Return to Article: Imperial presidency has long history
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62811
There is one major point you have misreported. This President is George III, not II. George I was the first President. It is highly significant that this is George III because he acts very much like George III of England who was in power during the American Revolution. His aggression and continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is very similar to England's presence in the colonies in 1775.
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15563
Tom,
The CIA even had one of Saddam's prime ministers on the payroll giving them intelligence and they still couldn't get it right! Who're the real Kool-Aid drinkers here? The Bush administration doesn't do science but they sure do science fiction. They live in an alternate universe of unreality. They think just because they say there isn't a civil war in Iraq, there isn't one. They think just because they say we're making progress in Iraq that we are. These people don't have a clue, much less a plan or a strategy. But, like those who followed Jim Jones, right down to drinking that spiked Kool-Aid, people like you keep right in lock-step with Bush, Cheney, Rumfailed and the others running this country. No wonder the world looks at us and shakes their collective heads, wondering how such a great country has fallen so low.
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15309
Tom, what comparison did you make to other presidents? In your first post I see nothing but Clinton, Clinton, Clinton. You don't bother mentioning anyone else.
And if Clinton did all these horrible things, why did the Republicans not mention them while he was in office? Why was Clinton impeached based on his sex life if there were so many better reasons? Could it be the Republicans were so busy focusing on irrelevancies that they didn't even notice the deaths of thousands? Judging from this administration, that's entirely plausible.
Clinton sure isn't the best president we've ever had. But compared to Bush, he's a genius and a saint! How could the Republican Party sink so low that a pot-smoking, draft-dodging adulterer looks good by comparison? By electing and worshipping a brain-dead, coke-snorting dry drunk who avoided military service by going AWOL, and rose to power by fear-mongering and insulting veterans. It sickens me.
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15192
No Tom-
I consider myself a liberal and I admit Clinton lied and paid a really heavy price for trying to hide his cigar-- pardon the joke. :-))But can anybody with a straight face say that a lie is a lie is lie and it's all the same. Clinton lied about Monica -- big deal. That is between him and his wife and their family and really affected nobody else in America. Although the conservatives did spend millions to find that cigar, problems in a White House travel office and the sale of some piece of property in Arkansas -- whoppie!! Where are the investigations on prison mistreatments, on illegal intelligence gathering, on misusing CIA intelligence, on doing nothing while thousands die on the Gulf Coast, on selling our port administration to a Middle Eastern Company, on shooting a lawyer in Texas -- oh, excuse me I forgot shooting a lawyer in Texas is a good thing!
Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction -- the intelligence was all going the other way and yes, he lied to America. And this has affected everyone -- and it has and is costing the lives of untold thousands of Iraqis and it has destabilized an entire region and we could end up in another world war. But if the worst doesn't happen, and the Iranians don't get their hands on a nuclear weapon and create a huge crater called Jerusalem, than it has only destroyed thousands of American families who have to face that their children died or were maimed for a lie. I think this is a little bigger lie than Monica!
So please, stop bashing liberals and start blaming the source for all this misery. It is too bad we don't have a parliamentary system of government. I think the president's 34 percent approval rating says it all. A no confidence vote would have already happened and we would be having early elections tomorrow.
But no -- we face years and years of insanity and the even greater insanity of a Congress not doing its job and ignoring everything based on politics. It is only a matter of a short time before some suicidal lunatic purchases a real weapon of mass destruction. And what are we really doing about that!!!!
Liberal or Conservative -- who cares! I don't think a weapon of mass destruction cares who it fries. So my conservative friend, keep defending the indefensible. God willing our children and grandchildren will live to think we are both insane.
HR Specialist
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15189
Tom,
And who's in charge of the Greedy Ole Party? Here are some quotes from the head doofus in charge:
"A surplus means there'll be money left over. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called a surplus."
"Osama Bin Laden is the type of person who couldn't even appreciate the simple joys of Hanukkah."
"We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans."
"We cannot let terriers and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile.''
"Laura and I really don't realize how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis."
How proud you must be.
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15166
You made my point, line up liberals and drink the Kool-Aid! Look back and see the comment. I was making a comparison between presidents in similar situations, and you got your panties in a bunch! You call Bush a liar for using the best information available, but don't consider what Clinton did as a lie! How bout 800,000 he let die in Rwanda? You fail to attack me on that because I'm right, instead you focus on the oral sex he had in the oval office comment. You fail to defend his hide and seek game with the nuclear football. Face it, the radical hippies from the sixties are in charge of your party and your party will pay for it over the next few elections, which is sad for the moderates in your party, because they will suffer!
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15127
rds,
You're right. You can't convince someone in a cult that they're in a cult.
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15106
Poor Tom, he will never catch on to the Bush Administration. He is a part of the small base Bush has left. He can't see the forest for all those doggone trees.
