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Originally Posted by DrPhil
I enjoyed the press conference. Straight and to the point. A little humor but kind of sad.
People can criticize Bush's legacy all they want to but they need to remember that a lot goes on that the president doesn't initiate or have complete control over. The president is the "fall guy" for many decisions and the target of domestic and international hatred when things fail. That makes sense because populations are at the whim of their governments and those in power. You verbally (or, unfortunately physically) attack the visible target because that's the only target you know about/have access to.
I hope that Obama has a successful presidency. However, I won't give him full credit for most of the successes and failures that occur in the next 4 years. A lot of it won't be of his doing. He will, however, bore the hell out of me with his speaking style. Hopefully he'll get over the "charismatic speaker" gig soon enough. I'll try to stomach him enough to enjoy his historic inauguration speech. Afterall, I did vote for him.
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Agreed - I'll also add that no responsible historian would judge a Presidency, or the actions during that presidency, so soon after it ended (or so close to the end of the Presidency). It is only after the passage of a number of years (decades even), when you look at the long-term affects, that you can fairly examine a Presidency.
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Originally Posted by SWTXBelle
So you believe and Brownie and his minions did a great job with Katrina? Adequate job? What? And that only those with professional/specialized knowledge are entitled to an opinion which is not "meaningless tripe"? As far as I know, you have no professional/specialized knowledge in this area, so does your response now count as nothing? I would be interested in what criteria you are using in defending the response to Katrina. Maybe you have some information I do not, and that would inform my opinion. I doubt it, but am always open to having to change my opinion. We are perhaps using a different definition of "adequate" for the federal response.
Bush specified one very isolated aspect of the federal response to the disaster, and wants us to believe that it is representative. Given the reams of coverage of Katrina - before, during and after - I'd say that anyone who wanted to judge the federal government's response has plenty of information with which to make an informed decision. The most telling fact is that here we are, years later, and the levees are still in danger of failing again, residents are still not able to return, and the city is still suffering. No, Bush is not responsible in the sense that he made every decision, but he is in the sense that he appointed those who were. The buck stops with him. He was certainly ready to take credit for the response to 9/11.
As to whether or not professional/specialized knowledge is required to judge the federal government's actions, I'd have to defer to C.S. Lewis, who famously said that the problem with allowing only those in a field to judge is that you then have to decide the criteria for who is entitled to an opinion. I don't have specialized/professional knowledge in foreign affairs, or finance, or a host of other aspects of the government. That does not mean I am not fully able to judge the actions of my elected representatives. Using your logic, almost none of us should be able to have an opinion regarding almost anything other than our limited professional/specialized field of knowledge.
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I think you're largely misinterpreting RC's statement, and getting at two different issues. No one is saying that you can't make your own judgments about decisions made during the Presidency. The fact is, though, that many of these judgments are outside the grasp and understanding of the average voter, or, even the average college graduate. The simple fact is that most of us don't have that expertise, and that most of us don't have the (largely classified) information on which those decisions were based. Most of us have to understand our own limitations (both intellectually and professionally), and realize that we may not understand everything there is to know about governance.
As American citizens, we have the right to hold our elected officials accountable through our votes and through referenda. That doesn't mean we have the expertise necessary to completely understand these decisions, or that we know the whole story.