President Bush Approval Ratings Soar!!!

[Kbob]

You can't refute the IRONY of this clown GWB now begging for six-party talks when during the debates he stated time and again that they were stupid and would never work. Talk about a FLIP-FLOPPER!

What are you talking about now? Kerry's the one that wanted to have one on one talks with N Korea. GW wanted multilateral talks.

And just what does that article have to do with approval ratings? If you can't win a debate, do you think expanding it will just confuse the other side or something? And what are you trying to prove with your graph? Again, you're ignoring the reasons for the spending in the first place.

Johnny's reply: "gargle gargle"

 

[MonsterMark]

Please, we need to stay on subject #1, and stick to facts #2 if we want to enjoy an intelligent debate. Johnny, what you just posted is a flat out propagandist's mistruth. (being nice)

Transcript from the 1st Debate:



Part 1 ..........



KERRY: Both. I want bilateral talks which put all of the issues, from the armistice of 1952, the economic issues, the human rights issues, the artillery disposal issues, the DMZ issues and the nuclear issues on the table.



LEHRER: And you're opposed to that. Right?

BUSH: The minute we have bilateral talks, the six-party talks will unwind. That's exactly what Kim Jong Il wants. And by the way, the breach on the agreement was not through plutonium. The breach on the agreement is highly enriched uranium. That's what we caught him doing. That's where he was breaking the agreement.

Part 2 ...........

KERRY: Weapons of mass destruction, nuclear proliferation.


But again, the test or the difference between us, the president has had four years to try to do something about it, and North Korea has got more weapons; Iran is moving toward weapons. And at his pace, it will take 13 years to secure those weapons in Russia.

I'm going to do it in four years, and I'm going to immediately set out to have bilateral talks with North Korea. (What else would you expect from a United States traitor and sympathizer who met with the enemy during a time of war and whose picture now hangs in a Communist Museum as a tribute!)

LEHRER: Your response to that?

BUSH: Again, I can't tell you how big a mistake I think that is, to have bilateral talks with North Korea. It's precisely what Kim Jong Il wants. It will cause the six-party talks to evaporate. It will mean that China no longer is involved in convincing, along with us, for Kim Jong Il to get rid of his weapons. It's a big mistake to do that.

We must have China's leverage on Kim Jong Il, besides ourselves. And if you enter bilateral talks, they'll be happy to walk away from the table. I don't think that'll work.



...........................................................................................................



Transcript from 2nd Debate:



BUSH: Let me talk about North Korea.

It is naive and dangerous to take a policy that he suggested the other day, which is to have bilateral relations with North Korea. Remember, he's the person who's accusing me of not acting multilaterally. He now wants to take the six-party talks we have -- China, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United States -- and undermine them by having bilateral talks.



That's what President Clinton did. He had bilateral talks with the North Koreans. And guess what happened? He didn't honor the agreement. He was enriching uranium. That is a bad policy.



Do I even need to post this? Oh, well. Major league *owned*.

 

[barry2952]

This has gone off topic.

Johnny, I've got to agree with Bryan on this one. The facts bear him out.

Bryan please comment on the chart that Johnny posted. I'm curious if you can refute that?

 

[MonsterMark]

I got to run but I'll take a stab at it later for ya.

 

[FreeFaller]

Has anyone else notice that spikes in the national debt precede some of the most economically properous times in our nations history...hmmm

Debt is something that keeps this nation going. If kept in check. Borrowing money provides economic boosts...those economic boosts provide excess capital that the government can use to pay off the debt. This is the natural cycle of things. Under President Clinton this nation saw a economic ballon the likes of which it hadn't seen since shortly after WWII. This was caused largely by the advent of the WWW and it's ability to create a source of income. This advent went largely ignored by large corporations and was widely utilized by small private buisnesses. As the economic prosperity of people who were selling products, services and the bandwith required to create sites grew to the historic proportions it could no longer support itself. There was a sudden surge in compitetion by larger companies who could support larger staffs to monitor this new market. The small guy could not compete and the bubble burst. Easy street got shut down...

