Admit it. In 2000, did you really think * could be *THIS* bad???

[jgraz]

Obviously, many of us thought * would be a terrible president, but how many of us thought he would be as horrific as he's turned out to be?

[William769]

1. I admit, I fall into choice 1. NT

[jgraz]

2. Me too. I had no idea.

:scared:

[smokey nj]

7. I do too. When he was installed, I comforted myself by saying he's

nothing but a screw-up who got lucky. His presidency has no legitimacy and it'll be over in four years. Fortunately I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong.

[GreenPartyVoter]

40. Me too. It wasn't until after it went to Scotus and they started deliberating that

i got my message from "beyond" how bad he would be.

[William769]

44. Same here.

[Squatch]

51. I thought that all GWB had to do was ride the Clinton wave to 2004

but, man...how he managed to fuck that up.

[ceile]

3. I didn't.

I guess I thought that there would be someone, ANYONE there to put a stop to his idiocy, to hold him accountable. I was very naive.

[dkofos]

4. I had him as Gov. Yes, I knew how bad it was going to be!!

[hobbit709]

6. Same here

In 2000 I said we were getting double whammied here in TX. shrub and goodhair.

[SammyWinstonJack]

81. You and me both. Too bad majority of Texas voters didn't share the same sense of foreboding we had.

:shrug:

[Sweet Freedom]

137. Me too. /nt

[Patsy Stone]

5. I warned everyone I knew

and they thought I was exaggerating.

[tridim]

Yea, I even caught hell from my Dem friends.

"Oh whatever, he wont be that bad."

[Patsy Stone]

57. Yep

I mention that to one in particular each time he calls me up outraged at the latest scandal or direspect of the Constitution.

[truedelphi]

100. Shame on me - had we been friends

I'd have consoled you with the same naive and stupid sentiments

[Hubert Flottz]

13. Same here!

I told them the SCOTUS had just let Pandora out and that the 4 to 5 SCOTUS sElection of Geroge Bush was the "curse of the millennium" that the seers predicted and warned about.

EDIT...they ALL thought I was crazy...not anymore...

[Patsy Stone]

58. I told my husband on Jan. 21, 2001

That we were going back to Iraq. Sometimes it sucks to be right, no?

[DU9598]

8. I knew

I knew he would ruin our federal court system for the rest of my life ... I did not imagine that he would erode the rule of law as much as he has.

[Lerkfish]

9. I predicted it the whole time, and suffered quite a bit of "conspiracy nut" labels.

I KNEW it was a bad thing for america, I felt it in my bones.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Lerkfish/5

[tridim]

10. Everything I predicted about Bush came true

And every prediction was more of a warning to people like my parents. Of course they didn't believe me at the time. Problem is, he turned out to be orders of magnitude worse than I predicted. Like 100x worse.. I never thought he'd go for dictatorship for instance, because I thought he would get kicked out in 4 years.

[blogslut]

11. Yes

He is his father's son and his father is pure dee evil.

[Itchinjim]

12. I remember telling the wife,

that he was going to be a one termer like his old man and what real harm could he do in four years? Boy was I wrong. Now I put nothing past these guys, I really don't.

[lazyriver]

14. I certainly did. I moved from NJ to ME in 2000

just to have a quick escape route out of this country when he brought it to its knees. Actually, I thought I would need to use it before his first term was up. Gettin' close now though...

[Philosoraptor]

15. I should be on t.v. cause I've been 100% correct about everything.

[dkofos]

31. From what I've seen on TV, the last thing the alleged news programs

want is 100% correct about everything.
But it would be nice for a change!!

[npincus]

16. I thought "dangerous idiot"- which has come to fruition

but on this magnitude? I wouldn't have believed it.

[coalition_unwilling]

146. I had not factored in how total the collapse of the media as the

watchdog of democracy and the republic would be. It took the run-up to the invasion of Iraq to convince me that the corporate-whore media was beyond redemption. I canceled my subs to the LA and NY Times and will never give either publication another penny of my money, nor will I patronize any business that advertises in either, if I know they have advertised there.

[havocmom]

17. Saw it coming

for a very long time.

Alas, I am Cassandra. No one would listen.

[Lerkfish]

48. yup, right there with you. No one would listen.

got nothing but grief for saying it.

[Warpy]

18. Every time I looked at that man in 2000

I had an awful vision of him getting the Mussolini treatment.

I knew how bad things would have to get for that to happen.

I just hoped I was wrong.

[NewJeffCT]

19. I did not anticipate the level of corruption, cronyism, ineptitude and

their downright machiavellian machinations. I had thought Bush would have been another 4 year failure like his father, only less well-spoken.

