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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rdysn5 (talk | contribs) at 02:30, 15 September 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is the Biweekly Special Article for the Fact and Reference Check WikiProject. Please add references for this article as you see fit.

For older discussion, see archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 (Abuse RfC), 27, 28, 29, 30, 31


Removal and addition of British election information

The following alternate versions of a passage are found in the section "Outside the United States" in varying versions over an edit war [differences highlighted in bold - highlight not normally present in the passages]:

Version A

Also, in 2005, British Prime Minster Tony Blair was re-elected despite his strong support of Bush and supposed unpopularity of his support, a fact which his opposition parties used to garner votes. This suggests that many people who did not take part in these polls may not be as affected

Version B

Also, in 2005, British Prime Minster Tony Blair was re-elected despite his strong support of Bush and supposed unpopularity of his support, a fact which his opposition parties used to garner votes. Nethertheless, at the same time, George Galloway, MP, was elected on an anti-Bush platform, and in Tony Blair's own seat, a large vote was recorded by Reg Keys, who maintained an anti-Iraq Invasion platform.

Version C

Elimination of passage all-together

Version D - suggested by Kevin Baastalk: new 04:43, August 14, 2005 (UTC), okham's razor version.

Also, in 2005, British Prime Minster Tony Blair was narrowly re-elected, due to his strong support of Bush and the unpopularity in Britian of this support. At the same time, George Galloway, MP, was elected on an anti-Bush platform, and in Tony Blair's own seat, a large vote was recorded by Reg Keys, who maintained an anti-Iraq Invasion platform.

User:-Ril- believes that the portion including George Galloway and Reg Keys has some pertinence to the discussion in that although the first sentence is intended as a counterpoint, -Ril- believes it to be a misleading lie, implying that Tony Blair's stance on Bush is what got him elected, wheras -Ril- believes his stance on Bush is what did his support so much damage (7% swing against him + George Galloway election). and I don't. I would be willing to eliminate the entire passage including the part about Tony Blair, and want to see it User:-Ril- will abide by whatever concensus turnes up.

As this poll concerns a highly controversial article, on a controversial issue (was the UK against Bush, or pro-?), this will remain open until there is a CLEAR consensus for one or other of the options

Those in favor of keeping Tony Blair and eliminating Galloway and Keys (A)

  1. --MONGO 23:55, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
  2. --Noitall 02:54, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
    Simply a parallel and counter-point to the issue on polls. There is no need to have a counter-point to a counter-point, especially when the counter-point to the counter-point has nothing to do with Bush.
  3. --Curps 03:02, 14 August 2005 (UTC) It's no big deal for an individual MP (Galloway) to win election in a single riding, particularly one that may have atypical demographics. And for any given policy or issue, every democratic parliament or legislature will have outspoken supporters or opponents of it. If you want outspoken opponents of the war, you need look no farther than America itself to find them. On the other hand, for Blair to win re-election he had to have reasonably broad support across the entire country. Thus, the fact of Blair (and Howard in Australia) being elected is significant — if he had been defeated there is no doubt his support for Bush would have been cited as a reason — but the fact of a single MP being elected is not particularly significant. -- Curps 03:02, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    it is pretty uncommon in the UK. The previous two cases have been over local issues.Geni 14:12, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Actually I don't like any of them. "Tony Blair was re-elected despite his support for George Bush" is POV. There are prominent commentators in the UK who regard Blair's support for the war on terrorism to be one of the main reasons to support him. Evidence of opinion polling during the election campaign was that arguments over the war in Iraq had practically no effect on party support. I certainly don't think Reg Keys or George Galloway deserve a mention in a biography of George W. Bush (they barely deserve mentions in Tony Blair), so I will vote for option A and think up a better draft myself. David | Talk 14:05, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the lib dems would dissagree with you.Geni 14:12, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Don't really like the way its worded as such, but I definitely don't believe we should include individual MP's. -bro 172.136.3.148 22:43, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Those in favor of keeping all the passage including Blair, Galloway and Keys (B1)

Those in favour of keeping all the passage including Blair and Galloway but not Keys (B2)

  1. --Harro5 00:44, August 14, 2005 (UTC). See my comment below for a preview of the wording of the disputed last sentence in this option.

Those in favor of eliminating the entire passage (C)

  1. android79 00:07, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
  2. Or find a way to put in context to Bush a bit better--Ryan Norton T | @ | C 02:34, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Voice of All(MTG) 04:16, August 14, 2005 (UTC)The "may not be as affected" is poorly worded and should be re-written or removed.
  4. Banes 12:11, 14 August 2005 (UTC). I do not feel that this (as it is) is really that relevant to the Bush article. Perhaps it could be worded slightly differently?[reply]
  5. The purpose of the passage seems obscure; I don't think it's particularly relevant to Bush. --Tony SidawayTalk 12:23, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  6. kizzle 17:41, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
  7. Yes, what is the purpose of adding information not about Bush? Do we go to Blair's page and add that Bush was elected even though he supports Tony Blair? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:13, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Assuming that "the entire passage" means the part about the British elections. Eliminating that irrelevancy is no excuse for dumping relevant poll results. JamesMLane 07:50, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  9. The passage assumes politicians are elected solely on the basis of their support or lack of support for a foreign leader, which is absurd no matter how powerful that leader is. magicOgre 17:49, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Yes, not relevant to this article. Aconnelly 18:49, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Those in favour of the adjusting of the first sentence as in option (D) - "okham's razor" version

Those in favor of either (B) or (C) or (D), but not caring which of these options is chosen

In order to prevent "splitting the vote", votes in the section B, C, and D, count as votes in this section as well but solely for the purposes of comparison of option A with people who are opposed to option A

  1. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 00:06, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Sdauson 17:31, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

  1. Gavin the Chosen 00:07, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • What about a compromise chaps?

'...Prime Minster Tony Blair was re-elected despite the unpopularity in the UK of his strong support of Bush ...' That would make it clear that supporting Bush did Blair no electoral favours, (a fact all UK opinion polls bore out), whilst it would remove the need to mention electoral setbacks for Labour as a ballance?? --Doc (?) 00:13, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

    • I like this idea if we're going to do anything. --kizzle 03:05, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • I propose to keep Galloway and Blair, as both have been given major press coverage (Galloway is known in the US, UK and Australia for his Bush/Blair-bashing), but remove Keys, as you would expect a PM to lose support over time in their home electorates. See protest vote. My final sentence for the disputed passage would read: Nethertheless, at the same time, George Galloway, MP, was elected on a strong anti-Bush platform. Harro5 00:16, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Btw, when does the poll close?? --Doc (?) 00:33, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Has anyone thought about removing all of this? It seems non-essential to include Blair's mention simply to point out that he got elected despite supporting Bush. What does that have to do with Bush's image overseas? --kizzle 03:05, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

The intent is simply a counter-point to this section on polling. There is tons of information on polling in this section, which shows the one point of view. This section was to show the counter point of view. There is no one more aligned with Bush than Blair, and the fact that Blair won despite being linked at the hip with Bush just shows that polls are sometimes unreliable, especially to measure true depth of fealing and especially with regard to their sampling. Thus, as a counter-point, it makes no sense to add the disputed section (which was actually added not as an appropriate edit but to cause trouble by -Ril-, see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/-Ril- (who goes by the squiggly you see above)--Noitall 03:28, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
I haven't read any changes you may have made to the article, but I just want to point out that a lot of what you just said above doesn't make sense.
  • There is no one more aligned with Bush than Blair - this is clearly rhetorical, and is wrong. Blair and Bush have significant political and diplomatic differences, and disagreements.
  • "the fact that Blair won despite being linked at the hip with Bush just shows that polls are sometimes unreliable" - the first premise here was shown to be unsound in the above point. Besides, this is a non-sequitor; the conclusion has no logical connection with the premise.
  • "polls are sometimes unreliable, especially to measure true depth of fealing...": if a poll is that of true depth of feeling, than its "reliability" in regards this is a matter of maximum likelihood estimation, involving parameters such as sample size, the desired precision, etc. (However, "true depth of feeling" is an interpretation - a polls results correspond particularly to the precise questions asked, and should be read that way.) If a poll is not that of true depth of feeling, well doesn't make any sense to call it an unreliable estimate of what it's a poll on. I'm sure "true depth of feeling" is not the only thing to poll that can be considered "reliable", and I certainly don't see any reason why it would have this exclusive property.
  • "and especially with regard to their sampling" - with regard to a poll's sampling, the the satistical estimation parameters are calculated. That is, the relative probability of any given prediction is calculated precisely with regard to the poll's sample size. The reliability of this probability distribution is not affected by the poll's sample size, rather the distrubition itself is a function of the sample size.
  • "Thus, as a counter-point, it makes no sense to add the disputed section" - even if your rhetoric was valid and sound, how would this logically follow from it? Kevin Baastalk: new 04:35, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
Blair is probably the staunchist ally of Bush on the international scene...especially true since 9/11. Blair is the Prime Minister and is well known worldwide, Galloway and Keys are not. The discussion on outside world opinions about Bush has made repeated claims that he is very unpopular, based on polls held internationally, including in the U.K. The information on Blair was introduced to show that polls are not always the best way to judge true sentiment about international views on Bush due to 2 major reasons: 1. Blair is a stanch ally of Bush, and even though Bush is, according to the polls in the U.K., very unpopular, 2. Blair still won reelection. I agree that Blair did not enjoy the same mandate as in previous elections and I don't dispute that Bush is unpopular in the U.K. according to the polls. The reason Blair was put in was to show that the international polls are not completely reliable. Galloway and Keys info was introduced by User:-Ril- not to show that polls are sometimes flawed, but argue against wording he claims stated that Blair was reelected because of his support of Bush. It never said this...all it said was that Blair won reelection inspite of his support of Bush...there is a difference. The section also discusses that exit polls showing a Kerry lead in 2004 and even providing election forecasts of a Kerry victory in some states ended up not being the case when the votes were conpleted...furthering the argument, correctly, that while polls are sometimes useful, votes are more so. The incorporation of Galloway and Keys has no relevent value to the discussion as they stray too far off the subject matter in this article about Bush.--MONGO 06:40, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
So let me get this straight. Bush is generally unpopular overseas, according to a poll. But the fact that a foreign leader was elected despite supporting Bush automatically means that these polls are somewhat unreliable? --kizzle 08:21, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
No, it doesn't mean that the polls are unreliable automatically just becuase Blair was reelected...just that in spite of his support of Bush, he still got reelected, even though he supports Bush and Bush polls very lowly in the U.K., indicating that votes count in this case perhaps more than polls....in other words, if the polls indication that Bush is so unpopular in the U.K., why did a stauch supporter of the one issue that alienates citizens of the U.K. the most (Iraq War) against Bush not result in a Blair loss...? The section discusses Bush's popularity outside the U.S. and uses polls to determine this popularity...the inclusion of Blair's reelection, along with Kerry exit polls that erroneously predicted victories when there ended up being loses, simply show that polls are not completely reliable.--MONGO 09:34, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Kevin's Version C is just plain foolish. In no way was Blair's government re-elected narrowly! They dominate Parliament. Please explain how this could be viewed as a narrow re-election. Harro5 04:45, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

If 30 of the labour MPs vote against blair in any vote, which is likely if blair doesn't listen to the backbenches, and side with the opposition (lib dems + conservatives) against him, e.g. on ID cards, then he loses. That's called a narrow re-election (there are about 600 MPs). ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 16:21, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that, in the British election, neither of the chief opposition parties ran on a platform of immediate withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, and neither of them made a major campaign theme of "Blair goes along with Bush too often." You can argue that the election shows Bush's popularity because Blair was re-elected, but that's a weak argument, because most voters who disliked Bush had no ready way of showing that by their votes. You can argue that the election shows Bush's unpopularity because Blair's margin was greatly reduced from that in the previous general election, but that's also a weak argument, because there were many other factors involved. I'd omit this point entirely. If it's included, what about: "Prime Minister Tony Blair, a Bush ally, was re-elected, although opinion polls suggested that his support for Bush cost him votes." JamesMLane 11:26, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We should probably drop the passage entirely. I'd like to dump the whole section as I see all of it as a depository for irrelevent opinions on a person that can't run again, and they don't vote for the President anyway. Why there was mention of how much those outside the U.S. would have preferred to see Kerry as President never made any sense to me.--MONGO 12:06, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
Dumping the entire section is the only alternative, although I think unnecessary (I am not generally in favor or eliminating info). You can't eliminate a counter-point that is relevant and notable without eliminating the original point. --Noitall 13:05, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
This article is about Bush generally, not about his prospects for re-election. Worldwide opinion of him is relevant and encyclopedic. I just don't see how the British election is notable as an indication of Bush's popularity in the U.K., either for Blair's success (retaining his office) or for his failure (not retaining the large Labour majority from the previous election). The connection to Bush is just too tenuous. Brits and other furriners have this strange tendency of paying attention to some issues that don't directly affect the U.S. JamesMLane 16:38, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, worldwide opinion is encyclopedic and relevant, but you don't have any evidence of worldwide opinion without the poll citations. And you can't discuss the poll citations without discussing their potential for unreliability and evidence that shows it. --Noitall 16:48, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
The link between Tony Blair getting elected and the polls being wrong is highly dubious at best. If you want to prove the polls wrong, look at the methodology and possible systemic bias. I wouldn't mind including theories on why these polls were wrong based upon statistical analysis (just like the exit poll discrepancy discussion here) rather than simply saying that Blair got elected. Its one thing for polls dealing with whether Kerry or not will win to be incorrect, then for polls showing Bush is hated in the UK to be "wrong" simply because Tony Blair got elected. Because Kerry lost, the exit polls were automatically wrong. But it is still possible for most of the UK to hate Bush but elect Blair on other reasons. Do you even have any methodology as to what issues were most important to those interviewed? --kizzle 17:42, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
We don't have methodology info and that is why just reciting some poll may be flawed (we should not state that it is flawed, only that it may be). And the fact that it "is still possible for most of the UK to hate Bush but elect Blair on other reasons" is entirely accurate, but it also gives an indication regarding the poll issue. Although if this article was book length, one could go into all the polling issues, given the relevancy in this particular article, it seems it is unnecessary to go into more than the proposed edit. --Noitall 17:51, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
Please. "May be" is pure insinuation based upon circumstantial evidence that implies only a tertiary connection. If you're going to say "may be flawed," then state why the poll itself is flawed? Were there any notable papers or articles on possible reasons for systemic bias? Was the sample size too small? Like i said before, because Kerry lost, the U.S. exit polls were automatically wrong. But it is still possible for most of the UK to hate Bush but elect Blair on other reasons. One poll tries to ascertain the reality of a situation whereas the other is just an opinion poll. It is entirely possible (and probable) that of this majority who hated Bush, some still chose Blair because of other issues simply than his support of Bush's war. This possibility must be addressed before ignorantly insinuating that the polls were wrong without proper investigation. --kizzle 18:12, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
Please. You have it entirely backwards. You can't cite the poll data without mentioning these things. The polls "may be" wrong. And the Blair issue is used for the limited reason of providing "some" evidentiariary support that they may be wrong. How much is up to interpretation. You and I would obviously disagree with how much. The important thing is to lay it out there for the reader to decide. They are all potentially reliable indicators, as well as they are all potentially unreliable indicators. Picking and choosing is POV. --Noitall 18:27, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
Of course picking and choosing is POV. But we should have some standards as to what choices of perspective we give them. And frankly, your estimation that Blair's victory is an indicator of the polls being wrong is just pure ignorance of statistics. Let's say for a second that people who were polled on what was most important to them picked issues other than the Iraq War, such as health care, homeland security, etc. We need to explore this, because if the polls you cite say that the Iraq war or support for Bush is not among the top reasons people considered in voting for a candidate, then by inferring the defect lies in the polls, you are dead wrong. Implying that one poll saying Bush is unpopular in the UK means that everyone who hates Bush is not going to vote for Blair is simply ludicrous. There are so many other factors in considering choosing a head of state, do we choose our president just based upon his support for foreign leaders? "They are all potentially reliable indicators, as well as they are all potentially unreliable indicators" would clearly not be true in this case. It's not even a question about picking and choosing. Its just plain wrong. Don't you think we should actually examine this possibility before giving the reader a possibly erroneous perspective? --kizzle 19:03, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
Generally speaking, the parties of the right are thought to be the Conservatives (U.K.) and the Republicans (U.S.), while the parties of the left are Labour (U.K.) and the Democrats (U.S.) -- at least, among the major parties that have a credible chance of winning the election. Noitall, your thesis is that a British voter who despised Bush (leader of the more right-wing major party in the U.S.) would express that disdain by voting for another right-winger in the U.K. Granting for the moment the completely unsupported and patently implausible theory that many British voters chose between Blair and Howard based on their opinions of Bush, why would these hypothetical anti-Bush voters have gravitated toward one of Bush's fellow right-wingers? JamesMLane 20:10, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Your argument is a shorthanded and false argument. Domestic policies generally do not translate across countries; foreign policies can. In this timframe, the number one policy where people were most passionate about was the war in Iraq and terrorism.--Noitall 03:15, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
So do you also believe that the completely separate polls showing Blair's opponent, Michael Howard, far behind in pre-election polls are wrong as well? Because remember, if most of the people in the UK hate Bush, then they can't vote for Bush, right? So this poll must be inaccurate as well. Also please respond to the points I address above. --kizzle 04:28, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • I appreciate that you brought that up Kizzle. The version I supported used the Blair issue to demonstrate the potential unreliability of the polls. I agree to the potential inaccuracies of all these polls, but the only one relevant in this article is related to Bush's popularity in Europe.--Noitall 04:45, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
The sections about Blair winning reelection despite the polls showing that his ally (Bush ) is very unpopular there, along with the Kerry exit polls sentence was there to balance the discussion that polls are not always the best way to gauge true sentiments, votes are. If we take out the comment on Blair that's fine, but we also have to eliminate the part saying polls aren't always reliable and then discard Kerry as well. The all we have left is that internationally, polls show that Bush is very unpopular outside of the U.S. While I don't doubt this is true, is it completely a fact based conclusion, and if so, how does one explain why Blair got reelected (albeit narrowly) when he is an ally of "Bush's War" and what explains why the exit polls for Kerry victories ended up being loses? The two counterpoints of Blair and Kerry are there for balance to show that polls aren't necessarily completely reliable.--MONGO 05:54, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Because, plain and simple, there are significantly more factors involved then simply choosing a president based upon their support for a foreign leader. Kerry's poll is completely different, because it can be wrong or right as it tries to represent reality. The poll you are citing is an opinion poll and is much harder to "prove" wrong. It is also slightly self-centered as Americans to think that a foreign country elects leaders solely based upon their support for Bush. I think James said it best, that this is a link which is unsupported and patently implausible. If you can find a notable academic criticism of the opinion poll, then I agree it should be included. But to introduce doubt into the poll simply because Blair is pro-Bush, Blair won a majority, thus a majority of the people could be pro-Bush is ridiculous. Don't you see how fallacious this argument is? People could be (and are probably) voting for Blair on a multitude of reasons, and not 100% nor 90% nor 80% of people who hate Bush are going to vote against Blair simply for this reason. If you disagree, the burden of proof lies on you to substantiate any such links rather than pulling a Stephen Hayes/Douglas Feith and making them up out of thin air. p.s., thanks noitall for not addressing any of my previous points. --kizzle 06:10, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Kerry's exit polls showed that in several states he would win and he didn't...now aside from psuedo-scientific concepts that there were some voting machine tampering, voter harassment or similar far left conceptualizations, all it proves is that polls are not as reliable as votes in the end when deciding popularity. Blair won "in spite" of his support of the most devisive issue in the U.K. "Bush's War". I don't know what the polls said prior to Blair's election as to his prospects for victory, but the fact that he did win, shows that even though the U.K. polls show that Bush is very unpopular there and Blair is a strong supporter of the war, he still won reelection. The reelection of Blair does bring to question the exclusive reliability of polls when trying to ascertain international opinion.--MONGO 06:23, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
So this is your argument:
1)Polls show that the UK heavily disfavors Bush.
2)Tony Blair, a supporter of Bush, still won the election.
Therefore,
3) 1 is not true.
However, 2 does not necessarily negate 1. Why is it not possible that people hate Bush but like Blair over the other candidate? This seems much more plausible to me. Do you think your argument would hold up in a room of statisticians? What was wrong with the poll? Sample size too small? Bias in the interviewers? Incorrectly chosen precincts? Non-randomness? If so, where did it fail to attain an equal probability of selecting a respondant? You need to make the case that people cared about Blair's support for Bush (which is different from support against Terrorism or the Iraq War) over any other issue in order to achieve the high percentage of correlation between your disputed opinion poll and the election results, and thus infer doubt in the former. In other words, you need to prove that the majority of people who hate Bush also considered Blair's support of Bush as their most important issue. --kizzle 07:04, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Unlike me, kizzle is basically a nice person, which is why he politely characterizes this argument (British election as a referendum on Bush) as "slightly self-centered". Putting that aside, Noitall and MONGO, you still haven't explained what the anti-Bush British voter was supposed to do. Bush wasn't on the ballot for them to vote against. Kerry wasn't on the ballot to vote for, nor was Michael Moore. Blair was supportive of Bush, but so was the chief opposition candidate, Michael Howard (who had voted for the invasion of Iraq). Furthermore, although domestic policies don't translate perfectly, there's some similarity. On domestic policy grounds, most of the anti-Bush Britons who disliked Blair would dislike Howard even more. (Of course, the British don't vote for the candidates for Prime Minister. They vote for their local MP. British voters elected many Labour MP's who are solidly anti-Bush.) You seem to be saying that the polls must be wrong because these alleged millions of anti-Bush voters didn't make their presence felt at the polls, but you still haven't explained how they were supposed to do that. What result in the British election would have disconfirmed your hypothesis? What result would have shown that the polls underestimated the animosity against Bush? JamesMLane 07:53, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
So, leaving the section on Blair in there makes me or supportors of the information self centered? The point has nothing to do with Blair's victory being a referendum of support for Bush by the British people. The sentence was added because the blatent POV suggesting that international polls showing that Bush is unpopular may not always be correct. It uses two examples that suggests polls may be incorrect..they may not be strong examples and not cross reference well because they are based on votes. I don't have a problem with the elimination of Blair's reelection info and agree that the evidence doesn't show that the polls are wrong. But they do suggest that if indeed the polls are correct that the U.K. sentiment is strongly antiwar, and they knew that Blair wasn't going to run away from Iraq, he still got reelected. Not sure what your comment about niceness has to do with the subject of the debate.--MONGO 11:01, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
As I understand it, the argument for mentioning the British election in Bush's bio runs like this:
  1. If the polls are correct, there are millions of Britons who dislike Bush.
  2. In the election between Blair and Howard, many Britons would vote according to their opinions of Bush.
  3. If millions of Britons dislike Bush, they would have voted against Blair and he would not have been re-elected.
  4. Blair was re-elected, so the polls about Bush were wrong.
Kizzle described it as "slightly self-centered" for Americans to believe point #2. My reference to his niceness was a joking way of saying that "slightly" self-centered was far too understated a description for such an absurd viewpoint. I went on to dispute point #3 by noting that, if there were any British voters who wanted to vote on the basis of their attitudes toward Bush, they couldn't do so. Blair supported Bush's policy. Howard supported Bush's policy. Therefore, surprise surprise, the winner of the election was someone who supported Bush's policy. So what? There's no reason to think that anti-Bush Britons, many of them leftist, would vote for a rightist Bush supporter just to spite a leftist Bush supporter. Therefore, there's no reason that the election between Blair and Howard might prove or even suggest that the polls about Bush were inaccurate. JamesMLane 12:54, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Okay...I took the comment about Blair out as there appeared to be a consensus that it be removed. In closing, Blair seemes to be not only a supporter of the Iraq War but also a supporter of Bush, the man...was Howard a supportor of Bush the man? The opinion polls in the U.K. were based on more than just the Iraq War when determining Bush's popularity. Yeah, I know, as usual, they think he is just some cowboy...so what. I also am wondering why the mention of international views of Kerry have to do with Bush since the election is over...what purpose does it serve now except to be "tabloidish"? (is that a MONGOism)!?--MONGO 13:14, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • (Starting back here) JamesMLane your initial analysis on the argument is mostly correct. I would change #4 to state "Blair was re-elected, so the polls about Bush may be wrong or people do not feel very passionate/strongly about Bush or the poll could be attributed to general anti-Americanism and not Bush or the poll is only attributed to the U.S. position in Iraq war and not the other issues. In short, the poll may be unreliable to show that it is Bush himself who is unpopular. As to the argument regarding a true choice, that is like saying there was no true choice for the U.S. anti-war crowd because Kerry's position was that he would not withdraw the troops and believed that we must win the Iraq war -- clearly not accurate. --Noitall 14:32, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
No, "may be" is not acceptable as it is still insinuating that there is a significant probability that the polls were wrong when it is far from the case. The polls also may understate the UK's hatred for Bush, should we include this possibility as well if we're not going to supply any evidence from the polling data as to why they're wrong? Without analyzing the polling data itself, we can come up with all sorts of crazy conclusions. Noitall, you keep talking but never respond to any points. Next time you edit, respond to these questions specifically, as stated by James: "You seem to be saying that the polls must be wrong because these alleged millions of anti-Bush voters didn't make their presence felt at the polls, but you still haven't explained how they were supposed to do that. What result in the British election would have disconfirmed your hypothesis? What result would have shown that the polls underestimated the animosity against Bush?" --kizzle 15:54, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Kizzle, you keep making arguments that support my position. You are entirely correct when you state, "The polls also may understate the UK's hatred for Bush, should we include this possibility as well if we're not going to supply any evidence from the polling data as to why they're wrong? Without analyzing the polling data itself, we can come up with all sorts of crazy conclusions." Bottom line-->you are correct, the polls are entirely unreliable to draw any conclusion. --Noitall 20:49, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Did you ever take a course in statistics in college? Polls are accurate within the margin of error. Its not like they are random numbers that are pulled from thin air. I highly advise visiting sites such as MysteryPollster.com to learn more of the intracacies of modern polling and statistics. The Ipsos-AP poll cited is accurate to within +/- 3 percentage points. Seeing as the UK is 66% against Bush (which is a textbook case of statistical significance), you're going to have to prove significant systemic bias within the polls to substantiate your claim. Period. Go take a refresher course on statistics if you disagree. My reference to making all sorts of crazy conclusions is if we use the Noitall method of manufacturing doubt in the poll without actually looking at the statistical data it relies upon. --kizzle 21:22, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • I did far more than read a book or take a course. Sample size, which is where you get the "margin of error" is only one of many many ways that a poll can be unreliable. Your assertion of unreliability above -- which I entirely agree with -- was based on things entirely unrelated to sample size. But I really don't have time or the inclination to teach you a whole course here on Wiki, nor is it appropriate for the article. Unreliable information must be either balanced or removed. --Noitall 21:49, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
You still haven't explained how a poll with a +/- 3% MOE showing 66% of people in the UK who hate Bush is unreliable. What specifically, coming from the polling data itself, makes you believe that this poll was unreliable? In addition, if you purely justify this unreliability by Blair's election, I'll ask the question again: You seem to be saying that the polls must be wrong because these alleged millions of anti-Bush voters didn't make their presence felt at the polls, but you still haven't explained how they were supposed to do that. What result in the British election would have disconfirmed your hypothesis? What result would have shown that the polls underestimated the animosity against Bush? --kizzle 21:54, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

