And remember you didn't hear this from the Nation or the American Prospect first. Hell, not even NPR or the NY Times. Nope, the Washington friggin' Post made this into a "credibility problem." Unbelievable. By the way, we all recall the press focusing on Clinton's lack of credibility when it was discovered that the stones for his cross on the beach of Normandy were put there by his aides, right?

That is the most delicious looking fake-turkey I've ever seen. Millions of tax-payer's dollars must have gone into that!! Scandalous!

Really though, I would think they'd have several turkeys there and probably wouldn't go through the trouble of dressing each one up as incredibly nice as that one.

And who decides to make some phone calls to find out if the turkey in that photo is real or not? These reporters are really friggin' desperate...

And in case you didn't notice, Bush is Lying(tm) right there in that picture. Look at those troops laughing because he's such a ridiculous liar.

Dean,

I was waiting for you to pick up on this one...and, once again, we're all up waaaay to late posting on blogs....

One other thing - I heard on the news that they are working on a sure-fire cure for lung cancer; sure you really wanted to quit?

:o)

A correction to your post and to my ensuing comment: it was a real turkey (thank GOD!!). Just not...uhh...one of the ones they were eating, or something. I'm sure somebody did eat it, at some point...

Look at those troops laughing because he's such a ridiculous liar.

ROTFLMAO!!!

...yeah, WHO IN THE WORLD GOT IT IN HIS HEAD THAT WASN'T A REAL TURKEY!?!

That was some desperate ole fool among the many other fools looking for a reason to GET BUSH! IT's NOT A REAL TURKEY...I HAVE A GREAT SCOOP HERE! OH MY GOSH... GOTTA HURRY AND GET IT OVER THE WIRES! BUSH IN ANOTHER LIE BUT... HEHE, I GOT HIM!

bush lied, turkey died....

Bush, who has always been a moderate centrist on most issues, and who's only slightly right-of-center on the rest, regularly gives his opponents 85-90% of what they want. They then shriek like whipped puppies over the 10-15% they don't get, and look desperately for scandals everywhere.

Try reading the article, Dean:

The Democratic presidential candidates tipped their hats to the White House stage managers by refusing to criticize the trip, which dominated weekend newscasts.

Aides to the Democrats said they concluded that the less said about the trip, the better. In the view of these aides, the trip produced reassuring images of a situation that has badly deteriorated, and Democrats just wanted the moment to pass so they could go back to criticizing Bush's postwar policy.

And you know what? This is part of the the PatternOfDeception(TM). The Whitehouse came up with two untrue stories about British Airways craft. In the grand scheme of things it matters not a whit, but why bother fabricating dramatic PR stories?

Bush, who has always been a moderate centrist on most issues, and who's only slightly right-of-center on the rest, regularly gives his opponents 85-90% of what they want.

Rubbish. He got his reputation as a hard-rightie from his massive upperclass tax-cuts which haven't even come into effect yet. You see, we thought that it meant he'd have to cut back on spending. How were we to know that he'd be the most profligate vote-buyer since Richard Nixon? Its like some colossal credit card scam. You want tax-cuts, you want pork, you want entitlements? Yeah? Well we'll just add a couple of billion in there for our industry friends and that way everyone wins, eh?

Seriously, you have no idea of state of the Democratic party if you think that's what we wanted.

Max:

1) I didn't say that Democratic Presidential candidates were making this stupidity up. It's coming from the press and the punditry.

2) Cutting 5 points off the tax rates, cuts that don't even take place for several more years, is hardly "massive" and is only a "hard rightie" position to the most feverishly silly left-wingers.

Furthermore, when Clinton knocked five points off the capital gains rate, he slashed taxes on "the rich" far, FAR more than Bush has to date. Acknowledgement of that from the President's most vocal critics would be nice.

While I'm waiting for that, I'll point of that tons of that spending you're complaining about is coming about from things Democrats asked that money be spent on.

As I say, democrats routinely get 85-90% of what they ask for, then they squeal about the 10-15% of things that don't go their way. You're illustrating that point fairly well for me, dude.