[tjwash]

20. I remember what Cheney and Rove tried to do to our country in the 70's.

And it's going just the way I thought it would...

[ThomWV]

21. I predicted he would destroy the Country. He hasn't done that yet, but he is very close.

[INdemo]

22. When the Supreme court confirmed that Republicans could accomplish

election theft,there was no stooping them..Should we have been surprised that they were able to steal the 2004 election also? With this right right wing court what could their plans be for 2008? Another theft by destroying ballots?

[VP505]

23. In 2000

I thought he would be as bad as he is but I also took comfort in thinking he would not get a second term and that congress would hold him accountable, how wrong could I have been? There is always something to be learned from the negative, if we are able to keep * from declaring Martial Law and actually get an 08 election, I have the feeling that there will be some drastic changes in Washington to eliminate any possibility of another * form getting elected appointed again. I hope I am right about that.

[madinmaryland]

24. Dude! It is ALL CLINTON'S Fault!

The mighty clenis strikes again!

[jojo54]

25. I knew it was gonna be bad because of my nightmare

one month after he took office: * pushing the red button.

Although I do have to admit, I didn't really think there were many other ways that he could fuck us over than pushing that button.
Boy was I wrong!!

[MGKrebs]

26. Ms. Krebs and I said, after the election was lost, "how bad could it be?"

"As long as he doesn't go to war or wreck the economy, we'll struggle through."

Then he immediately started canceling treaties and meeting with the oil companies.

[tmlanders]

27. I did think it could be this bad

I felt like I had been punched in the gut when I heard the Supreme Court ruling. Almost upchucked. And I have been worried ever since...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. Hell, H.L. Mencken knew how bad it would be in the '30s.

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken

[unpossibles]

29. I picked #1, although the truth is somewhere between #1 and #2

I knew he and his family were evil bastards, but somehow he's even worse than I thought he would be.

Iran-Contra was the thing which awakened my political interest, even though I had some definite liberal leanings and traits before then, such as believing in equal rights as a kid growing up in Kentucky. But Iran-Contra got me interested, and the more I learned about Papa Bush and the rest of that crew, the more I grew to hate them from Reagan on down. Not blind hate, but because of their actions and their words: they deserved every bit of it.

Along comes Dumbya, and I figured at least he would be relatively harmless seeing as how much of an incompetent screwup he is, and also hoped that maybe he would be different than his dad. And he proved me right and wrong. Ugh.

Now, when some Right Wing jackass who thinks Iraq caused 9/11 and is misinformed on everything going on claims "you just hate Bush because George Soros/Kennedy/Hitlery/etc. tells you to!" I have to laugh and cry all at once. I usually try to slowly and calmly explain to them the most basic facts of why I dislike Bush and his crew, and how he has actively earned the dislike and distrust of every American, and also that he is an embarrassment to the Nation and to the World, but they just don't get it. Hell, they usually smile and seem to enjoy being ignorant rubes; they get off on being frustrating people.

[coffeenap]

30. I knew, and I apologized to my kids for the country they would

inherit. I also promised them I would not abandon the goal of changing this country into something better, and would contribute in whatever small way I could. I remember crying that week, and I remember my now deceased mother saying to me she was sorry, sorry that her generation could have been so misled. She said she never could have imagined the United States going in this direction. I promised her, when she was getting ready to die, that I would not give up on this place, a place of refuge for our predecessors, flawed though it was, a place her generation saw as the best nation in the world.

[bluedog]

32. yep,started when bush camp claimed Gore stole

the debate tapes.......rightthen I knew how this bush gang of SOB's were going to whine and cry and accuse the Democrats of every little thing..........

[Beetwasher]

33. One Does NOT Steal Elections To DO GOOD THINGS

So, I'm not surprised.

[Bluerthanblue]

34. no flame, but how about an option for

i knew it was going to be bad- i didn't expect things to take so long to climax.

I thought we would have had nuclear confrontation by now.

and the dust would have been settling.
:shrug:

[jgraz]

35. "i knew it was going to be bad- i didn't expect things to take so long to climax"

You're really my ex-wife, aren't you?

[Bluerthanblue]

47. yeah, i know

not a great choice of words-
:crazy:

sorry

[Aviation Pro]

36. In 1999...

...when Cocksucker got his first dump of money for $70,000,000 I new the republic was in trouble. Everyone I talked to said, "relax, it's Gore in a walk." I knew better and I have been in a funk ever since.

