God Bless America.

And he only had to lie when he moved his lips, great speech!

ah luisa~playing the mother-in-law,eh? Actually I celebrate my country,celebrate democracy.I have also studied enough history,and lived through enough history, not to allow the occasional sullying of the Office of the President(by all and sundry) to allow that to cause me to disrespect the institution. or in other words:GO TEAM

I found his speech grating on my nerves and worse than fingernails on a chalkboard, and that says nothing of the bald faced lies.

Again~it was not this particular speech, just the ceremony itself...reading comprehension,a lost art.

I am all for ceremonies since they are better than jackboots any old day- but it was still a gawd awful speech.

True~an orator he is not.

My feelings exactly, but I don't judge on style of delivery- the content was vacuous and that is what really rankled my ankles.

I'll admit to much preferring a speech that hits all the right notes~well written,delivered with panache and content..lacking the first two,the third is a must. He is ,his protesting not withstanding,a wounded duck if not lame.

Bill Clinton is a spellbinding orator when he is on his game, and such orators are rare.

The only times he really got loud applause was when he was bragging about the troops or saying how great America was.

I was fascinated Congress applauded as he went through his Iraq views. I thought most of the politicians didn't support him on that.

Seemed that there was a lot of politics going on in the room. 

I'm surprised no one has called him out on his hypocrisy over earmarks.

During the last 6 years of the GOP controlled Congress, Bush said not a word about the record number of earmarks (and record dollar amounts) and signed every one.

Under the current Congress, earmarks have been cut by almost half and now Bush is complaining.

If I were a Democratic Congressman, I'd be shouting from the rafters "The emperor has no clothes".

Sage, I sent you Netflix messages about a couple of great documentaries I recently watched.

Seemed that there was a lot of politics going on in the room. 

It is an election year. And not just for the office of the president.

TSM~ okay, your my first "friend" there,so I guess I'll go figure out where those messages went.

Sage, go to the Community tab and you'll see them there. You're going to have more than a few to weed through. I try to steer my friends list away from bad movies and towards the good ones. ;)

Now, back to regular programming:

Monday night, after six years of promises unkept or insincerely made and blunders of historic proportions, the United States is now fighting two wars, the economy is veering toward recession and the civilized world still faces horrifying dangers — and it has far less sympathy and respect for the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008...

No matter what he said, or how he delivered it, he was bound to be attacked.  It's the Bush-bashing bandwagon.  There is an unwritten rule in this land.  Bush cannot be praised for anything.  He must be categorically condemned on every level.  If he does something good, it must be ignored or dismissed as disengenous or rife with a host of sinister, alterior motives. 

Again~reading comprehension~ I did praise Bush for some things he said. When will people learn that life,humans and views will not be neatly stuffed into a box and labeled???? So far it apears pigs will fly first.

BLT, name something good he's done.  I have two "good" actions by Bush in mind, but he didn't finish either one.  I'm sure he may have done some good things, but so did Ted Bundy, no doubt.

BLT, name something good he's done.  I have two "good" actions by Bush in mind, but he didn't finish either one.  I'm sure he may have done some good things, but so did Ted Bundy, no doubt.

He got rid of Donald Rumsfeld.  It was a good thing to do.  He should have done it sooner, but he finally did it, and it's made a dramatic difference in the situation in Iraq. 

Yeah but Rumy was of his own doing

Why would anybody bash George W. Bush and his presidency following his State of the Union address last night?

To answer that question, visit here. Any good thing (and I use the singular term) cannot outweigh the evildoing of this administration.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  He got Saddam.  Any "evildoing" by the Bush administration cannot outweigh the evil of Saddam.  It should not even be spoken of in the same sentence or the same paragraph.  But from the left, you won't hear a word of the unspeakable evils of Saddam.  Not one word.  You won't hear a word about the evils of terrorists intent on wiping all of us "infidels" off the face of the earth.  Not one word.  The vitriol is all saved up for ENEMY NUMBER ONE: George W. Bush. 

Saddam? You mean the guy Reagan and his GOP propped up and supported against Iran? That Saddam? And I didn't see GWB personally had anything to do with capturing Saddam. That was left up to a few unnamed grunts who were sent to some God-forsaken country on a whim by the esteemed George W. Bush.

Was Saddam evil? You bet. Was he a tyrant, a dictator, a mass murderer? Absolutely. Am I glad he's no longer in power? Sure.

So, if he was so evil, why did we -- the United States of America -- support him in the first place? Hmmm?

BLR, we don't live in a vaccuum. Clearly we're aware of terrorists, and yes indeed some of them are very intent on harming people they don't agree with. And clearly, that's a threat that must be dealt with. What those of us on the left would tell you is there are much smarter and far more effective ways to deal with terrorism than anything the Bush administration has come up with.

George W. Bush is not public enemy number one with me. He is the outgoing president of the U.S. I wish we didn't have to wait another year to see him exit, and frankly in my opinion he should be leaving in disgrace that far surplants that of Richard Nixon, who at least was a relatively competent administrator.

He's the one who hired Rumsfeld in the first place.  And it had absolutely no effect on the lost war in Iraq.  Net good:  zero.

Clearly, we don't have the power to wake Reagan up from the dead to ask him that.  I have a hunch it had to do with Iran, considered a greater threat than Iraq at the time, as it has become once again.

Bush saw the evil in him, most of us on the right did, you claim to have seen it too, so why do you save most of your vitriol for ENEMY NUMBER ONE: George W. Bush?

BLT~desperately wants to believe those things about the left. He practices what he preaches,always saying always and never about the left ,to dramatize things...sorry BLT but that is how I have come to view your political stance.I have heard from both sides about the evils, Saddam did.