My complaint has far more to do with just how silly people are getting with their partisanship than anything else. I know there are sane and sober Bush critics. I just see a lot of his critics coming completely unglued, and this is just another example of it.

The capital gains tax is in part a tax on inflation, and the capital gains tax on stocks is in part a tax on job creation. The capital gains tax relief for home sellers, generally labeled a tax cut for the rich, moved me from working poor just holding my head above reasonably warm water to comfortably lower middle class.

I hear OSHA is investigating Bush's failure to intone (as Al Gore certainly would have), "For display purposes only. Not for human consumption" during the entire time he held the turkey up.

Well yes, Triticale, of course the cap gains tax cut helped many in the middle class. So did Bush's cuts on marginal rates (and his expansion of the child care credit), especially since Bush's cuts went straight to the middle class first, whereas the upper income brackets still have a few years to wait before they get their cuts.

Clinton's slashing of the cap gains rate gave billionaires an instant tax cut and put a lot more money in their pockets than it put in yours, and much faster. In other words, by any rational standard, it was a bigger "tax cut for the rich" than anything Bush has done since taking office.

Getting the rabid Bush haters to admit this fact--and it really is quite irrefutable, by the way--is just about impossible. Which should tell you all you need to know about them.

um... this rabid Bush Hater would like to continue the discussion but is otherwise involved (very very busy). next time....

The claim that the Dems weren't attacking Bush on this is utter nonsense. They used the appearance as an opportunity to say stuff like "we shouldn't be in Iraq in the first place." Joe Lockhart, not exactly some far-left kook, went so far as to lie, saying Bush had never met with military families.

Bush, who has always been a moderate centrist on most issues, and who's only slightly right-of-center on the rest, regularly gives his opponents 85-90% of what they want. They then shriek like whipped puppies over the 10-15% they don't get, and look desperately for scandals everywhere.

In some ways, this is where Bush is the most Clintonesque. Both men are very good at speaking the same language as the extremists on their respective sides, while at the same time governing from the center. This has three effects:
(1) It comforts those extremists, who know that their president understands them, even if he doesn't always accomplish what they want.
(2) It doesn't scare the moderates since the policies enacted are in fact moderate.
(3) It drives the extremists on the other side into foaming-at-the-mouth rage, since they "know" that the president is a secret extremist who's only pretending to be a moderate.

This definitely happened with Clinton. All sorts of far-left groups loved him because he spoke the language of the liberal left. When he made centrist decisions (free trade, welfare reform, capital gains tax reduction), they grumbled, but figured he was just making necessary compromises and loved him anyway (note that the anti-globalization crowd still voted for Clinton in 1996, and didn't defect to the Greens until 2000 when the less charismatic Gore was running). The far-right, on the other hand, couldn't give Clinton credit for being moderate (they just said that he was "stealing Republican ideas") and got really, really upset when they couldn't convince moderates that Clinton was evil.

Now the same thing is happening with Bush. He speaks in a language that makes hard conservatives comfortable and convinces them that he's one of them (that's how he killed McCain in the primaries), but then does all this moderate stuff (steel tariffs, the mammoth education bill, letting faith-based-charity funding die). Some conservative groups have grumbled a bit about some of it, but not too much because they know in their heart that he's on their side in the end (unlike his father); while liberal groups can't seem to accept that moderation because they also know in their heart's that he's on the other side in the end.

This is why Republicans should be worried about Howard Dean. Many conservatives are convinced that he's ultraliberal. Many liberals are also convinced that he's ultraliberal. However, if you acutally look at his history in Vermont, he was pretty darn centrist. The formula for success in politics these days seems to be a sheep in wolf's clothing - look like a big scary extremist on the surface, but be a soft, cuddly moderate underneath when it actually comes to governing.

"Unbelievable. By the way, we all recall the press focusing on Clinton's lack of credibility when it was discovered that the stones for his cross on the beach of Normandy were put there by his aides, right?"

Well, someone must have focused on it if you're able to recall it NINE AND A HALF YEARS LATER.

President AWOL wearing an Army jacket is more annoying than the sight of the turkey.

