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WMD's Found Misleading or Incomplete

From the article (3rd paragraph under heading:George Walker Bush: "The weapons of mass destruction that the Coalition of the Willing invaded to capture have been found, but not in great quantities." -what was the quality of the weapons found? "...Charles Delfor (ph)[Charles Duelfer], the CIA's weapons inspector tells us the weapons are all pre- Gulf War vintage shells, no longer effective weapons...-- Wolf [Blitzer]." source http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/21/sitroom.03.html

-moreover..."But intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitive nature, said the weapons were produced before the 1991 Gulf War and there is no evidence to date of chemical munitions manufactured since then. They said an assessment of the weapons concluded they are so degraded that they couldn't now be used as designed.

They probably would have been intended for chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq War, said David Kay, who headed the U.S. weapons-hunting team in Iraq from 2003 until early 2004.

He said experts on Iraq's chemical weapons are in "almost 100 percent agreement" that sarin nerve agent produced from the 1980s would no longer be dangerous.

"It is less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink at this point," Kay said.

And any of Iraq's 1980s-era mustard would produce burns, but it is unlikely to be lethal, Kay said." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201475.html

---

Also from the article: "These chemical agents, specifically Sarin gas have been used at times against US troops by Iraqi insurgents." -I would like to see a source that supports this. At the bottom of this article, this point is directly refuted "No chemical weapons are known to have been used so far in Iraq's insurgency." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html

Leaving out this apparently vital information would likely mislead the reader into false conclusions about these WMD claims. 

open_mind 18:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Bush cussed

The article on Bush brings the whole wikipedia project a disgrace!

This is an important thing they could have done right to make a statement about what it could stand for - a prophylactic against global disinformation campaigns.

---

Should we add anything about how George W. Bush cussed when he thought that his microphone was off? It was at the G8 summit, where he is now. He was talking to Tony Blair about the thing between Israel and Lebanon. The whole transcript can be found here. This is definitely something to add, though I don't know where.--Chili14(T|C) 14:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Question... how is this notable or encyclopedic? People curse all the time. What makes it so notable that it should be included? Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 14:52, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it's all noteable simply that he "cussed." If he cussed at someone or about a topic and there was international or domestic reaction or ramifications then that might be noteable. But simply uttering a few words almost everyone else utters from time to time is not at all noteable. --ElKevbo 14:54, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree, right now it's just a minor news story, there is no reaosn to put it into the article. I like how CNN didn't bleep it out though, nice... tmopkisn tlka 20:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

soembody got it in--70.124.132.176 23:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not minor at all.
  1. it reveals his overall analysis, which is something that is normally revealed only in stagemanaged events through the Sec of State or the Pres himself. Leaders are very careful not to play their cards in public. You can be quite sure that embassies in the middle east went into overdrive to try to explain his gaffe (which privately thinking 'that idiot');
  2. it hardly showed much in the way of in-depth thinking, so playing on the public image of him as an intellectual lightweight;
  3. a novice parliamentarian knows to check when the mikes are on and off. The fact that he made such an ass of himself in making a political kiddie's mistake again impacts on his impression.

The cursing is irrelevant — that is just a minor story. What matters is the insight it gave into his thinking (or critics would say, lack of thinking). FearÉIREANN\(caint) 23:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Heavens to Betsy! He cursed! Not everything a President does is worth mentioning in an article about him...or even a biography, which wikipedia is not. Squiggyfm 00:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I find this hilarious. The fact that Bush cursed is being played out by CNN (In Canada, don't know bout Fox News) to the point where for a while it was the top story on its website. Not to mention the fact he was probably right, for once.

Hilarious! -New York Times I Loved It! -Jon Lovitz

Not notable; keep it out. Kasreyn 05:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It's most likely notable enough for a entry at Wikinews (with the proper sources). Time will tell wether it belongs in this article (most likely not though). --Oden 07:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
It is quite notable and newsworthy. If Truman had done it, it would still be in stories about him. His grabbing the German head of state around the neck to give her an unsought "massage" is also newsworthy.Edison 14:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
SARCASM How about we just say everything Bush does is newsworthy? Squiggyfm 14:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
When are people going to realize this is an encyclopedia, not a news blog or news reporting site. Articles like this one and other well known leaders like the Canadian prime minister's article are hopelessly unencycloaedic. Not everything that is news belongs in a biographical article.--Kalsermar 17:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
On this article? January 20, 2009. Squiggyfm 17:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
If Kerry saying "fuck" in Rolling Stone (intentionally?) doesn't warrant inclusion in his article, how does Bush saying "shit" qualify? Unless we're just trying to document every single mistake Bush makes, no matter how inconsequential. (Some days, I think that's the intent). You can't have it both ways. Let's focus on the mistakes that actually have some bearing on world events. Dubc0724 19:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

This is not worthy of inclusion. This article is bordering on too long as is, no need to add something like this. CPitt76 21:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Everything that has spurred controversy, and/or accolades, durring this presidents term, is worth recording. The key is to keep it unbiased. Just let the world know what happened. Verbatim.

One person's "controversy" is another person's "stupid political bullsh*t".

"One person's "controversy" is another person's "stupid political bullsh*t"."- Real profound.

Bush the chimp

Bush is commonly refered to as "The Chimp" or "The Monkey". Does anyone else feel this is notable anough to be added? I've seen references to it in a number of newspapers and comics, as well as countless references online. Kernow 18:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd say it's probably only common amongst his more extreme detractors... somewhat like how some of his more extreme supporters call him the messiah or savior (yes, I have seen websites claiming this). Neither is particularly noteworthy. Kasreyn 20:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
If someone called a chimp George W Bush and got it in the press, that might be notable. Aynone offering? ;) The Land 22:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Given that I've seen and read a lot of anti-Bush material and yet have never heard either of these, I'd have to judge that it's not widespread enough to put in. "The Decider," on the other hand... ---DrLeebot 15:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I think he's generally called Commander and Chimp. I've seen it on McSweeney's and Salon, both "extreme detractors" to be sure. There is even a Commander and Chimp web site.
Yes, some of his supporters claim George W. was picked by God to be president, while his critics may say the Florida vote count in 2000 was a fraud.--grejlen - talk 00:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I have never heard anyone say he was "picked by God" to be president, although several people I know did say "thank God he's the president" after 9/11. If you believe in fate, you may say that he was meant to be president for this time in history, but I no one can be sure of God's intent. Criddic 07:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


I'm pretty sure God's got bigger things to worry about than which Skull & Bone gets in the White House. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Dubc0724 12:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it should be included, because its a pretty unfounded media/liberal insult against him. Sounds like its not NPOV.

Epsoul 02:12, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

If he's there, God choose for him to be there. Just like God choose Hitler to be where he was. Everything is done for a reason, even if we don't see it.Yancyfry jr 05:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Because Bush=Hitler? Get a grip...

Middle East Crisis

I am now going to update this page to include Bush's to the current middle east conflict, as well as a complete list of all the reasons why he should receive the nobel peace prize--172.161.55.39 11:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

(chuckle) But seriously, can we please put in the "stop doing this shit" quote? --Jobrahms 14:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

LOL. My favorite is Chimpy McFlightsuit. TheKurgan 14:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

First Gay Appointment

The article states,

"Bush is the first Republican President to appoint an openly gay man (Israel Hernandez, assistant secretary at the Department of Commerce) to his Administration."

This is underneath Bush's "Domestic Policy" section, next to his stance on gay rights. It seems like an attempt to portray President Bush as progressive in appointing an openly gay man to his administration. I feel this is misleading, however, as the page for Israel Hernandez explicitly says that while it's not a secret, he's not that open about it, and the President was not informed of his sexuality until after his appointment. I've picked on this fact before for being insignificant, but the scope and structure of the article has changed a lot since then and wondered what you guys think. Sdauson 17:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd say it's notable enough for general inclusion, but it would probably be best to include the note that Bush was unaware of Hernandez's orientation at the time of his appointment. Kasreyn 23:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Know what? Scratch that... This appears to be the Israel Hernandez article's only source on the issue of when Bush knew about Hernandez, or even that he's gay at all, and it doesn't appear to be a very reliable one. NY Daily News is fit for reporting on the trashy affairs of pop celebrities. I don't think they're a reliable source for this article. They claim "a source" told them, which is essentially "a little bird told me" rewritten. I'd say strike the mention of the appointment entirely: we don't even have a reliable source that Hernandez is gay. Kasreyn 23:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

How much does Bush earn?

What is his monthly salary?And is it same as Clintons? Ice Cold 19:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

My history book says that presidents make 444,000 a year.

Info here [1]. The raise from 200k to 400k was passed before Bush was in office on 1/1/01 [2]. Squiggyfm 22:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thats a lot.Serbian President earns 1200 euros a month. Now wonder American politicians are so greedy to get elected and re-elected. Anyways,thank you for this information. Ice Cold 22:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Note that the above information is yearly salary, not monthly salary as initially requested. The salaries of high-ranking officials and businessmen in America is typically discussed in terms of per year. 400,000 dollars works out to about 33,333 dollars per month. While this may seem like a lot, it's a pittance compared to the salaries of top CEO's of major corporations in America. Kasreyn 23:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


It is still huge. Do you know maybe what is average salary looking at whole America in average? I think I`ve heard it about 30.000. dollars(little less then 25.000. euros) a year? Ice Cold 23:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I just read that it was $36,764 in 2002 from ... My Source Of Vast Information Wowowow Anthmoo 18:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It is a lot of money, but then again, the people who run for President are almost always extremely rich already, so the money isn't why they try to become President. Matt Yeager ? (Talk?) 18:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Considering that many Americans make more than that per year, i think that's not a terribly high salary. My sister makes more than $40, 000/year and she merely works for a newspaper office. She's not even a reporter. Many appointed government officials have taken pay cuts when accepting their appointments. Treasury secretary Paulson and others were making much more money per year than they will in their new positions. So I don't think the presidents salary is really all that significant, considering it is routinely viewed as one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Besides I always found it amusing that President Clinton approved the raise, and his successor-hopeful Gore failed to replace him in office. 24.45.108.185 04:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's interesting because it's also one of the most dangerous jobs. Look at the percentage of presidents who have been killed or injured while on the job. Pretty bad. --LV (Dark Mark) 13:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Historically we're running at about, what, a ten percent successful assassination rate and about thirty percent attempted rate? Yeah, those aren't good odds. I don't know if that would be worth a couple million dollars to me. Kasreyn 13:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Compared to the average salary of a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the U.S. President's salary is a mere pittance.
Presidents are well off before taking office so this is pretty much a non-factor.--Looper5920 14:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but how often do Fortune 500 CEO's get shot? :P Kasreyn 14:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, but I do not think that is what the original poster was getting at. On a side note, you have brought up a very interesting question about CEO assassinations...anyone willing to look this one up?--Looper5920 14:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

People who work in Africa with lions and tigers got more chances of getting killed,yet they dont earn 400.000. dollars a year.No one begged them to be Presidents,if you are doing good job,no one will try to kill you,if you go and bomb innocent children and woman like Kennedy did,then you can expect that someone will try to kill you.Anyway,its still way too much,since you can live great with 50.000. euros a year.

The most dangerous jobs are the ones paid the least. Policeman, Fireman.. hell, SOLDIER. Meanwhile CEOs and celebrities get rich beyond belief (and in a lot of cases somehow manage to squander it all) for doing next to nothing. There's no justice in the world. teh TK 23:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

As for those companys,I agree they earn more,but aren`t they private? So,since they are private,they are not paid from citizens taxes,they are from money they earn.On the other side,if citizens pay you,then you should take no more then you need.And he sure dont need 400.000. euros to live good.

Also,if hes already getting so much,he should give at least 75 precent of it for poor people,that would be huge.

For example,Serbian President gives 400 euros from his salary every month for Serb refugees from Kosovo.Thats third of his salary.Bush should do the same,but to his own fellow poor citizens ,like colored people or other poor people that could use those money.

Thank everyone for info. 

