Jesus: "You will know them by their fruits . . ."

[flamin lib]

One of my 30percenter friends took issue with my rant about Bush’s boorish behavior before the G8 saying that I seriously couldn’t compare Bush’s poor table manners to Clinton’s indiscretion. So I asked myself, What would Jesus say about the two of them?

I found this: “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? ... A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” - Matthew 7:16,18 With that in mind I decided to compare the fruits of the two Presidents’ leadership.

Clinton: $200 billion surplus. Bush: $300 billion deficit.

Clinton, median family income went up 13%. Bush, median family income down 5% --so far.

Clinton: oil at $20/barrel & gas at $1.85. Bush: oil at $72/barrel & gas at $3.00.

Clinton: 22 million actual new jobs. Bush: 5 million supposed new jobs (Bush uses different criteria from every administration since 1947). Too bad there are 10 million new job seekers.

Clinton: number of uninsured Americans went down 1.1%. Bush: number of uninsured Americans went up 1.5% -- so far.

Clinton: % of people living in poverty went down 4%. Bush: % of people living in poverty went up 1.5% -- so far.

Clinton: uses force to stop ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe with no combat casualties. Bush: loses 2600 US troops in a dirt-water third world country -- so far.

Clinton: national foreclosures decline from previous administration. Bush: foreclosures double from previous administration -- so far.

Clinton: abortion rate declines for 8 straight years. Bush: abortion rate flat for first term and increasing each year of second.

Clinton: lied about consensual sex, his wife got mad. Bush: lied about WMD, tens of thousands die.

Clinton: lied about consensual sex, every country in the world loves the US. Bush: lied about WMD, torture, violates international law and the Geneva Conventions (per the Supreme Court ruling re GITMO) and the world hates the US.

Clinton: caught and punished every terrorist acting against the US during his terms in office. Bush: Osoma bin Who? and, according to Rumsfeld, creates more terrorists than we can kill.

Clinton: signed treaties extending the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, negotiates with N. Korea to halt their nuclear program. Bush: abrogated every non-proliferation treaty resulting in Russia MIRVing their ICBM fleet directing thousands more nuclear bombs at US targets, gives nuclear technology to India increasing tensions with Pakistan and allows N. Korea and Iran to develop nuclear technology.

Bush is an embarrassment, a war criminal and a fool who has put our country in greater peril from foreign attack, wrecked the strongest economy in the world and is the greatest threat to the survival of mankind in history. I think Jesus would know a bad tree when he saw it.

[tabasco]

1. Wel, you might be wasting your breath.

Anybody that still supports Bush at this point is a true ignoramus.

[Lerkfish]

2. I hate to nitpick a good rant I agree with, but....

1. there are a lot of things in your rant for which clinton/bush can neither be completely/directly blamed nor lauded, for example: oil prices, housing markets, abortion rates, etc.
2. Althoug Clinton did a stellar job of apprehending and prosecuting terrorists through a legal and sane process, he did NOT catch and punish all of them while in office. The US Cole, for example, involved a larger conspiracy and not all those agents were apprehended. Likewise, Bin Ladin was beginning to move and shake while Clinton was in office, and even though Clinton pursued him and bombed training areas, Bin Ladin still managed to escape.

other than those nitpicks, I'm right there with ya. Kicked and recommended.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[flamin lib]

9. Sorry to take so long to reply--fell asleep after a strange and

sleepless night.

Oil Prices? Yes, Bush is responsible for most of the oil price increase. There is some validity to supply/demand being part of it but not most. China, as large as she is, doesn't consume enough to double the crude price. Unrest in the Middle East is and we now have an abundance of unrest there. Maybe Clinton didn't keep prices down but he didn't jack them up.

The Cole happened two months before the White House hand off. Clinton considered taking military action but decided against it because he didn't want to hand his successor a war. Bin Laden was a known quantity but there would be no stomach for going after Afghanistan from the American people or the world at large without the outrage for 9/11. That's the only part of LIHOP that makes sense.

