[Felix_Nietzsche]

1. Mismanaged the Iraq occupation
a. Failed to impose martial law in Iraq with orders to shoot-to-kill looters. In the Arab culture there is a proverb that says, "Better 100 years of tyranny than 1 day of chaos". Failing to to crack down on looters was a major error. Rock throwers should have been shot on sight. And the Arabs would have respected the Americans for doing so. Not all but most. Don't believe me, look at Syria under Assad and what he did at Hama, Syria. There is a reason why a 5% minority in Syrian rules the country and has the vast majority of support in that country. Assad understands the Arab culture. Bush does not....
b. Appointed that idiot General Garner to manage post war Iraq. This guy made Opie Taylor look macho. There was ZERO chance this nitwit would gain the Arab's respect.
c. Failed to utilize the Kurds to help in post war Iraq.
d. Failed to install an temporary constitution to influence Iraq to a more secular constitution. In sales this is called the puppy dog close. You give your customer a puppy and hope they fall in love with it.
e. Failed to stop the Iranians from sending arms to insurgents. One good bombing would have sent a message to Tehran to behave themselves.
f. Failed to stop the Syrians from sending arms to insurgents. One good bombing would have sent a message to Damascus to behave themselves.
g. Being to responsive to allegations of abuse. Innocent marines were falsely charged with murder based on perjury from Iraqis. John Murtha jumped on the bandwagon and he is now being sued for his big mouth.
h. Failure to secure Iraqi ammo depots. These depots became the number #1 source of weapons used to kill American soldiers. There were plenty of Kurdish Pershmergas that could have been used to secure these sites. The Kurds would have helped themselves to some of these weapons but better the friendly kurds get these weapons than the insurgents.
i. Disbanding the Iraqi Armey. Bush should have kept the Iraqi army intact. By disbanding them, he put a lot of unemployed people on the streets. He should have gave them a chance to be an ally. If they betrayed his trust then he could have disbanded them. He pulled the trigger too quickly on this decision.
j. Failure to kill Sadr. This Shia leader has led several uprisings against American troops. American soldiers are dead because of him. This man needs to die. But Bush has chosen not to bring justice to him. In the first month of the occupation, the USA brought a pro western Iraqi Shia cleric. In his first week back in Iraq, this man was assassinated by Sadr's men. This led to an unsealed indictment against Sadr which Bush has chsen not to exercise. If the USA is not going to respond when it's allies are murdered, then does it stand to reason that not many people are going to stick their necks out and help in post war Iraq?
k. Failure to bring enough troops to Iraq.
The success of the surge could have reaped results much sooner if Bush had admitted this mistake. I don't blame Rumsfeld for this because I'm not sure how much leeway Rummy had in the Bush White House. Nor does anyone else on this forum....
l. Failure to get Turkey's cooperation to deploy the 4th ID i Turkey to attack iraq from the North. When it became clear that Turkey was stalling on this issue Bush could redeployed the 4th ID to Kuwait. Instead, the USA bagan this war with one division short. If Bush wanted to play hardball with the Turks, he could have threatened to play the 'Kurd' card to motivate them.

2. Big Spender Bush/Relations with Dems
Traditionally congress tends to spend to much to buy votes back at home with pork. Traditionally the president uses his veto pen to keep spending in check. Bush's veto pen has dust on it. I don't think he exercised ONE veto during his first term.
a. The 1st term farm bill. Welfare for rich farmers. I think Bush thought he could buy Tom Daschle's loyalty with signing this budget buster.
b. The education bill. Complete crap. The federal govt botches education. Better to give control to local schools. Bush let that nitwit Ted Kennedy write that bill thinking Ted Kennedy would become his buddy.....big mistake.
c. Bush's prescription drug plan. No one wanted this yet he got this boondoggle passed. This will haunt the American budget for years.
d. And many more pork barrel projects and his failure to veto this spending. Again, even though congress controls the purse strings, the white house guards the vault door.
e. Encouraging Senate Leader Trent Lott to share power in the US senate with Dems instead of utilizing the winner take all tradition in the seante. This was a failed attempt to buy the Dems good will. Sen Jim Jeffords defected from the Repub party and Tom Dascle usurped Trent Lott. And how did the Dem leaders repay the repubs with their misplace bipartisanship? They screwed them.....

3. Campaign Finance Reform (McCain-Feingold)
Bush signed this unconstitutional bill. This bill is the greatest assault on free speech that I have seen in my lifetime. This bill should be called the 'Incumbent Protection Act". 30 days before a primary, people are denied the right of free speech on TV/radio to criticize a candidate. 60 days before an general election, people are denied the right of free speech on TV/radio to criticize a candidate. I am stunned the supreme court did not overturn this. If people can not use TV/Radio to get their messages out in an election then then the incumbents get an even bigger advantage... If the govt can restrict free speech on TV/radio for 60 days then why can't they restrict free speech 120 days from an lection?... or even 180 days... or perhaps 365 days before an election. Denying people the right to get their messages out via TV/Radio is like trying to dig a hole for a swimming pool using a spoon... In the old days, a pol could get a few millionaires to finance their campaign to get elected. These days you need to have a VAST-COMPLEX-NETWORK to gather lots of single $1000 donations. The result is this LIMITS the number of people that can run for office. The main reason why Bush43 won the primaries was he inherited the donation machine from his father. With campaign financing you pick you poison. if you place limits on donations, you restrict the number of available people who can run for office. If you allow no holds bar donations, then you risk more influence peddling. I would rather have ZERO restrictions other than foreigners are barred and that contributors names must be published. If a pol sells-out the voters to a big contributor, then any half-assed journalist can expose this pol and his donor and the voters can vote him out. We would get a lot more choices and the 2nd tier candidates could go mainstream if they could find a few sugar daddies to bankroll them... If ron Paul had enough financial banking, even he could make it to the top four. But because of campaign laws, he is restricted to how high hew can rise...

4. Immigration Reform.
Bush tried to push this piece-of-crap down the American people's throat. Talk radio rallied millions of people to 'surge' the phone lines on the Senate.
a. Bush had US attorney's prosecute two border agents based on the testimony of a drug smuggler. The drug smuggler testified he was destitute and he did not know his cargo was drugs. He further testified he was not a drug smuggler and would NEVER knowingly smuggle drugs. Well federal officials have acknowledged this man committed perjury on the stand. This drug smuggler was caught again smuggling drugs and he has been indicted. He faces 40 years in prison should he be convicted of these charges. Meanwhile. two agents that should have been commended from stopping a drug shipment (unless it was weed because I like weed [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]), are to spend the next 10 years in jail.

4. The Terry Schiavo Issue
I believe in state's rights. The federal govt had know right to intervene in this issue. Senator Frist claimed based on his medical expertise that this woman was responding to stimuli and therefore should not be euthanized. The autopsy showed this woman's brain has shriveled to nothing. But regardless, Bush should have butted out of this issue.

5. The Harriet Meyers nomination to the supreme court.
Jeez....this was a pathetic choice. Alito and Roberts have been good appointments so far.

6. The handling of the Scooter Libby case.
No repub will EVER get a fair try in Washington DC. This area is 80%+ rabid democrats. In a standard criminal trial, a defendent can request a change in venue so as to get an unbiased jury. In this case, the defense ran out of strikes and had rabid dems on the juror that included a person from moveon.org. My stance was once Armitage was identified as the leaker, Fitzfong should have indicted Armitage or have closed the investigation.... Allowing the fishing investigation in the White House was complete bullcrap.

7. Bush's praising of Islam.
I'm an atheist so I see most religions as being silly superstition. But to praise one of the most vile and sickest religions on the planet makes me want to puke. You have a serial murderer and a serial pedophile names Ubu'l Kassim that kills and murders his way to power and supposedly this guy is God's messenger? If there is a god would he use a pedophile to spread his message? Later this pedophile was 'honored' with the title of "The Praised One" which we hear today as the name Mohammed....

As much as I'm sick of Bush and as much as I'm counting down the days of his presidency, he is better than any candidate the Dems have. Although I think Bill Clinton with a Repub congress is VASTLY better than Bush43 with either a Repub/Dem congress. Bush43 has been good in stopping socialize medicine. All this bullcrap about Bush being selected and not elected makes my eyes roll. There were NOT enough 'hanging chads' to give algore Florida. It is that simple.... There is a part of me that wished algore got elected so that they could see what a complete idiot he is (as oppose to a partial idiot in Bush). I lived through the Jimmy carter presidency and this man was such a COMPLETE INCOMPETANT that the American people could hardly wait to vote him out of office. Jimmy Carter is the reason why America took a hard right turn and elected Reagan. If algore got elected, America would have taken anther hard right turn and perhaps we could have gotten a real conservative as oppose to Bush43.

I do think Bush is a VERY nice man with good intentions as oppose to many leading Dem leaders. If I saw John Kerry or Algore on fire, I would NOT stop to pee on them to put the fire out. But I would pee on Bush and perhaps....also take a dump on him.....