How do you rate him on a scale of 1 to 10. One the lowest and ten the highest!

1 at the most! Where is Osama? Weapons of mass destruction. Clinton lied about oral sex, they tried to impeach him, cost how many American lives? Bushs lie has cost over 3000 lives, thousands crippled! With no end in sight! I wish to add the thinking that if one doesnt support the war they dont support our troops! Thats a crock! I fully support our troops! They cant help it the President is a idiot! One more thing, if you think this Vietnam we are in is so great why dont you go over their or encourage your child to go their!

I will give the president a 6...he was lax on conservative issues,(more conservative constitutional constructionist judges,for 1)Spent way too much money , entitlements tripled under the republicans(a no no).

Dave R.,,,this is an all volunteer military,(nephew in Afghanistan) unlike the years of Viet-Nam(2 brothers served)(I am 49 years old and remember the draft well)The number of AWOL during Nam ,was at times as high as 15% ,and during the D-day invasion of WW2,( my dad served)there were reported to be as many as 50000 american soldiers AWOL just in France alone.My point being these men and women in todays military know the issues ,are they would not be there.

Having another Viet-Nam as you call it,will never happen because of the all volunteer military,no running off to hide from the draft today.No fear of being sent off to battle,so we will not have near the intensity of the 60s peace niks(draft dodgers)in the streets protesting.

And when it comes to supporting the troops ,,,,do you support your favorite sports team and root them on to loose????American soldiers are trained to kill,,,not rebuild New Orleans,,,I personally do not want them to loose,,,War is Hell,,,plain and simple,.


And to all you Bush lied ,people died crowd,,,,The devil lied,and Saddam died

If your rating is simply on being President and not any specific issue, I'd give him also about a 6, maybe a 7.

On specific issues:

6: War on Terror: Although I think we are in the 35th year of a 75 year "no boundary" war, I think the steps taken in the last 5 have done a lot to educate the world about the enemy we face.

7: Promoting conservative judges: roberts and alito seem at least to lean toward constitutional implementation rather than interpretation.

3. Spending: The new Homeland Security, TSA, the National Intelligence Agency(is this what its called?) The same number of people, being re-oriented into a new level of government. He has not bullied his Republican buddies enough to set the example on spending.

10. Tax cuts: These really have proven to improve the economy by putting more capital into the hands of people that create jobs...the small business owner. This has reduced unemployment to 4-point nothing. Not only that, but the tax revenue from all businesses and "newly employed" have increased the positve side of the treasury.

8-9: Being able to trust him: I do believe that he has a deep faith in God. He has not been wishy-washy about our mission in Iraq. The media tries to portray him as a liar, which is the pot calling the kettle black.

This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but its a start. I think if President Bush returns to those values we saw from Sept 2001 - Jan 2004 he will be remembered by true historians as an "effective, moral, truthful and shrewd" president.

Brack

Jeff,
You can go on a tangent if you want,but I prefer the way you responded.

First 21 years of military service ,deserves a big thank you.My oldest brother Jim,served 30 years,and I hardly know him.

The refernce of our soldiers being trained to kill may have been a bit misleading,there is no greater humanitarian than the american soldier.I was trying to make a point in a short line.

The protesters of the 60s may have had a right to protest ,but were wrong in the assumption of who the bad guys were.And I believe the left over peace niks that are elected officials today are still wrong in there assumptions of who the bad guys are.For some reason they think Pres. George W. Bush is the evil one.

This war will be like no other,against a very invisible and unconventional enemy.No man or woman wants to die a miserable death in battle,in some forsaken land,and all think they are going to come home.Our greatest threat is losing our resolve to win.When confronting this type of evil,you either fight it or excuse it.I like to think fighting it is better than letting it fester and become another world war.Maybe I am wrong,I pray daily for our soldiers and there familys .

The orchestrated smear campaign you refer to,the swift boat vets,may have been honest and real.John Kerrys discharge papers were sighned by Pres.Jimmy Carter in 1979,,,,His political posturing and throwing of medals over the white house fence ,speaking to congress ,and flat out lying to the public,show me he was on a mission for personal political gain.

