Talk:George W. Bush/Archive 17

This is an archive of past discussions about George W. Bush. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 10

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Archive 15

2005 Inaugural and Foreign Policy

I added some information about Bush's inaugural address. Please check it out --Ben 20:18, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Reverted after three weeks, as it was a shameless and fraudulent mangling of Bush's words. Gazpacho 06:58, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

NPOV?

How can something be considered NPOV if it sounds like a press release from Karl Rove himself? Anything that doesn't pass muster with the Wikihawks who watch this article 24/7 disappears almost instantly.

Thats a good term, wikihawks, I like that. What specifically do you see as a problem. I would prefer a shorter intro, i.e. moving the biographical information from the intro to the biography section. Mir 07:02, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In addition to having an obvious left-wing slant, this article is way too long. Can we get rid of the irrelevant anti-Bush commentry and actually talk about his presidency? - Jan 16, 2005

Well fix what looks biased. I think its right-wing slanted. Mir 02:06, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Consistant economic reference points

If you are going to talk about tax revenues as a percent of GDP (which is fine) then you also need to show the deficit as a percent of GDP because the current deficit is nowhere near a record by that measure.

Jeb reference

I don't think it is the proper scholar way to refer to a person by his nickname alone in an enciclopedic entry. I'd suggest "John Ellis (aka. Jeb)".

I don't think he even calls himself John. Almost everything I have seen from the Governor's office either referrers to him as Governor Bush or Jeb. Heck I didn't even know his middle name until you posted it. PPGMD

Missing a related article

The google bomb of George Bush for Miserable Failure is not listed. It is well documented and already has an article on wikipedia. Miserable_failure. I think it should be listed under related articles, with some mention of it in section 6 Public perception and assessments.

I'm not sure that's going to fly with everyone. Being the president of the U.S. means a lot comes up with your name on it, and I don't think we should link to every single thing, especially a subject as peripheral as what you're proposing. --kizzle 10:02, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Unprotect page after seven days

It's been seven days since my proposal to protect this page. I didn't think the protection would actually last that long. :) Now, shall we unprotect the page, or do you want it to remain protected indefinitely? --Modemac 17:10, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why don't you add a section titled "controversy" where such ideas as to whether or not Bush lied to the American public to start the Iraq war, etc can be analyzed? Exam his words and his deeds. Was he mislead by the CIA? --Gilgameshfuel 10:29, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, this page wasn't protected because of controversial material; it was protected because of stupid vandalism -- ranging in the hundreds of edits per day. --Modemac 11:44, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So there lies the truth of this whole thing, wikipedia is not a democracy any longer. Silence anyone that wants to voice their distrust of king george, it's a damn shame --Gilgameshfuel 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Is there some way to protect the pages against anonymous users with IP addresses only? Otherwise I would support to create a special page "Masturbation arena for anti-Bush bigots" where the critics could display their skills. ;-) --Lumidek 00:59, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I know you're joking, but I rather dislike seeing "anti-Bush bigot", as it seems to imply being anti-Bush is a form of bigotry rather than sanity ;-) Sanity is no excuse for vandalism though.Wolfman 01:08, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nope, Wolfman ;-), your analysis is paranoic. The statement meant that the page would be for those bigots that happen to be anti-Bush, but it does not imply that all anti-Bush people must necessarily be bigots. :-) --Lumidek 02:13, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Another factual error

George W. Bush's predessor was William Jefferson Clinton, 'Bill' Clinton is a nickname. Clinton's full legal name should be used. Revmachine21 03:07, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is to use the name by which a person is most commonly known. That's why Clinton's article is at Bill Clinton. In fact, if you look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), putting Clinton's article there instead of at [[William Jefferson Clinton]] is one of the examples given. JamesMLane 04:43, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Information about the individual elections does not belong in the intro. What does it matter if the popular vote margin was 3%? These trivial details are out of scope. Very Verily 02:09, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

An argument for including that information in the page is this (the elections) is a recent and significant event. As time passes it would be more appropriate to remove it. Mir 03:24, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Does this apply to the 2000 elections? Anyway, the popular vote is just trivia; it's of no legal significance and questionable significance of any kind. Very Verily 06:09, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Is there a policy for what goes into the introduction? I personally would suggest keeping it as short as possible because while there is a lot of significant information about his presidency, not all of it can go into the intro (for example starting a war is just as significant as election results). The 2000 elections results are significant because it was one of the few times the president came into power with less votes than his opponent, but again I dont know if this belongs in the intro. While the popular vote has no legal significance, it better shows how much support the president hads. However saying 286 to 252 instead of 3% would also be appropriate. Mir 00:17, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I should say that the 2000 results were significant because they led to all the controversy of the counting and legal challenges, causing the result of the election to be in doubt until the Supreme Court ruled PaulHammond 09:49, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Unelected judges". Why is this a POV?

Please can someone explain why the phrase "unelected judges" can be anything other than a fact, and therefore not a POV? Thanks, --Rebroad 11:17, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A minor point is that Justices of the Supreme Court, although unelected, are chosen by elected officials. By comparison, CEO's of major corporations are "elected" by stockholders, but the public has no vote, and even shareholder democracy is pretty tenuous in practice. So, if your view is that any fact is not a POV, we could call 2000 "the first election decided by judges who were not directly elected, but were instead nominated and confirmed by elected officials, and who, in the event of gross misconduct, were subject to being removed from office by elected officials". Does all that belong in the lead section of a George W. Bush bio? No, (Hoho. Just inserting "indirectly" suffice? --Rebroad 17:00, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)) which brings me to my major point. The NPOV principle breaks down somewhat when we come to questions of organizing the presentation of neutral facts. Everyone may admit that something is true, yet how important they think it is depends on their POV. In this instance, the selection of the fact of "unelected judges" to go in the lead section seems to me to be based on POV. It emphasizes a fact that's pointed to in attacking the legitimacy of Bush's (s)election. If I try to put aside my own POV (which is that Bush is a liar, a cheater and a war criminal), I think the notable points distinguishing the 2000 election from others are the inauguration of the candidate who finished second, and the long delay in establishing the official outcome. (In answer to VV's point above, I think the Gore plurality is notable, and it seemed both logical and fair to note Bush's margin when he had the plurality the next time.) Your insert made a good point about the historic role the Court played in the election, though, so I included that later, under "Political campaigns", with a link to Bush v. Gore. JamesMLane 17:57, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Of course "candidate who finished second" isn't NPOV either, since it suggests Bush should have lost, and the Electoral College system is a well known quirk of the American system. One of the rules of democracy is that all the candidates know which system is being used beforehand, and it doesn't do to complain about that system when it turns out to work against you. PaulHammond 09:59, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Rebroad, one of your edit summaries asked, "Please explain how facts can be POV. Thanks." My explanation wouldn't fit in an edit summary; it's above. As for your question about guidelines, I'm not sure which ones you mean, but here are some links you can try:

The question of what should go into the lead section goes beyond the NPOV policy. You can't simply say, "This is a fact so it's OK to put it in the lead section." I think the "unelected judges" business is clearly inappropriate for the lead. With regard to election results, I agree with Mir that it makes sense to include a summary at this time. Some people will come to this article having heard about an American election, having heard there was some sort of controversy about it, and maybe a little hazy about the fact that Bush was elected twice, with much more controversy the first time around. After he's inaugurated the intro will have to be changed anyway, but for now I prefer this version (without the Rebroad or Jewbacca changes). JamesMLane 20:03, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks JamesMLane for the detailed reply! I think the intro should contain the kind of info you'd expect to read in 100 years time, but I agree that perhaps a "Latest News" section, near the top would be useful for things such as the latest election results, or whatever. --Rebroad 17:00, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is ridiculous, even the damn president is "unelected" given that he is chosen by 538 individuals who happen to be chosen by the people of individual states+dc.

spending bill

I have been keeping up on the $388 billion spending bill that has been shuffled around in congress over the past week in the article George W. Bush's first term as president of the United States. However the section is getting to be less and less about Bush. Does anyone know the actual name of that bill is or if there is already an article on wikipedia about it so I can move the information out of that article and to some where more relevent? I've placed this information in Talk:2004 congressional spending bill for the time being.--The_stuart 18:48, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

page protected

I've protected the page because of the current revert war in which both parties have violated the 3 revert rule. Please hash your differences out here on the talk page. Gamaliel 20:13, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Although you refer to "both parties", my understanding is that there are actually three different views of how to word the lead section. Jewbacca has multiply reverted to a version that doesn't mention the 2000 election controversy. Rebroad has multiply reverted to a version that says the election "was effectively decided by the Supreme Court". The version I favor was, I think, last seen on the page at 18:28, 24 Nov 2004, when Whosyourjudas reverted to it. (I posted here in favor of that version without joining in the revert war.)

Why not Jewbacca's version: I previously stated my agreement with Mir that more information about each election should be included at least for now; this article is mostly a bio but partakes a bit of "In the news" aspects. Why not Rebroad's version: I don't think it's NPOV to say that the Supreme Court effectively decided the election, as if the voters had nothing to do with it. The role of the Court was more nuanced than that. Explaining it later in the article is fine (and it's thanks to Rebroad's edit that I noticed we didn't even have a link to the Bush v. Gore article), but it doesn't belong in the lead. A further reason is that the Court's role was less important than the other unusual features of the election, that the candidate with the second-most votes won and that there was a long period of post-election uncertainty. JamesMLane 22:55, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Have a quick look at [1].

The voters had something to do with it in that it was a close call, but at the end of the day, if the result went one way but the Supreme Court chose the other (albeit sneakily), surely that's headline news? --Rebroad 17:08, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It is even more surely headline news that Bush launched the invasion and occupation of Iraq (whether you call it a powerful strike against terrorism or an act of imperialist aggression, it was an event of some moment). Other examples could be adduced. The point is that the lead section cannot immediately tell the reader everything important about the subject of the article. Incidentally, even as to the point you mention, it can't be stated as fact that "the result went one way but the Supreme Court chose the other". Bush partisans would argue that Bush actually received more votes in Florida than did Gore, so the Supreme Court didn't go the other way. In general, the subject can be given only a glancing reference here, with full details developed in U.S. presidential election, 2000#Florida election results. JamesMLane 18:11, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Some good points. Is it not true that had the Supreme Court not stopped the count then Gore would be president now? --Rebroad 18:59, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Few of the "what-ifs" about the 2000 Florida recount are that simple. If the Court had acted differently, which of the recounts then in progress have been completed in time? What standards would have been applied to various disputed issues? (News organizations examining the ballots at leisure found assumptions that could lead to a Gore win and others that could lead to a Bush win. Ironically, it turned out that the campaigns, in their legal papers, weren't always pushing for the ruling on a particular issue that would have aided them, althought they presumably thought they were.) Different possibilities for different Supreme Court actions at more than one point generate more "what-ifs". Gore's concession was prompted by the final Court ruling, but a good argument could be made that the Court's key partisan action was the earlier preliminary injunction. There's also the even more cynical (but quite possibly correct) view that a change in court decisions, shifting several hundred votes to Gore, might have been countered by Republican theft of additional votes elsewhere. Katherine Harris didn't exactly display a dispassionate commitment to an honest count. JamesMLane 23:02, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not sure why my change is being reverted. I am keeping to facts only and not stating any opinions. Originally I'd used the term "9 unelected judges" instead of the "US Supreme Court", but changed it because someone said it was POV. I started a discussion with them on their talk page, asking why it is POV but they haven't responded yet also. I have also a section on my talk page about this as well, and am waiting to hear people's reasons for objections. I certainly understand that some people feel passionately about this, in the same way that many people would feel protective of Tony Blair's reputation, and some people may also feel protective of Saddam Hussain's reputation, but at the end of the day, I don't believe an encyclopedia is supposed to show favouritism based upon popular opinion. Popular opinion by the way differs greatly depending on the country. In the UK, our introduction to George W Bush was largely surrounded by the controversy of the 2000 elections and the fact that the judges did not declare their conflicts on interest. As far as I can tell there was relatively very little media coverage in the US regarding this, so I can understand why US citizens might find the concept of having this in the intro as inappropriate. But shouldn't it be remembered that Wikipedia is globally available also? --Rebroad 21:04, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I can predict people having objections to me mentioning Saddam Hussain, or Adolf Hitler. But remember that the reason for these objections would be for POV reasons. People based their opinions on what they know, and their perspective. The majority of the German populartion would have defended Hitler's reputation in exactly the same way when he was in Power in the early days. People were blind to the bigger picture. Please note I am not expressing an opinion regarding the actions of any head of state, past or present. But they should all be treated by the same rules - the rules being to document the facts surrounding them. --Rebroad 21:10, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not going to take sides here, but I do want to point out a few things. When editing, our concerns are not limited to whether or not a piece of information is factually true. The manner in which that fact is presented is also important. For example, the choice of wording "9 unelected judges" instead of "US supreme court". Both are factually accurate, but the former is clearly chosen to forward a particular POV: the opinion that officials who were not elected and thus unaccountable to the public overruled the opinion of the public. Whether or not this issue should be in the intro is to be decided by consensus, but it's clear that in the interests of NPOV those "9 unelected judges" should be referred to by the proper name of the "US Supreme Court" regardless of our opinion of them. Gamaliel 21:16, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ok, so I'm starting to understand now that the "POV" phrase can be used even when something is still a fact. The reason I originally used the "9 unelected judges" phrase was due to that being the phrase used in the news article. It is relevant to the point being made, and so can understand the reason to include it. If they are both factual, and the intention is to keep the intro relatively short, then isn't the "9 unelected judges" the more efficient of the two for getting the actual information across to the reader? --Rebroad 21:46, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Quite the opposite. The phrase "9 unelected judges" tells you nothing about who those judges are and what powers they have, while the phrase "U.S. Supreme Court" tells you everything you need to know, and if you don't know it, then you can just follow the link to the article on that subject. The former phrase is only more efficient in pushing a particular POV. Gamaliel 09:13, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think we need a version of Godwin's Law for Wikipedia. Namely, when you give analogies to Hitler as a reason for an edit, you are probably working outside of NPOV. Gazpacho 00:11, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

':)' I had head of Godwin's Law. I rarely mention Hitler in any debate, but when talking about articles that are difficult to remain NPOV, I find Hitler a good example that most people can relate to. --Rebroad 17:13, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As a side note, have a read of this. I'd be interested to know what you think of it.