Ice Cold 17:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

One more thing: Most presidents retire immediately after office. They arent really employable afterwards. And in your reference to assassinations: Three presidents were assassinated in thirty years around 1900, during an isolationist period in U.S. history. A review of each would indicate that foreign politics has very little to do with the cause. While presidents are typically well-off, there actually was discussion on this during the 2004 election, and it was found that there has still been a big disparity between some, like Kerry, who spent most of his life in politics, and Bush, who came from business.

There is also the fact that there is a tradition in the US Government that nobody in the government can be paid more than the President. Given that some of the positions require significant skill and receive periodic cost of living increases, every so often their salaries approach that of the President's. Usually this is the rationale for increasing the president's salary--Cliffb 17:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

-Aren't really employable? They make many thousands of dollars per speaking engagements after they retire, not to mention book deals and other forms of income. Granted they aren't going back to work but they have a definite strong flow of income after being president.

I always thought Bush should do what Perot was going to do... work for free. Remember the last time a President wasn't rich before he got to the White House?? Yeah, me either. Some country we've got, huh? Dubc0724 20:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't hire him at that salary either. Gzuckier 20:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Me either, but I wouldn't go for Kerry, Clinton, Gore, Bush 41 either. I'd say we're screwed. Dubc0724 20:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Bin Laden / James Bath history

Why was George W. Bush's history with James Bath / Salaam Bin Laden / Arbusto removed from the main page???

