No. Lots of presidents, and leaders in general have been presented with a conflict between personal safety, and doing their duty by their people. When Carter went to 3-Mile Island the disaster was still ongoing – he was risking his own life and he knew it.

The difference is, the good ones did their duty. Bush’s duty on 9/11 was to go to New York and avert panic, show a brave face to America’s enemies and be with his people. Instead, he chose personal safety.

At the very least, they should have whisked Bush off to a safe location. At the time, for all they knew, Bush could have easily been a target, too. While I am not sure, it’s likely Bush’s destination was public knowledge at least 24 hours prior to his visit. There were 4 planes hijacked; who’s to say one wasn’t headed to crash into the school where he was? Instead, he sits there, and then goes to another part of the school and gives a short speech, and THEN leaves the area.

I could forgive Bush those minutes he was stunned by 9/11. Heck, we all were.

What I cannot forgive, is the fact that he then went into hiding and addressed the nation from a bunker.

And then had his propaganda machine try and call Carter a coward.

Jimmy Carter had his faults, lots of them, but when 3-Mile Island’s nuclear reactor started its melt down, he flew down there to still any panic.

He also averted the crisis via his excellent reaction time to it, and his administrative ability.

Compare this to Dubya on Katrina, and how it took him two days to arrive in NO and even then he seemingly had no idea what was going on. Compare a president the rightwhinge calls one of the worst in America’s history – based purely on what their TV says, with GW Bush.

Comment by Kevin

You wouldn’t know “bad” if it bit you on the ass. Let’s take a brief stroll down Bush’s “Memory Lane,” shall we?

Candidate Bush in 2000 said the U.S. would neither be the policemen of the world, nor nation builders. Yet that is exactly what we are doing in Iraq. Bush lied.

President Bush, by fighting his “war” on terror, is spending this country into debt so deep that it will take generations to bring us out, if ever.

President Bush has given no fewer than 6 separate reasons for invading Iraq. Each new reason was trotted out when the prior reason was no longer working with the American people.

President George Bush sat in a Florida classroom for 7 minutes with a blank stare on his face while America was under attack, and after a second jet crashed into the World Trade Center.

Donald Rumsfeld told Americans that he doubted the “war” in Iraq would last 6 months. We are now approaching 4 years. And today on crooksandliars.com we are treated to a story revealing that insurgents in Iraq are dressing up as American soldiers, using American weapons, and kidnapping actual Americans and executing them.

Bush and his cronies (including his wife) bitch about no good news coming from Iraq, yet CBS’ Lara Logan tells us that the State Department won’t let journalists report the good news stories. I’ve yet to see one Republican cheerleader of Bush and the war on here point out all the good news stories that Fox Noise has posted on their Web site.

Vice President Dick Cheney shoots a man in the face and refuses to be interviewed by local police until the next day. For some inexplicable reason (likely he was drunk) he hides behind “national security.”

The Bush administration regularly elevates the terror threat level over the objection of Sec. of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, who is on record as saying the evidence was not strong enough for such action.

Vice President Dick Cheney tells voters in 2004 that America is sure to be attacked again by terrorists if John Kerry is elected president.

President George Bush tells voters in 2006 that if the Democrats take over Congress, the terrorists win.

In his 2006 SOTU speech, Bush tells America that we need to wean ourselves off foreign oil in 10 years. Several days later administration spokesmen tell the media that Bush wasn’t being literal.

President George Bush, channeling John Wayne, tells us that he wants Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.” Later Bush recants, telling Americans he doesn’t really care about bin Laden any more.

President George Bush, with the deaths of American soldiers hovering around 3,000 and tens of thousands with blown off limbs, head injuries, burns to their bodies, and psychological issues that will last the rest of their lives, tells America that we’d be surprised at how well he sleeps at night.

Sec. of Defense Don Rumsfeld, with the deaths of American soldiers hovering around 3000, and tens of thousands with blown off limbs, head injuries, burns to their bodies, and psychological issues that will last the rest of their lives, tells America that the only thing keeping him awake at night are the reports in the media about Iraq that may not be truthful.

Republican leaders in the 109th Congress tell America that the 2 most important issues facing this country are flag burning and same-sex marriage.

President Bush eats birthday cake and takes guitar lessons while Hurricane Katrina bears down on America.

President Bush fights the creation of a 9/11 Commission. After his interview by the Commission, with V.P. Dick Cheney at his side and likely holding his hand, Bush tells America what a good time he had talking to the members of the commission and tells us how much he appreciates the commission and its work.

President Bush and his administration uses the term “stay the course” more times than anyone can count in defining their strategy for Iraq, yet they and others outside of the administration tell the American people that Bush has never used those words, and that the strategy in Iraq has never been about “stay the course” (see Ken Mehlman).

President Bush says we will pull out of Iraq if the new government asks us to leave. Members of the new government ask us to leave. Bush ignores them.

Behind closed doors and at the 11th hour, prior to a vote on a bill dealing with national security, Republican members of the 109th Congress attach an amendment banning online gambling. Members of Congress vote on the bill, not knowing that the online gambling ban is there.