Thanks to anonymouse, I now have coffee in my nose. Please give a warning next time...

I dunno, Charlie. It kind of gives me wood. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Ahh, Charlie, just hang onto your delusions another 11 months or so. Then you will have 4 more years to develop a whole new set.

President Bush was never AWOL. This has been thoroughly debunked, but the haters just can't let it go.

This trip was Bush's face-saving and inexpensive way of fulfilling his promise to give aid to turkey.

No, Bush doesn't lies. I don't know what to call it.

---------------------------------
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HANOVER -- In some ways, President Bush's fund-raising stop in New Jersey yesterday was like his surprise Thanksgiving visit to Iraq, hastily flying in and out with little fanfare, to dine among the troops in sometimes hostile territory.

Bush made a 20-minute speech to a crowd of about 500 party faithful in the main ballroom of the Hanover Marriott at a $2,000-a-plate evening fund-raiser.

Not breaking any ground, Bush highlighted the accomplishments of his administration, saying he had eliminated the terror threat from Afghanistan and weapons of mass destruction from Iraq and ensured that Medicare will remain solvent.

"I came to this office to solve problems and not pass them on to future presidents and future generations," Bush told the crowd.
--------------------------------

Eliminating terror threat from Afghanistan can be chalked up to oversimplifying. But the rest of it defies any reason. Pumping more money the goverment doesn't have into Medicare means keeping it solvent. Not finding WMDs means eliminating them.
Huh?

And would someone point out to me some link that talks about Bush not being AWOL?

If you look at the video tracking before and after the photo, it's easy to see how effortlessly the President lifted the tray, held it, moved it around, and replaced it. Of course it was plastic. He ain't Ahnald.

How did you people get off the the capital gains tax and Clinton? I believe Dean's point was about the sad replacement of ideas by Mill's "irritable mental gestures."

I wonder who broke the story: "The turkey was fake! Fake! Do you hear me?! Get me rewrite!" or whatever they say nowadays. And they run with it.

Pathetic.

That wasn't turkey - that was Soylent Green!

How long before the WaPo writer decides we're trying to crush his dissent?

DougS,

Here's my take on Bush not being AWOL. Be sure and visit the links from Baldilocks for the real meat.

Yours,
Wince

Jerome - No I believe the turkey was real. It was just cooked and arranged for display. The President probably just picked it up to be funny. I've done the same, believe it or not, at buffet type restaurants when I'm with my siblings just to goof around. Sort of lie, "Oh, I'll just take htis one." Har har. KNowing what I do about Bush's sense of humor he was most assuredly not trying to pose for some sort of Norman Rockwell family Thanksgiving portrait. That would so lame and so fake. So, so Democrat.

BTW: How weak would a man have to be to not be able to pick up a freaking turkey "effortlessly?"

Dean, you crack me up.

I don't know of anyone that thinks the turkey thing is a scandal. "Business as usual," but not a scandal. Listen to Mary Matalin:

"This was effective, because it captured something about the president that people know is true, that he really cares about the soldiers and gets emotional when he sees them," Mary Matalin, a former administration official, said about the trip to Baghdad. "You have to figure out how to capture the Bush we know, even if it doesn't come through in a speech situation or a press conference. He regularly rejects anything that is not him." [emphasis added.]

"...it captured something that people know is true..."

What a fabulous idea! Never mind actually telling the truth. Just capture what we, the people, already know is true.

It reminds me of the editorial that Steven Colbert gave on "The Daily Show," the Monday evening after Thanksgiving. He was speaking about the press (and I'm paraphrasing):

"The secrecy was total and it was about something they knew we'd like. Imagine how hard it would be to find the truth about things they know we won't like. [pause] Luckily we won't waste any time trying."

Well, the press won't waste any time, but those of us in blog-land are already working on another level. It's like you said earlier:

...[webloggers are] generally less patient with evasions and airy generalizations.

Obviously Bush does not equal Lott, but bloggers do have a relatively low threshold for bullshit.

You said it yourself:

...[webloggers] seemed to get only angrier as his first initial responses to the story struck them as evasive and, well, as most webloggers would put it, "lame."