At the same time the Department of Defense went through a major force reduction cutting the amount of equipment and manning by a large percentage. Now cutting defense is one of the largest chunks you can take out of an budget. All these things came together to make President Clinton look like the man who saved the budget.

Now skip to the future...with the DOD there are a number of weapons systems that were in development that are now coming on line. New fighters like the F/A-22, Nimitz class carriers and other weapons systems of which we are commited to buying are being brought online. At the same time more spending is being used to improve quality of life issues in the military. Plus we are in a war and as we all know those things are friggin' expensive...

These are just my personal thoughts. There is no researched information here. If anyone wishes to educate me...especially you Barry as a buisness owner. Please do so , I welcome any chance to learn...

 

[Joeychgo]

Has anyone else notice that spikes in the national debt precede some of the most economically properous times in our nations history...hmmm

Debt is something that keeps this nation going.

Problem is, it has to be paid back at some point. SO either the republicans have to learn to reign it in or they have to admit the need for democratic pesidents.

 

[FreeFaller]

Problem is, it has to be paid back at some point. SO either the republicans have to learn to reign it in or they have to admit the need for democratic pesidents.

Oh, I agree. It does need to be paid back...but it is an ebb and flow, mountains and valleys...do I think that GW is an economic genius...no. Is he facing one of the most challenging/exspensive periods in recent history...yes. The economy will rebound and money will flow into programs. Well...I would like to believe that anyway.

And yes, we do need Democratic presidents...just as much as we need Republicans. We even need extremes of both...that's what makes this country great. A bunch of idiots coming together to make some sort of sense out of our dumb ideas...

 

[barry2952]

If anyone wishes to educate me...especially you Barry as a buisness owner. Please do so , I welcome any chance to learn...

This is personal experience. I have been in business for 28 years. During the Clinton administration (I didn't vote for him) my business averaged $1.2 million annually in gross sales. Since the beginning of the Bush adminstration sales have dropped off to around $750,000. That's a pretty significant drop.

The industries that I service; apartments, schools, hospitals and other commercial buildings have pretty much stopped spending money. The apartment industry was devastated by miniscule interest rates. People were buying home like crazy and moving out of apartments. Vacancy rates (except for college towns) are 20% or more. Every third building has a lease sign in front of it. Hospitals are watching every dollar and most other businesses are deferring maintenance thinking they are saving money.

Michigan has a 7.3% unemployment rate. The actual number is much higher because the numbers don't include people whose benefits have run out, the so-called "chronically unemployed".

I've had to lay off people. I hated doing that. My unemployment insurance rate has gone from 2% to 8% during the Bush admininstration. My bills have doubled for both gasoline and natural gas. My health insurance is 50% higher than when Bush took office and my insurance in general has gone up over 50%. My salary is now one third of what it was when Bush took office and now I can't afford to add to my building because steel prices have skyrocketed, so I have no place to put the new bucket truck I would have bought to expand our geographc coverage.

How would you feel about Bush in my shoes? Luckily I was smart enough to not have any debt, so I can slide for awhile. I've seen so many businesses shuttered around here that it's scary. Yes, I get to keep more of my paycheck but my paycheck is one third of what it was when Bush took office on a promise of fiscal responsibility and smaller government.

I guess I voted my pocketbook.

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

Do I even need to post this? Oh, well. Major league *owned*.

:slam DOH! I must be getting old, I could have sworn BuSh was the one that was dissin' the six-party talks.

But the POINT of posting that article was , while GW is patting himself on the back (although I've heard his approval ratings have turned around and started to slide downward already), he hasn't gotten his eye back on the ball on other major foreign issues which continue to deteriorate. Its about time BuSh puts Condi to work in those nations. Maybe she can do her Neil and Bob routine that has gotten her so far in the white house. Seems to have worked wonders there.

And fully absolving GW and his cabnet for 9/11 in the first place isn't going to happen. They left the backdoor of our nation unlocked, and we were ransacked. Besides, the major portion of the spending on the "war on terror" was due to invading Iraq, NOT Afghanistan. And we ALL KNOW the real reason we went into Iraq, and it had nothing to do w/ 9/11.