We reap what we sow and hopefully the nation has learned its lesson (if we survive long enough without a Gotterdamerung before 2009).

[lonestarnot]

37. you left off hell fucking yeah.

[DS1]

38. I knew they would all be incompetent fuckheads, but even I didn't expect them

to be so fucking evil about it.

[trof]

39. Now I feel so naive and stupid.

Given the way he got into the white house, I really thought he'd be kind of embarrassed about that and tend to be more of a centrist.

And then he appointed Ashcroft as AG as his consolation prize for losing his senate seat to a dead guy.
And I thought "Holy Shit!"
And it's been downhill ever since.

[KAT119]

41. Knew in 2001 we had a serious dark coup d'etat by people we fired

from Nixon/Reagan admins.- when 2004 election was obviously stolen I knew the Constitution and all we loved about America was over-and like most of DU went into deep depression, am still IN IT....

Psychiatrists mention the deep shock this nation experienced in 2004--and even more so currently w/ each Executive Order!!!

[KittyWampus]

42. Yes, especially when Cheney ended up on the ticke. Bush Sr. was low-grade evil

Cheney is radioactive levels of evil.

[Exiled in America]

43. I admit I had no idea it would be this bad. (nt)

[Joe Fields]

45. Never in my wildest nightmares.

[mwb970]

46. I never imagined Bush would ruin the government and the country.

If I had known in 2000 that he was going to allow a terrorist attack on America by ignoring warnings, lie us into a bloody, illegal, foolish war, poison our air and water, bankrupt our Treasury and pile massive debt onto our kids, take away our liberty and freedom, dismantle our system of checks and balances, ignore laws passed by Congress, appoint extremists to the Supreme Court, allow the outing of a covert CIA agent for political reasons, abrogate treaties, ruin our reputation in the world, allow a sociopathic vice president free rein to shred the Constitution, spy on Americans without warrants, rig elections, suppress science, merge church and state, repeal habeas corpus, approve of torture, politicize every agency of the federal government, put incompetent buddies in important positions, and allow the destruction of a major American city, inarticulately lying all the while about every subject on every occasion, well, I would have been upset.

I thought he was just an idiot. It's a damn shame we can't impeach him now that we know what he really is.

[jgraz]

54. I thought he would just ruin the GOP

At least that was what I told myself when he took power: only four years of this shithead and we'll never have another Rethug prez in my lifetime. I guess I was deluding myself...

[helderheid]

49. Choice 1

:cry:

[truebrit71]

50. Yes. I have proven to be right about this giggling war-criminal...

...the only thing I have been wrong about is the institution of the draft, and that will come on the heels of the next terra attack that 'no-one' will see coming...:eyes:

Oh, and for the record, I predict here and now that after we attack Iran there will be a less than 50/50 chance of a general election next year...

There is no reason to empower the executive branch with THIS much power unless you plan on holding onto it for a looooooooooong time...

[otohara]

52. Stealing Election = Disastrous Results

I knew nothing good would come from their ill gotten theft of election. Blow back, karma, deserved.

[LSK]

53. yes but not in this way

I thought the dumbass would hit the red button by accident and nuke the world by now.

[butterfly77]

55. I did when i first discovered limburger...

on some late night radio stations, I could hardly get the signal but when I heard him I began to realize what they were all about that was when I began to notice Newt and some of the others.

[SmokingJacket]

56. I knew it would be bad, but I didn't think it would be THIS bad.

If I'd had to guess, I'd have thought we'd have a rerun of Bush 1.

Everything with these people is MUCH worse than I ever think it will be. And I'm not exactly an optimist, either.

[emmadoggy]

89. This is me too. I'm between #1 & #2.

I knew it would be bad - really bad. I had no idea it would be the catasrophuck it has become. And I couldn't imagine him getting a second term.

I told my sister before the 2000 election that if * got it, it was all going to shit, but he has far exceeded even my dismal expectations.

:mad: :scared:

[bunkerbuster1]

59. I still believed in checks and balances and stuff.

I realize that I should've sussed out that everything had changed after the Bush v. Gore decision, but I didn't.

So no, I didn't think that Bush would be anywhere near as awful as he's been. I figured a Democratically controlled Senate would rein him in, and that we'd get a majority in the House in '02 to completely neutralize 80-90% of the stupidity.

[blues90]

60. I'll admit I didn't know anything much about Bush jr .

After all he was the governer of Texas but I knew about how he pushed Richards out and I hater poppy bush so I had that to consider .

Once the 2000 elections when straight to hell I then knew we were in trouble but never to the extent that it has become . I was shocked in 2004 when Kerry backed out and did not count all the ballots as promised .

Now here we are in hell on earth . I certainly did not expect something like 9/11 and then to use this to lie us into two wars or how these freaks were working in the shaddows all these years to get us to this point .

Now I am fully aware but there still are alot of issues and crimes that we know nothing about and never will . They continue as I type this out and tomarrow may release another stream of madness . One day can change everything and it seems to always be for the worst . Beware of the military industrial complex .

[lpbk2713]

61. The thing that really fooled me was ....

I never thought he had the slightest chance to win in '04 after proving what a *miserable failure* he was in the preceeding four years. And I never thought the rethugs could have even stolen the election with such a complete asshole as their nominee.

[wiggs]

62. Choice 1. But quickly in 2001 when his administration became filled with

energy hacks, corporate hacks, and neocons it should have been clear to knowledgeable people what was going on. I wasn't one of those who knew or guessed before 9/11.

But I really doubt that many people knew in 2000 how bad this could really get across the board in every policy area.

[bamacrat]

63. I figured him to be a retarded puppet.

While that may still be somewhat true, he has far exceeded my idea of how badly a president can suck. Of course I have little reference considering I was five when the first Bush took office and really only remember the second Clinton term, too bad I had to come to age under this fuckbag.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

64. I did.

I just didn't think he'd be so enabled.

[Raine]

65. No, I never would've believed

he was going to be this bad! x(

[Breeze54]

66. I knew he'd be a flaming a-hole!!

He's an asshole from Texas and he's a republican rethug!
Besides, his daddy was President. Pretty big warning signs, IMHO. :(

[Batgirl]

67. combo of 1 and 2

although I picked #1 because although I believed he had the makings of a despot I didn't think he'd get away with as much as he has.

My feelings of dread were largely based on the profile of Bush that appeared in Vanity Fair in 2000. It was written by Gail Sheehy who described the dirty dealings of his governorship. The article is still well worth reading for anyone who didn't see it then: http://gailsheehy.com/Politics/politicsindex_rebut.html

His allowing corporate control of government in Texas was an exact template for what he's done on that front nationally. So that hardly came as a surprise. However, I had no inkling of what his foreign policy would be, nor did I realize at that time how easy it was going to be for him to basically declare himself above the law and get away with it. I was comparatively naive then and had some vague idea that there were certain rules about the president not being able to pull shit like running the country as a dictatorship and gutting the Constitution.

Edited to add a brief, telling excerpt from the Sheehy piece:

"When Barbara Bush took her 13-year-old son and his best friend, Doug Hannah, to play golf at her Houston club, George would start cursing if he didn't tee off well. His mother would tell him to quit it. By the third or fourth hole he would be yelling "Fuck this" until he had ensured that his mother would send him to the car.

"It fit his needs," says Hannah. "He couldn't lose."

Once, after his mother banished him from the golf course, she turned to Hannah and declared, "That boy is going to have optical rectosis." What did that mean? "She said, ‘A shitty outlook on life.'"

Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn't lose. He'll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play until he can beat him. "If you were playing basketball and you were playing to 11 and he was down, you went to 15," says Hannah, now a Dallas insurance executive. "If he wasn't winning, he would quit. He would just walk off.... It's what we called Bush Effort: If I don't like the game, I take my ball and go home. Very few people can get away with that." "

[frogcycle]

68. i selected 4, but this is not a flame

I thought he was much worse than "just a rw moron" and would try shit, but I didn't think the country would roll over for it so easily

[jgraz]

77. In other words, you thought he'd be more like his daddy

Or maybe a one-term Ronnie...

Like you, I discounted the power of a rubber-stamp congress combined with a unmitigated autocrat.

[progressoid]

84. Yeah, as soon as the Senate passed the IWR, I knew we were screwed.

Up to that point I also had thought of him as a dumber version of daddy.

[Bongo Prophet]

69. Hey, the Bushes are a multigenerational Crime family. Of course I knew.

Back in the 90's W was more obviously con man and less the stupid buffoon. But the "family business" was well known via Prescott/nazi/Poppy/Iran Contra/BCCI.etc.etc.etc. Train of activities.

And sooo much more. It is much more well known now, and the internet makes it all more comprehensible i think.
Back in the day it was more word of mouth, article scouring and...damn, how ancient...microfiched news articles. And magazines at the public library.
Now the library is on my lap. How f'ing cool is that?

[HughBeaumont]

70. Choice 2. From DAY 1!

Like Jello Biafra once said: "I'd rather have a smart Nazi in charge than a dumb Nazi."

The entire lot of Bewshes are arch-conservaturd criminal PIGS who deserve to be imprisoned.

[marmar]

71. After the 2000 election, err, appointment, I assumed he'd be a one-term footnote in history.....

but after this cabal started exploiting 9/11 to expand its powers, their dictatorial ambitions became rather apparent.

[frogcycle]

78. without 9/11 that is probably what it would have been

although cheney had some pretty strong ambitions, so if 9/11 had not happened, he'd probably have come up with something

[TahitiNut]

72. Absolutely!

In September 2000 I predicted (on Usenet) that, if Smirk were elected, we'd be in a shooting war in the Middle East before the end of 2001 due to some shocking 'precipitating event' such as a bombing or assassination. Iraq and Afghanistan were both on my list of 5-6 countries where we'd probably be sending massive military force.

It was CLEAR at that time.

[depakid]

73. Oh yeah.

and due to complicity and lack of political fortitude from the "opposition" party, it's going to keep getting worse.

[Warren DeMontague]

74. I knew it was going to be bad.

But I didn't dream it was going to be THIS bad.

[bananas]

75. There's still time. nt

[Ilsa]

76. I just thought he'd be fascist, not dictatorial. But when he stacked his

Cabinet with Rumsfeld, etc, I figured a war with someone, probably Iraq, would be on his agenda. Yeah, I had only figured him to enrich the corporations and rape the environment, not piss off the whole damn world.

[Bravo Zulu]

79. I was in the Reserves in 2000

And I told the guys and girls in my unit that they would be sorry if chucklenuts became pResident, they didn’t believe me!

[Alexander]

80. Yes, I knew. Unfortunately I was only 17 and couldn't vote in 2000.

I did work my ass off for the Gore/Lieberman campaign though, and got most of my friends to be supporters of Gore and other Democrats.

Precocious little scamp.

[jpgray]

82. Domestically he's just as bad as I always knew he would be

His foreign policy would have been hard to predict prior to 2000, especially since his "no nation building," "only use of force with exit strategy," etc. statements weren't known to be false. They were suspected of being false, naturally. Maybe if a memo had gone out, something like "Bush determined to strike in Iraq," my ignorance of the -scope- of his badness would be less forgivable. :D

[Uncle Joe]

83. Bush and the neocons' behavior when they did all they could

to dis-empower the American People from having their voice heard, by denying them the right to vote and have it counted, told me, the American People were in deep shit and the last thing I said, just before going to sleep after the corporate media reversed them selves and called Florida for Bush was "God help us all".

Now it wasn't just Bush and the neocons' actions which told me, we were in trouble, it was the total abdication of anything resembling journalistic integrity by the corporate media for the better part of two years as they trashed and slandered Al Gore without remorse, while they simultaneously camouflaged Bush's obvious shortcomings, even carrying Bush's talking points for him. They followed this up by obfuscating the results in Florida and barely giving lip service to the obvious electoral abuses committed by Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris et al. This told me, we were playing with a potentially catastrophic structural dysfunction within our government when it came to accountability, no Congress, no courts, no press. I knew then it was only a matter of time until the Piper had to be paid, because incompetence and corruption naturally lead to disaster, and where there is no accountability, both flourish.

Thanks for the thread jgraz.

[mimitabby]

85. not in my worse dreams

When * sweet talked his way through that first debate; i thought, what a phony. but at least he's not a heavy conservative. How naive I was. even as i argued with GOP coworkers, I thought, well, if he gets in, at least he's concerned about the environment, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
then the "election"... and it's been downhill ever since.

nope. I never ever dreamed it could be this bad, even as they cheated and lied...

[Uncle Joe]

87. It was their cheating and lying

about how the votes had been counted and recounted and recounted again, when I knew many of them had never been counted in the first place, which told me they were probably lying about everything else as well, including Bush's pre-election pledge to cap CO2 emissions, so when he reversed him self over night after the selection, I wasn't surprised, it was his M.O.

Again though, it wasn't just Bush and the neocons which alarmed me, it was the corporate media; who insisted that determining the will of the people's intent by looking at marks on a paper ballot, something we've done for well over a century was akin to rocket science, and they kept showing that old bald headed fart staring at a ballot as if he were looking through an electron microscope. All I could think of was Goebbels or Tass or Pravda.

[smoogatz]

86. I knew he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed--

hell, anybody could see that. The man's a complete idiot, I thought--he'll never get elected! I had no idea he was a thoroughgoing fascist, not to mention an unmitigated and unrepentant fuckup who breaks everything he touches, on top of being one of the dumbest fucking people on the planet. Who knew? The evidence was there, it turns out, but our fine Washington press corpse declined to pass the information along, because, you know, Karl said not to.

[Stinky The Clown]

88. My thoughts/predictions before the 00 elections ...... War in the ME and .....

...... a failed one term presidency.

He has exceeded all my misgivings.

[CTyankee]

107. Someone said that living under Bush was like living in an abusive relationship

That sums it up as day after day we would see one disaster after another. Here comes Katrina and my jaw dropped that he was SO bad. Then on and on and on.

Yep, we are all victims of "presidential violence". This man has warped us all, where I for one can just get incoherent spewing about him, maybe others get ulcers or headaches. We have come to expect the absolute worst from our federal government, in both foreign policy and domestic policy. IT NEVER STOPS.

[JacquesMolay]

90. No one could...

... not just his intentions are bad, his incompetence is staggering.

[mak3cats]

91. A rather conservative friend recently admitted...

...that when I predicted in 2000 that Bush would go down in history as one of the worst, if not THE worst, presidents, he thought I was nuts. Now he thinks I'm a genius.

[elehhhhna]

92. Almost, but no. And I'm VERY cynical.

[Megahurtz]

93. No. Absolutely NEVER.

:( :scared:

[graywarrior]

94. Oh yeah.

I knew he'd bomb the fuck out of Iraq and screw up the planet.

[Penndems]

95. YES.

The father was a horrible President. Why would the son be any better?

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as my grandparents would say.

[cboy4]

96. I have to admit I'm in the #1 category. If anything, I've learned a

valuable lesson which is to judge a Republic book by its cover.

[GCP]

97. Imagine Greg Stillson as described by Molly Ivins

Anyone who read "Shrub" before the 2000 election knew he was going to be the mother of all fuck-ups.
The Onion was prescient

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784

[jgraz]

99. That is one scary Onion article

It's like they mailed it in from the future. Not at all funny anymore. :scared:

[piedmont]

98. Yeah, I knew. It was the gang he surrounded himself with that tipped me off.

Blivet himself is just an idiotic jackass.

[GCP]

101. SNL predicted it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF3oyGfb50w

[piedmont]

119. Wow. Cheney killed in a hunting accident. War. Mexico invading the U.S.

2 out of 3, but I wish it'd been 3 for 3.

[baldguy]

123. "Be'in Prezdent is HARD!"

[jgraz]

124. Thanks, I'd forgotten about that

It's amazing how close to the mark the satire is.

[B Calm]

102. Living through 8 years of Raygun and 4 years of Papa Bush, I knew

it was going to be bad.

[Warren Stupidity]

103. Most of my family and friends thought I was nuts.

They no longer think that way.

[mzmolly]

104. YES. As did many others.

eom

[quiet.american]

105. Watching that psycho (Bush) lurk & smirk thru the contesting of the election, I knew he was a freak.

And being aware that he had processed over 150 executions in Texas without so much as batting an eye gave me a clue as to what we were in for.

[L. Coyote]

106. In 1968 I almost wrote in an editorial that Nixon was a used car salesman

(Apologies to all used car sales people, of course.)

But, I instead wrote we had to give him a chance because he was our President, etc. etc. I felt like I was falling out of the rear end of a horse, but I said it anyway, the gobbledy gook about giving the guy a chance. But, I knew he was the horse's a** of our time, a liar and a crook.

So, I had no false illusions in 2000. I wrote then that we would someday probably have to undo everything from inauguration forward, every judicial appointment, every law signed, everything the man did in office. I still think we will have to restore democracy somehow.

And, I think it could be much worse, and may yet become much worse because this man is in his office still.

[LSdemocrat]

108. Other: I thought it would be this bad through 2004, but I also thought he'd get clobbered in 2004

I guess I didn't really realize how many completely gullible people there are in this country who are just now starting to "get it".

[La Lioness Priyanka]

109. yes, i did. what i didnt expect was a second term win

[Roxy66]

110. Same here....

I distinctly said when they finally handed over the Presidency to Bush that this is going to get bad.....my whole immediate family knew. Even my deer hunting, chicken butchering, bigoted father knew. And yes, he sounds horrible....but he's a fairly uneducated old time country boy....and I still love him all the same. I'm slowly guiding him in the right direction on the bigotry.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

111. It's gonna get much worse before it's over. nt

[Breeze54]

112. Lesson learned? Moral of the story? ~~ Never Vote Republican!!!!

Ever!!!!

