Kerry beating Bush in polls — Page 2

actually, most of his decline lately is due to conservative malaise (thank you jc) and the fact that he hitched his wagon rightly or wrongly to iraq and as goes iraq so goes bush. the economy is turning around and by election time may well be going great guns which would decimate that issue. there's a rumor running around washington that up to 2/3 bush's cabinet and top appointees would be replaced in a second term. i think he hasn't done it out of loyalty, yet. but rumors like that this early in the campaign can totally backfire as people who are soon to be jobless have little discretion and less loyalty.

but, i guess that's just a difference between us, bway. i think that especially in today's uncertain times that the head of the us must appear to be resolute in his decisions, even when they're abominable. while, in the short term, some of them might piss people off, they respect it more in the long term because they know where you stand. do you respect more someone who stands up for what they believe in, even if you don't agree with them or someone who says whatever they think will please the people around them?

---

Updated On: 5/28/04 at 02:33 PM

malaise
jc=jimmy carter

well, in defense of gw1, saddam did invade kuwait which kinda sorta necessitated a response or he'd have rolled into saudi arabia next and then controlled the majority of the oil coming out of the persian gulf. which most of the world (you do remember that coalition) felt was not a good idea.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

that>http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm>http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

that should help you break down what's what in terms of added jobs. i know it's not completely specific, but it's better than nothing.

---

if ya do a search, bway, you can find my explanation for this invasion. suffice it to say, i think it was necessary both to the war on terror and for the world in general. afganistan was and is a rural country decades away from modernization even without the taliban they're a long, long ways away. plus, the reason the world didn't scream about afganistan is that they were sure that like the russians we'd get our asses handed to us by toothless guys on donkeys.

iraq on the other hand has a highly developed infrastructure (even though a lot of it's been blown up) and the offers possibility to support a secular representative regime. such a regime, which i still think is possible, would spur the masses of iran to stand up to the mullahs. the arab world has to have someplace to show them that it's possible to not live under the draconian hands of clerics or madmen adhering to centuries old texts, military dictatorships or failed monarchies.

this war was 12 years too late in my opinion and should have been fought while we had 250,000 men on the ground in '91. but either way, we're there now and no sensible people are saying that we can leave anytime soon.

---

my apologies, i left out the word "religious"

---