The page looks like it was rewritten by the Republican Party.

``````holygrailale

Likely because it isn't verifiable. Per WP:LIVING, we have to be very careful about presenting unverifiable, negative information about living people, as it may damage their reputation. A tendency towards a conservative bias when discussing a Republican is a natural, though unfortunate, side-effect of this. Also, please sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~) in the future. It automatically dates it and provides a convenient like to your user page. ---DrLeebot 20:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for removal of section and general concern

I have again removed this section: "Bush's second term saw several major events. In early 2005 Bush campaigned to reinsert the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo by signing the Palm Sunday Compromise, igniting a national debate over the right to die and federal intervention. In the summer, the chief of staff of his vice-president, Scooter Libby, was indicted by a federal jury in the Valerie Plame Scandal and his chief ally in the House, Tom Delay, resigned after a similar indictment by a prosecutor in Texas. In August of the same year Hurricane Katrina devastated the American Southeast, leaving New Orleans in partial ruins. The president, along with FEMA were criticized by many for an allegedly slow response. In the winter of that year it was revealed pubicly that the NSA was engaged in phone wiretaps which were subsequently challenged on constitutional grounds.". My reasons are:

  • 1)Schiavo is already mentioned in the article and is not again needed.
  • 2)Scooter Libby doesn't belong in the Bush article
  • 3)Tom Delay idem ditto
  • 4)Katrina, while the criticism, with counter claims might be worthy to include, the current section is too one sided. When expanded it probably doesn't belong here anymore but in the relevant articles pertaining to Katrina.
  • 5)NSA same thig really.
  • 6)The whole thing certainly doesn't belong in one great heap at the start of the second term section as was the case here.

I would like to remind people that this is an encyclopaedia, and this particular article is supposed to be a biographical entry on G. W. Bush and not everything he says, does, is alleged to have done etc. belongs in here. Good rule of thumb, imagine reading this article in ten, even 25 years or more. Is it going to be of any worth then? If not, then it isn't now. Look up a good article in other reputable encyclopaediae on such figures as Washington, Napoleon, Eisenhower, Einstein to name but a few to see what it means to write an encyclopaedic article.--Kalsermar 18:35, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

This article shows Wikipedia's pro-GOP bias

I'm amazed at how pro-GOP and pro-Bush this article is. The whole article has been carefully sanitized to remove the slightest negative points about Bush. It could well have been written by Karl Rove. One could read this article and never be aware of such issues as the fact that Bush lost the 2000 election by 549,000 votes. By contrast, the main article on Clinton brings up every single nutcase/right-wing talk radio allegation ever made against Clinton. It's shocking to me how the Republican Party has completely taken over Wikipedia (and it's amusing how Wiki bills itself as an "unbiased" serious reference source).-- 71.91.114.159 23:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Don't be silly, he won the election by (-) 549,000 votes, much like wikipedia straw polls, democracy is not a vote--64.12.117.13 23:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
    • You might be interested to know that there are better ways, any of which would have completely prevented the undemocratic debacle of 2000 from ocurring (not to mention neutralizing the "spoiler effect" of third parties). Not many Americans realize that Plurality voting, the system used in America, is among the worst and most unfair and unrepresentative voting systems ever devised. Of course, to switch to a new method would probably require a constitutional amendment, so I'm not holding out hope for that. Kasreyn 03:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Of course not. Constitutional Amendments are supposed to be used to ban Gay marriage or Flag burning, not expand voting rights! ---DrLeebot 12:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Sigh... I'd laugh, but it's too sad for that. Only once before has America been so stupid as to use an Amendment to make something illegal, and of course it blew up in our faces and had to be repealed. Kasreyn 05:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I thought these things were mere attempts to distract from the real issue. Now I am not so sure. It is depressing.jawesq 23:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Easy Kasreyn! I am fairly sure DrLeebot was being ironic! --Utahredrock 19:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I knew that... But the reality of the situation is still quite depressing. Kasreyn 20:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Since Wikipedia's inception, some have accused it of having a pro-GOP or conservative bias. But many others claim it has a liberal bias, an imperialist bias, a communist bias, an American bias, a French bias... I could go on and on. szyslak (t, c, e) 06:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Conservatives claim the media has a liberal bias, liberals claim it has a conservative bias. The only thing we know is that "unbiased" means only that something has the same bias as the speaker. This brings to mind Stephen Colbert's words: "Reality has a notorious liberal bias." ---DrLeebot 12:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I think that the American media is biased towards brainwashing viewers/readers, regardless of it being liberal or conservative media.--Húsönd 01:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, can't someone edit this page to at least reduce the bias? I would do it myself, however the page is locked to me. Even in the opening paragraphs it is quite appearant. Take this sentance: "Following an unsuccessful attempt at convincing Saddam Hussein diplomatically to yield to further weapons inspections..." -Unsuccessful by whose standards? The inspectors were in the country and their greatest complaint was the traffic they had to deal with on their way to the site (It was a valid complaint by the way, however I don't think this makes the inspections "unsuccessful"). Or this sentance: "...and, if to believe polls, his popularity has declined." - Suggesting that polls showing his popularity waning are invalid, however earlier it is written that "His response to 9/11 led to an immediate surge in his popularity." Why are only the polls that show a decrease in his popularity questioned? Also, controversies such as the Plame leak, Hurricane Katrina, NSA surviellance, Guantanamo, Iraq WMDs, etc are only briefly mentioned - there is no discussion of them. Compare that to Clinton's page where there is an entire section on controversies and every one of them has at least a paragraph discussing them.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.158.171 (talk • contribs) 10:45, 2 August 2006

No one's stopping you from creating an account of your own so you can edit it. I believe the semi-protection only applies for a day or so after account creation. --DrLeebot 18:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't realize how lax semi-protection is (its a 4 day waiting period, by the way) --mbc362
Ah, okay. I might have made it even shorter, myself. Most vandals seem to do stuff very spur-of-the-moment, and wouldn't have the patience to wait even two days (of course, those in charge probably know better, so I'll accept their judgment of the issue). I'm just surprised I haven't seen any claims that the semi-protection is evidence of a Cabal yet...
But please, don't think you're clever if you make a claim like that in response to that comment.
Or that one.
Or that one or this one. (Phew, that should do it) ---DrLeebot 21:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I remember this page having a more comprehensive criticism section just 3 months ago. Now normally its good to remove the unsubstantiated criticisms but for this guy lets face it, no matter he does good or bad he's going to be swamped with criticisms. So why were they all removed? For all Wikipedia articles we should present the whole picture and let the reader decide form themselves. --68.163.212.195 18:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Nicknames section missing in article

In the article on President Clinton, there is a section called "Nicknames," in which all the nicknames Clinton was called, including the degrading and insulting nicknames such as "Slick Willie" are compiled. No such section exists in the Bush article. Some of us believe that, for balance, we ought to have such a section for The Chimp. But that would mean that the Bush article would have to include some info that wasn't approved by the GOP (and, of course, that'll never happen). -- 71.91.114.159 23:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

When has "the Chimp" ever been a mainstream nickname for Dubya? Dubya is the only one that seems to have enough notoreity. I could start referring to Warren G. Harding as "Dub G" or William Taft as "Fatass". That doesn't mean we need an article for every single nickname coined by John Q. Editor. Dubc0724 16:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

68.81.77.76 21:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)Okay, this page and this article are total embarassments; anyone, myself included, who visits this page will easily see that it's broken down into a message board about politics, rather than about writing accurate articles in an encyclopedia. The fact that random people with little more than an axe to grind can come in and tear up this article makes Wikipedia look like a joke, which it's quickly becoming, especially since the Colbert incident.

Wikipedia has to change something. I think this page would be fixed if three people were in control of it--one very liberal, one very conservative, one a centrist, but all of them reasonable--and were forced to cooperate to form a balanced article. The talk page could be used to offer suggestions. Allowing random people to edit such controversial articles has become an absurd idea--all the more reason to abandon it.

What exactly are you referring to?

Texas Rangers

I can't edit this because I'm an anonymous user. The first paragraph says he purchased and managed the Texas Rangers. He was just the team's owner. While his ownership duties required him to do things that would be considered "managing" in most professions other than baseball (where there is a specific job that goes with the title of manager), you can't really say he managed the Texas Rangers. That conjures up images of W in a uniform, making pitching changes on the mound and arguing with umpires. Maybe "purchased and owned" or "owned and operated" would sound better.

Changed, thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 19:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The one who sold the real estate said he was forced to do so.

Reply to Kalsermarand--Writings and perceptions of historical figures

I agree in general with Kalsermar, however, . . . it is natural and normal that over time ideas and writings about presidents and others will evolve. Some use revisionism as a sinister word, and it sometimes is sinister. Mostly, however, as more information becomes available, as subsequent events happen, etc., perceptions of historical figures change over time. For example a 1794 biographical essay on Washington would normally be different than an 1820 essay, or one from 1920 or today. Often the collective wisdom will allow writers to continually come out with better and better essays on famous people. It is expecting too much to demand that an essay on GW Bush today be "as it would be" 10, 20, or 100 years from now. It's just not possible. Will his risky gambles in the middle east lead to democratization and stability? Will they lead to furthering chaos and armegdon (sp?)? We can all have opinions, but we can't know for sure. All of this being said the specific edits/comments you make in your points 1-6 seem reasonable.

Merkel back rub

Should add it?

Neither it nor the private comments to Blair are broadly noteworthy or significant enough for this article, which is the top-level article in the series and should primarily be a summary of lower-level articles, like the "2nd term" article, that handle the significant details. -Silence 19:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Just because a story is newsworthy doesn't make it encyclopedia-worthy. Think of it this way: 20 years from now, will anyone care about this? (We really need to make a template for that.) ---DrLeebot 12:50, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm... probably not a good standard, as Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. My personal expectation is that in twenty years, this article would have a significantly more negative take on Bush, because I expect history to judge his actions and find them wanting. But to edit the article based on such an expectation would be POV and OR. Kasreyn 18:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Good point. I've created a template in my user space with more general wording here. You can reference it with {{User:DrLeebot/News not notable}}. Leave a note on my talk page if you think we can word it better. ---DrLeebot 13:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Intro

I'd like to remove the phrase "he belongs to one of the most politically influential American families" from the intro. I think that goes without saying since the statement is immediately followed by mention of his father and brother. Any thoughts or objections? --ElKevbo 00:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, although the mere mention of the offices held by his father and brother does not relay the true importance of the Bush family in U.S. politics, especially in the Republican party. I believe they've been strong supporters and financers of the party throughout the 20th century, though this must be discussed in "Early life" and not the intro. This Fire Burns Always 01:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
That level of detail isn't necessary for the intro, though. We have plenty of room in the overall article to add such details; the lead section is currently somewhat overlong, and removing this sentence is a good start to trimming it down. If the information is important, then move it to the first paragraph of the "Early life" section, where there's plenty of room to explain why the Bush family is such a big deal. Good compromise, ne? -Silence 01:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Long Quotes

In general, it is bad writing style to add a very long quote - even if it is part of an inaugural address. Does this quote in the article add anything? Also, the formatting is terrible. All in all, it detracts from the article, imo.jawesq 15:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The second address is key because it talks about the central theme of Bush's agenda. Obviously we can trim it down, but its important to include it. Its like Kennedy's 1st speech - gives a lot of info on what ideas, philosophy the president focuses on. Rama's arrow - this Fire burns always 15:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Then it should be trimmed down. It is too long and the formatting needs help.jawesq 16:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

How's this?

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world...The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations. The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it....From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?

I also recommend a 'blockquote' rather than the current formating, since an indented block quote is generally what is used in any academic paper (or encyclopedia article) for a quote this long. Three periods (...) are used inside a quote, for omission of a portion of the quote. Three periods are not used at the end of a quote. jawesq 16:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah it looks good. Rama's arrow - this Fire burns always 16:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

FOr some reason, the blockquote here still is to the right of the photo, and it does not look as it should. It is far better than the way it was, but someone needs to figure out how to place it under the photo - then the blockquote will work. I do not have time now, because I must get to work.jawesq 16:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Why No Mention of Bin Laden In This Article?

I find it astonishing that Bin Laden isn't mentioned once in this article. Considering that Bin Laden was behind 9/11 (by a million miles the central domestic event of Bush's presidency), it's amazing that this article doesn't even mention Bin Laden. I can't help but think that the reason for this omission is that, frankly, any mention of Bin Laden would reflect badly on Bush (because it would inevitably remind the reader that Bin Laden remains a free man). Despite Bush's vow to get Bin Laden "dead or alive," the fact remains that almost 5 years after 9/11, Bin Laden roams free and regularly issues videos and statements, rallying Al Qaeda members. This blatant omission just proves for a lot of us that the Bush article has been heavily sanitized by pro-GOP authors to remove any mention of Bush's flaws and shortcomings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.120.202 (talk • contribs) 18:01, July 26, 2006

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. --ElKevbo 00:06, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I actually think it's anti-bush bias to not include Bin Laden. A mention of Bin Laden would remind the reader of the attacks of Sept 11th and the threat we face with islamic extremist terrorism. Bush's continual fight against this is a big part of his presidency and a big reason for his support. I think it should be included. 2nd Piston Honda 03:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
And I think it's pro-Bush to leave him out, as it would remind people that Bush failed to prevent the attacks, and now has failed to capture him. ("Reality has a known liberal bias." - Colbert). Either way, we agree that he should go in. ---DrLeebot 12:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally think the context is important in regards to mentioning bin Laden. To say that he hasn't been caught yet seems like an attempt to pin the blame on Bush. I think that mentioning him as the orchestrator of the attacks is appropriate, though. Criddic 06:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

German massage

