average New Yorker. (I was and am a Brookllynite, could almost see the towers from the roof of the building I was living in, and my sister-in-law worked so close to the towers that she may still have PTSD that was severe for five years afterwards.) We needed an average, confused, not too bright, but hopeful and well-meaning 'front man' because we ALL felt like that as we appreciated what had happened. Whatever else you say about Al Gore -- and I have little good to say about him (other than on ecology) after he managed to fumble, bumble. and to run against the President who chose him enough that Florida could become the issue it turned out to be -- but he certainly lacked the 'common touch' that was needed for that time. (And I still think that, if Bush wanted to attack Iraq -- remember, "Saddam tried to kill my Daddy' was, in my eyes, his main impetus -- a Vice President Lieberman -- Gore's worst mistake, remember -- would have been even more insistent.and as successful, and the mess would have been harder to get out of. And if he cost us the good will we had gained, I don't think a Gre-Lieberman Iraq War would have been any better on that.
I am a life-long Progressive, can actually date my anti-racism to 1955 --- weird story involving SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's first Spring Training issue -- and my hero board includes people from Brennan to Dees to Barbara Jordan -- who would always have been my cchice for President had she run -- to Holmes, Brandeis and Stone, to William Fitts Ryan to the 'forgotten martyr' Viola Liuzzo. I agree that overall GWB was a disaster and Kerry's failure to unseat him a tragedy. But Progressivism implies fairness -- even to those we hate. George was better than his father (whose misunderstanding of the collapse of Communism as a capitalist rather than a democratic revolution condemned hundreds of millions of people to the dictatorships that replaced the old ones in so many of the countries) and better than his dumber and cowardly brother would be. I wouldn't want him back -- unless the choice was between him and Trump, Carson, Cruz, Huckabee, Kasich, Fiorina, or the rest of the current crop of Republican candidates.running..
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Ted, while I agree with your main idea -- and Hillary is merely my sixth choice for President, behind Gillibrand, Warren, Merkley, Klobuchar and McCaskill (more centrist than I like, but a real fighter) with Bernie in the teens -- I am actually going to say that, as bad a (mitigated) disaster Bush was, comparing him to any of the current candidates, including his brother, is an undeserved insult. The few 'mitigations' include his immediate and consistent repetition -- that from his history was truly meant -- that we were 'not at war with Islam.' (The one constant good thing about him compared to this year's crew was that he was never a racist or bigot,) The second was his ability, in the weeks after 9/11, to connect with the average person -- and particularly the average New Yorker. (I was and am a Brookllynite, could almost see the towers from the roof of the building I was living in, and my sister-in-law worked so close to the towers that she may still have PTSD that was severe for five years afterwards.) We needed an average, confused, not too bright, but hopeful and well-meaning 'front man' because we ALL felt like that as we appreciated what had happened. Whatever else you say about Al Gore -- and I have little good to say about him (other than on ecology) after he managed to fumble, bumble. and to run against the President who chose him enough that Florida could become the issue it turned out to be -- but he certainly lacked the 'common touch' that was needed for that time. (And I still think that, if Bush wanted to attack Iraq -- remember, "Saddam tried to kill my Daddy' was, in my eyes, his main impetus -- a Vice President Lieberman -- Gore's worst mistake, remember -- would have been even more insistent.and as successful, and the mess would have been harder to get out of. And if he cost us the good will we had gained, I don't think a Gre-Lieberman Iraq War would have been any better on that.
ReplyDeleteI am a life-long Progressive, can actually date my anti-racism to 1955 --- weird story involving SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's first Spring Training issue -- and my hero board includes people from Brennan to Dees to Barbara Jordan -- who would always have been my cchice for President had she run -- to Holmes, Brandeis and Stone, to William Fitts Ryan to the 'forgotten martyr' Viola Liuzzo. I agree that overall GWB was a disaster and Kerry's failure to unseat him a tragedy. But Progressivism implies fairness -- even to those we hate. George was better than his father (whose misunderstanding of the collapse of Communism as a capitalist rather than a democratic revolution condemned hundreds of millions of people to the dictatorships that replaced the old ones in so many of the countries) and better than his dumber and cowardly brother would be. I wouldn't want him back -- unless the choice was between him and Trump, Carson, Cruz, Huckabee, Kasich, Fiorina, or the rest of the current crop of Republican candidates.running..