Two years ago I said that Reagan was the worse president hands down.  Today I think Bush has pulled into the lead.  After Katrina revealed that four years after 9/11 the government still hadn't put together any plan to evacuate a major city in case of catastrophe...well as bad as Reagan was, I can't imagine that happening under him. 

Even so, I can't help but to marvel at how so many conservatives can see such a big difference in the policies of Reagan and W.  Increase government power, ignore deficits, shift the tax burden downward, focus foreign policy on "defeating evil" and pursue a socially conservative agenda with a strong Christian basis.  By all appearances Bush has tried to out-Reagan Reagan. 

I take it apart more here:  http://theantipath.com/?p=84

Seems to me like any true fan of Reagan's policies should be giddy over the zealousness with which Bush has tried to emulate them.  I can't for the life of me figure out what folks like Bruce Bartlett and Andrew Sullivan are talking about when they say Bush has "betrayed" the Reagan legacy. 

Another grievous foreign-policy failure of Reagan was the way he dealt with the Middle East.  Stationing marines in Beirut in the first place was silly and missionless, cutting and running after the suicide bombing sent the opposite message of what we need to send, not-so-subtly helping Saddam Hussein was a disaster, and selling arms to Iran at the same time only increased cynicism and damaged our ability to function in that region.

I think with Reagan you have to seperate the rhetoric vs the actual policies.  In many ways what is so bad abotu Reagan is the true believers who followed and actually tried to impliment the rhetoric (Gingrich et al)  As Mark pointed out, Reagan raised taxes, repeatedly after his first tax cut.  Reagan also put in place the Social Security tax inccreases that made SS solvent for decades.

On the foreign Policy side, as Josh pointed out, despite his evil empire rhetoric he negotiated arms deals with the Soviets.

I still think Reagan was by and large a poor president and his rhetoric has done more to damage politics in the last 25 years than probably anyone.  But saying he was worse than Bush is hard to support.   Maybe as Josh says it was just a case of having enough "grown up" Republicans in his admin to counter the loons.  But even if that is it, who he appoints and listens to is an important part of how you judge a president.

You may find you're making a comparison between incompetence and vandalism.

This discussion, as it follows other similar ones, is starting to remind me of my daughter's college roommates who used to love to talk about what was their second-favorite color, their second-favorite food, second-favorite state, etc.  I remember thinking to myself when I heard them, that pretty soon they would be busy with assignments and life, and they wouldn't have time for that.

I can't help but think that maybe we all ought to get busy with assignments and life, and stop trying to figure out who the WPE is/was, and figure out what to do about this one who is just plain terrible, regardless of where he falls on the scale.  After all, he is the only one we have at the moment!

Jan Knaus

I'm sorry, but Bush is the worst hands-down.

His economic policies are at least as bad as Reagan's (at least Reagan reversed some of his tax cuts). The only reason we have yet to see as dramatic a debt increase in terms of GDP is because less time has passed - it took most of Reagan, Bush 1 and part of Clinton's tenure for the full effect of Reagan's economic policies to manifest.

In other domestic policy areas, Bush is worse - even Reagan's administration didn't dare interfere so directly in science, for instance.

 On foreign policy, I think we agree.

But the elephant in the living room which you fail to mention is his claim of monarchical power - the freedom to defy the law whenever he deems it neccesary.  If he succeeds in institutionalizing even a fraction of that claim, then he will have dealt lasting and possibly fatal damage to our nation's system of government.  On that basis alone, he qualifies as the worst president ever.
 

I've never seen any convincing argument demonstrating that there was a way of invading Iraq that would have led to a substantially better situation than what we have now. Mumbles about "postwar planning" and "more troops" really don't make it. How would any of those things have changed the underlying political situation in Iraq? And the underlying political situation is what, sooner or later, would have determined the outcome. So, no, invading Iraq wasn't "the thing to do."

I think a creditable case can be made that Bush is a worse president than Ronald Reagan was (I'm not sure comparisons to the distant past make sense). However, Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton at least claim to believe that invading Iraq was a good idea. I don't think it makes sense for them to think Bush is worse than Reagan.

Matt,

Why do you keep taking Reid's statement out of context?  Reid made the statement about Bush being the 'worse' President in direct reference to his fiscal policies on the day that the debt ceiling was raised for the FOURTH time in this administration. It was increased some 761 BILLION  dollars and that makes the national debt around 9 TRILLION dollars. THAT is what Reid was referring to the NATIONAL DEBT when he said Bush was the worse President...and that makes sense relative to Reagan.  Given that the national debt under this President is more than all previous administrations combined.

So please at least get the reference point, correct if you are going to write 2-3 essays on this...geez!!

i admire your intentions (and i almost always admire your writing here) but in this case you might be pooping on the party. i think that a lot of what tpm cafe really is is a support group. and that is an important function. people here are just blowing off some steam, and these are rough days for anyone who's paying attention. i know i feel constantly overwhelmed.

tpmers pay more attention than the average voter, i think, but we still each have only one vote, and probably just about as much pull with the DNC as your average 7-9pm CNN viewer.

hate to break it to you, but the war was proven fraudulent  well before we invaded, and the same goes for bush's budget. what we decide here doesn't make a lick of difference. we'll vote for the best-smelling asshole they give us and keep rolling with the punches, or raking in the moolah, as the case may be (i like vonnegut's thought that the two parties in the US are the Winners and the Losers; the winners win and the losers lose), and in the meantime it's fun to trade quips and anecdotes about the worst years of out lives.

i guess i agree with trotsky (about one thing at least): great changes happen as a result of dialectic shifts and marxist-style historical progressions, but also as a result of people seizing the moment. somehow i don't think that the moment has truly arrived. those with their eyes on the horizon can see it coming, some of us might even feel the pressure change in our bones, but the storm isn't here yet.

so until then, having visited Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, i am in the camp that says that W and RR are different chapters of the same sick manifesto, and really, so was Clinton, as much as he was good for most people in the US. but Bush is somehow even less likable than either the actor or our buddy. For the record, I have never wanted to have a beer with the guy. 

Cheers

Matt Emmons

LBJ worst president hands down.

It is true he should have fired Westmoreland.  He also should have raised taxes to pay for the war. However, in matters of civil rights and medical care LBJ will go down as one of the great presidents and the finisher of the New Deal.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Reagan also broke the "Vietnam syndrome" mentality which had made Americans justifiably cautious about moronic committments to foreign wars. So the fact that Americans were susceptible to the post-9/11 WHIG con job can be partially attributed to Ronnie Ray-gun.

Tom

Bush would like to be the finisher of the New Deal - as in kill it.

Tom

LBJ was a great president domestically?!?  Excuse me, but his "Great Society" nearly singlehandledly destroyed the black nuclear family.  Of course, I suppose that some of the commentators on this blog might think that > 2/3 illegitimacy rate is a good thing.

"You say I'm a dreamer.  We're two of a kind.  Looking for some perfect world that we both know that we'll never find." - Thompson Twins, "Hold Me Now"

Well excuuuse me for thinking of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Medicare and Medicaid.

Tom

I think we reached that point several years ago. What remains is for the majority of the people who voted for him to realize it; my back of the napkin math says 51% voted for him and his approval rating is 33%, so only about a 3rd of them are there so far:-)

OOPS, this was supposed to be in reply to the comment above about the tippign pojt and the Bush admin becoming a joke.

Bush is so bad, he may actually do what no one else has been able to do since Reagan: knock the Republican juggernaut off course and return the Democrats to power in both the Congress and the Presidency.

Much that is credited to Reagan was as much an accomplishment of a Democratic Congress as it was an accomplishment of Reagan.  Back then the Democrats in Congress finally got up off the floor and quit licking Reagan's boots, and it was their drive as much as Reagan's that kept the economy from completely failing.  They should get as much credit as Reagan for the essential tax increases, the saving of Social Security and stopping of the dismemberment of the government in totality.  Of course there were many conservative Democrats in Congress then too, unlike today, where virtually the whole delegation of Democrats is moderate to mildly liberal.  This resulted largely from Reagan's ability to pander to the bigotry of the South and "convert" southern Democrats to Republicans.  Is it possible that we liberal Democrats just don't have the fire in the belly needed to stand up and fight for what we believe in?