He was also filmed briefly massaging German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the same G-8 meeting. These two events caused critics to question Bush's sincerity and professional behavior. [3]

I reverted the above snippet as it represents original research. The link intimates that the massage was a "gaffe", but there is no credible source for that conclusion given. The piece is actually a self-congratulatory piece about the power of the press and the internet, not about the incident itself. It also does not mention any criticism or give any indication the President's sincerity or professionalism were brought into question as a result - except by the author of the article. Also see discussion above.Michael Dorosh 17:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


MISUNDERSTANDING: Should be mentioned,if true

"I've coined new words, like, misunderstanding and Hispanically." —Radio-Television Correspondents Association dinner, Washington, D.C., March 29, 2001


Since Im not an American,English is not my first language,so Im not sure if he told the truth,but if he did,then it should be mentioned,since the word MISUNDERSTANDING is now very much in English language,so if he really did coined word MISUNDERSTANDING,then it should be mentioned in this article,because it is now very famous word,we even learned that word in our English class and I heard it on the movies many time,but Im not really sure if he did coined it.

Ice Cold 18:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

You may be thinking of "misunderestimating". --LV (Dark Mark) 18:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

No,he said MISUNDERSTANDING. I know he also said misunderestimating,but its not so popular.But he also said that he coined MISUNDERSTANDING,which is a very popular word. Ice Cold 19:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

{{User:DrLeebot/News not notable}}
The Bushism article on the other hand, would be the perfect place for this. ---DrLeebot 12:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe,but it seems to me that Misunderstanding was a word before he said it,so I dont think he told the truth when he said that he coined it.

As for Misunderestimating,i think he really coined it,but i doubt that he coined that word Misunderstanding....But,if he did,then it should be mentioned,since Misunderstanding is now accepted word in many English speeking countries.

Ice Cold 13:08, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

He didn't coin it, he just misspoke in saying that he did. ---DrLeebot 16:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok,so President lied.Thank you,now I get it.Ice Cold 19:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Or could it be...a joke?!?!?Squiggyfm 20:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe,but I doubt that President Bush is smart enough to joke like that.He probably lied.

Ice Cold 13:41, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Heinlein. Bush has a well-known history of misspeaking, hence the entire article on Bushisms. This is just an ironic extension of that. (I believe that he meant to say "Misunderestimate" in place of "Misunderstanding," for what it's worth.) ---DrLeebot 13:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard that quote about him claiming to have coined Misunderstanding before. If anything it was one of his jokes, which aren't always taken the way he intends them to. I would definitely expect him to claim the Misunderestimated line, as that is more closely linked to him (Bill Sammon wrote a book with that in the title). I doubt the president would claim to have coined misunderstanding. It was already in the dictionary. Criddic 06:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, he said it: http://www.slate.com/id/76886/: "I've coined new words, like, misunderstanding and Hispanically."-Radio-Television Correspondents Association dinner, Washington, D.C., March 29, 2001. I think he just misspoke what his speechwriters wrote. As a joke, it's too subtle and convoluted for his speechwriters to have expected his audience to catch onto. Doesn't belong here, and doesn't even belong in Bushisms; there are so many better examples. 71.230.228.65 08:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Now there's an image gallery?

great, because what this page really needed was to be longer and take more time to load--64.12.117.13 23:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Is there precedent for this? --ElKevbo 23:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove it. Image galleries are what Wikimedia Commons is for, and one of those images is a fair-use image, making the section a direct violation of Wikipedia policy. If the images cannot be incorporated into this article due to size constraints, then incorporate them into a daughter article (many of this page's daughter articles are very lacking in images), like Foreign policy or Second Term or First Term, or just leave them out altogether. -Silence 23:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and removed it. If the editor who originally put it in wishes to keep it for their personal use in adding to the article, I suggest using your user space. ---DrLeebot 15:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Speaking of which, what is it about this article that attracts so much tag-cruft? I mean look at the most recent addition
, not to mention the sprotection tag, and the 2 dozen tags on the talk page--70.107.118.186 14:42, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
I removed that tag (yesterday? the day before?). It's completely unnecessary as it applies to every article. I know this is a very high-traffic and high-visibility article but that's no reason to add an unnecessary (and quite ugly, IMHO) template to it. --ElKevbo 16:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

You simply MUST remember that Bush cannot string two sentences together coherently without a teleprompter. The man is a buffoon (my POV). TheKurgan 15:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Protection

Can we un-protect it now?? It's been semiprotected for god knows how long!!! --TheM62Manchester 07:39, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to recommend against that. Even being semi-protected, it still gets vandalised on a very regular basis. When the flood gates are leaking, the last thing you want to do is open them up completely. ---DrLeebot 13:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I think that it should remain protected, but i can only imagine how long it must be before we can unprotect it

at the very least it will be a few years. this isnt one of wikipedia's brightest stars Jds10912 17:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Ballpark in Arlington Sweetheart Deal

This article includes coverage of Bush buying a share of the Texas Rangers. However, there's zero mention of the huge controversy that was involved in this deal at the time. Namely, The Ballpark in Arlington stadium deal that was paid for by the taxpayers (and was controversial because this taxpayer-funded venture was seen as corporate welfare to pad the pockets of the wealthy owners of the Rangers, including Bush). I really think this article ought to touch on this aspect of the deal; it was a major controversy here in Texas. I get the feeling that if Clinton had been involved in such a deal that at least 1,000 words would be devoted to this topic in his main article.

I get the feeling that if Clinton had been involved in such a deal that at least 1,000 words would be devoted to this topic in his main article. Only if the deal involved some oral lovin'.
Complete Agreement

Much of Bush's past, including the oil companies and insider trading scandal at Harkin have been "Hanitized" for his protection. I've read various rationales for this, including lack of verification, etc. The public should know these things, they are in the public domain and are well documented. It's merely Republican censoring to keep them out.

Holygrailale 12:51, 16 August 2006 (UTC)holygrailaleHolygrailale 12:51, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Warning Before 9/11

I know there's a lot of 9/11 conspiracies floating around the Web. But here's something that is true and has been documented by the White House itself: on Aug. 6, 2001, a few weeks before 9/11, Bush was handed a Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) while he was on vacation at his Crawford ranch. The PDB, handed to him by CIA analysts, was titled, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S." Bush took no action after receiving this PDB and went fishing later that day. All of this is verified and true (although Wikipedia visitors who get all their news and views from Rush have probably never heard of this). Of course, the main article on Bush makes no mention of any of this. In fact, incredibly, Bin Laden isn't mentioned ONCE in the main Bush article (Bin Laden gets three mentions in the main Clinton article). The word "vacation" also appears nowhere in the Bush article (surprising in itself as Bush famously takes more vacation time than any previous president). I am only mentioning the above to point out Wikipedia's blatant pro-GOP and pro-Bush slant these days. I don't seriously expect the above info to be included in the Bush article. However, I will make this observation. Let's say Clinton had been in office at the time and he'd taken no action after being handed this PDB/Bin Laden warning and instead had gone fishing later that day and continued relaxing on his vacation. Is there a single person in the entire country who seriously believes that this wouldn't be extensively documented in the Clinton article?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.120.202 (talk • contribs)

Do you happen to know what was in that PDB? It was a listing of al Quaeda's past attacks and an explanation of why they are still a threat. In other words, it was nothing new. 2nd Piston Honda 16:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Please spare me your predictable right-wing/Rush/Fox talking points. You avoided answering the question I posed. That is: let's say it'd been Clinton who'd been president at the time and let's say he'd received a PDB/Bin Laden warning from the CIA. Let's say, like Bush, he'd taken no action and went fishing. Do you really, seriously believe that the main Clinton article wouldn't document this in detail? I only bring this up to point out Wikipedia's strongly pro-Bush, pro-GOP bias these days.
So now the truth is considered right wing talking points? Eh, i'll take it. My comment was a reply to your question because it was directed at your premise, namely that the PDB was something which could result in placing blame in hindsight. If you read that briefing, it's pretty much a childish memo explaining what al Quaeda is and what they've done in the past. So no, i don't think it would have been included in the Clinton article. 2nd Piston Honda 20:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Of course Bush could have, illigally of course, rounded up all Arab men in the country and shut down the transportation system, thereby ruining the economy for a good long while and sit in front of his desk 24/7....now that would have given WP editors a field day! (puts down sarcasm mask) Kalsermar 19:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
One of these days, we'll be able to convice Al Franken to become an editor here. Until then, no one with a liberal view simply has the time and patience to find verifiable enough criticisms that they could be placed in this article (see WP:LIVING and WP:Verifiable). Public perception and assessments of George W. Bush has a decent amount of criticism in it, however.
Nevertheless, Bin Laden should definitely be mentioned, as should the fact that he is still at large despite Bush's (claimed) efforts to capture him. ---DrLeebot 19:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not asking for Al Franken to be the editor of this article. I'm not even asking for the slightest bit of liberal bias. You people are missing the point of my original piece. All I'm saying is that if Clinton had taken no action after getting that PDB then the whole right-wing propaganda machine in this country would have gone into hyperdrive. For the next 10 years, all we would have heard as the lead story on Fox News (and the rest of the corporate media) would be "9/11 is all Clinton's fault because he ignored this PDB memo on his vacation." And Wikipedia, no doubt, would have gone into considerable detail about all this in its main Clinton article. This is all true and any sane, rational, clear-thinking adult knows damn well that I'm right. Instead, this whole episode is never mentioned in the main Bush article, while the Clinton main article goes into detail about every single right-wing/nutcase/talk radio allegation ever made against Clinton. By contrast, the main Bush article is heavily sanitized to remove anything that could be considered in the slightest bit critical of Bush. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.120.202 (talk • contribs) 19:21, July 31, 2006
Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. --ElKevbo 00:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
That template doesn't work quite so well when you're talking to an anonymous user on a semi-protected page. --DrLeebot 18:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Heh. You're right. I don't have sympathy for this particular user, however, as he or she has proven more than willing to engage in significant discussion and debate but unwilling to bother registering an account. --ElKevbo 18:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
User 71.86.120.202, are you even reading the responses to your posts? Like the one i just gave above? 2nd Piston Honda 01:02, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
In response to Kalsermar, uh, actually a lot of commentators, including no less a financial/economic expert than Warren Buffet, have pointed out that Bush HAS ruined the U.S. economy (largest deficits in history, out-of-control spending, fantastic spiraling Iraq War costs, lowest U.S. savings rate since the Great Depression, the U.S. dollar in peril). And, no, I'm not being sarcastic. If you wonder why I'm mentioning all this, well, YOU'RE the one who brought up this point in the first place (instead of responding to my original post's point).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.120.202 (talk • contribs) 19:45, 31 July 2006
First of all, the Al Franken thing was obviously an attempt at a joke, though the actual point may not have been so obvious. Basically, I'm saying that in order to get significant criticism into this article we'd need to have it be verifiable, and Al Franken is a liberal known for making strong criticisms based on verifiable evidence. Now there's an idea: use some of his books directly (Lies and The Truth would be good) as evidence of criticism. Given the books' popularity, the criticism would definitely qualify as notable. Plus, anything in those books would automatically be verifiable (in the sense that verifiable that the criticism was made). (I own a copy of Lies, but not The Truth, so someone else would need to help there. I'm sure there's also a lot of criticisms from others about Bush as well.)
Problem is, I'm not sure what the best way would be to add this information in. Should we make another article for criticism of him, perhaps? The amount of criticism is notable enough that it needs to go somewhere, and stuff like this doesn't fit in the Public perception article. ---DrLeebot 18:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Our un-logged-in friend here appears to desire a direct answer to his original hypothetical clinton question that doesn't point out that the intellegence briefing contained no new information. Well, here goes. The answer, as it happens, is not so hypothetical. Clinton did in fact know the entirety of the information contained in that briefing. He knew it long before he left office. His response was to fire off a few missiles for show, undercut the funding of the military, and call it a day. Thus, just look around for the answer to your question. The question is not what would the pundits and the media have said about clinton if he had known the information, but what do the pundits and the media say about him because he did know it. As to "all we would have heard as the lead story on Fox News (and the rest of the corporate media) would be '9/11 is all Clinton's fault because he ignored this PDB memo on his vacation,'" the American right has held consistently the novel(!) idea that the primary responsibility for the 9/11 attacks lies not with the flawed defence situation left to bush by clinton, nor with bush's inability to fix it in time, but rather, (surprise!) with the terrorists who are trying to kill us. Happy editing, TheKaplan 18:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
In response to TheKaplan. Are you sure about all this? Or are you just giving us the standard Rush Limbaugh/Faux News line about the PDB? If you stop and think about your view, it doesn't make a lot of sense. As it turns out, Clinton actually did a great deal of successful work in countering terrorism and Bin Laden. He warned the incoming Bush team that "Bin Laden will be your biggest headache." Indeed, the incoming Bush team recalled their astonishment over how "obsessed" Clinton was with Bin Laden. In any case, Bush completely ignored Clinton's advice and refused the bipartisan Rudman/Hart recommendation to start up a Dept. of Homeland Security. Indeed, before 9/11, Bush pretty much ignored the terrorism issue and redirected funding toward missile defense. But you right-wingers' insistence on charactering the Aug. 6 2001 PDB as trivial and meaningless doesn't make a lot of sense. For one thing, the contents of that memo were classified. For another, CIA analysts, with the PDB in hand, flew from Washington, D.C. to Crawford to interrupt Bush's vacation and personally deliver the PDB. Clearly the CIA people thought it was important, even if Bush didn't. I can't help think what might have happened if Bush had taken it seriously and had canceled the rest of his vacation. If he'd had a meeting with his advisers on the issue, perhaps the topic of increasing the nation's security and protecting obvious, high-profile targets might've come up (In fact, I'm sure Richard Clarke would've raised this issue). Of course, the World Trade Center, which had already been attacked by terrorists only 8 years previously, would have been near, or at the top of such a list.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.86.120.202 (talk • contribs) 18:16, 1 August 2006
Note the were classified part, the document was declassified and released in 2004, in fact you can find a copy of it on CNN.com. Also the PDB wouldn't interrupt his vacation because it is a part of his day, be it in Washington, in Texas, or over the Atlantic flying to Europe. PPGMD 01:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Here's most laugable part of your little diatribe:
