George W. Bush’s Disposable Constitution

skeptigirl said:
Yeah, like I'm in the minority believing Bush flaunted the Constitution and arrogantly overstepped his Presidential authority.

American Research Group

Unfortunately I cannot vouch for this poll as there is no data on the pollsters.
A problem with American Research Group polling organization


Fortunately, it isn't the only poll.
New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

Of course AfterDowningStreet always words their questions with "If he did it". But in this case it is, "If he did it without a judge's approval", and that is not in doubt.
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Whole lotta whinin' goin' on there, hoss.

Let it go.
 
So this dictator, who abided by term limits, whose party lost Congress in 2006, whose party lost the elections of 2008, is a kind of dictator the world hasn't seen before, which I'll call a

Non dictator.

Or maybe a "not clever enough to be a dictator"

or

Never wanted to be president in the first place, but daddy made him so he sure as hell wasn't going to put forth the effort to become a dictator, that's for damned sure.

DR
 
skeptigirl said:
Yeah, like I'm in the minority believing Bush flaunted the Constitution and arrogantly overstepped his Presidential authority.

American Research Group

Fortunately, it isn't the only poll.
New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

Of course AfterDowningStreet always words their questions with "If he did it". But in this case it is, "If he did it without a judge's approval", and that is not in doubt.
Click to expand...

Earth to Skeptigirl: God exists, because there's a poll that says 92% of Americans believe he exists.

If only Thomas Aquinas had known of this "proof by poll" method, he could have saved a lot of time and effort.
 
Darth Rotor said:
So this dictator, who abided by term limits, whose party lost Congress in 2006, whose party lost the elections of 2008, is a kind of dictator the world hasn't seen before, which I'll call a

Non dictator.

Or maybe a "not clever enough to be a dictator"

or

Never wanted to be president in the first place, but daddy made him so he sure as hell wasn't going to put forth the effort to become a dictator, that's for damned sure.

DR
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Your argument is that because Bush only overstepped some bounds and not all bounds he therefore cannot be said to have abused his power? I do believe that falls into an argument by false logic category.
 
Brainster said:
Earth to Skeptigirl: God exists, because there's a poll that says 92% of Americans believe he exists.

If only Thomas Aquinas had known of this "proof by poll" method, he could have saved a lot of time and effort.
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Your analogy is an epic fail here. An opinion poll is just that, opinion. Believing something into existence is not analogous.
 
skeptigirl said:
Your argument is that because Bush only overstepped some bounds and not all bounds he therefore cannot be said to have abused his power?
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Name a single president in all of our history that did not "abuse his power" in any way. Every single president considered "great" has abused his power in ways far more egregious than Bush.
 
Texas said:
Name a single president in all of our history that did not "abuse his power" in any way. Every single president considered "great" has abused his power in ways far more egregious than Bush.
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This is an irrelevant argument. The issue is the degree of abuse of power. Bush Jr's abuse rivals Nixon's.


BTW, my Dad once said to me about Nixon, "All Presidents commit crimes" in much the same way you make your argument. A few months later Nixon resigned in disgrace.
 
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Texas said:
Name a single president in all of our history that did not "abuse his power" in any way. Every single president considered "great" has abused his power in ways far more egregious than Bush.
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skeptigirl said:
This is an irrelevant argument.
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Texas,

Your argument above fails because it falls victim to the tu quoque fallacy. The immoral acts of previous presidents do not justify the immoral acts of Bush.
 
Klimax said:
It was possibly meant to argue against "holier-then-thou".
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Near as I can follow, Darth Rotar said skeptigirl was exaggerating Bush's evilness. Darth listed things Bush would have done had he been an evil dictator.

Skeptigirl claimed Bush abused his power in other ways.

Texas claimed other presidents have abused their power.



Still seems like tu quoque to me because the acts of previous presidents are not needed to judge Bush on his own merits.
 
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KingMerv00 said:
Near as I can follow, Darth Rotar said skeptigirl was exaggerating Bush's evilness. Darth listed things Bush would have done had he been an evil dictator.

