Compromises are made on all sides, including the president. (This is precisely why the whole "Bush lied" theory does not fly. IMO) This is how washington works. I think we all know that. That bureaucracy will be there long after bush and/or kerry are gone.
How, exactly, are we supposed to compromise on the question of whether the Bush administration deliberately mis-represented the intelligence about Iraq in order to lead the country to a war that it believed to be crucial to US interests in the region, and a war which has, so far, resulted in at LEAST 500 US casualties?
Not sure that is true but we should be gaining roughly 1.8 M PER YEAR given prior trends...
Certainly I can claim that since it is well accepted (evidently) even by you who have claimed that it takes three years for the economy to respond to changes at the top. That means since Bush only came into office in early 2001 there is no way in hell his tax cuts in mid-2001 were working one year later ending the recession. It is simple logic that the system had to have been in place from the Clinton administration to make this recession shallow. Or it could be completely unrelated, but you can't legitimately claim that Bush was successful at stopping the recession early because we should have seen normal job growth by this point... Recessions are a part of the normal business cycle, so blaming them on a president actually makes no sense, the rapidity of a recovery is dependent on the president and we are not recovering at even a decent clip some 2.7 years after these supposedly wonderful tax cuts.
If you actually beleave what you say here, then let's get of Bush's back, he is doing what he can to help. Let's drop it as a talking point. I agree with you that it is just normal cyclic movement of the economy. So let's move on.
But under sharp questioning by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., Tenet reversed himself, saying there had been instances when he had warned administration officials that they were misstating the threat posed by Iraq.
"I'm not going to sit here and tell you what my interaction was ... and what I did and didn't do, except that you have to have confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it," Tenet said. "I don't stand up publicly and do it."
Tenet admitted to Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat, that he had told Cheney that the vice president was wrong in saying that two truck trailers recovered in Iraq were "conclusive evidence" that Saddam had a biological weapons program.
Cheney made the assertion in a Jan. 22 interview with National Public Radio.
Tenet said that U.S. intelligence agencies still disagree on the purpose of the trailers. Some analysts believe they were mobile biological-weapons facilities; others think they may have been for making hydrogen gas for weather balloons.
Levin also questioned Tenet about a Jan. 9 interview with the Rocky Mountain News, in which Cheney cited a November article in the Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, as "the best source of information" on cooperation between Saddam and al-Qaida.
The article was based on a leaked top-secret memorandum. It purportedly set out evidence, compiled by a special Pentagon intelligence cell, that Saddam was in league with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. It was written by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, the third-highest Pentagon official and a key proponent of the war.
"Did the CIA agree with the contents of the Feith document?" asked Levin.
"Senator, we did not clear the document," replied Tenet. "We did not agree with the way the data was characterized in that document."
Tenet, who pointed out that the Pentagon, too, had disavowed the document, said he learned of the article Monday night, and he planned to speak with Cheney about the CIA's view of the Feith document.
And giant, I'll thank you in advance for not including the content of private messages in public postings.
The whole linear nature of time really isn't all that complex. You know, the single dimension thing.
Quote:
As for the issue at hand, I'll give you the one regarding about Representative who made the comment you mentioned. He was obviously very wrong to say that. However, I don't see Republicans in general making those kinds of references.
It's so sad how far in denial you are. Hell, I have literally thousands of examples of hitler comparisons to dems and liberals.
Quote:
A lot of the things you posted in your private message (which I won't quote, because it was....wait for it...PRIVATE)
It's a copyright issue, and under fair use I can publish a brief quote so long as it is non-commercial and correct attribution is given. And there are extra points for using it in the context of a relevant discussion, academic or journalistic work. It's not personal information so your privacy has not been violated.
Furthermore, maybe you didn't notice, but PMs on AI are inherently NOT PRIVATE. There's a big ol' button on the bottom that say "Forward to Buddies." What do you suppose that might be for?
But I have a solution for you: don't harass me through PMs
How, exactly, are we supposed to compromise on the question of whether the Bush administration deliberately mis-represented the intelligence about Iraq in order to lead the country to a war that it believed to be crucial to US interests in the region, and a war which has, so far, resulted in at LEAST 500 US casualties?
