Can a "miserable failure" of a president win re-election?

[JasonDeter]

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/polipro/pp2003-09-24.htm

With one phrase Dick Gephardt has defined the issue to be decided next November. Can a "miserable failure" of a president win re-election? Bush's victory would testify to a civic failure more dangerous to the American future than any policies implemented or continued during a second Bush term. A majority would have demonstrated that democratic accountability is finished. That you can fail in everything and still be re-elected president.

You can preside over the most catastrophic failure of intelligence and national defense in history. Can fire no one associated with this fatal chain of blunders and bureaucratic buck-passing. Can oppose an inquest into September 11 for more than a year until pressure from the relatives of those killed on that day becomes politically toxic. Can name Henry Kissinger, that mortician of truth, to head the independent commission you finally accede to. You can start an unnecessary war that kills hundreds of Americans and as many as 7,000 Iraqi civilians—adjusted for the difference in population, the equivalent of 80,000 Americans. Can occupy Iraq without a plan to restore traffic lights, much less order. Can make American soldiers targets in a war of attrition conducted by snipers, assassins, and planters of remote-control bombs—and taunt the murderers of our young men to "bring it on." Can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on nation building—and pass the bill to America's children. (Asked to consider rescinding your tax cut for the top one percent of taxpayers for one year in order to fund the $87 billion you requested from Congress to pay for the occupation of Iraq, your Vice President said no; that would slow growth.) You can lose more jobs than any other President since Hoover. You can cut cops and after-school programs and Pell Grants and housing allowances for the poor to give tax cuts to millionaires. You can wreck the nation's finances, running up the largest deficit in history. You can permit 17,000 power plants to increase their health-endangering pollution of the air. You can lower the prestige of the United States in every country of the world by your unilateral conduct of foreign policy and puerile "you're either with us or against us" rhetoric. Above all, you can lie the country into war and your lies can be exposed—and, if a majority prefers ignorance to civic responsibility, you can still be reelected.

[Cocoa]

1. TruthIsAll got published!

I wouldn't be surprised if that writer wasn't inspired by a TIA rant here at DU, just fleshed it out a little. :-)

[Skittles]

2. well, that miserable failure became governor of Texas first

and was re-elected to boot. And he never did one damn thing to help Texans.

[TiredTexan]

4. Boy, I can attest to that..................

And yet many of my friends and neighbors think he was great.

Maybe it's something in the water. All those chemicals make people dumb.

[JasonDeter]

6. I am a LBJ Democrat and proud of it. But

since bush I have wondered, can anything good come out of Texas?

[Crunchy Frog]

9. Molly Ivins

Jim Hightower, Bill Moyers. Yes, some good things have come out of Texas.

[JasonDeter]

12. I stand corrected! Molly Ivans and Jim Hightower are great

Bill Moyers? eh.

[moof]

3. He can't be re-elected because HE WASN'T ELECTED

THE FIRST FREAKIN TIME.

As for the new term that will be coined after his minions steal the process with their BBV is another question.

What a paradox for the history books, ran for president twice , served two terms but was never elected.

[AntiCoup2K4]

5. "re-un-elected"? "re-fraud-ulated"? "re-selected"??

Nah, this time I'm thinking "re-jected". I'm not even sure he could get a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court this time :)

[TiredTexan]

7. I fully expect that the GOP will introduce legislation

allowing a president to serve more than two terms if Bush gets a second term. I find it very odd that there is no designated successor to Bush, as in a viable vice president, and so this hightens my suspicions. The GOP will change the rules to keep him in office for more than two terms in 2005.

[DieboldMustDie]

8. Doing away with term limits would require a constitutional ammendment...

and that would require ratification by 38 states.   Or 5 members of the Supreme Court could simply rule that the 22^nd amendment doesn't really mean what it says. :evilgrin:

[Crunchy Frog]

10. I'm getting to the point

where I'm starting to think that if Bush gets a second term, this country probably deserves him.

[JasonDeter]

13. California recently got what it deserves.

A liar. A gropenator. A deciever of the people (though they were easily decieved).

Will the country go the way of California? I hope not.

[Webster Green]

15. You paint with a pretty broad brush.......

I live in California, but I didn't vote for that MF!

[Gloria]

11. CNN tonight said he will be re-elected if his poll numbers in April

are still 63% which Gallup says they are now.

These are the highest polls nos. since Lyndon Johnson, they said.

Every President above 50% at this point has won....except Jimmy Carter...

[jsw_81]

14. Yes

Look at Nixon and Reagan. Both were horrible presidents yet won re-election with phony "America is back!" campaigns.

[Dianne Maire]

16. "miserable failure" can get re-elected

Yes, he can get re-elected. You only have to look at the polls. Outside of those that will vote party there are those that don't participate in groups like this, don't know the truth, only listen to the blurbs in the background. Most are braindead or just don't care.
I listened to an American woman in the UK talking down to a anti-war Brit. She all but screamed at her, "wasn't it worth it for Saddam to be gone?" The British lady said that wasn't the point. She should have told her she was asking that question to the wrong person. Of course, the dead can no longer speak.
The fact that the people are not screaming for Bush's impeachment shows how far gone they are. They have been taken in. They are following the pied piper.
One gets tired of re-hashing Bush's lies but rather than tearing our own candidates up we need to do as Bush does. He's the master of brainwashing and it's working.
Keep speaking, writing and protesting George Bush. We need to reach the unconverted. My vote is going to Clark but any vote against Bush will please me. Let's get the man out of office!

[newyawker99]

17. Hi Dianne Maire!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: