[aikido7]

More than seven years after 9/11, the world is surprisingly peaceful. President Bush's pragmatic and bipartisan leadership has kept the United States not just strong but unexpectedly popular across the globe. The president enjoyed big GOP wins in the midterm elections, a validation of his subtle understanding of the challenges facing the country. A new survey of historians puts him in the first tier of American presidents.

As Bush warned, catching terrorists wasn't easy, but he kept at it. At the battle of Tora Bora, CIA operatives on the ground cabled Washington that Osama bin Laden was cornered, but they desperately needed troop support. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld immediately dispatched fresh forces, and the evildoer was killed. While bin Laden was seen as a martyr in a few isolated areas, the bulk of the Arab world had been in sympathy with the United States after 9/11 and shed no tears. After their capture, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists were transported to the United States, where they were tried and quickly executed.

Today, Al Qaeda remains a threat but its opportunities for recruitment have been scarce, and the involvement of the entire international community has helped dramatically reduce terrorist attacks worldwide. Because Bush believes diplomacy requires talking to adversaries as well as friends, even Syria and Iraq were forced to help. By staying "humble," as he promised in 2000, he preserved much of the post-9/11 good feeling abroad, which paid dividends when it came time to pull together a coalition to handle North Korea and Iran.

At home, some aides suggested that Bush simply tell the nation to "go shopping." But the president knew he had a precious opportunity to ask Americans for real sacrifice. He took John McCain's suggestion and pushed through Congress an ambitious national-service program that bolstered communities and helped train citizens as first responders.

Soon Bush put the country on a Manhattan Project crash course to get off oil. He bluntly told Detroit that it was embarrassing that Chinese automakers had better fuel efficiency, he classified SUVs as cars, and he imposed a stiff gas tax with a rebate for the working poor. To pay for it, he abandoned his tax cuts for the wealthy, reminding the country that no president in history had ever cut taxes in the middle of a war. This president would be damned if he was going to put more oil money into the pockets of Middle Eastern hatemongers who had killed nearly 3,000 of our people. To dramatize the point, he drove to his 2002 State of the Union address in a hybrid car. Sales soared.

When Karl Rove suggested that the war on terror would make a perfect wedge issue against Democrats in the 2002 midterms, Bush brought him up short. Didn't Rove understand that bipartisanship is good politics? Lincoln and FDR had both gone bipartisan during wartime, he reminded his aide. So when evidence of torture at the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay surfaced and Rumsfeld was forced to resign, former Democratic senator Sam Nunn got the job. Our post-9/11 unity was still at least partially intact in 2004.

Goerge Bush was re-elected in a landslide.

Taking a cue from Lincoln's impatience with his generals, Bush was merciless about poor performance on homeland security. When the head of the FBI couldn't fix the bureau's computers in a year's time to "connect the dots," he was out. And Bush had no patience for excuse-making about leaky port security, unsecured chemical plants and first responders whose radios didn't communicate. If someone had told him that five years after 9/11 these problems would still be unsolved, Bush would have laughed him out of the office.

In 2003, Vice President Cheney advised the president to take out Iraq's Saddam Hussein militarily. But Bush was beginning to understand that his veep, while sounding full of gravitas, was in fact reckless. When it became clear that Saddam posed no imminent threat, Bush resolved to neuter him, Kaddafi style. When the president found, after a little asking around, that the 10-year cost of invading Iraq would be a crushing $1.2 trillion, he opted out of this war of choice.

Five years after that awful September day, even Bush's fiercest critics have learned an important lesson: leadership counts.

Imagine if we'd done the opposite of these things. This country—and the world—would be in a heap of trouble.

[Silk Queen]

Most people do NOT like George Bush.... right or wrong that seems to be the way it is.

[aikido7]

Originally Posted by Silk Queen

Most people do NOT like George Bush.... right or wrong that seems to be the way it is.

I doubt that many will find a quarrel with the text....

[OlDove]

Originally Posted by aikido7

I doubt that many will find a quarrel with the text....

a quarrel?
i love quarrels, i put nuts out by the trees
the lil quarrel grab em and go runnin with a mouthfull.

[Morpheus]

Originally Posted by OlDove

a quarrel?
i love quarrels, i put nuts out by the trees
the lil quarrel grab em and go runnin with a mouthfull.