How do we compromise on this, again?
Politics is a hyped up version of the old high school popularity contest. Bush has to "sell" every measure or action he puts forth. The fact that he may have put more emphasis on some fact over others, or mentioned things that seemed to support his argument is an indictment of the bureaucracy and not of Bush. Wether he did this or not is what you seem to want to argue, I ask why would the president even have "sell" such important things in such a way. Some new blood in congress would be an extremely good thing.
You will never get the "Bush lied" thing to get any traction. Too many of the people that embraced the war are the same ones making that outrageous claim now. If he lied they did too. It really is that simple.
Politics is a hyped up version of the old high school popularity contest.
No. It's not. Politics is a vision of the way the world ought to work, and sometimes, like now, the stakes are high. While this may be a game for all of us on this board, it's hardly so for your someone who's lost a manufacturing job in Pennsylvania or a tech support job to someone in India. It's hardly a popularity contest for the kids in Iraq right now. Bush has a vision of the way the world ought to work; I disagree.
Quote:
Bush has to "sell" every measure or action he puts forth. The fact that he may have put more emphasis on some fact over others, or mentioned things that seemed to support his argument is an indictment of the bureaucracy and not of Bush.
Are you really trying to argue that if he lied, it's not his fault?
Quote:
Wether he did this or not is what you seem to want to argue, I ask why would the president even have "sell" such important things in such a way.
It's not what I "seem to want to argue." It's the CRUX of the thing. Either he lied or he didn't. It's that simple. Why would he have to "sell" this? Because he was trying to yoke together an apple (9/11) and an orange (Iraq), and no one bought it until they got months and months of headlines and carefully placed phrases so that 9/11 became synonymous with Iraq in their minds.
Quote:
Some new blood in congress would be an extremely good thing.
I agree only insofar as I do not like it when one political party dominates all three branches of government.
Quote:
You will never get the "Bush lied" thing to get any traction.
You'd better not watch him get questioned, then. I hate to tell you this, but it's already GOT traction.
Quote:
Too many of the people that embraced the war are the same ones making that outrageous claim now. If he lied they did too. It really is that simple. [/B]
So your argument is that even if he lied, he wasn't alone? Everyone else was doing it? They were all misled by the evil CIA? Take others down with him, that's the argument? Or is your argument that it's not his fault?
No, sir. If Bush lied, the implications are staggering, since there are indications that the he politicized the intelligence itself. Everything he touched was tainted.
Wether you like it or not, without SDW or myself interjecting, this would have been a democratic "I hate Bush" -fest. Now I want you all to know that if I happened across a group of people relentlessly attacking you, I would jump in and help you fend them off. I saw that going on here, so I felt compelled to comment.
My God, here we go again. Get it out of your system: Disagreeing with Bush DOES NOT equal hating him.I think that's being a bit extremist. By the way, I don't think anyone was "attacking" SDW. Stop jumping to extremes. I also think he's old enough to "defend" himself.
Quote:
I don't think Bush is perfect, however I also don't think he is as bad as the extremists that frequent these forums do either.
You were doing so well up to this point but you had to go back to labeling people with differing opinions "liberals"(a word you love to use in an uncomplimentary and demeaning manner) and "extremists". Pot, meet the kettle.
Quote:
As a matter of fact, SDW seems to feel the same way, so I don't think we are the neo-cons that you try to label us.
Completely unrelated. You and SDW both sound the same. I know you just said that Bush isn't perfect, but the way you defend him and his admin. at all costs proves otherwise. About the neocon label....if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...So are you gonna answer the question? If you're neither a Dem or Rep, what are you? I have the dramamine ready.
1) The Bush admin has a habit of NOT LISTENING to their advisors. See the Esquire profile of DeIulio (who was later forced to recant his LONG comments about the inner workings of this admin's "policymaking"--which he says doesn't exist.
2) Before Bush, before 9/11, before this particularly combative generation of conservatives took control of the government, I'd have agreed that the president is window dressing. But this admin seems to have done what few before them have been able to do.