Can I also ask that people take this as an opportunity to educate me if I appear to be miseducated. I would like this discussion to be a learning experience for both sides of the dispute, and I will be happy to provide sources to any of the facts I have stated and will state as part of the discussion. Cheers, --Rebroad 21:49, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The judges are appointed by elected officials. Te people indirectly vote for the judges when they vote for president. Using the term "unelected judges" implies they came to power through undemocratic means, which is not true. Mir 23:49, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I think we're all in agreement about using "The Supreme Court" instead of "9 unelected judges". --Rebroad 17:15, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I would accept (tentatively) "...the election of 2000, the first time that the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in a presidential election." I'm not sure what country you're in Rebroad, but you seem to have a distorted view of the significance of this event in the larger scheme. The US did not fall apart after the "corrupt bargains" of 1824, or the impeachments of the 1860s and 1990s, or the election dispute of the 1870s, or Watergate, or the party splits of 1860 and 1912, etc. (well OK, 1860, but only for a while) Gazpacho 12:17, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Gazpacho, can we keep this discussion within the context of George W Bush please? Thanks, --Rebroad 13:03, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The bigger picture is that none of this about the Supreme Court or "9 unelected judges" belongs in an intro of a biography article on George W. Bush. The election and the supreme court are discussed later in the article and wikilinks are provided to the relevant articles where discourse on the matter occurs. Wikilinks are provided in the intro that I wrote to U.S. presidential election, 2000 and U.S. presidential election, 2004 where this information appropriately belongs. Step back for a moment and realize the bigger goal here of assembling a well-written encyclopedia and that requires knowing where information belongs. Jewbacca 14:06, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

Opinions aside, the currently protected version is accurate. Your suggested version not. --Rebroad 21:48, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually my version is accurate. I ask you to put forth here what is INaccurate about it. Jewbacca 22:51, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

And, while you're at it, please let me know if you see anything inaccurate in the version I favor. JamesMLane 23:09, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nothing immediately strikes me as inaccurate with your preferred version, JamesMLane, but my point remains about how much attention is given to the circumstances of the elections in the intro to an individual's biography, whereas more central facts to the individual, such as his political party affiliation, is omitted. My version provides links to the elections (U.S. presidential election, 2000 and 2004) where these details are provided in excruciating depth and writes instead about who the individual, George W. Bush, is and was, as any biography should (IMHO). As I think it was you who mentioned earlier, we could just as easily make a case for discussing the Iraq war in the intro, but why stop there? We can also talk about the various public perceptions of him, his Texas Air National Guard service, his choking on pretzels, etc. Seems to me intros are to be concise definitions of the individual that are likely to be as relevant today as they will be in 50 and 100 years. Jewbacca 23:15, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

I don't agree with your last sentence; to a limited extent, the lead section of an article about a current political figure can realistically take account of what will be on the minds of people who open the article now. I'd incline to go with something like your version in a couple months. The lead will have to be rewritten after the Inauguration anyway. JamesMLane 00:03, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Interesting you say that James. Your argument that the intro can be topical. In that case, why can't we have a topical picture for the John Kerry article, rather than that rather drab picture you keep insisting on just now?! --Rebroad 00:09, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Rebroad, still waiting for you to actually substantiate your allegation that my version is INaccurate. Unless you concede that it has been accurate all along. Jewbacca 02:03, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

From Wikipedia is not: "A news report....When updating articles with recent news, authors should use the past-tense in such a way that the news will still make sense when read years from now." We should put our best effort forward and not defer to "in a couple months". Jewbacca 02:03, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

Please discuss the issue of that picture on Talk:John Kerry and not here. Gamaliel 00:13, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Rebroad, you cannot come in here posting political agitprop and then complain when I respond to it. Gazpacho 04:46, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What with everyone propsing their own intros, I can't currently see how this debate is going to be resolved.... :-s --Rebroad 12:47, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You stated that my version was "inaccurate". I asked you to detail the INaccurate elements of yet. You have not yet obliged. Jewbacca 15:09, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

Not many users will follow the links to the election pages, so its nice to summarise the results of the 2000 elections (istead of stating he won, which may be considered POV if its not explained). Mir 18:18, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is a wiki -- users follow links. It's also discussed in the article, or do users not read past introductions so we need to put everything on your agenda in the introduction? ..

He had the majority of the electoral ballots cast as counted in the House and Senate; this being the only criteria to have "won" by United States Constitution and United States Code, Bush won exactly as every other president that hasn't succeeded to the office upon the death of his predecessor or had the House cast ballots in the case of a plurality. Let's stop this nonsense of "multiple truths". --Jewbacca 19:38, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

I know what a links is. A lot of users wont follow them if its not explained why the election was significant. Considering this is a big article, a lot wont read the part about the elections. The 2004 election results aren't that important and could be removed. Im personally not sure about including the info about the 2000 election. I am for mentioning that he recieved less votes than his opponent and still winning (this being very significant because its undemocratic). Also, wasn't it the electoral college that gave bush the win, and not the supreme court? from my understanding, the supreme court stopped the recount, which may or may not have give busy more votes. Or am I wrong. Mir 04:04, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mir, please provide statistics to back up your claims about "a lot of users wont [sic] follow them [hyperlinks] if its not explained" and "a lot wont [sic] read part about the elections". Bush didn't receive less votes than his opponent; Bush received 271 votes, Gore 266, with 1 abstention (0 for all other candidates) (271 > 266 >> 0). See U.S. presidential election, 2000#Introduction and summary results. You claim the 2004 election results "aren't that important" but somehow the 2000 election results are. This seems to me to be a very POV claim, exactly the type of thing we try to avoid in writing articles. I, and the contributors at U.S. presidential election, 2004 could make a case for the most recent presidential election results to be more "important" than those from 2000. Finally, yes, you're correct that the electoral college voted a majority for Bush, and thus gave him the win (not the Supreme Court). --Cheers, Jewbacca 04:31, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, according to the United States Constitution that you speak of, he has not "won" until Janurary 6th, and only if there was no fraud (in which case, he may indeed not have gotten the majority of electoral votes) and the Equal Protection Amendment was followed (if it was not, then there was not popular suffrage; not a constitutionally legitimate election). Whether he will win on Jan. 6th is open to dispute, and in the present case is especially controvertible on both grounds, given the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities. Kevin Baas | talk 04:19, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

And regarding the 2000 election, it has been determined that had the supreme court not stopped the recounts, Gore would have won. Thus, if one considers a legitimate president to be one that was elected by a legitimate election, and a legitimate election to be one where the votes were properly counted, then Bush was not the legitimate president in the 2000 term. This simple logic is why a large portion of the American populace refused to acknowledge his presidency in the 2000 term. Kevin Baas | talk 04:28, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

Actually, see U.S. presidential election, 2000#The Florida Ballot Projectrecounts. It is not the case that "it has been determined that had the supreme court [sic] not stopped the recounts, Gore would have won." Thus, your conclusion is unsound. Jewbacca 04:40, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

I was talking about the 2000 election (January 2001 having passed and the electoral votes from that election counted in Congress). Sorry for the ambiguity. Jewbacca 04:31, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

(resolving edit conflict) The point is that whether or not he won a legitmate election is in fact disputed. It is therefore POV to say simply that he won a legitimate election. Kevin Baas | talk 04:28, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

No one disputes that more electors cast their ballots for George W. Bush than for Al Gore (271 to 266, 1 elector casting a blank ballot). Thus there is no basis for a dispute of the fact that George W. Bush won the electoral college legitimately, and therefore by the U.S. Constitution and the Twelth Admendment, that he won the election. Jewbacca 04:40, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

The electoral college votes have not been offically counted yet. Kevin Baas | talk 04:46, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

We're still talking about 2000, when Bush won 271 votes and Gore won 266 votes in the electoral college. Those have been counted. Jewbacca 04:48, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

Opps, sorry, I'm having a parrallel discussion on john kerry. The dispute is that those ballots were not cast legitimately. Kevin Baas | talk 04:51, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

They weren't? That's entirely news to me. There was no problem with the electors casting their votes (other than one elector casting a blank ballot), let's not be disingenuous. Jewbacca 04:55, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

I am not being disingenuous, I am being misunderstood. Let me put it simply: Our government is founded on the Lockean principle that "Just powers are derived from the consent of the governed." If the governed did not give consent, the powers are not just. Many of the governed believe that consent was not given, and, not acknowledging unjust powers, do not acknowledge him as the president. Kevin Baas | talk 05:01, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

You two seem to know more about this than I do, but let me clarify, what I mean. Democracy is about representing the wishes of the greatest number of people and thats why the % of the vote stat is more relevant than number of seats stat. In the 2000 election, Bush recieved less popular support than his opponent and still won, this being undemocratic. This is not the case with the 2004 election as far as I know, which is why I said its worth mentioning the 2000 election and not the 2004 election. But this is in addition to all of the other contraversies about the election. Mir 18:03, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As someone pointed out on a related Talk page, since the election isn't based on the popular vote, the popular vote stat cannot be used as a basis for discussion. Allow me to explain. New York has a very large population and in that state it was a forgone conclusion before Election Day 2000 that Gore would win the most votes in New York. Therefore many people that would have voted for Bush in New York may not even go to the polls since they may consider their vote "meaningless" especially if they had more pressing things to attend to. Since large urban centers (L.A., NY, Chicago) are often in these so-called "non-battleground states" and the states tend to go toward the Democrat, many Republican voters many not vote (as well as many Democrat voters may not vote as well in the same situation). If the election was based on the popular vote, you would see a much larger turn out in states like NY and California from both Democrats and Republicans. So yes the candidate with fewer popular votes won the election in 2000 (Bush), but this very well could not have been the case had the popular vote actually have been what decides U.S. elections. In sum, we cannot draw any conclusions about the "will of the people" based on the popular vote under an electoral college system. Jewbacca 18:12, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

It is just as likely that some Gore supporters didn't bother to vote because they knew he would win in the democrat states. There is also a flipside to this, the Republican states, but these are less populated. However I see your point, and the popular vote results of the 2000 elections is not significant enough to go into the intro if the goal is to keep the intro short. The popular vote adds to the other issues of the election, at the very least stating they were close. However, I am not familar enough with the other issues, so this should probably be discussed with other users. Mir 19:12, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree the concept of electoral college affects the turn out for all non-battleground states. However it probably doesn't affect them equally, and regardless, as we both now agree, we can't draw conclusions about who the people wanted in the electoral college system. As for stating the election was close, the numbers are analyzed in U.S. presidential election, 2000. Close is subjective and putting it here would definitely be POV. --Cheers, Jewbacca 19:18, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

Close is "relative", not subjective. That is, it is a statistical statement. The election in question was the closest election ever, so it surely is statistically close. But if someone still disputes this, then one can use instead the word "closest", which is not subjective, but strictly factual. Kevin Baas | talk 20:02, 2004 Nov 28 (UTC)

The 2000 election was NOT the closest election ever. See The 1876 election results in which the victor won by 1 electoral vote (whereas Bush won in 2000 by 5 electoral votes). Next. Jewbacca 20:25, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

When I say close, I'm talking about voting theory. Kevin Baas | talk 15:22, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

I am a first-time user of a Wiki - and am prompted to comment by the apparently partisan character of debate over what 'belongs' in the introduction. Please excuse any formatting or etiquette errors I make on that basis. My intent is to step in between and give a fresh perspective on the issue of what makes sense in an introduction. Right up front I want to say that the introduction is a poor place to start a discussion of controversial matters, and that a substantial portion of the first paragraph contravenes this notion, as follows:

He was elected to two terms by defeating Vice President Al Gore in 2000 after several weeks of legal challenges and by defeating Senator John Kerry in 2004. He was sworn into office on January 20, 2001 and his second term is scheduled to end at noon on January 20, 2009. (The U.S. Constitution currently prohibits him from serving a third term.)