As someone who was involved in the election campaign, the impressions I got were

- George Bush was a negative factor, acting against Tony Blair. Focus groups showed that a picture of Blair and Bush together drew an extremely negative reaction, from voters across the political spectrum. We Brits, whether we're left wing or right wing, don't like to think of ourselves as an appendage of the USA. - The Iraq War was also unpopular and cost votes, particularly amongst Muslims and younger voters. I would think 1 in 10 Labour voters switched votes or abstained on this issue. - HOWEVER - Iraq was NOT the main factor in deciding the overall result, especially as the main opposition party only differed in detail on its Iraq policy from that of the government. Many Labour voters stayed loyal despite disagreeing with Blair's Iraq policy. A MORI poll listed Iraq as 14th out of the main factors quoted by voters as influencing their vote. - George Galloway's victory came in a constituency with a large Muslim population. A remarkable achievement, but he wouldn't have won had he stood in a seat without a large Muslim community.

Since the election, Labour has had a big lead in opinion polls - 12-17%. The London Bombings, if anything, helped Tony Blair and his party.

So - I think "despite" is fair comment. Mentioning George Galloway? One MP out of over 600? Fair enough in a discussion of anti-war activism in the UK, but in an article about George Bush?

Exile 17:06, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

blahir

Also wanted to note that my quote "Bush's war" is a pun...Kerry voted to use force as did Hillary.--MONGO 06:25, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
No, it's ok, that's the appropriate title as I think that Bush had slightly more to do with the Iraq war then two liberal senators.--kizzle 07:04, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Hey you're right and it's a good thing we didn't have either of them guiding the U.S. down a path of least resistance.--MONGO 11:01, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Seems like that's what the country wants now, as polls show high unfavorability of the Iraq war, unless those are wrong too. ;) --kizzle 16:33, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
That means maybe Nader has a chance in 2008?...oh goodie.:(--MONGO 20:10, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
not in a million years :) --kizzle 21:24, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry to but in, but does the word "narrowly" really apply to the 2004 election as it did in the 2000 one? I just noticed it in the opening paragraph. Close though the 2004 was, the word implies that Bush just scraped through....Banes 08:53, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think that was referring to the 118,000 votes in Ohio that determined the presidency, personally, I don't really care if its there or not. --kizzle 09:13, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
I know the world is coming to an end if I take kizzle's side in a political article, but 2004 was also narrow due to it coming down to 1 pretty close state in the electoral college. --Noitall 13:08, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
You know, I think you two are both right there. I fired off that comment above because my mind was on the popular vote at the time, I forgot about Ohio. Apologies, I hope I have not accidentally caused an apocolypse! Banes 15:56, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
How dare you sir!! nah, it's chill. --kizzle 16:01, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • did someone actually name this header blah?? That's rediculous, everyone knows the traditional spelling of bla is w/o the h -- anon
No problem, Kizzle used to like that popular vote arguement herself until 2004 rolled around :) --Noitall 20:54, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Just to let you know, its hisself. --kizzle 20:55, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Wouldn't that be himself seeing as how hisself isn't a word -- anon
Lets just say I wasn't an english major :) Actually, just looked it up and it is a word, but I don't come from the south so you still got me :) --kizzle 21:04, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, there is always the s/he/is/er/it --Noitall 21:11, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
This is really not that complicated. --kizzle 21:13, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
I've always seen it with an h and in fact rarely see it misspelled without the h. Ridiculous is also misspelled. But, whatever.

Polls outside the U.S.

I don't know how that much got added but it turned an otherwise mostly unbiased section baised against Bush. MORE importantly though it needs to be summerized more and not have several paragraphs devoted to each poll. That entire section should be a max of two paragraphs... if it needs more it should be in a seperate article IMHO --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 22:28, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to balance the info from each article, but its hard not to call a spade a spade. If you think that I left out positive info from those polls, then please incorporate them into the page. As for limiting this section to 2 paragraphs, I think the level of information on the subject warrants slightly more than that, so lets keep editing and if it gets too much larger we'll daughterize it. Alternatively, if you don't like organizing by poll, we can organize by topics, but I like the organization by poll because we can append the methodology and survey info to those who want to know the MOE, sample size, and such. --kizzle 22:35, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
Topics would be better because while going by poll is nice, its way too technical for many people. Ultimately I still think that while this is useful information, it still think it should be daughterized or find a way to summerize content with less... content :). IMHO of course, but this article is already 80k... and personally I still havn't read it all :). --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 23:00, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
While most people don't want to know the technical details, it helps when certain editors try and discredit these polls by saying the "requirements for a margin of error were not met" (which I removed)... just helps stop that argument up front. I'm just a fan of quoting sources rather than letting us interpret them. I'll take a look and see if they can possibly be reorganized by common topics. As for shortening it, I was actually fascinated by the first poll that such a majority of people thought the Iraq war made things worse, yet they still believe there were other justifications besides WMD to go to war. I think there's a lot of good info on public perception of Bush in these polls, but I agree, if it starts to get bigger we'll daughterize it. --kizzle 00:14, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Here are a few of the items that make this poll potentially unreliable (beside the margin of error, which we actually do not know is correct and we do not know if they used a reliable pollster):

  1. we don't have methodology info (Kizzle said this)
  2. we don't know the population sampled (stay at home Moms, the Move-on.com crowd, etc)
  3. we don't know the response rate (this indicates the population sampled)
  4. we don't know the exact question asked (remember, we got into this issue on the William Clinton legacy poll and Kizzle took the opposite POV)
    1. That's actually quite humorous to accuse me of this, when I tried to put the methodology up on Clinton's page you wouldn't have any of it. --kizzle 02:14, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
    2. -->not true at all:I did not delete any methodology. I am also not arguing it should be here except in a source. You seem to think that the only methodology is the MOE. And the issue here is that you demanded to use the actually words of the poll rather than some others' interpretations of that poll.
  5. there is no attempt to quantify what is related to Bush and what is related to anti-American, anti-superpower, anti-foreigner sentiment
  6. much of the issue is related to the War in Iraq, so much of this is actually incorrect to attribute to Bush -- it should instead say the War in Iraq is unpopular and many people associate the American President with it
  7. I'll think of more

--Noitall 00:57, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

We, as the public, never know the detailed methodology info, nor who exactly was sampled, nor the response rate. The exact questions asked can generally be found in the polling info provided to the public, just look for it. As for "no attempt to quantify what is related to Bush and what is related to anti-American, anti-superpower, anti-foreigner sentiment", this is true with any poll that we don't know certain other reasons people may have when they have preference of one thing over another.
Here's the problem. What you have just posted is a statistics 101 list of common polling errors. Does the fact that these exist invalidate every single post in existence? Are we going to go to every poll cited in every newspaper, tv show, and wikipedia article saying that polls are unreliable? You have absolutely no evidence, be it direct or circumstantial, that casts more doubt on this poll than any other poll in existence. Yes, those are possible polling errors. But given that these polls are conducted by experts, it is assumed that they account for these issues. Even still, polls are not exact but accurate only to a point. But this point is expressly given, and in this poll, there is a 95%-99% assurance that the polls are correct within +/- 3 percentage points. And seeing as the UK polls show that 66% of the people hate Bush, once you pass 63%, the chances of them being off become enormously small. Let's assume for a moment, just to be safe, that we double the margin of error to +/- 6 percentage points. That's a huge swing either way, and incorporates large design effects that would increase the sampling margin(even though the polling company has reviewed their data and explicitly determined that they are 95% sure within +/- 3%). That means, at best case scenario for Bush, that the polls within the MOE show 60% supported Bush (66% - 6% swing within MOE). Tell me this, seeing as you "did far more than read a book or take a course" on statistics, calculate what the probability of given the polls showing 66% with a confidence level of 95% and a 6-point MOE (twice what was given), that they would be off by an additional 5% (55% hating Bush), in other words, 5 points below 60%, the lowest point within the MOE (and still showing a majority of UK hating Bush). Then tell me the polls were off. --kizzle 01:59, August 16, 2005 (UTC)


  • Amazing...if one piece of polling information is inserted that shows a positive to the Iraq War...removal of Saddam, it has to be quantified with more and more negative international opinions when there already were nothing but negative opinions. Try to add balance and not only is the information de-italized it is counterargued...is the poll that Jordanians feel that Iraq may be worse off without Saddam a surprise...NO. Is the poll which shows that folks in the U.K., Germany and France feel that the Iraqi people will be better off now that Saddam is gone a surprise? YES! And why, well, because citizens from those countries repeatedly poll against the war....I guess they assume he was going to step down or abide by the UN resolutions, just out of the blue just because, well, he is actually a sweetheart. Sure. What started out as a simple effort to add balance is now just another section the left is using to lampoon the President...Again, the international polls deserve mention...and there should be balance, but the section now is so long it looks like international opinion is more important than domestic opinion. Oh well.--MONGO 02:37, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
    • Sorry Mongo, I didn't mean to give the impression that I was adding information tit-for-tat to counteract any positive statements in there. My general feeling behind expanding the international section, is that previously, the information from the polls was being cherry-picked and were not representative of the polls at all. No offense to you, Mongo, but out of the whole CBC poll, you chose to include the fact that Israel had 62% support of Bush, despite this being the only foreign country out of 9 countries sampled to even pass the 50% mark in net favorability. Subsequently, I organized these into individual polls and tried to quote the most important passages, namely that of Bush's major foreign policy issues. I have tried to add what I could find for positive balance, such as the countries that did support going into Iraq and that the war was justified beyond just issues of WMD, but I don't want to cherry pick the reader. I was frankly shocked when I actually took the time to read the polls that were being quoted before; the references made here do not do them justice. But my point is not to provide tit-for-tat analysis, but to accurately portray the general feeling of each poll, and unless I'm crazy, they're not too great for Bush. Even still, I did a sweep for positive conclusions, but I probably did not get them all. Please add any positive ones you see besides the ones I already have added. And please read the whole results of each of the polls, Mongo, for your own sake, then tell me what is written here is not representative. --kizzle 02:55, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
No apology is needed of course. Just that there was nothing but negative reviews and I was just trying to insert one positive and then balance it. Remember, in my bias of the U.S. being the center of the universe, I consider international opinion to be not noteworthy in an encyclopic article on Bush. It deserves some mention but not a long drawn out attack...we should condense the section to 3 bads and one good , deitalized most of it as it overemphaiszes anyway, and leave it at that.--MONGO 03:07, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
If what the issues stated above are "polling 101", then Kizzle needs to take it. First, polling in the U.S. when used by news organizations are well known and closely and statistically examined. One issue coming to the fore is the increase in unreliability of U.S. polls due to many of the factors I mentioned. In a foreign poll, you have none of the history, frequency, familiarity, statistical examination, etc. Basically you can take the increasinging unreliability of U.S. polling and multiply the unreliability times 10. And finally, I did not state they I wanted to state that they were unreliable, I stated that the article needs to mention their potential unreliability. The fact that you blindly accept the polls you like and fight the polls you don't, and do not wish to have anything in an article that contradicts your POV, well, nothing more needs said. --Noitall 03:59, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, I am very genuinely curious as to where you get this info from? Can you cite an academic paper or notable article comparing the accuracy of foreign polls to be inferior to U.S. polls? Are you quoting this multiplying unreliability by 10 from somewhere I'm not aware of or are you just pulling it out of your ass? If that's even true, then why would anyone conduct polls in Europe with a +/- 30% margin of error? It's about time you start quoting sources for this info rather than teaching about a subject you purport to be familiar with. If you are alleging a swing of over 16% (just to hit the 50/50) mark based upon unreliability, it should take you about 2 seconds on Google to find a notable academic criticism of the Ipsos poll stating such a conclusion, as that's pretty newsworthy. And I don't think there's anything more of a stretch in your entire post then characterizing my agreement with the poll as "blind". Read my post to you about why mathematically, the chances are so low that the polls are off (even doubling the MOE). I spaced out Mongo's post from mine to still give you room to answer my above question, which is very liberal in doubling the margin of error. I bet 5 bucks you'll never answer it. --kizzle 04:38, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Now you are into POV idiocy throwing in your best vocabulary to boot. Try addressing the issue, which was the potential unreliability of polls and the multiple reasons for it. --Noitall 07:07, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
LOL! POV idiocy!? Asking you to provide sources is POV idiocy?? Clearly you are running out of arguments if you're attacking my vocabulary rather than answering a single question or providing a single source. C'mon Noitall, you said I had to go back to Stats 101, I thought you'd at the very least support your own argument. --kizzle 16:56, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

ah, hem..

