davparlr
Senior Master Sergeant
A few comments on this thread. First, the comments about Bush's intelligence. Foolish people judge intelligence by fluent speech (or fluent writing, as I have witnessed on this site, including my own). I have known may silver tongued orators with lead (the metal) brains. Take for instance, the Hollywood crowd who like to boast fluently about their knowledge when they don't have enough combined education, or brains, to fill a bucket. On the other hand, I have known brilliant people who could hardly put two words together. George Bush scored higher on the IQ test administered by the military than John Kerry (no big deal however). George Bush has an MBA which is probably more education than 99% of his critics who says he is not smart. George Bush flew F-102s in the Air Force. You have to be quick witted and make sound decisions to fly a high performance aircraft. These traits are regularly tested in-depth by the military. In 1969 (one year after Bush), when I applied to the Air Force for pilot training, I was told that, because of the quantity of applications for pilot training during draft years, the Air Force only took applicants in the top 5% of IQ test scores. Top 5% of college graduates! While Bush entered pilot training through the National Guard, the standards were still quite high and he still had to compete with the regular Air Force inductees. As president, after we were brutally attacked, he looked at the data that was presented to him by the world, and arrived at a blatantly obvious (I can but won't expand on) conclusion that happened to be against the political mainstream ostrich society (keep your head in the sand). As for Iraq, yes, there were many mistakes. Only idiots think that wars don't generate mistakes by the most brilliant leaders. I could probably argue that Bush and his team have generated fewer mistakes in a war as complex as this one, than any other leader in a war in the last 200 years (remember that mistakes by winners are soon erased). And, Iraq still has the possibility of turning out to be one of the most significant positive events in the 21st century. He is a man who sticks by his friends, makes decisions and sticks to them as long as they make sense to him and he does what he says, a rarity for politicians. I suspect there are few great leader who have not had these characteristics. The left leaning media in our country and across the world do not like his conservative, value-base leadership and conscientiously makes every effort to put him in a bad light.
As for the polls.
Polls, like statistics, tend to reflect the opinon of those doing the polling and statistical analysis.
I have no defence for loud mouth Americans. They are indeed spoiled and disgraceful.
From my experience and what I have heard, Europeans have been very friendly to Americans, even the French. Hopefully, that attitude is returned.
I'll try not to stereotype. England is a great place full of great people. The kind of people that can be depended upon. We are fortunate to have them as friends. And we would be wise to nourish that friendship.
As for the EU (not including England). To me they seem leaderless with no direction. They would perfer to ignore problems than address them. They also are willing to let the US lead in facing the threats to society, but with lots of complaints. They ARE NOT willing to spend the money necessary to provide a defense that would allow them to lead. In essence, they complain about the US, but don't want to make the sacrifices necessary for the US to reduce its military influence in the world. And it appears that some had dirty hands when it came to dealing with Saddam.
Economically, they complain that the US is materialistic, but, they sure do like the fact we buy their products and would complain if we didn't.
They complain about our violence (very bad indeed, but a mixture of diverse cultures and significant individual freedoms can tend to allow violence) and our self-centered dispicable society (we probably give more aid than most nations per capita, but we certainly use too much oil), but if the world suddenly opened all the borders to free immigration, who would dare honestly answer where the vast majority would go (probably the same place they are trying to go now)??
While I think Bush's forgein policy on terror is outstanding (Iraq is like a protected knight on the opponents side of the board which effectively prevents his offense-for those of you who play chess) I am unhappy about our border security and lack of a strong program to terminate oil imports, which I believe is our biggest security risk.
We all have to remember that we all want the same thing, freedom and protection from those who would harm us in order to force their way of life on us. We may have different ideas about how to do that, but we should not lose sight of who our enemy is.
Sorry for the novel. I just had a few things to say. I think Bush has gotten a bum rap from the media and a lot of people have bought into it.
As for the polls.
Polls, like statistics, tend to reflect the opinon of those doing the polling and statistical analysis.
I have no defence for loud mouth Americans. They are indeed spoiled and disgraceful.
From my experience and what I have heard, Europeans have been very friendly to Americans, even the French. Hopefully, that attitude is returned.
I'll try not to stereotype. England is a great place full of great people. The kind of people that can be depended upon. We are fortunate to have them as friends. And we would be wise to nourish that friendship.
As for the EU (not including England). To me they seem leaderless with no direction. They would perfer to ignore problems than address them. They also are willing to let the US lead in facing the threats to society, but with lots of complaints. They ARE NOT willing to spend the money necessary to provide a defense that would allow them to lead. In essence, they complain about the US, but don't want to make the sacrifices necessary for the US to reduce its military influence in the world. And it appears that some had dirty hands when it came to dealing with Saddam.
Economically, they complain that the US is materialistic, but, they sure do like the fact we buy their products and would complain if we didn't.
They complain about our violence (very bad indeed, but a mixture of diverse cultures and significant individual freedoms can tend to allow violence) and our self-centered dispicable society (we probably give more aid than most nations per capita, but we certainly use too much oil), but if the world suddenly opened all the borders to free immigration, who would dare honestly answer where the vast majority would go (probably the same place they are trying to go now)??
While I think Bush's forgein policy on terror is outstanding (Iraq is like a protected knight on the opponents side of the board which effectively prevents his offense-for those of you who play chess) I am unhappy about our border security and lack of a strong program to terminate oil imports, which I believe is our biggest security risk.
We all have to remember that we all want the same thing, freedom and protection from those who would harm us in order to force their way of life on us. We may have different ideas about how to do that, but we should not lose sight of who our enemy is.
Sorry for the novel. I just had a few things to say. I think Bush has gotten a bum rap from the media and a lot of people have bought into it.