I see two problems with this statement, and thirdly, I believe that it should be entirely excised, so that the introduction is more anodyne, in keeping with the style of introductions to Presidents Johnson, Ford, Reagan, GHW Bush, and to a lesser extent, Clinton. Several of these Presidents were and are notably controversial figures, yet their introductions do not reflect that notoriety. My conclusion about what 'belongs' is based on the most popular style, e.g., if the majority of introductions mentioned controversial aspects, then I would expect to see the same with regard to the G.W. Bush entry.

Parenthetically, you may note that Presidents Nixonand Carter are absent from this list. In my view, the introduction for each of these men should be substantively reworked to bring them into line with the majority.

The two problems with the excerpt above are 1) that it is overly dense and difficult to comprehend, and 2) contains irrelevant detail, such as the bit about expiration of term and the bit about prohibition of a third term. As regards 1), the first sentence should be split into separate discussions of each term. The way the excerpt is written now is confusing. That said, I would prefer to see it struck from the introduction entirely, and discussed elsewhere in the biography.

So, to sum up, I believe introductions should be short and sweet, that this introduction fails on that count, mainly on the basis of the excerpt above. This is not to say that controversial material should be absent entirely. Au contraire. I believe this biography is far too bland in the later sections, and needs a massive injection of lively material. A section about ongoing controversy and Bush's widely-discussed divisiveness (as a characteristic of his administration contra his reputed vindictiveness) would be entirely welcome. Given that a sitting President & Vice President are distinct in kind from former executives, perhaps the biographical format can be distinct as well. A kind of 'current issues' approach deserves a place. [no name yet] 07:57 GMT, 3 Dec 2004

unprotected

I'm uncomfortable with leaving this article locked for too long, so it's open for editing again. The three revert rule will soon be in effect so play nice everyone. Gamaliel 21:41, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pending Ohio Recount

Should an entry be made concerning the pending recount in Ohio initiated by the Green Party and Libertarian Party candidates? The recount of all 88 counties is expected to begin next week once the Ohio Secretary of State certifies the original results (which is expected on Monday). Senator Kerry has recently joined the suit stressing that he has conceded the election but wants every vote counted.

At this point, this has nothing to do with George W. Bush himself (in a biographical sense). That should be in the 2004 U.S. presidential election article. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 05:16, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well in any case, the intro needs to be changed: the part "defeating Senator John Kerry in 2004." is factually impossible, as the electoral college has not voted yet. One could say that he is expected to defeat, but not that he has defeated. And, if Ken Blackwell & associates would stop obstructing the U.S. Government, there is a decent probability that the election will, in fact, be overturned; i.e. it is not determined that Bush will be elected president by the electoral college, and it is not determined that Bush has won the popular vote in Ohio. There are numerous irregularities, violations of electoral laws, and spoiled ballots, enought to push Kerry over the top with only 70% of the uncounted vote (which is not unusual given the demographics and ohio's election history), and that's not including the corrections from overvotes and undervotes. The election is not over yet. Stating that Bush "defeated kerry" is premature; non-factual; POV. If we want to be an encyclopedia, let's be rigorous about the facts. Kevin Baas | talk 06:39, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

And who put "(The U.S. Constitution currently prohibits him from serving a third term.)" is that in all presidents who served two terms, or is there something special about Bush? If anything's irrelevant or not belonging in the intro, it's that. Kevin Baas | talk 06:40, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

The statement that Bush is prohibited from serving a third term is false. Scenario: In 2009, Bush is elected as Vice President. Immediately after the inauguration the new President resigns. Bush would then succeed to the presidency and serve a third term. (You may dismiss this as crazy but, a year or two ago, I actually read a suggestion that the Democrats pull this stunt for the 2004 election, with Bill Clinton on the ticket as VP with a running mate who’d pledged to resign. The argument was that Clinton was the only Democrat who had the national constituency to beat Bush.) Anyway, I changed it to the accurate statement that Bush is constitutionally prohibited from being elected to a third term as president. Jewbacca changed it back to the false statement with no explanation, and it's now vanished in the revert war over reporting the election results.

As to whether the term limit belongs in there, a lot of readers already know it, but a lot of others, especially non-Americans, don’t. Because Bush is the incumbent, it would be natural for someone who didn’t know about the term limit to wonder about Bush’s prospects for continuing in office past 2009. I think it should be added if we refer to his term ending in 2009, but it needn’t be added to other ex-Presidents’ articles.

VeryVerily added the new assertion that Bush “is considered moderately conservative”. By whom, Pat Buchanan? I ran a Yahoo! search for sites containing “Bush” and the phrase “extreme right wing” and found more than 40,000 hits. Obviously, not every one of them represents the POV that Bush is from the right wing, but that’s a serious POV, expressed by the head of the Log Cabin Republicans (Bush is “pandering to the extreme radical right-wing of the party” [2]), Jesse Jackson (“The extreme right wing has seized the government.” [3]), etc. Whether you agree with them or not, we clearly can’t state as an undisputed fact that Bush is considered moderately conservative or moderately anything. I'm deleting that assertion. JamesMLane 07:58, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Effectively the statement that a U.S. President (not Bush in particular) can only serve two complete terms (s/he can also finish out up to two years of another President's term--10 years total) is true. The scenario put forward for Clinton by some Democrats and others was essentially bogus, because a nominee for Vice President must be eligible for President, and Bush is not eligible for another term. The only example I can think of where a President could potentially regain office after serving two elected terms would be if a former President was elected to Congress (it has happened, but not recently) and became President pro tem of the Senate or Speaker of the House or became a cabinet officer in the line of succession, and all those above him in the succession were killed or incapacitated. Now that scenario may not be impossible, but it is a long-enough shot that it should not interfere with the simple statement that "President Bush's term will end in 2009 as the U.S. President is limited to two full terms in office." -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 08:14, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That aspect was addressed in the material I read about the suggested Clinton candidacy, though I didn't bother going into the detail here. The argument is that a former two-term President would be eligible to serve as President (for example, in the scenarios you mention) and would therefore be eligible to be elected as Vice President. In a quick cruise through Article II, the 22nd Amendment, and the 25th Amendment, I didn't notice anything that would clearly prohibit this scenario. If, as is probably the case, there's a colorable argument to be made for each side on the question of legality, then I don't see what's lost by using instead the indisputably true statement, "He will be ineligible for election to a third term." (Incidentally, the 22nd Amendment says that no one "shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice". It could be argued that many Democrats, to be consistent, would have to say that 2000 doesn't count because Bush wasn't elected, he was appointed by the Supreme Court.) JamesMLane 08:41, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, it appeals to me that if a former President ran as Vice President, it would prompt a visit to the Supreme Court right then and there, a distraction (and delay, and certainly a campaign issue in itself.) I can't believe any campaign would want. Now take it a step further, if the former President won the Vice Presidency and then the elected President stood aside for him, what would you have? The only President to resign was Nixon, and we know why. What reason would the new President give for his resignation? "I decided being President wouldn't be as much fun as I thought?" This would certainly be called conspiracy to subvert the Constitution and I think the new VP turned President would be impeached faster than you could say "Pork Barrel."

Another interesting scenario would be a former President's spouse becoming President. Would the new President truly be independent or would s/he be a front for a third and fourth term for the former President. This could come up if Hillary runs, though I think she could overcome it. But this isn't a far-fetched question. George Wallace was limited to two terms as governor of Alabama or what did he do? He got his wife Lurleen to run for governor and win and everyone understood ol' George would still be Governor, but noone cared. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 10:04, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Spouse, son -- what's the diff?

That's a fair enough question, and without going into interesting (IMO) side issues like the role of political dynasties in a republican democracy, I'll try to give you an answer.

The diff? None necessarily, since the problem is a matter of intent. If it could have been reasonably proposed that Bush Jr. ran with the intent of being a simple surrogate for his father (i.e., the real decisions would be made be George H.W. with George W. simply being a conduit) that would have been, at the least, a disturbing trend, and (again IMO) cause to consider impeachment. Would/will Hillary be a conduit for Bill? I don't know—at this point I'm not alleging that, since she doesn't have the appearance or temperament of a political meat-puppet.

But all things being equal, a spouse is more problematic than a child. Being someone's child is an involuntary relationship, and children are famous for setting a different course, or even rebelling against a parents ideas and policies. In Bush's case, some of the same faces are in his administration as in his father's, but that is not extraordinary, since most of the same go back to earlier Republican administrations. What is remarkable to me is how politically different Bush Jr. is from Bush Sr. Bush Sr. was no conservative, though he played one as Reagan's successor. He was a centrist Rockefeller Republican while Bush the younger is a socially moderate Neocon. Colin Powell fit in well with the former, but was on a different path from the latter.

Now, the spouse. The Bible says that husband and wife form "one flesh" (Ephesians 5:31), not to mention Hamlet's note of the same, and that is often more true than many (especially the unmarried) realize. Remember when Bill was campaigning in 1992 and presented himself and Hillary as a "two for the price of one" deal--almost like co-presidents? Married people share more of an intimacy than the bedroom. Or to take it off the Clintons, many thought Nancy was the power behind Ron. If she had run for President in 1988, effectively continuing the Reagan presidency, it may have satisfied the letter of the Constitution, but not its spirit. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 02:16, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Cecropia, there are a lot of secularists here. If you want to be taken seriously by them, it behooves you to avoid phrases like "the Bible says". To a secularists, this is appeal to authority logical fallacy and worse, a red flag that they should expect the same kind of argument/thinking from the espouser, and therefore be unable to communicate with them regarding empirical matters. In other words, it's a good way to make a secularist stop talking with you. Kevin Baas | talk 19:46, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)

LOL! Out of all that, all you can comment on is to lecture me on how to talk to "secularists"? *Cough* I am a secularist, though I would prefer "free-thinker." I have an ingrained distaste toward describing myself by any "-ism," including atheism. I consider the Judeo-Christian Bible quite a practical document in most cases and was using it to establish context, in that in the instant case, it expresses the antiquity of a truism. I thought my reference to Hamlet, who used the same concept sacastically, would clue you in on that; the mistake mine. I am not telling you this so you will continue speaking to me; it is your adult choice to speak to me or not, but I will note that one of the great failings of modern secularism and liberalism is the tendency to consider the intellect of people of faith worthless, to talk down to them, or not speak to them at all. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 21:09, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ok, yes spouses of presidents have the potential to act as conduits, we don't necessarily know since to my recollection its never happened before. We do not need to include in every president's page that they are limited to 2 terms by the constitution. Point made. Now lets focus on other things. As for the tendency to dismiss faith-based intellect, I agree that it is rampant. While I do not think it is correct to practice such discrimination, it is hard to consistently trust a form of thought which by definition must exclude reason. People believe in God because they do, no reason need justify such a worldview. This however gets you in trouble when trying to formulate arguments, codes, ethics, or really anything that requires reason. You are right though, in that this still does not justify excluding the intellect of faith, as there are gems of wisdom here and there from our religions. And someone who is a self-described secularist sure knows the bible pretty well ;)... by the way does that mean Karl Rove and W. are of one flesh? (no gay joke there)--kizzle 23:44, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Not unless you're writing a cookbook. I understand your point, and Kevin's as well, however it goes too far. If someone counters an argument by quoting the Bible as fact ("Men can fly without instrumentality. The proof? Jesus ascended bodily to heaven") or say "the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it", then obviously you are right. But I used the quote about "one flesh" to illustrate that a point which might be observable in modern psychology was recognized as true (if allegorically) two thousand years ago. But when you say that "it is hard to consistently trust a form of thought which by definition must exclude reason" you are simply mistaken. Where do you think philosophies comes from? They come from humans. Humans who write bibles and humans who write philosophy and humans who write polirical tracts. Most religious Americans do not take the Bible literally, and you can find churchpeople who will not contend that, as one put it, "God is a nice old man with a beard." I think the issue is how an intelligent person approaches an ideology, not necessarily the source of the ideology. I have had perfectly intelligent, lucid friends, who would be appalled if I referred to Biblical verses as roots of everything from pure food administrations to labour laws, turn around and quote to me from Engel's The Dialectics of Nature or Lenin's Volume 38. Or to put it another way, not all Gods are in heaven, some are pickled in tombs. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 00:48, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is a large difference between The Dialectics of Nature and the Bible. The bible is a collection of stories and sayings which do not have any justification for the morals they teach but rather that we must accept them simply because. Lenin, political books, and philosophical arguments are all mental constructs which rely upon a developed conclusion from a sequence of logically rejecting and accepting premises to be true. Religion is the very antithesis of this process, as its content is not developed through any process but rather is simply stated. That is why religioun is a form of thought which by definition must exclude reason: it contains no peer review nor any review whatsoever, it cannot be changed, and its lessons and ethics are not derived from any logical processes in themselves but rather through an appeal to a higher deity's "superior" reasoning. Once again, this does not mean that a belief in God is unjustified or wrong, it simply must be taken on faith, like most of religion. Once religion dips into logical justification for its viewpoints (which it smartly does not), it encounters a significant amount of problems. --kizzle 08:23, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Two terms occur to me. "Grasping at straws" and "Poisoning the well." The nation short of a corps of zealots believes Bush defeated Kerry fair and square. The hypocrites who hounded Bush for four years as having "lost the election by 500,000 votes" now fantasize that Kerry would be welcomed on more court-powered vote conjuring losing the election by more than 3,000,000 votes. The same bean-counting that imagines that Kerry "lost by 80,000 votes" (i.e., if 80,000 votes in Ohio shifted from Bush to Kerry) could also give Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes vs. Ohio's 20) to Bush, where Bush lost to Kerry by fewer votes and a smaller percentage than Kerry lost Ohio. You can't recount just what you want to recount and make it stick. If worst came to worst this would be thrown to the House of Representatives, where Bush would be elected anyway. And this is another brick in the wall that will keep Wikipedia from ever being accepted as a citable NPOV encyclopedia. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Provided you keep your rhetoric on the talk page, I don't think Wikipedia will have that problem. Joe Lieberman stated clearly the reasoning for popular sentiment regarding the current election [4], no one ever complained that the 2000 election was illegitimate because of the popular vote count. Nobody is claiming now that the current election is legitimate because of the popular vote count (unless some republicans would like to be first to make that claim?). Recounts are pending or have been done in both blue and red states. The states that have been selected for recounts have been selected because of irregularities and violations, not because one or another candidate won or lost. If you think that there were sufficient problems in other states to justify a recount, then by all means, go for it. We won't object. We put a high priority on free and fair elections, and yes, we are willing to spend millions of dollars every four years if that's what government by consent costs. Our ancestors have paid a much higher price for it, and we consider it a good investment. Kevin Baas | talk 08:18, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Well evidently we disagree on a key point—that of motivation for recounts. I don't think anyone really believes that the election will be overturned. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 08:26, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some people do believe that that is a possibility. Jesse Jackson, for instance, wants Ohio to "put aside" the purported outcome, and count all the votes fairly and accurately first, before declaring a winner. You can read on the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy article, as well as directly from the sources such as Cobb, Badnarik, Kerry, etc., the motivation for recounts. Don't take my word for it - I would be disappointed in you if you did. Kevin Baas | talk 08:34, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

