Post by no name on Jun 4, 2004 22:45:36 GMT -5
Oh give me a break! Any other student with low SAT scores (566 verbal, 640 math) would not have been accepted into Yale. A 'C' student at Yale? With his family background?
First off – SAT score levels have been adjusted since Bush took his SAT, so according to “standards” now (thanks to the dumbing down of our educational system), his marks would reflect an even higher score. At any rate, his score at the time he took the SAT was at roughly the 70th percentile nationwide. Definitely not indicitive of someone lacking in brain power . . .
Maybe his “family” name played a role in getting him into Yale – I dunno – but it is also true that Yale has/had an admissions policy that gave preference to the children of alumni . . . And this isn’t an unusual occurrence among the Ivy League schools (among universities, in general, actually). He was an average student there – better than I probably would have been at a school like that . . . At any rate, sometimes the most “intellectually bright” people can be pretty lacking in real intelligence.
But did he learn to fly well? According to his friend Donnie Evans, the last time he tried to fly the results were less than stellar and the plane ended up off the runway.
According to one of his flight instructors (Colonel Thomas G. Lockhart, USAF), he did just fine:
“George W. Bush put himself totally into the task of becoming the best aviator in the class.
His unit flew Century Series jet fighters, which required the best pilots. There was no room for error, as these airplanes were unforgiving, and the price for a mistake was often the pilot's life.”
Would Bush have done anything about the "modern day 'hitler'" had the World Trade Center not been trashed? What if there was no terrorist attacks? What about Iraq? Would Bush have still invaded? Of course, these are speculative questions with no real way of knowing. But one wonders if Bush just had an itchy trigger finger for Iraq? Going after the terrorists responsible for 9/11... that I have no problem with. All the more power to that. I question the motives for attacking Iraq.
I think it was a combination of 9/11 and Bush.
I have my doubts as to whether someone like Gore or Clinton would have made the same decision on Iraq (perhaps even Afghanistan, for that matter).
Did the tax cut really help people? How much money did people really see of that tax cut? I saw my $300+/- cut, and that went directly to paying for bills, not for "helping the economy". With these tax cuts, are we really "out" of the recession? I have yet to see evidence of such. People can wave numbers around, but what I actually see and hear from people tells me otherwise.
I’m sure even in the best of times there will be people who still feel an economic pinch.
My father's business (I'm his "secretary") involves paying attention to economic indicators. The signs are definitely there that a recovery (in some areas, a bounding one at that) has taken/is taking place.
I'm not blaming Bush in any way for not being out of the recession. Was the recession Clinton's fault? No. Ask any economist and they will tell you that presidents have very little to no effect on the economy as a whole. Alan Greenspan is the man you want to talk to for that. He is the one with the most control of anybody on the economy. The rest is up to the whims of the markets. Quite a scary thought, really.
Well, there is certainly truth in this . . . the President is the figurehead that will get all the “credit” or all the “blame”. I highly doubt Al Gore would have pushed through the tax cuts that Bush did, and imo the taxes being cut was what brought us out of the problems we were sliding into. Then came 9/11 . . . . but despite all that, and the fact that the U.S. has engaged in battle in two separate nations, the economy is still coming back.
Restored dignity perhaps in the sense that Bush isn't having sex romps with interns. But his "I'm-going-in-shooting-like-a-[stereotypical]-old-western-cowboy" attitude throws shadows on the dignity. Bush seemed hellbent on attacking Iraq. Bush is a "Shoot first -- hell, this is fun, let's shoot again!" type of guy.
Regarding Iraq – I’d say Saddam had pretty much run out of time, seeing as how it became official U.S. policy during Clinton’s term to have Saddam removed from power. Imo, there definitely wasn’t the “rush” to war that some people try to claim there was . . .