Though, while we're on the subject, I think that nominating Hillary for State is just asinine. The last week of leaks, rumors, petulance and navel-gazing has reminded me exactly why I opposed Hill for the presidency in the first place. You know she is perfectly qualified to do the job, but she brings with her so much baggage & nonsense that it's just not worth the effort.

I have no issue with the other Clintonistas & establishment Dems Obama is bringing in — Malcolm Gladwell made very good arguments to Rachel Maddow last night about why their experience is vital in these times — but I think Obama would be far better served by NOT linking himself directly with the Clintons.

Though, while we're on the subject, I think that nominating Hillary for State is just asinine. The last week of leaks, rumors, petulance and navel-gazing has reminded me exactly why I opposed Hill for the presidency in the first place. You know she is perfectly qualified to do the job, but she brings with her so much baggage & nonsense that it's just not worth the effort.

I have no issue with the other Clintonistas & establishment Dems Obama is bringing in — Malcolm Gladwell made very good arguments to Rachel Maddow last night about why their experience is vital in these times — but I think Obama would be far better served by NOT linking himself directly with the Clintons.

But at least having an elected president in Karzai and girls legally allowed to go to school (even if the men in the Pashtun culture still sometimes throw acid at them) is a vast improvement. Simple fact. Again, Bush sucks, but give him a little credit and ease up on the blind hatred.

As for Powell and Rice, I'm simply saying that no other president found that diversity was important enough to appoint an African American as the face of America to the rest of the world. Plain and simple. Our “first black President” had one African American in the White House, and that was the nice secretary (what was her name) who would open the door for Monica so Bubba could get his thingy taken care of – all the while he was conveniently forgetting to increase aid to Africa to give hope to blacks that they one day may indeed have the chance to hold a cabinet position in an American administration.

And as for me making liberal arguments, yeah, I'm as independent as they come. I'm more liberal than you on the environment (again – please don't accept the ride on the private jet from the Hollywood hypocrites), and conservative on other things. I call that “thinking about each issue without bias to either brainwashed party”.

As for the compliment to you, keep the great articles coming. I'm looking forward to your attempts to honestly critique Obama's decisions. I'll be watching.

As for Afghanistan, (again) as we've discussed before, I agree with Jeff–removing an extremist, terror-supporting government doesn't count as an achievement if you screw up the aftermath and let them get away to torment their people again. Sure, it's going to be difficult as hell to disable the Taliban “movement” now, because Obama basically will have to start from scratch! If Bush hadn't become entranced by that shiny new invasion over in Iraq, and had kept this focus on the Afghanistan offensive in 2002-03 … ah, who am I kidding, he would have screwed it up anyway.

I don't get the Powell/Rice reference, either. The appointments were “achievements” just because they were black? If Bush appointed Powell only to severely damage his reputation by forcing him to lie to the U.N. and ditch the Powell Doctrine in order to support the Iraq farce, what kind of achievement is that? And Condi Rice has been HORRIBLE. Bush could have appointed Rob and Fab from Milli Vanilli and gotten the same results, if the color of their skin was the standard for “achievement.”

And the net result of Bush's tax cuts, along with the rest of his economic policies, is the glorious nightmare we find ourselves in today. Woo-hoo! Tax cuts are only an “achievement” when they make sense, which even the 2001 tax cuts for the middle class were not (even as slim as they were, compared to the massive giveaway to rich people).

For years, conservatives used to say to us “Bush Derangement Syndrome” types, “He can't be both stupid AND evil. So which is it?” After watching this administration for eight loooooong years–and as we've been reminded as he races for the gutter with deregulation during his last two months–I have to disagree with that premise. You certainly CAN be both evil and stupid.

I'll take the admonishment about overstating (though I'm not sure I'll do anything about it, at least not til Bush is back on the ranch), and I'll certainly take the compliment on the passion. Thanks for that!

Bush is a horrible president, but even he did some things right.

And who said it was going to be EASY? I merely pointed out that you're giving Bush credit for something he hasn't done.

And if you think it's so easy to remove the Taliban movement from Afghanistan (different than the Taliban controlled government), let's see how Obama is going do that.

Plus, we DIDN'T remove the Taliban from Afghanistan. It would great if we had — and I think Bush could lean on that for his legacy, in spite of all the other mistakes. But alas, it hasn't happened.

Look, take away the 'evil rich people' who make more than $250k a year (or however you define evil-rich) you and I know (but most in America do not know because they've been lied to), Bush gave tax cuts to every single person in America. Yes, even the poorest of the poor were given tax cuts. If you think that's a bad thing then fine – I don't. And Obama apparently feels the Bush tax cuts didn't go far enough as he wants to give them further tax cuts.

Secondly, appointing two African -Americans as Secretary of State – one even a female – for the first time in history, is hardly a screw up. Say what you will about what Powell and Rice did, but Bush did appoint them, and if you don't give him credit for that you're just being more partisan than Obama's new chief of staff, who will surely bring us all together. And of course the NAACP would never give Bush credit for that, because their agenda is not to progress the cause of African Americans, it's to demonize Republicans and foment racial divide.

Thirdly, Bush increased US aid to Africa by something like 56%. So remember, this is 56% more aid to Africa than what was given by our “first black President”. Ha Ha, it's funny to type that. Did he exaggerate the #'s on the increase in aid? – yes. But he increased it hugely. Give the man some credit. And see the link below from a Progressive website that proceeds to lambaste the man for “only increasing aid to Africa 56%”. But our first black President walked on roses according to the same site, while not giving enough to Africa.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2005/0627afri...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0628-06...

Jon, I love ya, you have passion, you're a great writer, and your posts are always interesting and provocative. But you sometimes go overboard. You know deep down inside that President Bush isn't an evil person. He didn't purposely try to bring America down, and he didn't screw up “everything he touched”. He's simply a President who made some very bad decisions, said some very stupid things, and – to give him some benefit of the doubt – had to deal with the worst disaster in modern American history 8 months into his term. Even you agree that taking the Taliban out of Afghanistan (despite what the great thinker Richard Gere would have done) was a good thing.

Try to be just a wee-bit fair and give the man a little credit. After all, he only deserves a little credit, but don't take that away from him too.