as another venerable 172.x.x.x predicted earlier on the talk page, once the issue at hand was dropped, the article would be, and in fact was, reverted to once again imply Bush won by some absurd majority in 2004, in a nice back door edit by a much less reputable anon then myself, I could remove it, but I'm sure six zillion open-source-anons would show up, and rv back to the pro bush version, over and over again, and I don't have the energy to get pulled into that - yours, truely anon1138

Yeah, I tried rephrasing it, but it got reverted a half hour later. --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 07:49, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I made another attempt... --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 08:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Look, Ive just changed that line slightly to state that the amount of votes each candidate recieved (obviously) reflect the fact that 2004 boasted the largest voter turnout ever. If anyone objects to that, I guess it will be reverted. I wonder how long my first edit on this page will last...(sniff)..? Banes 08:24, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that was implied by the fact that bush got the highest ever and kerry got the 2nd highest ever. Anyway, I've reworked your version for grammer reasons (also PLEASE use edit summeries on a page like this)... if anyone thinks my version is better go ahead and be bold! --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 08:28, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Again, what diff does the volume of voters have to do with anything? In reality, each progressive election stands the chance of setting new totals for the number of voters due to population increases. I think the number of votes for each and the percentage of difference of those votes is all that matters...it was that way for a long time and to do otherwise becomes POV, either way.--MONGO 09:08, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
That's what we're saying MONGO - anons and others keep putting the "he won the most popular votes ever"-type thing back in the article, so we're (or I am) trying (or tried, I guess) to rework that into something from a NPOV. You can see one of my previous edits to see a version without this... --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 09:27, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Then get the number of votes back in there and the percentage diff and see if it will stick around. If any article is going to get changed endlessly, it's this one.--MONGO 09:34, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Nevermind, I toook all that POV out...everything anyone needs to know is here: [1], along with links to all the quasi-encyclopedic articles and the silly innuendo that go along with it.--MONGO 09:40, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
IMHO, To be consistant you should take out the stuff about the 2000 election being controversial and whatnot to help prevent an edit war on that paragraph. --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 09:55, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm leaving that...it was brought to a discussion before and most felt that the election in 2000 should be called controversial. Even I think it was controversial...aside from pipedreams, the 2004 election wasn't...albeit there still wasn't anything close to a mandate as Bush proclaimed.--MONGO 10:09, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
When speaking to a group of mostly intelligent people, please do not call the clearly substantial 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities "pipedreams"--this reveals your inherent bias. magicOgre 18:18, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough :) (I wasn't making a political argument though, just making a consistancy argument from a CopyEditor's POV). Thanks for the responses! --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 10:36, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
When are you people going to give it up already and stop defending this raging communist, why do you think you lost the last election??--I-2-d2 13:12, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
What? Gzuckier 18:41, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraph looks reasonably neutral as it is. If anything is going to be put in, I would say percentages for victory margins are probably best. P.S. Sorry Ryan for not using the edit summary, I clean forgot. Banes 10:44, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • yep, this version should be fine, assuming there aren't anymore waves of anon sponsered edits - yours, truely anon1138

block

is there anyway to block all these returning vandals?? they keep showing up in the 80somethign range, can you block all the 80s or somthing?--I-2-d2 15:15, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bush suffering from presenile dementia?

Can anyone tell me why there does not appear to be a single reference in this article to Mr. Bush's apparent mental health problems (see the below links for further details). Fergananim

Thanks you for your time.

Please refrain from making personal attacks in the future. Thank you. --kizzle 18:00, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Wow, calm down there I-2-d2. WP:CIVIL would be a good place to spend some time. Gotta be careful on pages like these. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:01, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be possible to obtain a serious reply to my question? Now that I think of it I seem to recall that this subject was raised sometime ago, but what was the outcome? Or was the wiki concensus to leave this out? If so, for what reason? Go raibh maith agat. Fergananim 16.8.05.

  • The concensus was to leave it out and you should read here:[2]. All the arguments are there.--MONGO 19:52, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • The short answer, based on a quick perusal of your links: none of the links you provided present any conclusive evidence that Bush has any sort of mental problem. Speculation by editorialists and psychoanalysts with an agenda don't really belong in the article. Wikipedia:Reliable sources might be a good read for you. android79 18:23, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Because none of your links cite serious sources, and the articles that are cited are all in fact talking about one book and one article. Hardly a major issue. DJ Clayworth 18:27, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Also, if they are referring to his mistakes with speech, there is a reference to Bushisms in the article. There is a mention of his college grades as well. Besides the unreliability of sources, there would be no way to prove it, and is therefore highly speculative. We don't want to make outrageous, unverifiable claims here. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:28, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I thought it interesting nonetheless, and if I can find a copy of the book I will give it a read. I'm not going to go and place any references to this in the article proper as it would be a form of vandalism.

Haveing said that, as the same techniques were used on foreign leaders to discern their motives - added to the fact that this book was written by an accredited psychoanalyst who is good enough to work at George Washington University Medical Center - would it be out of line to at least make some link in the article to a page about Dr. Franks and the issue? Thanks again. Fergananim 16.8.05.

Well, I personally would be wary of claims from a person who has never actually examined the person. Just because someone has great credentials, does not mean they don't have their own POV. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:51, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
And thank you very much for your civility. Many people could take a lesson from you. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:52, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As well as POV I would compare the likely earnings of a book alleging the Bush has dementia with one coming to the conclusion that Bush is really quite normal. DJ Clayworth 18:54, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I would prefer to keep any speculative psychoanalysis-at-a-distance out of this article entirely, especially since it appears to be the work of one person. android79 18:57, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Every time I see this header in my watchlist, I think it says "prehensile dementia". --Golbez 19:00, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

it must be kicking in early ;) --kizzle 19:10, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Contrary to MONGO's statement, there was no consensus to leave anything out. The RfC on Bush's mental health arose in the context of his cocaine and alcohol abuse. Frank's book was referred to in the same disputed passage, although you've provided some additional links that weren't cited in the discussion. The RfC responses showed a roughly even split between those who wanted to address the subject in this article and those who wanted to suppress it. So that we could move on, the compromise was to put it in a daughter article, George W. Bush substance abuse controversy, with a reference in this article that is, to my mind, patently insufficient, but I was tired of fighting. The RfC is found here and in several of the later headings on that page. JamesMLane 06:53, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You never responded to kizzle's request on the issue. We were only in round 10 of the 15 round fight! Kizzle essentially stated that in a multiple choice candidacy for what is and what isn't, that the vote was to daughterize that garbage. C'mon...would you permit diagnosises from afar to be be in the Clinton's articles or in Ted Kennedy?--MONGO 07:52, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Of course I responded. It's in the archive now, so please forgive me for quoting myself at length; I'm doing it to save you the trouble of digging it out of the stacks. For those who weren't around then, "Version 1" was to have nothing in this article, "Version 3" was to have a summary of the issues, and "Version 4" was to have a presentation of the evidence and arguments on both sides. In response to kizzle's computation, I wrote:
I realize you were just amalgamating the positions, and I think it was a useful post. As to what we do with your data, though, we can't treat Versions 1, 3, and 4 as three completely distinct approaches. Some of us voting for Version 4 expressly noted that Version 3 would be our second choice, and, given the nature of each version, I think it's reasonable to assume that all the Version 4 supporters would feel that way. If you think that the level of detail in Version 4 is the best, then it would be strange to prefer Version 1 to Version 3, since Version 3 preserves more of that detail than does Version 1. So, I don't agree that we have "a crystal clear front-runner". We have an approximately equal division on the question whether Version 1 is acceptable or omits too much. I agree there's no ready solution that doesn't involve more work, but that's the result of the opinions people hold. We can't avoid that problem by pretending that Version 1, opposed by half those responding, is any sort of consensus. Given that some Version 1 supporters actually wanted Version 1 plus Hatfield, and given that the comments suggest that the psychiatric stuff comes in for more criticism than Hatfield, maybe we could find something between Version 1 and Version 3 on that basis. JamesMLane 11:21, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
Thus, I stand by my description above of the results: "a roughly even split between those who wanted to address the subject in this article and those who wanted to suppress it." JamesMLane 11:31, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No offense, James, but you didn't respond to my comment. No biggie :) Here it is reprinted.--kizzle 17:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Geezus you're such a lawyer :). Makes me want to take the LSATs... Yes, there are stated second choices and nuances behind each vote as to present "semi-votes" towards other options. Yes, half of the people in the poll voted against version 1. But that's what you get when you have more than one option. We don't hold another election because more than half of the people voted against Clinton in a 3-party race. Given 4 options in a race, the fact that one now has 50% is relatively a crystal clear front runner.
My main point is this. Voting on Wikipedia is not a quantitative process, in that if the votes were 7-6-6-6, there's no way in hell we would favor option 1 over the others simply due to it having one more vote than the others. However, given the situation we have, option 1 has an equal amount of votes that the other two have combined. In a 4-party race, this is quite significant, and is not characterized fairly when you describe that "half the people voted against"... that's just lawyer-talk ;). In a 2-party system, yes this is significant. However, in a 3 or 4-party system, there will almost always be more than half of the people voting against any of the options.
Out of 4 options, the fact that option 1 has 50% of the votes is entirely significant, and in my mind is the closest we're going to get to concensus, unless you truly believe that re-drafting yet another option will get more than 50% of the vote. Of course, that would require us to take all the progress from this RfC and start from scratch, and I don't think people want to go through all of this yet again. No further questions, your honor. --kizzle 17:52, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
Those who wanted to suppress it? No those that felt that it was unencyclopedic as it was based on "quackery". My count shows 16 for version 1.5, 7 for #3 and 7 for #4 bearing in mind that you are graced with User:-Ril- as one of the votes for #3... and one other that has less then 10 edits in their history, hardly seems like a concensus either way. What 16 to 14 (er...12) in favor of "suppression". Oh well...and we both wasted a lot of time ending up almost where we started...--MONGO 11:50, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
The point I was making about the alternatives presented in the RfC is that they were best viewed as a continuum, not as three or four separate alternatives. If the queston is, "What shall we feed the campers for dessert, ice cream, pie, or sorbet?" then there really are three alternatives. The RfC was more like "How much ice cream should each camper get, two scoops, one scoop, or none at all?" The technical term is single-peakedness: Where the alternatives can be placed on a continuum, and each voter's enthusiasm for the alternatives would decline as s/he moved away from the preferred alternative in either direction, that affects the interpretation of results. (I was going to include a link to the discussion of this point in Arrow's impossibility theorem, but, inexcusably, there is no such discussion. Sigh, another item for the to-do list.) It's possible that someone would believe that doling out only one scoop was worse than useless, tantalizing the campers without giving them a full dessert, and that either zero or two would be better than one. It's more likely, though, that those whose first choice was zero or two would have one as a second choice. The trouble with interpreting the results your way, kizzle, is that people responding to the RfC would have an incentive to misstate their preferences. Anyway, if MONGO is now agreeing with me that there was no consensus to omit the material, then that's all that's currently relevant, and we can let Lord Voldemort stop flogging himself. JamesMLane 07:55, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I was not "flogging myself", I was just trying to point out that this has been has argued and discussed before, and it is getting old. Just move on!!! --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 14:17, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I said I wasn't going to mess with the passages much except to revert simple vandalism...my point was made...interpret a legal matter involving Florida and the obscenity issue and cast your Vfd Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency--MONGO 08:08, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Yikes, I thought we were done with all this. Perhaps I archived too soon. Guess I should have payed better attention. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 14:48, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One thing I would like to state for the record: my reading of these sources concerning Dr. Frank's evaluation of Mr. Bush made me feel one thing I have never felt for him before - compassion, the genuine article. I don't pretend that my personal feelings towards Bush are anything less than hostile, but I never expected such an article to have such a moving effect. Kinda like Luke insisting that Vader still had good in him, huh? Course I still think he's an appalling President and all the rest.