So is Turkeygate a scandal? Nope. It's just another lame example of the cynical rationalizing away of the truth by those who created the bogus event in the first place and those who obligingly passed it along as the real thing.

And in blog-land that smells like crap all around.

Re: Dean you crack me up. How hopelessly cynical of you, Ara. Apparently you will take anything Bush does in the most negative fashion. I suppose he is only allowed to be privately virtuous and privately genuine. If one report hits the press it becomes spin for you. How pathetic. Stick the Bush Hater label on yourself. As far as I can tell you're walking like that duck, quacking like that duck and swimming like that duck. I have been trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. In your next post, please prove that I have misinterpreted you here. Claiming excess of hyperbole would be a fine defense, although there are others.

Yours,
Wince

"Well, someone must have focused on it if you're able to recall it NINE AND A HALF YEARS LATER."

Yes, Rush Limbaugh. That's it.

Ara,

In case you're not kidding, can you explain how holding up a turkey on a platter "open[s] new credibility questions" for the White House?

Thanks, Brian

"Well, someone must have focused on it if you're able to recall it NINE AND A HALF YEARS LATER."

Yes, Rush Limbaugh. That's it.

But of course, Ara, when Clinton did it, it was alright, right?

Looking up Bush and Thanksgiving in Yahoo! News, one immediately finds:

"Earlier, Sen. Clinton said President Bush 's surprise Thanksgiving Day visit to Baghdad doesn't make up for the flaws in his strategy for dealing with the U.S. occupation and returning the government to the Iraqi people."

"Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark on November 30, 2003 praised President George W. Bush for spending Thanksgiving with U.S. troops in Iraq but said the surprise trip did not make up for 'a failed strategy' there."

Then there was Dean's "they shouldn't be in Iraq" stuff. Also notice how those two are remarkably similar? The Dems didn't criticize Bush about the trip, my ass. This WaPo piece is some of the worst bits of reporting in a long time.

Ara obviously didn't bother reading much on this, or he'd have seen the editorials by lefty bloggers like Oliver Willis, or the silly stuff that the "Counterpunch" moonbats were posting about how the whole event was scripted from start to finish and there really was no meal served at all.

The Washington Post story also makes a few facts perfectly clear:

1) That Bush picking up the turkey centerpiece was NOT posed, was NOT scripted.

2) A pool reporter--not a White House photographer, just a pool reporter--happened to be standing there when Bush, chatting with soldiers, picked up and moved the centerpiece, and got off a random photo.

3) That photographer sent that photo to his bosses at his paper, and that's how it got into the news.

In other words, no story here at all, but we'll talk about it like it is one, so we can make airy generalizations about cynicism and "business as usual." Uh-huh. Yeah, it's business as usual all right.

I increasingly believe that, no matter how many millions get pumped by Democratic fatcats into defeating Bush next November, they're going down, and going down hard. It's precisely because of this sort of thing that I think so. There are no more ideas out of the Bush critics, except that Bush is evil and vile and cynical and yadda yadda yadda.

Bush was AWOL! Oh, sure, it's been debunked by independent investigations, and has been repeatedly shown to be nothing but a mass of unsubstantiated allegations. But we'll keep saying it's true anyway, because it makes us feel angry!

Bush's "massive tax cuts for the rich" were actually smaller than Clinton's tax cuts for the rich. But as long as we don't acknowledge that, we can talk like this all makes Bush a hard-line right winger!

WMDs in Iraq? Hey, Clinton told us over and over again that Saddam had WMDs and would one day use them. Clinton even signed a bill making the overthrow of the Iraqi regime the stated policy of the US government. Bush says all the same things, carries through on the policy Clinton enacted, but Bush was the liar.

Bush notes--correctly--that he eliminated the WMD threat from Iraq. Because of course we know the programs existed, and we have found the biological agents that he said he didn't have. Because Saddam was required to prove he'd disarmed and refused to do so. Everyone acknowledges he was evading his required inspections. But we haven't found enough quanties stockpiled, so that means there was no threat and, of course, BushLied!1!!!1!!(TM)

I don't find it a source of anger. I used to get angry, and find it a source of frustration and disappointment. Increasingly, I'm just laughing at it.