Skeptigirl claimed Bush abused his power in other ways.

Texas claimed other presidents have abused their power.



Still seems like tu quoque to me because the acts of previous presidents are not needed to judge Bush on his own merits.
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Maybe both.
 
More evidence of Bush's disposable Constitution:

Ex-Bush admin official: Many at Gitmo are innocent
Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years."

...Wilkerson told the AP in a telephone interview that many detainees "clearly had no connection to al-Qaida and the Taliban and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pakistanis turned many over for $5,000 a head."

...Wilkerson, who flew combat missions as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and left the government in January 2005, said he did not speak out while in government because some of the information was classified. He said he feels compelled to do so now because Cheney has claimed in recent press interviews that President Barack Obama is making the U.S. less safe by reversing Bush administration policies toward terror suspects, including ordering Guantanamo closed.
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I should also like to point out I have brought up the $5K bounty for turning in anyone and claiming they were al Qaeda in past threads on innocent people detained at Gitmo. This is just another source confirming the same.
 
skeptigirl said:
More evidence of Bush's disposable Constitution:

Ex-Bush admin official: Many at Gitmo are innocentI should also like to point out I have brought up the $5K bounty for turning in anyone and claiming they were al Qaeda in past threads on innocent people detained at Gitmo. This is just another source confirming the same.
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What rights do foreigners have under the constitution? Or is this just your catchall bash Bush thread?
 
skeptigirl said:
Yeah, like I'm in the minority believing Bush flaunted the Constitution and arrogantly overstepped his Presidential authority.
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There's that belief thing again. Why is belief supporting evidence for you argument? SG, you don't put up with that sort of talk on the R & P forum, why should anyone put up with it here?

Also, your argumentum ad populum isn't supporting your point very well here. Various members have asked you to re-don your skeptical thinking cap.

For me the FISA matter is an old yet irritating issue. Given the FISA protocols before the Bush/Cheney team arrived, an agency involved had three days after the fact to get a warrant from the FISA court when something of merit popped up. Someone wanted more efficiency in the process, and I suspect Rummy's driving influence here. He was big on that streamline and efficiency thing.

The "it's inconvenient, we can't be bothered to do the staff work" attitude ran hand in hand with Rummy's denigration of sound processes like the TPFDD. He alluded to it as "an inefficiency" when it had, in fact, created the foundation for a sound planning and estimating process, not to mention semi orderly flow of forces into a theater.

Common in the Bush administration was the impression got that there was a desire to get things done 'by decree' (good idea or no) thanks to impatience with the inherent documentation/paperwork that our system demands. (IT's a balance of power issue, the accountability chain.)

Calling that "dictatorship" is a stretch. That inclination, to which all Presidents fall prey time and again, is a common reaction to the balance of powers structure.

"Here, I'll just sign an executive order and be done with it." Didn't work for Clinton with his pre don't ask don't tell effort, as both parties in Congress slapped him down. No, you can't do that.

When Bush tried it, you will note that he kept running into resistance, but he had an edge: Congress was not held by the opposing party. So our elected reps in the legislature went along with it. That is not dictatorship, but you can call it an abdication of responsibility on the part of Congress and its critters. It was.

Single party rule? Not inherently a good thing. Funny, it's what Marx fancied as the ideal structure.

Back to the point I was most interested in: FISA structure met the "good enough" standard before it got mugged.

DR
 
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Darth Rotor said:
There's that belief thing again. Why is belief supporting evidence for you argument? SG, you don't put up with that sort of talk on the R & P forum, why should anyone put up with it here?
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If my choice of words is your issue, then substitute the wording, "I conclude from the evidence".

Darth Rotor said:
Also, your argumentum ad populum isn't supporting your point very well here. Various members have asked you to re-don your skeptical thinking cap.
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And the same people have been saying that to me all through Bush's term yet everything I posted evidence about has continued to be confirmed by yet additional evidence.

No refuting evidence has yet to be discovered.

I'll get to the rest of your comments later if the mods don't lock the thread from all the off topic posts and personal attacks.
 
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