politicartoons | *snicker.snort.guffaw.cry*

The institute should be focused on fixing his ruined reputation.

WHY!!!???

To me, a lot of the negative things people pin on him are really unfair and unfounded. Don't bother listing every single wrong thing he did because I will either ignore it or turn it around so he looks really good.

That's hardly constructive.
You often seem quite a bright lass, and in most other matters have at least tolerable taste.
Being a polemicist for a lost cause is a terribly romantic notion, and one that I would have thought a hard-headed young lady like yourself to have avoided.
Even I concede that GWB may be a reasonable sort of bloke for a drinking companion, but it would take a sea-change in the meaning of language, and of meaning itself, to regard GWB's presidency as anything other than the greatest unnatural self-inflicted calamity to have befallen America thus far. Also possibly the President with the worst judgement in modern history (a list which includes Bush Snr, Nixon, Carter, and Ford - I'm tempted to add Kennedy, except we didn't all die in the Cuban Missile Crisis, so I'll give him benefit of the doubt).
I suppose GWB has some of the same sins as Clinton: it's just that most folk don't care about who you're screwing as much as what you're screwing up.
And the folk for whom the shagging matters more, shouldn't have a say: as competence is all & GWB is (or appears to be) the most incompetent of all.
Even if he's only spectacularly unlucky that was once cause enough in itself to sacrifice the Erl-King to the Old Gods in the hope that the next years crop would have been more to our taste.
We don't need to get the golden sickles out or sharpen our knives. The Media has killed him dead as he stands. It is appropriate to pity him, but not especially bright to defend his actions, however.

I'm a sucker for lost causes, I guess I will be defending Bush to the end. I may be the only one in the world who still thinks that his presidency wasn't a calamity, but I don't care.

Even I concede that GWB may be a reasonable sort of bloke for a drinking companion

Come now, that's not fair--he doesn't drink any more, and good for him for it.

Yes, he quit his heavy drinking ways at the ripe young age of 40.

For that, any time is a good one.

I agree, in general: but as a caveat, I had a cousin who drank himself to death because that's what he wanted to do; which I think was perfectly within his rights, even though I disapproved; a chap's got to have a hobby, I suppose. Churchill functioned perfectly happily when drunk, and was mostly so. So what: it's about competence and luck, and luck can desert you at any time, ergo competence is a requirement. Most folk have a vice or two: as long as he doesn't drive under the influence, or make worse decisions than when he's sober, is it our business?
What we all care about are the results, and these, alas, are lamentable. History will sign off his graduation report, but the rest us already know what's in the text.

Whether or not someone is within his political rights to decide to drink himself to death--of course he is--isn't really the point. And clearly there are many who function perfectly well on a few drinks--I was only referring to alcoholics, people suffering from a horrible multipronged disease which takes a great deal of personal power to overcome.

It's not really my business one way or the other whether some stranger is an alcoholic, but I can still recognize the effort it takes to overcome and respect people who manage to do it in that context, regardless of whatever other baggage they may have that may make them otherwise distasteful.

And all of that ares the bits I agree with: kudos to those that manage.
We all have our sins: in some respects I live in a glass house, and am prepared to defend personal weaknesses that do not affect other people.
Failure in political office may be a personal failure: but in this case has been hugely damaging to other folk, but that's Republican Senators for you; and at the risk of sounding insincere, we all weep for their plight.

Failure in politics is one of the things I meant as "other baggage" above; I can respect the man for some of the things he's done personally, but as a politician there are, erm, just a few problems, specifically because the office gives him power over the nation.

I beg your (and his) pardon - which leads to the unfortunate corollary: he did all of this sober.

...it's just that most folk don't care about who you're screwing as much as what you're screwing up.

You got that one backwards.

OK, my bad....most rational folk. (Will that do?)

What about his successes then? In your eyes, what have been his top ten professional successes (not counting his elections).

These are not listed in order of importance,greatness,order of effectiveness, or amount of popular support:

- Appointing Alito & Roberts to the Supreme Court
- $15 billion (and counting) set aside for effforts to relieve the AIDS epidemic in Africa
- Overall agressive stance on the War on Terror (actual war still in progress)
- Tax cuts of his first term
- Patriot Act (don't bother starting an argument over this!)

I would have named ten, but the majority I had in mind are still works in progess.

I'm not going to argue with you over it and I appreciate the list. Thank you!

It's telling that you're only 18.

I know! Sometimes, it isn't so obvious.

Hopefully he'll just go lead a quiet life on his ranch.

snicker.snort.guffaw.cry

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