Debunking fun

September 26, 2003 10:50 AM

I attacked and took over two countries...Friday Debunking Fun! It's been popping up all over in the past month. The problem is, none of its claims are referenced. I challenge my fellow MeFites to come up with the links to debunk or support the charges filed in the Presidential Confession. What's true? What isn't? What's relevant to the election?
posted by badstone (40 comments total)

I got this in email the other day. Someone needs to do a researched, annotated, snopes-style True-False tag for each claim. Some are rather .... flaky.
posted by wah at 10:58 AM on September 26, 2003

The Truth About the Bush Resume by Curt King. (PDF)
posted by Ljubljana at 11:01 AM on September 26, 2003

Who cares if it's true? It's politics not history class.

This is just a taste of the viciousness to come in the election.
posted by Argyle at 11:23 AM on September 26, 2003

Jared posted an annotated list of these links (via LyingMediaBastards). The original page is currently 404 over at Blogspot but here's a Google cache.
posted by ao4047 at 11:24 AM on September 26, 2003

This has been making the rounds in blogs and e-mail for a few months.
posted by RylandDotNet at 11:24 AM on September 26, 2003

Isn't there some rule that says Fridays are for flash fun?
posted by a3matrix at 11:35 AM on September 26, 2003

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has 'closed', the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. AND I AM CAESAR." --Julius Caesar

:)
posted by Akuinnen at 11:35 AM on September 26, 2003

"Isn't there some rule that says Fridays are for flash fun?"

Maybe it's the skeptic in me.. but debunking things is fun. If only there was a way to dubunk Benny Hinn or John Edwards.
posted by Akuinnen at 11:36 AM on September 26, 2003

Curt King's rebuttal is cute in how naive it is. King claims Bush isn't responsible for massive spending and deficit increases since "spending power resides with Congress." Well, yes, and I'm glad Mr. King passed his high school Civics class, but only looking at the process ignores the motivation. The tax cuts Congress passed started in the White House and were pushed by the White House staff. This is undeniable.

There are other problems with the rebuttal too. He says Bush hasn't overseen the largest drop in the stock market since Bush wasn't President during the largest one day drop back in 1987, and because about.com's "Worst Crashes" table from October of 2002 doesn't go past the 1970s. He claims Bush didn't execute the first federal prisoner in decades since he didn't literally, personally pull the switch on McVeigh. He says Bush wasn't on vacation in August of 2001 since he was running around New Mexico, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Missouri. All I know is he wasn't doing his job. He was campaigning for 2004 in battleground states when he wasn't at Crawford. King says it's "naive to think the President spent the month doing nothing." Well, it's naive to think he was doing his job by going to photo-ops in western swing states. Weren't there all these terrorism intelligence newsflashes from Tenet he was supposed to be paying attention to? Curtis King even finds a number of occasions to blame Clinton for Bush's problems, from the millions of lost jobs, to recycling old right-wing lies. See, because Clinton, supposedly (I'm sure I've seen this debunked somewhere) was 'associated' with 'individual and businesses' who have 'been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes', it doesn't matter that Bush gave convicted felons jobs in his administration. Sorry, I'm not convinced by such astounding logic.

It goes on and on and on. Ljubljana, this isn't real debunking. For example, King spends a page (pg 20) defending Bush's insanely low number of press conferences by comparing him to Eisenhower before finally admitting Bush "has held fewer than any other modern president." Real debunkers don't waste their time defending against true allegations. Only political defenders do that.

Oh yeah, and how about this blatant lie from Curtis King. "Just to clarify one point: there seems to be a suggestion that Executive Orders are some sort of secret, evil machination of presidents. Not so: every Executive Order is available for review on the government's own web site." This fool doesn't even know American history! Presidents DO have authority to write secret executive orders. This is how the National Security Agency was created by Truman. There are other examples, but that's a key one. The only executive orders available on the White House website are those the public are allowed to see. Remember when Bush okayed the CIA to assassinate Saddam? That was another secret executive order, until it was leaked to the press for PR purposes in the run-up to the war, as I recall.