Both these points are nothing more than your personal opinion and cannot be substantiated by any facts whatsoever.
The whole linear nature of time really isn't all that complex. You know, the single dimension thing.
It's so sad how far in denial you are. Hell, I have literally thousands of examples of hitler comparisons to dems and liberals.
It's a copyright issue, and under fair use I can publish a brief quote so long as it is non-commercial and correct attribution is given. And there are extra points for using it in the context of a relevant discussion, academic or journalistic work. It's not personal information so your privacy has not been violated.
Furthermore, maybe you didn't notice, but PMs on AI are inherently NOT PRIVATE. There's a big ol' button on the bottom that say "Forward to Buddies." What do you suppose that might be for?
But I have a solution for you: don't harass me through PMs
What am I "in denial" of exactly? The fact is that there are not masses of Republicans in the streets carrying "Kerry=Hitler" signs. There aren't widely known conservative outlets that equate to Moveon.org which post ads comparing Kerry to Hitler. They just don't exist. I'm not talking about obscure right wing fanatics here...I'm talking about the mainstream. MAINSTREAM Democrats have made unreasonable and outrageous attacks on the President. You cannot deny this.
As for PM's: I was trying to keep the conversation appropriately private. Conflicts like that should be solved off the board. But since you won't do that, we'll solve it your way. You don't argue facts and opinion, you argue your opponent's intelligence. Comments like "do a google search, genius" have no place here. That's a direct violation of the posting guidelines.....
My God, here we go again. Get it out of your system: Disagreeing with Bush DOES NOT equal hating him.I think that's being a bit extremist. By the way, I don't think anyone was "attacking" SDW. Stop jumping to extremes. I also think he's old enough to "defend" himself.
You were doing so well up to this point but you had to go back to labeling people with differing opinions "liberals"(a word you love to use in an uncomplimentary and demeaning manner) and "extremists". Pot, meet the kettle.Completely unrelated. You and SDW both sound the same. I know you just said that Bush isn't perfect, but the way you defend him and his admin. at all costs proves otherwise. About the neocon label....if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...So are you gonna answer the question? If you're neither a Dem or Rep, what are you? I have the dramamine ready.
Oh, wait...you mean the way my opinions are labeled "extremist" because I disagree with a group of people who are unquestionably LEFT of the mainstream. You mean the constant notion on this board that anyone who supports Bush is "in denial" and "lacks critical thinking skills" or is just plain "stupid"? Is that the kind of thing you mean.
What Naples is saying, I think, is that there are many here who are not even self-aware enough to realize their opinions are in the vast MINORITY of this country. Worse, even when said opinions approach "even split" status (or majority), some posters openly dismiss and personally insult the holder of the minority opinion. Meanwhile, the Right is called a bunch of Neocons and fascists. The Left is always about freedom of speech, as long as it's liberal speech. Anyone who suggests a conservative opinion on almost any issue (war, taxes, social issues, etc.) is immediately labeled a war monger, person who hates the poor, etc.
The difference between us is that I (and I think Naples too) simply DISAGREE with most liberal positions. I even think some of those positions are downright dangerous ones, not to mention ineffective. I don't fault the person who has a particular opinion, but I will argue on the facts to support my side. The problem in AO, however, exists in that opinions contrary to the liberal political climate board are NOT argued, they are insulted and countered with rhetorical nonsense.
What is 3*1.8 M (the number of jobs a normally growing economy should produce given the growth in the job pool)?
5.4 M
How many jobs were created in this three year time span?
2.486 M
So if our economy was really doing ok we would have somewhere close to 5.4 M new jobs over those three years, but we don't in fact we are down 2.9 M from that. If you think this is good news for GW, that is fine, but honestly the numbers just don't look that way... Sorry SDW, this is a very weak point for Bush...
If you actually beleave what you say here, then let's get of Bush's back, he is doing what he can to help. Let's drop it as a talking point. I agree with you that it is just normal cyclic movement of the economy. So let's move on.
