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John_Gaughan
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Presidents
« on: Feb 26th, 2004, 11:57am » |
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Do you think the United States will ever have an honest President?
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towr
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #1 on: Feb 26th, 2004, 12:02pm » |
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An honest president? I suppose not.. A president is a politician, and an honest politician is an oxymoron. Which doesn't preclude him being a moron as well btw 
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| « Last Edit: Feb 26th, 2004, 12:02pm by towr » |
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Icarus
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #2 on: Feb 26th, 2004, 5:20pm » |
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One should be careful in judging both the honesty and the intelligence of anybody. This is even more true of politicians, and the more powerful the politician, the more care is needed. Presidents are surrounded by a powerful cloud of invective put out by their opponents and by their supporters. Never be quick to believe what either side tells you.
The question of Bush's honesty is very much up to debate right now. To the question of his intelligence, however, there is strong evidence contradicting the popular view. If you examine Bush's record, both as governor of Texas, and as president, dispassionately, something becomes clear. He gets what he wants, despite having an apparently very weak hand.
An example: Two rules in American politics were considered to be ironclad: In a recession, the party of the president loses seats in congress, as the public blames them more for the economic mess. And if the party of the president is in control in congress, they will lose seats in the mid-term elections, as the American public also prefers to divide the power between the parties.
Bush broke both rules in 2002. Despite the bad economy and having a Republican president, the Republican party actually gained seats and retook control of the Senate in the mid-term elections. This, I am given to understand, was in large part due to the efforts of Bush himself.
You can claim that the increase was due to 9/11, and to the fact that Americans tend to trust Republicans more than Democrats in times of war. It is certainly the case that this contributed heavily to the Republican victory. But this is not a isolated incident. Bush regularly confounds his critics by obtaining what he wants even when they thought everything was on their side.
He record makes clear that Bush is a very savvy politician. He could not be so if he were also the idiot that so many claim that he is.
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John_Gaughan
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #3 on: Feb 26th, 2004, 8:52pm » |
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While you have good arguments on intelligence, I was mainly concerned with honesty -- does a president keep his word, and does he have the best interests of the people in mind (i.e. the integrity to uphold his oath of office and the Constitution).
By the way, I said "president," not "George Dubya Bush."
Thinking back, I have to go back a great while to find presidents that did not tell big lies in office (WMD, Lewinsky, Bay of Pigs, Gulf of Tonkin, Watergate, et al) and generally were honest all around. Nobody will be honest all the time, but some are worse than others.
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towr
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #4 on: Feb 27th, 2004, 12:59am » |
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People don't _want_ their president to be honest.. They want to believe in a fairy tale. Promises that can't possibly be realized. No president can make everything better, but that's what the people want to hear, or at the very least they don't want to hear the actual truth.
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John_Gaughan
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #5 on: Feb 27th, 2004, 8:26pm » |
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on Feb 27th, 2004, 12:59am, towr wrote:| People don't _want_ their president to be honest.. They want to believe in a fairy tale. Promises that can't possibly be realized. No president can make everything better, but that's what the people want to hear, or at the very least they don't want to hear the actual truth. |
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So then, what is politics? Two competing fairy tales, each one bashing the other as "untrue," so the other party can get into office?
By the way I am not trying to be critical of other posters, I am trying to take a step back and look at U.S. politics halfway objectively.
Personally, I think given the way the electoral system works, we will never have an honest president. Other threads talked about the electoral college specifically, but I think the problem is in the two party system and how candidates are nominated.
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towr
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #6 on: Feb 28th, 2004, 4:01am » |
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on Feb 27th, 2004, 8:26pm, John_Gaughan wrote:| So then, what is politics? |
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politics, from poly ticks,
poly: many
ticks: bloodsucking arachnids
Close enough.. 
Quote:| Two competing fairy tales, each one bashing the other as "untrue," so the other party can get into office? |
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Well, it may be substantially more than two in a democracy.. euhm, I mean other democracies 
It'd be nice if they for once tried to do what's right for the country, rather than what increases the chance they'll get voted in again next election or whatever appeases their campaign-sponsors most..
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Icarus
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #7 on: Feb 28th, 2004, 7:57am » |
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My apologies, John, for diverging from your question. I knew I was not addressing it, but there have been so many comments such as towr's that were evidently aimed at our current US president, that I felt the need to point out that this view of his intelligence is not in line with available evidence.
Whether you love Bush or hate him, it's foolish to dismiss him as a moron. The man clearly knows how to work with the political system, better than either his predecessor or his father.