I see Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada and New Hampshire being challenged at the instigation of Nader and some others. Only New Hampshire (with four whole electoral votes) went for Kerry. Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (31 e.v.) gave Kerry a smaller margin than Bush won by in Ohio (Wisconsin by fewer than 12,000 votes). MI, MN and OR Kerry won by slightly more than Bush did in Ohio. Of the unchalleneged "Red" states only Iowa (7 e.v.) was that close for Bush. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 08:57, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, challenged by Nader -- not exactly a big friend of the Dem's now is he?

Cecropia, I seem to have forgot, what did I say the motivation for recounts was? Did I say it was close elections? I don't remember that, maybe I was drunk. Kevin Baas | talk 17:09, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

the paragraph on the jury questionaire should be removed

This is an insignificant event that should not be included in the article. We are compounding the error by including the speculation about Bush's motives in the article, and casting innuendo because the questionaire and the attorney did not disclose Bush's past DUI issue. The innuendo is unjustified, since the attorney worked out a get the govenor excused from Jury duty for a conflict of interest, there is no indication that anything proceeded to the point where there would have been a duty for the attorney to disclose this, if he even knew about it. There is a statement by Bush spokesman that Bush did not fill out the questionaire, a Bush aide did and also left a lot of innocous things blank that he had no personal knowledge of, so focusing on this one non-disclosure is also speculation. In addition, the article reports that not completing the form is not unusual or an offense of any kind. Even the quality of the speculation in the article is poor, with the prosecutor only partially quoted by the reporter and those speculations about motives are contradictory, with the first allegation of misleading being to avoid jury duty, not the later allegation of being to avoid disclosing information. It is no surprise that a busy sitting governor wants out of jury duty, and the possible conflict of interest relationed to pardons is a conveniently sufficient excuse. While having to make these disclosures would have been very embarrassing for Bush, avoiding jury duty was likely to be so certain and easy, there is no reason to think the issue even rose to a level where Bush might have started thinking about deceiving.--Silverback 09:47, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's your interpretation that the prosecutor meant that Bush was sleazily trying to get out of jury duty. Because the prosecutor referred specifically to the new information (the DUI that he hadn't known about), I'd interpret him as meaning that Bush's chief motive was concealment. That's also the opinion of the defense attorney, whom we didn't quote. The current wording gives the prosecutor's opinion, quotes verbatim the Bush campaign's response, and lets the reader decide whether "the quality of the speculation in the article is poor". In addition, the lawyer who represented Bush in this episode has now been nominated to be U.S. Attorney General. I don't think that fact is worth mentioning in this paragraph in the article but we should be aware of it. JamesMLane 09:57, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It is not my interpretation, the first line of the article ends with this "he was purposely misled by Bush and his attorney in an effort to avoid service". But the whole allegation that if true could make the paragraph relevant, is that Bush deceived or misled. There is no evidence that Bush did anything or that this rose to a level of concern the he would contemplate beginning to deceive. It is rare for a Govenor to serve on a jury, assigning a summons to his attorney to handle without it rising to a level of concern would be routine. The time to worry and begin to deceive would be if he didn't get excused and article points out that was negotiated in advance of going through the motions in court. The SBVT truth at least had witnesses makeing sworn affadavits, presumably with complete sentences in them and who were in a location to have personal knowledge of the events. This prosecutor has no personal knowledge of Bush's actions or intent, he could only swear to what he believes and thinks in logical.--Silverback 10:10, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Inherent Bias

I'm a political consultant, & I've worked for both parties (the Democrats paid me more). I've browsed through this article. I started making notes on how I could honestly contribute from my history with both parties, but it's blatantly obvious that this will never be a neutral article. Look, when a political consultant presents rumors as facts we call it campaigning (he he), but this article is simply filled with unsubstantiated innuendo. And as far as charges of cronism - obviously none of you are students of political science. In every government, in every country, in the history of the world, going back to ancient Egypt friends give friends positions of authority. To change that, you need to change human nature. --Corwin8 10:13, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ah, a paragon of neutrality joins us. Please tell us what to do, "obviously" no one here has any clue. Wolfman 13:33, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Historical precdent doesn't make it any less cronyism, just because they got away with it. -khaosworks 15:39, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I concur with khaosworks. A thousand stones is as much a thousand stones as one stone is one stone. Kevin Baas | talk 17:24, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Dec 3 revert war

Regarding User:Kevin baas, the temporary injunction against him allows no more than two reverts on an article in a 24 hour period. Kevin baas reverted to his preferred version if the introduction section three times (1, 2, 3). Sysops are authorised by the injunction to enact a 24 hour block. -- Netoholic @ 18:03, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Au contraire mon friere (sp?), as anyone can see by the diffs you posted, the third version is a different version, and as anyone can see by the page history, it is not "my" version. Kevin Baas | talk 18:35, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Very subtle change in the 3rd diff above, but still a revert. Even if it's not though, then your first edit today can be considered a revert, and diffs 1 and 2 make it three total today. Which is it? -- Netoholic @ 18:58, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

My first edit can be considered a revert?!?! What planet are you from? Kevin Baas | talk 19:33, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)

If, as you say "it is not "my" version", then that means your first edit on Dec. 3 was to revert back to that previous version. -- Netoholic @ 09:04, 2004 Dec 5 (UTC)

My hands are tied, folks

I'm on a self-imposed restriction here (I asked to join the arbitration and take punitive measures, with the condition that it be applied consistently to all parties.), so you guys will have to restore it to Gazpacho's neutral version and deal with Cecropia, Netoholic, Jewbacca, and VV. Kevin Baas | talk 18:45, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

The long talk above under the section "page protected" is where these arguments were hashed out. Jewbacca 18:47, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, and it would be wise for people to read them. Kevin Baas | talk 18:50, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Listed on RFC

This page has been listed on WP:RFC. Kevin Baas | talk 18:59, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

Cabinet table alignment

Why is the table listing the Cabinet members appearing on the right side of the page, leaving large ugly whitespace on its left? The markup appears to have "align='left'" on it, and it's not a problem with my browser because I checked in multiple browsers. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 07:09, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

I think there's a mistake in the table formatting. It says 'style="...;" align...'. Changing it to 'style="..." align...' makes the alignment (and border) work for me.

The white space is caused by the <br clear="all"> after the table, which prevents the next section from moving up alongside of the table. Probably the table should be moved to the top of its section.

—wwoods 17:34, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I wrapped in a float:right div, and it looks better now. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 19:12, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Formatting question

In the Transcripts section of external links, the {{wikiquote}} tag displays badly. I tried to fix a couple ways, but to no avail. It appears correctly on a section preview, but not when saved. Any help? --Whosyourjudas (talk) 19:14, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Same here, tried 4 or 5 variations. Previews correctly, renders wrong. I'm using Netscape. Wolfman 20:10, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Bush administration disinformation about Iraq

Silverback's edit summary asks me "What lies?" His version is not NPOV because it asserts, as if it were an undisputed fact, that after 9/11 "there was a new sense of urgency" about the WMD issue and the possible aid to terrorists. I deny that there was such a renewed sense of urgency. My POV is that Bush knew, because all his intelligence experts were telling him, that Saddam did not have WMDs, was not close to getting nuclear capability, and had had nothing to do with 9/11. It is further my POV that Bush, knowing these facts, cynically and immorally seized on 9/11 as a convenient pretext for doing what he'd been planning to do since before the 2000 election, namely depose Saddam. Now, I don't expect the Wikipedia article to reflect my personal opinions of Our Glorious Leader. We should indeed report the line that the Bush administration was publicly spouting. Nevertheless, we don't assert it as fact. We attribute it. The version I've reverted to says "the Bush administration argued that", which is the properly NPOV way to present Bush's statements. We could, of course, get into more detail about what documentary evidence was available about Iraqi weapons programs, but if we're going to assert that Iraq made claims that weren't documented, then we should also link to Yellowcake Forgery to point out that Bush made claims based on forged documents. JamesMLane 02:38, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Completely agree with your point. Wolfman 02:46, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with keeping it NPOV, the yellowcake forgery was not done by Bush, although since it had been called into question, it should not have been used. Nevertheless, the concern it raised, that Saddam wanted nukes was valid, and it is clear from interviews with Iraqi scientists since the war, that Saddam had every intention of restarting his WMD programs, and he had the resources to do it. My own POV is that the war was not justified, but that, even so, it was probably the most just war the US has ever been involved in and fought because we only intended to transfer the power and resources to a democratic government by the most just means because we didn't use conscription, and used some of the most accurrate munitions in history, to carefully preserve civilian life and infrastructure. Yes, we have avoided conscription in other recent wars, but in Serbia and the first Gulf war, we purposely targeted civilian infrastructure and in the bunkers in Kuwait murdered over 100,000 innocent Iraqi conscripts.--Silverback 02:57, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, if he wanted WMD, if he had the resources to do it, if the sanctions were not interfering, then why didn't he have any WMD? It's not at all clear that any of the premises above are true. Stating any of them as fact is POV; stating that the situation was urgent is POV. Stating what Bush said and attributing it to Bush is NPOV. Wolfman 03:02, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Saddam did want the sanctions to end, yet obsfuscated against the inspections because he wanted his neighbors to believe he still had WMD. Of course, it made the rest of the world believe he still had WMD as well. Why he wanted his neighbors to believe he still had WMD is unclear. was it as a deterrent to Iran? or for prestige in the region? to intimidate the shiites and kurds? Frankly, Saddam bears far more responsibility for the war than Bush, he had one of the greatest opportunities in history to open his country, get his borders guaranteed without any need for further military expenditures on Iraq's part, even disolving his military, and to thumb his nose at the west by legalizing drugs and calling his nation the freeist on earth. I would have done it!--Silverback 03:14, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The french, germans and russians probably also bear more responsibility for the war than Bush, because they gave Saddam hope he could wait out the sanctions and get them removed without the full cooperation that would have given Iraq's claims of having destroyed the unaccounted for material credibility.--Silverback 03:27, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would say that the person who started the war is responsible for starting the war, but that's just me. Kevin Baas | talk 05:49, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

I say the moral bright line is between sanctions and non-coercive means, not between sanctions and war. Sanctions are acts of war, a gun to the head, so to speak. Sanctions commit one to backing them up occasionally. Of course, one can also take the "start" back to the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam, there has only been a truce since then. Rest assured that another nation imposing a no-fly zone on the US (as the UN did on Iraq) would find it considered an act of war.--Silverback 05:59, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Admittedly, I am not fully aware of the details surrounding Desert Storm. But that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing who went to war. The controversial term "preemptive strike" comes to mind. I guess you could argue that it was self defence, but that would be a failing strategy in any court, national or international. In any case, the War, the actual physical battle, was started by the Bush administration (and prepared for long before). I.e. it was a premeditated act commited by the Bush Administration, and insofar as one is responsible for one's actions, the Bush administration is responsible for acting as it did, and all of the consequences resultant therefrom. Kevin Baas | talk 07:12, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