I do hope the Democrats come back to sanity one day. I really do. This country needs a solid, thoughtful opposition party. We just don't have one at the moment.

I'm hoping a nasty spanking in November will help bring them to sanity. Either that, or that someone like Joe Lieberman or Wesley Clark can bring them back from the brink.

Dean, let not your heart be troubled. Not only is a rational opposition necessary, it's a *given*. If we get through a couple more election cycles with the Dems acting the way they are now, they'll lose votes faster than Theresa LePore and - lo and behold - Republicans (some seeing opportunities to grab power, others with genuine differences) will start coalescing around opposite sides of the issues and within another few years there will be a real alternative to Cheney/Bush/et al.

Just you watch.

Oh, and they've already received a nasty spanking. November 2000 would never have happened to a party in its right mind. But it did, and they're behaving more so rather than less so like the party that deserved the spanking it got. What does that tell you about a sudden outbreak of rationality in '04?

Dean,

You might get your wish vis a vis Clark - with Kerry collapsing in NH, it might be Clark who comes in second; Clinton managed to turn a second-place showing into momentum, perhaps Clark can as well...of course, Clark is no Clinton on the campaign trail, and what really delivered it to Clinton was Tsongas running out of money...but, ya never know. Certainly, the Democrats have to do something to save their party..

A-HA!

http://clinton4.nara.gov/media/gif/dance.gif

Looks like this isn't the first time a president has been caught holding a prop as if it were the real thing!

Charlie:

President AWOL wearing an Army jacket is more annoying than the sight of the turkey.

So, when Clinton went to Kosovo for Thanksgiving and he wore an Army jacket - were you annoyed that President Draft Dodger wore one?

Ara's Back!!!

Yeah! I missed you. ;-)

Rose:

Nothing like a little bit of spice, eh?

Brian, Dean, Wince&Nod, HH, et. al:

Come on guys, read my whole post, not just the part where I criticize the White House. Jeez, you really should develop a thicker skin or something...

There is plenty of blame to spread around on this ridiculous episode. Allow me to summarize:

The cynical rationalizing away of the truth occured when:

1) ...White House proxy Mary Matalin committed this gaffe:

"This [photo-op] was effective, because it captured something about the president that people know is true..."

And in case we needed reminding we'll be seeing that goddam turkey a thousand times over between now and November 2004.

2.) ...the Washington Post printed the photo in the first place and then conjured up a phony scandal one week later.

Duh. You couldn't tell it was a centerpiece?

3.) ...various lefty bloggers call this a "scandal."

To Oliver Willis et. al.: stop hyper-ventilating.

4.) ...vaious righty bloggers call the "scandal" a scandal.

It's a molehill, people, not a mountain.

How is 1) a "gaffe?" I'm genuinely mystified.

As for 4), you have to be under constant attack for phony things for awhile before you start reacting to things as idiotic and tiny as this, I suppose.

By the way, someone above claimed that the British Airways story was another lie. That turns out not to be the case, as Baldilocks reports.

Look people. Isn't it time for a cooldown of the rhetoric? I mean, seriously? Can't we just disagree with each other without descending to such juvenalia? For once?

The liberal punditry must have agonized for hours as to whether to paint this as Bush lied by pretending to pass off serving a centerpiece for the photo op; or whether Bush was an idiot for trying to serve a centerpiece to the troops not realizing this was the real thing. God forbid they spend their time on real problems.

Ara,

Thanks for disabusing me of my notion. I apologize for overreacting.

I read your whole post, but I didn't get that the word crap referred to the actions of the people in the White House, the press, the opposition and the blogosphere who are spinning the president's genuinely virtuous action for political gain. I thought you were calling the genuinely virtuous action (which in my opinion includes its use of the bully pulpit and therefore necessitates the involvement of the press) crap.

Oddly enough, I thought that pointing out that the president has done something good is exactly what his proponents should do. It may even be their political duty as citizens. I agree that the press should not make up scandals. I am not going to discuss the opposition, accept to say that the Democratic candidates (who all kept their mouths shut) are much better strategists than the lefty bloggers.

