The Presidential election results truly leave me with an emptiness in my heart. How can an educated country such as the United States of America, elect an individual whose main political tactic was the use of fear. Bush has done nothing to earn the endorsment of any state in this country based on his previous 4 year record other than be Republican. Americans allowed themselves to be painted into an "it's us against the world" corner and somehow that meant that changing presidents would show weakness and give terrorists an advantage..

The disappointment I feel today as I follow election news coverage leaves me feeling the way a disappointed parent would feel if their child was caught cheating or stealing. You have such high hopes for people to actually investigate and research their choices for leadership, but many do not. They would rather read the labels on their lunch to make sure they aren't eating too many carbs than actually find out what each candidate stands for beyond the commercials that they run or mud they throw.

Anyone that voted for George W. Bush based solely on a terrorism or moral basis, is a fool. This is not a man that has made this country safer by any stretch of the imagination. Provoking an entire region by infiltrating a country that we found no link to 9/11 has put our country at greater risk. Invading Iraq without cause and virtually abandoning Afghanistan has had huge effect on the world; other countries worry about our foreign policy, our willingness to goto war with no evidence giving cause for it. Our footing in this global community has slipped, and now it's officially every American's fault. The re-election of George W. Bush reflects on this country the same way a dirty diaper reflects on a child, except this time it was no accident or loophole that awarded him the White House.

On the basis of morals, Bush should have lost. No President has changed religions more. Bush has been Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Catholic. He is ProLife but the State of Texas executed more prisoners under Bush's leadership than in any other governorship in Texas. How can moral Catholics overlook that truth. The man ran a dirty campaign, any President that calls into question any Americans service in the military, especially a service record as distinguished as John Kerry's cannot be considered morally clean.

American's that believe "We fight them over there, so we don't have to over here" probably are all in line to own ocean front properly in Arizona. You must understand that even though we are in another country with borders, we are fighting a terrorist entity that has no borders. If you have no defined home to defend, you are not bound by the same ties that we were/are bound to after 9/11. You cannot fall into the mindset that these people fight the same type of war as our foes have in the past. Deploying our National Guard to international places leaves us vulnerable and despite what our President calls it, it looks very much like a backdoor draft to me.

Military Draft. I know Bush came out and said he would not reinstitute the draft, but I ask you to look at our current Iraq situation while taking into account what his campaign has said concerning this conflict:1.. We are already recalling people whose tours of duty have been up, requiring them to deploy to Iraq in record numbers.

2.. The Allied Commanding General has said from the beginning that we do not have the manpower for ground operations. Rather than try to gain support from other nations, we went into Iraq with a unilateral force. You can't tell me that Poland, Australia, and England are a strong alliance. Here's a fact for you, the state of Texas has more troops in Iraq than any other coalition partner.

3.. This administration stating that we will not pull out of Iraq until this objective is achieved.

What is our objective? We are fighting a group of people that will not stop their offensive, take a look at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that has been raging before I was alive; the Iraqi conflict is turning into that type of situation and is that important to the people that live in that country. Make no mistake about it, this president has given us a Vietnam for a new generation. We have soldiers riding in HumVee's with no armor, and at best a weak coalition to share the burden.

Our economy is down, drug-costs & healthcare costs are up, quality of air & environment are down. What has W done to earn your vote other than telling you that a change in leadership would make us seem weaker to our enemies. Our enemies would be more afraid if we showed the ability to create strong alliances, lead them with conviction, not religious reasoning. George W. Bush leaves me with an impression that he has "ascended" to the office of President, not been elected. That is a problem. The majority of the people that voted for Bush thought that having morals was the most important factor in this election, I think their view of morals is a bit sketchy at best.

You cannot lead a country and govern it based on your religious values when your fellow Americans do not all value the same religious teachings that you do. Going to church is a good thing, but it should not be considered moral. There are plenty of people that goto church on Sunday but live Monay through Saturday as a completely different person. If I read my history book correctly, this is why our founding fathers left Great Britain to come to America because they didn't agree with the King's ideology and religious beliefs. Why have we seemingly become what we originally left to avoid?

**** Cheney, Halliburton, the Saudi Prince, the search (or lack there of) for Osama bin Laden, and this administrations inability to admit and own up when they have been wrong. I'm not expecting them to says "we're sorry, we had no business in Iraq." What I do expect is an explanation of why they didn't listen to our own intelligence, why we didn't have a plan for Iraq after Baghdad fell.

Israeli intelligence is what we based this war on. If China had given us the same intelligence about North Korea, do you think we would be in North Korea? We are in Iraq for two reasons. Bush needed something more palpable than Afghanistan to create a legacy for himself, and Iraqi oil. While Bush is president, we will not invade North Korea, we will not address Iran and their creation of nuclear weapons eventhough those countries created a far graver threat than Iraq; why do you think that is?