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Now to your actual intent. I cannot agree with your assessment that the current system precludes honest politicians. Not to say that it allows them, but rather to say that the problem is far more deeply rooted than that.
The electoral college is not responsible for political corruption. It is an inherent flaw in democracy itself. Look at other democracies. Do they fare any better? Not by what I've seen.
As long as we let people offer support to candidates, we will have money and power deals which will attract the corrupt to serve, and put the honest at a disadvantage. But to prevent people offering support is to give up the concept of freedom of speech, which is absolutely vital to a democracy.
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Icarus
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #8 on: Feb 28th, 2004, 12:00pm » |
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I have more to say, but ran out of time. Just as I buck "conventional wisdom" on the question of Bush's intelligence, based on the evidence, so also, I must argue against "conventional wisdom" on the subject of political honesty.
The truth is, by the same standards that we hold other people to, most politicians are honest. They will stretch the truth, bend it to fit the needs of the moment, twist it until it is unrecognizable, but how is this any different from what we see others do, and sometimes do ourselves? Few will stoop to outright lies unless backed in a corner. But again, do you not see this in practically everyone? Did you never lie to get out of something?
Politics breeds corruption. It is in the very nature of the beast. Where there is power, there is the temptation to misuse it. But most politicians are not intentionally corrupt. They usually desire to do what they think is right. Sometimes they will excuse to themselves corrupt behavior as being the only way to accomplish something they believe is good. Once this starts, it grows, and they will excuse worse and worse, while their motives get meaner. They grow progressively more corrupt as time goes by.
Both responses are common to human behavior. We accept a little that we at first know we should not, because it is a little, so we figure it is no big deal. Once we are used to accepting that, something just a little worse comes along. But hey, if this is okay, and that is hardly anymore, why deny it? And it keeps going. What was once undreamable, becomes commonplace. How can we expect our politicians to be any better than we ourselves are?
So most bad politicians started out as good ones, and even as they grow bad, they consider it justified as the price of doing the good they want to do. There is considerable evidence that Nixon fell into this trap. Nixon was a liar, a crook, a machine politician, and had perhaps the worst economic policy of any president in our history. (You young goats obviously didn't see it, and may not have heard the truth of it over the rhetoric, but the 70s were the worst decade economically in the USA since the great depression. Much of this can be laid to the absolutely stupid approach (price freezes) Nixon took to the economic problems fostered by the Vietnam war.) But the evidence indicates that Nixon entered into politics and behaved as he did as a politician because he saw himself as acting in the best interests of the country (self-delusion is a powerful thing).
Much the same thing goes on with other politicians. Clinton considered his lying in the best interest of the country. Truman came to power as a flunky of an absolutely corrupt political machine, but broke ranks with it once he was there.
The last president we had whom people generally agree was honest was Jimmy Carter. (This is not an indictment of later presidents, just acknowleging that political posturing still the clouds the ability to make accurate judgments concerning them.) Most people, liberal, moderate, or conservative, will admit that Carter was and is a righteous man. Unfortunately, most will also admit that he was at best a mediocre president. Carter was sincere, but he did not have the werewhithal to bring the country out of the economic slump it was in, and left us in a severely compromised position on the world stage that continues to have reprecussions today.
So, honesty is not the most desirable quality in a president, though I do desire it! Effectiveness is far more valuable.
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towr
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #9 on: Feb 29th, 2004, 8:36am » |
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on Feb 28th, 2004, 7:57am, Icarus wrote:| Whether you love Bush or hate him, it's foolish to dismiss him as a moron. |
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I certainly don't dismiss him, he's there, and just due to his position his actions have the potential to affect pretty much everyone on the globe. I just wish it were someone I felt I could put some trust in, but I don't get a vote on that.. (Not that our prime minister is any better.. Even getting a vote doesn't mean it matters..)
Quote:| The truth is, by the same standards that we hold other people to, most politicians are honest. |
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Politicians aren't "most people", that's the problem. They have more responsibility and power, and we trust them to be better than us in dealing with it. That's supposedly why they're there, and we're not.
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Icarus
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #10 on: Feb 29th, 2004, 9:00pm » |
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I'm not suggesting you should trust him. Just choose your complaints wisely, and always look beyond the rhetoric. Whenever I find my opinion matching what I hear from pundits & partisans, then I know that matters behind that opinion need a second look, and this one far closer. Quite often I discover that the truth is far different than what I had originally thought, and what I was hearing.