The sanctions were in place after Desert Storm which was only "ended" with a truce (not a peace treaty) and that truce had been violated many times. However, I don't see the "preemptive" element as introducing any moral issues. Saddam lost any right have his rights respected, when he initiated violating the rights of others, the rape room, or the torturing of the soccer players is all the excuse needed. The key moral issue is that taking out Saddam in order to prevent further violations of rights involves the certainty of collateral damage, including the taking of innocent life. But governments do that all the time, even in peace, they use net-lives-saved justifications to delay access to life saving medications. In the United States delays in the approval of clot busting drugs (TPA and streptokinase) and beta blockers (propranol HCL, atenolol, etc) are estimated to have cost over a million lives (they didn't quite achieve a net plus on this one). If net-lives-saved are enough to justify taking innocent life in peace, there is no reason for the standard to be higher war, and given the nature of Saddam's regime and his diversion of humanitarian aid to the military and to the corruption of european and international leaders, the Iraq war may already have met the net lives saved standard. Madeline Albright estimated that over 500,000 infants had died in Iraq, before the oil for food program was initiated.--Silverback 08:34, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Silverback, you're kinda jumping around here. Egregious human rights records do not necessarily justify us to invade a country's soverign rule, otherwise we would be at war with many many countries, with at least a few we have far more of a reason to invade than Iraq. Iran is a much better target, why didn't we hit them? Regardless, the point is that we started the war, we are responsible for the war. The argument that we were provoked into doing so, like KB says, is flimsy at best. Any justification you can use for Iraq can be applied to many other countries... if we must accept this justification by provocation, we are morally inclined to invade these other countries as well and the fact that we haven't done so yet should incite moral outrage. --kizzle 07:55, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

As much as I agree with some of the posters here. It's all off topic. Does anyone have any concrete proof that Bush lied to the American public. Are there any documents that said before the war that Iraq neither had a single drop of WMD (remember that a single drop can kill hundreds), nor wanted to make them? The CIA may have had wrong information, like it's had hundreds of times before, or they could have been moved out of the country, but unless someone has concrete proof that Saddam didn't have WMD, and that Bush knew about it and intentionally lied about it, it shouldn't be in a factual article. PPGMD

Conversly, if and only if the CIA had "concrete evidence that Saddam Hussien possesses WMD." at the time that Bush made that statement, Bush was telling the truth to the public (i.e. x is a true statement). If he was not telling the truth to the public, then he was lying to the public (i.e. x is a false statement). To the best of any informed person's knowledge, the CIA did not only not have any "concrete evidence" of this, but had no credible evidence whatsoever. Therefore, Bush knowingly lied to the public. Simple logic. Sound and valid.

Why knowingly? Because this is the kind of statement a president makes to the public if and only if they know. If he did not know, then he is not only a liar (however unknowingly), but an abhorently irresponsible and incompetent one. That is, I am actually being nice to him by giving him the benefit of the doubt and saying that he knowingly lied. Kevin Baas | talk 20:45, 2004 Dec 7 (UTC)

No credible evidence whatsoever eh? I am sure the President knows what's going on in the bowels of the CIA HQ. Most intelligence agencies at the time that he made the run up to the war said that Saddam had WMD. There was very little evidence to the to rebut it, the report that they delivered to the UN didn't help anything either, since it didn't account for all the weapons. There was credible, evidence, at least as credible as one can get without any intelligence operatives on the ground.

Once again, show me documents from credible that prove that President Bush lied? This is an encyclopedia, not a collection of conspiracy theories, without concrete proof it shouldn't be in this entry. If I want junk like that I will goto coasttocoastam.com PPGMD

The onus is on the president to demonstrate that there was hard evidence of WMD. As the saying goes, "innocent until proven guilty." Until it is proven that iraq has WMD, i.e. is guilty of a violation. The proof is the lack of evidecne to the contrary. there can be no other proof. how can you prove that something does not exist other than pointing out that there is no evidence of it's existence? This is the logical problem mistake that make people believe in God. By the same so-called "logic" people use to justify their belief in god you are justifying your belief that saddam had wmd. You cannot disprove their existence because there is no possible way for there to be evidence of their "nonexistence"; one cannot be shown their "non-being".

The onus is on the president. Saddam probably didn't think he would go to war. Who can blame him? How could anyone expect a national leader to be so belligerent as to go around invading other countries on the basis of completely unsubstantiated allegations? The whole world, in fact, was rather shocked.

He said there is hard evidence. He does not know the bowels of the CIA! The CIA doesn't even know their own bowels. Where are you getting this from? Your blind faith is scarry. He said there is concrete evidence. There is not concrete evidence. He lied. I understand that this may be difficult to accept. But that's proof. That's as much proof as could possibly exist. Yes, the president of the United States blatently lied to his country. I know that's the last thing you want to hear. It sounds very ugly, it's horrendous. Maybe that's why you're having so much trouble believing it. You're not alone: nobody wants to believe it. But it's the sad truth. He lied and repeated his lies and when he could repeat them no longer because there was too much evidence to the contrary, he shifted them so as to make it look like that's what he was saying all along, and repeated those new lies over and over again. When there was too much evidence to the contrary, he shifted them again. Ofcourse it worked, ofcourse people think that he didn't do this; that he's told the truth the whole time. Have you done your homework? How do you learn something? Repetition, repetition, repetition. Teachers know this. It is the most powerful tool. Repetition. What is repeated is taken to be true, regardless of any connection with the empirical world. It's basic psychology. There was no evidence. There still is no evidence. The CIA knew this (with 2 maverik exceptions), every other country in the world knew this (except isreal. Britian's population knew this overwhelming, and Tony Blair possibly knew it as well.) He lied. People lie, you know. They do sometimes, really. No, really, everyone doesn't always tell the truth. Sometimes people actually do lie. No, really. Really. Kevin Baas | talk 23:52, 2004 Dec 7 (UTC)

Read The Price of Loyalty by Paul O'Neill, or Against All Enemies by Richard Clarke. We were planning on going to Iraq before we even considered weapons of mass destruction. In addition, the weapons of mass destruction claim came after our plans to invade. While it cannot be technically proven that he did not know, its like he claimed Saddam was planning to invade the U.S., a hypothesis with little to none substantial evidence. You make a statement like posession of WMD after you have the evidence, not before. --kizzle 23:34, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

This discussion didn't arise because someone wanted the article to say that Bush was lying. It arose because someone wanted the article to parrot Bush's lies uncritically. The demand by PPGMD for "concrete proof" should apply both ways. The article shouldn't state something as a fact if the only basis is that Bush asserted it. I have no problem with our reporting his notable statements in a form like "The Bush administration argued that...." It was the omission of that kind of attribution that caused the disagreement. JamesMLane 01:53, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

True. Plus the Bush administration did state numerous times that we had incontrovertible evidence that Saddam had WMD. Obviously we did not have undeniable evidence, since no WMD were found. Therefore, the administration did plainly lie about the strength of the evidence. Now whether that's the CIA or the Whitehouse is perhaps debatable. But last I checked, Bush is the leader of the executive branch, and that's where the buck stops so the issue is relevant to this article. Wolfman 04:00, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It isn't a lie unless the "liar" knows it is untrue. It is a copout to state that "the administration" lied. Who lied? Perhaps someone jumped to a conclusion or assumed the worst. Frankly, it appears the U.S. had inside intelligence high within the Saddam administration or military and believed what they believed. Iraqi unit commanders knew they did not have chemical weapons, but they thought other units did. It also appeared that Saddam himself may have been lied to, and the U.S. believed those lies also. In any case, it all turned out for the best, how lucky can the U.S. get?--Silverback 06:03, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Silverback is really George W. Bush, that's not a lie by his criteria. Yes, how lucky we are to have invaded Iraq, spent hundreds of billions of dollars, taken 10000 wounded in action and 1200 dead. Wolfman 06:15, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Touche! There must be some further qualification or criteria for lying that I have forgotten from my ethics class. I would characterize your statement (that I am W) as speculation, with extremely little evidence, but you are right, I wouldn't call you a liar by my criteria, even though I know through personal knowledge the truth or falsity of your statement. It is a very few hundreds of billions, but the casualties are low by historical standards, if only someone could liberate us the from yoke of the US government so cheaply. 8-) --Silverback 07:06, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I second JML (once again), its just fun to talk about this sometime, but we cannot officially endorse Bush's viewpoint, we must quote and attribute, quote and attribute. Back to debating, whether or not he lied is a question which will never be proved either way, however we do know that Bush wanted a war with Iraq before WMD's, before 9/11, so it just seems a bit convenient at best.--kizzle 09:52, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

You overstate it. There is a difference between wanting Saddam removed and wanting a war. He would have been more patient with other approaches, if not for the unaccounted for WMD, which gave it a sense of urgency. I doubt he would have waited very long however, if the other approaches were not showing promise. All the conservatives were impatient with the resource drain of the no-fly zone and competely lack of credibility of U.N. sanctions.--Silverback 10:26, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Resource drain, as compared to how much we're spending on the war now? To see the invasion of Iraq as merely a response to a threat of WMD misses the point. I don't think that's what Perle, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld were thinking at the time at the very least. --kizzle 11:14, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Obviously the army is tied down. But the airpower is significantly freed up. Read the PNAC document for an idea of the strain the no fly zone put on the U.S. Kuwait was not a good base for dealing with Iran, Iraq puts us in a better position, and makes sure the oil revenues are spent in Iraq for the benefit of her people, rather than spilling over into Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. You may think suicide bombers are cheap and in unlimited supply, certainly ones that can penetrate a western country are, but even there, I think there is a big drain on this irredeemable element being thrown against hard targets (U.S. military) and unfortunately innocent Iraqi's. They obviously view democracy as a threat, which proves they agree with the possible consequences of this risky and idealistic U.S. strategy, although of course, they oppose it. This war against a corrupt, depraved dictatorship may look like a bargain a few years out. Frankly, I think a civil war would not be that bad, especially if it resulted in the Kurds and Shiites getting nations, and the discredited bathists getting a middle country but permanently defanged, because they have no oil.--Silverback 12:00, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

For those who missed it, Silverback just said "Frankly, I think a civil war would not be that bad". This needs no futher comment. Wolfman 14:53, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Three Comments

1. The box with the Cabinet appointments is wrong. Although some Cabinet members have submitted their resignations, these do not take effect until their successor is sworn in. So, for example, Colin Powell is the Secretary of State until Condoleeza Rice is sworn in. Same goes for Ashcroft, Evans and the others.

2. Concerning the above talkpage discussion. It is amazing to me how people cannot stop their political viewpoint from obstructing their view of facts. At this point it makes no sense to put Bush's administration in a historical context. Many of the controversial acts Bush has done may be great for America in the future, OR it could be a disaster but only time will tell. For example, TR's action in seizing the Panama Canal were controversial and maybe illegal but in the long run it is recognized as one of his Presidencies greatest achievements, likewise President Buchanan's reluctance to engage the Confederacy is now looked on as a major failure but at the time were seen as necessary to avoid war. So with that in mind, I think the current Bush article is better because it seems to be simply reciting the events of Bush's first term without arguing whether these acts were right or wrong.

3. I noticed in the articles, that there are separate links between Bush's first term and his second (which will happen, regardless of what one of the contributors above thinks). This is unnecessary. It was not done for other two term Presidents, so I don't understand why we need to do it here. Just have it all on the same page.

Thanks Ramsquire 23:12, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Protected

I've protected this page again because of the spurts of vandalism it has been receiving. Will unprotect as soon as is possible. Any changes, feel free to submit and discuss here. JOHN COLLISON [ L u d r a m an] 02:54, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Completely unnecessary. This is an actively worked on page, so the vandalism gets corrected almost instantaneously and gets lost in the noise. It is the vandalism on less active pages you need to worry about.--Silverback 06:05, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

For once I agree with Silverback. Unprotect. Dealing with the vandals is a hassle but a minor one. Besides, how can anyone "unprotect as soon as is possible"? We won't know how much vandalism will occur until it's unprotected. JamesMLane 00:34, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Failure to Meet with NAACP

Under "Domestic Policy" the following line appears:

Although President Bush did meet with the National Urban League, he is the first sitting President not to meet with the NAACP since Herbert Hoover.

This is poorly written. A better edit would be:

President Bush has met with the National Urban League as President, but has not yet met with the NAACP as President, though he did address the NAACP at their 2000 convention in Baltimore as a presidential candidate. Should President Bush not meet with the NAACP before he leaves office, he will become the first sitting President to have not met with the NAACP since Herbert Hoover.

This is a significant improvement for several reasons. First, while Bush hasn't met with the NAACP as president, it's unfair to fail to mention that he has met with them in the past. Secondly, Bush isn't "the first sitting President not to meet..." anymore than Bill Clinton was the first sitting President not to meet with the NAACP up until the time that he actually did. The sentence won't be true until Bush has left office still not having met with the NAACP.

I agree. Your statement should be added to the piece.Ramsquire 22:51, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I too agree sounds more NPOV.--198 04:19, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

yes, making the edit now. Wolfman 05:45, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

oh, well then, i see it's protected. at any rate it's a clear improvement. and the page should be unprotected, as it just encourages vandals by making them feel powerful. block them, not us. 05:47, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

First and Second term pages

I don't know why, but some one removed the links to George W. Bush's first term as president of the United States and George W. Bush's second term as president of the United States I added them back to the see also section.--The_stuart 19:15, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Once again, some one has removed the links to these pages. I thought that discussion was supposed to come before removing something from this page. I don't see any reason why links to these pages shouldn't be incluided some where on this page. Until there is discussion as to why they shouldn't be on this page I'm going to keep putting them back. I'm not try start any kind of conflict, only discussion.--The_stuart 18:09, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I removed the link to Bush's first term and second term because I find it strange to point to other articles that are basically discussing the same things as this article. Also, I explained my edit above in the section entitled "Three Comments". I am just confused as to why we would need separate links since the topic of this article concerns the life and presidency of Bush. Ramsquire 21:16, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Because, after only one term, the page is already 57k. Spinning off sections to separate pages (and replacing them with summaries!) is standard practice as articles grow.