Those are my reasons for not voting for Bush, that doesn't begin to touch on why Kerry would have been a better choice. Republicans says he's a flip-flopper. He voted for a bill giving the President the authority to declare war if he deemed necessary as a last resort. What Kerry voted against was giving the President an open checkbook to goto war, and he's not the only Senator to vote against that bill. The Republicans did their best to come up with as many catchy wordplays as they could during this election, and this country was dim enough to not sift through that. Where politicians are involved, it's never good versus evil; you should pick the man that best suits the current domestic & global situations we face. A President that isn't willing to share the wealth in Iraq and therefore can't create an alliance to help save American lives is not our best foot forward.

The only thing that I take solace in, is that Bush now must try to clean up this **** storm he has created, this is probably the first time in his life that he'll be held responsible for his errors. Here's hoping that you and I are not held equally responsible for his shortcomings.

Good luck to you and me, we're going to need it

 

F150, You KNOW I feel for you and agree with most of what you say, but it is over. I don't know how to help you move on except to say that America has been through worse things, and will go through worse in the future, but we still come out on top. I believe we will come through this president and the next and the next just fine. Here's a few predictions for the future, the dollar will gain and loose strength internationally, trade deficits will rise and fall, some Americans will do worse while some do better, crime rates will rise and fall, people will complain about the level of immigration as they have since day one, in the end, America will STILL be the best place ever. As long as the right is watching the left, and the left is watching the right, no one should get out of hand too much. We are far from perfect, but most of us are working towards being so. It's only a vocal few that point fingers to the other side for blame, and a few others that will call you un-patriotic when you bring up America's sins and faults. Most of us want to fix what's wrong and improve America to be better than ever. Keep the faith in America F150 Beast, she's worth it.

 

It's funny, all I read was "Blah blah blah I'm moving to Europe".

I'd like to start an 'F-150 Online Political Pool'... when do ya'll think the useless Bush/Liberal bashing will end?! My money is on the 6/16/06 square...

 

CIA Agent made a great point a few days ago.... If things continue to go the same direction as they have the last four years, the immigrants will be trying to sneak back over the borders back into Mexico seeking a better way of life....

Atleast we have something to look forwards to!

 

Glad you are so disappointed in America, maybe you want to go watch Fahrenheit 9/11 over and over again and cry yourself to sleep for four years. It isn’t the end of the world, and IMHO much of what happens may have been pre ordained regardless of who won. There are not magic wands for the economy and Iraq. Have you ever considered that Americans sat down and made a choice between two bad candidates and the majority of them chose one bad candidate over the other? I wanted change, I would have voted for the Democratic challenger but unfortunately he was a terrible choice, worse in my opinion than Bush but I don't condone the bungling of operations in Iraq so I voted for neither. You want to blame someone for four more years of Bush, blame those who gave Kerry the nomination. I warm body from the Dems could have got almost as many votes as Kerry. Blame the hacks that ran his campaign and made every bad decision they could. Blame the constant vitriol against bush when that time would have been better spent telling us WHY John Kerry would have been a better president. Many Americans looked to the Dems to give them a good worthy candidate to Bush and the Democratic Party let them down. They looked to the Dems to appeal to the middle of the political spectrum and to try and bring people together where Bush divided them and the Dems just went way left and hung those many Americans in the middle out to dry. Some of them voted for Kerry and didn’t really like it, some voted for Bush and didn’t really like it, and some voted for neither and were disgusted by the BS from both sides. In the end, those votes in the middle were ripe for the taking and the Democratic Party blew it. Bush didn't win the election; Kerry and the Dems lost it by suspect and foolish moves at every junction in the primaries and the campaign itself. America isn't like a stupid underachieving child for re-reelecting Bush; they simply made the best of a bad situation. The difference between the number of votes Kerry got in Ohio and the number that Bush got could easily have been overcome by a more moderate and credible candidate on the Dems part.

 

Let it go.

Take solace in that it was close.
Over 115 million votes cast.
It came down to Ohio where 5.5 million were cast.
Bush won Ohio by 136K.
If 68,242 Ohio voters who voted for Bush had instead puller the lever for Kerry,
you wouldn't be able to keep up with all the moaning and groaning in General Discussion.

Not to mention we'd need to have a duty roster for the "01 XLT Sport suicide watch" .

 

dzervit -
no I'm not moving to Canada, I'll stay right here in Texas where I was born and try to educate people around me as to what should be judged in a Presidential election. Don't go calling someone a whining liberal when you have no clue about their voting history. I voted for Bush 2000, so back up off my bumper and actually read what I wrote. I feel a lot of it probably fits you based on your response.

fatman -
i agree that Kerry's political advisors did not do what was needed to win this election, but I disagree to an extent about Kerry supposedly not stating how he would correct things. He did speak about rolling back the tax cut, he did speak about getting back to the table with UN (France, Germany, Russia in particular) to try & create/reinforce the alliance that Bush tore apart. karl rove did a masterful job distracting voters in middle-america from what was important in this campaign.
fahrenheit 911 was biased, but there some valid points brought up in that documentary.

momalle -
this wasn't about trying to change anyones mind, just needed to vent and that's what forums are for right? i appreciate responses, positive & negative. this is a democracy, eventhough i feel like it's leaning towards other things.