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aero_guy
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #11 on: Mar 8th, 2004, 3:54pm » |
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One of the great difficulties surrounding the intelligence of Bush is public speaking. We, as humans, tend to guage another's intelligence based on how they speak. You will often see people thinking of others with a poor grasp of English as their second language as being stupid, even if they are rocket scientists in their own country.
One thing that is not in questions is that Bush is a very poor public speaker, and I would blame that more than anything for the general consensus of his being stupid as well. (Not saying that I do not agree with the consensus).
As to Icarus describing the merits of Bush as a politician, I would not agree that this has much to do with intelligence. Being a good politician often has much more to do with high powered connections, a good judge of the abilities of others (who you delegate authority to), and the ability to inspire others. If you are smart as well, well that is just a bonus. Note that honesty does not figure in here anywhere. In fact, honesty can be a great drawback if you are attempting to convince others to change their opinions (or votes).
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John_Gaughan
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #12 on: Mar 8th, 2004, 9:52pm » |
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That is so true. The head of my CompSci department does not speak English well, but is a brilliant mathematician, extremely intelligent.
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Icarus
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #13 on: Mar 10th, 2004, 8:33pm » |
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"merits" is not really the word I would use. "Talents" is more descriptive of what I was describing. I make no argument as to Bush's worth. Only that he is a much sharper politician than he is generally perceived as. And I was using "intelligence" to describe something more general than IQ, just as the term "moron" usually refers to more than low IQ.
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KenYonRuKu
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #14 on: Apr 5th, 2004, 2:56am » |
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I agree with Icarus that Bush is not necessarily the moron that is common belief. Surrounding himself with the right people and using circumstance to his advantage are indeed savvy qualities.
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John_Gaughan
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #15 on: Apr 5th, 2004, 6:37am » |
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on Apr 5th, 2004, 2:56am, KenYonRuKu wrote:| I agree with Icarus that Bush is not necessarily the moron that is common belief. Surrounding himself with the right people and using circumstance to his advantage are indeed savvy qualities. |
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This is no testament to his dishonesty. Even Clinton told the truth after several years. I think they are both dishonest, though.
All Bush has to do is come out and say what everyone knows about his motives for attacking Iraq. Then he needs to come clean about his family's connections to the prince of Saudi Arabia. Owning up to our government's involvement with arming Saddam in the first place (ever see the pictures of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand?) would be a positive step, even if that particular incident was not his fault.
The last century saw a lot of deception and hiding bad things like puppet regimes, assassinations, etc. I think our government as a whole needs to admit to wrongdoing, take steps to correct it, and never do it again. Unfortunately, the President usually is the lynchpin of the operation. Congress rarely demands we go invade somewhere without coercion, and if they do, it generally is warranted (e.g. World War II). Congress rarely demands we assassinate a foreign leader or set up pupper regimes. The President is the one that tries to play house with the world.
I am not completely sure why this is. I think it has to do with the fact that there is only one President, as opposed to 535 Congressmen. I think Presidents have an easier time being secretive and hiding things. Plus, with a cabinet and various appointed positions in the various executive departments, they have many fall guys in case things go wrong. I think one factor is the environment that makes it easy to do political actions for personal gain.
This is related to the discussion of the electoral college in that I think the college is part of the problem. That is a whole different can o' whoopass, one that I do not have time to open right now
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Icarus
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #16 on: Apr 5th, 2004, 5:55pm » |
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on Apr 5th, 2004, 6:37am, John_Gaughan wrote:| All Bush has to do is come out and say what everyone knows about his motives for attacking Iraq. Then he needs to come clean about his family's connections to the prince of Saudi Arabia. Owning up to our government's involvement with arming Saddam in the first place (ever see the pictures of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand?) would be a positive step, even if that particular incident was not his fault. |
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"What everybody knows" is a phrase you should be very, very cautious of! I'd guess that at least in the political arena, more things that "everybody knows" turn out to be false than turn out to be true. I have heard many suggestions about why Bush wanted to attack Iraq, but most of them were ridiculous ("Bush wants revenge for Saddam's threats against his father", as if Saddam had offered any serious or unexpected threat, or "Bush is after the oil", as if the same amount of oil could not have been obtained far more cheaply and easily by other means). If you want to know why Bush & co. went after Iraq, there is a far better explanation! Shortly after the end of the first war, Saddam started flouting the treaties he signed to end that war. The United Nations choose to let this treaty breaking slide. Clinton also refused to hold Saddam to his word. This has been a sore point for conservatives, who remember all too well the result of a similar treatment of Adolf Hitler. This history amplified the size of Saddam's threat to the west in the minds of conservatives, and made them too ready to accept apparent evidence of illicit activity, and too suspicious of evidence against it. It is no wonder that when these same conservatives found themselves in the decision-making arena, they chose a get-tough strategy towards Iraq, and were quick to believe the worst.
