posted November 08, 2004 01:33 PM              

I know a lot of you here have the idea that if we critcize the President it means we hate him. Well, there are still many who do feel that way about him. Mostly we on the other side do not have a lot of confidence in him and that could be because Bush has not really been himself in his first term due to insecurities. It might be he has just taken bad advice from Chaney and those around him. I have always felt that it was more Cheney running the country than Bush in the first term as have many others. Will he become more of the people's president and work towards helping the less fortunate and poor in our country or will he become more arrogant and pumped up with false pride and become more imperial? Time will tell. In all fairness to Bush, just as my stance was in the beginning of his first term, we should give him a chance.

I think it is time that the Kerry people here at this site stop attacking Bush, give Bush the benefit of the doubt and I think it's time that the Bush supporters at this site stop attacking Kerry. The election is over. Bush won. There is no need to continue the mudslinging and attacks on the opponent. Kerry is back in Congress and hopefully he and Bush can work together to bridge the gap and mend party hostilities and unite the country. Kerry offered in his concession phone call to Bush to do just that. The Democrats do not want an investigation into the election because they do not want to do anything that adds to the division in this country. I think maybe that is wise.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/politics/08bush.html?pagewanted=1&th&oref=login

President Feels Emboldened, Not Accidental, After Victory
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: November 8, 2004

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 - One trademark of President Bush's first term was his aversion to news conferences, which his staff says he often treated like trips to the dentist. So on the morning after Mr. Bush's re-election, Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, was taken aback when the president told him he was ready to hold a news conference that Mr. Bartlett had suggested, win or lose, the week before.

"I didn't have to convince him or anything," Mr. Bartlett said. "Without me prompting him, he brought it up."

It was a small but telling change for a president whose re-election has already had a powerful effect on his psyche, his friends and advisers say.

They say Mr. Bush's governing style may change as well, although they acknowledge it is too early to tell if victory will lift what critics call the chip on his shoulder and make him more magnanimous - or whether it will simply create a more imperial president.

One thing is certain: Four years after the disputed election of 2000, Mr. Bush is reveling in winning the popular vote and feels that he can no longer be considered a one-term accident of history.

"It's a huge validation for him," said Thomas Rath, a New Hampshire Republican leader who is close to the Bush family. "There was always this set of issues about the first victory. This is real, this is palpable. I think it's empowering, I think it's a relief and I think the political options he has will be different."

One adviser said that Mr. Bush was showing more confidence, and that it was not insignificant that he joked to reporters at his news conference that "now that I've got the will of the people at my back, I'm going to start enforcing a one-question rule."

In Mr. Bush's first term, "he had two insecurities," said the adviser, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

"There were a large number of people who did not view him as a legitimate president, and there was the specter of his father's loss," the adviser said. "He didn't vocalize them, but those two things hung over him and all of his advisers."

Outwardly, Mr. Bush remains dismissive of the notion of legacy, which his friends say he considers pretentious and premature.

"He figures that after all of us are dead some historian 80 years from now will be figuring out whether or not he was a good president," said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York.

Mr. Bush's conservative supporters continue to believe that he will emerge as the political heir of Ronald Reagan, determined to use his presidency to usher in a Republican ascendancy. Moderates hope that Mr. Bush, freed from the need to stroke the right, will be more pragmatic and look for common ground with the Democrats and moderate Republicans.

The president's advisers say that as Mr. Bush takes up his duties at the White House on Monday morning after a three-day weekend at Camp David, the promotion of two major philosophies is central in his mind.

His goal at home, they say, is to persuade the nation that there really is such a thing as a compassionate conservative and that Republicans can solve the problems of poverty, the inner city and education that have long been considered the preserve of the Democrats. Internationally, Mr. Bush is determined to prove that it is not naïve or impossible to try to foster democracy in the Middle East.

"There's a different mindset as you enter the second term," Mr. Bartlett said. "He knows the personalities on the Hill, he knows foreign policy much differently."

As a new president, Mr. Bartlett added, "you almost spend your whole first year trying to figure things out, not only professionally but personally - moving your family into the fishbowl, uprooting your life.''

"And it doesn't come with a training manual," he said. "You figure it out. And in this case, it's different. He knows what it means to be president."

Of course, Mr. Bush faces enormous problems, many of his own making. Most immediately, he must move to begin extracting American forces from Iraq even with the assault on Falluja under way, and he must push for an expensive plan to overhaul Social Security without the money in the Treasury to do it.

In addition, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's illness increases the likelihood that Mr. Bush will nominate at least one new Supreme Court justice early in his second term. A fight over ideology could erupt if he tries to reward social conservatives by nominating someone who is against abortion rights.

