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KABC Doug McIntyre: An Apology from a Bush Voter
KABC 790 Los Angeles ^
| May 5, 2006
| Doug McIntyre
Posted on 05/05/2006 1:31:43 PM PDT by TBP
Theres nothing harder in public life than admitting youre wrong. By the way, admitting youre wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you dont believe me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in public, its out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.
So, Im saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that hes the worst President, period.
In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasnt sure about the Texas Governor. He had name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What? Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President Gore was
unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.
For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents, no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.
Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.
And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11 murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them.
I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all, thats where the Taliban was, thats where al-Qaida trained the killers, thats where Bin Laden was.
And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.
Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.
I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, The Project for the New American Century. Its been around since 92, and it raised alarm bells because it was based on a theory, Democratizing the Middle East and I prefer pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a radical new basis, pre-emptive war. Any time we do something without historical precedent I get nervous.
But the President shifted the argument to WMDs and the urgent threat of Iraq getting atomic weapons. The debate turned to Saddam passing nukes on to terror groups. After 9-11, the risk was too great. As the President said, The next smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud. At least thats what I thought at the time.
I grew up in New York and watched them build the World Trade Center. I worked with a guy, Frank OBrien, who put the elevators in both towers. I lost a very close friend on September 11th. 103 floor, tower one, Cantor Fitzgerald. Tim Coughlin was his name. If we had to take out Iraq to make sure something like that, or worse, never happened again, so be it. I knew the consequences. We have a soldier in our house. None of this was theoretical in my house.
But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th.
I have watched the President say the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield decisions, and the war wont be run from Washington. Yet, politics has consistently determined what the troops can and cant do on the ground and any commander who did not go along with the administration was sacked, and in some cases, maligned.
I watched and tried to justify the looting in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. I watched and tried to justify the dismantling of the entire Iraqi army. I tired to explain the complexities of building a functional new Iraqi army. I urged patience when no WMDs were found. Then the Vice President told us we were in the waning days of the insurgency. And I started wincing again. The President says we have to stay the course but what if its the wrong course?
It was the wrong course. All of it was wrong. We are not on the road to victory. Were about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear armed Iran in our wake. Bali was bombed. Madrid was bombed. London was bombed. And Bin Laden is still making tapes. Its unspeakable. The liberal media didnt create this reality, bad policy did.
Most historians believe it takes 30-50 years before we get a reasonably accurate take on a Presidents place in history. So, maybe 50 years from now Iraq will be a peaceful member of the brotherhood of nations and George W. Bush will be celebrated as a visionary genius.
But we dont live fifty years in the future. We live now. We have to make public policy decisions now. We have to live with the consequences of the votes we cast and the leaders we chose now.
After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush Ive reached the conclusion hes either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.
Presidential failures. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Warren Harding- the competition is fierce for the worst of the worst. Still, the damage this President has done is enormous. It will take decades to undo, and thats assuming we do everything right from now on. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.
And speaking of domestic embarrassments, lets talk for a minute about President Bushs domestic record. Yes, he cut taxes. But tax cuts combined with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the publics money. Were drunk at the mall with our great grandchildrens credit cards. Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?
Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to his own party to get it passed. He lied to the country about its true cost. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It helps nobody except the multinationals that lobbied for it. So much for smaller government. In fact, virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, or environmental protection, and/or workers rights.
Ive talked so often about the border issue, I wont bore you with a rehash. Its enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of working people; hes debased the work ethic itself. Jobs Americans wont do! He doesnt believe in the sovereign borders of the country hes sworn to protect and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The Presidents January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me. I couldnt and didnt vote for him in 2004. And Im glad I didnt.
Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, skyrocketing gas prices, shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open borders, contempt for the opinion of the American people, the war on science, media manipulation, faith based initives, a cavalier attitude toward fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any Americans lifetime.
You can make a case that Abraham Lincoln did what he had to do, the public be damned. If you roll the dice on your gut and youre right, history remembers you well. But, when your gut led you from one business failure to another, when your gut told you to trade Sammy Sosa to the Cubs, and you use the same gut to send our sons and daughters to fight and die in a distraction from the real war on terror, then history will and should be unapologetic in its condemnation.
None of this, by the way, should be interpreted as an endorsement of the opposition party. The Democrats are equally bankrupt. This is the second crime of our age. Again, historically speaking, its times like these when America needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. It requires it. It doesnt work without one. Like the high and low tides keep the oceans alive, a healthy, positive opposition offers a path back to the center where all healthy societies live.
Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything. In fairness, I dont believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq. Unfortunately, I dont know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. And thats one of the many problems with the Democrats.
The two party system has always been clumsy and imperfect, but it has only collapsed once, in the 1850s, and the result was civil war.
I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the brink of a second collapsed. Its currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and pots and pots and pots of money.
Were being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of media manipulation and fund raising. Theyve learned the lessons of Watergate and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain. They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.
This is painful to say, and Im sure for many of you, painful to read. But its impossible to heal the country until were willing to acknowledge the truth no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies.
With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken, its almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask?
It may be decades before we have the full picture of how paranoid and contemptuous this administration has been. And I am open to the possibility that Im all wet about everything Ive just said. But Im putting it out there, because I have to call it as I see it, and this is how I see it today. I dont say any of this lightly. Ive thought about this for months and months. But eventually, the weight of evidence takes on a gravitational force of its own.
I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I dont believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means were on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and its rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.
So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesnt generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldnt be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point whose buying the act?
Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while hes down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.
You were right, I was wrong.
TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: administration; barfalert; bush; cheeseeater; dhimmitude; dougmcintyre; dubya; fairweatherfan; fakerepublican; gop; hollywoodrepub; idiotrino; losangelino; mccainguy; mccainpubbie; mcintyre; mcvainsupporter; ozonealert; paleotroll; populist; president; presidentbush; republicans; rino; sleepertroll; stupidrino; timetellsbushrules; w; wontgetfooledagain
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
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To: bd476
Thanks for the information.
101
posted on
05/05/2006 2:31:52 PM PDT
by
onyx
(They're ILLEGAL! --- tough, FACTS DON'T MATTER.)
To: finnman69
"ROLL OVER AN PLAY DEAD APPEASEMENT ALERT! "It's our fault the WTC was attacked, and London, Bali and Madrid was bombed"
Exactly...and the USS Cole, the Khobar Towers and Riyadh, the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and even the first WTC in 1993; all of this before Bush...and any of his policies, were ever in effect. What policy does he think we should employ? More appeasement? Hell, throughout the 1990s we had a president who bent over backwards to coddle these people.
We sided with the Muslims in the Balkans against their Christian enemies; We sided with Arafat in his demands against Israel in another attempt at ME peace; We not only ignored the Muslim brutality in E. Timor and Indonesia, Clinton continued to allow weapons to be sold to those slaughtering the Christian population.
Hell, this was an administration (in an attempt to help Gore) that was very close to re-establishing diplomatic relations with the Iranian Government.
To think that any kind of diplomacy or kindness was ever going to work with these people is a fools errand. For almost a decade Clinton did just that, taking their side and accommodating their demands. And yet even with this appeasement, we still experienced some of the most abhorrent attacks on US citizens and property...leading up to and concluding with 9/11. The very idea that we could continue on that present course was a joke.
102
posted on
05/05/2006 2:33:10 PM PDT
by
cwb
(Liberalism is the opiate of the *sses.)
To: David Noles
Ronald Reagan is rolling over in his grave right now. Damn straight! The Gipper would never have considered amnesty for illegals!!!
And Alito and Roberts certainly don't meet the standards of O'Connor and Kennedy!!
To: bd476
BUMP.
You're exactly right.
104
posted on
05/05/2006 2:37:24 PM PDT
by
onyx
(They're ILLEGAL! --- tough, FACTS DON'T MATTER.)
To: bd476
I think it would be very difficult for anyone to consider themselves to be a liberal Democrat if they had supported Rep. McClintock for Governor as much as McIntyre did when Davis was recalled. Agreed, but Davis was pretty bad news and McClintock is brilliant. Doesn't change the fact that, sadly, McIntyre was politically so consistently, sadly disappointing that I stopped listening. God help me, I'll even take Bill Handel over McIntyre, which is something I never thought I'd say. Laura Ingraham ... I used to just love her, and still enjoy her sometimes but ... she's so stuck on herself and too often confuses making belittling, juvenile cracks, with amusing wit and insight. The more I listened to Laura, the more I realized that while her basic politics may be sound, she lacks class. I don't now and never will think that Laura Ingraham is smarter or at all a strategic thinker on the same level as George W. Bush -- yet it's gotten to the point that nine times out of ten, I turn on the dial and the first thing I hear is Bush-bashing -- she's so much smarter, SHE should be president! Yeah, right. With conservatives like her, who needs liberals? I've gotten to the point where I'd rather listen to Handel on my way to the gym -- never thought I'd say it, but it's true. Handel makes me laugh, he's gotten over his distasteful phase of moronic sex references all the time, and he's not predictable. Ingraham and McIntyre are.
