Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

timberlandko wrote:

Tell ya what, PDiddie, I'll go out on a limb here. I really think you are wrong, and I really think The American electorate thinks you are wrong. That of course doesn't mean that you are wrong; it merely means I think you're wrong, and that the majority of voters think so too.

I will conjecture that come November, Bush the Younger will pull 57% to 59% of the popular vote, and that the Republicans will pick up at least a dozen House seats and at least four in the Senate, along with significant gains in statehouses and legislatures. I don't care at the moment to speculate specifically which seats will be involved, or which states will be carried by which party's candidate in the general election (though at the moment I doubt the Democrats have any realistic chance of carrying more than, if even as many as, a dozen), but I see the likelyhood of the numbers falling that way. Things of course might change, but judging by established momentum, that's the way right now I think it will go down.

To make it easy to keep track, bookmark This particular post to your favorites, and refer back to it as you find appropriate. I'll do the same.

You're on.

Care to put any money where your beak is? Cool

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PDiddie wrote:

You're on.

Care to put any money where your beak is?

Sure ... how about a $50 donation to the national committee of the party of the successful candidate?

http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/preview/{280CC318-913A-4E7F-A6E0-E0E011BF3CD5}.gif

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Wow!!!
How anyone can really feel that 4 yrs. and 11 more months of is good for America astounds me. "Dubya and The Neo cons" sounds like a crappy retro rock band don't it? The play outa tune and their timing sucks.

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I'm curious: how do people here feel about the appointment of Jim Baker as chief trouble shooter of US-European relations? In my opinion, it will do nothing to replace George Bush the guy, but it might be the beginning of replacing George Bush the phenomenon. It's just not Democrats who do the replacing, but Republican grown-ups reclaiming the party they had temporarily lost to incompetent ideologues.

Or am I getting my hopes up too highly?

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pistoff

There is light at the end of the tunnel. First, it is a long time between now and the election, and what will transpire in the meanwhile is particularly impossible to predict...it is an unusually volatile period. But even if Bush does win a second term (fingers in sign of cross, garlic strung across the thread) there is hope.

Here in Canada, we had a Conservative government which was so arrogant, and so mixed up in dirty little profitable cronyisms, that the leader became the most hated in our history and the party was absolutely destroyed.

It is a near certainty to me that if Bush does win again, he and his team are going to screw things up so badly that even fine fellows like timber and george are going to realize their country has turned corners that are destructive to the America they presume.

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Thomas wrote:

I'm curious: how do people here feel about the appointment of Jim Baker as chief trouble shooter of US-European relations? In my opinion, it will do nothing to replace George Bush the guy, but it might be the beginning of replacing George Bush the phenomenon. It's just not Democrats who do the replacing, but Republican grown-ups reclaiming the party they had temporarily lost to incompetent ideologues.

Or am I getting my hopes up too highly?

James Baker is certainly an experienced and seasoned official, a former Chief of Staff and Cabinet official in the Reagan Administrations. If he is able to convince Russia, France, and Germany to forgive Iraq's debts to them, resulting from loans they made to Saddam, that would certainly be a good thing for the unfortunate people of Iraq.

However, if Baker fails, will you then acknowledge that the intransigence of these nations involves other factors than the "incompetent ideologues" who you claim lead the Bush Administration and the Republican Party?

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George

What makes you so sure that London will fogive the debts? (Or why didn't you mention the UK?)

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georgeob1 wrote:

However, if Baker fails, will you then acknowledge that the intransigence of these nations involves other factors than the "incompetent ideologues" who you claim lead the Bush Administration and the Republican Party?

I sure would acknowledge that. And I would add that the most prominent of those factors is friendly fire from Wolfowitz and his 'reconstrucion contracts for troops' policy announcement. But maybe these weren't the factors you had in mind? Wink

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Walter,

I am not at all sure they will. However I did not include them in my resonse (1) because the UK has not been so consistently intransigent with respect to Iraq as have the three named nations, and (2) because their debts are a good deal smaller.