Quote:| The last century saw a lot of deception and hiding bad things like puppet regimes, assassinations, etc. I think our government as a whole needs to admit to wrongdoing, take steps to correct it, and never do it again. Unfortunately, the President usually is the lynchpin of the operation. Congress rarely demands we go invade somewhere without coercion, and if they do, it generally is warranted (e.g. World War II). Congress rarely demands we assassinate a foreign leader or set up pupper regimes. The President is the one that tries to play house with the world. |
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You are mistaken about Congress. We nearly went to war with Canada over the Oregon Territory because of congress. It was only because Pierce (I believe he was the one), who stongly opposed this, chose to drag us into Texas' war with Mexico instead that we did not. Rather than fight two wars at once, we split the Oregon Territory with Canada. Congress was also the main pusher politically behind the Spanish-American war. Congress' only advantage in this over the president is that it is harder to get 500+ heads hot than it is to get 1. But by the same token, it is harder to cool 500+ heads down than 1.
Quote:| I am not completely sure why this is. I think it has to do with the fact that there is only one President, as opposed to 535 Congressmen. I think Presidents have an easier time being secretive and hiding things. Plus, with a cabinet and various appointed positions in the various executive departments, they have many fall guys in case things go wrong. I think one factor is the environment that makes it easy to do political actions for personal gain. |
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Again, you need to look harder at congress. The presidency has always been less, not more, corrupt than congress. The president is in a far more visible position than congressmen are. Everyone is watching him. His enemies are quick to jump on any hint of a means of attack. Congress members do not receive nearly as much scutiny. At one time most of Congress was controlled by "political machines" - illegal organizations by which a few bosses controlled most of the votes in congress and peddled them to whoever would pay enough (you may say that this sounds like what goes on now, but the worst present day corruption is a joke when compared to what used to go on). As I said before, Truman came to power as a flunkie of one of these machines, but apparently broke from it upon becoming president, as he several times went against his former boss's expressed wishes. One of the reasons that the Civil War took 4 years to sort out, even though the south was horrendously outmanned and outgunned, was that political bosses were making a fortune from it.
Quote:| This is related to the discussion of the electoral college in that I think the college is part of the problem. That is a whole different can o' whoopass, one that I do not have time to open right now |
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BRING IT ON! 
Really though, while some reforms of the electoral college system might pass, you will find that once people in the majority of states become aware of the implications of abolishing it, support will dwindle rapidly. We who do not live near a coast or in the middle of a crowd do not care to lose what little voice we still have in the selection of presidents.
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John_Gaughan
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #17 on: Apr 5th, 2004, 8:52pm » |
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on Apr 5th, 2004, 5:55pm, Icarus wrote:| You are mistaken about Congress. We nearly went to war with Canada over the Oregon Territory because of congress. |
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I was talking about the last century, not the 1800s
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Icarus
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #18 on: Apr 6th, 2004, 6:46pm » |
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The most clear examples are in the 1800s, but why would you suppose that the 20th century politicians are any better. More likely, the right combination of political pressures never arose. Besides which, my corruption examples are 20th century. The political bosses did not wane until the 1950s and 1960s. By that time enough people had learned of the corruption and put enough pressure that reforms started to trickle through, slowly eroding the power of these machines. This forced politicians to start finding other ways to finance their campaigns. Not that plenty of corruption does not occur in the new methods, but it isn't as blatant as it used to be.
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King_T
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #19 on: May 12th, 2004, 4:07pm » |
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Quote:| Not that plenty of corruption does not occur in the new methods, but it isn't as blatant as it used to be. |
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Check out the beginning of Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" for details on the blatant cheating in the last 'election' - you'll soon be fuming. Remember who's really threatening your freedom come election time.
For the record, I count the WMD falsification as blatant as well.
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Patashu
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #20 on: Sep 20th, 2004, 12:19am » |
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According to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, any man who is capable of making himself President should by no means take the job.
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EZ_Lonny
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #21 on: Sep 20th, 2004, 3:38am » |
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I think politicians are honoust (to get back to the original question).
Any politician says s/he is trying to get a certain job done. That does not mean s/he actually gets it done.