105
posted on
05/05/2006 2:43:04 PM PDT
by
Finny
(God continue to Bless President G.W. Bush with wisdom, popularity, safety and success.)
To: TBP
So, Im saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that hes the worst President, period Oh please .. this dude needs to find a life
It's one thing to not be happy with some of the things the President has done
But this idiot lost all creditability with that comment right there
Translation .. he's a crackpot
106
posted on
05/05/2006 2:43:06 PM PDT
by
Mo1
(DEMOCRATS: A CULTURE OF TREASON)
To: Mo1
They're writing this crap to have a record for historians.
107
posted on
05/05/2006 2:44:18 PM PDT
by
onyx
(They're ILLEGAL! --- tough, FACTS DON'T MATTER.)
To: Tribune7
108
posted on
05/05/2006 2:46:23 PM PDT
by
Annie5622
(Democrats DO have a plan! They apparently plan to stay stupid.)
To: onyx
They did the same bs harping with Reagan .. except it's worse with Bush
Like Reagan .. when history is told .. will be one of the best President this country has had
109
posted on
05/05/2006 2:46:32 PM PDT
by
Mo1
(DEMOCRATS: A CULTURE OF TREASON)
To: Mo1
110
posted on
05/05/2006 2:47:56 PM PDT
by
onyx
(They're ILLEGAL! --- tough, FACTS DON'T MATTER.)
To: TBP
I ain't apologizin'. Whatever Pres. Bush's problems, he's better than Algore and sKerry.
111
posted on
05/05/2006 2:58:49 PM PDT
by
Little Ray
(I'm a reactionary, hirsute, gun-owning, knuckle dragging, Christian Neanderthal and proud of it!)
To: onyx; Mo1
onyx wrote: "They're writing this crap to have a record for historians."
Onyx, you may be closer to the truth than you realize. Doug McIntyre was already a writer with a strong penchant for history ("Liberty's Kids" on PBS).
He has interviewed many conservative historian writers and is constantly recommending sound and well written biographies and history books on his show. He has also been a big fan of Dennis Prager, another conservative Los Angeles talk show host.
McIntyre may have slipped over the edge into crackpot-dom to have written this, but up until this point, not many could match his historical knowledge nor his conservative viewpoints.
112
posted on
05/05/2006 3:01:59 PM PDT
by
bd476
To: E. Pluribus Unum
lol! Great analogy. The boil is still festering here in Colorado Springs!
113
posted on
05/05/2006 3:03:45 PM PDT
by
jammer
To: Finny; BurbankKarl; lainie; doug from upland; A CA Guy; Brad's Gramma; Ernest_at_the_Beach; ...
The most important question to ask yourself: is here.
114
posted on
05/05/2006 3:10:28 PM PDT
by
bd476
To: bd476
I hope Dennis Prager invites him to his radio show.
115
posted on
05/05/2006 3:11:08 PM PDT
by
onyx
(They're ILLEGAL! --- tough, FACTS DON'T MATTER.)
To: bd476
116
posted on
05/05/2006 3:12:42 PM PDT
by
onyx
(They're ILLEGAL! --- tough, FACTS DON'T MATTER.)
To: bd476
McIntyre may have slipped over the edge into crackpot-dom to have written this, but up until this point, not many could match his historical knowledge nor his conservative viewpoints I've never listen to him .. frankly didn't know who he is
But to make a comment that Bush is the worse President ever???
Sorry .. he's lost all credibility as far as I'm concern
Criticism of the President is one thing .. that comment is over the edge crackpot
117
posted on
05/05/2006 3:14:27 PM PDT
by
Mo1
(DEMOCRATS: A CULTURE OF TREASON)
To: onyx
That would be good.
Honestly, I'm worried. Doug McIntyre is a good guy. I hope that he's not getting sick or something.
118
posted on
05/05/2006 3:14:48 PM PDT
by
bd476
To: bd476
LOOK --- we have some members who are willing to let the democrats reign!
MAYBE those members would like to out themselves?
119
posted on
05/05/2006 3:14:52 PM PDT
by
onyx
(They're ILLEGAL! --- tough, FACTS DON'T MATTER.)
To: bd476
Oh .. and one more thing
He was a McCain supporter???
Hello!?!?!?!
120
posted on
05/05/2006 3:15:46 PM PDT
by
Mo1
(DEMOCRATS: A CULTURE OF TREASON)
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