It is fine if you dont like the way Pres.Bush has handled the war on terror.I for one am glad he is no Neville Chamberlin ,whos appeasement of Adolph Hitler,promised England, peace in our time.

I am sorry if I offended any veteran or anybody currently serving in the military or a member of there family! KUDOS to you all! The polls say it all! Oh I forgot the media has it all wrong! The polls are lies too! When a Republican has it messed up, its always somebody elses fault! Daddy Bush should of finished the job to begin with! He too blamed somebody else for that? The United Nations! Remember all those guys blown up in Lebanon, with guns and no bullets to defend themselves? Who sent them? Regan, but I am sure it was not his fault! Kerry served IN VIETNAM! THATS FACT! Kerry served 2 tours in Vietnam? ANOTHER FACT! Kerry was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. MORE FACTS! I can only wonder how those who post on here that are so proud to have served or are related to those who served, upteen years also find it so patriot to condem a fellow military vet! But find Ws service record to be so clean! BS!
W was in some ****amami state side crap, but only when he felt like showing up! THATS FACT too! The Air National Guard! Remember Johnson an Nixon decided against calling up the National Guard, thats how W got out of combat, and he knew that! His way of getting out of it! Yet when W had the choice, the Guard went! Oh and by the way if the polls that the anti Republican media are all just lies, then look at the ultimate poll! The one that doesnt lie? The last election! Eat your heart out Bush backers!

Dave R.,

If you study history ,during the revolutionary war,there was a great General,who had a fort named for him ,sitting in a great curve in the river west of New York city.he would of went down in history as one of the greatest Generals in the United States.

His name
Benedict Arnold,you may remember him as a traitor,and the fort,now West Point.My point,,,serving your country does not mean you can also be a traitor.

George W. Bush,is still president of the United States ,he did not lose the last election.

I am young and dumb, but I do pay attention.

Wasn't that Mr. Kerry that returned from Vietnam and testified before Congress about attrocities committed by fellow soldiers. And I believe that he was reporting attrocities that he himself hadn't seen, but that others had seen.

To me that showed he had little respect for the other soldiers involved in the stories.

And wasn't it Mr. Kerry that threw military medals over the White House fence in protest to the Vietnam War. But wait, I don't think they were even his medals.

Despite these discussions, if you are a Veteran it certainly doesn't remove you from criticism from your actions now. Mr. Kerry certainly may have served with honor and I'll give him credit. But being the head decision maker for 300 million americans one should expect that he has ideas on how to move us forward. Mr. Kerry did not have ideas.

I appreciate your passion Mr. dave.

Brack

pigskinner
Could you explain this?
My point,,,serving your country does not mean you can also be a traitor?
Also, I dont recall Kerry ever being accused, tried, or convicted of any treason! Fact again!
You are correct, Baby Bush did win the last election! But his approval has went to the cellar since, but the media lies! Funny you cant seem to admit when somebody else is correct, but I can! Oh I must ask did Nixon lie,
or was that the media too!

Dave R.

I dont arque with a fool,it makes us both look bad.

Pigskinner
Glad history was your best subject! English and spelling obviously was not! Whos the fool now!

It certainly wasn't the throwing of medals over the fence that gave us a clue as to Kerry's character. It was the throwing of another's medals, not his. He is still proud of the medals he attained and rightfully so, but I'm just not sure that throwing another's medals of recognition shows any integrity. "yeah, sure I'll throw yours, but I'm keeping mine." It just doesn't make sense. Maybe its a stretch, I'll admit it, but it was simply an attempt to show that Kerry is flawed in his decision making.

Our right to speak our thoughts is certainly one of the tenants of this country. But when an individual who puts himself in the limelight as Kerry did when he returned, he should expect his words and actions to be scrutinized.

I suppose this is why it is hard to get "Mr. Smith's" to run for office.

Jeff,

here is a good read by a great author,reprinted with permission.

Victor Davis Hanson: Military Solutions? Myths About the US Military; what we need in Iraq ...
pajamasmedia.com ^ | January 3, 2007 | Victor Davis Hanson


Posted on 01/09/2007 11:01:24 AM PST by Tolik


Myths About the US Military

There is often voiced pessimism about our current military, to such a degree that it is termed broken or exhausted. But how true is that?