 

Sounds reasonable but I think Kerry tried to correct too m any problems with the money from rolling back the tax cut and I think that while his diplomatic approach sounded good he was going to be politely told by them "too bad, deal with it yourself". But then again I'm pretty cynical. The republicans ran a better campaign; they drew more blood when it mattered (I’m not getting into which campaign slug more mud, just commenting on the efficiency of the mud that was slung). The Dems lost sight of the fact that they didn't have to tear Bush down, Michael Moore and company had already done as much of that as was going to be effective, they wasted a lot of time beating a dead horse. JMHO

 

 

shouldn't that be a banjo?

 

It was a joke. I don't care about your voting history. I don't care if your a liberal or conservative nut job. Yes, you are whining. I don't want to read the entire post, I was fed-up after the first few sentances...

You stated your worthless opinion, and I stated mine (also worthless). I also feel your just stirring the pot, and that has already been done enough during this election season. Give it a rest! Go hang out in your bomb shelter or go forth and 'educate' the creatins that you claim currently occupy our country. Before it's too late. Dub'ya is going to get us bombed, toss our economy into the toilet and outsource your job faster than you can say Bull-Market.

 

Kerry did NOT get my vote because I didn't really know what Kerry had to bring to the table...... I was an "undecided voter" for awhile.... Even though my state ended up being blue, I felt I made the right decision FOR ME....... Not for you, not for Europe, FOR ME....

Sure, Kerry was able to criticize just about every little thing Bush had done. I'm sure Kerry would say he takes a dump better then Bush does too.....

Kerry would go on and on about all the things he would have done...... He went on and on about all the things he "wanted" to do if elected...... The thing was, he never gave me the confidence that he had ANY way of making ANY of it happen.....

Sure, it's a nice thing to be a "Monday Morning Quarterback" and say that "I'll bring all our allies together so that we can work together to bring an end to the war in Iraq...", blah, blah, blah...... Anybody can say that.... How are YOU going to make it happen?? "I'll cut the tax breaks for the rich", blah, blah, blah..... Think about this..... If he eliminates the break for the rich, what flows down hill??? Each tax bracket down the line will also end up paying more taxes.....

The only reason a rich guy gets a 1 million dollar tax break is that he's already paid in probably 10 million........ Or whatever..... I don't know for sure, as I only paid around $6600 on a 64k gross income.......

That's a whole lot LESS then what I was paying in taxes before 2000.... AND making less money too.......

I don't know what the answers are..... I do wonder why the stock exchange went DOWN with those early Nov. 2nd "exit polls" that had Kerry ahead, but the moment Bush was ahead, it went back up???? Then even when it was not really "official" until the next day, the market really took off at that time......

I guess you are feeling the same way I would have felt if Kerry had won........ In the end, no one knows what is going to happen..... Might be that Kerry can say "I told you so", or Bush will say "I told you so"......

Mitch

 

So I ask you, what would you have done in Iraq? Oh, yea, Kerry had much better idea's right? WRONG!! He didn't have ANY ideas. All he kept saying was "I will build more roads, I will add more police, I will fix Iraq.....". REALLY?? GREAT!!!

Next time, try telling somebody HOW!!!!! Funny, as I'm writing this, the Iraq war is truly coming to an end and you nay-sayers and folks that think we screwed up the war in Iraq badly, will soon learn we did a great job, a few bumps in the road sure, but that's the name of the game when it comes to war.


As for why Bush got elected, and poeple like myself voted for him? One word: TAXES!!! I could care less about all the other Political hogwash they all talk about, "I'm gonna do this, and that...." And Kerry, I'm gonna run the war differently...." Truth is, the Pentagon runs the war, and the whitehouse has NOTHING to do with it.

So the elections come down to one word, which guys will cost me less in taxes. I'm currently paying 40% of my income to taxes of one kind or another (Sales, property, local, income tax...) and I'm tired of it. And Kerry wantedd to raise taxes??? SORRY!!! SEE YA!!!!!

 

Calls to Canadian imigration have never been higheraccording to our paper.

Can anyone tell me how you spend as much as you do in a war and reduce taxes? Does that logic not catch up to you some day?

 

The only thing i can tell you about your complaint is move. If your unhappy paying high sales, property, and local taxes get out of your area and into another one. Taxes are a fact of life in our society. Bush is giving us tax cuts, great. Where do you think that money comes from? Its gonna need to be paid back eventually. As far as i know theres no trees in DC crapping out money. One president lowers taxes, the next raises them to balance things out. Your gonna get higher taxes eventually so making that the basis for your vote is silly.