[piedmont]

120. Or 3rd party in a swing state.

Yeah, I voted for Nader, but that was in Alabama. In Florida it should have been a no-brainer to vote Gore.

[Hissyspit]

113. I didn't think he would be able to GET AWAY with all this bad. n/t

[Kat45]

114. In 2000, I did not. In 2004, I did think that, and even worse.

In 2000, his easy-going facade and less than stellar brain-power lulled me into thinking his presidency would be pretty innocuous. But by the time of the 2004 election, I was terrified that if he got re-elected, this country would be destroyed; it would never be the same again--if the world didn't blow up first. People to whom I made that comment thought I was nuts. This is one rare case where I hate the fact that I seem to be proven right. Our country may still exist, but with the trampling of the Constitution and such it is not the same, and the country could easily be further destroyed before his term is up. And with all the bad stuff going on around the world, much of it directly or indirectly related to bush's words and actions, I have even more fear of the world blowing up.

[fighttheevilempire]

115. I did, but I was told then that makes me a "conspiracy nut"...

... and that may be, but if I'm right it's not very nutty - is it now?

[LaurenG]

116. I am not a hater but I have hated him since the 2000 primaries and the kicker was...

When I watched him make John McCain cry, (and no I wasn't that fond of McCain either). I thought he was a heartless son of a bitch and "knew" he was horrid.

It was bush who forced me into paying attention to politics. :mad:

[PBass]

117. I was crushed when Gore lost, but I was willing to give Bush a chance.

He has been an unmitigated disaster, far worse than I could have anticipated.

However, I was never dumb enough to think that "Bush and Gore are virtually the same!" (the Nader position).

[nadinbrzezinski]

118. No, but by 2003 I knew the other shoe was going to drop

and it has, and now we are waiting for the third shoe to drop

[devilgrrl]

121. I knew he'd be a unmitigated disaster - give him credit for living up to expectations.

eom

[debbierlus]

122. I was kind of in-between choice 1 & 2 - I had a horrible gut feeling

When he was appointed by the Supreme court....

Man, oh, man. My gut was correct. And, I did think he would be BAD - really bad, actually. But, this is worst nightmare kind of stuff.

[defendandprotect]

125. Interesting poll: for me it would be JFK, MLK, MalcolmX, RFK . . . Reagan/Bush 41 . . .

These criminals have been able to create "Shock and Awe" in America and it seemed very obvious we were under a threat of fascism, I have to say the protections that should be there crumbled very quickly.

So little response to the GOP fascist rally at Miami-Dade Election HQs to STOP the counting of votes -- I still can't believe that Americans permitted that to happen. And, then . . . onto the Supreme Court -- and still nothing happened!!!!

Interesting poll: for me it would be JFK, MLK, MalcolmX, RFK . . . Bush 41 . . .
The political violence of those years -- and there have been earlier events -- signalled that there would be a fascist challenge to our government.

The McCarthy Era, in fact, was obvious as an attack on the "ideals of democracy" where the neo-cons were trying to recover from FDR's New Deal and democratic blowback from the WWII years. It was a widespread effort to knock progressives/liberals out ofgovernment/schools/universities/business/arts.

The attack on the United Nations -- Dag Hammarschjold, Adlai Stevenson.

The failure to pursue Nazi war criminals -- and to the contrary, taking Nazis into America under "Operation Paperclip." Werner von Braun headed NASA. And there are quite some stories there; evidently much of that alerted JFK -- nuclear fuel which he opposed, for one. Later, they exploded nuclear weapons in outer space trying to overcome the Van Allen Belts!!!

Reagan . . . I guess I slept thru . . .
but the reality of the "October Surprise" and "Iran-Contra" can't be denied as anti-democratic if not unconstitutional.

and where I really became alarmed . .
Bush 41 -- the reversing of the "VN Syndrome" by following Reagan's attack on Grenada with Panama -- !!! -- and then Gulf War I.
And the S&L theft and embezzlements . . .


And, what were Democrats doing all along to alert the public to this growing threat???
Many wonderful Democrats were targeted and thrown out of office --
many by the NRA, many by the CIA which would move on those who didn't quite support intelligence as they wanted it to be supported -- Church, for instance, with his investigations.
And the military had its favorites to support -- until we get to Cunningham!!

[EFerrari]

126. I did. And most of my friends thought I was nuts.

A real Cassandra experience and I wish I'd been wrong. :(

[RestoreGore]

127. Choice 2

Predicted this "war" in 2000 before the coup ever took place. It was obvious to me that he was going to carry on the Nazi legacy begun by his Skull and Bones father.