Now, back to the subject at hand .... would anyone support an article concerning this subject - with pros and cons of argument included - being linked to main Bush article? Also, I think you can see - if you give credence to Frank - why President Bush spends so much time excercising as he is of the belief that a healthy body makes a healthy mind. A statment that acquires deeper resonence with Frank's article in mind.

Also, this would not be the first time that a head of state has had a potentially devastating illness concealed while in office. In the USA alone, the likes of FDR, JFK and Regan got away with it.

I'm still mindful of what was said at the start of this discussion, thus I'm not going to make a move on something as contraversial as this among wikipedians unless I can obtain:

  • 1 - A Consensus based on through persual of the sources available.
  • 2 - Civil discussion.

Needless to say, I equally will not support someone else's article on the same subject if these criteria are not met. I don't mind if someone else does (please do! save me the bother!), just that if so, do it right or not at all.

Lastly: if single-source information was good enough to invade Iraq .... Cheers! Fergananim 19 August 2005.

  • I would apply the same arguments I made against including that content in this article to the creation of a standalone article. Also, if you want to promote civil discussion, please avoid inflammatory statements like "if single-source information was good enough to invade Iraq". I know it was meant in jest, but as you have seen firsthand, many that use this talk page will miss or ignore that fact. android79 14:13, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
    • You're right. Its hard to remember at times what effect a comment made without any real malice will have on-screen, when it would get a different reaction in person. Sorry. Fergananim 19 August 2005.

Abuse RfC

Was there ever any agreement on what should be done with the Abuse RfC? I would like to archive this talk page again and was wondering if I should continue to keep the Abuse RfC stuff at the top here? When I finally archive it, it will go in Archive 26 and the rest in #30. Does anyone disapprove of me archiving the RfC? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:01, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It has remained stable for awhile so you might as well achive. I didn't know there was any question on the Rfc...it appeared that the concensus was obvious and the current passages are the ones agreed on by this concensus.--MONGO 19:55, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I archived some, but the page is still fairly long. I didn't want to archive seemingly ongoing discussions, and I didn't really want to take too much stuff out of chronological order. I guess we just have to live with this for awhile. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:10, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unprecidented volume of vandalism

  • due to the extraoridnary volume of vandalism of this article, I suggest that it be protected, in order avert future vandals, all in favor, say aye...--I-2-d2 19:17, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • No. You think this is extraordinary? This is rather tame compared to most days. Furthermore, don't tell anons, quote, "You have 1 chance, per the warning in the George Bush article, and then you are to be banned for your repeated, sustained, perverse, vandalisms of the George Bush article". That was the only vandalism that anon had made, so, yeah, repeated? sustained? perverse? It helps to be factual when threatening people with an action you can't carry out. --Golbez 19:23, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
WP:CIVIL should be required reading before editing this page. Maybe any page. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:26, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This has been brought up, again and again. It may be a good idea, but, on the other hand, vandalism only lasts a few minutes before being reverted. (Amazingly, I check this article every day for vandalism and only once have I seen any. Thanks to all those brave editors who work tirelessly and are ever vigilant. Banes 08:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"Unprecidented volume of vandalism"? yYou missed the early days of Pope Benedict XVI.Geni 09:37, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

Could someone who supports keeping the NPOV tag on the article give a list of problem areas they would like worked on? Thanks! Hipocrite 14:50, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Endless. The international opinions section has more bad than good, the discussion of his business dealings is POV, the links to quasi-factual subarticles on substance abuse and military records shouldn't even be there, listings of Farenheit 911, Bushisms and other obviously biased works against the subject matter are POV. So long as this guy is President, this article is doomed to a neutrality problem.--MONGO 15:24, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
I think that's unfair to characterize the international opinion as POV. It has more bad than good because international opinion of Bush is more bad than good. NPOV doesn't mean equal balance, it means trying to accurately represent something without taking a side. This doesn't preclude that negative sentences balance out positive sentences in all respects, and in this case, its hard not to call a spade a spade. Read the entire polling results for the Pew Research Center, the Ipsos, and the CBC poll and tell me I did a biased job of representing those polls. For business dealings and GWB military records, what passages are POV to you? And as for quasi-factual subarticles on substance abuse, I couldn't agree with you more. :) --kizzle 17:03, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, let's do it one at a time. If the article is currently, in your opinion, at POV 100, where perfect NPOV is 0, what one issue could we fix to get the number down?
As a thought experiment, if you consider yourself "liberal," pick an issue that you think is too defamatory to The Commander In Chief, and if you are "conservative," pick and issue that is too laudatory to The Shrub. It'll be enlightening. Hipocrite 15:29, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Rumors of POV? Bush is essentially anti environment....expand that area displaying the facts....hard to do as he has done nothing to make the environment better so it's hard to criticize for decisions not made. You should read the discussions pages...they are both incredibly boring and incredibly boring:)--MONGO 16:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. In essence, I'm asking liberals to make the article more conservative, and conservatives to make the article more liberal, because a lot of the people I think have devolved into POV warriorship inspite of themselves. Edit for the enemy, and all. I read the entire discussion archive. Things seemed stalled, so I'm trying to constructively restart positive momentum. I think it would be great if you drafted an environmental section. Hipocrite 16:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to summerize and represent all POVs in the outside the US section --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 03:39, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Working list

JDoorjam 15:58, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see:
    • something about Bush being a cheerleader in college. Why isn't that in here? It's most definitely encyclopedic.
    • mention of the controversy surrounding his national guard service. In there... --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 16:39, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • mention of the fact that the 2004 election had the highest voter turnout in history. I know it's a tough one because there's a lot of data to cram in there, and I know this has been discussed to death already, but I still feel like there's a way to say "The 2004 election had the highest voter turnout in history, with both Bush and Kerry receiving more votes than any candidate in any previous election."
    • a removal of the language about the Senate and the Clinton administration in discussing the Kyoto Protocol, as it doesn't really seem to have much to do with Bush's foreign policy. This is both an NPOV issue and just a general wordiness issue -- this could be put on the Kyoto Protocol page.
    • The response of the United Nations Population Fund to Bush's claims that they support forced abortions and sterilizations in China.
    • an expansion, as appropriate, of the section about the current insurgency in Iraq.
    • an expansion of the hugely flagging support for the war.
    • sources for the pundits who said that the Downing Street memo was a smoking gun, and for those who said it was NOT evidence of cherry-picking intelligence.
    • more on the amount spent on the military, specifically outlining the amount spent on the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, as compared to inflation-adjusted figures before Bush took office.
    • an expansion of "management style". (I'm also not clear why that's under the "foreign policy and security" section.)
    • mention of his stance that homosexuality is immoral. Seemed appropriate to put it with the controversial gay appointments. --Arnoldlover 19:16, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • deeper discussion of Bush's opposition to affirmative action
    • expansion of the criticisms of the privatization of social security.
    • polling numbers regarding the privatization of social security.
    • mention of the controversy around Bush's "Social Security Town Hall meetings," which were essentially well-choreographed campaign rallies funded by the social security administration.
      • Actually, doesn't that describe all meetings between Bush and the public? Same issues arose around campaign stops.--66.166.234.138 00:58, 30 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • The campaign rallies were openly political and were paid for with campaign funds. The point about the political rallies for Bush's Social Security plan is that they were billed as "public" meetings to provide information, but in reality the government (not the campaign) was paying for political events that excluded everyone thought likely to disagree with the party line. JamesMLane 09:56, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • mention of stem cells in the "health" field (though this is more an organizational issue and not necessarily a POV issue).
    • removal of the word "misguided" in describing Bush's stance on intelligent design. Removed... --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 17:51, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • an expansion of Bush's religious beliefs and how the affect his policies, perhaps in a separate section.
    • expansion of criticisms by environmentalists about the Healthy Forests Initiative, if only to explain how the initiative is a "giveaway to timber companies."
    • mention of a reversal on the official stance on global warming.
    • expansion of Bush's proposed immigration policies.
    • removal of "including the first Asian-American female cabinet secretary (Chao)", which seems like an artifact from an earlier write-up. Not there anymore... --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:09, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • expansion of both the praise and criticism Bush receives on "the economy, homeland security, and his leadership after the September 11 attacks."
    • removal of the paragraph about midterm elections going to the Republicans; this has to do with Congress and the Republican party in general, not Bush.
    • mention that Bush is unpopular outside the U.S. for more reasons than simply the invasion of Iraq; his environmental policies and other issues have raised the ire of the world as well.
    • polls regarding Iraq from "Outside the United States" moved to the "Iraq" section, or eliminate them, as they have more to do with post-war Iraq than they do with Bush. Polls regarding Bush specifically should stay in this section.
    • Consolidate "people agree it was right to invade Iraq" stats (again, organizational more than NPOV).
    • mention that critics assert Bush and his administration is too concerned with the interests of big business, at the expense of the welfare of the American people.
      • In order to keep this article at a manageable length, many of these points simply can't be expanded here. We have to settle for a good concise summary with a link to a separate article that has more detailed information. For example, the three points in the foregoing list that concern Social Security are all appropriate for Social Security debate (United States). JamesMLane 09:35, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

F911 mention

mention of Fahrenheit 9/11 in the Iraq section of the article. It was a big deal, and is directly related to Bush and his presidency, no matter how much Bush supporters attempt to deny it. JDoorjam 15:58, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How was the movie a big deal to the war? Did you see no deliberate intent on the part of Michael Moore to distort...any more grieveously than Bush and his cronies did themselves? Between that movie and the lies from Bush et al...it's hard to know what the reality is.--MONGO 16:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
The controversy over the film can be mentioned as well, and is covered in detail on the movie's page. The film is a criticism of the presidency watched by millions of Americans. Whether the movie itself is POV or not has no bearing on whether its mention in this article is POV; certainly it can be entered in a neutral tone. JDoorjam 16:21, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Dwelves to much into controversy and makes an already too long article even longer. There is plenty of info on the article about the movie and it is adequately linked. Introduction of obvious anti BUsh innuendo that has shown to be not be very accurate will further reduce the chances that the NPOV tag can be removed. As I said, the lies and misrepresentations by Moore are about equal to those by the Bush Administration.--MONGO 16:28, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I think both of you can see where the other one is coming from, right? Without malice, let's try to find a way to solve this conflict? MONGO is clearly concerned that mentioning F911 will push F911 POV, while JDoorjam clearly believes that F911 was popular and deserves mention. What addition would lead us to something that satisifes both? Can we mention F911, link it, say lots of people saw it, that it had an anti-bush POV, that some challenge it's accuracy, not get into too much detail, do it in 1 paragraph and call this resolved?Hipocrite 16:41, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Fine by me. In fact, I'll bet you could do it in two, maybe three sentences. Something like "The most notable criticism of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq was the controversial film Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore. Moore, a self-professed (I'm sure you can find something that means "ultra-liberal"), blah blah." Moore himself refers to F911 as an op-ed; I have no qualms about that being mentioned here. But it really is too notable to simply go without mention in the body of the article. JDoorjam 16:58, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well I'm not too sure. Was the film really that influential on Bush's life? I mean, I know he hated it etc. etc. etc., but what effect did it really have? What is so wrong with just the link in the "See also" section? And hasn't this all been discussed before? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 17:02, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Unless it can be shown that the film had a measurable and significant impact on the 2004 election and opinion of Bush in general, I don't think it needs much more mention than a link in the See also section – maybe a matter-of-fact sentence or two. The film is described in detail in, surprisingly enough, the film's own article and anyone who wants more info on it can read that article. android79 17:18, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
If there were a separate page about the presidency of George W. Bush, separate from the page about the man, then I would agree with Lord Voldemort. And if this were the page about the 2004 election, I would agree with Android79. However, I would argue that, as a world-famous criticism of the presidency of George W. Bush that has been seen by millions around the globe, F911 is the most notable critique of a clearly controversial man, and as such deserves mention in the main body, even without studies showing its affects. Thousands of news articles were published about the film; millions saw the movie; it was mentioned in the Republican National Convention; it got people talking. As the most notable criticism of a very controversial figure, it deserves a place in the body of this article. JDoorjam 17:46, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Conversation detoured here from whether to include F911 to whether to divide the article -- see below

Environment

Bush is essentially anti environment....expand that area displaying the facts....hard to do as he has done nothing to make the environment better so it's hard to criticize for decisions not made. --MONGO 16:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

  • Being roundly criticized by environmentalists doesn't make one "anti-environment." android79 17:33, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
    • were the environment itself, alive, I'm sure it would criticize him too--205.188.116.10 18:07, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are absolutely right. It's his environmental record and not the mere criticism by environmentalists that makes him anti-environment. --kizzle 18:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure Bush, or anyone for that matter, is actually "anti-environment". They may be "anti-environmental protection laws", but not "anti-environment". Everyone needs something to live in. People don't kill the environment, just to be killing the environment. It generally stems from business, not "ani-environmentalism". --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:15, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