Hoppy in Sacramento

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Bush is Reagan on Crack and yeah Matt that cutesy polemic went right over my head too.

Now that you've directed the flying fickle finger of fate at Bill's Little Hill and the rest of the Democratic self-styled strong on defense crowd you've hit the nail on the head.

Bush's invasion of Iraq has undermined US security, weakend the armed forces, exposed the limit of US military power at an absurdly low threshold, and taken the dubious honor of Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History.

Politiically Bush staked his presidency and the GOP's near term political prospects on this catastrophe yet the Democrats, too afraid to be called names, too afraid to tell the truth, too fearful to win, wonder why they've fared so poorly in national elections!!

They run. They hide. They try to move to the right of Bush. They try everything but the obvious and they gain nothing.

But if not now, when? 

 Past lame, this duck is dead, pressed, and bloodied. As the democrats salivate at their 06 prospects and Bush's declining poll numbers, their consultants continue to urge caution when attacking Bush on the very issue that has driven them out officie and Bush's presidency onto the slag heap of history.

If not now, not come this November either.

Froomkin 

"I understand how some Americans have had their confidence shaken," President Bush said yesterday in Cleveland. "Others look at the violence they see each night on their television screens, and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic about the prospects of success in Iraq. They wonder what I see that they don't."

Bush tried to explain. But in the end, what he provided was yet another example of what others see -- and he doesn't.



That would be reality

• Bush Proves His Harshest Critics Right
  
  by Paul Craig Roberts
  
  On March 17, William Rivers Pitt wrote that Bush is "deranged, disconnected, and dangerous." In his March 20 Cleveland speech, Bush proved Pitt right.
  
  Bush gave a delusional speech that shows he is detached from reality. "We're going to help the Iraqis build a strong democracy that will be an inspiration throughout the Middle East, a democracy that'll be a partner in the global war against the terrorists."
  
  Has no one told Bush that the Iraqis cannot even agree to form a government?...

Sorry, you're probably right about the party pooper thing, but when I saw the third stream about the same subject it really did remind me of my daughter's friends, as I said.  One of them even had a second-favorite bean!   BTW -- I have gone on about Bush as much (or more) than most. 

I guess what I really wanted to say is let's get going and do something, but then I even wonder myself:  other than documenting his pathetic excuse for a presidency, what CAN we do?

I heard Zbignew Brazinski (pardon the spelling) on NPR tonight.  He had a 4 point plan for Iraq.  It was very sensible, and revealed a thoughtful assessment of the situation  Murtha's plan for Iraq, although somewhat different; is also a viable choice.  I have also heard people give very astute opinions about what to do about Darfur, about Bird Flu, about health care, etc. 

I had a little epiphany --> our candidate, and our Congress don't have to know everything about everything.  They have to be on the right side of issues (ie having the best interests of ALL of our citizens at heart).  They have to be smart enough to choose only the best people to manage all of these important issues.  And they have to be good enough at what they do that they can convince a critical mass that they can actually pull it off!  And if elected, then they have to pull it off!

Instead of the "CEO" president, why not the "Leader" president?  Someone who chooses his strong team well, but who is an actual leader, unlike Bush.

Thanks for your comments!

Jan Knaus

Hoppy,

That's why I was against it in the first place. But we are in there and, therefore, that fact has to be dealt with. Here's what Juan Cole had to say earlier today;

Pretty much everyone agrees by now that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld must go, that he has been incompetent and egoistic and callous. But no one ever brings up the question of whether the situation in Iraq can get any better as long as Rumsfeld is in office. He makes Pentagon policy. He makes bad, even catastrophic policy. Ergo, Rumsfeld in office equals looming disaster.

Cole - like me - initially opposed the war but suggests that it "could have been/can be done better." So what are we supposed to do at this point - throw our hands up and say it was going to fail no matter what so let's do nothing? Kicking Rumsfeld and Co. out would be a start.

I doubt that much progress can be made if each side simply repeats its respective mantra ad nauseam that it either was a mistake or it wasn't a mistake to invade.