For another, CIA analysts, with the PDB in hand, flew from Washington, D.C. to Crawford to interrupt Bush's vacation and personally deliver the PDB
Were you aware that PDB stands for President's Daily Brief as in something that occurs "daily"? As noted above, in the 21st century it doesn't matter if a daily briefing occurs in the White House, Texas, or Timbuktu.--RWR8189 11:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I came into this discussion a bit late. But why is it always about Clinton? He had 8 years, didn't do anything to solve the problem, and said very similar things to Dubya Re: Saddam/WMD in 1998. He had his chance to improve that situation and he blew it. (No pun intended.) And I know my questions will be dismissed as you call me a Fox/Rush/GOP tool, as you have called others such names at least twice in this very article. Save it; it's not true. Besides, name-calling doesn't get us anywhere. I could ask you if you're planning on getting your American history from anyone other than Michael Moore, but what good could come from it? Dubc0724 16:04, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Really? It was my understanding that Clinton did a fair bit more to combat terrorism than any previous president. He also significantly expanded the military (Bush's comments in his inauguration that two whole divisions would have to report "not ready for duty" was at best mistaken and at worst a lie). When he left office, his team tried to do everything they could to brief the Bush team on all the on-going events and what they had to continue up on. If Clarke is to be believed, then they were the ones who completely dropped the ball. I don't have access to all my references, so I can't provide good supporting evidence right now, but hopefully someone else can. Otherwise, I'll try to do it a bit later.
As for him saying similar things to Bush regarding Saddam, mind providing quotes? ---DrLeebot 17:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • As for him saying similar things to Bush regarding Saddam, mind providing quotes? Sure. Here's one: "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear." We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors." [4] Dubc0724 17:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
(silence?)

Really? It was my understanding that Clinton did a fair bit more to combat terrorism than any previous president.... I'm not sure I buy that either. World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, USS Cole, Embassies in Africa... I don't recall any strong action taken after any of the attacks. The only strong action Clinton seemed to be able to take was to let the Dept of Justice run amok here at home, (not to mention running afoul of the Constitution). See Ruby Ridge. What exactly did Clinton do that made us stronger on terror, or "terr" as Bush calls it? Dubc0724 17:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Except of course for Clinton's administration catching Al Qaeda operatives actively involved in attempts to blow up Los Angeles International Airport on Millennium Eve, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels in New York and the United Nations building, aborting a planned assault on the Israeli embassy in Washington, cooperating with intelligence services on every continent to successfully arrest, prosecute, and imprison or execute dozens of terrorist cells overseas from the former Soviet Union to the Philippines, freezing $254 million in Taliban assets in the United States, and actually hitting a convoy bin Laden was driving in with an RPG, after Clinton signed a National Security Decision Directive authorizing an intensive campaign to destroy al Qaeda and capture or kill bin Laden. That would be the year after he sent the CIA into Afghanistan with a Pakistani commando unit to get bin Laden, until Musaharraf pulled the plug on the operation.
You remember all those don't you? The Republicans were mad about it, because Clinton was changing the subject from their important investigation of whether he got a blow job from Monica in the process of showing Paula his weenie as part of a criminal conspiracy by his wife to lose a ton of money in an Arkansas land deal several years previous.
"Robert M. Gates, former director of the CIA was on hand to share some of his experiences and give his insights to the nation's ongoing challenge to battle terrorism.... He cited several instances where plans from terrorists were realized and halted throughout the 1990s, including:
    • An attack on the Federal building in New York
    • Plans to destroy the Lincoln and Holland tunnels
    • A plan to fly a plane into CIA headquarters
    • A millennium New Year's Eve plot to attack Los Angeles International Airport ..." [5]


"[The Clinton administration was] correctly focused on bin Laden." -Paul Bremer, ambassador for counterterrorism in the Reagan State Department and later chair of the Congressional National Commission on Terrorism, Washington Post, Dec. 2000
"Overall, I give [the Clinton administration] very high marks [on counterterrorism]." - Robert Oakley, also ambassador for counterterrorism in the Reagan State Department, Washington Post, Dec. 2000
'The Clinton administration was "obsessed" with bin Laden' -the report of the 9/11 Commission
Oh and then there was the anti-terrorism legislation Clinton tried to pass in 93, but the Republicans voted down, then again in 95 hoping McVeigh's home-grown terrorism might wake up the Republicans, but it didn't. You remember, don't you; Senator John Ashcroft said the legislation was an unwarranted assault on Americans' rights and privacy. How could you possibly forget something as funny as that turned out to be?
And the airport security legislation Clinton tried to pass, but the Republicans rejected because they didn't want the government to pay for it, and the 8 Republicans on the Senate Aviation Subcommittee killed it because their big contributors, the airlines, didn't want to pay for it either.
Oh yeah, and Clinton's bioterrorism preparedness initiative, the one that (besides all those preparedness drills) established a new national stockpile of emergency medical supplies, including 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine for the CDC; you remember, the ones that the Bush administration used after 9/11? You didn't think they stocked those up themselves did you?
On the other hand, Bush gets handed a memo entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike within US" and goes fishing, while Condi sits tight, because her husband didn't tell her what to do. "[If] I needed to do anything, I would have been asked to do it. I was not asked to do it." -Condi Rice. Dr. Dolittle and her leader, the Fisherman in Chief.
Gzuckier 20:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


I'm going to skip over most of the little cliches (it was just a blowjob) and "clever" digs (Condi and her husband). Maybe ten years from now when we find out how many attacks have been thwarted since 9/11 we can keep this little Bush-Clinton pissing contest going? That's assuming this Administration ever tells us anything it's doing. (Not likely) See...I'm not even a big Bush supporter, but I've got to speak up when this Clinton agenda-restoration/history-rewrite crap starts up. Dubc0724 20:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh how I enjoy getting the last word.

addition of detail on May 1, 2003 event

Seeing all the controversy on Bush, I thought I should post my intentions on the talk page. To the Wars option, I plan to add the location (USS Abraham Lincoln) and small detail on the May 1, 2003 speech event.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wisdomcb (talk • contribs) 05:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Protected

This page is hereby protected due to back and forth edit warring over a few different sections. Edit warring is not allowed, especially on prominent articles such as this. Page protection is not an endorsement of the current page version. Once your disputes have been resolved, you can request unprotection at WP:RfPP or contact me. --Lord Deskana (talk) 18:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The Decider

Keep - See my previous edits, which cite sources, showing the quote that G.W. made defending Donald Rumsfeld. He proceeded to call himself "...the decider..." in this quote.

2nd Piston Honda continued with a editing war in an attempt to censor this information.

Can we come to a decision on this?

Keep or Remove The Decider quote information? --- Playnine9 18:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I deleted it because 1) It's irrelevant and not important, and 2) There was no explanation within the article as to why it was in the criticism section. 2nd Piston Honda 18:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
The problem with that, though, is that it is NOT irrelevant. Also, who are you to decide if it is important or not? A quote from a public speech that generated a TON of public criticism surely belongs in the criticism section of George Bush. Why do you feel that it doesn't?
Also, it is not a wikipedia practice to EXPLAIN why you place something in a specific section. Do you see rationalization in any other article for WHY that information is there? I DID cite my sources. --- Playnine9 19:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Try to keep up, bro. Notice i said "within the article". In other words, you quoted Bush, but gave no explanation in the article as to how that related to "criticism". 2nd Piston Honda 19:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
On the contrary, BRO, I did! If you had continued reading instead of simply deleting that with offended you, you would have seen that I wrote about how the quote was followed by critisism and comedic attack. How is this not explaining?! HOW DOES THIS NOT MEET WIKIPEDIA STANDARDS? HAHAHA!! I'm really starting to get very amused at how fucking retarded you are! --- Playnine9 19:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I believe you didn't have that part at first, at least it wasn't there in some of the reverts that i made. But even if you did, that's only 1 down, 1 to go. 2nd Piston Honda 19:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Honda, you need to not censor information just because it makes your point of view look bad. If he can cite his facts, putting a Bush quote in a Bush article seems reasonable. You are breaking the rules of the wikipedia. Stop or you will be reported. Stop Me Now! 19:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

So all Bush quotes belong in the article? 2nd Piston Honda 19:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry but you're wrong, Stopmenow100. You must establish noteability and relevance to add information to an encyclopedia article. A verifiable source is necessary but it is not sufficient. --ElKevbo 19:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

ElKevbo and 2nd Pison Honda, are you both simply protecting your points of view? The original author did cite his sources, did place it in the appropriate section, criticism, and did rationalize and establish noteablilty by saying it was followed by intense criticism. Also, wouldn't you agree that an event that spawns NUMEROUS, NUMEROUS news articles by well-known news firms belongs in an article about George W. Bush?

Remember the "I'm the Decider Koo-Koo-Kachoo" Beatles remix?

Remember the Daily Show doing entire segments related to this quote?

Read http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=%22the+decider%22 http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/18/rumsfeld/ (includes a VIDEO) http://decider.cf.huffingtonpost.com/ - REMEMBER SEEING THIS ON THE NEWS? http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2006/04/the_decider.html

Now lets hear something convincable from you as to why it DOESN'T belong. Not all quotes belong, but this one DEFINITELY does, due to its huge public reaction.

I propose: For example, On April 18, 2006, Bush made the following statement while defending Donald Rumsfeld's performance as Secretary of Defense:

"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense." [7]

The statement "...I'm the decider..." spurred a wave of attacks by Democrats, Bush-haters, and comedians alike.--12.15.146.254 17:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


Not all quotes belong, but this one DEFINATELY does, due to its huge public reaction. What huge public reaction? I believe this is what we call making a mountain out of a molehill. Dubc0724 16:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't the one who made the mountain out of a molehill. Did you even look at the links I sent? Did CNN make a mountain out of a molehill? Did the Daily Show make a mountain out of a molehill? How can you possibly say that reactions by million-person-per-day shows, clothing being created, and all of the other examples I listed don't classify as a public reaction? Yet in the Stephen Colbert article we see his quote of requesting the number of elephants be tripled. How do you consider Stephen's quote more important than this one made by our president? The reaction from our president's quote was by far more noticed and goofed upon.
I have yet to see a convicing reason why we should NOT have the quote listed. All you do is beat around the bush (pun?) and try to protect your political point of view instead of recording the truth for the future.--12.15.146.254 17:04, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


Yes, they did. And thanks for the link to the mountain of a molehill article, but I wouldn't have used the term if I didn't already understand it.
So, was that little rant directed solely at me, or just part of it? I don't recall implying that Colbert's quote had any more notability/importance than what Bush said. Seriously, who cares? I think there are much more important things Wikipedia editors could be working on rather than trying to add one more dig to an already unpopular president's article.
And while we're at it, wouldn't you have to know what my "political point of view" is in order to accuse me of trying to "protect" it? [I'm not here to be political. It's more like I'm here to point out the inaccurate and/or ridiculous. That, of course, keeps me plenty busy around these parts.] Dubc0724 17:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
You again failed to explain why the quote doesn't belong. You only addressed points that didn't matter...which is odd because you are the self-proclaimed destroyer of all nonsense. I'm not making a personal attack here, but you are being a bit hypocritical. Anyway, since you want to hide the truth from the public, even though other noteable sources(CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc) do not, then go ahead. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with you and your dubious point of view. It's faily obvious what your political point of view is. I don't have to look it up on wikipedia to figure it out. I have something called common sense (a virtue you clearly don't possess).
You win. The truth loses.
You win. The truth loses. Wow. How overdramatic can you get? All I was saying was that you were making a bigger deal about this than was needed. I haven't heard ANYTHING about it since my last comment here, other than reading your little rant above. It's faily [sic] obvious what your political point of view is. I don't think so. Maybe you just have that attitude of "anyone who doesn't agree with me must be the enemy". So yeah, I take exception to being painted as some sort of mind-numbed Fox News/Rush Limbaugh robot just because I happened to point out the ridiculous.
I suppose name-calling is easier than arguing based on substance, right? BTW, please sign your comments on talk pages with four tildes. Thanks Dubc0724 13:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Spacing

Because of the huge amount of information and links on this page, I thought I might try spacing it out a bit, adding an extra line between paragraphs. It makes it longer obviously but I think it's easier to read. Feel free to change it back if you want to, whoever, but I think on balance it makes it look a little better. C i d 13:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Templates

I don't think there are enough templates at the head of this article. Could we consider adding a few more? -- 198.20.40.50 00:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Edits regarding the 2001 tax cuts

A few points on these edits:

  • It is misleading to mention the Clinton administration when introducing the ban, since the ban was a result of a 1995 act of Congress with which the administration was not connected. Arkansas Representative Jay Dickey slipped it into an appropriations bill.
  • It's a good idea to link to the article on the tax cut. Nothing wrong with that.
  • But in a biographical article on George W. Bush there is no point to going into the differences in rates for each different bracket before and after the 2001 cut, since that is done better and in more detail in the article on the tax cut.
  • There is a section in the edit in question that reads:

"At the time it was reported that this tax cut would reduce federal revenues by $1.35 trillion over a 10-year period. However, that prediction assumed zero economic growth. In reality, as of August 2006, federal revenues are significantly higher than they were before the tax cut, and millions more persons are employed. Some see this as a vindication of Bush's policy.

  • This section seems somewhat misinformed. There's little direct connection between unemployment rates and government receipts, so there's little point in mentioning them together here. The prediction was that over a decade the cuts would reduce federal revenues to $1.35 trillion less than they would have been without the cuts, not that federal revenues would be lower in 2006 or 2011 than they were in 2001. So it's foolish to be surprised or see any inconsistency in that tax receipts are higher in August 2006 than before the 2001 tax cut. For tax receipts to decline or remain the same, either the tax cuts would have to be positively massive or population and economic growth would have to suddenly cease.
  • "Some see this as a vindication of Bush's policy" is a weaselly phrase.
  • There's nothing wrong with the edits to the last paragraph in the changes in question.


--Mr. Billion 06:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Grievances from 69.134.165.193