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Quote:

However, if Baker fails, will you then acknowledge that the intransigence of these nations involves other factors than the "incompetent ideologues" who you claim lead the Bush Administration and the Republican Party?

I'll sneak in an answer here. No.

We will have no real notion of what it is Baker is saying. It's pretty clear that negotiations at this level are not something that get talked about at the microphone outside the door..."We had very promising discussions today". We do know, if we read very widely, that these 'negotiations' can get down and dirty, with threats or big money held out as carrots. For example, documents came to light here recently (via our Freedom of Information act) which showed that a team of American officials trying to market US military products to the Canadian government sought to have our government decrease social programs so that we could better afford the products. There is no way in hell those American officials would have been honest to a Canadian reporter about this.

Your use of 'intransigence' above, george, sets the question up to suggest but two possibilities, again.

Our brand new PM, who I didn't care much for previously, has gained my admiration for his response to a question from an American audience or press person regarding what he felt about Canada being banned from contracts in Iraq. He replied (paraphrased) that the US rationale that those who risked ought to see the gains available didn't make a whole lot of sense because..."what did Halliburton risk?"

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georgeob1 wrote:

However I did not include them in my resonse (1) because the UK has not been so consistently intransigent with respect to Iraq

George, I think there's a misperception on your side here. Germany, France and Russia weren't consistently intransigent with respect to Iraq. They were intransigent with respect to the quality of your government's arguments. In particular they had the following objections:

1) They were unconvinced by Bush's claim that Iraq had purchased nuclear fission material from -- Angola? I think that was the country. Anyway, as things stand today, they were right to be unconvinced.

2) They were unconvinced that Iraq had large quantities of WMDs. As things stand today, they were right to be unconvinced.

3) They were unconvinced that 1) and 2) added up to an imminent threat, a threat so severe that due process as defined by UN rules couldn't be followed. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" (C. Rice). As things stand today, they were right to be unconvinced.

4) Based on the successful containment of Stalinist Russia, they believed Saddam could be contained by peaceful means too. As things stand today, this matter is undecided, and forever undecideable.

On top of all that, there was camaign noise in Germany, and not all of that noise had merit. But on the substantial claims by the Americans, the dissenters got a 3 for 4, with the jury hung forever on the 4th. With that in mind, I find it rather cocky of you to portray this noise as the core, not a side effect of the dissenting nation's dissent.

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Thomas,

I believe you over simplify and constrain the U.S. argument for the intervention in Iraq. (On that note I always believed it was an error for Bush to take his case to the Security Council, precisely because the intransigent members had defined the problem nearly out of existence by constraining the matter to the WMD question.)

There is political campaign noise in every democracy - ours too (ours often continues all year.)

I agree with you about the unwisdom of the announcement with respect to contracts. I would have just quietly directed those managing the procurements to make no awards to companies from opposing nations. I suspect Wolfowits may have felt that with so many European fingers stuck in his eyes he was entitled to some of the same - a serious error.

Using the Wolfowitz action as an "other factor" was cute, but it evades my original point, which I believe has merit.

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George

Thomas has already explained what is thaught here - officially and in general public opinion.

Besides these two, there are of course other opinions as well.

I fully agree with that what was said by Thomas.

An interesting report here on the BBC website ens with:

Quote:

"If US corporations had 10% of the contracts, or a big slice of the debt was owed to the US, then you could be sure this debate would be a whole lot louder," one UN official told BBC News Online.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Using the Wolfowitz action as an "other factor" was cute, but it evades my original point, which I believe has merit.

Fair complaint. I would grant you that if the Bush cabinet was replaced with grown up Republicans -- the Jim Bakers of the Bush generation -- and Europeans kept bitching, I'd have to reconsider my theory of the situation. Trouble is, I can think of modern Jim Bakers for the finance/economics area. Gregory Mankiw and Larry Summers come to mind, and I'd love to see them in more important roles. But I cannot think of reasonably young Jim Bakers in the foreign policy/ military area -- with the exception of Colin Powell, who appears to be neutralized by the neoconservatives at this moment. (I hope he gains some power soon.)