And wah, 'Snopes-style' isn't a positive adjective anymore. At least, I lost all respect for those guys after they decided their dislike for Michael Moore was stronger than their love for telling the truth. Saudis DID get to fly when no one else was after 9/11, and when that was confirmed, Snopes didn't have enough honor to admit their original investigation was wrong. They just quietly changed what their page said, because they didn't have the balls to say Michael Moore got one right.

On preview: Akuinnen, please tell me you know that Caesar quote's apocryphal. My local Democratic newsletter had it featured prominently this past month--I felt so embarassed.
posted by jbrjake at 11:54 AM on September 26, 2003

Snopes (preliminary; they haven't done the work themselves, so far they just link to a pro-Bush site's rebuttal)
posted by languagehat at 11:55 AM on September 26, 2003

If only there was a way to dubunk Benny Hinn or John Edwards.

the biggest douche in the universe
posted by kjh at 11:56 AM on September 26, 2003

The majority of the Curt King article seems to be Mr. King asserting that when he cant find contradictory evidence he challenges that "oh well" the resume didn't provide any supporting.
posted by Dr_Octavius at 11:59 AM on September 26, 2003

jbrjake,

Yes I did.. I thought it was a good example of how things get passed around on the net and widely accepted. I find it fascinating.

One I've tried to look into is whether Hamed Karzai was really a Unocal consultant. A quick google search will come up with results backing this up. However Unocal denies it and I can't find any mainstream sources that confirm it.. like say BBC.
posted by Akuinnen at 12:01 PM on September 26, 2003

The trouble with this kind of email -- the kind that contains lists or bullet points -- is that various recipients can't resist adding their points as it gets passed along. These are usually opinions and perceptions, digs and attempts at humor by people who don't particularly know what they're talking about.

Ljubljana, that "Truth" is as twisted as the original email, it just twists things in the opposite direction. Simply putting bullets in front of the points and throwing a bit of spin at it doesn't constitute a rebuttal. A few examples:

The rebuttal of blocking the investigation into 9/11 is extremely thin and selective in which facts it tries to address, and it doesn't try very hard.

the part about "AWOL Bush" doesn't contradict the charge, he just pust his own very patchy one-eye-closed spin on the documentation, which certainly has no more merit than any other interpretation. That Bush put an extremely poor, desultory, self-interested and pampered substitute for national service is not refuted.

In the part about "first president to attack a sovereign nation against the will of the global community," he doesn't debunk it, he merely rationalizes the action itself, and trots out that laughable list of the nations who supported it, which begins, tellingly enough, with Aftghanistan. Talk about reaching.

The part about "fewest press conferences" is a complete joke. His facts actually agree with the email but he tries to spin that away. No one reading with any attention could see otherwise.

There's lots, lots, more. This rebuttal is anything but impartial, and anything but thorough, and usually evades the core accusation and dwells on peripheral technicalities. And when all that fails (which it often does) it simply dwells on the charge that Bush was the "worst" on some point by finding a different way to look at the facts, such as finding a way to look at someone else in history who was worse in some respect. One laughable example: in addressing the point that Bush recieved fewer actual votes than Gore (and yes, point taken about the electoral college) he says that Bush got more votes numerically than his father did. Excuse me, that was twelve years ago in a completely different election with a completely different elecorate. It is utterly irrelevant; part of the tactic of overwhelming the subject with soothing, unproductive details and burying the core issues.

If you counter a crock with another crock, you simply have two crocks. The original email has lots of problems: it's a vox populi rant and is valueless as a strict enumeration of the facts. There are nevertheless grains of truth in it, and it points to real problems and real concerns that Americans have, and this debunking simply dodges them and tries to wish them away.

(On preview, what jbrjake says as well)
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:03 PM on September 26, 2003

I'm about 1/3 of the way through corroborating (or refuting) the resume with actual sources and legitimate stats from (ideally) non-biased 3rd parties. I will post it in the next month.
posted by bkdelong at 12:14 PM on September 26, 2003

bkdelong: Would it be helpful to you to post some of what you have for some collaboration?
I have also been checking as many of these as I can with as many unbiased sources as I can find.
posted by milovoo at 12:29 PM on September 26, 2003

just FYI, even though snopes and others attribute it to "collected on the internet"
it was composed by Kelley Kramer and the original is here
posted by milovoo at 12:41 PM on September 26, 2003

Enough of the points in that email are true to make it devastating. Going through it to disprove one or two points will shorten the incredibly long and depressing list by one or two points, and solidify the rest. Are conservatives sure they want to do this?
posted by Space Coyote at 12:53 PM on September 26, 2003

- First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.

I will not dispute that President Bush was arrested in 1976 for driving under the influence. He has admitted it, though understandably he didn’t volunteer the information. For a complete story, here’s a link:

CNN, "Bush acknowledges 1976 DUI charge"

I will leave it up to the reader to determine what other presidents have had such indiscretions, yet were never caught.

Umm yeah. The "debunker" should've just skipped this one, imho, but he also fails to acknowledge that Bush's entire Texas record was also siezed, and now resides in daddy's library, unavailable to the public.
posted by zekinskia at 1:11 PM on September 26, 2003

what i'd like to see is some sort of Wiki-ish thing where evidence on both sides can be posted on a point by point basis and people can vote on each point as evidence is updated.

Space Coyote -
I'm a leftie, decidedly so, but I would really like to see this thing picked apart and reduced to its firm-founded core. Leaving the bullshit points, especially the ones that are pure politics, in there leaves the whole thing open for dismissal. I have a feeling that more than "one or two" points will go away, but when all is said and done I expect it will still be pretty devestating anyway. That's what I want during the election season - a simple, understandable, and undeniable list of reasons why Dubya CANNOT hold the office again.
posted by badstone at 1:12 PM on September 26, 2003

Are conservatives sure they want to do this?

Those who support Bush *have* to challenge this list, if only so that it cannot be said that it was spread unchallenged. The mere fact that it was compiled demands it be challenged. I would also mention that conservatives - those who are not inextricably tied to the Republican apparatus - are beginning to be less than comfortable with some of Bush's antics, especially on the fiscal front (between you and me and 17000 other people, I think Bush will survive the Iraq War politically; imo, the economy is going to be what kills him, and OPEC is going to help nail the coffin).

two points: surely, there are some valid charges here. There is also just a surely some specious charges, the same as that execrable "Clinton Death List" that circulated a few years back, which was simply embarassing. At the same time, the debunker makes good case refutations, for some; blatant dissembling for others. I hope that Snopes gets on this quickly. Voters on both sides will need to have, as always, the most accurate, independantly verified information they can get. Neither the left or the right have a monopoly on disinformation and lying, and we would be better served not to think of the sides as Democrat v. Republican or Left v. Right as Us v Them. Those in power will always, regardless of their posturing, band together to make sure that we as citizens do not stop the river of money from flowing towards the Potomac.
posted by UncleFes at 1:39 PM on September 26, 2003

"If only there was a way to dubunk Benny Hinn or John Edwards."

Lol.. I meant John Edward not the Senator from N.C.

I think UncleFes makes some good points.
posted by Akuinnen at 2:11 PM on September 26, 2003

The problem with this kind of email is that is incredibly long, boring and non-authorative.
The solution is the delete button.
posted by signal at 2:47 PM on September 26, 2003

"In the interest of full disclosure, I need to say a few more things before proceeding. I voted for George W. Bush and I’m very impressed with his performance so far in office. I believe he is an honest man. I believe he is an intelligent man."

Ljubljana you could have warned us.

clearly a nutter.
posted by lerrup at 3:12 PM on September 26, 2003

Fes: sorry, I used the word 'conservative' as shorthand and I guess it would bug a conservative non-bush supporter as much as commie-liberal bugs us centrists nowadays.

Anyway, I would like to see it challenged by someone who's only intent is to refine the list, and not to perform spin or damage control and shovel his or her own brand of bullshit on top of this list to try and get rid of the problem.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:23 PM on September 26, 2003

Those who support Bush *have* to challenge this list, if only so that it cannot be said that it was spread unchallenged.

Actually, liberals that hate Bush would love it if every single cute little "list" full of vague, bullet-pointed one-liners was responded to by conservatives ... because getting any response at all implies they actually have some remote form of legitimacy. Mostly they are ignored - except by the true believers on the left that email them furiously to each other - apparently thinking that bumper-sticker sentiments are profound political truths that can't be ignored by "the people".

Now and then perhaps it's worth it to just grab a couple of points from these exercises, and "refute" them, simply to show how vacuous and distorting they are. (bkdelong ... why bother spending a couple of hours refuting every point, when whomever came up with this crap probably only spent 10 minutes on them? and besides, those that think this stuff contains some deep truth won't be persuaded by anything you write ... to them, Bush=Evil ... end of story).

Anyway, before selecting a couple of points, permit me to first mention an assumption that sits at the heart of this list: That anything that happens in the country while Bush is President, is on his "resume" (including things like the "invasion" of Afghanistan, which was - if folks would care to remember, was meant to attack Al Queda and the Taliban, and was widely supported by both parties in Congress, as well as the vast majority of the American population).

So then, how's about this gem:

"I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market."

I guess if you're 18, and slept through even high school economics, you can refer to something called "the stock market". First thing that occurs to me, however, is to say "which stock market?". And by what measure? There are a number of equities markets in the US alone (and over 120 globally). Ok, so let's be generous with the poor fellow's learning disability here, and presume he means one of the two US stock markets that get the most mainstream press - the NYSE and the NASDAQ.

The NASDAQ generally measures the so-called "new" economy, and had a large percentage run-up in the late 90's. And yes, it crashed ... starting in April 2000. It lost close to 40% of it's value in 2000. In fact, let's look at it's worst 20 days in recent history. 18 of them happened in 2000 ... and the other two happened on January 2nd and 5th 2001 (i.e., all of them happened prior to Bush taking office). Oddly, the fellow didn't see fit to put "the destruction of the new economy" on Clinton's "resume".

Oh, I see - you don't mean the NASDAQ. Ok, I certainly understand why you'd want to ignore it. So let's look at the NYSE, and it's Dow Jones Industrial Average (which market pro's really only glance at, but which even people that did sleep through economics have probably at least heard of). 1999 was, indeed, a great year - the DJIA was up 25%, and closed at around 11,500. The year 2000? Well, not so good. The DJIA closed the year down 6%.

Yeppers, that's right fellow campers ... the "stock markets" this guy refers to, and the economy itself, started their steep declines during Clinton's last year. Even further, take a look at at the numbers since then - we have an almost classical recessionary curve. The collapse stared in the spring of 2000, deepened in 2001 and 2002, and is now actually beginning to emerge ... the NASDAQ is up close to 30% this year, and the Dow is up around 14%.

In other words, if you want to look at "stock markets", Bush's resume would more accurately read "Inherited a tanking economy, and in slightly over two years turned it around by increasing investment incentives through tax cuts, and bringing significant reforms to corporate governance". (Remember now, while Enron, Worldcom, and other fiascoes surfaced during the Bush presidency, the crimes themselves largely happened during the Clinton years.)

So then ... a non-economic point? Ok, how about this gem:

"After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history."

Kind of a cheap rhetorical trick ... connecting two completely unrelated things to try to imply that one had anything at all to do with the other. Sort of like saying - on a Clinton "resume" - "After getting my intern off with a cigar in the Oval Office, presided over the terrorist bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center".

Fact is, Bush inherited a national security infrastructure who's agencies had been demoralized and decimated during the Clinton years (this is the opinion of CIA and FBI agents themselves ... Republican and Democrat alike). As a for instance - Freeh hated computers. First thing he did upon taking over the FBI in 1993 was throw the PC out of his office. This is the man that ran the FBI during the huge technology boom of the 1990's. During the years when terrorists were adopting cutting edge abilities, tactics, and technology, we had an FBI that, on 9/11, had a green-screen case management system ... no mouse ... command-line searches. You could search for "flight", or "school", but could not search the databases for "flight school". FBI agents were going home at night to secretly use Google (secretly because even that was, in many instances, against FBI policy). The day after 9/11, when photos of the potential terrorists were starting were starting to show up all over the web, the FBI distributed photos internally by means of ... freakin' overnight snail mail.

And you're going to blame 9/11 on a Bush vacation? Bush did, very quickly, understand there were severe problems with the intelligence community, and, like a CEO, went about finding the right person, and getting him appointed and through the approval process. This is the federal government - and it takes time. While Bush was on "vacation", however, the process he set in motion finished ... and Mueller took office on 9/4 ... exactly one week before 9/11 (and, by the way, one of the first things he did was to order several thousand new Dell computers).

Since Bush's people have been fully put in place, there have been no terrorist acts on US soil - either from foreign extremists - like the '93 WTC bombing, or domestic - like the Oklahoma City bombing (remind me again ... who's "resume" are those on ...?)

I realize that here on Mefi, none of this makes any difference. A mindless page of one-liners is considerable to be the initiation of a serious political discussion. Conservatives are told they must "refute" the Very Serious Charges. Now and then a conservative will take a shot (just for fun) at actually doing so ... but this merely leads to a scrum, with refutations of the refutations (which, of course, conservatives "must" refute) - and generally the opportunity for a whole new list of snide one-liners.

So then, I don't expect that "refuting" even two points will convince anyone to think any differently ... but thought I'd pop in for a moment because now and then the few conservatives left on Mefi deserve a bit of a chuckle. Hope I delivered one ...
posted by MidasMulligan at 4:16 PM on September 26, 2003

Actually, liberals that hate Bush [...]

Now there's a way to start a post. Way to presage the thoughtful, analytical and intellectually rigorous critique that presumably follows. BTW, "liberals who hate Bush" would be more gramatically correct. You'll forgive me for not reading the rest because frankly the first 5 words were gorge-risingly dissuasive.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:45 PM on September 26, 2003

You'll forgive me for not reading the rest because frankly the first 5 words were gorge-risingly dissuasive.

As opposed to "I attacked and took over two countries." ... which started the profound political philosophy under discussion here? You consider a statement like that to be a "thoughtful, analytical and intellectually rigorous critique" of Bush ... but when I start a response to that kind of cheap crap by talking about liberals that hate Bush, you are dissuaded from reading any further? Cool.

And there's certainly no need to apologize ... as I mentioned (in the post you didn't read), my purpose wasn't to convince you of anything, but merely to give a few MeFi conservatives a chuckle. And I suspect your response has contributed a bit to that goal.
posted by MidasMulligan at 6:25 PM on September 26, 2003

Uh-huh. Oh, you might want to search this thread for a couple of things: 1) The words "liberal" and "conservative" hardly appear, and where they do they are used respectfully. Until you showed up. 2) Find somebody actually defending the factual integrity of the email. There isn't anyone. The closest anyone comes is Space Coyote, who believes that many of them will prove true under analysis, but even he clearly does not accept it at face value.

So what is your post except routine lefty-baiting and right-pandering? And yes, I have read it now. A dilute solution of factual cherry-picking dissolved in a base of semi-relevant degression (Freeh didn't like computers? Damn, Bush must be great after all.) liberally seasoned with aspersions. Yeah, real new stuff.
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:48 PM on September 26, 2003

I can never hear the phrase "Bush-hater" without thinking of this exchange:

"You're just a little old cop-hater, friend. That's all you are, shamus, just a little old cop-hater."

"There are places where cops are not hated, Captain. But in those places you wouldn't be a cop."

-- Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

posted by George_Spiggott at 7:14 PM on September 26, 2003

Uh-huh. Oh, you might want to search this thread for a couple of things: 1) The words "liberal" and "conservative" hardly appear, and where they do they are used respectfully. Until you showed up.

The "resume" itself is an insult ... and does not contain a single hint of "respect". It is cheap, liberal crap. I responded to it in exactly the tone it deserved.

