Posts Tagged with George W. Bush

The votes are in and John Kerry has conceded: George W. Bush has been reelected, with 286 electoral votes to John Kerry’s 252, including 51% of the popular vote.

If you haven’t been paying attention, I’m very happy about this. I’m also somewhat surprised and relieved that John Kerry conceded. Even given the numbers, Kerry could have done his best to turn this into another 2000 election; things could have become really ugly. I have to give credit to Kerry for not dragging this election out.

So, what are your thoughts on the election?

Edit: Almost forgot to thank British newspaper The Guardian; their letter writing campaign, intended to sway voters in Clark County to vote for Kerry, no doubt played at least some small part in swinging the state to Bush. Thanks guys!

The last presidential debate has just finished. If you missed it, shame on you!  

This one covered domestic issues (though the war was brought up a fair amount). Overall, this one was a big win for Bush: domestic issues were supposed to be Kerry’s strength, but he just didn’t come off well at all. And of course, bringing up Cheney’s daughter wasn’t exactly tasteful. Not nearly as bad as Edwards, but still: can’t he just leave Cheney’s daughter out of it?

I really don’t have a whole lot to say about this final debate. Bush finished strong, and Kerry just didn’t do nearly as well as he needed to. I still disagree with Kerry on a lot of issues, and just can’t imagine him as president. He certainly didn’t sway me, but then again, I don’t think too many people were swayed by these debates, either way.

The second presidential debate is finished, and I have to say it was much better: the format was considerably better, and both candidates did a good job. It was a great debate.

I think that, in the end, you could call it a win for Bush. Both candidates came off really well, but the simple fact that Bush did so much better than the last debate make’s his appearance all the more stronger. Not to mention that, despite Kerry’s considerable showing, I still just can’t understand where he’s coming from with some of this stuff.

Kerry spoke about a fairly large number of things he wants to do (health care, education, etc.). He also brought up taxes a lot (as questions permitted, at least), and talked about how he wouldn’t be raising taxes on the middle class and the poor. As the president said, it doesn’t work that way. You can’t just tax one tax bracket. And even if he was able to just tax the wealthiest 1% of Americans, is that really going to pay for all the things he’s talking about? I can’t imagine it would.

Not to mention the small-businesses issue Bush brought up: Kerry’s tax plan would almost certainly cause a sizable loss of jobs from small business owners. Draginol, aka Brad Wardell, owner of Stardock (a small business which makes some of the best Windows customization software ever, among many other great things), has written a number of articles about how small businesses work and how Kerry’s proposed tax cuts could really hurt them. I recommend checking at least one of them out if you’re interested.

Anyways, I can’t say if this will seriously help Bush. It couldn’t hurt him, though. Unless you work for ABC, of course.

If you didn’t watch the debate, you should have. It was fairly good, though not terribly exciting. Kerry flip-flopped on a number of questions, but was able to pull off a relatively strong appearance (for him, anyways, which isn’t saying much). Bush kept it straight and simple, and though it did get a bit tiring near the end, I think he got his overall message across much better than Kerry.

What is it with this movie? It’s on at least once a week, and yet I never manage to catch it from the beginning. It’s a conspiracy I tell you…

Meanwhile, CBS is pulling another “phony memo” with a report citing bogus e-mails claiming that Bush and company will be instituting a draft. They even take time to mention two bills in Congress supporting the draft, but fail to mention that both were proposed by Democrats (i.e. not Bush and Co.).

Do they have any credibility left?

Haven’t they figured out yet that they are, to put it mildly, completely and utterly useless?

According to this article an independent election observer team has been dispatched to the US by the UN. Apparently, they’re hear to check up on us and make sure everything goes ok this November by monitoring election preparations in five states.

The article raises a few questions: why, exactly, is the UN observing our election’s this year? They’re certainly welcome to, and I have nothing against constructive criticism. One can’t help but wonder at possible ulterior motives, though. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but come on, it’s the UN. The headline touts the inspection team as impartial, but that’s pretty unlikely (as CBS has proven, no one’s impartial these days). And as we learned prior to the Iraq invasion, a lot of countries in the UN don’t particularly care much for America these days. Or, at the very least, a Bush-lead America.

I’m really hoping the team is impartial, does quietly observe, and (should the need arise) politely offers some constructive criticism should things be found wanting in one of the five monitored states.

I can’t get rid of the sneaking suspicion, though, that anything but a Kerry win is going to create a lot bitching in the UN and a lot of claims about the elections being completely unfair from these observers. The article doesn’t state it flat-out, but it sounds like the observers think that the popular vote is how the election is decided (it’s not, if you’re wondering). If that’s the case, and Kerry gets the popular vote but loses the election, a shit storm of whining could be coming our way. A Bush victory on both fronts would almost certainly lead to the same thing, if not more whining accompanied with claims that the people of the US were mislead or confused in some way (because you know, we just can’t be trusted to do things for ourselves).

Of course, should Kerry win both, or should Bush get the popular vote and Kerry take the win anyways, we’ll get a passing bill of health and all will be well. I’m really hoping that’s not what this is about, but something tells me that’s how it’ll end up,

The good news, of course, is that the UN has proven, time and time again, that it has no power. From the closing days of World War II to today, the UN has proven itself woefully ill equipped to handle international disputes, and this won’t be any different. Hell, it’s not even an international dispute (you could argue it, but I won’t go into that here). Regardless of how the elections go, we can all sleep soundly, knowing that the UN is now, and will remain for the foreseeable future, completely and utterly useless.