For now, Mr. Bush and his advisers insist they will reach out to Democrats just as they promised in a first term that ended in bitterness between the two parties. "I do think that in the second term, there is a greater likelihood that some of the needless partisanship is going to drop away, and the president is going to do everything he can to encourage that," Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, said in an interview.

Senator Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who is a longtime friend of the Bush family, said that Mr. Bush had to reach out to Democrats, who are essential to any agreement on Social Security. "I just don't think the issues that are going to be at the top of the pile, and that he cares about, are partisan issues," Mr. Gregg said. "They're more fiscal issues. They really don't activate the social conservative base."

But the Bush adviser who asked not to be named had a more complex view of a president who feels more certain in victory. "Do I believe that the first time the Democrats do something that is overtly political, that annoys the president, that he will sit there and turn the other cheek?" he said. "No. Basically it's, 'I will work with the Democrats if they give me the deference I deserve.' "

At the same time, Mr. Bush and his advisers know that history holds sober lessons for second-term presidents.

Richard M. Nixon was forced out of office by Watergate. Ronald Reagan had the Iran-contra scandal. And Bill Clinton was impeached because of Monica Lewinsky. If the troubled tenure of Lyndon B. Johnson is added to the list - he won a term of his own after being elevated to the presidency when John F. Kennedy was assassinated - the warning sirens for Mr. Bush are even louder.

"The big danger is one of hubris," said David R. Gergen, a professor of public service at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a veteran of the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton White Houses. "There's a tendency after you win your second term to think you're invulnerable. You're not just king of the mountain, you've mastered the mountain. That can often lead to mistakes of excessive pride."

Whatever happens, Mr. Bush's aides say he knows that he has only 18 months before the midterm elections dominate policy-making in Washington and edge him toward lame-duck status. "He's aware historically that that's the case," said Karen P. Hughes, one of the president's closest advisers. "Obviously, he will move quickly."

posted November 08, 2004 02:06 PM              

That does not mean we have to agree on everything. But it should mean that when someone gives a different viewpoint we stop calling that person names. I have been just as guilty of doing that out of anger as well. It's getting real ugly around here because of that.

Let's start from the viewpoint that maybe, just maybe Bush has good intentions and really is the man of faith he claims to be. Maybe, as the article says, he was just so insecure and uncertain in his first term that he was greatly mislead by those around him.

Colin Powell has been ousted and I know that Cheney and Powell do not like each other.To me that is not a good sign of things to come as far as Cheney thinking he runs the country. Bush needs to let Cheney know who really runs the country. Actually that would be the people working in cooperation with the three branches of government. I know that Colin Powell, though he supported the President, did not want the pre-emptive war on Iraq. From that point on he has not spoken one word to Cheney. He stated to Bob Woodward that, "Cheney has a fever" regarding Iraq. I know he felt that Cheney was misleading the President and giving him very bad advice. I am curious as to whether Colin Powell will speak out to the press now that is out of the administration. It would be very intereresting as to what he has to say about the first term.

Jwhop, I'm extending my hand to you to try and reach a common ground and be able to share viewpoints from the stand point that the other person may not be quite the moron we think they are.

We have said a lot of ugly things to each other and that leaves me with a bad feeling. I have a volitile temper ( Taurus sun, Mars in Leo) so I do tend to say things in anger that I later regret ( moon in Pisces, Cancer asc.) If you are willing, in Native American terms, to "break the arrow" so am I.

posted November 10, 2004 06:53 AM              

i feel the same way. that is what i was trying to say in my other post where i mentioned about bush being compaired to satan. i wanted to tell you that i was not tying to attack you on that post. what i was saying wasn't even meant to be directly pointed at you, and if that is the way you took it, i sincerly apologize. i just felt so sad from seeing all the bashing that was going on, and was responding to that. i read alot of the stuff in here although i don't often post. some of it did seem rather hateful and like you, was hoping that it could end after the election was over.

i read your post about examining the election results, and it sort of crushed any hope of us coming together in my head. your post about questioning the result was founded, and you supported it well. i do not mean that you were being hateful at all. i learn alot from what everyone posts here. including you and this post. but, like i said, it just crushed something in my brain that said maybe this "taking sides" game is over. so, i apologize if you took it personally that i meant you were being hateful. you were not. it just reminded me of all the "taking sides" and bashing that had taken place.

i too hope that some of that stops now that the election is over. i do not however hope that all of the thoughtfull quesitons that were posed stop. a person can really come on here and learn alot about BOTH sides. as long as it is fair and respectful and is backed up by the truth

hey, maybe i'll even try to find some articles that actually support global unity and not just politics.