"A dilute solution of factual cherry-picking dissolved in a base of semi-relevant degression" (And it is sort of curious that you'd see fit to correct my grammar, and then talk about my "degressions" ... but I digress ...).

Are you talking about the "resume", or my response? If you mean the resume, you're exactly correct ... it is, indeed, a "dilute solution of factual cherry-picking dissolved in a base of semi-relevant degression".

If you mean my response ... hmmm ... if you consider the statement "I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market." to be legitimate, but consider links to 20 years of actual historical market data - which clearly shows the markets beginning their dive during the Clinton era - to be "factual cherry-picking", then you've just pretty much demonstrated exactly why so few conservatives find it worth the trouble to refute this sort of garbage.
posted by MidasMulligan at 7:18 PM on September 26, 2003

Good call on the typo. And here I was thinking you'd get a good howl from my telling you what would be more "gramatically" correct, with one "m". Have a great weekend!
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:24 PM on September 26, 2003

Midas mulligan: Sure, the "list" is a clumsy bit of AgitProp. Agreed. But you haven't addressed the hard core of disturbing facts about the Bush Administration which are interleaved in the list amidst the bs.

Such as: Fact is, Clinton's exiting national Security Adviser Sandy Berger quite pointedly briefed Condi Rice on the threat of terrorism. He told her that the threat was quite high and that - in his opinion - the issue would dominate the Bush presidency. He also gave her a big fat dossier on the subject which, apparently, got tossed into a heap of papers and forgotten.

If there had not been an unprecedented blizzard of warnings from US allies, friends and even wary neutrals, the aforementioned fact would be unremarkable. But US allies did everything to warn about the impending attack but to write it in the sky over washington, DC. (see: The Complete 9-11 Timeline)

Negligence, flat out.....and in that call, I'm being quite charitable. Consult Paul Thompson's exhaustively researched timeline (linked to above). [ This is not the usual conspiracy fare, unless you feel that Time, Newsweek, the NYT, the BBC, FOX, (controlled by aliens? ) are together attempting to sink the Bush Administration. ]

"Fact is, Bush inherited a national security infrastructure who's agencies had been demoralized and decimated during the Clinton years" - as opposed to the effect that Rumsfeld's forcible distortions of good CIA analysis (to pump up the WMD charge prior to the US invasion of Iraq) had on the agency? Or the impact that the Bush Administration's apparently treasonous outing of James Wilson's wife as a CIA operative had?

It's true that GW Bush blundered into the end of a boom cycle and so it's absurd to pin this (the DotCom bust) on him. And yet.... his habit of cutting taxes while raising spending is a strange way to express conservative values. Are whopping, historic deficits characteristic of conservatism?

Of course it's idiotic to pin every little thing on GW's roster of evil, dirty deeds. We might as well blame him for the latest hurricane also.

But there's little I've seen the Bush Administration do which does not seem to make the overall situation GW inherited far worse than it needed to be.

Perhaps that's the game plan (as some conservatives have even admitted) : to run up an absurdly huge federal deficit which will force future cuts in Federal social programs. The target, in this argument, would be the redistributive function of government.
posted by troutfishing at 8:17 PM on September 26, 2003

Crawl back under your rock, Midas.

why bother spending a couple of hours refuting every point, when whomever came up with this crap probably only spent 10 minutes on them?

After which you spent what must have been the better part of the hour at debunking, what? two of the points in the 'Bush Resume'?

I see. Wouldn't want someone else spending their valuable time finding supporting evidence for the dozens of others in the list, would we, but you're happy to spend the time refuting 5% of the total?

But, MM's verbally-diarrhetic bleatings aside, there are definitely a number of points in the list (as others have mentioned upthread) that are dodgy. This does not, I would venture, detract from the validity of the other points, even if it does impact the overall persuasive force of the document as a whole. What's the solution? Re-write the document. Leave out or rephrase the bits that are doubtful or untrue, and re-pitch it, with research backup. I'd figure an Important Businessman like MM would know that without being told.

