I am interested in knowing what those who find Bush more morally repugnant than Saddam Hussein think about the following article written by someone who is an admitted ABBS sufferer that believes Bush is an @$$hole. As they say - RTWT (read the whole thing).

Then, if you are so inclined, check out this from Victor Davis Hanson.

It seems to me that our nation would be more well served by giving the benefit of the doubt to those we disagree with than by ad hominem attacks, If we are lucky, Bush is wrong about the nature of the threat we face, if not we are lucky we have leadership that takes the threat seriously. But we don't know that we are out of the woods yet. I, for one, am willing to believe that based on the intelligence available to him, Bush is doing what he thinks is best for the country. And Kerry would do the same. Our job is to decide who has the better grasp of the issues facing us, which doesn't require character assassination and impugning of motives.

Which brings us to Kerry's real problem. He is the most liberal senator we have, but he needs centrist votes to win the election, therefore he has to hide from his biggest backers. The MoveOn, Michael Moore, and Answer crowd are anathema to middle America. So, even though you know for a fact that he supports gay marriage (ed. - being libertarian minded on social issues, so do you! granted - yahoo), he has to pretend not to. Even though he supports abortion rights, he has to use his religion to try to moderate it by claiming to believe life begins at conception. Even though Fahrenheit 9/11 is wildly popular with his backers, he has to distance himself from Michael Moore. Even though his "final answer" seems to be that the war in Iraq was a mistake, he has to sound like he will handle the ongoing conflict better than Bush.

Since Kerry couldn't talk about any of these issues that he really believes in and that his supporters believe in, we get to here all about his Vietnam service. Funny, when it was Dole vs. Clinton, Vietnam was an ancient past issue. Of course it was - and still is. Lucky for him to, since he came home and accused his fellow troops of atocities and threw somebody's medals away. The only thing else left for him to talk about was the usual Santa Claus crap: Kerry will wave a magic wand and provide health care for all, fix social security, find a treatment for AIDS, Parkinson's, and diabetes, and fully fund our first reponders and schools - all while balancing the budget by taxing the evil rich. Funny thing is, I quit believing in Santa Claus after a few years of not getting even some of the stuff I asked for.

I will go on record to predict that Kerry is going to discover that middle America sees through all of this. Even if they don't yet, do you honestly believe that the Bush people aren't going to make hay out of this? The Dems would have been far better off nominating Edwards. Unlike Kerry, he is charismatic and has no record. Kerry has to live down a vote for a $.50 gas tax, a vote against every weapons system, a vote for the war Iraq, a vote against funding the war, a vote for the Patriot Act (which is unpopular among libertarians and true conservatives), a vote against welfare reform, a vote against banning gay marriage, and too many flip flops to list here.

I'm not old enough to have grown up on the old westerns, and I didn't grow up on a ranch. But as you may have noted if you read the other links, there are all kinds of cowboys. As a kid, my cowboy heroes were mostly entertainment figures like Roger Staubach, Han Solo, and Dirty Harry.

Then one fateful day as I was delivering newspapers in my small hometown, a reporter for the paper I was delivering asked me whom I thought should be elected president: Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan? Being all of 12 years old, it seemed odd that anyone would care what I thought, although I see now the Democrats have a 12 year old girl speaking at their convention on the need for timeouts for the Vice President. Anyway, my answer was Ronald Reagan, and the reason I gave is that he would build more minute man missiles and protect our country.

Even though I was only 12, it was obvious that something was wrong in this country. We had a major Vietnam hangover, inflation had hit double digits, as did unemployment, the prime interest rate was near 20%, pissant terrorists thought they could attack us with impunity, we had a bunch of hostages in Iran and other places in the middle east, and we lived in fear of a nuclear holocaust, and nothing was being done about any of it as far as I could tell.

Yes, Ronald Reagan had many flaws. He may have broke some laws. He thought ketchup should be counted as a vegetable. But he did fix the things that mattered to me at the time. That is more than I can say about any president before or after in my lifetime. Being a "cowboy", I loved the "evil empire" rhetoric, because it was true and someone finally had the guts to call them on it. Iran didn't dare continue holding hostages. Tax reform and government action stabilized and strengthened our economy. Qaadafi's swimming pool became a bullseye and he went away. Our military was strengthened. The Soviet Union tore down the wall and folded. Ronald Reagan was a great American cowboy.

Having said that, I know that it will be difficult to disabuse the reader of the belief that I am a right wing Republican apologist. Nothing could be further from the truth, as you will soon see as we look at the next president after Reagan. George Bush the first was a good enough man, but I blame him for the rise of the religious right in American politics. The "family values" code word coalitition has contributed mightily to the demise of civilized discourse in politics. I personally have very libertarian views on the war on drugs, prostitution, gambling, and other so-called victimless crimes. There are many things that I think are wrong but that we don't need laws against. And we sure as hell don't need to be locking up non-violent offenders at a cost of billions of dollars a year and immeasurable cost in broken families. Like Carter, Bush may have been a good man, but he was not an effective president, and neither of them was a cowboy.

In my mind, the most effective president other than Reagan that we had in my lifetime (1968-present, if you are wondering) was Bill Clinton. His economic record is untouchable. His welfare reforms were humane and effective, maintaining a social safety net while being fiscally responsible, two things I hold dear. He listened to the people and seemed to understand the collective will better than most presidents have. Of course, like Reagan, he had flaws. Boy, did he have flaws! But so does our society. When he and we should have been worrying about terrorists, he was dallying with interns and we were fascinated with it. I don't blame him in any way, shape, or form for the 9/11 attacks, though. If you do, you need to ask yourself some questions. Would you have believed in the threat while enjoying the go-go 90's when it seemed there wasn't a care in the world? If you say yes, did you think we should have launched a "War on Terror" after the embassy bombings or the first WTC attack? Or did you see it as an aberration or law enforcement matter? Clinton led us the way we wanted to be led. Worry? Who, us? Which attitude now seems like a luxury, but was appropriate at the time. I would put him in the category of "wanna be a cowboy" - he was definitely a good ole boy, anyway.

Which brings us to W. W is a cowboy, no doubt, in image, manner, beliefs, attitude, and leadership style. As I mentioned earlier, the religious right wing of the Republican party scares me. I want W re-elected, but only because we are at war and I trust him and his posse to win that war more than I trust the other guy and his. Realize that I don't like Ashcroft, I don't think much of the Patriot Act, and I am afraid of what might happen if any Supreme Court Justices keel over or retire. But to contine the worn out metaphor, there are still some desperadoes out there that need to be tracked down. When it is all over, Sheriff W may himself get run out of town, but while the work is still there to be done, he is the best man in the race to be doing it. Seriously, if you believe national security is the most pressing issue facing us right now, would you rather have Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice and Bush? Or Albright, Berger, Wilson, and Kerry? And if you don't think national security is the most pressing issue right now, what is? The economy is growing at its fastest rate in 20 years. Home ownership is at an all time high. Teen pregnancy and crime is down. Yes, there are many issues that need addressing, including the obscene concentration of wealth and power among a few elites, but that can wait unless you are a die-hard Marxist and think we should sieze property and redistribute it. Once we are secure again, I do believe other issues will be more important in determining our leadership. But that time is not yet here.