—wwoods 21:30, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

But wouldn't it make more sense to just prune out the unnecessary stuff. It is weird that Bush's one term page would be larger than Clinton's two terms page. Maybe we should try to format the page so that all pages on world leaders follow a very similiar format, but if there are other things the person is noted for, e.g Nixon and Watergate, have that under a separate title. The reason I proposed the edit is that Bush's page is very unlike all the other US president pages, containing sections on world and domestic views on the Presidency, which maybe can be streamlined into the body of the rest of the article. Just an idea.Ramsquire 20:03, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd prefer to use the existing split by subject matter -- to prune the sections on foreign and domestic policy, moving a lot of the detail to those respective daughter articles. A particular reader is more likely to want to know something like what Bush did on economic matters, regardless of which term it was in, than to want to know what happened specifically before January 20, 2005. JamesMLane 03:58, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As for the Clinton comparison, recent subjects tend to attract more attention than older ones. The article on Bill Clinton is much longer than the article on Thomas Jefferson. JamesMLane 10:56, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Bush just happend to be president now, so more things are going to be written about him. Later presidents will also probably get exstensive articles as well. Its just a matter of the timing that his presidency will be so well documented.--The_stuart 16:34, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree that since Bush is in office now, it seems like everything he does will have historical significance and should be included in this article. Things like the SEC investigation will have no historical significance in four years, but yet paragraphs are dedicated to it in this articel. I think we have to fight the urge to include every possible angle and keep the article simple. I know it would be too difficult now, but perhaps we should have a specific format for world leaders that we have to stick to, instead of the add everything we can think of going on now. It is ridiculous that a one term president already has all this information in his article. I do like the idea of using the foreign and domestic policy split over first term/second term split though.Ramsquire 18:45, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Resignations

I just compared the current version of the page to the version by VerilyVerily at 05:27, 12 Dec 2004 diff. One major omission is the following paragraph. Since I'm aware that this page is being attacked by vandals, I'm copying it here in case it is vandalism that has been missed (it probably isn't, but I'm being extra cautious).

"Within a few weeks after the 2004 election, several Cabinet members announced their resignations: Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, Secretary of Education Rod Paige, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, and Secretary of Health of Human Services Tommy Thompson. Bush has announced his nominations of Condoleezza Rice to replace Powell, Alberto R. Gonzales to replace Ashcroft, Margaret Spellings to replace Paige, Carlos Gutierrez to replace Evans, Mike Johanns to replace Veneman, and Bernard Kerik to replace Ridge, although Kerik has declined the position." --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 04:16, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tony, I replaced that paragraph with the table of "Proposed second term cabinet" to make it all more readable. I may be a vandal, though, as I've been accused in the past. :) Jewbacca 04:17, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I suspected that this might have been the intention, but I thought it was worth querying just the same. --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 04:48, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There were some changes during the first term, and some continuity between the first and second terms. I don't think breaking it out this way is best for the long run. When the dust settles after most of the confirmation hearings, we should go back to a single unified table (with dates), and a paragraph noting the spate of changes at the end of 2004. For now, though, a separate table is reasonable, to accommodate all these unconfirmed nominees or intended nominees, who can't yet be listed as Cabinet members. JamesMLane 05:52, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My thoughts precisely. We finally agree on something :) But yes, we should merge it to look like the table at Bill Clinton after confirmations. Jewbacca 06:04, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Most vandalized page on Wikipedia?

It sure seems like it. Every time I visit this page, typically half of the current History actions on the screen are vandalism reverts. --I run like a Welshman 22:32, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if these things are tracked, in a meaningful way, but the impact here is probably less than on other pages because the page is actively worked, by experienced wikipedian's, reverting the vandalism is a minor nusance. You will also usually many substantive changes to the page on any given day. Really, once you gain some experience, it is hardly a bother at all.--Silverback 15:10, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's probably to do with the amount of traffic this article recieves, Bush being about the most visible figure worldwide. Michael Moore and Adolf Hitler are two articles I've looked at that also recieve a lot of vandalism. At least there doesn't seem to be a revert war going on, like there was with the John McCain page a few weeks ago. Diceman 15:35, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Have not/did not

I changed As in the 2000 election, there were charges raised about inaccurate counting of votes and other irregularities, especially in Ohio, although in 2004 they *did* not lead to recounts that could affect the result. to As in the 2000 election, there were charges raised about inaccurate counting of votes and other irregularities, especially in Ohio, although in 2004 they *have* not lead to recounts that could affect the result.

I'm not making some conspiracy case that the election can be overturned, but in point of fact, it's Jan 6. when 'did not' becomes accurate. Thoughts? -- RyanFreisling @ 20:01, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I changed "could" to "is expected to". It is technically more correct. There are enough uncounted provisional ballots and spoiled ballots to overturn the result, besides the fact that it's physically possible for there to have been fraud. Kevin Baas | talk 20:10, 2004 Dec 15 (UTC)

Ohio the focal point of 2004 election "shadiness"

I added mention of Ohio being the focal point for suspicion over voter representation in 2004. I was oh-so-tempted to mention how the CEO of Diebold said they were committed to delivering Ohio's electoral vote to Bush in 2004..but that would've clearly been biased and I didn't want to polarize this entry. MDesigner 21:19, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

The recount showed a change of only 300 votes -- Get over it and let's move on First Lensman 15:47, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Get over it and let's move on." Nothing to see here, folks. Classic. 2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy_and_irregularities -- RyanFreisling @ 00:30, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The illegitimate Ohio recount never had nor was expected to have the capacity to uncover the more serious problems in the election process in Ohio. We will never get over the abrogation of the primary right by which all other rights are protected. On the contrary, we will fix these problems, and will not be detered by opposition. Kevin Baas^talk 20:10, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

Wait a minute, when is over 300 votes "only", in a partial (not legal statewide) recount, or even (hypothetically) a legitimate statewide recount? That's uncommon. Usually it's off by less than 100. Kevin Baas^talk 19:44, 2005 Feb 5 (UTC)

Other info

The page is about George W. Bush. I am looking, and thinking, things like his beliefes, financial backers, agenda and the like have a place in it. They are legitimate in an article about him, and can and should be shown, albeit neutrally. Its not just about "his acts and history as president". FT2 09:58, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

agreed--The_stuart 00:06, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would be more inclined to agree if we were doing a biography on the subjects in this page. The problem is that many of these things turn out to be apocryphal and therefore don't belong in an encyclopedia. In a biography it is more acceptable to use poetic license and rumors, than it would be in an encyclopedia article. Here we should stick to facts that can be verified (so that we don't have to keep constantly editing and adding things to the articles). For example this article says that there have been rumors that Bush has used cocaine. If it were to come out tomorrow that the cocaine use has unquestionably been verified, either way, then we'd have to change the article. If it wasn't in there, we'd wouldn't have to add it unless it affected policy or his health, or had some current importance. However, I understand I am in the minority here, most people do want everything ever written about a figure in the wiki articles. Ramsquire 22:04, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

An explanation

this page was moved - and there were problems with the move back (someone edited before the page was replaced). Because actions weren't going through - it ended up with a move and a delete happening at the same time - and so the real page was deleted (by me!). The restore function also wasn't working - possibly because of the size of the history. Now it seems that the history is duplicated - but at least the page is back and koo got it in the right state! -- sannse (talk) 01:15, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

History is quadruplicated. :-) Evercat 01:18, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yep - not sure what can be done about that... hopefully a dev will be able to fix it. what a mess! -- sannse (talk)

Thanks to User:Tim Starling, the problem is fixed, so long as nobody tries to undelete the page again. Rdsmith4— Dan | Talk 15:59, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

robert jordan redirect

Someone filled out the entry for Robert Jordan as the author for Wheel of Time, so when someone clicks on the entry mentioned in Bush's business career it goes to that. How can that get fixed as a redirect or something? --kizzle 22:37, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

I've dabbed it into Robert Jordan (lawyer) and will now do a stub. JamesMLane 18:05, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Bush was a cheerleader.

Bush was a cheerleading captain, at Andover, I believe, if memory serves. Somebody look it up. One of the notes to the edits to this page mentions it and assumes it's vandalism. But, no. Wrongo. He was a cheerleader.

Is it important?Ramsquire 18:48, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

David Letterman frequently uses an old photo of Bush as cheerleader and says, "That's exactly what our country needs, a cheerleader."--Pharos 17:53, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is the fact that he played baseball and rugby any more important? Should that be removed as well?

If I had my way the rugby, baseball, drunk driving, his religious conversion, rumored cocaine use, the details surrounding the Harken incident, the anecdote about his jury service as Texas Governor, the entire public perceptions and assessments section and the trivia section would be removed, but I am in the minority here when it comes to how this article is presented. I believe that these articles should reach for brevity, as do most other encyclopedias. It is sort of ridiculous that a one term President has an article that is almost three times the size of two-term President and major historical figure Thomas Jefferson.Ramsquire 21:23, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Now a TWO (2) term President (Thank God) First Lensman 15:52, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Let's be adult about this. The issue isn't whether Bush was a cheerleader or not; it's the context in which it's presented and NPOV. This could be viewed as a "color" item—an interesting fact about someone, at least as significant as that John Kerry named his boat "Scaramouche." But simply saying "cheerleader" without context implies a short skirt and pompoms, an attempt at ridicule (POV) and an undercurrent of homophobia (worse).

IOW, I don't know the circumstances of Bush's cheerleaderness, but if its mentioned as a "color fact," we should know what "cheerleader" meant. Was he one of a bunch of guys who performed dance moves? Was he a token male in a groups of girls? Did he hold a megaphone and call out cheers while others danced? Was there anything special in his decision to enter this activity? Do it right or don't do it. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 19:44, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I for one never thought it was important at all, just passing along information. If anyone wants to know, in the Letterman picture, he's just yelling out of a megaphone and looking cheery.--Pharos 19:51, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with the length of the article, Ramsquire. Bush is a present day figure. We know a lot more about him than we do about Thomas Jefferson. Every bit of information that is preserved about him on here is, IMHO, good. Displaying everything can help prevent bias (for or against) and will help ensure that that information will be there for future generations. Imagine if the people of ancient times had had a Wikipedia in which to inscribe everything they knew about their culture and political leaders. -- J. Jensen 16:36, 14 Jan 2005 (CST)

Cocaine

The now-blocked 216 has a point, does he not? Should we really carry accusations without giving any real evidence at all? Evercat 19:27, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I see we've not reverted his removal of same. Fine. Evercat 19:28, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The cocaine "allegations" are just endearing and humanizing personal anecdotes. Supporters probably think they add color to his testimony, and opponents can hope that someday he'll remember that prison would have denied the country a great leader in its time of need, and end the hypocritical drug war.--Silverback 19:54, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We give the evidence for what we state, namely that Bush has been accused of having used cocaine. It's NPOV to report that accusation, which has enough currency in the political world to be notable whether or not it's true. We don't assert it is true. JamesMLane 21:24, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The cocaine allegations have no place in this encyclopedia. The source of the allegations came from a single book from a discredited man. Just because something is alleged in a book (particularly one from a no-name author instead of say, Bob Woodward) does not mean it needs to be given space in an encyclopedia. I saw a book that claimed Bill Clinton was part of a murder conspiracy that resulted in the death of Vince Foster and others. The book is at your book store right now. Does that mean the murder "allegations" should be included in Clinton's entry? Of course not. And in the very least, if we must include "allegations" from a discredited author and a discredited book, we must at least say that the allegations were never proven and are not widely considered credible.

Let's not discuss the vetted fact concerning ALL the drugs John F. Kennedy was hopped up on While He WAS President. Noooooo! But, Let's just state every innuendo, every speculation, every lie, fostered on the public by rabid Liberals bent on the character assassination of George W. Bush, and present it as fact in this encyclopedia. Just because a Liberal spouts something doesn't make it true. These items need to be vetted. Place them in the discussion area before posting to the article. FirstLensman 16:13, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hayes

although in 2004 they have not lead to recounts that would affect the result. George W. Bush is the only President to win re-election after losing the popular vote in his first election. The other three, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison, were each defeated in their bid for a second term.

I don't believe has ran for a second term in 1880 or at least he was not the GOP candidate Garfield was.

Cut down the article

The foreign and domestic policy sections have already been placed into other articles but are still too large in this article - it's 56k last I checked. I think it'd be best to further summarise those sections where possible. I would do it but have no particular interest or knowledge about this topic. violet/riga (t) 23:32, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oil companies

What the article stated about Bush's career in the oil business was that he founded Arbusto; Arbusto changed its name to Bush Exploration, and under that name was sold to Spectrum 7; Spectrum 7 had Bush as its CEO and went bankrupt; Spectrum 7 was saved by Harken Energy; Bush became a director of Harken Energy, which encountered some financial difficulties, from which it extricated itself through an arrangement with Harvard.

