Some thoughts while listening to the President speak...
He took a question from a reporter who said something along the lines of "A recent poll showed that the American people think that Democrats would do a better job handling the war in Iraq and what would you do differently?"
His response.
"A poll told me that I wouldn't be re-elected in 2004."
I kind of chuckled at that.
Honestly, why is it that polls are the 'news' on the front page of the paper? A poll is simply stating one group's opinion. Why can't they report on 'facts' that are happening. I honestly thought that this was an insanely stupid question because there are no facts in a poll. You can always change the wording in your question to get the results that you want.
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*Note: The following example does not reflect my opinion
Example Question: A. Do you think that the sky is blue? B. Is global warming a real thing?
Example Answer: A. No. It's more like a bright cyan. B. Yes, global warming is a real thing.
How its reported: Poll shows that the sky is no longer blue due to global warming.
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I've never taken one of these polls, but based on past experience I can skew my results to make whatever point I want to make. I think that these kinds of articles are simply over-glorified editorials. Isn't that saved for the Op-Ed page?
As for the partisanship and mentioning that Democrats could handle the war better. What kind of question is that? Democrats are all as different as Republicans are. Sure they have the same ideas, but the major point of political parties is to win elections. From there they each have their own local agendas to push to benefit their home turf to get re-elected again. The Democrats in Congress can always pull the plug on the war in Iraq, they, in addition to the Republicans in Cogress are voting for the funding for the war. The President is only the Commander in Chief and can ask Congress for funding and yes even persuade them, but they are still approving funding.
How do I feel about this? Based on what I'm seeing in Iraq I'm glad that we aren't cutting out and run like we did historically in Vietnam and Iraq in 1991. I'm glad that I'm not the President of the US as that is a difficult job to do and make no mistake, Bush has a very difficult job to do.
He's taking the fight to the enemy's turf after the 9/11 attacks. The fight had never been taken to the enemy after the 1993 WTC bombing, the 1998 US Embassy bombings, or the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, all of which were under the responsibility of Al-Quieda. It's easy to appease everyone by doing both something and nothing. Sure a few bombs were lobbed over to the enemy, but we did not see the major deployment that we saw in Iraq starting in '03. That's a really tough call as to whether it was a good idea to take it to the enemy as its costing the taxpayers billions of dollars to do this.
But if we didn't do this, would have we seen future attacks on our own soil? It's possible and it could have costed us human life. In theory, taking the battle to the enemy's turf will make them concentrate on watching their backs rather than planning another attack elsewhere. I don't think its an accident that we haven't seen attacks on us and haven't for almost 5 years. The war in Iraq is a really tough issue for me to decide on as I'm not on the ground in the battle. I'm in no way trying to change anyone's opinion as we are free to express it.
That's the beauty of our country.
His response.
"A poll told me that I wouldn't be re-elected in 2004."
I kind of chuckled at that.
Honestly, why is it that polls are the 'news' on the front page of the paper? A poll is simply stating one group's opinion. Why can't they report on 'facts' that are happening. I honestly thought that this was an insanely stupid question because there are no facts in a poll. You can always change the wording in your question to get the results that you want.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Note: The following example does not reflect my opinion
Example Question: A. Do you think that the sky is blue? B. Is global warming a real thing?
Example Answer: A. No. It's more like a bright cyan. B. Yes, global warming is a real thing.
How its reported: Poll shows that the sky is no longer blue due to global warming.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've never taken one of these polls, but based on past experience I can skew my results to make whatever point I want to make. I think that these kinds of articles are simply over-glorified editorials. Isn't that saved for the Op-Ed page?
As for the partisanship and mentioning that Democrats could handle the war better. What kind of question is that? Democrats are all as different as Republicans are. Sure they have the same ideas, but the major point of political parties is to win elections. From there they each have their own local agendas to push to benefit their home turf to get re-elected again. The Democrats in Congress can always pull the plug on the war in Iraq, they, in addition to the Republicans in Cogress are voting for the funding for the war. The President is only the Commander in Chief and can ask Congress for funding and yes even persuade them, but they are still approving funding.
How do I feel about this? Based on what I'm seeing in Iraq I'm glad that we aren't cutting out and run like we did historically in Vietnam and Iraq in 1991. I'm glad that I'm not the President of the US as that is a difficult job to do and make no mistake, Bush has a very difficult job to do.
He's taking the fight to the enemy's turf after the 9/11 attacks. The fight had never been taken to the enemy after the 1993 WTC bombing, the 1998 US Embassy bombings, or the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, all of which were under the responsibility of Al-Quieda. It's easy to appease everyone by doing both something and nothing. Sure a few bombs were lobbed over to the enemy, but we did not see the major deployment that we saw in Iraq starting in '03. That's a really tough call as to whether it was a good idea to take it to the enemy as its costing the taxpayers billions of dollars to do this.
But if we didn't do this, would have we seen future attacks on our own soil? It's possible and it could have costed us human life. In theory, taking the battle to the enemy's turf will make them concentrate on watching their backs rather than planning another attack elsewhere. I don't think its an accident that we haven't seen attacks on us and haven't for almost 5 years. The war in Iraq is a really tough issue for me to decide on as I'm not on the ground in the battle. I'm in no way trying to change anyone's opinion as we are free to express it.
That's the beauty of our country.