True, there are possibly better ways of describing Bush's stance on environmental protection than "anti-environmental", such as "pro-business" and such, but just because the primary intent is not to kill the environment for its own sake, the sheer disregard of the environment for selfish economic reasons is just as significant. --kizzle 18:27, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not saying that it isn't. I am just saying that "anti-environment", or "anti-just-about-anything" is just so POV. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:30, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
So anti-aircraft missiles should be referred to as pro-not-getting-bombed missiles? ;) --kizzle 19:05, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
Well I did say "just-about-anything". And hey, if they can rename the "War on Terror", they can rename anything. I'll go have a word with the SECNAV. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:26, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody's anti-environment. (Ok, ok, almost nobody.) Perhaps he "accused of giving business interests a higher priority than environmental concerns"? JDoorjam 18:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
D'oh, got me there. Shoulda remembered one of my fellow archvillians. Guess I won't be invited to his wedding now. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:41, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not many people are aware of it, but this is still contraversial. I know this thing isn't well formatted. I just joined wikipedia today. But, I think we shouldn't be pulling out all these changes until the research gives us more certainty. Waruigi --65.4.21.126 21:44, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting the Article

If there were a separate page about the presidency of George W. Bush, separate from the page about the man, then I would agree with Lord Voldemort (about Fahrenheit 9/11 not affecting Bush's life). And if this were the page about the 2004 election, I would agree with Android79 (about F911 not necessarily changing the outcome of the election). However, I would argue that, as a world-famous criticism of the presidency of George W. Bush that has been seen by millions around the globe, F911 is the most notable critique of a clearly controversial man, and as such deserves mention in the main body, even without studies showing its affects. Thousands of news articles were published about the film; millions saw the movie; it was mentioned in the Republican National Convention; it got people talking. As the most notable criticism of a very controversial figure, it deserves a place in the body of this article. JDoorjam 17:46, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Funny you should say that. I was just about to suggest splitting this article up or doing some sort of restructuring – it's currently 81 kilobytes in size, which is a bit larger than the recommended size. Any suggestions? android79 17:50, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
I support splitting out not only this, but all the presidencies from their person articles. "Presidency of George W. Bush" perhaps? "Second George W. Bush administration"? "George W. Bush administration"? --Golbez 17:55, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
There already are articles on the two terms of Bush, and Bush administration. And before we go about splitting articles, isn't there anything we can just delete? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 17:57, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I shortened it some. It's down to 75 KB... I deleted the Major appointees section. It was basically a carbon copy of Bush administration. I left a link. Let's see if it stands. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:07, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I support this change as well, though it didn't take long to get reverted. Later (hopefully today) I'll take a look at all relevant Bush articles and see if I can propose a better way to structure things. android79 19:03, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
I really like the idea of separating out a "Presidency of George W Bush" article, because in this day and age of extreme media exposure, we have more than enough biographical information to write separate articles about Bush the man and Bush the President. We might consider it for Clinton, too, though surprisingly his article isn't nearly as voluminous as Dubya's. Still... JDoorjam 20:04, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This is already in the article. And that is the problem with many of your POV complaints. We cannot add too much more into this article. It is already over recomended length. But let's try to see what we can do. Many of your claims will need sources ("Critics say..." may require sources, you say so yourself. Okay, off to work. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:13, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Outside the U.S. opinions REDUX

UG! well, at least we're getting somewhere. It is yet again tilted heavily towards the left side...

Remember Kizzle that while the source material is heavily biased against bush in this case, there is plenty to work with that supports him. You don't need to blow it out of proportion but you do need to keep it in perspective.

Not really a problem, but "has received" is passive voice.... "receives" or just "received" is active voice.... anyway... I'm not sure why the second sentence in the first paragraph was put back in - we've got quite a bit of statistical data already... speaking of that there really is so much in this section it's quite overwhelming IMHO

The second paragraph is really biased (not neccesarily bad if there's balance someplace else), You have a longish quote starting out the paragraph and then the rest, sans a brief mention in the last sentence, is all biased against. There isn't even a quote or anything for the last sentence....

The third and fourth paragraph are pretty much number spinned towards the left side with no balance whatsoever.

The last paragraph would be the only real positive paragraph... except its not a paragraph because theres only one sentence!

Kizzle, was there a particular problem you had with my version (mine was far from perfect (it had some grammer errors too)... but I thought it did a decent job keeping it from a NPOV)?

Ryan, first of all thank you for talking this through. Keep in mind, NPOV doesn't mean balancing a negative sentence with a positive sentence, but representing something accurately without taking sides. Have you read the entire polling results from the Ipsos, CBC, and Pew center? Bush simply doesn't have a good opinion from people outside the country (which of course we would never conclude for the reader). I don't understand what you mean by biased, as the poll results are clear from the datasheets provided... are you saying they modified the poll results or are you possibly disputing the veracity of the poll itself?
I had a problem with your version because I felt that you completely white-washed the results of the poll by giving one negative sentence then balancing it with one positive. Also, if you take the time to read the polls themselves, there's about 5 original words from me, the rest of the passages, both quoted and not, are quoted directly from these polls. I prefer to quote these sources rather than summarize or interpret, as it leaves less room for us to interpret and thus get into conflicts. And as it stands, the length has been cut down tremendously. I even removed the long paragraph quoted in the second Pew poll saying how the Iraq War has destabalized the world because it was slightly redundant to the mention in the first paragraph, so please don't think that I am simply trying to "pile on" bad things about Bush.
Once again, I beg of you please to read the polls themselves and ask if I am poorly representing the general nature of these polls. If there are any positive conclusions that I have perhaps missed, then I please invite you to add them. But as it stands, I think its vital for people, in understanding Bush's international opinion, to see direct quotes and opinions about:
  • Post-invasion Iraq
  • Weapons of Mass Destruction
  • Justifications for War
  • General opinion of Bush
  • Differences between US and Foreign opinion of BUsh
Sorry to repeat again, but please read these polls for yourselves and see if I mis-represented the general conclusions of each. --kizzle 01:43, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
P.S., for those who also wish to see if I mis-represented these polls, here are quick links to the three:--kizzle 01:47, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

I have to support kizzle's version on this matter. The polls and opinions ARE negative outside of the U.S., with little exception. This does not say that Bush ais a bad person(although one might infer that just because many other people share that opinion). Diluting this with 1:1 positives creates an inccurate description of the mojority of peopl's opinions about Bush outside of the U.S.Voice of All(MTG) 04:23, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Now both versions for people to compare -

Ryan's Version

People outside of the United Status have a very mixed opinion of Bush, although he is considered unpopular by many, especially after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many polls, such as Associated Press poll in 2004 [3] and a Pew Research Center poll in 2004 [4], find that people in countries such as Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Spain, and Canada hold a negative view of Bush. Other polls show that the majority of people in the UK, USA, Australia, and Israel agreed with Bush that it was right to invade Iraq (Q22).

Some points that the Associated Press poll makes are that the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was debious, and that the Iraq war has overly negative consequences. However, the Pew Research Center poll points out that, interestingly enough, most people believed that the Iraq war could be justified even without the discovery of weapons of mass destruction [5].

Kizzle's Version

Bush has received both criticism and praise outside the United States for his foreign policy decisions. Polls of Europeans highlighted a "transatlantic split over the war in Iraq". [6]

A survey conducted by Ipsos for the Associated Press in 2004 found that "just over half in Mexico and Italy had a negative view of Mr. Bush's role. In Britain, the closest U.S. ally in the war in Iraq, and in Canada, two-thirds had a negative view...Three-fourths of those in Spain and more than 80 percent in France and Germany had a negative view of Mr. Bush's role in world affairs." [7] While those in the United States were evenly divided on whether the war has increased or decreased the terror threat, most of those sampled outside the United States believe that Bush's foreign policy decisions in the Iraq war have "increased the threat of terrorism in the world." [8] Interestingly, a majority in five countries — the United States, Canada, Mexico, Italy and Britain believed that the Iraq war could be justified even without the discovery of weapons of mass destruction[9]

Another poll conducted by the Pew Research Center showed similar foreign attitudes towards Bush. Foreign opinion of post-invasion Iraq is relatively much higher. In another study, when Europeans were asked in 2004 if the Iraqi people will be better off now in a post-Hussein Iraq, 82% in the U.K., 67% in France and 65% in Germany agreed. [10] Those in Muslim countries surveyed in this poll are less confident of Iraq's future. Large majorities in almost every country surveyed think that American and British leaders lied when they claimed, prior to the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction." [11]

In Muslim countries Bush's unfavorability ratings are particularly high, often over 90%. [12] Among the non-U.S. nations polled in a worldwide poll by CBC, Bush's popularity was highest in Israel, where 62% reported favorable views, however in the CBC poll, Israel was the only foreign country polled that had a net favorable opinion of Bush.(Q2)

The majority of people in the UK, USA, Australia, and Israel however agreed with Bush that it was right to invade Iraq. (Q22)

--Ryan Norton T | @ | C 23:53, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Please keep in mind that most of the sentences above are quoted verbatim directly from either the polls or the articles themselves. I believe that doing such a thing leaves little room for interpretation on our end and helps avoid conflicts between the two sides.

JDoorjam's Version

... which is mostly a reorg of Kizzle's version....

With some exceptions, Bush is considered unpopular in many countries, especially after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many polls, such as Associated Press poll in 2004 [13] and a Pew Research Center poll in 2004 [14], find that people in countries such as Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Spain, and Canada hold a negative view of Bush. While those in the United States were evenly divided on whether the war has increased or decreased the terror threat, most of those sampled outside the United States believe that Bush's foreign policy decisions in the Iraq war have "increased the threat of terrorism in the world." [15] In Muslim countries Bush's unfavorability ratings are particularly high, often over 90%. [16] Among the non-U.S. nations polled in a worldwide poll by CBC, Bush's popularity was highest in Israel, where 62% reported favorable views; however, in the CBC poll, Israel was the only foreign country polled that had a net favorable opinion of Bush.(Q2)

While outside the United States Bush's favorability ratings are rather low, foreign opinion of post-invasion Iraq itself is relatively much higher. In another study, when Europeans were asked in 2004 whether the Iraqi people will be better off now in a post-Hussein Iraq, 82% in the U.K., 67% in France and 65% in Germany agreed; those in Muslim countries surveyed in this poll are less confident of Iraq's future. [17] And now, The Most POV Part of JDoorjam's Re-Write!! (I want to say here something along the lines of "the difference in the numbers is basically caused by a feeling that it was the right war for the wrong reasons -- that is that: ) Large majorities in almost every country surveyed think that American and British leaders lied when they claimed, prior to the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction." [18] (so they all got mad at Tony and George, but they support the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the increase in stability in the Middle East so much that: ) Interestingly, however, a majority in five countries — the United States, Canada, Mexico, Italy and Britain believed that the Iraq war could be justified even without the discovery of weapons of mass destruction[19]

Basically what I tried to do was put the "Bush stinks!" stats together in one pile and the "Iraq IROCKS!" stats in another paragraph. Is there a satisfactory way to say that, Righties, that is NPOV-clean? If that sort of statistical analysis that I made reference to in bold is simply too POV, alas, it will have to be up to the reader to figure out. See y'all tomorrow morning. JDoorjam 03:37, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bush's Popularity outside USA (foreign perspective)

It's not a perfect way of sourceing matters, but seeing as I appear to be the non-American here I might as well make a few comments on the matter (and they are just that, comments) based entirely on my own experiences.

It would be fair to say that at best Bush only enjoyed lukewarm support in the UK. A good example would be the reception he recieved in London in November 2003, just seven months after the end of the invasion and before Iraq became a mess apparant to all. Blair's support of Bush would have cost him dearly at the election had not Labour done so well in other areas. His personal popularity has being dragged down by Bush because many in the UK do not like to see their national leader being made to jump at the whim of another nation's leader.

Those citizens of Spain, France and Germany that I've met with (quite a few) universally dislike Bush, but that's hardly news.

What I do find supriseing is that certain east euro nations such as Poland and Ukraine, whom you would expect to jump to defend the USA, are also rather qualified in their support. In the case of some citizen of the former, I was very much suprised to hear him dismissed in terms too colourful to be repeated here (in any case they probably lost something in translation).

What has being most shocking for me has being the turn-around here in my own country. We were one of the most pro-USA countrys in Europe, and to see the turn-around here when he began pushing towards invading Iraq .... its very sad, especially as we have contributed so much to your nation. Members of my own family have fought in every significant American war from the Revolution onwards. What makes it so tragic is that it has taken the deaths of upwards of two thousand Americans to make so many reach the same conclusion so many in the rest of the world had already reached prior to March 2003.

Hopefully this should demonstrate (if only from an observer with bias) that not all those who oppose Bush are from US-hating countrys.

So, in short, I am all in favor of a well written sub-section detailing this aspect of international grivence at Bush's unilateralism, mainly because it does seem to be something that not too many Americans were ever aware of in the first place (perhaps why it was just France that got bashed for opposition to the invasion). All thoughts welcome. Fergananim 19 August 2005.

