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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThank God George W. Bush beat John Mccain in the 2000 GOP primary
But for September 11, 2001, Bush would have been easily crushed in the 2004 election and largely irrelevant after the 2002 midterms. Also, most Americans saw George W. Bush for who he truly was-an egotistical and arrogant not intellectually curious bumbling moron. George W. Bush was a gift to the Democrats. He laid the groundwork for the Dem landslides in 2006 and 2008 and erased all the gains that the conservative movement made since 1980. His inept handling of Hurricane Katrina proved to the whole world that everything the Democrats ever said about him was true, etc. We all know the story of the years of W. Why go into it here. One other point: the media hated George W. Bush. They hated Al Gore in 2000 more but they were never in love with Bush.
On the other hand, John McCain is a far more sinister, far more dangerous, far more unhinged character. He is an extremist to his very core and a very bitter, very mean, very scary old man. His loss to W in the 2000 primary unleashed the crazy inside him. Where to even start with this turd. McCain has always thought that the presidency was OWED to him. He is raging inside that some usurper Negro took his precious away from him after he could not even defeat that idiot Bush in 2000. McCain has opposed everything that President Obama has done from January 20, 2009 and has not even made an effort to be bipartisan ever from opposing the stimulus to opposing the eminently qualified Kagan and Sotomayor to the SCOTUS to anything at all on even climate change or the health care reform front in 2009-10.
McCain, if he had been elected instead of Bush, would have been given the benefit of the doubt by many moderate and independent voters. The reputation that McCain had with the media would have enabled him to implement the most extreme conservative policies but he would have done so with a Reaganesque smile. The McCain halo would have been much more difficult to crack than the Bush façade and he may have even damaged this country as much as Reagan did due to his ability to fool so many at that time.
If one wants more proof, Bush picked as his VP in 2000 someone that was well-known in conservative circles and eminently qualified. I remember reading in I believe one of the books by Bob Woodward that Colin Powell was stunned at the transformation of Cheney to being a right-wing extremist and CP said he did not recognize who Cheney had become at all in the first days of the administration.
I know that Cheney was a partisan freak but if a Republican was going to win the W.H., Cheney is certainly well within the mainstream of who a GOP nominee would pick. Cheney is, of course, not mainstream to any of us but that's not my point.
Who did McCain pick on the other hand but an inexperienced corrupt unqualified half-term governor of Alaska just because she was female and he was willing to do ANYTHING to prevent President Obama from stealing his precious presidency away from him. The scandals that she was involved in in Alaska and the fact that her husband, Todd, was a criminal thug, meant nothing to McCain. He was willing to do anything and everything in his relentless quest for power.
McCain is ALSO the reason why America is so divided today. Most Americans in 2008 were enamored with President Obama. Desperate McCain unleashed Queen Sarah on the trail to tell Amerikans that BHO was a terrorist, an Ayers and Salinsky sympathizer, a foreign usurper. Remember Keith Olbermann in 2008 and a lot of the other media including Jonathan Alter imploring McCain to reign in Palin because they saw that she was dividing the country.
Gabby Giffords will never be the same, a young girl is dead, a federal judge is dead and 4 others are dead because of the hatred that McCain unleashed with his selection of Palin. What does that say about the senior senator from Arizona.
After his mid-term drubbing in 2006, the Bush relationship with Cheney drew cold. Bush in effect told Cheney to FO with his plans to invade Iran. Bush also blamed Cheney for the Scooter Libby controversy and for the Iraq war quagmire, according to some sources.
McCain, if he had been elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2004, would have felt no such remorse. Remember him singing bomb bomb Iran during the 2008 campaign. McCain and his pal Cheney would have just laughed at the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and gone on to nuke North Korea, invade Iran and god knows what else.
As evidenced by his irrational anger and hatred directed at CNNs Dana Bash last week where he said who the hell are you to tell me what to do, this guy is off the deep end. I think his POW experience in Vietnam has scarred and damaged him to the extent that he may no longer be fit to serve. The guy needs a mental health assessment.
Remember his rage in 2005 taunting Democrats about their 2004 loss and saying elections have consequences. Yet more assholery from this freak.
What I am especially furious about tonight is that I read in LBN (and that is what sparked this post) that McCain has vowed to filibuster ANY secretary of state nominee that President Obama puts forward. The guy is frigging nuts and has lost all rationality. This is yet another in a long line of punches to the jaw that he has delivered to President Obama since his loss in 2008. What a petulant crybaby sore loser.
Also, there is not anything close to a significant scandal in the Bhengazi affair. His nonsensical calls for an joint committee of inquiry and mad ramblings about 4 dead Americans are inane. Show me the proof, JSM, of any wrongdoing on the part of this administration. Also, show me your concern when thousands died in acts of terror in the Bush years. Oh right, there was none! The guy has become a conspiracy theorist.