LBJ was a great president domestically?!?  Excuse me, but his "Great Society" nearly singlehandledly destroyed the black nuclear family.  Of course, I suppose that some of the commentators on this blog might think that > 2/3 illegitimacy rate is a good thing.

LBJ's policies (1964 Cibil Rights Act and Pell grants) also created the largest black middle class in the istory of America as well as the largest group of college educate blacks int he history of America.

No, I'm sorry. Your instict to make a call to action is wise and noble. I was maybe just being defensive about my own feelings of powerlessness to deal with this awful mess we're in.

Also, the story about your daughter's friends is quite funny.

 ME 

Saddem besides ruling his country with torture and murder had helped start one war with Iran, and had invaded Kuwait and threated Saudi Arabia.  He was also helping fund terrorist actions against Israel.  Another thing that distinguished Saddem and Iraq from you basic despot were the no fly zones.  We were never at peace with Iraq.  Instead British and American pilots were flying almost daily missions.  A world without Saddem and an Iraq heading toward a stable civil society would be in the United States' interest.

I totally agree with your implied point that Bush's failure to get Bin Laden and cripple Al Qaeda is almost enough for him to be the worst president in our history. 

 But it is not inconsistent to believe that ousting Saddem was a good idea, in the abstract, and still see Bush as the worst president based on his conduct of the Iraqi war.  That ineptitude might be what makes him the worst for some. Bush the wartime president is so awful when one thinks of Lincoln or Roosevelt.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

And your saying that makes it so? I'm not a big fan of Hillary, but I know enough about Harry Reid to put the question to you.. what do you base your assertation on?

Sure, Harry Reid is soft spoken, but that doesn't mean he hasn't got guts. He's ripped Alan Greenspan a new one, he's demanded Karl Rove's resignation, he's called Clarence Thomas out on lousy judicial decisions.. he's got the balls to speak up to someone's face, rather than conduct a whispering campaign anonymously... the ones who do that are the liars, who need to depend on lies.

He grew up poor, his father was a miner. He worked hard to improve his life, got through law school and went back to his hometown to work in the community. Actually fought for the people. There are actually decent honest people out there who do get involved in government for reasons other than profit and greed. He's one of them.

Ok Matt has now explained more clearly that he thinks the reason Hilary Clinton et al say that Bush is the worst President ever is not because they believe it, since if they really believed it they would not have supported and continue to support the Iraq war, which is the strongest argument for Bush being the worst ever.

In the previous post Matt explained that the reason they were doing this was to pander to the Democrat base, which does oppose the Iraq war and does think Bush was the worst President ever.

That seemed clear enough and also obviously true.

The previous clear statement was drowned in an outpouring of angst about how Bush is the Worst President ever and hardly any discussion about the deliberate and manipulative exploitation of that sentiment to pander to the Democrat base.

So how does Matt "clarify" his position?

"What I think they ought to do is come to their senses and recognize that invading Iraq was not, in fact, a good idea."

Presumably having done that Clinton et al could then conclude that Bush was the worst President ever and rejoin the chorus, making everyone feel better. ("Everyone" being the Democratic base).But having established that what they say is not what they believe, ie that they are liars, hypocrits and panderers, why would one be telling them that they ought to change their opinions about the Iraq war rather than telling them to stop being liars, hypocrits and panderers? Isn't that an admission that the Democratic base wants to be lied to by hypocritical panderers (just like the Republican base on "values")?

How could people who NOW recognize that invading Iraq was not, in fact, a good idea after all,  maintain the pretence that the execution of that idea by Bush was a disaster that makes him the Worst President Ever, while the idea itself, shared by both both Bush and Clinton, merely turned out not to be as good an idea as it seemed to both of them at the time?

In the new "clarified" version, Matt does not present any explicit argument whatever as to why Clinton et al should "come to their  senses and recognize that invading Iraq, was not, in fact, a good idea". So how is that now clear?

If they weren't assumed to be liars and hypocrits with no principles whatever, a number of arguments might legitimately be used to convince Clinton et al either that they were wrong to support the invasion at the time, or that they should now conclude that it has turned out to be a wrong policy that should be abandoned.

 But NO such reasons were mentioned (presumably because "everybody knows"). One is left with only the implicit argument - that they should change their view on Iraq so that they can more legitimately rejoin the chorus as sincere members rather than obvious panderers.

But isn't changing ones position for such reasons the essence of pandering?

And isn't that exactly what Matt is urging Clinton et al to do and setting an example by doing to to his audience?

Like Matt, I believe Bush was deliberately lying when he pretended the war was about WMDs and hinted at possible links between Iraq and Al Quaeda. But I also believe that Clinton and many other pro-war Democrats were deliberately lying when they pretended to accept these arguments. (Nor do I have any more respect for the integrity of those who actually believed what they were saying, since real integrity would have required them to study the issues seriously and millions throughout the world including most of America's friends and allies and the overwhelming majority of its foreign policy establishment immediately dismissed the arguments presented by Bush at the time as too  obviously completely phony to be worth serious discussion.)

The point was that they could not present the real reasons for their support of the war since there was no public or Congressional support for spending a billion dollars a week for many years and accepting thousands of casualties for the sort of war that was actually intended. There is still only minority support for that now, so it would be sheer fantasy to imagine an honest statement of such expectations could have resulted in support for going to war 3 years ago.

What Congress thought they might be voting for was a quick and cheap "regime change" with a new, more compliant regime installed in Baghdad so that Iraq would behave more like friendly Arab regimes such as Egypt and Jordan. What many of them said they were voting for was not even that, but a means of avoiding an invasion by giving Bush something he could use to pressure the UN Security Council into passing a resolution that would in turn result in Iraq actually abandoning its (non-existant) WMDs for fear of the consequences.

What they got, and most supporters as well as opponents of the war regard as a "blunder", was the complete suppression of the Baath party and its armed forces and consequent need to completely rebuild the Iraqi state while fighting an insurgency from the Sunni minority whose social domination over the Shia and Kurd majority via the Baath regime had been suddenly overturned without any replacement ruling class cadre available to keep running things.

With no real support among opinion leaders for the actual war at the start, it is hardly surprising that there is widespread hostility now.

But the number of people who support the actual war has in fact steadily risen, from virtually none at the start (since those who said they supported it were raving about WMDs, not about democratic region change throughout the Middle East) to a significant minority now. (Perhaps 20-30% agreement that it is worth the costs to accelerate a democratic transformation of the region). 

Now what if some of the Democrats who supported the war understood that is what was intended and were participants rather than victims of the lies by the Bushies?

Is that conceivable? Consider for example the fact that James Woolsey was Clinton's CIA director and one of the leading Iraq hawks with the best available connections for obtaining an accurate picture of what was being planned and who told the most patently silly public lies about both Iraqi WMDs and Al Quaeda connections. Yet Woolsey was publicly arguing for wholesale "region change" only a month after 9/11 and more than a year before the great "WMD debate" and invasion.

Anyway, just suppose for the sake of argument that Hilary wasn't conned but knew what she was doing. She would be stuck with having to "stay the course" (as are most opponents of the war anyway, since a withdrawal now would have all sorts of interesting consequences whether or not it was a good idea originally). Such people would naturally be inclined to carp about the execution rather than the policy, and to distract attention from their continued support of the policy by stressing that "Bush is the Worst President, Ever".

The sort of reasons that might convince such hypotehtical panderers would for example involve an argument that "draining the swamps" of the middle east that breed terrorism from stagnant societies ruled by autocrats is not essential to the long term prevention of future terrorist attacks on the USA, or that democracy in the Arab world is a pipe dream, even if it is the only solution to terrorism, or that the invasion of Iraq was more likely to hinder the goal of "draining the swamps" than to help it, or that the expected costs of the invasion exceed the long term costs of future terrorist attacks from terrorists breeding in the swamps.

In particular it would be necessary to explain either that the last 60 years of US policy in the middle east under both Republican and Democrat administrations was not a catastrophic disaster that imploded with 9/11 as now claimed by Bush, or present some other replacement for that failed and bankrupt policy.

Emoting about how Bush is the Worst President, Ever avoids any discussion of that question and development of any alternative policy.

Just to clarify, I am not an American, let alone a Democrat or a Republican. I was convinced that US policy in the middle east was catastrophic long before 9/11 so I am in complete agreement with Bush about that.

