True, Gates will also be Obama’s Defense Secretary, but this is notable given the divisiveness during the campaign between those supporting Bush’s policies and those favoring Obama on this issue. Obama was heavily criticized for saying he’d like to get combat troops out in 16 months, and now it appears that his plan is right on target.
h/t Think Progress.
kudos Sean
TJK-
First, I don’t think of Bush as all that wonderful. There is plenty he did that I disagree with. Invading Iraq is not one of them.
I don’t see where we are stealing their oil. One cannot call it a war based on lies if every intelligence agency in the world was saying the same thing.
It goes back to the point that nothing Bush did after getting elected was considered right. It has been a non-stop childish fit over the election having been ’stolen’ in 2000. Kind of like the same way the vote is being stolen in Minnesota, where ‘previously uncounted’ ballots are being found left and right for the Democratic challenger. But no one in the media os questioning or going after it like they did in 2000.
I agree that Iraq was mismanaged after the initial invasion. But the media coverage did more to harm us over there than anything. It turned the people against our efforts there. Had the same kind of coverage been given in WWII, I have no doubt things back home would have been different.
I, personally, cannot see how Bush made himself ‘filthy’ rich over all of this. If so, where is the hound dog media saying it? THAT is why Bush has such a low rating. Given fair coverage he would have a lot better standing.
His so-called tax policies helped us out of the beginning recession when he took office; yet somehow after 6 years of steady growth it suddenly became ‘wrong’ and was a ‘tax cut for the rich’ (even though as a military member I was affected by his cuts and credits). It has been just a constant barrage of negativity.
Still, I know that no matter what is said, it will all come down to being Bush’s fault. People will always blame the top guy, no matter who was really at fault. And that’s cool. I just hope you give as fair a hearing to the new administration when the economy completely collapses under the incredible inflation coming. Bush’s $800 billion was bad enough. The additional $800 billion by Obama and the $845 billion wanted by him to go to the UN, the $34 billion asked for by the auto-unions, etc etc etc… we can only print money for so long before it becomes worthless…
Somehow, though, it will come back to be blamed on Bush. I have faith in the media.
I want to hear the same freakin’ display of disgust if Obama arbitrarily invades/bombs Pakistan, Afghanistan, or any other country that doesn’t do something directly to US.
And if you think democrats don’t line their pockets when they are in politics you are crazy. Why do you think they ALLLLL leave Washington filthy rich? And why oh why do you think so many want to stay in it as long as possible?
And it ain’t just big business that got big stupid. Little Billy down the street who decided to get the gold credit card and max it out just cuz he got the envelope in the mail and wanted to buy a big screen plasma and momma a new tennis bracelet, or his buddy bought a house that cost 300K and the bank says he can have that much or more on his 75,000 salary even though he knows it’s gonna be paycheck to paycheck is big stupid too.
Personal responsibility includes fiscal responsibility. And just cuz you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Cha! Gold star to TJK!
“In my opinion, we had every right to remove Sadaam.”
Sorry, Sean. We all know Bush invaded Iraq to steal their oil. He sacrificed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, not to mention thousands of our soldiers, so he can retire from office filthy rich (what you called ‘Line My Pockets With Green Money’).
And no matter how pretty a picture you paint of Dubya, no matter how wonderful you think he is, the American people can see quite clearly that he screwed this country royally to benefit nobody but himself.
Bush won the battle and now BO is trying to get credit.
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
You go againist BUSH you mine as well find another job or quit. Look at the last 8 years of people working under him. COLIN POWELL is 1 fine example. GATES knows being their is a failure. It,s killing AMERICANS money wised,lives, the people who lived their and anything not listed. OBAMA made a wise choice keeping GATES.
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
WHAT ! Perhaps GATES knew we should leave. Going againist BUSH is failure. I give OBAMA the credit.
December 2nd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Seperate Man:
Bush won what battle?
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Ok, would a conservative once again explain to me what the phrase “We’re winning the war in Iraq” means?
What exactly are we “winning”?
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Why don’t you ask a soldier “what we are winning” I actually talked to the wife of one two weeks ago. He is staioned in Baghdad.
And whoever said earlier on this board or another that we had no interest in keeping the peace? If we had no interest in keeping the peace we would have tucked tail and ran a long time ago.
Funny how you hear so many complain about it, but don’t ask the men and women on the front line about it.