Trying to make the US (for example, being anti-Bush) a better place to live in and defend it from threats of Islamic countries and thus sending thousands of American militaries to their death is certainly not a way to defend aany country. Even reaching the nearly "hatred" against the West (read: America). For every victim of war in Iraq I fear the retaliation from either Osama or any other Extreme Moslim Foundation.
To be honoust I can't realy blame them. I hate the thought of violence (I even refused to go into the army on my draught, and got "punished" for that. Doing time as a administrator for local government) But I can feel the emotions of relatives as they find their peers or son dead (by UN / US or friendly fire).
(come to think of it: Friendly fire? Getting shot by a friend is better than to be shot by the enemy?)
They want to get even. Now not calling it a war anymore, but a incident doesnt make it right. But revench on revenche makes a miilion or more victim.
Getting back again to the original question. Saying Iraq has weapons of mass distruction and start a war over it with the wrong intents, makes you a liar and and a horny for power ass**
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SpaceMonkey
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #22 on: Apr 18th, 2006, 6:01am » |
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Couple things about the Bush bashers out there should look at:
1. Clinton was in office for 8 years, 4 of which were spent with fat ass monica under the desk(why her??). He ignored the middle east and dealt with eastern europe(which is no threat... Kosevo??)
2. G Dub was elected and because of his father running out of time he by default gets labeled by people as this guy everyone says he is and in all reality he did what any other president would have done in his situation.
3. Im not agreeing with us being in there still but its kinda hard to back away from people who are "Masterminds" when the strap bombs to themselves... How is that a mastermind??
Think about that stuff... Peace
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anonymous
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #23 on: Jul 30th, 2006, 11:28am » |
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Quote:| Clinton was in office for 8 years, 4 of which were spent with fat ass monica under the desk(why her??). He ignored the middle east and dealt with eastern europe(which is no threat... Kosevo??) |
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Clinton... meh... couldn't care less about his affairs. But he wasn't great as a president.. but Bush has possibly done worse.
Quote:| Im not agreeing with us being in there still but its kinda hard to back away from people who are "Masterminds" when the strap bombs to themselves... How is that a mastermind?? |
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and Who's calling them masterminds?
Politicians will do whatever it takes (without crossing the line) to become President or to have more power. Honest? They could well be. But what they do when they attain that higher position will show whether their "manipulation of he people" was worth it (for the people that is). They can either take advantage of their power and do whatever they possibly can to help their country, or they can spend their time trying to make ways to ensure that they are re-elected. Both these paths are connected, I know.
Quote:| Saying Iraq has weapons of mass distruction and start a war over it with the wrong intents, makes you a liar and and a horny for power ass** |
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Yeah, terrible reason. No one else is allowed to have WMD except for the US, huh? psh. But there's more to it than just the WMD.
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Icarus
wu::riddles Moderator
Uberpuzzler
Boldly going where even angels fear to tread.
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Re: Presidents
« Reply #24 on: Jul 30th, 2006, 2:44pm » |
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I don't think we will be able to truly say how good of a president either Clinton or Bush was without much more perspective than we have now. As time goes on, my view on both changes. While Bush showed certain political skill in the 2002 and 2004 elections shortly before this thread started, I've seen less evidence of it since.
Clinton needed to deal with Kosovo and Eastern Europe to keep it from becoming a threat. Reasoning similar to SpaceMonkey's was why everybody just set back and let it happen when Hitler started placing troops in the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Had the Allies objected, Hitler would have been forced to back down (he didn't have the resources at that time to do anything else), and the course of later years would have been significantly different.
The Middle East was, and is, a much tougher nut to crack. The animosities there have perplexed every world leader for the last 60 years. So I give no great blame to anyone for failing to find a cure. Even Carter's success was simply taking advantage of an opportunity that was not the result of anything he did (but rather, was created by Sadat and Begin themselves).
As for WMDs, there is a lot more to it than just the weapons: there was a nation that viewed itself free to use such weapons however it wanted to (including on its own people), regardless of the lessons learned by other nations in the past, or the treaties that had been signed. As for saying Iraq has WMDs making you a liar - that is true only if you don't believe it yourself, and have not purposefully overlooked significant evidence to the contrary.
As far as I can tell, Bush believed in the WMDs (and you will notice, despite the myriad claims I heard that he would manufacture evidence of WMDs, he never did so even though it cost him dearly). While there is room to debate purposeful overlooking of evidence, you should always remember that everything looks much clearer in hindsight.
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"Pi goes on and on and on ...
And e is just as cursed.
I wonder: Which is larger
When their digits are reversed? " - Anonymous
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