My Op-Ed in today's Fargo Forum, plus responses

[Chichiri]

Forum’s support for Bush doesn’t look so good today
By David Holloway,
Published Friday, September 08, 2006

In 2004, significantly fewer newspapers around the nation endorsed President Bush in the election than endorsed Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. The Forum happened to be one of these papers.

I remember reading that endorsement of Bush and thinking to myself, “If he wins, these guys have an ‘I told you so’ coming their way.” (I was anti-Bush back before it was cool.)

Since then, I have seen very few editorials, op-eds or letters to the editor on this opinion page explicitly praising President Bush. There has been the usual liberal-bashing, of course, but conservatives these days seem to regard Bush with a sort of mute embarrassment.

GOP candidates across America go out of their way to disassociate themselves with the president, and sometimes even with the GOP itself.

It’s a smart move. Between Iraq and Katrina, wiretaps and war powers, Plamegate and the Geneva Convention – not to mention bin Laden’s escape – few Americans today need convincing that Bush is a bad president. Possibly our worst ever.

More at: http://www.in-forum.com/Opinion/articles/139040


They also published my email address. Here are some of the responses I've received over email -- any points in particular I should touch upon in my response?

Nice to read a piece that is well laid out: however I will submit a few points of disagreement. The Forum can defend itself as to whether they are liberal bashers. 52% of Americans favor impeachment hearings--where does that fact come from? The wiretapping issue must be burning in the souls of every American--hardly anyone talks on the phone these days for fear of being tapped. Do you know anyone, just one, who will testify that they have been tapped/eavesdropped/listened in on?

You state that we have better things to do like repair the damage that Bush has done to our economy and civil rights. Can you tell me what harm our economy has suffered? Business and industry report that wages are up and employment is up and national economic growth is up for several years straight. Don't refer me to some web site--try the financial pages of the NY Times or the Wall Street Journal for your sources.

By the way, maybe you missed the article in the WSJ of Aug. 30 that tells the good news about North Dakota--the economy, employment, and outlook for the future--pay is up and unemployment is down at 3%. It is worth the read.

Ah, yes, just what we need is a rational exit strategy. Rational as defined by whom? I, too, hope there will be a thoughtful and civil discussion on the choice coming this fall--you have in mind something like the discussion they had in Connecticut-- Lamont vs. Leiberman? It will be interesting to hear what the Dems excuse will be when Lamont loses and Leiberman is an Independent in the senate.

I just thought you could use some sunshine to brighten your bleak and hopeless liberal day.

What civil rights have been "damaged?"
My net worth is at an all time high.
Have you check the want ads for additional employment opportunities?

Dear Dave, please read this with an open mind:

I read your letter to the editor about Bush. Why do you say the economy is doing so badly when it is not? The economy actually bounced back very well from 09/11, wouldn't you agree? (And don't even go there with gas prices. Gas is an international problem, not a George Bush problem.)

Also, why wouldn't the Forum endorse Bush in 2004? North Dakota overwhelmingly supported Bush, and so did the country. Just because many newspapers did not endorse Bush, the country as a whole still did. He won the majority vote across America.

You fail to mention any of these things.

And when Clinton got impeached for the Lewinsky scanadal, I would hope you would agree that charge was appropriate. He was the President sleeping with a 21-year old intern - got caught - lied about it to a grand jury - got caught again when Lewinsky proved it.

(Doesn't that bother you and embarrass you?)

Nobody would disagree that he has made mistakes as a President, but when you lay out your case against him, it is very shallow. (Especially when you say Senate needs 2/3 vote to finalize an impeachment, and the Dems don't have 2/3 "yet." They won't have 2/3 now, next year, or in 5 years. They haven't had 2/3 in the past 20 years.)

Now I just went fact for fact with you......and my facts held substance.

I copy/pasted these paragraphs (in the order they were reported) from CNN.

Here is what Liberals will never, ever tell you or admit:

Stocks had an enormous run at the end of the 1990s that peaked in the first quarter of 2000. And the comedown from the huge runup was brutal.

2000 was one of the worst years for the stock market, with the Nasdaq posting its biggest one-year loss on a percentage basis since its inception in 1971. The Dow recorded its biggest one- year percentage loss since 1981 and the S&P 500 index saw its biggest one-year drop since 1977.

A rough 2001 got worse after the attacks in September, but the market was already hurting before that. By the close of trade on Sept. 10, 2001, the Nasdaq had fallen 31 percent on the year, the Dow industrials had fallen 11 percent and the S&P 500 index had fallen 17 percent.

The market bottomed in October of 2002, leading to the current bull market. But the bull seems to be tiring. So far this year, the Dow is up 5.7 percent and the S&P 500 is up 3.7 percent but the Nasdaq composite is down 2.3 percent.

Also, this doesn't mention 6 million new jobs since 2002, unemployment down to the lowest levels in 3 decades (4.7%), and a shocking rebound from the terrorist' attacks in 2001. You'd have to give this President some credit for this progress. Keeping taxes low allowed people to spend more and stimulated progress. Airlines are showing profits once again.

Gas would be the achilles heal, but gas is a world-wide problem, not an American problem. And even that has come way down this last quarter, and expected to keep going down.

Why do Liberals never mention any of this? Why are these stats never "main section" news in our newspapers?

Understand something - you folks come from a hateful point of view, not a logical point of view.

[dorktv]

1. wow, no hate mail and several coherent (if inaccurate) responses!

[Chichiri]

2. Oh, I forgot to post the hate mail . . .

I read with interest your obviously flaming liberal Letter to the Editor of the Forum. I just want you to know that not everyone buys your line of BS. I am one of them and cowards like you are what will make the job easy for the other side. You are a big commie liberal coward and a traitor. We have a war going on fella and we need to support our president.

[dorktv]

7. I would do an Al Franken response to it.

"thank you for your kind remarks regarding my recent posting on the Forum. As I am sure you can imagine, I get so much fan mail from my posts that I cannot possibly answer them all. Thank you once again for your kind remarks."

or whatever, drives them insane.

[acmejack]

3. I can easily come up with a lot of responses but I will not pay to

access the the archives of the only two "acceptable" sources to those monkeys. Fuck them if they won't accept Kruigman, CEPR or any number of reputable resources which willeasily make your points especially abopiut the economic data.

[acmejack]

4. They can't even spell (or operate spell check)!

[papau]

5. Economic error is no doubt due to difference between average/mean and

median/

DU has posts with the data showing how median wages have gone down all 5 years of the Bush43 era, while average wages went up because we are averaging in the large increases the small number of rich have experienced. Krugman of course is a source - or just refer the fellow to the Fed Reserve and Census Bureau and DOL and DOC/Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. The facts have indeed been in the NYT and even the WSJ - seems the fellow does not read and remember and may need to do a Google search.

Employed as a percentage if the population that could work has dropped during the Bush years - we now have the growth in numbers of the discouraged workers that no longer look for a job - and therefore do not count as unemployed.

And dare we discuss the changes in the degree of the use of Greenspan ideas made in measuring inflation thereby changing how we get GDP constant dollar growth numbers?

[Chichiri]

6. Thanks.

That's good points.

[papau]

8. Glad I could help - and congrats on being published! :-)

:-)