Thank god the GOP did not nominate him in 2000 and thank god PBO came along in 2008 to keep this wacko far away from the Presidency. JSM is just as dangerous to American peace and prosperity as some Tea Party nut like Michelle Bachmann, maybe even more so.
None of the above is meant to praise Bush. Shrub is an idiot. At least we got the lesser of the 2 extreme evils with Bush than we got with McCain, however.
JI7
(89,281 posts)re-election if he had won in 2000 against Gore.
Mccain is nasty but it comes directly from him. but he doesn't sink to some of the lower things others in his party to try to win.
yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)BVictor1
(229 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)As the end approaches, W is regressing more-and-more into a familiar cocoon, seeking out the military both masses of young conscripts paid to pay respect, as well as those either dumbstruck or simply struck for hearty cheer and farewell.
The pictures from Tuesdays jaunt to West Point are startlingly, if unsurprisingly revealing when you separate the non-posed, non-thoroughly staged photo-ops (1, 2) from those in which the former Yale cheerleader enters the picture (more the source of freakish attraction himself, really) and, acting more their age (and sticking closest to the females), commands some cheap giggles.
Yet, far more grotesque (and stolen, in fact), is Dubyas embrace of the severely injured Iraq war veteran.
Highlighting the self-appointed comforter-in-Chiefs propensity for the kiss, the man famous for never reflecting and never looking back perpetrates this bitter act of false intimacy on two discernibly-transformed, all-too-young Iraq veterans at the White House just after helicoptering in from the Military Academy.
It was always my feeling this mission would end in disgrace, but now I see Im wrong. Exceeding that, George Bush is fully landing in perversity.
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)BVictor1
(229 posts)niyad
(113,649 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)that occur late in life.
Some think that he is developing senile dementia of some type. Personally, I think that he is experiencing mini-strokes. Perhaps he is suffering delayed effects from his years in North Vietnamese prisons.
Thank heavens he didn't win in 2008.
However, he should see a gerontologist and then consider resigning.
NewsCenter28
(1,835 posts)I am, perhaps, not thinking clearly because I am incensed right now that McCain is back to leading the charge for the senate obstructionist ways.
JI7
(89,281 posts)so it doesn't really hurt us. in fact it makes their side look worse.
i find it kind of hard to feel too much anger at him because he does come off as mentally losing it . the whole crazy old uncle thing .
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)Many people here attribute that to Obama's skin tone, which is clearly a part of it for some of them.
But I think that they became very overconfident after Obama's distracted performance in the first debate and their very inaccurate polling. Even their internal polling seems to have been 'way off. Robme didn't even have a concession speech prepared, just in case. They were caught completely flat-footed.
Midwestern Democrat
(806 posts)Before the 2008 loss, he was unquestionably one of the most respected figures in Washington, but he has reacted to the 2008 loss with such extreme bitterness, that he's clearly lost virtually all of the esteem he used to be held in.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)Losing was a real blow to him.
I respected him, although I did not agree with him. I think that his work on campaign finance reform was a real step in the right direction. I doubt that he'd support a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United at this point.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Reverent awe is what we were shown about C Plus Augustus from the media.
BlueMan Votes
(903 posts)for him to have been elected- he would have had to beat bush- and therefore never unleash the crazy.
plus- jeb wouldn't have delivered him florida- so Al Gore would have won outright(which technically he did).
Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)Bush led substantially in the early polls and lost ground because of his questionable fitness for office and because of his DUI revelations at the end.
McCain didn't have either of those liabilities. In fact, 2008 demonstrated that he had very few liabilities as far as presidential candidates go. His biggest one was the fact that he was in the same political party as George W Bush. His second biggest was Sarah Palin. His third biggest was the fact that he married an extremely wealthy woman and appeared somewhat out of touch because of that money (though not nearly on the level of Romney). Not a single one of those would've been a liability in 2000.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)pansypoo53219
(21,004 posts), unfortunately he picked cheeney.
LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)Although he beat his Democratic opponent handily this year, J.D. Hayworth gave him a run for his money ($20 mill, to be precise). The crazy runs deep in that state.
NewsCenter28
(1,835 posts)sure has proven that he is no maverick and no independent!! He is a hard-core down-the-line right wing extremist! I started to despise him in late 2009 and 2010 and now I hate him almost as much as Bush and Romney.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Dumbya had two entire channels on his side (Faux and CNBC) and many junior versions of each channel apologizing for him and jumping on the "Gore Invented the Internet/SwiftBoat" bandwagons of 2000/2004.
brokechris
(192 posts)Bush's bro was governor of Florida--he promised the state to W and he delivered it. He likely wouldn't have gone to the trouble for Mclame.
marmar
(77,102 posts)The course of history was forever altered, and in a nightmarish kinda way.