—National Security Fact: Bush oversaw the greatest security failure in the history of the United States. And don't tell me there was nothing he could have done about it. The fact is Bush received a memo that said 'Bin Laden determined to attack the United States in the summer of 2001' The Clinton administration acted upon the same type of intelligence and was able to thwart a planned terrorist attack in LA's airport in 1998. We never heard about it. That's the way it's supposed to be. Because Bush was still on vacation at the time of the warning, I guess he ignored it. When Bush returned from the longest vacation ever taken by a president of the United States, on Sept 11, 2001 he decided to go to a Florida school on a campaigning event. Before entering the school Bush was informed of the 1st tower being hit and he still decided to continue with his publicity stunt in that Florida classroom. When he was informed of the 2nd tower being hit, he froze like a deer caught in headlights and did absolutely nothing as time passed by. That is a failure to lead in a time of crisis. Did Bush take responsibility for this failure? Nope. He blamed it on the CIA and his advisers.

Iraq has been a debacle from the start and the war has made America LESS safe Fact: Iraq had no WMDs, no ties to Al Qaeda, and the US is taking 90% of the cost and causality burden of the war Fact: Bush miscalculated on the number of troops needed to secure the peace Fact: Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi blamed the deaths of the US-Iraqi soldiers on the incompetence of the Bush administration Fact: Report today indicates the US is still unprepared to handle a bio-terrorist attack. What the hell are we waiting for? Fact: Bush cut health care benefits for war veterans and supports a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families--in wartime This hasn't been proven yet, but most likely Bush's incompetence led to tons of missing explosives in Iraq which are now likely in the hands of terrorists. Yes, the US destroyed hundreds of tons of explosives, but a few hundred tons are still unaccounted for and it only takes 1 pound of these explosives to blow up an airplane. These explosives were safely guarded by the UN until Bush invaded Iraq and took over watch of the explosives. Fact: Bush refuses to pass a bill that forces airlines to scan the cargo on commercial airlines (carry-on and passengers get checked, but not the checked cargo). With all these explosives missing, does this fact make you feel safe? Fact: Bush has failed to reduce global nuclear proliferation, and he still has no plan for this Values Fact: Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL for nearly one year. During his time in the Guard he refused to take a drug test (read: cocaine) or answer any questions about drug use. By joining the National Guard, Bush was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam. Fact: Bush's National Guard records are 'lost' Fact: Bush was arrested in 1976 for a DUI Fact: Bush's Texas driving records are 'lost' Fact: Bush graduated from college with a low C average. He was a cheerleader at Yale. Seriously. Fact: Bush is the first President in history to enter office with a criminal record Fact: Bush is the all time US and world record holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations Fact: Bush is close friends with Kenneth Lay (of Enron) Fact: Bush is the first president in US history to have the UN remove the US form the Human Rights Commission Fact: Bush is the first president in US history to refuse UN election inspectors Fact: Bush's administration was found to be directly responsible for prison abuse in Iraq Fact: Bush did not attend any of the funerals of the100,000+ American soldiers killed in Iraq, but he did attend more than 43 fund raising events of the Republican party over the same time period The Halliburton scandal is not official yet, but charging American tax payers nearly $100 for a can of soda for our troops just isn't right. Too much of a coincidence that Cheney's is the former CEO of Halliburton. (The FBI is currently investigating this one) And of course we have the 2000 election where Bush refused to allow a recount in Florida and instead insisted on having his Daddy's friends in the Supreme Court decide the election, thus defeating the basic principle of democracy as outlined by America's founding fathers. Anyone who does not suspect foul play here is in a dangerous state of denial. Economy/Health Care No matter what spin the Bush administration wants to put on it, his economic policy has failed and we have not 'turned a corner' Fact: Nearly 2 million jobs LOST since Bush took office Fact: Bush supports the outsourcing of American jobs overseas and gives a tax break to American companies that do so! Fact: Bush is the first president in nearly a century to have a net job LOSS during his term in office. The last president to do this was Herbert Hoover, who, in case you didn't know, was president during the GREAT DEPRESSION. Fact: Under Bush's leadership we had the highest unemployment rate in nearly a decade. Under Clinton, we had the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years Fact: Job creation from Jan thru Sept 2004 fell well below the forecasted amount Fact: Bush set an economic record for most foreclosures and private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period Fact: Bush presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history Fact: The Bush family has close business ties to the Saudi Royal family... hmmm, maybe this explains the fact about gas prices? or why we don't invade Saudi Arabia? Fact: During Bush's first term Health Care costs have increased while quality of service has decreased and this trend continues today Fact: Millions of Americans lost their health care plans during Bush's 4 years in office and Bush has no plan for changing his failed Health Care policy Fact: Bush turned a record surplus from the Clinton administration into the largest annual deficit in US history. This led the International Monetary Fund (which bails out basket case economies) to warn Bush of a fiscal melt down with global repercussions. Poor economic planning and fighting expensive wars...this is how countries go bankrupt. Look at what happened to Russia after they invaded Afghanistan. Too bad Bush is not exactly a history buff. Fact: Bush gave 80% of his tax 'cuts' to the wealthiest 1% of America. This means Snoop Dog and Shaquille O'Neal get a larger tax break than people like you and me. This is why the Bush economy fails. He doesn't put spending money in the pockets of the people that need it. Education: Running the country is like running a business. One major problem with your boy Bush is that he failed in every business he ever ran, most of them ending in bankruptcy... this includes his oil drilling business that went under because he couldn't find any oil... in TEXAS! In business, it's a fact that if you don't invest in training then your employees will not be able to out perform their competition. In the United States, if we don't invest in education then the people running our businesses will not be educated enough to out perform competition from other countries. Fact: China has steadily gained on the US in the Global Economy since Bush took over. This is a direct result of all his cuts to our education system. Fact: Over the past 4 years, college tuition has increased while funding for financial aid and scholarships decreased Fact: Bush underfunds his own education initiative (more on that below) Economic might is far superior to military might... not that China doesn't have a strong military. What's going to happen when China takes control of the Global Economy and starts putting restraints on trade with the United States? Is Bush going to attack China? With the horrible results we see every day from Bush's poor planning and unrealistic strategy in Iraq, I'd hate to see what would happen if we attacked a real country like China. Maybe that's why Bush is allowing North Korea's dictator to keep his WMDs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.134.165.193 (talk • contribs) 18:59, 3 August 2006

How's everything in Flint, Mr. Moore? :-)

I think it is worth noting that during hearings about the mentioned memo, it was maintained that the actual content revealed nothing actionable about upcoming attacks. In fact, it was noted that the title was misleading. Since the matter was not pursued further by investigators, we should be careful not to read too much into that ominous headline. Criddic 06:35, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the president certainly was. --Mr. Billion 06:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

About the "500 degraded munitions"

Somebody changed the text:
"the specifically designated weapons of mass destruction that the Coalition of the Willing invaded to capture have never been found."
into
"coalition forces recovered approximately 500 weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had successfully hidden from UN inspectors."
In fact, however, the munitions so publicly touted by Santorum and Hoekstra to whip up their base were "the same kind of ordnance the U.S. military has been gathering in Iraq for the past several years, and 'not the WMD we were looking for when we went in this time.'" The shells "had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988." And "intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion." --Mr. Billion 06:55, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Remembering what the descriptions of WMD was before and during the initial phase, it seems clear that these types of weapons were what they were looking for. It is true, though, that the elements they found recently were deemed older materials. However, it is still worthy mentioning, as it proves that Hussein lied to inspectors after the Gulf War and before the Iraq War. Apparently audio tape of Hussein and his military generals reveal discussions about hiding materials and information from the United Nations council and inspectors. If need be, I can find an article to back this up. I read a few of them not long ago. Criddic 07:28, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no reference to back up this claim in the article: "The weapons of mass destruction that the Coalition of the Willing invaded to capture have been found, but not in great quantaties. To date no significante evidence of nuclear or biological weapons have been found. There has been over 500 artillery shells found containing weaponized chemicals specifically Sarin and Mustard agents. These chemical agents, specifically Sarin gas have been used at times agains US troops by Iraqi insurgents."

The description of WMD before the invasion was "old buried unusable shells that they forgot they had"?
As the linked articles note, both the White House and intelligence officials have acknowledged that these were not the weapons that the invasion was about, so it is irrational to insist otherwise. --Mr. Billion 07:41, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Obiviously the buried munitions were not "forgotten," because some person or document directed coalition forces to dig them up. (Coalition forces did not search for WMDs by digging holes at random locations in the desert.) At the outset of the invasion, the coalition was not looking for "specifically designated" WMDs; it was looking for any and all WMDs. The fact that the shells were "old" is irrelevant, as the NGIC report states, "while agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal." To not mention the fact that WMDs were found, and to instead say only that "specifically designated" WMDs were never found, is a purely political denigration of a genuine accomplishment. 199.46.200.231 20:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Dr. David Kay, First Director of the CIA Iraq Survey Group 2003 - 2004, testifying before the House Armed Services Committee:
"I fully expected that we would find chemical rounds from the 1980s in Iraq. I knew that they were continuing to be found right up to the time of the war, and there was no reason to doubt there.
"Now, I was concerned with these weapons in one particular aspect: I was concerned that our troops would be exposed to them as they tried to bring under control and render harmless a large conventional armory.
...
"Why this lack of concern on my part for what I freely acknowledge at the time was a high probability that small amounts of pre-1991 chemical munitions would continue to be found? There were two reasons.
"First, the general technical assessments that I was provided was that Iraq sarin that was produced -- and this was the bulk of Iraq sarin -- was produced between 1984 and 1988, a huge amount of which had been collected by the U.N., had been analyzed not only here but in other places around the world -- that that sarin was of such poor quality, it lacked any stabilization agent, and quite frankly, if I can respond to an earlier question you had, Congressman Weldon, it does not in any way look like Russian sarin.
...
"I must also say -- and some questions were raised about how easy it would to be extracted. I'm one person in the room that has actually ordered people to extract chemical agent in Iraq from Iraqi weapons. Let me tell you, the people who deserve our undying gratitude are the American men and women who are now asked to do it.
"It is an extraordinarily -- even using the advanced technology we have to draw off those chemical agents from Iraqi weapons. These weapons are badly corroded. They were never produced in a quality that would be acceptable in our military. And while it is possible to draw it off, you are more likely to result in the death of the people likely to draw it off.
...
"Let me conclude by saying, I don't think any of us should be surprised that we are still finding chemical munitions produced before 1991 in Iraq. I must say the only surprise in the last two weeks about this controversy is why this report is classified. I can think of no reason that this report should remain unclassified (sic) and unavailable. And I commend the chairman and others' efforts to make that unclassified.
"All of the world's battlefields continue to yield old weapons, many decades after the conflict. I'm absolutely convinced that Iraq is no exception to this. We will be finding conventional armaments and, unfortunately, chemical munitions."
REP. WELDON: "So this Iraqi sarin -- would you pick up the bag and hold it if there was a liter of it?"
MR. KAY: "Sir, I have carried it on my person in a closed aircraft with 25 of my closest friends until they discovered I was carrying it."
Gzuckier 21:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

'COMMENT': The largest issue that has never been addressed is "What happened to the WMD's that Saddam declared to the UN? Did any of it exist? If so, where is it? If not, then did Saddam know it was a lie?" If you all remember, that was several thousand pages of documents detailing the posession of hundreds of tons of weapons, including ricin, mustard gas, various nerve gasses, etc, etc, etc. None of that was ever found, either. Did it exist at all? If it did, where did it go? Since it hasn't been used by terrorists or other ne'er-do-wells, the current theory is that it's been buried in the desert, much as was done with a lot of munitions in 1988. But, nobody knows. And we're still searching through the documents of his regieme to try to find out. Xaa 02:43, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Uh, he declared WMD to the UN? When was this? --Mr. Billion 04:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

December 7th of 2002. I remember it because it was my birthday that day. Some twelve thousand pages of documents presented to the UN Security Council, intended by Iraq to show that they had no WMD's. But the documents didn't show what happened to any of it, nor did subsequent investigations by UN weapons teams find any evidence that any of it had been destroyed. All it basically said was "Here's what we made, item by item. Trust us, though, we destroyed it all." But see, you can't just dump chemical weapons (well, you CAN, and the Iraqis certainly DID after the Gulf War by burying stuff in the desert, but bear with me for a moment). If you just dump chem weapons into the environment, it causes massive environmental damage - and kills anything nearby, including people. Nor can you just burn it up in an incinerator. For most chem-weapons, even the smoke is lethal. Disposing of chemical weapons requires that they be chemically neutralized, THEN burned. Though bio-weapons you can just toss into an incinerator (cheap, but effective), chem-weapons aren't that easy to get rid of. The current theory is that the Iraqis just buried all of it in the desert somewhere, marked it "destroyed" and moved on. This theory is based on the reality that this is precisely what they did with several caches of weapons after the Gulf War that they wanted to get rid of. And, again, the weapons inspectors found no evidence of disposal/destruction installations. No chemical factories modified to neutralize and burn chem weapons, no transport and storage containers, nothing.

But see, this leaves us with a problem: Where is all of that stuff? If it's just buried somewhere, eventually, it's going to leak into the environment. Not a problem for you and me, but a serious headache for our grandchildren or their grandchildren when weathering eventually takes it's toll on whatever the Iraqis used to contain the stuff in. Conversely, it might never have existed at all - several generals in the Gulf War alliance have said that it was their opinion that the chem-weapons production and storage facilities of Iraq were totally destroyed after the Gulf War, and it was unlikely that Iraq could have rebuilt it given their economic situation. If they're right, that means none of it even existed. So why did the Iraqi ambassador declare twelve thousand pages of stuff that Iraq didn't have? What was going on? Did it exist or not? If it didn't, then why lie? If it did, then what happened to it all?

We're fairly sure they had a WMD program. When David Kay reported to Congress in October of 2003, he showed several photographs and evidence that the Iraqis had engaged in a systematic destruction of records - piles of selectively burned documents, PC's burned to slag, etc. Sifting through the ashes and poking around in other records, however, Kay and his team were able to find several tantalizing clues, such as (quoting from Kay's testimony): "A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research. A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN. Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons. New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN. Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS). A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit. Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN. Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi. Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles - probably the No Dong - 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment."

You can read Kay's introductory statement to congress here, as well as see some of the photos: https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html