It appears to me, however, that Spectrum 7 did not go bankrupt. It lost money and might well have gone bankrupt except that it was saved by the Harken deal. There's a detailed account of Bush's career in the awl bidness in this cached Village Voice article by the reputable James Ridgeway (I hope this link works): [5] To my mind, "bankrupt" implies a formal filing, by the company or by one or more creditors, in a Bankruptcy Court. Even if it turns out that Spectrum 7 actually did go bankrupt, I find no support for the statement that was added to the lead section of this article that Bush managed "several oil companies which went bankrupt". Accordingly, I've reworded that passage in the lead section and the more detailed discussion of these companies later on. JamesMLane 04:18, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that what seems to me to be the undeniable and somewhat germane fact that, prior to getting elected partially on the promise of 'running the country like a business' his experience with running a business seemed to consist mainly of overseeing their accumulation of massive deficits, is being NPOVed over. Perhaps the use of the words 'unsuccessful businessman' to refer to someone who presided over the serial running of several oil companies into the groud is too NPOV; but at least the observation that the companies over which he presided have not, on the whole, exactly been models of competitive economic success should be able to be presented in some sort of objective wording. Gzuckier 17:36, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

For the lead section, I think what we have now is appropriate. I agree that his poor track record in the private sector is germane, but it should be presented in the section about his business career. There, I think the objective wording is simply to describe the history of his companies, as we do. JamesMLane 08:27, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Intro

I think we should take out the part that says his term is scheduled to end on jan 20 , 2009. It sounds like the writer is anxious to have him out of there. In other words, not a NPOV. --Dmm246 06:36, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You could read this passage in the article as being POV in either direction -- reassuring Bush admirers that he's in for four more years, even if he can't hold the support of members of his own party, or consoling Bush detractors that the nightmare will end in 2009. The reason to leave it in has nothing to do with POV, but because it's useful information. Many readers will be more familiar with a parliamentary system (like the UK's) in which a leader doesn't serve for a set term. JamesMLane 08:23, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I really doubt that most americans don't know that the president serves a four year term. Regarding you comment "it's useful information" I am sure there is a lot of useful information that negative POV users would like to put in which didn't make it but I think this is one of them. You don't have to put a positive spin on saying he got for more years and fill it with praise but I think we should just leave it out. I am more just voicing an opinion than saying we must change it. If more people think we should change it then thats fine.--Dmm246 17:36, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree that most Americans would know. That's not the criterion, though:

Wikipedia is an international encyclopaedia. The people who read it have different backgrounds, education and worldview from you. Try to make your article accessible to as many of them as possible. The reader is probably reading the article to learn. It's quite possible the reader knows nothing at all about the subject: the article needs to explain it to them.

(from Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Think of the reader) That's why I mentioned above that many readers would be more familiar with the systems used in other countries, in which the leader doesn't serve a fixed term. JamesMLane 20:35, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This seems to me like an fairly innocent, utterly harmless idea. It's a fact. I think having it in there is educational and appropriate. -- J. Jensen 16:44 14 Jan 2005 (CST)

Medical diagnoses by political partisans

Those who feel that the "dry drunk" and "cocaine" allegations are appropriate and NPOV say that the allegations have been made, and we are just reporting them, without stating they are true. Taking it in good faith that these statements are sincere, we need to give the reader context. The "dry drunk" allegations do not come from medical journals but from political partisans, with one article illustrated with Bush as a wino. As for Cocaine, those charges have been made against other politicians (including Clinton). The only significant source for this allegation is Hatfield's book. We could also note the man was an ex-felon (convicted of trying to have a former boss murdered) who sets up the perfect unprovable journistic setup: "Bush was arrested but his father had the record expunged." Most of the people who have taken Hatfield's book seriously are the ones who want to believe it's true and the man himself committed suicide as he was being pursued for credit card fraud. Ah, the reliable sources that Wikipedia depends on to inform the people. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 08:43, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your edit gives the false impression that the cited article was written by Cockburn, when in fact it was written by a professor who'd previously authored a book on addiction. I'm deleting the language about Cockburn. If you want to convey the point accurately, it would have to be something like: "(This article, written by a professor of social work who had co-authored a book on addiction treatment, was published in Counterpunch, a magazine edited by Bush detractor Alexander Cockburn, who also writes for the leftist magazine The Nation.)" One could give a similar treatment to the Bisbort article. I think all this is more detail than the point warrants -- readers can figure out for themselves that statements strongly supportive or condemnatory of any controversial person might be influenced by the writer's bias -- but I could live with including it if people feel it necessary to get in a dig at Counterpunch. JamesMLane 09:30, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK. I will accept your wording if noone works to dilute it further. Please remember that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia. If we read something like this in the Encyclopaedia Brittannica, I doubt we would say, "well the editors expect us to assume that they've included this highly prejudicial material with the expectation it was written by fire-breathing partisans." -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 10:13, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You placed my suggested wording after all the links, giving the impression that it applied to all of them. I moved it so that it followed only the reference to the Wormer article. (Note that I said, "One could give a similar treatment to the Bisbort article." If you want to undertake the effort of drafting yet another gratuitous slam at a Bush critic, go ahead, but I think the paragraph already looks pretty silly.) JamesMLane 10:33, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think the paragraph looks pretty silly as it is, since the subtext is innuendo that Bush's policy are a result of his being a "dry drunk." I know Jimbo Wales' opinion doesn't necessarily carry any extra weight in Wikipedia, but I agree with his statement that the choice of what to include and exclude is in itself POV, even if the material is described accurately.

But before leaving this subject, I want to make one point: I was a lifelong (and proud) liberal from 1953 (McCarthy) to c.1996 when liberals I knew suddenly decided they weren't anti-war anymore, and a sometime socialist. I never voted for a Republican for president until 2004 (I voted for Nader in 2000). I voted for Dukakis, for chrissakes—I voted for a man who looked like Rocky Raccoon in a tank because I was worried about the rightward drift of the Supreme Court! Arrrrgggh! So there is a point I wish liberals would take to heart: it has long been a habit to portray those who don't vote for the people liberals want (or the politicians liberals don't like) as stupid, or ignorant, or wicked, or deceived, or "troglodites" (popular in the 1970s) or now, as non-drinking drunks. As long as this attitude, which runs from condescension to operate hostilty persists, liberalism will not come back. Cecropia | explains it all ® 11:25, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's well-known in liberal circles that all conservatives are lowbrow idiots. It's equally well-known among conservatives that liberals are latte-sipping elitist wimps. Oh, and we all hate America. So the only lesson here is that people with strong political opinions are happy to believe and repeat unflattering stereotypes about their adversaries. Anyway, while I appreciate your advice about how we can "come back", I must note that the Democratic candidate has gotten the most votes in three of the last four Presidential elections. Now, obviously, we're going to get slaughtered in 2008, when voters look at all the thriving democracies in the Middle East, and the robust economy and federal budget surplus produced by the tax cuts for the rich... well, sarcasm mode OFF, back to editing. JamesMLane 04:17, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, you see, sarcasm or no, therein is the problem. This isn't a duel of which side has the juiciest epithets against the other; it's that Democrats have been sinking, and the explanation is to blame it on the Republicans, or on the voters. Isn't possible that the fault, dear JML, lies not in their enemies, but in themselves, that the Democrats are now underlings?

But to one subtantive matter, yes, the Democratic candidate got the most popular votes in three of the last four presidential elections, but lets look at that. Clinton (who I voted for twice) pointed the way to Democrats getting the white house. Play to the middle, reform some of those Democratic icons (like welfare) that need reform, leave the economy alone, look to the middle class. But right now Clinton's DLC is dirt in the mouths of many, if not most, Democrats. And Al Gore? Yes, he got 500,000+/- more popular votes than Bush, but he should have been a slam dunk. A good debater over an uneasy one. Mr. Technology. Intellectual. And the Vice President under a Democratic President with high popularity ratings, a booming (until the last year) economy, and apparent peacetime. And all he could do was barely more than tie dumb little George W. Bush. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 05:44, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You touch on an important subject. Quite a few Democrats agree that a better campaign would have produced a cheatproof victory in each of the last two elections. The trouble is that half of them think "a better campaign" means a move to the center, and the other half think "a better campaign" means a more vigorously left-wing program. Resolving that dilemma is somewhat beyond the scope of this talk page, however. JamesMLane 06:00, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Of course, the diagnosis was reached without a direct physical examination or medical history which might have revealed or been able to rule out other possible causes of the symptoms inferred from the public record and the diagnosis is not an officially recognized medical condition. Note, that co-authoring a book may get you on the talk show circuit, but is not a peer reviewed publication. That said, I think wikipedia should reflect its manner of creation and not merely attempt to duplicate the dryness of brittanica. Not including obviously controversial material might induce users to over trust it. --Silverback 10:38, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I will also note that Katherine van Wormer, the author, is not a Doctor of Social Work (I checked) and certainly not a medical doctor and therefore no more entitled to make a diagnosis than I am, even if she had examined Bush. I'm quite familiar with this. My younger daughter is autistic, and couldn't be educationally placed as such until she had been diagnosed by a psychiatrist (not a psychologist), who is an MD -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 11:25, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease

Boy, this will be controversial as hell, but what the heck. It looks like the bulge observed during debate is actually a medical instrument instead of a radio receiver. Below are the two articles related to Bush's bulge. [6] and [7]

"It looks like the bulge [...] is actually a medical instrument [...]? Oh, please, you need more than a speculative piece in a European leftist web site. If CNN or some other outlet with a press reputation says so, it might mean something. The belle ciao article is really a stretch. SO Bush is on powerful statin drugs. Oooooooooo, so is a huge hunk of the otherwise healthy US population. I've been on statins for several years and I'm Bush's age and have no cardiovascular disease. Simple high cholesterol--it's supposed to help me in the future. We'll see. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 01:28, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bush Picture

We need to change the picture of Bush because in this picture his eyebrows are bushy and it makes him look like an ape

We usually use the official picture. You can confirm that this picture is Bush's official picture if you Google the phrase "miserable failure", which will take you to his bio on the White House website. JamesMLane 19:29, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hey, do not insult apes now! -- Nils 12:31, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bush Picutre

We really should change that bush picture it makes me wanna puke!

Drunk / Drugs / etc

It seems that every time I return to check this out, someone has edited out my completely factual info about his past as a drunk and a drug user. Also, it seems that just about every somewhat unfavorable fact about George W. Bush is removed as well, such as the cheerleader thing, etc.

Most recent example: someone edited stuff out and put "this was written by angry democrats." True I am a democrat, but I don't stoop to the level of vandalism on an educational resource, as many republicans tend to do on John F. Kerry's page.

What is there that I can do to keep people from editing out my facts? Should I leave comments with sources or what? I mean... a video of him taking back shots at a party in 1992 would seem to be enough, right?

I believe these facts and accusations of alcohol and drug use are very important and educational. They should not be left out because some republican doesn't seem to like it. If John F. Kerry had been arrested for DUI, I would want that on his page too.

I agree that this article seems to have been seriously messed up, although I don't agree with all your points.

A whole paragraph of completely uncontroversial information, such as his birthplace and parents' names, was deleted. I've restored it.
Also deleted were two pictures, one of Bush with his family and one of Bush in his National Guard uniform. I've restored the pics.
The addition of the statement that Bush signed up in the Guard "Specifically asking to not be sent to Vietnam" wasn't sourced. I've deleted it unless someone can provide substantiation.
There was unacceptable POVing in both directions. The NPOV approach is to report controversial points without taking sides and without wording that's biased one way or the other.
- The language about Bush's drinking was full of "supposedly" and "claim" for his side of it, and said that the opposite view is "well documented". I understand the temptation to take sides -- the people editing the Killian documents article just aren't satisfied with listing all the evidence, they too have to make sure that the article echoes their view of the weight of the evidence. It's wrong when Bush partisans do it there, and wrong when Bush detractors do it here. That Bush isn't drinking any more should certainly be presented as something he says, not as an undisputed fact, but we can make clear that it's his statement without going out of our way with the "supposedly" stuff to cast doubt on it. I've tried to clean up these passages.
- The Hatfield allegations should be reported as allegations, not suppressed and not reported as fact, and with the responses also reported. I've restored the first paragraph about Hatfield; the text of the article when I looked at it just now quoted Bush's side of the story ("He also called Hatfield's book 'totally ridiculous'.") without naming the book or summarizing its content. At some point, however, the paragraph about Hatfield's book picked up a statement to the effect that the record of Bush's cocaine arrest was in fact expunged. That's Hatfield's allegation, not an established fact.
One point I still have doubts about is this insert about the space exploration initiative: "in January of 2005 the White House released a new Space Transportation Policy fact sheet which confirms the plan is still on track." My preliminary impression is that that's a POV overstatement and should be reworded. I've left it alone for now, but I think it needs attention. JamesMLane 10:58, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Maybe somebody could update the article as to how Bush's previously announced War on Steroid Abuse is coming along. Grin grin. Gzuckier 21:15, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The source for Bush asking not to be sent to nam is all over the place. a google search found this ...which you may agree is a valid source (his own form). Andsat 04:40, 19 Jan 2005 (EST)

Oh come on here, I see Kerry's signature on his form, but I don't see Bush's on the part that is supposed to be from his form.--MONGO 12:04, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the allegations should be mentioned although not given undue weight. If someone has a problem with the weight and context given at present, perhaps the thing to do is to edit to add more context and adjust weight, rather than try to remove all mention of the allegations. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:42, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Inuendo and slander

When I came to this page for the first time, it was after I had utilized another article for reference and dechiphered an obvious non NPOV. This POV was left leaning and I as surprised as I have used Wiki for some time now. So on a hunch, I queried George Bush and was appalled! The rampant slander was so apparent, I thought it was written by some left wing extremists and decided to start editing. I haven't decided as to whether I will continue to edit this page, becuase I have lost all faith that the major contributors to this article are to the extreme left. I find it funny, reading through others bios how young, perhaps not American citizens, and how liberal in attitude are those that I am arguing with here. I mentioned to one, that since he lived in Germany, perhaps I could utilize the same techniques employed by the likes of him and quote or state as fact that a book had been written by unreliable sources that Adolph Hitler wasn't such a bad guy and he had little to do with the murder of millions. These books do exist, in published form, and they are AN OPINION, yet we know that the opposite is true and therefore in good taste, we exclude them from any discussion here in Wiki. In a nutshell, this article utilizes POV and that POV is anti bush. Anyone that thinks that this rubbish of an article is NPOV is blind. I have been warned and etc. and I really don't care. So in an effort to show what ridiculous is, I created my user page and made it as preposterous as possible. MONGO--MONGO 11:32, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I guess it shows how wide the gulf between some editors can be that I, a European, at first took your reference to "how liberal in attitude are those that I am arguing with here" as a compliment. Indeed in British English this sentence is impossible to take as anything other than a compliment as far as I am aware.