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Everybody knows we’re winning an occupation.
And, you’re correct, T. Mason. We ARE keeping the peace. We are protecting the oil companies from the Iraqi people. It’s pretty hard to steal their oil when they are constantly being an obstruction.
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Yep, we are winning right into a recesion of failure T MASON. Folks out of work and a shameless war based on lies.
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:26 pm
No one will know what we have “won” until we leave. And the next question,is the winning really about us or the Iraq people? When we invaded Iraq the premise was that we were winning the threat of wmd. In essence the winning was for our security. Then suddenly we were winning freedom for the Iraq citizens from a brutal dictator. So, the question still remains unanswered; why did we invade Iraq?
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Isn’t it amazing that we aided Bin Laden fight the Soviets, we armed him, he was our man of the hour, and now he is our worst nightmare. What did we win? Isn’t it amazing that we fought in Viet Nam, had to leave, the Communist took over. Today Viet Nam is a prospering country that we do a lot of business with. What did we win? NOW, we fought in Iraq and they want us to leave. What did we win?
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Gates is working hard, as we type, to get us out of Iraq quicker than 16 months. Remember, the buck stops with Obama and the vision and direction start with him.
Gates gets extra credit for an early start on the inevitable.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:08 am
Gates is a good man, which is unusual for the Bush43 admin.
I always suspected Bush the Elder sent Gates in as a “fixer” for Bush43, trying to salvage the family legacy.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 am
Had the media portrayed a lot more of the humanitarian stuff going on in country, rather than the constant barrage of negativity, I have no doubt that the attitude towards Iraq would be much different.
Everyone can blame Bush, as he is the sitting president, but the only real error I saw the entire time was in letting Rumsfeld run things. Had our generals been listened to, I imagine things would have been much better a lot quicker. Gates stepped in and listened; look what we have now.
It has not mattered, for 8 years, what Bush has done, in the eyes of the media and his opponents it was wrong. What would have been the outcome if we had stayed in Afghanistan? Dead Americans with the insurgency joining the Taliban there? Perhaps. Sadam getting the nuke material he sought from Egypt? Maybe. It doesn’t matter as hindsigt is 20/20. When a butcher kills hundreds of thousands with chemical weapons, and every intelligence agency in the world coraborates your own intelligence, you would think they were on to something.
Of course Sadaam could never have gotten rid of the stuff before we attacked. he only had about a month or so of warning. Not enough time to get rid of it over some friendly border. But that is just a theory. Like Bush lying. It’s a theory. I am more inclined to believe that Bush saw intel, and combined with Sadaam’s complete refusal to abide by the agreement felt that Afghanistan was under control and it was time to deal with Iraq. Of course it was all over oil. The recent $4.00 per gallon prices prove we are getitng Iraqi oil at discout prices because of it.
And now when the increase in Iraq’s OP Tempo succeeds, and we are negotiating a deal to relinquish security to the Iraqi troops, Bush gets no credit why? Because he beat Al ‘Line My Pockets With Green Money’ Gore? Give me a break.
In my opinion, we had every right to remove Sadaam. He violated the peace resolution of 1991 some 17 times by firing at OUR planes. Of course acts of agression aren’t really that important to our lame media (or the Bush-Can-Do-No-Right crowd) unless they can find a way to sensationalize it and make it seem like we are the bad guys.
It amazes me how much hate and vitriol can be spoken about one person… but let someone disagree with the really, really STUPID spending policy our government (led by SENATOR Barack Obama) is planning to execute come January, and you are either a racist or a hater…
For those that lived in the 70’s, check your license plates.. wouldn’t want you in the gas lines on the wrong day. Am I wrong? I hope so, but 1932 and the 1970’s say I have a better than average chance of being correct.
Thanks for letting me vent… I really do like Alan, though I disagree with a lot of his viewpoints. I’ll miss him in his old time slot. I just wish the rest of the Democrat Party were as willing to hear both sides as he. We might even get some good things accomplished because of it.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:51 am
Steve,
If you think the Iraq war is the only reason we are in a recession you are sadly mistaken. Corporations are outsourcing jobs, fannie and freddie (which by the way has a lot to do with the government forcing banks to give loans to people who should never have gotten them), americans spending spending spending using credit cards they can’t pay back, I can go on and on.
Blaming the entire recession on one thing is bullocks.