The bottom line is that these are questions that have never been addressed: If they never had these the weapons, then why did they say they once had them and then claim to have destroyed them in their December 2002 declaration to the UN? If they did have these weapons, then what happened to them? Why did they destroy all the records that would have shown their destruction efforts and proven the Iraqi ambassador told the truth in December of 2002? Xaa 16:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that.
Uh, who claimed that they never had them? Nobody disputes that Iraq had WMD programs in the '80s.
Resolution 1441 required them to produce records of all the WMD they'd had, so they produced these documents detailing stuff that they used to have. They said at the time that they no longer had WMD. They'd been trying for some time to convince the UN that they no longer had them. Hans Blix later said, "If something is unaccounted for, it doesn't necessarily mean that they exist. And I think there was that tendency to jump to that conclusion." After exhaustive investigation, the U.S.'s ISG found that Iraq hadn't produced anything since 1991.
There's nothing to be confused about in that they said they no longer had them, and then it turned out they no longer had them. It's not a great revelation that the ISG dug up useless shells from 20 years ago, when we know (and knew at the time) that there was a program.
What happened to all the stuff they'd produced in the '80s? Most of it was used in the Iran-Iraq war. They did not make it just to store it. As Gzuckier noted above, the stuff they made was of such a low quality that it would become useless in storage. Some was destroyed, some was buried and forgotten.
And why'd they destroy records? Why didn't they cooperate? The Joint Forces Command report "Saddam's Delusions" told us the obvious: The Iraqi government was excessively secretive and incompetent. --Mr. Billion 20:09, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I would love to agree, except for a few tiny little details. Firstly: The Iraqi report did not just detail weapons they made before 1991, it also detailed weapons they supposedly made *since* 1991. That was the big to-do the Iraqi ambassador was making of the response to the UN Security Council at the time, if you remember - his quote was something along the lines of "We have completely come clean regarding our WMD programs." But, no sign of their destruction has been found, for weapons made before 1991 or after (factories modified to destroy chem weapons, etc). What we've found instead is caches of old weapons buried in the desert, a few small caches of chem-weapons here and there on military bases, small NBC labs hidden in mosques, uranium refining components buried in scientists' back yards, etc. Second: What we've found does not add up to what they said they made in the 2002 declaration to the UN. Not even close. The last estimate I read was that we'd found and/or accounted for maybe all of five percent of what they declared in 2002. If you remember, the 2002 declaration contained the shocking revelation that they had produced enough ricin to kill the entire population of Europe two or three times over. Yet, haven't found any ricin at all, or any signs that it was ever destroyed. Or any signs that it ever existed. Lastly: The ISG did not conclude that the Iraqis hadn't made anything since 1991. They concluded they could not find any evidence that the weapons existed, despite a paper trail and some tantalizing clues that they might have. That sounds like the same thing, but it's not. ;-)
The bottom line remains that either A) They made weapons and then hid them, or B) they did not make weapons, but only said they did. In case A), we ask "Where did they go?" In case B, we ask "Why did they bother to lie and tell us they did something they didn't do?" Unfortunately, so long as we have people screaming about how Bush is the Antichrist (or Jesus Reborn, depending on your point of view) instead of looking at things calmly, these aren't questions we're going to get answers to anytime soon. Right now, people either love him or hate him - and that is coloring how they see and think about this issue.
ADDENDA: This is NOT to say YOU have been screaming about him, Mr. Billion, please don't misunderstand. ;-) I mean that those in charge of our information outlets have been screaming about him. This is kind of like Harry Truman and the Korean War. At the time, there was a lot of screaming, a lot of political posturing, little real information. It wasn't until Truman was well in his grave and the emotions died down that we really began hearing the facts behind that war. Xaa 23:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that they had claimed that they'd made weapons post-1991 and then destroyed them. (Can you provide links?) But given the government's incompetence and penchant for ridiculous lying (and remarkable ability to fool itself--Saddam actually believed Baghdad Bob's BS about how Iraq was winning in 2003), and in light of the fact that there's no evidence that such weapons existed, it's reasonable to conclude that probably no such weapons existed. Again from "Saddam's Delusions":

When it came to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Saddam attempted to convince one audience that they were gone while simultaneously convincing another that Iraq still had them. Coming clean about WMD and using full compliance with inspections to escape from sanctions would have been his best course of action for the long run. Saddam, however, found it impossible to abandon the illusion of having WMD, especially since it played so well in the Arab world.
Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians in 1987, was convinced Iraq no longer possessed WMD but claims that many within Iraq's ruling circle never stopped believing that the weapons still existed. Even at the highest echelons of the regime, when it came to WMD there was always some element of doubt about the truth. According to Chemical Ali, Saddam was asked about the weapons during a meeting with members of the Revolutionary Command Council. He replied that Iraq did not have WMD but flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration might encourage the Israelis to attack.

By late 2002, they realized that it was more important to convince the UN that they didn't have them in order to try to ward off an invasion than it was to cling to the illusion that they did.
From top to bottom, Iraq's government heard only what it wanted to hear, and officials were willing to misinform their superiors to cover their own behinds. "The evidence now clearly shows that Saddam and those around him believed virtually every word issued by their own propaganda machine." "Any commander who spoke the truth [that he didn't wish to hear] to [Saddam's son] Qusay would lose his head." In that environment it's not surprising that there was a great deal of internal confusion about how much WMD the country had. It's likely that whatever post-1991 claims of WMD there were resulted from confusion arising from Iraq's thick atmosphere of obfuscation, in light of the absence of evidence for any post-1991 WMD.
Finally: If there would have been evidence later on of their destruction, there would also have been evidence later on of their manufacture. Since there's evidence of neither, it's doubtful there was either. --Mr. Billion 04:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Can ya'll either (a) explain how any of this relates to the George W. Bush Wikipedia article or (b) continue this discussion elsewhere? It's very interesting but unless it's directly relevant to this encyclopedia article I'm afraid that this isn't the place for it. Thanks! --ElKevbo 04:15, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Relevance to the article: Well... Ummm... <grin> Sorry, I was just making a comment, and then got caught up in a reply. I guess the relevance is to the issue of whether or not to include remarks regarding what WAS found. I am in favor of including accurate commentary on what was found, but I believe it's going to be damn difficult to find sources that aren't unbiased regarding the issue until at least a good ten years after GW has gone to meet his maker. Xaa 04:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

All right, that's enough of that. Sorry. :p
Maybe the whole discussion should be moved to Talk:Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, with a link to there from here, if it goes any farther. --Mr. Billion 04:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Nah, just archive it, I got carried away. Thanks for the interesting conversation, though - it was very enjoyable. Xaa 04:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this conversation began as the issue of how or even whether to include the "WMDs" found in Iraq should in this article. Given the discussion above and other factors, are we closer to a consensus? I count two major viewpoints:
1) These weapos were expected, do not qualify as WMDs in the sense in which the invasion was predicated, and provide no support for the invasion or its supporters - we stil haven't found the WMDs we were assured existed
2) These weapons *do* qualify as WMDs and provide evidence that the invasion was the right thing to do (the "I told you so!" argument :)
Is this a correct summary of the issue? If so, is there a way we can *very* succintly insert this into the article while (a) giving proper weight to each viewpoint and (b) presenting the issue as ongoing debate and not a settled issue? --ElKevbo 05:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, my point was 3) The weapons *do* qualify as WMD's, but weren't the WMD's we went in there to find (Bush's speech RE "thousands of liters of sarin"). If you were going to insert it into the article, it could be done with something along these lines:
"After the conclusion of hostilities, investigative teams from the US were sent in to
 determine the extent of the Iraqi regieme's WMD programs, and the location and numbers of
 WMD's that the president had referred to in his speeches leading up to the invasion.
 However, it quickly became apparent that the WMD's that the president said were there were
 not - though WMD's were found, most were from the Gulf War and the Iran-Iraq war.  Most
 had been buried in the desert in hidden locations, and were in an extremely degraded
 condition.  What WMD materials and programs that were found that were more recent, such as
 UAV development in violation of the limits imposed on Iraq by the UN and small caches of
 recently-produced chemical artillery shells, were scattered and few.  Further
 investigation was and is dramatically hindered by the systematic and thorough destruction
 of records the Iraqi regeime engaged in during the last few days of it's existence."
Something like that, at any rate. ;-) Add the cite to the CIA page I note above, and that about covers it. They *did* find WMD caches, and they found evidence of ongoing programs for missiles, UAV's, bio-research, etc. But, what they found was a pitiful handful compared to the tons of materials they expected to find. Xaa 05:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
That looks pretty okay to me. Could you please shorten it, though? This is a very long article that will only grow longer over time so it's incumbent upon us to be as concise as possible. It's also a tiny bit too detailed for this particular article, IMHO. --ElKevbo 18:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Not really sure that can be shortened at all without causing even more controversy. Likely it would be best to simply point to the article on WMD's in Iraq, duck, and hope for the best. The issue is just too complex to drop it into one sentence and say "They went in and didn't find what they were looking for." That would cause a tremendous amount of screaming on an article that already has people asserting the President of the United States is an imaginary Sith Lord from Star Wars. =P Xaa 20:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be giving undue weight to a fringe position to present "both sides" as equally-supported and the issue as ongoing. The effectiveness of Santorum's politically-motivated claim that the U.S. had suddenly found WMD in Iraq after all relied upon omitting the fact that what they'd found was unusable 20-year-old shells. The inspectors who dug them up recognized that they were not the weapons that they'd been looking for. The argument that they do qualify as WMD, albeit useless ones, is like somebody yelling "He's got a gun!" while pointing at a piece of rusted metal that used to be a gun.
Nobody has yet provided any cites of weapons inspectors or experts arguing that 500 degraded shells are the weapons that the invasion was about, or even that they're significant. The administration has conceded that "Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there," and the administration certainly did not embrace Santorum's and Hoekstra's claims.
It would be less misleading to say that "investigators did find remnants from Iraq's 1980s-era programs."
Also, returning to the stuff that was declared in 2002: I'm sorry, I think I was a bit off about a few things. Iraq didn't have any significant WMD capability after 1991. But there had been some efforts towards WMD, or at least "weapons-of-mass-destruction-related-program-activities." After looking at this, I think part of the explanation for your concern about the post-91 WMD is the materiel and facilities that the UN and/or US destroyed in '98, '96, and before '94. And, of course, the regime's incompetence and secrecy.
The real bottom line--the point of all the talk about WMD--is the question of whether the claim that nobody poses "a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq" was accurate. Was Iraq a "mortal" and "urgent" threat to the US and its allies that necessitated an invasion in short order?
Iraq's military spending was a fraction of those of its individual neighbors. The country had no WMD capability. And the main reason why it wanted WMD capability was to make trouble for its axis-of-evil neighbor, Iran. I think there has been a tendency to neglect that. --Mr. Billion 19:35, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Amen. We're throwing around "WMD" as if the word exists in a vacumn: we didn't go to war because Iraq technically posessed 20-year-old highly degraded chemical weapons, we went to war because these WMDs presented an imminent threat to our security. I couldn't have said it better than Mr. Billion when he compared it to accusing someone of carrying a gun and then pointing to a piece of rusty metal, I liken it more to shooting the guy in "self-defense" and then pointing to a rusty piece of metal he had to justify killing him in the first place. Santorum's claim is far from the truth: degraded and forgotten piles of chemical weapons dating back to the Iran-Iraq war were of no threat to any nation. It wouldn't even make sense: Saddam was trying to get sanctions lifted so he could then re-constitute his WMD programs, as per the Duelfer report. Why would he knowingly hide a bunch of useless weapons and jeopardize the UN lifting sanctions when he was going to just make more after the sanctions were lifted? --kizzle 20:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

"Fifth Rail" ???

In the "Domestic Agenda" section of Bush's second term, this text appears in quotes:

"fifth rail of politics,"

Is this an actual quote? After all, the expression is actually the Third Rail of American politics. The source cited most immediately after this quote does not contain any mention of a "fifth rail". If someone can point out a document where a representative of the Bush administration actually said "fifth rail", please add it to the article. Otherwise, I would like to change this to the more appropriate "third rail".

--Nevistar 15:18, 4 August 2006 (UTC) http://www.fifthrail.co.uk/ Gzuckier 20:49, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

POV: Seperation of Church and State

I added a POV-Check marker in the article underneath the following sentence. "However, critics have charged that Bush, unlike Carter, has injected his religion into government, blurring the separation between Church and State."

The reason I think this sentence is controversial, is because by saying George Bush is "blurring the seperation of church and state," You are implying that seperation of church and state actually exists. Nowhere in the United States constitution does it say "seperation of church and state". The term "separation of church and state" refers to the Non-Establish clause in the Constitution. Yes! There IS a separation of church and state in the Constitution. Edit: On second thought, I would be perfectly fine with the sentence if a link to the wikipedia article on Seperation of Church and State in the United States was cited. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States) -Trega123 11:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed both the sentence under discussion and the POV-check template. The statement was unsourced. --ElKevbo 14:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


BTW, "separation" only has one "E" in it. Dubc0724 18:25, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Page breaks midway on larger resolutions.

On 1600x1200 resolution in particular, the page has several formatting errors I was unable to fix. (Viewing in Internet Explorer) -Trega123 11:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms Section

As an annonymous user I can't edit this but the last time I checked Bush did not have 95-98% of the American population voting for him in the 2004 election.... --70.179.119.138 23:49, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I might further point out the very POV implication mentioned in the same part that pro-American Americans support Bush and that criticism for his foreign policy comes from the "radical left" --70.179.119.138 23:52, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully suggest you register an account and help us contribute to the article. --ElKevbo 00:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, can be done, however it mentions the inability for newly registered users to edit this article so figured it should be pointed out regardless of whether I register now or not. --70.179.119.138 00:48, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the block for new users is only for three days. It's only there to prevent the casual vandal from vandalizing the article. --ElKevbo 01:02, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Four days, so I hear, but not really that relevent (just in case you get concerned after three days and can't edit). The point is, it's short. So create an account now if you think you might ever seriously edit the article. ---DrLeebot 15:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

ALTHOUGH they are mentioned later in the article, i think it's not okay, to conceal the irregularities of the the 2000 election (or the supreme court decision) in the "introduction" of the article! someone (like me) at first, might just read this beginning!