Your personal "foreign" opinion is noteworthy and is appreciated. I have to respond to your comment "What makes it so tragic is that it has taken the deaths of upwards of two thousand Americans to make so many reach the same conclusion so many in the rest of the world had already reached prior to March 2003." Obviously, no one can repay those families of deceased American soldiers (and also some foreign troops such as Mexicans that enlisted in the U.S. Army in accordance with being bestrowed U.S. citizenship as a reward). But what is that was learned that the majority of the U.S. population was unaware of that you claim the some many in the rest of the world already knew? Here's the bottom line: Saddam waged war against two other countries unprovoked. Saddam and his Baath party are the reason over 600 mass graves are in Iraq, filled with as many as 700,000 victims of his regime, tortured and exterminated. Saddam would flub his nose oftentimes at UN backed weapons inspections, interpreted by many to mean, whether he was or wasn't, covering something up. UN resolution 1441 passed unanimously and stated "serious consequences"...aside from the fact that every non aggressive UN action had already been utlized against Iraq, what where France and Germany doing voting for something they never intended to back up? The United States passed legislature endorsing the goal of ridding the world of Saddam during Clinton's administration, not Bush's. The United States then authorized President Bush the authority to invade Iraq...the closest thing it can do to an actual declaration of War, and it therefore, based on votes from even the likes of John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, gave President Bush more leagal reasons to invade Iraq than the U.S. ever had for being in Vietnam. Saddam wasn't going to go away, the UN did not enforce it's own words and failed to act, setting an ugly precident for future issues with tyrants such as Saddam. The decision to go to war in Iraq wasn't done to give America cheaper gas, play revenge for Daddy or to say to the world, hey we will do whatever we want. The war was done to rid the world of a vicious tyrant. That people in other countries or in the U.S. can't understand what a better place the world is with the Baatist regime gone, then they have no idea what it must have been like to be a Kurd or Shite Muslum or even someone that would dare to speak out against Saddam in Iraq. Bottom line, diplomacy with Saddam wasn't working. That's all I have to say on the matter...you can have the last word.--MONGO 01:34, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
  • Hi Mongo; you and I have crossed swords before, and still can't seem to make each other see our opposing points of view. We've said it all to each other before, at times acrimoniously, so what's the point of taking up unnecessary space. Let's just agree that we disagree. P.S: Why "foreign" opinion"? Fergananim 23.8.05.
Interesting, thank you very much for your perspective :). I have a question: I thought it very interesting that despite the polls showing a general lack of enthusiasm for the results of the war and of Bush himself, they also found that a majority in the UK thought that not only the Iraq war was justified, but that it could also be justified by reasons other than weapons of mass destruction. Does this match up with your personal experience talking to people you know in the UK? --kizzle 15:22, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Frankly, no. That poll still leaves me scratching my head. There simply was never an overwhelming majority of the UK in favor of the war. I cannot put it any clearer than that. However, please remember, that as regaurds the UK, I am a foreign observer there too. Fergananim 23.8.05.

Having lived in Germany for about 2 years, and also having had their opinions rammed down my throat (without EVER asking for it or bringing up politics), I can say they do not like President Bush nor do they like the Iraq War. But they did seem to hold a negative opinion of us after we ousted their Fuehrer NRO, LIFE Magazine, January 7, 1946. (Also note how these articles sound suspiciously like some of the things we've been hearing in the Mainstream Media today...) Foreign opinion doesn't really affect me. And look at France. We always help them (WW1&2), in spite of their opinions of us. What did they think of our invasion at Normandy? Or was that irrelevant to the larger mission of the time? --Sarah Tutor 06:17, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Gay Ambassador

Would someone like to tell me why this section, hotly debated here just a few weeks ago, was completely altered without any discussion?

George Bush became the first President in American history to nominate an openly gay man, Michael E. Guest, to serve as an ambassador and be confirmed by Congress. He supports the executive order issued by Bill Clinton banning employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. During his 2000 campaign trail he met with the Log Cabin Republicans, a first for a Republican Presidential candidate. The organization endorsed him in 2000 but not in 2004.

Now the paragraph has gone from questionably relevant to just plain misleading. Yes, he was the first president to appoint a gay ambassador (as obscure a distinction as him being the first president to appoint an asian american female cabinet secretary, a fact that has now been removed), but only on a technicality-- Clinton appointed James Hormel in 1999, but while the Congress was in recess. [20] Read the link though... it's obvious that both in principle and public opinion that the title of "first president to appoint an openly gay ambassador" belongs to Clinton. To slap it up here with the modifier "to be confirmed by congress" is POV.

Also, can anyone provide a source for the claim that Bush supports the executive order issued by Clinton banning employment discrimination? I've seen rumblings [21] to the contrary-- abiding by an order and supporting it are two different things.

And perhaps it would be prudent to mention why the Log Cabin Republicans didn't endorse him in 2004, as I'm sure it has a great deal to do with Bush's stance on Civil Rights (the title of the section). Sdauson 15:26, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I believe we developed a consensus on the gay ambassador thing, so if it's been changed (I didn't notice) feel free to change it back to whatever version we settled on. If we didn't, well, I guess we'll examine it again. android79 15:31, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
Aye. I'll put it back to the version that was voted as "keep" by the majority. Sdauson 15:36, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting "common knowledge"

Just wondering why two editors have been reverting what is pretty much common knowledge. The issues in question:

  • "that were not directly related to U.S. interests" a comment there that is based on Bush's original isolationist stance from the beginning of his Presidency, prior to 9/11.
  • "Every person from the Clinton and Bush Administrations believed at the time that Saddam Hussein was a threat to U.S. interests, destablized the Middle East, inflamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and gave financial support to terrorists. All subsequent reports confirmed these events and they have genearated little controversy. Another reason given, however, has generated much controversy. Conflicting intelligence reports noted"...in this case, perhaps the term "every" is POV but the facts are that virtually all members of the Clinton and current Bush administration did think this and this thought process was backed by personal commentary, legistation and action.
  • " Opinion about Bush is largely based upon their views of the War, rather than their views of Bush as a person." Well, I have to agree with this also, while I doubt Bush would ever have been well liked outside the U.S. because most outsiders regard Conservatives from the U.S. as being bible bashing puritanicals the polls cited in the outside views section of this article clearly demostrate that the vast bulk of information out there relates to the Iraq War, not necessarily to the man himself. In fact, the foreign opinion polls seem to support that the world is better off with Saddam gone (a comment oft repeated by Bush to support the decision). I don't get it...what was the purpose of argument over these passages?--MONGO 03:04, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
Well, who is the person that determines what is "directly related to U.S. interests"? Unless you know Uncle Sam, this is your own opinion.NightBeAsT 14:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I don't care what you believe others to believe. What is expressed eg through words, can be backed up, but what is believed can only be believed. And I want reliable sources for all these claims. Where would Wikipedia end up if anyone just posted their opinion claiming it would all be based on "common knowledge"? Common knowledge can most commonly be backed up by sources.NightBeAsT 14:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Nightbeast, Bush stated unequivically that he wasn't interested in "nation building" prior to 9/11 and made it clear at that time that he wasn't interested in any involvement in situations that were not in the interests of the U.S. Bush was originally a relative isolationist. Sorry if that is some kind of revelation to you. Furthermore, read the poll information on Bush outside the U.S. It is based mostly on the Iraq War info, not him as a person, just his actions as perceived by the international community...and they are primarily negative due to the Iraq War and I also saw that the opinions were low also due to his unwillingness to sign the Kyoto agreement. Nothing in these passages is inflammatory or controversial so your demand due to whatever reasons that they be refereenced is not needed. There are plenty of things in this article much more wild eyed than this that aren't cited.--MONGO 14:51, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
Great, if Bush said so and polls said so, you have at least something not based on personal opinion and thus what you can include (unless, of course, it would destroy the NPOV). But that doesn't mean you can include your own conclusions: you're defining what are the U.S. interests in your opinion, you're defining why other people think what of Bush, you're defining what the administrations believe in general.Wikipedia:Verifiability:
A human rights spokesman said that the incident was part of a wider pattern of violence in the region (incorrect way)
Eliza Twisk, of Amnesty International, described the situation in an interview with Channel 4 news on July 8 2000, saying that "This is all part of a growing trend in Europe of violent protest and equally violent response". [22] (correct way)
And yes, Verifiability is the key to becoming a reliable resource, so editors should cite credible sources so that their edits can be easily verified, says the official policy. And yes, I insist on verifiability - not your own opinion even if that one may be common - like recently on Talk:Anti-Polonism, where I don't think I was wrong demanding sources at all, either.NightBeAsT 17:26, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

MONGO did a better job of explaining this than me, but regarding the 3 edits that the anti-Bush POV warriors jumped on:

  1. excuse me, this was the argument against going to war in Bosnia without UN approval
  2. "every" can be modified, but all these are true and accurate (although glossed over by the POV crowd)
  3. all support from polls and rest of section supports this and only this

--Noitall 08:40, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Just curious, do you consider yourself a pro-Bush POV warrior?--kizzle 18:04, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

I think that makes it better - but I think Opinion about Bush is largely based upon their views of the War, rather than their views of Bush as a person." should reflect foriegn policy in general - as there was the whole hoopla over the kyoto treaty etc. (although we'd need a reference for that, of course). --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 09:05, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That is the problem here. The polls do not reflect that at at all. --Noitall 09:40, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

The "Every person in the Clinton and Bush Administration..." line is completely speculative and POV. I would suggest substantiating your point by finding a source, and instead of using very general terms like "every person" please use actual names. Without addressing this, the phase comes across as being total propaganda for the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and President Bush. Not saying that this phase is completely incorrect, but rather it comes across as less valid and neutral by the way it is presented. --Howrealisreal 13:14, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase "every" has been discussed. The rest is common knowledge and extremely general summary instead of supplying with a laundry list of charges (payments to suicide bombers, all statements said, designs on Kuwait, Saudis, oil, meetings with North Korea, meeting with other terrorist groups and leaders, and both Presidents said he continued to threaten interests -- Clinton bombed him on several occasions, etc., etc.). The problem was, and is, this did not totally make the case for all people for the invasion, since it had been this way since the end of the last Gulf War, so it was not emphasized as much.--Noitall 15:57, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

I understand your perspective on this issue but in an encyclopedia it is not enough to prove what you believe with "extremely general" statements. In the same respect that the people at Talk:2003 invasion of Iraq reworked the same statement in that article [23], I would like to encourage you to either find a quality source or reword to make your point more valid. --Howrealisreal 01:58, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

They "reworked it" if you mean that anti-War POV warriors did a reactionary revert on it. Ahhhhh, common knowledge is common knowledge. I cited the incidents above of which there is no dispute. If you want to dispute them, please tell me which ones you dispute and why. (i.e, people disputed the word "every person" and it was rightfully changed) For instance, do you dispute that the payments were made to terrorists? Do you dispute that Clinton Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2 stated that Sadaam was a threat to U.S. interests? Do you dispute that Sadaam met with what the U.S. called terrorist groups? Do you dispute, etc., etc., etc. --Noitall 05:00, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
Great that it's only your "anti-war POV warriors" with their "reactionary" views who are a problem for you and not Wikipedia:Verifiability. It's pretty easy to claim something is "common knowledge": For example "Aliens exist! You doubt it? You can't because I claim it is common knowledge, so you lose, hahahaha". But what is not so easy to do is provide evidence of it being "common knowledge"; can you find a reliable source that proves that aliens exist? But as you brag about your "many reliable sources" on your User page, your POV power rangers must be the main problem because you already have this reliable source, do you not? If not, or if you think that your "progressive" sentence needs to be changed on the Bush site (it hasn't changed by now), don't hesitate to change it.NightBeAsT 12:47, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously you a. do not dispute any of the assertions, or b., can not or refuse to read. In either case, do not continue doing your reactionary reverts. --Noitall 13:20, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
I questioned your inclusions in this article in conformity with Wikipedia:Verifiability, not your assertion here whether or not Saddam met with what some accused of being terrorist groups (I couldn't care less) or whether Bushs and Clinton once said they thought Saddam was a threat (but this would finally be a verifiable sentence). Reading the Bush article I still see the bullshit sentences which claim to know what US interests are and what every person of these administrations thought at a particularly point of time and what every report included. So, reader, why are you being so reactionary and don't fix it?NightBeAsT 14:19, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Let's please keep this civil. First of all, editing is, by its nature, reactionary. You see something that needs fixing, and you fix it. I agree that everything should be citable. Now, to the matter at hand: "every person" is, of course, obviously unverifiable. At best you should just drop that language and say "the administration." But secondly, there was no Clinton administration after 9/11, so I'm not clear why you're bringing them up. It feels once again as though this a frozen-state argument -- "well, Clinton thought so too!!" -- and is not actually very encyclopedic. I believe it should read: "after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration argued that the situation in Iraq had now become urgent. The Administration believed Saddam Hussein was a threat to U.S. interests, destablized the Middle East, inflamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and gave financial support to terrorists, all assertions held both by previous U.S. administrations and other nations. Another reason given, however, has created much controversy...." This structure eliminates the universal assertions in the first version while still maintaining the general thrust of the section. Cheers, JDoorjam 15:15, 21 August 2005 (UTC), NPOV Warrior.[reply]
I largely agree with many of the recent comments made here. I was majorly inspired by JDoorjam so I took at stab at rewording the statement in question (which at the time of my edits still contained unverifyable and non-encylopedic content like "every person agrees with this" and "clinton believes it also" etc...) The new version is a bit more solid, NPOV, and doesn't take common knowledge justification for granted. --Howrealisreal 15:50, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
While I appreciate the incorporation of my language, I am concerned that your insertion of the language regarding oil interests in Iraq may be seen as overly vague, unsubstantiated, and partisan. (It also hurts the transitional flow of the article.) As such I've changed the wording back to the next topic being intelligence issues, and not the "blood for oil" controversy. JDoorjam 16:30, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I added that because I didn't quite seem to understand what "other motives" were controversial from the original wording. I picked the oil interests because is was the first thing I could think of to make the statement seem more complete in terms of opposing views about the Iraq invasion. I have not reviewed your edits yet but I probably won't object. Oil interests are probably better dealt with in 2003 Invasion of Iraq anyway. Thanks. --Howrealisreal 16:37, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

President's Favorite Actor?