The traveler to Iraq is struck not by dearth, but opulence—everything imaginable from new SUVs to Eskimo Pies. Internet Service there was far faster than from my home in rural Fresno County.

So far recruitment levels are being met. No one in the military has warned that it is a bad idea to create more brigades of ground troops. Such a caveat about the current proposed expansion we would expect if we could not even meet our present manpower targets.

We have a tripartite military—air, sea, and ground. While the Marines and Army have rough going in Iraq, there have been very few Air Force and Navy material or human losses. Surely our air wings and ships are not “worn out” from patrolling in Iraq. There might be thousands of trashed humvees and worn out Bradleys, but not frigates, F-16s, or carriers. This is not 1943 when the US military was fighting in Sicily, as B-17s fell from the sky, as our merchant marine was under U-boat attack.

After Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, the mantra was that the Army and Marines were not getting their fair share of service in Rumsfeld’ revolution in military affairs that envisioned Special Forces on donkeys zeroing in GPS bombs from 20,000 feet onto clueless Taliban. But suddenly after a little more three years in Iraq, we are supposed to believe that a few thousand insurgents have “ruined” what until 2003 was an underused force? It would be interesting to trace the origins of this pessimism that now appears in the columns of op-ed pages: does it arise from tired and demoralized officers, or anti-war critics eager to see something again like the 1976 American military?

Does Experience Count for Anything?

But more importantly, few have asked more existential questions: are our ground forces better or worse prepared to fight jihadists than they were on September 11? At some point, the millions of hours of experience fighting Islamists from the Hindu Kush to Anbar Province must count for something. William Tecumseh Sherman’s frightening Army of the West that tramped through Washington DC in April 1865 made any Union force of 1861 seem pathetic by comparison—despite he tragic losses of thousands during the war.

Ruined and Then There Is Ruined!

In the past, there have been modern divisions of the American army that have been nearly ruined, but nothing of the sort has transpired in Iraq. Here one thinks of the 6th Marine Division that did the most gruesome fighting on Okinawa and suffered over 8,000 killed or wounded in less than 90 days—nearly half its original combat strength attrited in a single battle.

After 24 hours of fighting in the first day of the Bulge, the US 28th and 106th infantry divisions ceased to exist as effective combat units, with nearly half their soldiers killed, wounded, or captured. The 7th and 2nd infantry divisions that retreated from the Yalu River under attack by hundreds of thousands of Chinese communists were nearly decimated. To say that the American military is ruined after fighting in Iraq is preposterous by both present and past standards of combat losses.

So What’s Wrong?

What then is the problem since we are still fighting in both Afghanistan and Iraq after brilliant victories over the Taliban and Saddam Hussein?

Most obvious is the inability of our conventional forces to translate amazing tactical success in Afghanistan and Iraq into rapid strategic victory, a transition of establishing a stable postbellum government that requires everything from winning hearts and minds to inspired counter-insurgency. These questions about the transition from conventional to asymmetrical warfare always have nagged—why did the armies of Sherman and Grant who crushed nearly half-a-million Confederate soldiers in a little over a year from summer 1864 to spring 1865, not secure Reconstruction in 12 miserable years of failure, in the face of a few thousands Klansmen, and assorted night riders?

In the case of Iraq, when the easier conventional war ceased in victory after a few days, our generals (cf. Tommy Franks) simply retired. Political restrictions (pulling back from first Fallujah or allowing Moqtadar Sadr to be freed from his encirclement) hampered military options and projected a sense of perceived weakness. Too often retired generals simply blamed the present problem in establishing security on “too few troops”, as if Donald Rumsfeld alone had drawn up the plans of the invasion, or that an army that defeated Saddam Hussein in three weeks was inherently unable to squash an insurgency of far fewer combatants. And it is always easier to shoot a uniformed Republican Guard marksman than to pick out a terrorist from his ten brothers and sisters after his bomb attack on a US squad stringing telephone wire or painting schools.