In contrast to MM trumpeting that 'so few conservatives find it worth the trouble to refute this sort of garbage,' I welcome bkdelong's project to find supporting (or refuting) references for each item on that long, long list.

If MidasMulligan's two points are removed, along with anywhere from a couple to (even) a dozen or two others that reach too far, I reckon we'd still be left with a good solid 20 points, well-documented, that would hopefully help to see Bush and his cohort, if not jailed, at least removed from their offices in disgrace.

I look forward to this with hope, mixed with fear that the next administration will be populated with criminal scum as well, much as the Clinton one was, and the Bush one currently is.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:17 PM on September 26, 2003

By the way, in that Googlecache link to the supporting documentation effort that ao4047 provided, a pretty piss-poor job is done of providing supporting the claim that MM tears down above.

Anyone with better knowledge of the markets than I care to argue MM's points? Or at least the first one of these three - "Inherited a tanking economy, and in slightly over two years turned it around by increasing investment incentives through tax cuts, and bringing significant reforms to corporate governance" - as it would seem pretty clear the last two are nonsensical.

Either way, I'm willing to take it as read, in the narrow sense of the 'markets,' which MM is conflating with 'the economy' as a whole (advisedly or otherwise), that the current administration was not solely to blame for the economic woes of the nation.

Which isn't saying much, I suppose.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:36 PM on September 26, 2003

Midas, I'm glad to see you back.
posted by davidmsc at 9:23 PM on September 26, 2003

Crawl back under your rock, Midas.

Okey-dokey. Sorry to interrupt your little "PreachingToTheChoirFilter". Please do continue your open-minded, inclusive discussion board ... but please also don't wonder why so many MeFi threads now seem to be composed of a FPP that reads "Bush sucks. Discuss". Followed by a dozen posts of single sentences comfirming the sentiment that Bush does, indeed, suck. Followed by widespread snoring.

You wanna tell me to get lost? Okay, ta ta.
posted by MidasMulligan at 10:04 PM on September 26, 2003

Sorry to interrupt your little "PreachingToTheChoirFilter".

If you'd read where I said :

• there are definitely a number of points in the list (as others have mentioned upthread) that are dodgy.
or
• I welcome bkdelong's project to find supporting (or refuting) references for each item on that long, long list.
or
• Anyone with better knowledge of the markets than I care to argue MM's points?

perhaps you'd be less quick on the 'Choirfilter' trigger, son.

See, I don't dislike your arguments so much as I dislike your smug, supercilious attitude, which clearly hasn't mellowed in your welcome absence from the site.

You wanna tell me to get lost? Okay, ta ta.

Well, that's my good deed for the day done, then. Your spurious faux-self-pity and lockstep repetition of the 'oh-dear-me-Metafilter-is-an-echo-chamber' line are tiresome.

Still, perhaps my invitation for you to get back under your rock was a bit harsh : you're welcome to stay and continue to grace the discussion with discourse-encouraging comments like 'I guess if you're 18, and slept through even high school economics, you can refer to something called "the stock market,"' by all means.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:24 PM on September 26, 2003

Midas-
I've gotten your back before, and as anyone would admit, the "Bushfilter" thing has some basis in reality. But all I get out of your post is that you are sooooo much better than everyone else here. It makes me wonder why you waste your time on a silly commie website like this one.

You're a smart guy, we know that. We also know that you're a conservative. But you know what? I'm a pretty clever motherfucker myself, but I've found that most people quite reasonably couldn't give a shit about that, expecially if I'm condescending to them and stereotyping them. You by no means have the market on rationality cornered, nor do you enjoy a position of special authority. This thread (look at the title) has been largely about debunking a piece of anti-Bush agitprop. Just claiming the opposite doesn't make it true.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:00 PM on September 26, 2003

Also, as a parting shot to my dear friend Midas, and just to clear the smell of bullshit out of the thread a bit : "Inherited a tanking economy, and in slightly over two years turned it around by increasing investment incentives through tax cuts, and bringing significant reforms to corporate governance."
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:11 PM on September 27, 2003