Now you and Tabasco play nice, okay? That goes for you too Tabasco!
;-)

[Lerkfish]

12. that's why I used the words "completely" and "directly"

oil prices, housing markets, abortion, are all indicators that depend on multiple variables. I agree Bush is jacking up oil prices BY SUPPORTING OIL COMPANY policies that encourage that. However, I do not recall Clinton doing anything directly to lower them. I think under Clinton, oil prices were due more to realistic market fluctations. What is going on now is gouging and raping of the consumer and oil-rich countries and massive record profits.

So, I agree with you that Clinton didn't jack up prices, and I agree he didn't keep them down. I think they reflected market. But in your rant, you implied a direct relationship for BOTH Clinton and Bush, and I didn't think that was accurate (and we apparently agree on that)

I agree the Cole happened two months before the handoff, HOWEVER, you implied ALL terrorists had been caught and dealt with by Clinton and that's where I nitpicked, because technically that's not accurate. If you'll note, I did say Clinton had done a stellar job on terrorism otherwise, I just think its important to be as correct as possible about it.

I was pointing out on very complex issues, its not right to assign blame/praise "completely/directly" across the board for BOTH Clinton and Bush.
So, I AGREE with your assigning blame to Bush for the present oil situation, but I DISAGREE with praising Clinton for the low prices. I think they were low do to normal variables. THAT'S WHY I nitpicked your symmetrical statements, directly blaming/praising bush/clinton.

ok, is that clear, now?

okeydoke.

[Festivito]

17. Clinton kept the dollar up. (Oil price merely followed.)

Under Bush the dollar drops value, over 35% versus the Euro and gold. Oil price thusly rises.

So, I say you are correct adding Clinton's oil prices against Bush's.

You might even add the value of the dollar to your list.

Nice list.

[Ian David]

3. Bush's plan is to bankrupt America.

A rich nation cannot get into Heaven any easier than a camel through the eye of a needle.

We need to be bankrupt for The Apocalypse.

[bluerum]

4. do you have a link to that source?

[flamin lib]

11. What source? These stats came from all over. Google is your

friend. If you want verification of one specific item I'll do my best to find it again.

[bluerum]

13. No thats ok. I thought you copied all that from one source.

Thanks for your efforts.

[Touchdown]

5. So that's why they hate gay people.

They mis-interpreted the text.

"You will know them... the fruits."

:evilgrin:

[cgrindley]

6. But your friend asked you a very specific question

Was Bush's conversation with Blair and his asinine groping of Angie more embarrassing than Clinton's spunkfest? Nope. Not at all. Clinton left "DNA" on his intern's dress. As the video quite clearly shows, Chimpy never whipped it out.

And yeah, Bush is an utterly horrible president, perhaps one of the bottom three in US history, but as other posters have pointed out, some of the negative aspects of both President's terms and some of the positives were utterly out of their control. Take the collapse of the tech boom. Just because it happened on Bush's watch doesn't mean anything. Those things were tulips from the start. Likewise Rwanda. Clinton is an idiot for blaming himself over that. There was nothing he could have done to stop that from happening.

I don't think that people sometimes realize the limitations and practicalities over just what the president can control and what they cannot.

[flamin lib]

10. There is some validity to your comments on the Tech Bust, but

during the Gore campaign Al repeatedly said that the projections for endless surpluses were optimistic. He voiced a plan to use the surplus three ways: 1/3 to tax cuts, 1/3 to support spending and 1/3 toward the debt. Had this been the case and the tech boom busted our deficit would be vastly smaller without draconian spending cuts.

There are many things that Presidents cannot control. They can, however, take advantage of the positive and minimize the negative. Bush has reversed that.

[HootieMcBoob]

7. Not just Bush - right-wing republican agenda has created this

Bush is only doing the bidding of others. The entire republican controlled congress and every right-wing republican think tank has been salivating over doing all of this for decades. With Bush they finally got their chance and they have done nearly everything they have always dreamed about. We may get rid of Bush but unless we completely destroy the very idea of this idiotic right-wing republican ideology we'll be stuck with it for much longer. Bush is bad, yes - but he's just a symptom of a much greater problem.

[blue cat]

14. Thanks for doing that

We must all be ready to smack them down.

[RevCheesehead]

15. Brilliant!

Use Scripture to get their attention, then confound them with the facts. :applause:

[Bad Penny]

16. Bush has the features of a reptile

I'd say just the look of the man is some kind of bad fruit