I supported and still support the war because I was convinced that the reasons given by Bush  for the war in terms of WMDs were lies and that the US would inevitably on invading Iraq find that it had no alternative but to suppress the Baath party and its armed forces and fight the subsequent insurgency together with the Iraqi people in defence of democracy instead of establishing a more congenial autocratic regime as expected by most people including both supporters and opponents of the invasion.

Unlike Hilary Clinton, I'm not prepared to lie and pander, so I'm not stuck in a situation where nobody could persuade me to change my mind about Iraq because nobody understands the actual reasons why I support the war. 

But  you cannot change the views of people who support the actual war now by simply repeating that the reasons originally given for it were lies and that the war is taking longer and costing more than people were given to expect at the time it was launched. We know that. Some of us also knew that then and were participants in the lies.

Whether you agree that Hilary Clinton was a participant in the lies or not, what harm would it do to present arguments to change the views of people who sincerely believe that US policy in the middle east was catastrophically bad as demonstrated by the fruits it bore with 9/11?

Since we do agree with Bush on that much, and you appear not to have even thought about it, simply assuming "everybody knows" he's the worst President ever leaves you dangerously oblivious to what might actually be going on in the heads of peole you are trying to convince. Check Woolsey's argument  and Chomsky's incomprehension of it at the link above to understand the issues in the debate you weren't part of 4 years ago when the decisions were actually being made and that you still do not even begin to understand, let alone refute as long as you choose not to think about the actual reasons for what you assume were merely "blunders" and of the actual views of people who you assume to be merely afraid to oppose Bush's policies rather than actually agreeing with them.

Are we really still talking about who is the worst?  Damn.  Ford pardoned Nixon, that makes him the stupidist, or if we assume that was the deal, that makes him the most corrupt.  Reagan is the most obstinant and his cheerleading fans pretend that he matches up to real presidents. 

Bush doesn't qualify because, as far as I can tell, he has yet to be proplerly in the office.  He is an interloper.  Some say Kennedy was an interloper, too.  At least Kennedy seemed to have his head on straight. 

Compared with the other murdering scum who have occupied the office, he is the only one who has articulated a war of aggression beyond North America.  That is something.  Since WWII, he is the first to involve us openly in torture (Reagan and Nixon involved us in torture, but secretly).  He is the only (fake) president to deny the plain meaning of the 4th amendment since 1800.  The bill of particulars is growing long, and the fact that we could even doubt that this loser is anything but the very worst pretender to the persidency (much less actual president) seems laughable.

If its good for me it must be Good 4 A Merica

Well, Arthur,

     While I was comparing the Right to Animal Farm's pigs, an irony which will certainly be lost on them, you were penning a long argument for supporting the war, and, I believe, in some way backing Hilary's support of the war even if her motives are suspect or worse.  You conclude with what appears to be a blast at all who have posted against Bush, tarring all with the brush of blinkered denial of the possiblility of principalled support for this war.  I say "appears" and "I believe" because I have occasionally read my own posts and found they didn't say what I intended.  But I'll try to address this as it reads.

    At the midpoint of your post you indentify yourself somewhat, so as a courtesy, I'll reciprocate.  I am an American and proud to think of myself as a hawk in the tradition of FDR.  I have never been a military professional, but have worked with many, and have read military theory and history extensively (Sun Tzu to Keegan).  I supported George H. W. Bush in booting Saddam from Kuwait, and was even rooting for that action during the first week when he was waffling prior to Maggie Thatcher coming over to transplant some backbone into him.  I was OK with Bush I not continuing on to Bagdad, since that was not our stated aim, but furious that he encouraged ethnic uprisings and failed to back them.

     I supported Clinton's early campaign statements calling for Serbia to be expelled from Croatia, and was extremely frustrated that he procrastinated so long before acting against Milosevic militarily.  I was ambivalent about Somalia once the U.N. took over and we became Boutros-Boutros Galli's tribal enforcers. 

     When 9/11 happened, I was fully in support of going into Afghanistan with everything we had and grinding Bin Laden and Al Qaeda into dust.  I was screamingly angry when we let him go at Tora Bora, and apopleptic when I saw that the twit was more concerned with Iraq than finishing Al Qaeda.