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15074
Tom,
Sadly, people like you continue to bring up Clinton's shortcomings while ignoring every illegal, immoral and ignorant thing Bush does. Will you people ever stop blaming everyone else for Bush's failings, which seem to grow with each passing day? You voted wrong -- get over it.
Army Vet
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15065
Good work Tom! Take any opportunity to bash Clinton! Just ignore every Republican power grab or blunder, those don't matter! Bill Clinton is the devil.
Tom, did you even read the rest of the article, or just seize on the only part that your tiny, partisan-hack brain could process?
Honestly, I don't see how you can still be devoting yourself so thoroughly to raging against a man who isn't even president anymore. If one thousandth of the hatred Republicans directed at Clinton, even after he left office, had been channeled into the search for Osama bin Laden, he would've been dead by 9-12-2001. I can see your party has a keen grasp on who the real enemies of America are. Or maybe you could've used all that raw energy toward forming a better government, instead of screeching partisan attacks without offering alternatives. But no, that's not the Republican way.
Republicans focus on important things, like blow jobs. Not all that trivial stuff like the Constitution, or proper equipment for the troops, or actually catching the guy who attacked us, or protecting Americans from hurricanes, or ensuring U.S. ports don't fall into the hands of foreign governments with known ties to terrorist networks.
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15056
Am I to understand this correctly? We should put a contract out for solicitation and if the firm that is best qualified is someone we don't like, change the rules! Talk about profiling, discrimination, and all the other buzz words the liberals like to accuse Republicans!
I have an idea -- there is an American firm that could do this job! Anyone ever hear of Halliburton? Oh, wait a minute, just think of the storm that would cause!
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15051
"Will he go down in history as The Protector, who responded with laudable dispatch at a time of grave national peril? Or will he be The Presumer, who exploited the dangers threatening his realm to grab powers that exceeded his charter?"
The official propaganda will of course say the former. But those who look at his reign with open eyes will see the latter is the case.
Using 9/11 as an excuse for every ill-conceived and frequently illegal policy in this administration's quest for limitless power is an insult to those who died on that day, an abuse of their memories. I hope people will start to realize this, and demand real answers, but somehow I doubt it.
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15050
Interesting this article should be printed right now -- I was thinking a few days ago, "And they called Nixon's the Imperial Presidency!" This clown is as bold as brass about breaking the law and acting like it's his unquestioned right to do so. And now the latest and greatest of his harebrained schemes, giving control of the ports to the UAE!! The ports should never have been privately controlled to begin with, but if they were going to be run that way, they should have been run by American companies, and there should have been provisions made for the possibility of a foreign buyout. Either he's insane or an agent of the nation's enemies!
All hail Emperor George, who played golf while America burned!
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15043
I want to personally thank the brave Paul Starobin for writing this article. I think that it's high time someone started addressing these important issues. If it didn't affect everyone in the world, and more specifically the United States, I wouldn't have a comment. I don't see any way to stop King George. I guess it comes down to the fact that the president's powers are without boundaries as long as the leader of the United States is willing to push the envelope. I don't think this is what the Constitution intended. The amusing part of this whole story is that I was 100 percent in Bush's corner five years ago. Now, because I work for the government, I can't say who I support.
With NSPS looming over my head I can only nod and remain silent. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when a non-political person like myself begins to truly hate the one thing that is supposed to protect me.
My only hope is that the media reviews this article closely and holds the president accountable. We civilians are powerless. Yes I know, we can write out congressmen and senators. I've already done that. Besides, it's already been proven that the two chambers are powerless against someone who is willing to take the power of the president and use it for his own personal reasons.
I have a great idea that might fix everything, why don't we give control of our ports to a questionable foreign country?
Gil in Texas
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15042
Very interesting article!
I wonder what the Bush Bashers thought about the disclosures of Slick Willy's thoughts on his inability to do anything about the genocide occurring in Rwanda? 800,000! Wow, how does the liberal left feel about his cowboy approach in Serbia? Or, playing hide and seek with the "Nuclear Football" military officer. Better yet, under oath, "I did not have sexual relations with that . . . " Oh, you get the idea (in my best southern boy accent).
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15039
Paul Starobin,
I generally agree; however, there is one major point you have misreported. This President is George III, not II. George I was the first President. It is highly significant that this is George III because he acts very much like George III of England who was in power during the American Revolution. His aggression and continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is very similar to England's presence in the colonies in 1775.
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15037
Very interesting article, with many parallels to Ancient Rome. Our Founding Fathers were wise enough to recognize the dangers of absolute power in an Imperial Presidency and remind us by making the Imperial Roman Eagle the standard for America. But many Americans don't appreciate American history, let alone Ancient Roman history. I just wish the decadence and corruption that brought down the Roman Empire wasn't repeating itself so quickly in America. It took over 400 years for The Empire to finally die and a thousand years of darkness followed, including those crusades that some folks in the world are still fighting. I wonder how long this empire has and how long the next period of darkness will last.
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