Yours,
Wince

Brian:

When Mary Matalin says, "This [photo-op]...captured something about the president that people know is true," she accidently told the truth, i.e., this is a highly scripted, stage-managed POTUS.

Now make no mistake -- I don't think that it's the first time it's happened to any recent POTUS. Nor do I think it's a bad thing.

But you know, Bush was supposed to be the Un-Weasel, remember? Clinton -- Weasel; Gore -- Weasel; Bush -- Un-Weasel.

That was then, this is now.

Now, his staff props him up in front of a teleprompter and has him read these 16 words from his SOTU Address.

Now, they put him in the jump seat of that jet and land him on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Now, George W. Bush is just as much of an artificial centerpiece as that phony turkey.

If you don't believe me then I have two words for you:

"Mission Accomplished"

Wince --

Thanks for reading the whole post.

Of course, you're probably bristling at my post immediately preceding this one. But just remember -- being stage-managed is not a bad thing. Fact is, there's too much at stake to do stuff on the fly. As a result, all recent Presidents surrender to stage-management.

The only bad thing about stage-management is when you contend/pretend that it isn't happening. Then you come off as a bullshitter.

Brian --

In case you don't read this at E Pluribus Unum, I'm asking Dean's permission to revise and extend my comments here as well--

Here's the thing --

I really thought it was cool that POTUS got there and back without the world at large knowing he was even thinking of going.

I also like that he has a genuine bond with the servicemen. That is as it should be -- after all, he is their Commander in Chief.

I liked it when he landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier.

I loved it when he threw out the first pitch in the World Series in NYC following 9/11.

On the other hand, he obviously goofed big time by standing in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner, and then when things in Iraq went bad, he denied that his White House made it possible to put the banner there in the first place.

That was, excuse me, bullshit of the worst kind. Whatever.

The fact remains that this White House is very tightly scripted and stage-managed -- and that is not a bad thing.

With that in mind, I have to ask -- so what if the turkey was phony? Who cares? So what if the whole thing was a photo-op -- who cares?

If anyone wants to make that into a scandal, then buzz off.

And if anyone wants to get pissed that anyone wants to make that into a scandal, then get a life.

And if anyone wants to deny that it was a scripted, staged event, then grow up.

Ara,

Are you considering a second career as a political consultant? I should've figured a self-described political junkie like you would have this all figured out.

Yours,
Wince

For kicks I like to read the Democratic Underground. It gives me a warm "there but for the grace of God go I" type feeling. Needless to say they've been at DEFCON 5 over Bush's surprise trip to Baghdad and have seized on the Great Turkey Controversy and the British Airways story to reassure themselves that Bush is a lying fascist who is pulling yet another fast one over on the dumb American sheeple. Some of the nuttier tinfoilers even suggested that British Air's denial that any of their pilots had spotted Air Force One proves that Bush never made the trip at all, presumably filming it all on a soundstage or in Area 51 or something.

Wince:

Yes. What you said. Definitely.

"November 2000 would never have happened to a party in its right mind."

Even more so, Nov. 2002 wouldn't have happened. They were supposed to gain seats, based on history.

It's fascinating to outsiders to see how the Bush presidency, since the events of 9/11, has seen the two great parties of US politics actually show sharp divergences. Many of us found it difficult to distinguish between them on the basis of policy, since the nuances were clear only to Americans or close observers of the Washington scene. We kinda liked the Dems cause they had Camelot and all and just seemd nicer.

But the Democrats are showing a very ugly and I would say illiberal and unstatesmanlike side now.

My feeling is that 9/11 and the war on terror have swept aside politics as usual in favour of "greatmanism" . Both Bush and Blair were very lowkey politically before. Botth -- perhaps Blair more dramatically because of his extraordinary courage in standing up to his lefty party -- have demonstrated that they have what it takes to do the right thing when that is the hardest thing to do -- when it costs lives.

