A Fitting Memorial?

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History will probably give W a 3 out of 3 on this.

at worse a 2 out of 3.

1. Iraq - regime change - check!

2. North Korea - Nuke disarmament - and full inspections to verify - check!

3. Iran - Economic isolation, nuke proliferation halted, supported and set up opposition groups that will lead to a less threatening Government. - maybe ?

And you are probably right. This is how history books will tell of George W. Bush's presidency.

I just feel that we didn't have just cause to invade Iraq. The situation with North Korea was handled with dialogue. Sanctions and etc. We didn't go to war with them. I am hoping for the same outcome with Iran. That diplomacy will be beneficial for all.
 
abcnews.com

Is Impeachment Too Little, Too Late?
Less Than Six Months Before Bush Leaves Office, Partisan Debate Erupts
By TOM GIUSTO

WASHINGTON, July 25, 2008—

Less than six months before President Bush leaves office, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on whether he should be impeached.

As could be predicted, the hearing was highly partisan. Democrats said they wanted accountability. Republicans called the hearing a show trial. People on both sides showed anger and emotion.

The hearing was about executive power and its constitutional limitations. The Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee is concerned the Bush administration exceeded its authority in several areas including the following: improper politicization of the Justice Dept; misuse of presidential signing statements; misuse of surveillance, detention, interrogation and rendition programs; manipulation of intelligence and misuse of war powers; improper retaliation and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame CIA agent outing case; and misuse of executive privilege.

There were 13 witnesses, including current and former members of Congress, most of whom accused the Bush administration of abuse of power. Democrats and Republicans on the Committee spent an hour on opening statements presenting their opinions either justifying Bush's actions or accusing him of being the worst president in U.S. history.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the committee, defended holding such a hearing while the president was on his way out of office.

"And we're not done yet," Conyers said. "We do not intend to go away until we achieve the accountability that the Congress is entitled to and the American people deserve."

Ranking Republican member Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, disagreed.

"This week it seems that we are hosting an anger management class," he said. "Nothing is going to come out of this hearing with regard to impeachment of the president."

But Democrat member Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida was angry at the president.

"Never before in the history of this nation has an administration so successfully diminished the constitutional powers of the legislative branch," Wexler said. "It is unacceptable, and it must not stand."

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., didn't mince words in her feelings about Bush.

"It is my judgment that President Bush is the worst president our country has ever suffered," she said. "Making judgments that have jeopardized our national security, impaired our economy, and diminished the freedom and civil liberties of the American people."

Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., ridiculed the hearing.

"One wonders what we are becoming here. When I was a kid growing up, we used to watch Friday night fights. Now it looks like we have the Friday morning show trials," he said.

His colleague, Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., agreed.

"It conducts a do-over hearing that amuses our terrorist friends greatly, and that would make Alice in Wonderland roll her eyes," he declared.

One of the witnesses, Bruce Fein, a former Justice Department official, testified that he believes the president committed impeachable acts.

"The executive branch has vandalized the constitution every bit as much as the barbarians sacked Rome in 410 A.D.," he told the committee.

Vincent Bugliosi, a former L.A. prosecutor, agreed.

"Whether Republican or Democrat, all Americans should be absolutely outraged over what the Bush administration has done," he said. "How dare they do what they did? How dare they?"

But George Mason University law professor Jeremy Rabkin tried to bring the hearing into perspective.

"You should all remind yourselves," he said, "that the rest of the country is not necessarily in this same bubble in which people think it is reasonable to describe the president as if he were Caligula."
 
you have got to be kidding me

Wall Street Journal

OPINION

What Bush and Batman Have in Common
By ANDREW KLAVAN
July 25, 2008; Page A15

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W" :sick:

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror -- films like "In The Valley of Elah," "Rendition" and "Redacted" -- which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?

The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?

The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of "The Dark Knight" itself: Doing what's right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.

When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, "He has to run away -- because we have to chase him."

That's real moral complexity. And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised -- then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

Perhaps that's when Hollywood conservatives will be able to take off their masks and speak plainly in the light of day.

Mr. Klavan has won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. His new novel, "Empire of Lies" (An Otto Penzler Book, Harcourt), is about an ordinary man confronting the war on terror.
 
Wall Street Journal

OPINION

What Bush and Batman Have in Common
By ANDREW KLAVAN
July 25, 2008; Page A15

then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.


With all due respect, Mr. Klavan, I don't see that happening.

Any movies made will show the remarkable hero's of the war, but GW's policies won't be a part of it.
 
Well I've always said the conservative narrative makes for a way better movie.

Which is exactly whats wrong with it! Movies are simplistic; life is not.

That said, Klavan is apprently too simple to see the complexity in The Dark Knight. It's far from certain that Batman is entirely a "good guy" in the way that say Superman is. It's that very complexity that makes him fascinating.
 
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