    When our Chimp Commander in Chief was talking up invading Iraq, I told any who would listen that this was going to be bad, that I thought this would be a desert Vietnam, and later that we were getting caught in a civil war. 

     Now, the above is only to put what I say in perspective.  The Democratic Party has stupidly ceded the defense arena to the R's since Vietnam.  Truman, Roosevelt, and Wilson were all liberals who understood that sometimes wars are inevitable, and were willing to fight an inevitable war.  Kennedy and Johnson were willing to fight in Vietnam, but only to fend off the "soft on communism" label, and only if it didn't get in the way of other priorities.  The result was a disaster.

   Now comes G. W. Bush.  He uses the Democrats' knee-jerk opposition to Desert Storm in conjunction with his conflation of 9/11 and Iraq to beat them into supporting his folly.  Having supported him, some like Hillary show they are just as cowardly as Bush in refusing to admit their mistakes, and want to say "Iraq war good, Bush Bad." 

     Well I say a pox on both of them.  Only Murtha had the ballocks to stand up and say, "Yeah, I voted for the war, but it's turned out badly."  He's able to do this because he voted for Desert Storm.  I honestly don't know if a single Democrat voted  for Desert Storm and against this madness, though I doubt it. 

     Arthur, you seem to want to put those of us who think that Duhbya is the Worst. President. Ever. into the same boat as Hillary.  Well, you can leave me, at least, out.  I will probably agree with any vitriol you care to hurl against her, and perhaps much that you would hurl against Bill.  But her support for this war is, as you point out merely pandering and, as I would add, cowardice. 

    Now you seem to have favored the elimination of Saddam, and I would agree that, by in a vacuum, eliminating Saddam would be a good thing.  But there are any number of bastards in the world, he is/was only one, and there were methods to deal with him other than invasion.  And the fact that he was a bastard almost certainly had no part in the Bush administration's thinking.  Whether Boy George was getting even for his attempt on Daddy, or to show his cojones were as large, or to gain access to the oil, is immaterial.  Fundamentally, this administration took on an unnecessary war, with inadequate resources, against our allies wishes, and then bungled the occupation.  We are now caught in the middle of a civil war with all three (four?) sides shooting at us.  It's time to pull out, acknowlege that Iran played us like a fiddle, and do our best to contain the fallout.

So what you're saying is things like Medicaid, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act:  all bad ideas.  Justice Thurgood Marshall?  Bad appointment.

The Vietnam War was a horrible, horrible mistake.  But absent the war, LBJ's record is tremendous.

Harry is fine. He is a realist though. Both he and Hillary are faced with the challenge of determining the best path to regaining power in Washington. I agree with you that Harry is all you have said. That doesn't alter the crappy choices that circumstances have handed him. I wasn't judgemental of Harry, Hillary or Fiengold. I merely stated the different approaches they have taken in addressing the issues. I lean toward the Feingold approach though. I prefer it because it is closer to an expression of truth and the fulfillment of the obligation each of these people have.

This is about risk. Feingold has taken a riskier position that is accompanied by the potential for greater reward. Harry and Hillary have chosen a response with less risk and a corresponding reduction in reward. I'm of the opinion we need a Feingold to call Bush to accountability. I firmly believe Dems should all be on that page. If they were things could be very different. If Bush was constantly being hammered (by members of Congress) for his transgressions it might alter the way he does things. Dems aren't together on this because they are busy establishing their creds for a run in 2008 that will most likely put a Dem in the WH. Feingold would be a stronger candidate than Hillary. I don't think she is electable. We need a more agressive and unified stance. Dems are a minority only in the precise sense of the word. Hillary is amassing a lot of campaign $ and people are taking note. That is why the party is leaning her way and adopting her position. And Harry is necessarily part of that strategy.

thepeoplechoose

Sure, Harry Reid is soft spoken, but that doesn't mean he hasn't got guts. He's ripped Alan Greenspan a new one, he's demanded Karl Rove's resignation, he's called Clarence Thomas out on lousy judicial decisions.

Yes, but he did not call Scalia out for lousy judical decisions, which makes his judgement on that issue, suspect.