No problem, sage.  Jesus says to love my neighbor as myself and your comment appears to neighbor mine, so I guess that makes you my neighbor.  

I don't doubt that you have heard about the evils of Saddam from both the left and the right.  But show me a condemning statement of Saddam from someone on the left that can truthfully be said to be rife with passion. 

If you look at the little black books of those on the left, you'd find George W. Bush on the front page of every book.  That would be followed by members of his administration, and somewhere, tucked away in the back, you might find Saddam, bin Laden or other terrorist leaders. 

What would Jesus say about those that falsely label others as "Jesus haters"?

LOL~ *sigh* I knew this would turn into apolitical minefield,when reality it is a "Rah rah rah America" blog..so I'm off to eat some great stew I made and let you fellows battle it out...hey I guess that is what i celebrate after all!!

I think the jury is still out as to whether we're any better off without Saddam in Iraq.  Net balance of pros and cons would appear to make it a huge mistake.  Things have been so bad that his former subjects *MISS* him.  He, like Osama, is probably going to have the last laugh.

What would Jesus say about those that falsely label others as "Jesus haters"?

If the sandals fit, wear them.  If they don't, dust them off and toss them to the side of the road. 

LOL~ *sigh* I knew this would turn into apolitical minefield,when reality it is a "Rah rah rah America" blog..so I'm off to eat some great stew I made and let you fellows battle it out...hey I guess that is what i celebrate after all!!

Let's face it, sage. You love the drama, probably even more than that stew you've been cooking :)

I we go after evil leaders why don't we go after Kim Jong il

I think the jury is still out as to whether we're any better off without Saddam in Iraq.  Net balance of pros and cons would appear to make it a huge mistake.

Maybe so, but the glass is at least half-full.  The "pros" haven't all come in yet, and they've been growing rapidly in number over the past few months.

Blognroll, a question for you: was removing Saddam worth the cost of 4,000 American soldiers' lives, between 150,000 and 650,000 Iraqi lives (and that's just since 2003, not including the lives Saddam took WITH THE SUPPORT of those on the right), and over a trillion dollars?

My answer: no.

I we go after evil leaders why don't we go after Kim Jong il

The answer is simple:  FEAR!

Its easy to pick a fight with someone that doesn't fight back. Kim Jong il would fight back. If Saddam was such a threat to us then why did we find him hiding in a hole.

Nope~that is some good stew~ chunks of tender moist beef,rich brown gravy,whole mushrooms, sliced potatoes,celery,onions,carrots,peas...yummy!  ; My original post ,that started this tit for tat ,is a celebration of all things American...and that include rational discourse,which I do not see as Drama,but a responsibility of being a citizen.

Its easy to pick a fight with someone that doesn't fight back. Kim Jong il would fight back. If Saddam was such a threat to us then why did we find him hiding in a hole.

Obviously, we had significantly reduced Saddam's capacity to demonstrate such a threat by the time we found him in that hole.  Kim Jong would not only fight back against us, but against his neighbors, and his actions against them that would turn the region into an ocean of blood. 

I must admit, sage, the stew does sound tastey. 

Saddam was never a threat to America.

Yeah, at least Kim Jong Il actually HAS those weapons of mass destruction we were looking for in Iraq. No wonder we couldn't find them there...they were in North Korea! (slaps forehead)...

What would Jesus say about those that falsely label others as "Jesus haters"?
If the sandals fit, wear them. If they don't, dust them off and toss them to the side of the road.

That would be a funny thing for Jesus to say to someone running around labeling people as Jesus Haters like you have done. I thought He would have reminded you of the 9th Commandment.

Saddam wasn't even a threat to his neighbors.

Blognroll wrote: ...show me a condemning statement of Saddam from someone on the left that can truthfully be said to be rife with passion. 

Okay, how's this?

Peter Galbraith in the (supposedly) liberal New York Review of Books in an article titled, “How to Get Out of Iraq” ...Galbraith begins his essay with a lengthy discussion of the evil nature of Saddam’s regime. It was, Galbraith writes, “one of the two most cruel and inhumane regimes in the second half of the twentieth century.” Galbraith also contends that in “a more lawful world, the United Nations, or a coalition of willing states, would have removed this regime from power long before 2003.”

Most of the piece, however, faults the Bush administration for not adequately preparing a plan for rebuilding postwar Iraq, ignoring the advice of those he didn't want to hear from (such as Colin Powell), and when things got worse, he doubled down his bet that the U.S. could somehow triumph in a mess of his own making.

This blog is another example of why I truly believe BNR is not a psychologist, but a patient.

Just follow his posts and how they twist and weave around the responses he gets. Classic signs of impaired mental abilities.

I doubt he's a patient. But maybe he should be.

...Most of the piece, however, faults the Bush administration for not adequately preparing a plan for rebuilding postwar Iraq, ignoring the advice of those he didn't want to hear from (such as Colin Powell), and when things got worse, he doubled down his bet that the U.S. could somehow triumph in a mess of his own making.

So why did he devote "most of the piece" to berating Bush, if he really believed Saddam's regime was “one of the two most cruel and inhumane regimes in the second half of the twentieth century.” ?

Bush blew it with the war in Iraq. Bush thought that the people of Iraq would love him and praise him for taking Saddam out. He totally misjudged and mishandled the Iraqi people. To give Bush any credit for the the good things that are happening in Iraq is Asinine.

Here come the cheap shots.  I must admit, labeling the shrink "crazy" is a pretty good strategy for someone willing to go that low. When all attempts at reason fail, try character assassination.  If we can't find sound arguments, let's go for personal attacks.