Opponents to re-election

Suggest adding this section to the United States presidential election, 2004 or the George W. Bush presidential campaign, 2004 page instead of the main George W. Bush page. CFM865 00:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

however, the Rock Against Bush movement was not "notable" compared to the other groups against his re-election. CFM865 00:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the section to United States Presidential election, 2004 --Mr. Billion 16:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Miers nomination withdrawal

I removed the following text regarding the withdrawal of Miers' nomination:

Miers was nominated by the President upon the recommendation of Minority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats who wanted a nominee outside the judicial system, so the person could bring a fresh perspective. However, after a perception of lack of experience and expertise along with harsh comments by prominent Evangelical members and Senators Sam Brownback and Arlen Specter, Miers requested her name be taken back. President Bush honored her request.

A previous version said:

Bush withdrew her nomination after her request due to Democratic urgence of documents related to her involvement in the War in Iraq and pressure from the Evangelical community, that perceived her as pro-choice and her unknown status over gay marriage.

The material in both versions was unsourced and differ significantly changed both in content and tone. The sparse material currently in the article (which merely says that her nomination was withdrawn) definitely needs to be fleshed out but it should be done with strict adherence to referenced sources and in a neutral point of view. --ElKevbo 22:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

I move we delete the newly-added Trivia section. I know that WP:TRIVIA is not an official policy or guideline but I do agree with the points raised in it. Essentially, this trivia section is not only unsupported by citations (in its current version as of this minute) but it is, by definition, relatively unimportant and non-noteable. In addition, we've already added and removed the Google Bomb information once and I still stand on the side of those who believe it is non-noteable and shouldn't be included in this article. --ElKevbo 18:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I just did that. --Lord Deskana (talk) 18:58, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. What are your thoughts on the Trivia sections on the other articles about other Presidents? rootology (T) 19:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't say. I've not looked. I only have this on my watchlist cause it's a vandalism target. Trivia sections can be interesting occasionally, but to be honest, if it's not worth working into continuous prose, it's probably not worth being in the article. --Lord Deskana (talk) 19:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. rootology (T) 19:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
These are only my feelings on the matter, they are not supported by policy. I'm sure I read somewhere that FAC rarely/never pass if the article has a trivia section in it. Since it'd be fantastic if every article could be a FA, I think we should hold all articles to these standards. I might be wrong about the FAC thing, I'm not really in touch with the FAC process. --Lord Deskana (talk) 19:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't this at least mention his mental acuity?

--Greasysteve13 07:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

And that is?? Dubc0724 13:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Untested. The public's perception of his mental acuity, however, is notable, and should go in the criticism/assessments section. Many people believe him to be of low intelligence (or, at the least, not as smart as a President should be), and he is routinely mocked in pop culture venues such as Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show. As for verifiability... I think a reference to a particular SNL/Daily Show sketch which clearly demonstrates this viewpoint would suffice. If I find one, I'll put this up. ---DrLeebot 14:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think a comedy show is a good reference in this context. What president or other powerful person *hasn't* been mocked or had fun poked at them by comedians? --ElKevbo 14:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, SNL actually had trouble finding an aspect of Jimmy Carter to mock, but that's beside the point. You do make a point, though. If some reliable and verifiable source does a story on "The President's Intelligence," then it would merit putting in here (this might have actually happened, but the closest thing I know of is when some Canadian politician remarked offhand when s/he thought the mic was off that he was an idiot). ---DrLeebot 17:34, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure that "the public perception" of his acuity is particularly notable, either. The average person's pretty stupid too, y'know. Maybe we could have "the perception of Wikipedia editors" because, we all think we're so smart...that's why we're here. :-) Dubc0724 18:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
We actually have an entire article on the public's perception of him. If there is a perception that he's not so smart, it's definitely notable. Problem is, it isn't verifiable. We'll have to wait until some notable organization does a survey on it (but don't expect them to get federal funding for it ;). ---DrLeebot 21:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
While I mostly agree it's difficult for us to include such info for the reasons noted, I think Dubc is missing the point. The public perception of GWB as not being particularly smart is IMHO extremely notable. I have little idea what things are like in the US but IMHO there is quite a not uncommon perception elsewhere that Bush is stupid (and perhaps not even really the one in charge of the country). This is significant and highly relevant because in general, a lot of people internationally feel their leaders should be quite smart. As said, I have no idea what things are like in the US, perhaps people in the US don't care if their leaders are stupid but IMHO this is not true in much of the rest of the world. Also, it's noteable because for a number of people, this is one of the key characteristics that commons to mind when they think of Bush. Note I have tried to be clear here it's not just about intelligence but also his knowledge. This may have began even before his presidency when people heard of his apparent lack of knowledge of world affairs and has continued from there, for example, I think even small issues such as the toilet permission thing and the Brazil comment (indeed his apparent fasicination with big countries as later shown in the mic incident) feed in to this perception. BTW, whether or not the average person is stupid is arguable. It is perhaps more clear to say the average person is average. Whether Bush is seen as below average or at average is an interesting but seperate issue. The fact that leaders worldwide are always mocked is also not particularly relevant. What is relevant is what these mockings are. Generally speaking these depend greatly on the perception of the person in question (not just speaking of knowledge and IQ here). Anyway since as I've already mentioned, I agree that due to the lack of sources, it may be difficult for us to include such info so this is getting a bit OT so I'll stop here. Nil Einne 15:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
On the contrary, I most certainly do "get the point". The point is that this article is to be used to point out any flaw (perceived, real, or imagined) with George W. Bush. No one can possibly be as stupid as you folks would like Bush to be. No, he's nothing close to a genius, but he can't be the moron his political opponents seek to paint him as being.
Look, I'm fine with being critical of him (I'm quite critical myself), but if you want to participate in childish name-calling (i.e., Bush is a big stupid-head) I suggest you find yourself a blog and do it there. This is still (supposedly) an encyclopedia. It's not a forum for us to decide the "public perception" of the relative intelligence of famous individuals. Dubc0724 16:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If this is added to the criticism section I will challenge it for Weasel Words. It will not pass. -Trega123 14:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree. It seems like we're reaching, and for what? How much criticism is enough for the politically motivated here? It also undermines any encyclopedic credibility to keep inventing a new article for every potentially negative aspect of an exceedingly unpopular president. Dubc0724 14:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Despite that, I'm still expecting we'll find a new person claiming this article "proves Wikipedia's conservative bias" within the next week. Seriously people, it's getting old. Either make serious suggestions on how to balance it or shut up. (Though as this particular thread proves, we may even debate seriously unserious suggestions.) ---DrLeebot 16:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Wait, which way are you saying the article leans? What do you think it would take to become balanced? Thanks Dubc0724 16:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, it seems like it does lean towards a conservative bias. The primary reason for this is the combination of the WP:LIVING policy and the fact that he's conservative (it would be the opposite situation for a living liberal). Due to this, we're allowed to put in vague statements that support him, but vague statements that criticize him have to be removed immediately. This is why, although there's a notable perception that Bush is, at the least, not as smart as a President should be, we can't put it in as no one's ever felt it necessary to do a poll asking this question.
This is exascerbated by the stranglehold the administration has had on the mainstream media (though it may be weakening); any reporter who paints a negative picture of Bush is banned from press conferences and other events. Thus, reporters are highly discouraged from doing anything that might put him in a bad light. The only sources nowadays that are free from this grip are comedic shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. (Yes, I acknowledge that that's my personal opinion.)
So what can be done? I guess the only thing we could do that wouldn't break WP:LIVING would be to go in and remove all vague, unsourced statements that support him. After that, we'd have to worry about card-stacking of verifiable statements and try to balance it out. ---DrLeebot 16:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
We're most certainly not "allowed to put in vague statements that support him." If you are aware of any unsupported statements in this article (pro-Bush, anti-Bush, or whatever), please remove them! --ElKevbo 16:20, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course that's true. I probably should have said that vague statements that support him are allowed to slip by. WP:LIVING doesn't address this side of the issue; it mainly just forces us to take a harder stance against negative information. Anyways, I'll have a pass at the article again and see if anything in particular catches my eye. ---DrLeebot 13:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I think WP:V provides us with all the support necessary to remove *any* unsourced information from an article. It's certainly not a very popular thing to do with some (many?) editors but I don't think it's fair or right that we allow editors to freely place unsourced positive or even neutral information in a living person's biography while always deleting unsourced negative information. --ElKevbo 20:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Yep, so let's get to work on fixing it. I've started a thread on this page dealing with this issue, so let's start with what I've got there. I'm giving people a bit of time to come up with sources for this stuff rather than deleting it outright, though if you want to go ahead and delete the statements until they're backed up, I'm not going to revert you. ---DrLeebot 21:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with the assertion that the article displays a "conservative" bias. On the contrary, every possible negative occurance or "controversy" is included here, no matter how inconsequential. One can't make that claim about all US President articles. I'd say it's a reasonably well-balanced article, although there are some editors with axes to grind. Dubc0724 13:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


I agree that the public perception is not totally needed... subjective as well ... most I know here outside the USA think he is not very.. smart, to put it nicely ;)

However a problem I see is that the perception from reading the article suggests that he is a selfmade millionaire, more or less, running successful businesses before becoming president, and this is not accurate from the whole wording of the articel.

Edit summary correction, and note about misleading point

I erased the somewhat misleading note that Bush won in 2004 with "the largest tally of votes for any presidential candidate." Most Presidents that won the popular vote have broken that record because of population growth. I'm just noting here that the edit summary should have said "popular vote winner", not "election winner," since Bush won the Presidency while losing the popular vote in 2000. --Mr. Billion 08:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it is a notable fact seeing as the previous record for popular vote count was in Reagan's 1984 reelection victory, 20 years previous.--RWR8189 08:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Not every record is notable. I currently hold the record for longest time spent sitting in front of my computer (not the record for any computer, the record for my computer), but who the hell cares? A related record that would matter is the percentage of votes he won by, but this is actually quite slim. ---DrLeebot 14:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry but I agree but I agree with Mr. Bilion. Absolute numbers aren't very meaningful when the population continues to grow and change. Percentage would be much more noteable. --ElKevbo 14:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

(Another note about the edit summary: Sorry, I shouldn't have included 1992 because that year's victory came about through a split vote and didn't break any high-vote records. Other notes: Kevbo's observation is spot on. In addition, Kerry also beat Reagan's record. Just clearing a few things up.) --Mr. Billion 16:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

why?

why do people keep removing what I put down. I'm not a vandle! I just what to save you people! 4.252.199.231 02:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Can't we just block this dude? He's done this several times now. Dubc0724 13:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree, but unfortunately people haven't been putting up warnings on his talk page with all of the previous reversions. I've put up the "Only Warning" template this time, so if he does it again, we have justification to block him. ---DrLeebot 16:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Good point - I haven't had much experience in blocking, so I wasn't sure what the protocol was. Thanks! Dubc0724 16:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
The full recommended proceedure is at Wikipedia:Vandalism#Warning_templates, if you wish to read it over. ---DrLeebot 18:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I stopped bothering putting up warnings even before I placed my first one on a vandal's page. I saw at least 4 or 5 final warnings and hardly any blocking had been done to the vandal I was about to place a warning to, and at most he was blocked for a few hours once or twice in a few weeks periods. Browsing around for a bit after that I noticed that was the norm apparently so I don't waste my time on that unfortunately.--Kalsermar 17:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I can see why that is, as most vandals are doing it for the sport of it and only for a brief time. However, there are cases where vandals can turn into good editors--even administrators. When that potential exists, the series of increasingly stern warnings is important to give them a chance to turn themselves around. But either way, I'm not going to recommend a block for a user who doesn't already have a {{test4}} or {{test4im}} up. ---DrLeebot 18:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
how much times do I have to tell you people! I'm not a vandle! 4.252.196.19 20:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
is that anything like a "vandal"? Dubc0724 20:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I ment vandal not vandle. 4.252.192.236 13:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. Also, I just noticed that this guy is apparently editing from a range of IP addresses, which would explain why I didn't see any warnings. ---DrLeebot 16:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussion Page

It's meant for discussion on the article and what should/shouldn't be included. A lot of this page looks like a message board, which is not its purpose. If you want to debate America's election process/September 11/Bush's IQ/etc. please do it in an outside forum. Please click the Talk Page Guidelines link at the top of this page for more info. CPitt76 21:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

That's good advice. Bears repeating--Planetary 02:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Shibboleths too, of course

We should mention Nucular, to answer the context of shibboleths heard that new people bring to a first reading of a bio?

192.42.249.130 16:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Such trivial information should not be included in this article. -- WGee 23:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Would you be so inclined to add it to the JFK and Jimmy Carter articles too? Squiggyfm 19:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


Please include the current signing of a major Pension reform Bill signed this week. Pension Protection Act of 2006 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081700139.html

The "Weekly Radio Address Archive" site is FAKE!

It's a parody site.

http://weeklyradioaddress.com/

It doesn't belong in the article!

Starks 22:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

If it matters the real site can be found here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/radio/ PPGMD 01:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
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