What I am saying is that the dubious nature of the tax cuts is still dubious. Nobody is listening to the independent economist anymore....
I think that any claim on either side of doing things that are good for the economy is always questionable, we just don't know how it works.... but will this stop it from being a talking point? no, people think that the system is well understood...
Here we go with the job numbers spin again. Funny how the Dems change their standards when it suits them. Guess that pretty much goes along with Flip Flop Kerry tactics though.
Used to be that the UNEMPLOYMENT RATE was what used to be important. Well now, since Bush administrations tax cuts, guess what? It's gone down! From 6.3 percent to 5.6 now. This is apparently one of the fastest declines in unemployment in decades.
Thats why you hear all this crap about how "Bush's policies aren't creating enough jobs to keep up". Because the usual statndard just doesn't work very well for slamming him (whether you believe the rate down from tax cuts or not).
Here's an article that explains these points better than I can:
Hmmm, an article in the National Review ("slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun" in the words of one of my conservative friends who reads it), written by someone who has a book for sale titled The Bush Boom: How a Misunderestimated President Fixed a Broken Economy
Actually, not to push your opinions of me aside, but ever since I have known the problems with unemployment (inclusive of the fact that people not seeking jobs aren't counted, and oppositely that it takes into consideration people on the unemployment roster that have part time jobs), I have never really used it to argue a point. And mind you I discovered this my senior year in high school so its been a while...
I am not doing a numbers spin. Numbers are numbers are numbers. Yes, jobs have been created under the Bush administration, but how many should have been created? It is a legitimate question and one which gives significance to the bland statement that jobs have been created. If we gained 1M jobs in 4 years, do you think we are doing ok? It is decisive to ask how many people are actually known to be entering the job market?
Comments
Originally posted by NaplesX
Compromises are made on all sides, including the president. (This is precisely why the whole "Bush lied" theory does not fly. IMO) This is how washington works. I think we all know that. That bureaucracy will be there long after bush and/or kerry are gone.
How, exactly, are we supposed to compromise on the question of whether the Bush administration deliberately mis-represented the intelligence about Iraq in order to lead the country to a war that it believed to be crucial to US interests in the region, and a war which has, so far, resulted in at LEAST 500 US casualties?
How do we compromise on this, again?
Originally posted by billybobsky
Not sure that is true but we should be gaining roughly 1.8 M PER YEAR given prior trends...
Certainly I can claim that since it is well accepted (evidently) even by you who have claimed that it takes three years for the economy to respond to changes at the top. That means since Bush only came into office in early 2001 there is no way in hell his tax cuts in mid-2001 were working one year later ending the recession. It is simple logic that the system had to have been in place from the Clinton administration to make this recession shallow. Or it could be completely unrelated, but you can't legitimately claim that Bush was successful at stopping the recession early because we should have seen normal job growth by this point... Recessions are a part of the normal business cycle, so blaming them on a president actually makes no sense, the rapidity of a recovery is dependent on the president and we are not recovering at even a decent clip some 2.7 years after these supposedly wonderful tax cuts.
If you actually beleave what you say here, then let's get of Bush's back, he is doing what he can to help. Let's drop it as a talking point. I agree with you that it is just normal cyclic movement of the economy. So let's move on.
some real golden nuggets in there... this is just a portion of the article.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/8145154.htm
But under sharp questioning by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., Tenet reversed himself, saying there had been instances when he had warned administration officials that they were misstating the threat posed by Iraq.
"I'm not going to sit here and tell you what my interaction was ... and what I did and didn't do, except that you have to have confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it," Tenet said. "I don't stand up publicly and do it."
Tenet admitted to Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat, that he had told Cheney that the vice president was wrong in saying that two truck trailers recovered in Iraq were "conclusive evidence" that Saddam had a biological weapons program.
Cheney made the assertion in a Jan. 22 interview with National Public Radio.
Tenet said that U.S. intelligence agencies still disagree on the purpose of the trailers. Some analysts believe they were mobile biological-weapons facilities; others think they may have been for making hydrogen gas for weather balloons.
Levin also questioned Tenet about a Jan. 9 interview with the Rocky Mountain News, in which Cheney cited a November article in the Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine, as "the best source of information" on cooperation between Saddam and al-Qaida.
The article was based on a leaked top-secret memorandum. It purportedly set out evidence, compiled by a special Pentagon intelligence cell, that Saddam was in league with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. It was written by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, the third-highest Pentagon official and a key proponent of the war.
"Did the CIA agree with the contents of the Feith document?" asked Levin.
"Senator, we did not clear the document," replied Tenet. "We did not agree with the way the data was characterized in that document."
Tenet, who pointed out that the Pentagon, too, had disavowed the document, said he learned of the article Monday night, and he planned to speak with Cheney about the CIA's view of the Feith document.
...
Yup. Kennedy is doing a fine job.
Originally posted by SDW2001
And giant, I'll thank you in advance for not including the content of private messages in public postings.
The whole linear nature of time really isn't all that complex. You know, the single dimension thing.
As for the issue at hand, I'll give you the one regarding about Representative who made the comment you mentioned. He was obviously very wrong to say that. However, I don't see Republicans in general making those kinds of references.
It's so sad how far in denial you are. Hell, I have literally thousands of examples of hitler comparisons to dems and liberals.
A lot of the things you posted in your private message (which I won't quote, because it was....wait for it...PRIVATE)
It's a copyright issue, and under fair use I can publish a brief quote so long as it is non-commercial and correct attribution is given. And there are extra points for using it in the context of a relevant discussion, academic or journalistic work. It's not personal information so your privacy has not been violated.
Furthermore, maybe you didn't notice, but PMs on AI are inherently NOT PRIVATE. There's a big ol' button on the bottom that say "Forward to Buddies." What do you suppose that might be for?
But I have a solution for you: don't harass me through PMs
Originally posted by midwinter
How, exactly, are we supposed to compromise on the question of whether the Bush administration deliberately mis-represented the intelligence about Iraq in order to lead the country to a war that it believed to be crucial to US interests in the region, and a war which has, so far, resulted in at LEAST 500 US casualties?
How do we compromise on this, again?
Politics is a hyped up version of the old high school popularity contest. Bush has to "sell" every measure or action he puts forth. The fact that he may have put more emphasis on some fact over others, or mentioned things that seemed to support his argument is an indictment of the bureaucracy and not of Bush. Wether he did this or not is what you seem to want to argue, I ask why would the president even have "sell" such important things in such a way. Some new blood in congress would be an extremely good thing.
You will never get the "Bush lied" thing to get any traction. Too many of the people that embraced the war are the same ones making that outrageous claim now. If he lied they did too. It really is that simple.
More jobs analysis. But more related to re-election chances.
On pure jobs performance... G Dub is in the worst shape of the last 4.
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/commen...ential_jo.html
Originally posted by NaplesX
Politics is a hyped up version of the old high school popularity contest.
No. It's not. Politics is a vision of the way the world ought to work, and sometimes, like now, the stakes are high. While this may be a game for all of us on this board, it's hardly so for your someone who's lost a manufacturing job in Pennsylvania or a tech support job to someone in India. It's hardly a popularity contest for the kids in Iraq right now. Bush has a vision of the way the world ought to work; I disagree.
Bush has to "sell" every measure or action he puts forth. The fact that he may have put more emphasis on some fact over others, or mentioned things that seemed to support his argument is an indictment of the bureaucracy and not of Bush.
Are you really trying to argue that if he lied, it's not his fault?
Wether he did this or not is what you seem to want to argue, I ask why would the president even have "sell" such important things in such a way.
It's not what I "seem to want to argue." It's the CRUX of the thing. Either he lied or he didn't. It's that simple. Why would he have to "sell" this? Because he was trying to yoke together an apple (9/11) and an orange (Iraq), and no one bought it until they got months and months of headlines and carefully placed phrases so that 9/11 became synonymous with Iraq in their minds.
Some new blood in congress would be an extremely good thing.
I agree only insofar as I do not like it when one political party dominates all three branches of government.
You will never get the "Bush lied" thing to get any traction.
