Unlike politicians, who distort facts, outright lie and make deceptive implications every time they open their mouths.
I did the same... that's what I do when I read things or watch things or listen to things. It's a good practice. However, I Try not to reject things just because they don't fit my view... it's more like I try to add the new information to the old information that was already in my head. I put very little in the section of my mind called "known facts" and have a "here's what I've been told so far" section where I Try to remember View A and View B and View C, etc. I don't like automatically rejecting ideas just because I "think" or "feel like" they may not be right, although I do reject ideas when they contradict my first-hand knowledge. So, after watching Moore's newest film, not reluctantly but cautiously, I looked online for criticisms, and found plenty, mostly from people who had never seen it, but I did find a couple in newsweek and NYTimes and some conservative sites that were written by people who actually saw the film. They did make some valid points, IMO, and that part of my memory that was storing "Saudi royal family loaned 1.4 billion to Bush" according to Moore now also stores "Suadi Royal family only loaned 300 million to Bush directly, the other 1.1 billion to companies Bush was intimately involved with" according to NYTimes and "Saudi Royal family probably loans 100s of billions more to Bush supporters, contributors and interests that support Bush which, on the whole, have interests terribly different from my own" according to my own educated guess. And there were other things in that film, of course, that have been criticized as being deceptive which I noted, as well.
Yes, of course that was true. There are a lot of military complaints besides that. A lot of soldiers over there had inadequate armor. I remember being in a chat room one day and this guy was just going off about how soldiers were dying because there was inadequate armor for the troops. So they have a limited budget, and would rather give contracts to Bush's friends, Haliburton and the Bin Laden Construction Company and other firms, rather than adequately protecting the troops... that's pretty crappy, IMO... but you know, to Bush, and any chicken-hawk, a reasonable number of fodder (oops I mean troops) are expendable, they are cheaper than Hummers.
Me neither. In my lifetime, there hasn't been a political candidate for President that I liked who didn't need at least 45 million more votes to win. I've never supported a Democrat, and I argued with lots of friends four years ago who supported Gore, because I hoped to convince them to vote Libertarian and if not that, Republican (which is what I was registered as until 2000). The only thing I really disliked about Bush was his stance on torte-reform (which I see as hampering or infringing on the duty of the judicial system, much like mandatory minimum sentences - basically the legislative branch over-ruling the judicial branch's decision-making ability) and the chance that he might do some things to please fundy Christians which I would not like. But Gore, I predicted he would be worse than Bush, IMO, with further regulation of health-care (although the Republicans are largely responsible for over-regulating that particular industry, anyway), expansion of social programs that I don't like and I expected an overall forceful escalation of socialism (and taxation) in the USA from Gore, so I couldn't stand Gore.
After Bush became President, I was extremely disappointed with his handling of 911. Most people approved, but I didn't. To me, if we were to be attacked by a foreign country, we wouldn't wait a couple months to strike back. It struck me that our military wasn't prepared to strike back against an attack on our country immediately except with nuclear weapons (they are, I am assuming and hoping, still always ready to go at the press of a button). To me, that is disgraceful. We have the most powerful military in the world, the strongest economy - we're the only superpower, and we're an obvious target for anybody "mad at life" yet it takes 2 months to attack someone who has attacked us?
A lot of people have said they think Bush is cocky - and in general I disagree. However, a leader (or country) that is so cocky from the belief that nobody can or will attack it, and thus has no ability to immediately respond to being attacked defies logic.
Bush dropped the ball on 911, we should have never been attacked like that - the country is not run right, and apparently he didn't do anything to change it until it was too late. "The squeeky wheel gets the grease" is some old saying, meaning that people (or politicians) tend to fix what can be heard (seen), but don't bother with what can't be heard (or seen - problems that are not directly evident). Bush (and probably many of his predecessors) only seemed to be concerned (and hindsight reveals this to be true) with fixing things that the public notices... things like top secret military and security stuff being decades out of date (only immediate response to an attack is nuclear, the ridiculous absence of security related to nuclear and chemical facilities and airline security, and our still unprotected borders, although al-Qaeda declared war on the US in 1991 and we (those in power or in the know) have known what types of attacks they would be most likely to use for over a decade).
So, on 911 he showed me that he had dropped the ball, and he's never tried to pick it up. He used 911 as an excuse to do lots of things, like pass a very-invasive Patriot Act and start a war with a country that wasn't a threat to us, but he did very little to actually further secure us, and for that matter to avenge the deaths and destruction of 911 - he gave the power-base (al-Qaeda translates to "the base" or "the foundation") behind the suicide-attackers two months to get away and hide, and almost all of them did.
I agree with you. He's made a lot of mistakes, he's done some things that were "bad" for the military, and a lot of things that are "bad" for the people (parts of the Patriot Act and other legislation that basically goes unmentioned in the press, the fact that the people aren't going to benefit financially from the war in Iraq yet are in more jeopardy from terrorism and are going to have to foot the bill of war costs for a long time to come). Of course every president has made mistakes and all that follow will, but you have to put a limit on how many mistakes are tolerable. Not every criticism of Bush is fair, not every criticism is accurate, but he has enough fair and accurate criticisms that I'm willing to vote for a Democrat for the first and probably only time in my life.
I stopped calling myself conservative (and Republican) 5 or 6 years ago. I'm not a conservative or a liberal; I'm not "in" either camp. Both sides have their rhetoric, I find the rhetoric of the right more appealing to me, due to my view of "how life ought to be" (I favor capitalism over socialism; I favor small government over big government; I favor low or no taxes or a choice on where my taxes go over high taxes; I favor buying what I can afford presently and not getting too deep in debt; I favor the principle of "doing for myself" instead of doing for others or having others do for me). And the Republican rhetoric - the party line - sounds just like all my views, but in practice never happens. I gave up on the Republicans, when I noticed that, since FDR the majority of Presidents have been Republican yet the size of the government, the percentage of taxes, the nation's debt have all risen monstrously. Every one of those Republican Presidents promised the party line, promised lower taxes, promised smaller government, promised to fix the debt, and so on, and none of them delivered. Not just one or two wasn't consistent with the rhetoric, but every single one of them, especially Bush.
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