The Republicans in the 109th Congress refused to provide any oversight of contractors working in Iraq and wasting billions of dollars.

Sen. Ted Stevens, Republican from Alaska, defined the Internet as a “series of tubes.”

Sen. Pat Roberts, Republican, promised to release Phase II of a Senate investigation regarding how the WH used intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq “war,” and then proceeded to stall for 2 years.

———

Now tell me, Kevin. How the hell could the Democrats top all of this shit? Look at each of the items I have posted, and tell me how any of them are good for the country. What are the Democrats going to do that is worse than this? What’s that? The bad old Democrats passed 6 bills in 87 hours and didn’t let the Republicans have any meaningful debate or attach any amendments? And how is this different from the Republican-led 109th Congress? Oh boo freakin’ hoo. Cry me a f*cking river.

Unless of course, what you are talking about is a general principle such as documentaries based on the truth – not including fictional events billed as being the truth.

Of course, concepts like actually following through on being a moral person, tend to escape the rightwhinge.

A reichwing talking point from TWO YEARS AGO that is no more truthful than Rumsfeld saying the WMDs were around Tikrit

Anyone that believes either of the political parties is really any different still puts their teeth under the pillow

Too often I have read, “I didn’t see the movie..”
And then they give an opinion on ifs and buts.
If you didn’t see the documentary then your opinion is dreck, and you should ‘Shut up!

true & Bruce — a great team. :)

Lying down :p

Anyway, I think Chuck is at the start of a philosophic crisis:

NORRIS: Well, you know, the thing is, that’s the kind of — I didn’t see the movie, so I don’t know, I can’t say one way or the other, but the whole thing is, is that if Sandy Berger did not do that, then he should not — this should not have been in the film

So what’s the point here…if he doesn’t know left from right, he can’t know Left from Right? Meanwhile, maybe he was conscious of being on TV and referencing Stage Right and Stage Left…the guy is an actor after all. Mostly though, I liked his point of view…sounds like one of those rational conservatives, not enough around these days. Meanwhile, I thought the writeup was quirky and biased.

Comment by Zooey

….and straight down to the gutter goes trueblue’s thoughts….

I think the point of the thread is more that Chuck doesn’t support lying.

Right now I have two different designations for Rightwingers based on the validity of their arguments and the pattern of their arguments.

One is the Rightwhinge. They actually have very little idea as to what the government does, pays for and helps them with. They will moan about taxes, and then about poor service delivery. They will accuse the gay community of being a bunch of sluts, and then deny them the right to a contract obligating them to monogamy. They will whine about the morals of the left, and then defend to the death the right to torture. Indeed, even in terms of civil discourse, they will whinge about how the left is a bunch of haters in one breath, and then slam someone in the most hate-filled manner possible in the next.

The rightwhinge will also call all who oppose them un-American, and accuse anyone saying a given situation is bad, of supporting the enemy. These are the guys who would much rather everyone closed their eyes and ignored the lion in the room, then have anyone point out it is there, eating people.

Then you have the rightwing. The rightwing, is basically misguided. They believe, honestly believe that CEOs actually care what happens five years from now if their company doesn’t look after the enviroment or its workers. They are supremely confident that if they lower wages and taxes, companies will hire more people – even if those companies don’t actually need more people, and that the only thing dictating to a rich person where he lives, is how much he is taxed.

They believe the left to be something it is not, a bunch of people who want higher taxes for the sake of higher taxes, who want to make gay marriage mandatory and religion illegal (Unless, it is somehow, the religion of America’s enemies.) This is because they listen way, way, way too much to the Rightwhinge.

The Rightwhinge will always be impervious to logic, reasoning, factual evidence and just plain common sense. They will always support their guy, even if all evidence points to their guy being wrong. As examples of the rightwhinge, well, go look at the rightwing punditocracy.

The rightwing, on the other hand, are capable of reason. They are basically good people, and once you can wake them up to the fact that the left is just not what they thought it was, they start to argue reasonably.

Now, with the left the thing is, we like to argue. We enjoy disagreeing with each other, learning from each other’s arguments and indeed, sometimes frustrating each other over something. As a lefty I support Israel’s right to exist, I don’t believe the 9/11 conspiracy, and I think Hillary Clinton is unelectable for several very good reasons that have nothing to do with her surname or sex. These are issues which other lefties disagree with me on quite passionately, heck Judd’s gone over to working on Hillary’s campaign, but even as the debate gets heated none of us leave it hating each other.

We are capable of hate, nobody isn’t, but we try to step back and make our decisions with a clear head. We argue the economic means to end terrorism, global warming in truth has a lot of arguments which aren’t global warming in its favour, because it is the most obvious solution to jihad if people just stop and think.

Africa is a impoverished hellhole once you move out of SA, but it is not the source of global terror that Saudi Arabia is all on it own. Take away the money, and terrorism has no alternative but to localise or die out. Keep the funding strong, and terrorism can spread as much as it likes.