You'd better not watch him get questioned, then. I hate to tell you this, but it's already GOT traction.
Too many of the people that embraced the war are the same ones making that outrageous claim now. If he lied they did too. It really is that simple. [/B]
So your argument is that even if he lied, he wasn't alone? Everyone else was doing it? They were all misled by the evil CIA? Take others down with him, that's the argument? Or is your argument that it's not his fault?
No, sir. If Bush lied, the implications are staggering, since there are indications that the he politicized the intelligence itself. Everything he touched was tainted.
If he lied, he fries all by himself.
And this hasn't even begun yet.
Wether you like it or not, without SDW or myself interjecting, this would have been a democratic "I hate Bush" -fest. Now I want you all to know that if I happened across a group of people relentlessly attacking you, I would jump in and help you fend them off. I saw that going on here, so I felt compelled to comment.
My God, here we go again. Get it out of your system: Disagreeing with Bush DOES NOT equal hating him.I think that's being a bit extremist. By the way, I don't think anyone was "attacking" SDW. Stop jumping to extremes. I also think he's old enough to "defend" himself.
I don't think Bush is perfect, however I also don't think he is as bad as the extremists that frequent these forums do either.
You were doing so well up to this point but you had to go back to labeling people with differing opinions "liberals"(a word you love to use in an uncomplimentary and demeaning manner) and "extremists". Pot, meet the kettle.
As a matter of fact, SDW seems to feel the same way, so I don't think we are the neo-cons that you try to label us.
Completely unrelated. You and SDW both sound the same. I know you just said that Bush isn't perfect, but the way you defend him and his admin. at all costs proves otherwise. About the neocon label....if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...So are you gonna answer the question? If you're neither a Dem or Rep, what are you? I have the dramamine ready.
Originally posted by midwinter
That's actually a very good point. Two things:
1) The Bush admin has a habit of NOT LISTENING to their advisors. See the Esquire profile of DeIulio (who was later forced to recant his LONG comments about the inner workings of this admin's "policymaking"--which he says doesn't exist.
2) Before Bush, before 9/11, before this particularly combative generation of conservatives took control of the government, I'd have agreed that the president is window dressing. But this admin seems to have done what few before them have been able to do.
Both these points are nothing more than your personal opinion and cannot be substantiated by any facts whatsoever.
Originally posted by giant
The whole linear nature of time really isn't all that complex. You know, the single dimension thing.
It's so sad how far in denial you are. Hell, I have literally thousands of examples of hitler comparisons to dems and liberals.
It's a copyright issue, and under fair use I can publish a brief quote so long as it is non-commercial and correct attribution is given. And there are extra points for using it in the context of a relevant discussion, academic or journalistic work. It's not personal information so your privacy has not been violated.
Furthermore, maybe you didn't notice, but PMs on AI are inherently NOT PRIVATE. There's a big ol' button on the bottom that say "Forward to Buddies." What do you suppose that might be for?
But I have a solution for you: don't harass me through PMs
What am I "in denial" of exactly? The fact is that there are not masses of Republicans in the streets carrying "Kerry=Hitler" signs. There aren't widely known conservative outlets that equate to Moveon.org which post ads comparing Kerry to Hitler. They just don't exist. I'm not talking about obscure right wing fanatics here...I'm talking about the mainstream. MAINSTREAM Democrats have made unreasonable and outrageous attacks on the President. You cannot deny this.
As for PM's: I was trying to keep the conversation appropriately private. Conflicts like that should be solved off the board. But since you won't do that, we'll solve it your way. You don't argue facts and opinion, you argue your opponent's intelligence. Comments like "do a google search, genius" have no place here. That's a direct violation of the posting guidelines.....
Originally posted by Gilsch
My God, here we go again. Get it out of your system: Disagreeing with Bush DOES NOT equal hating him.I think that's being a bit extremist. By the way, I don't think anyone was "attacking" SDW. Stop jumping to extremes. I also think he's old enough to "defend" himself.