These are world-changing times for us all. The battle lines have crystallised between those who still believe there are values worth fighting and killing and dying for and those whose obsession with the left-right divide, with the minutiae of "correct" thinking and morality are not simply stultifying their political perceptions but actively working to undermine the very civilisation on which they stand and fearlessly exercise their rights.

The Democrats have not been in power during this process and have no idea how to respond as an opposition to make themselves electable. As far as I can see, they don't remotely appear to have a credible candidate, because none of them can see that it isn't just about spin now, it's about life and death and the survival of the West.

I believe Blair and I'd like to believe Bush although I didn't welcome his election. I think he is the kind of leader who has greatness thrust upon him willynilly, but that's OK with me.

The Democrats need to grapple with the c ore fear in the psyche of voters; that their way of life is at risk in a completely unpredictable conflict with fanaticism; a far more visceral fear than ever existed in the Cold War, where risk was a calculation.

Business as usual is on hold until the war is over.

Dave F.: Amen.

Sept. 11 changed everything here in the United States. Bush is to be commended for understanding that instantly, and growing to meet the challenge. (Heck, I didn't even vote for him!)

I partially agree with your contention that Bush had greatness thrust upon him. (So did Blair, probably, but you'd know better than I.) In response, let me say that, when circumstances demand a great leader, let's not quibble about how we get one. I'm just glad that we did.

respectfully yours,
Daniel in Medford

Minor correction: It was Lionel Trilling who said (in 1950) that about the irritable mental gestures. What is ironic about that quote is that it was just at that time that thinkers like Russell Kirk, Peter Viereck, William F. Buckley, Frank S. Meyer, James Burnham, and others were beginning to form a conservative intellectual movement, replete with some very definite and profound ideas, that, over the years, gained ascendancy such that it is now the dominant ideological tendency. It is now the Left who are reduced to irritable mental gestures. What John Stuart Mill (in the 19th century) said was that Conservatives (Tories) were "the stupid party". That, too, about the Left today.

One more comment: I can see why they like Bush. He looks like he's having a good time with his men, and so are they. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Call me what you want, and I know it's strange coming from a fire-breather like me, but I don't understand the hatred for Bush. I can't relate to it. I don't understand the hatred for Clinton either. Nor the obsession with Hillary as Evil Incarnate. It's not what her admirers say, that they're afraid of strong women, because those who so love to hate Hillary love Ann Coulter. And they (NRO, etc.) do love to hate Hillary, because I see her picture plastered all over their websites whenever I go there.

Is it an age thing? I'm thinking it must be because when I was coming of age I loved to hate Nixon. I feel sorry for those too young to have seen the Watergate hearings. We had a lot of fun.

Dean is right. Presidents, by political necessity, do give their opponents most of what they want. Bush is spending more on social programs than any President I can recall (at the expense of fiscal conservatism). Clinton reformed welfare, balanced the budget, and other Republican things. I think of Clinton as Eisenhower to Reagan's FDR. Nixon was actually quite liberal, as was Ford, and Carter was quite conservative. Reagan was closest to a full-blown ideological conservative, but even he was very pragmatic, as all Presidents have to be. FDR was hated but he saved capitalism.

I guess it's my old age, but, as I think about it, I've come to a point can no longer hate or even really dislike any Presidents we've ever had (with two exceptions: Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson). I can't hate other pragmatically-oriented politicians either. I reserve my hatred for certain consistently totalitarian intellectuals and ideologues, some of whom occupy political or judicial offices (Santorum, Scalia), others not (e.g., Robert Bork, Catherine MacKinnon). And I have great admiration for their opposites (e.g., Justice Kennedy, Camille Paglia).

I like Hillary, but not her politics, and hope she takes up an extremely fulfilling career as a missionary in Botswana.

Yours,
Wince

Sorry to have gone off into another ideological digression, but those are the thoughts that came into my mind at the thought of some people seeing something sinister in this picture. It's just a picture of some soldiers happily celebrating Thanksgiving with their President. It could have been any President in our history, and he'd have been doing exactly the same thing. Good!
P.S.: I don't exactly hate Wilson. Anyone who liked "Krazy Kat" couldn't have been all bad. But he was the President who brought Jim Crow into the executive branch, racist even for that time.