Comments Posted By Fresh Air
Displaying 41 To 44 Of 44 Comments
That's a fair point. His reservoir of support among conservatives was pretty shallow too, I guess. Still, take a look at some of his old campaign photos. The guy was pretty popular for a time. The revisionist notion of him always being this sinister figure in the White House out to knife everybody who got in his way just wasn't operative before Watergate.
Comment Posted By Fresh Air On 1.06.2005 @ 14:24
Nixon was a brilliant strategist and a political visionary. While he may not have understood the conservative movement, he did understand politics quite well. I think you are being unfair to his political skills. IIRC he only lost one election, that being the presidency in 1960. He also had the decency not to contest it, though he could have. Would that Al Gore had learned that lesson.
Comment Posted By Fresh Air On 1.06.2005 @ 12:31
Okay. Systematic lack of control might be grounds for resignation, though I haven't seen a laundry list of that. But keep in mind we're fighting in a two-front war with 170,000 troops in the field. A lot of things are going to happen no matter who the SecDef is.
Underestimation of the insurgency? Okay, but I still don't see what good it does. Bush's critics don't play fair and he knows that. They merely want to humiliate him. I think he is a basically humble, but confident, man who learned long ago that the Democrats were basically dishonest, and that displays of humility would only weaken him. Look what happened to Carter.
Comment Posted By Fresh Air On 28.05.2005 @ 11:54
Yes on vetos, yes on asking for sacrifice, no on admission of wrong--what would that prove, anyway? As "a" says above, it would just hand his bad-faith critics a weapon to beat him with. Plus, he hasn't been wrong on all that much that matters.
Abu Ghraib? You have got to be kidding. A minor-league jailhouse scandal surpassed every day by actual torture, not simulated, and brutality in every single Muslim country save (yes!) Iraq is supposed to result in the resignation of our Secy. of Defense? Bah! (Also, remember Rummy offered to resign at least twice and Bush refused to accept.)
Karpinski was sacked, as she should have been. It's been time to move on for over a year now.
Comment Posted By Fresh Air On 28.05.2005 @ 11:20