If we believe the government has all the answers good grief. They told us over and over if the first bailout didn’t pass the stock market would crash and we would go into a recession. Guess what? They passed it, the stock market crashed and we are in a recession.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:06 am
“The best thing the American people can do is go shopping,” is what Bush said after 9/11. Eliot Spitzer said Bush’s administration prevented states from going after predatory lenders. McCain, the GAO, plenty of people predicted the collapse. The lenders are to blame for 80% of it.
Again, when my husband and I bought a house in 1999, we qualified for a loan that was about 50% more than we asked for. This last time ’round, with a new house in ‘05, we qualified for a house 300% more than we asked for.
We’re in a recession because Big Business has gotten Big Stupid, and Major Greedy, and they saw Bush’s administration as a giant cash cow.
The war has been an extremely expensive exercise (not just financially or humanitarian-ly, but politically). A disgusting amount of that money went to Texas-based private contractors like, ta-da, Halliburton.
There are plenty of African nations suffering just as much, if not more, than Iraq — unfortunately they don’t possess oil, which even Jim Baker says is why were not there.
Even after 5 years, we still don’t have any clearly communicated, concrete objectives that would determine when, and if, we’d “won” the war in Iraq.
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
“In my opinion, we had every right to remove Sadaam.”
Sorry, Sean. We all know Bush invaded Iraq to steal their oil. He sacrificed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, not to mention thousands of our soldiers, so he can retire from office filthy rich (what you called ‘Line My Pockets With Green Money’).
And no matter how pretty a picture you paint of Dubya, no matter how wonderful you think he is, the American people can see quite clearly that he screwed this country royally to benefit nobody but himself.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Cha! Gold star to TJK!
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I want to hear the same freakin’ display of disgust if Obama arbitrarily invades/bombs Pakistan, Afghanistan, or any other country that doesn’t do something directly to US.
And if you think democrats don’t line their pockets when they are in politics you are crazy. Why do you think they ALLLLL leave Washington filthy rich? And why oh why do you think so many want to stay in it as long as possible?
And it ain’t just big business that got big stupid. Little Billy down the street who decided to get the gold credit card and max it out just cuz he got the envelope in the mail and wanted to buy a big screen plasma and momma a new tennis bracelet, or his buddy bought a house that cost 300K and the bank says he can have that much or more on his 75,000 salary even though he knows it’s gonna be paycheck to paycheck is big stupid too.
Personal responsibility includes fiscal responsibility. And just cuz you can, doesn’t mean you should.
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
TJK-
First, I don’t think of Bush as all that wonderful. There is plenty he did that I disagree with. Invading Iraq is not one of them.
I don’t see where we are stealing their oil. One cannot call it a war based on lies if every intelligence agency in the world was saying the same thing.
It goes back to the point that nothing Bush did after getting elected was considered right. It has been a non-stop childish fit over the election having been ’stolen’ in 2000. Kind of like the same way the vote is being stolen in Minnesota, where ‘previously uncounted’ ballots are being found left and right for the Democratic challenger. But no one in the media os questioning or going after it like they did in 2000.
I agree that Iraq was mismanaged after the initial invasion. But the media coverage did more to harm us over there than anything. It turned the people against our efforts there. Had the same kind of coverage been given in WWII, I have no doubt things back home would have been different.
I, personally, cannot see how Bush made himself ‘filthy’ rich over all of this. If so, where is the hound dog media saying it? THAT is why Bush has such a low rating. Given fair coverage he would have a lot better standing.
His so-called tax policies helped us out of the beginning recession when he took office; yet somehow after 6 years of steady growth it suddenly became ‘wrong’ and was a ‘tax cut for the rich’ (even though as a military member I was affected by his cuts and credits). It has been just a constant barrage of negativity.
Still, I know that no matter what is said, it will all come down to being Bush’s fault. People will always blame the top guy, no matter who was really at fault. And that’s cool. I just hope you give as fair a hearing to the new administration when the economy completely collapses under the incredible inflation coming. Bush’s $800 billion was bad enough. The additional $800 billion by Obama and the $845 billion wanted by him to go to the UN, the $34 billion asked for by the auto-unions, etc etc etc… we can only print money for so long before it becomes worthless…
Somehow, though, it will come back to be blamed on Bush. I have faith in the media.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:29 am
kudos Sean
December 4th, 2008 at 10:34 am