You were doing so well up to this point but you had to go back to labeling people with differing opinions "liberals"(a word you love to use in an uncomplimentary and demeaning manner) and "extremists". Pot, meet the kettle.
Oh, wait...you mean the way my opinions are labeled "extremist" because I disagree with a group of people who are unquestionably LEFT of the mainstream. You mean the constant notion on this board that anyone who supports Bush is "in denial" and "lacks critical thinking skills" or is just plain "stupid"? Is that the kind of thing you mean.
What Naples is saying, I think, is that there are many here who are not even self-aware enough to realize their opinions are in the vast MINORITY of this country. Worse, even when said opinions approach "even split" status (or majority), some posters openly dismiss and personally insult the holder of the minority opinion. Meanwhile, the Right is called a bunch of Neocons and fascists. The Left is always about freedom of speech, as long as it's liberal speech. Anyone who suggests a conservative opinion on almost any issue (war, taxes, social issues, etc.) is immediately labeled a war monger, person who hates the poor, etc.
The difference between us is that I (and I think Naples too) simply DISAGREE with most liberal positions. I even think some of those positions are downright dangerous ones, not to mention ineffective. I don't fault the person who has a particular opinion, but I will argue on the facts to support my side. The problem in AO, however, exists in that opinions contrary to the liberal political climate board are NOT argued, they are insulted and countered with rhetorical nonsense.
From BLS:
Total Employment, February 2004: 138,301,000
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Total Employment, February 2001 135,815,000
text file: http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/empsit_nr.htm#2001
Thank you and have a nice day.
Originally posted by SDW2001
Both these points are nothing more than your personal opinion and cannot be substantiated by any facts whatsoever.
Yeah. I just made a bunch of stuff up.
Originally posted by SDW2001
Thank you and have a nice day.
What is 3*1.8 M (the number of jobs a normally growing economy should produce given the growth in the job pool)?
5.4 M
How many jobs were created in this three year time span?
2.486 M
So if our economy was really doing ok we would have somewhere close to 5.4 M new jobs over those three years, but we don't in fact we are down 2.9 M from that. If you think this is good news for GW, that is fine, but honestly the numbers just don't look that way... Sorry SDW, this is a very weak point for Bush...
Originally posted by NaplesX
If you actually beleave what you say here, then let's get of Bush's back, he is doing what he can to help. Let's drop it as a talking point. I agree with you that it is just normal cyclic movement of the economy. So let's move on.
What I am saying is that the dubious nature of the tax cuts is still dubious. Nobody is listening to the independent economist anymore....
I think that any claim on either side of doing things that are good for the economy is always questionable, we just don't know how it works.... but will this stop it from being a talking point? no, people think that the system is well understood...
Used to be that the UNEMPLOYMENT RATE was what used to be important. Well now, since Bush administrations tax cuts, guess what? It's gone down! From 6.3 percent to 5.6 now. This is apparently one of the fastest declines in unemployment in decades.
Thats why you hear all this crap about how "Bush's policies aren't creating enough jobs to keep up". Because the usual statndard just doesn't work very well for slamming him (whether you believe the rate down from tax cuts or not).
Here's an article that explains these points better than I can:
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_b...0403050905.asp
Originally posted by dviant
Here's an article that explains these points better than I can:
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_b...0403050905.asp [/B]
Hmmm, an article in the National Review ("slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun" in the words of one of my conservative friends who reads it), written by someone who has a book for sale titled The Bush Boom: How a Misunderestimated President Fixed a Broken Economy
Sounds fair and balanced to me!
Originally posted by dviant
Here we go with the job numbers spin again. Funny how the Reps change their standards when it suits them.
altered your statement to reflect another truth.
I am not doing a numbers spin. Numbers are numbers are numbers. Yes, jobs have been created under the Bush administration, but how many should have been created? It is a legitimate question and one which gives significance to the bland statement that jobs have been created. If we gained 1M jobs in 4 years, do you think we are doing ok? It is decisive to ask how many people are actually known to be entering the job market?
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
altered your statement to reflect another truth.
In what way is showing Unemployment Rates declining changing a standard exactly? Clever quip though.