It is now a cliché that there “is no military solution” in Iraq. But, in fact, the political solution—three successful elections and a constitutional government in place—has outpaced the military effort. What we need is a massive clamp-down on militias and terrorists to give the government confidence and public support, and that can’t be accomplished when we do not crush the terrorists, whether inside Iraq or flowing in from Syria and Iran.

The Same Old, Same Old.

Nothing that we see in Iraq is unique by any historical standards. Generals always rue that they have too few combat troops. Go back and read about Dwight D. Eisenhower’s complaints in late 1944, and the controversy over a “broad” and “narrow” front in approaching the Rhine. Patton raged about political constraints that stopped the 3rd Army from taking Prague, and the 1st from targeting Berlin. MacArthur was relieved over his inability to widen the war to target Chinese troop build-ups in Manchuria. Secretary of War Stanton interfered with Sherman’s administration of Savannah, despite the culmination of a brilliant March to the Sea. No need to mention Vietnam and the micromanaging of campaigns from the White House.

In short, the history of American ground operations is that troops are often sent into battle complaining of too few numbers, too many political constraints, and too vague objectives. We know all that is the unfortunate price to be paid in a democracy that reluctantly musters its forces, and has too many would-be military geniuses behind the lines that hamper smooth operations at the front. It has never been an American tradition to say, “There is the enemy, go do what you wish to win,” but rather “There is the enemy, these are the parameters under which you must operate to win.”

So what we do not need now is any more furor over the should’ve/could’ve/would’ve troop levels in 2003. Even when we talk of a “surge” the present disagreement is really over only about 30,000 additional troops in a coalition of nearly 180,000, that, along with Iraq Security Forces, reaches a total force of almost 500,000.

An Existential Question.

Thus the better question is why haven’t a half-million Iraqi and coalition troops been able to defeat at most 20,000-30,000 insurgents, especially when over 11 million Iraqis voted for their own democratic representatives? The answer is that the restrictive rules of engagement, the open borders to Iran and Syria, and the perception of American impotence have all combined to suggest to most Iraqis that the radical beheading/IEDing/kidnapping/assassinating minority within their midst will be running things in their neighborhood once the far larger, more static, far nicer, and far more restrained coalition troops dissolve or leave. People in advance always make the necessary adjustments to popular perceptions.


Avoir de l’audacité, toujours l’audacité, encore une fois l’audacité?

At some point it would be stunning for a US military official to step forward, and assure victory. No more acrimony over what should have, could have or might have been. No more retired generals talking to reporters at midnight “off the record”, or appearing as “unnamed senior military official” in the footnotes of the latest journalistic expose about Iraq. No more complaints about had Paul Bremmer not, had Donald Rumsfeld not, had Tommy Franks not, but rather something instead like: “Here is how we are going to defeat the jihadists”.

Most Americans do not want to hear any more suggestions from the Iraqi Study Group, anymore meae culpae from John Kerry or Hillary Clinton about how they were brainwashed by faulty intelligence, or any more assessments of the war from moralists and geniuses like Donald Trump and Bill Maher.

Instead, we need to hear from the very top echelon of the American military, that despite all the roadblocks put in their way, and the difficulty of the present task (it isn’t easy to secure a democracy in the heart of the ancient caliphate surrounded by Khomeinist Iran, Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, and Baathist Syria), that they will defeat these insurgents—and here’s how they plan to do it.

Somewhere in the US military right now is a Grant, Sherman, Patton, Ridgeway, or Abrams, who has been shouting and we haven’t been listening. Now is the time to let them come forward—as they have always arisen from obscurity in past American wars when their nation’s hour of need has
come.

Jeff
You talk like you got your act together! One thing I might add kinda off the beat. Remember all those people in New Orleans? Took how long to get help to them? Yea we suck at helping out here at home with the National Guard, so I fail to see how we can be doing so much good in the $hit hole called Iraq! Sorry to see there are still some die hard Bushbackers that cant accept the fact Iraq was a mistake. Funny thing I cant seem to find a single soul in person who brags he voted for W, only behind a computer screen, not face to face!

Dave I voted for Bush does that make me a bad person and I do not hide behind the computor screen, What about all of the people that did not vote,Why dount you get on thier case the results might have been differnt. H. J. Wilhoit