That aside, I notice that the Adolf Hitler page does indeed give room to some fringe speculation: the theory that Hitler had some Jewish ancestry. The presentation of the theory (which is well known enough I think that many people reading this will have heard it) does not amount to an endorsement. Nor does the presentation of the allegations of Hatfield and Salon magazine's speculations with respect to the drug testing program amount to an endorsement of those positions. They shoud be mentioned as opinions, with such factual basis as might exist to support or refute them., because they are common opinions held by educated, intelligent people about Bush. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:38, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you forget the words of Churchill when he spoke of political leanings....it goes somewhat like> a man under thirty who is not a liberal has no heart, but a man over thirty who is not a conservative has no brain. Being liberal is a good thing...being blindly so is not. I hope you're no older than 29.

Liberal has an entirely different meaning in Europe. Don't confuse them with US democrats, hippies or guerillas ;)

The major contributors to this article are brainless or lacking in enough of a brain to see that the entire article is speculative and that I am convinced that the insertion of the Salon story and the book by Hatfield are unworthy of mention in that they are opinion, inuendo and without the ability to stand up in a court of law. I don't care if because they were written then they should be mentioned. I care about quantifiable truths that would be accepted as facts and be fact based. Lets get the inuendo of Hitler having Jewish ancestry out of that article too and then, just maybe, this stuff will start to become NPOV. --MONGO 13:39, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Churchill himself switched from Conservative to Liberal and back again at key points in his career. He had no problems with the term "liberal". I have not yet reached the age at which Churchill ceased representing the Liberal party in Parliament.

Now on the section that you have removed, it reports some claims that were made in Salon and were widely reported during the election campaign. Why then did you remove it? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:29, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Salon.com's February, 2004 report

MONGO removed this:

In February, 2004, Salon claimed that Bush's cessation of flying in the spring of 1972 and his subsequently refusal to take a physical exam came at the same time the Air Force announced its Medical Service Drug Abuse Testing Program, which, Salon said, meant random drug testing for pilots, including Guardsmen.

I believe it's adequately referenced--if preferred I can include a complete citation for the precise article, or even quote a relevant paragraph. Is there anything else you think should be provided to satisfy your problems with this, Mongo?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/06/drugs/index_np.html

See article referenced above --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:12, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Gentleman" Cs

I see alot of detractors trying to make hay about George W. Bush's "Gentleman" Cs he received in Yale. I'd like to amend this section to at least consider another POV regarding his performance in Yale. Here is a conservative (some say ultra-conservative) gentleman attending a liberal institution. The instructors are stubbornly Liberal in their views. A student who tries to argue their conservative beliefs would be labeled wrong and be given low grades. I am not saying that Bush is a genius. But, I am saying that he was disenfranchised (to use the term du jour) and his grades were depressed because of this conflict. He did go on and do much better when getting his MBA. Because Yale is a Liberal institution, I also wouldn't give much credence to the notion that Yale let Bush skate through. First Lensman 15:40, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you have a public source for someone making this point about Bush's Cs, please feel free to add it. But if you just thought of this and there is no external source then it may be "original research", not encyclopedic. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:58, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Original research? Wishful thinking more like it. I second the call for external sources. -- Nils 12:28, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Now that I got you dangling on the hook, check out the New York TImes article titled "[Ally of an Older Generation Amid the Tumult of the 60's]. As you can guess, it is an unflattering article about the President's Yale years. But three items can illuminate some of the discussion here. The first is the quote "Mr. Bush was pressed during his years at Yale, 1964 to 1968, to take sides in the great battles then unfolding over politics, civil rights, drugs and music. Mostly he was a noncombatant in those upheavals, but when forced to choose, he ultimately retreated to the values and ideals established by his parents' generation, and to their accepted methods of rebelling." My interpretation of this is that he remained conservative in his views. This would not have been looked upon favorably by the faculty or his fellow classmates in Yale. The second relates to the alleged drug usage mentioned in another section, that "For all the buffeting that late-night television has given Mr. Bush over questions of drug use, he was in most respects a very conventional young man, and classmates say they do not recall him ever using marijuana or other illegal drugs." This from the New York Times??? If there were any evidence that President Bush used drugs, the New York Times would have plastered it all over the place. Finally, the article addresses President Bush's intelligence. While going through some anecdotes about his grades, the most telling quote is that: "This guy is very smart," said Lanny J. Davis, a former special counsel to President Clinton and a supporter of Al Gore, as well as a fraternity brother of Mr. Bush at Yale. "This notion of lightness is totally missing the point. There are many smart people, intellectually smart as well as street smart, who don't have the energy or motivation at times to act smart, but that doesn't mean they're not smart. There are times when George coasted through Yale courses or through exams or seemed overly facetious. But don't mistake that for not being intellectually acute." The article then reaffirms my point by stating, "yet ever since he showed up at Yale as a freshman in 1964, Mr. Bush has resolutely cultivated an anti-intellectualism and chafed at what he describes as the arrogance of liberal intellectual elitists." Because this is a New York Times article, I say that the Yale establishment chafed at Bush's attitudes as much as Bush chafed at them. The article also states that "Mr. Bush's tension with what he sees as an arrogant Eastern elite, and his perception of himself as outside it, seem to have arisen initially from the clash of generations that occurred while he was at Yale." Again, I state that the tension went both ways, causing Bush to form an "...association with a community of gifted people with whom Mr. Bush would form lifelong friendships -- and Mr. Bush's strategy at Yale was clearly to build great friendships, more than a great transcript. It was also a perfectly reasonable strategy, for one could argue that Yale graduates in the 1960's got further on the networks they made than on the grades they earned." Anyway, does this suffice as a source? First Lensman 14:47, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well you haven't found a source for your main thesis, indeed the article seems to be saying that Bush was essentially apolitical and that he personally feels that he may have suffered some prejudice because he was a Texan. But you have an excellent source for the fact that Bush isn't thought to be dim by some of his former classmates and indeed demonstrated a keen social intelligence at his fraternity house. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:19, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes you have to read between the lines to extract cause and effect information. I think I have done so here. While the article stated that the prejudice he suffered was because he was a Texan, I have cited other statements in the article that shows the prejudice was because he was Conservative in his views. First Lensman 15:40, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well you're drawing an inference and you're entitled to do so. I don't see anything in the article or in the sections that you have cited from it that demonstrate that the prejudice, if it existed, was because he was conservative--indeed as I have pointed out Bush himself thought that any prejudice that might have existed might have been regional. That is, those eastern intellectuals thought a guy with his Texan background and accent was dumb and probably only got in because the college had a regional quota for admissions.

The upshot of this is that if you can find someone notable drawing the inference that you draw (in the media) then you can cite that. Otherwise it would be original research. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:50, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I would consider the Salon article to be original research as well. I read through it and found not one credible source mentioned. I failed to find anyone notable in that article yet you portray it to be creditable.--MONGO 13:27, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

However you personally might want to describe it, citation of an article in Salon is not original research in the sense used on Wikipedia. Wikipedia:No original research. Items that Wikipedia reports on may well be primary sources, which would comprise original research (everything starts as someone's original idea). Or like Salon they may comprise secondary sources (the research is originated by third parties and Salon reports on them). Wikipedia is a tertiary source in this instance. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:23, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

Alright, stop it. I'm an ultra-liberal, Kucinich-supporting, Democrat, and yes, it is very tempting to vandalize this page, esp. today. I even wrote up a vandalized edit making reference to his last name. But actually posting it is only a detriment to the Democratic Party. It makes us seem immature and juvenile. Democrats, stop it.

Would someone please protect this page for twenty-four hows or something?

You voted for Kucinich? Seems like you and I made a good choice at least. I agree on the lock though, we could be spending our time doing much more productive things. :)

That amount of vanderlism recived by this article in the last 24 hours doesn't seem hugley exceptionalGeni 03:07, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The "Dry Drunk" nonsense

This article is a partisan opinion NOT based on fact and NOT based on a physical or mental examination. I've left in all the stuff that the President has admitted to, the "reckless youth", the "DUI", the cessation of drinking at 40, because they are admitted to by the president himself, or substantiated by documentation. The article does not demonstrate a NPOV. Items should be put up in the discussion area first so that the information can be vetted by the users. (See "Gentleman's Cs section above"). Then, there will be some massaging of the information that would eventually wind up in the article. Just posting information directly into the article is just not productive. First Lensman 23:54, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"This article is a partisan opinion NOT based on fact and NOT based on a physical or mental examination." I assume that, by "this article", you mean the Wormer article, not the Wikipedia article. You're completely correct about Wormer's opinion concerning Bush. Of course, exactly the same could be said about Bush's opinion concerning Saddam (he had WMD's, he was involved in 9/11, etc.). Should we censor out Bush's pretexts for launching aggressive war just because they've largely been exposed to be pretexts? No. We report these opinions and attribute them. To say that Saddam had WMD's is opinion. To say that Bush claimed he did, however, is an undeniable fact. A point that that people often miss is that reporting and attributing a POV is perfectly consistent with NPOV. JamesMLane 00:59, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It wasn't Bush's opinion concerning WMD. He was informed that they did have WMD by the United Nations, NATO, The members of the European Union, and the U.S. Intelligence Services. First Lensman 01:20, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. Don't blame Bush for his faulty intelligence. For what it's worth, I agree with James - decribing POV opinion is not POV. To understand and contextualize an issue, POV's must be explored, in an NPOV way. -- RyanFreisling @ 19:44, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

James, I think if Wormer based her claims on observations similar to those a medical professional might make, people might not have such a problem with the paragraph. But she's claiming that Bush has a behavioral disorder because his rhetoric is not to her liking. She cites "regime change", a phrase that predates his presidency, as an example of his "extreme language." A remark from one speech, not repeated to my knowledge, indicates an "obsession" with revenge. She cites a sentence, "We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients..." that would sound absurd if replaced with its negation "We need not be prepared..." So her conclusions end up looking shaky and random to someone who doesn't share her political bias, not much more credible than the report of the Lovenstein Institute. We could put a paragraph here for every allegation on Bush family conspiracy theory, but we don't. If Wormer's article has a place here, I think it's the External links section. Gazpacho 09:01, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You're deluding yourself. We have been involved in an aggressive war with Iraq since 1991. Repeatedly we bombed Iraq because of their consistent violations of the cease fire agreement. We maintained at tremendous cost in tax dollars a no fly zone and imposed sanctions which were detrimental to everyone because we were forced by agreements with our partners to not invade Iraq, overthrow their government and establish a democracy. Bush asserted that there were WMD because the evidence supported it, and it is therefore not a POV. Regardless, the fact that none have been found doesn't mean that they don't or didn't exist. The major contributors to this article seem to fail to understand that and blame Bush for making a decision based on the evidence. --MONGO 10:26, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mongo, I don't think we need to turn every content dispute (or any content dispute) into an open argument about Iraq. Gazpacho

Most of my argument has been about content, this is my first about Iraq...what are you refering to?--MONGO 12:39, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In my comments in the page history as to why I deleted the "dry drunk" info from the main article again, I meant to say I would post a comment, not a link, in discussion. Anyway, it seems to me this info really does belong in the exlink section because there are some issues of partisanship in the study itself. There is also the fact that this study is not well-known among the general public which might account for an exception if that were the case. I don't see anything wrong with having this link in the exlink section, but it does seem rather biased to put in the main article. That's my opinion. --Xaliqen 01:00, 2005 Jan 23 (UTC)