You are the most cynical SOB I've ever met on Free Republic. You are probably a real pleasure to hang around. [sarcasm off] And your word selection ("diddled"), while colorful, betrays some other limitations in your expressiveness or education.
And, you've never learned the lesson of the wise -- that for leaders, it is better to be effective than right 100% of the time. Pick your battles and win those; go easy on the others. And, when your enemies are following you like children following the Pied Piper, then you take on the more intractable problems that were close to unsolvable earlier.
I loved Newt Gingrich but one of the reasons he was not as effective as he should have been is that he didn't wrap his words and his actions in a persona that would lead. His style was brilliant but abrasive, not persuasive. And, we conservatives have to admit that he was a failure as a man who implemented a conservative legislative agenda.
Give me a conservative President who is effective before a President who is smart and "right-thinking" on the short list of 100 conservative issues. The former will succeed and the latter will be pilloried by the press and the public.
Bush is effective at trying to make nice with those who stay awake late at night figuring out ways to emasculate, lobotomize, and destroy what's left of our country. In doing so, he helps them achieve their aims by delegating to the fringe those of us who want to defend the USA and those ideas which made her what she once was. This is not a good thing, howsoever successful he is at it.
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Thank you very much for the complement. That cynicism has been hard won through considerable cost, work and experience. It required years to liberate myself from the pretty lies I and others where programmed with in our youth.
I no longer believe ministers or priests don't molest kids or that 30% aren't engaged in sex with congregation members. I no longer believe presidents are intelligent gods who don't hump interns in the Oval Office. I don't believe all cops and politicians are honest. I used to believe education was education and those who educated were infallable.There are many things I no longer believe.
I take each person and event on a case by case basis separate from intimidating trappings or aura of office, from descriptions by media, from glorifying picture on a war, and from the opinions of those around me. It's a road less traveled. When you deal with me, you must stand rigorous inspection.
I think you to be among those who cling to earlier programming and to wishes that the world not be as it is. That's as charitable as I can state it.