Is that just my ignorance of American politics, or can you suggest some people for this kind of profile?

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Walter, Thomas,

I recognize and accept the basis, as you have described it, for German opposition to our intervention in Iraq. Though you don't acknowledge them, there are other factors as well that bear on the matter - at least in my opinion. I believe it is those that go unmentioned that are of more lasting significance. We have discussed these on this and several other threads.

The matter is most visible in the case of France. Their opposition to the U.S. and its policy transcends both the issues and the elements of them under dispute among us. Its causes lie in the incompatible self-conceptions of the two countries. France is certainly no longer the ally of the United States, and indeed is hardly a friend. France learned nothing from WWII, and I believe French aspirations to lead the EU as an alternative to US power are quite dangerous.

Putin is for sale. He is out to get the best short term deal for Russia he can in every situation. If you pay him enough he will even ratify the Kyoto Treaty. In the present circumstances I don't particularly fault him.

The future direction taken by Germany may well be decisive.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Though you don't acknowledge them, there are other factors as well that bear on the matter - at least in my opinion.

I can't speak for Walter, but the reason I didn't mention them is because I take them for granted. Every head of state pushes the interest of his own country, as he understands it. The important difference is how they do that. You can push your interests by making cogent arguments and taking a stand for them, or you can push your interests by bullying your prospective allies with a policy of "you're either for us or against us". I find these differences more interesting than the underlying rivalry, which is basically the same for everyone involved.

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Thomas wrote:

Every head of state pushes the interest of his own country, as he understands it. The important difference is how they do that. You can push your interests by making cogent arguments and taking a stand for them, or you can push your interests by bullying your prospective allies with a policy of "you're either for us or against us". I find these differences more interesting than the underlying rivalry, which is basically the same for everyone involved.

That 'how' representing one's interest is done is important, I do not contest. However the fact of a persistent divergence of the interests of nations as seen by a series of national leaders on each side, is of far greater significance. That is the case with France. Further, I do not believe that national leaders are so superficial as to be put off by atmospherics they don't like when there is alignment in underlying interests. It is far more likely that, given an underlying divergence, they will use a disagreement about atmospherics as an excuse for other matters they are less willing to discuss.

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Thomas has put my answer in better words I ever could :wink:

However, I agree with

georgeob1 wrote:

Further, I do not believe that national leaders are so superficial as to be put off by atmospherics they don't like when there is alignment in underlying interests. It is far more likely that, given an underlying divergence, they will use a disagreement about atmospherics as an excuse for other matters they are less willing to discuss.

that as well Laughing

(Or does this only apply for some special states and national leaders? :wink: )

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georgeob1 wrote:

However the fact of a persistent divergence of the interests of nations as seen by a series of national leaders on each side, is of far greater significance. That is the case with France.

I'm not sure I understand the concept "interests of nations". But I agree you have a point. Many in the French political class have a problem with the fact that France has lost its superpower status when its colonies gained independence in the 60s and 70s. Frequent bitching against the world's only superpower is these politicians' way of compensating. This is emphasised by a sentiment among France's farmers that they're on the wrong side of the stick re: globalization, which they view as a phenomenon of Americanization. France is one of the few countries in Europe where a farmer can become a folk hero by 'bravely' running his tractor into a McDonald's franchise.

That doesn't change the fact that the interests of almost all Americans are not in conflict with the interests of almost all French. We shouldn't let the noisy few in both countries bring up the reasonable majorities in both countries up against each other.

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Re: Fact is...

pistoff wrote:

that you post a whole lot more than one idiotic remark. You are usually, arrogant, snide and condescending. Of course this is the Net. Would you be such an ass at a local club?

Yes, if Lola said that to me over drinks, I would--with all the good humour it was written with here--tell her to her face that it was an absolutely idiotic thing to say. It was. Read it again for yourself. It's hilarious! That fact takes nothing away from Lola; we all occasionally say or write idiotic things. Lighten up. What are you all pistoff for, anyway? :wink:

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Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

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