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Al Gore has his say
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jay the Obscure: [QB] I wish some people would do a modicum of reading about Constitutional law and process before feeling the need to write about it. At any rate, moving on. [QUOTE]Originally posted by TSN: [qb] I don't really find Kerry appealing, either. But I find Bush so utterly repulsive in every way, that I don't have to.[/qb][/QUOTE]Regarding that: [QUOTE][b]Why Is George W. Bush President?[/b] I've been thinking a bit about this whole "John Kerry is a Douchebag" phenomenon. A lot of this is driven, I think, by the perfectly correct assessment that Kerry isn't really the best man for the job of president of the United States. During his primary campaign, he didn't even really claim that he was the best man for the job. Instead, he said he was the best man for the job of running against Bush. So folks aren't going to agree as to who was the best man on the merits (I liked Clark) but an awful lot of us can be legitimately disappointed that the best man won't get it. But then you need to step back and put it in context. Kerry is at least in the neighborhood of being the best man for the job in my perspective. One of a handful of Democrats who could plausibly become president of the United States. Maybe number 2 or maybe number 6 on my list, but up there. Compare George W. Bush to the list of potential GOP nominees, however, and you'll see that he's nowhere close. Leave aside the Senate moderate whom I'd prefer for ideological reasons. Consider folks like Sens. McCain, Hagel, Lugar, and even the very orthodox John Warner, all of whom have the great virtue of knowing what they're talking about. Tommy Thompson (currently HHS secretary), Tom Ridge (currently DHS secretary), and George Voinovich (currently a Senator) were all governors of big states during the 1990s, much like GWB. But the states weren't Texas -- they got re-elected by much less ideologically friendly electorates, faced real responsibilities, and accomplished some real things. Even Jeb Bush is (and was at the time and always has been) regarded as the smarter, sharper, more substantive Bush brother whose political accomplishments (again, Florida vs. Texas) were much more impressive than GWB's. One could go on-and-on like this and push it even further back in time. There was no reason whatsoever back in 1994 to think that George W. Bush was the best choice the Republicans had to run for governor of Texas -- he was totally unqualified. His entire political career has been utterly devoid of real accomplishments, he's just a kind of inept loafer relying on his father's name and connections, and the assistance of more competent people willing to humble themselves by working for him. See also [URL=http://slate.msn.com/id/2100064/]Weisberg[/URL] on a related subject. It's totally appalling. [URL=http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/week_2004_05_02.html#003272]Matthew Yglesias[/URL] [/QUOTE]Then again, maybe we should choose our president by deciding which candidate we would prefer to eat [URL=http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040526/ap_on_fe_st/barbecue_poll_1]barbecue[/URL] with. Seems to be the level of political discourse in the United States. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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