[muffin1]

128. Not in 2000

But in 2004? I was screaming from the rooftops,"NO! DON'T VOTE FOR THAT FUCKER AGAIN!!!! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"
And now, in 2006, it's worse than I imagined it would be in 2004.:mad:

[radfringe]

129. he has EXCEEDED my expectations

I expected him to be bad, just not this bad

[skids]

130. Not till about six months in. n/t

[Nikia]

131. I didn't think that he would be much worse than his father

Although his ignorance about foreign policy did bother me a bit.

[Z_I_Peevey]

132. Yes, I knew it all along, but even so,

I was shocked at every new manifestation of their treachery.

[TheFarseer]

133. it's much worse than I ever imagined

I just thought he'd screw up our budget by giving tax breaks to millionaires (check), get into some random religious nuttery (check) encourage jobs to move overseas (check).

I never thought this energy/oil thing would be such an issue and I sure as hell didn't plan on this war. I thought he would merely be a bad president like his old man.

[rucky]

134. Bush: You couldn't make this shit up.

that should be his motto

[tomg]

135. Yes and No.

I went around telling everyone I knew that he would be the worst president on record, that he stole the election, that fascism was on the march, that we would have all of our civil liberties taken away, that we would be in a war for oil ( or something), but I didn't Really believe it. I was just being my normal, obnoxious, over the top self. Now I feel sort of like Cassandra, if Cassandra had suddenly said to the Trojans, "Remember all that shit about the Greeks kicking our ass, and the whole culture going into the toilet. I was just fucking with ya. I mean the siege will last 4 years at most, and then the Greeks will go away. Hey there they go now. And they left a big wooden horse."

[baby_mouse]

136. 5. He's going to get even worse.

He wants a fight, see. A fight he gets to win. He's King Loser, it's just written all over him. He's going to keep picking fights and painting himself as misunderstood right until the bitter end. Just like any other alcoholic.

[Ronnie]

138. I knew there would be a war.

...

[deutsey]

139. Look. It was pretty obvious. If they were willing to do what they did to grab power,

it seemed to me that there had to be some dark, hidden purpose behind it. And then for them to have such control over the national news media and to be sitting on top of such an enormous campaign coffer, not to mention their own personal fortunes...I figured they were bribing and intimidating the press.

I also believed they would not relinquish the power they had stolen, either.

I've been right in all of my suspicions, unfortunately. I remember I got into a fight with a really good friend of mine shortly after the 2000 election. She told me I needed to let go of the 2000 theft (just ignore all those who had been disenfranchised) and just deal with it. She said I was too paranoid about what I feared Bush was up to and that Bush was a one-termer like his dad.

Now after all that's happened and as her two sons approach the age where they can be sent to the meat grinder in Iraq if a draft is reimposed, she's in my camp.

Small consolation for me, though.

[sakabatou]

140. Let's see...

I was 13 and hated politics. So no.

[AzDar]

141. I've been screaming like Chicken Little about this assclown since 2000.

However awful I knew his administration would be, I assured myself that he undoubtedly would ONLY BE A ONE-TERMER.
Once the election was stolen (again) in 2004, I knew we were in for big trouble because the fool could now run amok, since he no longer had to worry about re-election.
But I also foolishly believed that ours was still a government of checks and balances, and never IMAGINED that he could get away with the shit he's currently getting away with....

[eppur_se_muova]

142. Dude...I just thought he was an ignorant asswipe who would embarass himself and us.

Of course, he has, but he's done infinitely more damage than could ever be blamed on sheer incompetence.

And here I was expecting he'd drown looking up to see where the rain came from.

[camero]

143. Didn't savor the thought of a convicted felon becoming president.

And it's as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

[coalition_unwilling]

144. Had I the gift of foresight, I would have dropped everything in Nov 2000

and headed to Florida to confront the Repuke brownshirts down there intimidating the vote recount. I attribute some of activism post-9/11 to my attempt to assuage my guilt at having been so passive in 2000.

[sutz12]

145. I voted for No. 1, but I do claim that I was a bit suspicious.

:)

[Bennyboy]

147. I did!

I protested in SF the day of his coronation. The first political protest I took oart in since the seventies.

It has gone almost exactly as the way I said it would. To the letter.

[musette_sf]

148. i'd already seen what they'd done to Annie

and what pleasure Chucklenuts took in all those Death Row executions. also was starting to get a clue by then that GHWB was not as benign as he was supposed to be by many. no surprises here.

[abq e streeter]

149. Sadly, me too.

He and his handlers successfully shielded (at least to me) what a dangerous extremist he is.