There's a huge number of people who won't ever give Bush credit for anything, at least not while he's in office. They'll blame him for bad stuff, but not for good stuff. That's ok, as long as the outcome is the same.

What kills me is the number of people who think that the people of the middle east don't want to be free. "Bush is forcing democracy down their throats," is as arrogant a statement as can be made. What human doesn't want basic freedom? And if you think that a democratic middle east isn't vital to our own security, you're nuts. We need to apply all the pressure we can to the thugs that run those countries until they finally give up terrorism as an international policy.

As an aside, I wonder if the reason libs want to downplay the impact the American president has on world affairs is that we'd have to blame Clinton for N. Korea and al Qaeda.

Only if you can't detect irony.

The problem is that there are many flavors of democracy, and America's execution is far from perfect, particularly in Iraq. Bush basically invaded without provocation, created an unstable area where nobody is safe from death or dismemberment, and said "You're free!" Then he gave them a list of pre-selected people and said "Vote for one of these guys." Then he forced them to vote, on pain of losing their food rations.

It's not that he's forcing democracy down their throats, it's that he's forcing this shameful mockery of democracy down their throats without bothering to find out what they want, and asking them to be grateful for it.

You say some people won't give Bush credit for anything, and maybe that's true, but many people won't hold him responsible for anything, and that's worse given his actions. I'm speaking as a person who had no strong feelings about Bush until he earned the strong feelings.

But he didn't cause those areas to be unsafe and unstable - they already were. I'll admit that it's awfully presumptuous of us to go in guns blazing without being specifically asked, but who's going to do the asking? The people who aren't even allowed to watch anything but state-run TV? That is, if they even have electricity. We were set up as the so-called defenders of freedom 60 years ago because no one else was willing to do it. Just because everyone else has decided to hide behind the skirts of the impotent U.N. doesn't mean that our role has changed (whether this is a good or bad thing, I don't know). The only difference between freeing the middle east without their consent and entering the European theater (without provocation) in WWII is that it was difficult for the French to be snidely anti-American from the bottom of a urine-filled German bomb crater.

Bush ain't perfect, but he's ours, and he represents more than his personal faults. I felt the same way about Clinton. I detested him personally, but nobody else better say anything bad about him, because he's the American president. Sometimes the pres is kind of like your drunken cousin. You have to back him in a bar fight because he's your cousin, not because he doesn't deserve to get his ass kicked.

Iraq was safer and more stable than most dictatorships before the invasion.

Nazi Germany was safer and more stable before we invaded them, too.

UT *everyone* has been telling Syiria to get the fuck out for a very long time. The only thing that's changed is that the locals are very, very pissed off.

Mr noodle, would that be the thugs the US props up, or the ones it's ignored the bloodshed of for decades? I get confused with these things.

They don't LOOK pissed off.

it's both, jaguar. accompanied by thugs who have surfaced without our help and possibly thugs we helped get into power in the first place. The fact remains that they need to go, and civil uprisings only do so much without the muscle to back them up.

just because there's someone in the white house who will back up his talk, people get all miffed.

What do you think they're protesting about UT. Think about it.
Civil uprisings sure haven't worked in Georgia and Ukraine of late.
Yet somehow despite all the cowboy bullshit about backing his talk, I don't see abhrams rolling though Harare or Cairo or Riyadh........There's a guy in the whitehouse with the intellectual capacity of a rotten tomato having his stings pulled by a lobby of arrogant, neoimperialists who are having a whale of time trying out some of the most destructive foreign policy of recent times and raping the treasury for their own benifit in the process, I think that might be why people are miffed. You honestly think the whole freedom&democracy&candy for all thing is more than Karl Rove with his hand up bush's ass don't you? amazing.

You want to talk about the US instilling democracy in the middle east? Take a look a Lebanon, very topical. The US has been trying to supress democracy in lebanon, they're worried that the if people freely voted they might vote for an organisation that provides media, schools and hospitals - hezbollah. That's how serious the US is about freedom and democracy. Wake the fuck up, it's South America all over again, all that's changed is the decade. Death Squads, installed dictators, it all sounds so familiar.

Jag, the old game is out and a new one is afoot. Your old media BBC still thinks the old game is on.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._wh/us_mideast

Bush Demands Syria Withdraw From Lebanon
What. Side. Are. You. On.

How very 2004 of you. Let's move the fuck on dot org from this tired "Bush is dumb" routine. He's dumb like a fox, and while the sheeple bleat about not getting their way in the election, he is getting things done, cowboy-style or no.

I banged so many metaphors into each other in that sentence, my head hurts. Oh well, that's why it's called quick reply. no editing here, baby.

Which, true or not, is a non-sequitur. There are no parallels between the US rationales for war for Iraq and Germany.

'my old media'. Huh?
Whose side am I on? The Lebanese. The US aren't interested in helping them, just an excuse to lay into Syria, good thing they're stretched so far in Iraq already or i'm sure they'd be 'liberating' the palce by now. France has interests in Lebanon of its own.

As long as people we don't like get elected. What exactly is this new game you're going on about? Looks like the same old duplicity to me.

Getting what done exactly noodle? He's managed to trash the transatlantic alliance. That was impressive. Presiding over some impressive spending too, I wish I had the balls to blow out such a deficit, I'm sure he's proud of that one. He sure is getting stuff done, gotta respect a man that can barge ahead, regardless of facts, logic, history, diplomacy or prudent economic policy, I'm sure that appeals to your kind of intellect.

Let me explain where I am on this and maybe Jag will get it. Bush made a huge stupid gamble when he invaded Iraq. In the final tally it will probably mean many more millions enslaved by Mullahs. However! Lebanon, which has more liberal roots than much of the middle east, should grab this moment. Yes, Bush hates Syria. This should embolden the Lebanese people. Bush is crazy enough to back up his words, Lebanon is counting on it. The most likely outcome is Syria backing down. It is time for pragmatism. Don't let UT's triumphalism sour you to the potential of this moment. Root for Lebanon.