Sounds painful.

[Adam_Kratt]

I will admit... in the beginning I strongly disliked George W. Bush. Then I was surprised.. a a couple of months he impressed me... and although I never really liked him.. I didn't dislike him anymore... I was neutral.. he seemed to be responding how a president was supposed to after something as evil as 9/11 he was going after the terrorist.... then.. he started to talk telling Saddam Hussein to give up.. or we were going in to get it.... then I started to dislike him again.. then I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 and I saw the truth... and I can say I truely am disgusted by George W. Bush.... then the war got worse.... then it turned into a Civil War... and over 3,000 americans have been murdered because saddam disrespected George H. W. Bush. .... And I began to grow an increased disgust and anger... then the American people voted.. and shouted through their vote.... NO MORE WAR... but George W. Bush who claims to be a down home boy from texas but who is actually from a new england elitist family in Hartford Connecticut... chose to ignore the people who he and his brother cheated in the first election.. and who seems to have won the second election... althought it is still confusing how districts with say... just 1500 people cast 2300 votes.. but oh well..... I can say... that I have grown to believe that Bush does not care about the american people... he is a failure .. and...... honestly... he is a disgrace to the office of the president... and even though I disagree with much on the republican agenda.... I pity them that they will be known as the party who created George W. Bush.


by the way.... go to Google.com and type in failure in the search box... hit search and see what the first website listed is...

or better go to google.com and type failure in the search box and then hit the I Feel Lucky Botton and see which website it takes you to.

[OlDove]

Originally Posted by Morpheus

Sounds painful.

no, the lil quarrels are tame.
unsalted in the shell
throw some around, atract some quarrels
then train em
cool smart lil critters

[aikido7]

Most of the people who supported Bush tend to change the subject rather than consider what Bush has done. It has to do with saving face. The good thing about the 2004 election--now that the facts are finally being looked at by the media--is that most Americans really weren't comfortable with electing him to a second term.

[Aimiel]

I shudder to think of what might have happened had Bush not been elected to his first term...

Saddam might still be subsidizing terror against Israel. Iran might have taken over Afghanistan. We might have lost several major cities already, to terrorists' nuclear attacks. Thank God for George W. Bush. Thank God someone is willing to take out the trash.

[Mr. 5020]

Originally Posted by Adam_Kratt

by the way.... go to Google.com and type in failure in the search box... hit search and see what the first website listed is...

or better go to google.com and type failure in the search box and then hit the I Feel Lucky Botton and see which website it takes you to.

Google fixed the "Google bombing" issue a while back. If you search for failure now, the first web site is http://technorati.com/tag/failure.

[aikido7]

Originally Posted by Aimiel

I shudder to think of what might have happened had Bush not been elected to his first term...

Saddam might still be subsidizing terror against Israel. Iran might have taken over Afghanistan. We might have lost several major cities already, to terrorists' nuclear attacks. Thank God for George W. Bush. Thank God someone is willing to take out the trash.

Did you read the post? I think not.

In the US, the American people operate the waste and trash facitilities according to strict environmental guidelines.

[GeneCosta]

Originally Posted by Aimiel

I shudder to think of what might have happened had Bush not been elected to his first term...

Saddam might still be subsidizing terror against Israel. Iran might have taken over Afghanistan. We might have lost several major cities already, to terrorists' nuclear attacks. Thank God for George W. Bush. Thank God someone is willing to take out the trash.

Are you reading the White House handbook for keeping constituents afraid?

[Adam_Kratt]

Originally Posted by Mr. 5020

Google fixed the "Google bombing" issue a while back. If you search for failure now, the first web site is http://technorati.com/tag/failure.

hmmm interesting.. i had done it last week .... oh welllll..... here is a new one

go to Google

type in: Bush looks like

[OlDove]

this work?

Originally Posted by Adam_Kratt

hmmm interesting.. i had done it last week .... oh welllll..... here is a new one

go to Google

type in: Bush looks like

[Aimiel]

Originally Posted by aikido7

Did you read the post? I think not.

In the US, the American people operate the waste and trash facitilities according to strict environmental guidelines.

I read the post. Did you understand the inuendo of my post? I think not. The president has sent the American military to take out the 'trash' other countries are too politically correct to tackle.