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Originally Posted by Jason Marcel
Look, Carolyn Parrish, a former Liberal member of Parliament in Canada, was booted from the party after she called Bush a moron. What really bugs me is that my wonderful nation caved in and basically alienated her just because she spoke her mind. Yes, it is unprofessional to call someone a moron, but her comment wasn't made in a speech, is what caught on tape as an aside. Cheney didn't lose his job for telling someone in a gov't session to go "fuck themselves" and what about when Bush was running in 2000 and called that reporter from the New York Times an ass hole?
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Jason you I would hope understand the difference between the officials of another nation calling the leader of a nation they do not like a moron where it can be recorded and played back, and Cheney's episode as embarrassing and stupid as it was. The person he was addressing was not a member of a foreign government nor was that person in the middle of a campaign as I recall at the time. Parrish could have more than likely also survived had she addressed her remarks at a member of the Canadian opposition or press instead of the leader of a foreign government.
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Originally Posted by Jason Marcel
The elephant in the room in every nation other than America is that the current U.S. president has no sense of the world, no curiosity. No real interest in debate, knowledge or listening. Left to his own devices, he wouldn't know who the leaders of other nations are unless it is briefed to him in advance, and people really have a problem with that. Especially after having Clinton around for 8 years. Yes, some of you hate everything Clinton, but he garnered respect around the world, and in so doing, America's light shined brighter because of it. He didn't need a history lesson before meeting other world leaders since he was curious enough as a person to know what was happening in other countries.
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Look I am no fan of Bush, but frankly this idol worship of Clinton is just as stupid as those who blindly worship Bush. What the hell did he really do. He closed the government and then got the Americans to blame the Republicans for it. He floated national healthcare, got swatted down, and then gave up on it. So much for convictions. While I think Bush supporters make way to much out of the fact that he did not really address terrorism, lets face it there was a middle ground between what Clinton did and what Bush has done, and had CLinton actually taken that ground we might not be in this mess today. WHy did foreign governments like Clintion? Well lets look at just one example shall we? He signed Kyoto. He signed it however as a publicity offensive for the other governments who had a great deal of prestige wrapped up in Kyoto. He knew it was never going to be ratified by the Senate and therefor he knew what he was doing was just window dressing. To make matters worse he never really even pushed all that hard for its ratification. So please lets be honest. Clinton may not have been as bad a President as Bush has been, but he wasn't the next best thing to sliced bread either.
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Originally Posted by Jason Marcel
In just six years as President, Americans have somehow completely let themselves cave into allowing their government to spy on them without a court order and calling that the Patriot Act. It's confounding. Especially when you consider that no President has ever been denied from spying for instance. Decision like that are going to leave you open to criticism, so you just have to get used to it. As long as the President of the United States needs to be briefed as to whom the Prime Minister of Canada is and what party affiliation that guy has, he has every right to be called a moron in my book. It's not flattering to be sure, but sometimes the harsh truth isn't meant to be.
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It's only confounding to people who do not understand the context of how it happened, and ae unaware of the history of the US in times of crisis.
We have been used to criticism but this isn't just some Joe Schmoe from Sydney telling us what he thinks. No this is some foreign leader trying to influence the national election early on.