"United States President George W. Bush has stated that Chuck Norris is his favorite actor." Is this true? Should it be included in the article?

Probably not, and certainly not in the intro paragraph. He probably has a lot of favorite things (color, breakfast cereal, song, sports team) like anyone else but our articles usually don't bother with that kind of detail (unless it's been publicized widely in the media, like Ronald Reagan's prediliction for jelly beans). -- Curps 04:58, 20 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely not. Again, if we ever split the page, and have a "Bush the Man" and "Bush the President" pages (instead of the current "Bush the President" and "Bush the Man and President" pages) then maaayyybbbeee on a more personal page we could include his favorite this and thats, where reliable sources are available. But no, it doesn't fit in here. JDoorjam 15:15, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I am strongly against any such division of the article into "Bush the man" and "Bush the president", ultimately, it is the same person, regardless of their job. So, to me, this seems really demented. Any other comments? — Ryguillian 22:36, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bush is Definitely a Drunk Driver

It came up as a campaign issue in the 2000 Election. The other truth is Dick Cheney was also a drunk driver. If Bill Clinton Drove Drunk i'd add him I'm a liberal okay! Just can we at least acknowledge he's a drunk driver!

NPOV Revisited

I'm feeling closer to saying that this is inching closer to NPOV; who wants to weigh in next? This article will always be controversial, and will certainly always be on my watch list, but I feel like, if we are all rational about it, we could take the neutrality tag off the front page by the first week of September. So who's up next? Who's got burning NPOV issues? JDoorjam 18:50, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How about addressing the drunk driving. I see that there's an overview of the situation in the article, but it seems that User:Jack Cox wants Bush included in a category as well. Any consensus? I genuinely appreciate the inclusion of petroleum in the Iraq section btw. --Howrealisreal 19:16, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The truth is he admitted to Drunk Driving, I am not trying to tinge anybody or try an attack anyone partisanly, I just am trying to finish a category. It's well known he had a DUI, it came up in the 2000 Election Jack Cox 21:36, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The drunk driving category collects everyone who's been convicted of drunk driving. That includes Bush. NPOV requires his inclusion. Krakatoa 23:08, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What about link number 23? Anybody else think that link is excessively anti-Bush POV for a news report on Bush disputing the science of Kyoto? Bayerischermann 22:22, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd vote for removing the NPOV tag. --Arnoldlover 21:39, 23 August 2005 (UTC) (see survey on removing tag below).

"when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace"

JDoorjam deleted this "meaningless quotation" from Bush (with link to Bush speech where he said this -- see [24]). It's undoubtedly an (insane, meaningless, Orwellian, choose your adjective) thing to say, but Bush did say it. The fact that Bush is a demented person who says bizarre things is not a basis for removing quotations to them. It's not the role of Wikipedia to put clothes on the naked emperor. Krakatoa 23:03, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Being factual is not merit enough to be encyclopedic. Go and plug it into Bushisms if you'd like to see it live in wikispace, but in this article, even in the context of the Iraq war, it's a meaningless aside that is clearly a partisan jab (which your comment above leaves no doubt about). The quotation was dropped into the article with really no context at all, and pretty clearly is there for the purpose of saying "ha ha, Dubya is dumb." There are simply bigger fish to fry than Bushisms in this wikispace. JDoorjam 23:23, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]


The Ethnic Backround of George Bush

What is George Bushes ethnic backround? I've always assumed it was German; mainly because of the name and because he is from Texas. Can anyone positively find out his ethnic backround?

His Father's family is from New England and are the "bluebloods" so it is likely the family name is English.--MONGO 10:20, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
You're probably right, but it could be Dutch, French or German. People's surnames became almost unrecognisable if they were in one language and transliterated into English. Or sometimes they got left behind entirely. For example, John Negroponte's surname is merely that of where his family settled when they left France for the Americas; his full name would be something like John Mercier de Negroponte.

President Bush's pedigree is as follows: 

 Timothy Bush
 |
 |
 Timothy Bush Jr.

= Lydia Newcomb 

 |
 |
 Obadiah Newcomb Bush (1797-1851) of Vermont

=? 

 |
 |
 James Smith Bush (1825-1889)

= Harriet Fay 

 |
 |
 Samuel Prescott Bush (1863-1948)

= Flora Sheldon 

 |
 |
 Prescott Bush (1895-1972)

= Dorothy Walker 

 |
 |
 George H. W. Bush (b.1924)

= Barbara Peirce 

 |
 |
 George W. Bush, born 1946.

Only eight generations ... you'd think that there would be more lenth in it given their blue-blood background (note that I say this as a professional observation and not snideness). Anyway, give me a day or two to look this up. Fergananim 24.8.05.

What a mess

A concesus was reached that this drug and alcohol stuff was to be relegated to the information as I now replaced in the personal section and the rest of the junk was linked in a daughter article. The results of that Rfc are here: Talk:George W. Bush/Archive 26. If somneone wants to open a new Rfc, fine, but don't make such drastic changes without one.--MONGO 03:39, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Bias

This article clearly has a right-wing bias, and should be reversed immediatly.

I say it has a clearly left-wing bias, and should be reversed immediately.
If I read this article without any foreknowledge of this putz, I'd probably come away with the impression that he was well liked, and an accomplished politician, and an adequate public speaker... since none of that is remotely true, I'd have to say the argument is slanted about as far to the right as you can go, w/o being called a part of the liberal media--172.149.98.9 01:23, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have to disagree. We have some very liberal users who don't have a problem with this article. Plus you substantiated your opinion on him when you called him a 'putz', so what do you suggest, we put "some anons think he's a 'putz'" in the article? o.O Redwolf24 (talk) 01:26, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Meh, I don't really care that much, I mean it's as close as it'll ever get to NPOV, it's just the whole article is a pretty bizaire mixture of things written by people who either love him, or hate him, so it's NPOVishness comes from extreame statments cancelling each other out, like some kind of equation, which is just a little odd to read--172.149.98.9 01:31, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing like unsubstantiated claims to liven the mood. :) --tomf688<TALK> 05:07, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
Why, because it doesn't compare him to Hitler? (:-P) ~~ N (t/c) 13:57, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
A previous director-general of the BBC used to say that he knew when the balence was about right because both sides were accusing him of bias. DJ Clayworth 14:00, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV tag... again...

What are the hang ups on removing the POV tag? Below are the valid (as I see them (read: my POV)) reasons as listed by JDoorjam above. The list has been updated and edited by me and other editors. I may have removed very valid criticisms of the article feel free to add any more that you see. If we could address some of these, we could remove that darn tag, which should be everyone's goal.

JDoorjam would like to see:
    • The response of the United Nations Population Fund to Bush's claims that they support forced abortions and sterilizations in China.
    • an expansion of the hugely flagging support for the war.
    • sources for the pundits who said that the Downing Street memo was a smoking gun, and for those who said it was NOT evidence of cherry-picking intelligence.
    • more on the amount spent on the military, specifically outlining the amount spent on the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, as compared to inflation-adjusted figures before Bush took office.
    • expansion of criticisms by environmentalists about the Healthy Forests Initiative, if only to explain how the initiative is a "giveaway to timber companies."
    • expansion of Bush's proposed immigration policies.
    • removal of the paragraph about midterm elections going to the Republicans; this has to do with Congress and the Republican party in general, not Bush.
    • mention that Bush is unpopular outside the U.S. for more reasons than simply the invasion of Iraq; his environmental policies and other issues have raised the ire of the world as well.
    • polls regarding Iraq from "Outside the United States" moved to the "Iraq" section, or eliminate them, as they have more to do with post-war Iraq than they do with Bush. Polls regarding Bush specifically should stay in this section.

Please, let us end this NPOV debate. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:25, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

      • I would still like to see the Kyoto issue polished a bit -- it currently leans to the right by throwing a jab at the left -- but other than that, I'm satisfied with this trimmed working list. JDoorjam 20:02, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

From the article:

During his first presidential visit to Europe in June 2001, Bush came under harsh criticism from European leaders for his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. In 1997, while representatives of the United States and other countries were still negotiating the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S. Senate had, by a vote of 95-0, opposed any global warming treaty that did not require binding commitments from developing nations. Although the Kyoto Protocol was symbolically signed by Peter Burleigh, the acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, in 1998, the Clinton administration never presented it to the Senate for ratification. [25] In 2002, Bush came out strongly against the treaty as harmful to economic growth in the United States, stating: "My approach recognizes that economic growth is the solution, not the problem." [26] The administration also disputed the scientific basis for the treaty. [27] In November 2004, Russia ratified the treaty, giving it the required minimum of nations to put it into force without ratification by the United States.

As well as...

Bush has opposed the Kyoto Protocol saying it would harm the U.S. economy. Environmental groups note that many Bush Administration officials, in addition to Bush and Cheney, have ties to the energy industry, automotive industry, and other groups that have fought against environmental protections. However, Bush claims his reason for not supporting the Kyoto Protocol is that it is unfairly strict on the U.S. while being unduly lenient with developing countries, especially China and India. Bush stated, "The world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol." He has also questioned the science behind the global warming phenomenon, insisting that more research be done to determine its validity.[28] (See America's Kyoto protocol position.)

I think it is discussed quite enough. What more should we say? I don't think the first qoute is that POV. It is a nice factual summary. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:45, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely not more. I had meant it should be shorter:

"During his first presidential visit to Europe in June 2001, Bush came under harsh criticism from European leaders for his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. (snip) In 2002, Bush came out strongly against.... "

If people want a history of the Kyoto Protocol, or Clinton's role in it, they should to go their respective pages, I feel. JDoorjam 21:35, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Now the way it reads, it looks like the Bush administration was "unilateral" in it's failure to adopt the kyoto protocol...when the fact is that the senate voted unnanimously against any such act that wouldn't also include all nations several years prior to Bush becoming President...essentially, the groundwork was set prior to the Bush administration, during the Clinton administration, so why make it look like it is all Bush's fault...again? It looks a bit antiBush...just my opinion.--MONGO 12:11, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, the article should mention how it was not just Bush that opposed it. It was many in Congress and in the Clinton administration. I'm not sure it is "antiBush", but it is slightly misleading. Both versions are factual, but the original was more explanatory. I favor the original at this point. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 13:55, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Entering the conversation late after I saw the change on my watchlist this morning. I think the passage was much better when it mentioned that congress voted 95-0 not to ratify the treaty. This means that both Republicans and Democrats in the senate by a wide margin were against it. The passage reads like twisted anti-bush propoganda now. Like the man unilaterally said hey %$!# the enviornment Im going to do it my way, which is clearly not an accurate picture of the situation. Even if Bush wanted to sign Kyoto, the senate would have rejected it a second time.--AjaxSerix 14:01, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody had replied to my message on what is usually a quick-moving board, so I was bold and changed it (as I really want to get the NPOV tag off in the next, eh, week and a half). If it's going back in (and again, I'm not terribly concerned about this, except with length, as always in mind), I suggest this slight reorder, simply for flow:

(cut) In 1997, while representatives of the United States and other countries were still negotiating the Kyoto Protocol, the U.S. Senate had, by a vote of 95-0, opposed any global warming treaty that did not require binding commitments from developing nations. Although the Kyoto Protocol was symbolically signed by Peter Burleigh, the acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, in 1998, the Clinton administration never presented it to the Senate for ratification. [29] (paste) During his first presidential visit to Europe in June 2001, Bush came under harsh criticism....

Thoughts? JDoorjam 15:48, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Much better, now it is not misleading. But....wait...what does that have to do with George Bush? He did get criticism for it anyway, so I guess it should stay. How about getting rid of the Peter Burleigh and Clinton admin stuff. That is just background info that should go on the Kyoto pageVoice of All(MTG) 12:02, August 26, 2005 (UTC)


Regarding UNFPA statement, how about changing the paragraph to remove Bush as the source of the claim? Instead of:

"In July of 2002, Bush cut off all funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Bush claimed that the UNFPA supported forced abortions and sterilizations in China."

make it:

"In July of 2002, Bush cut off all funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) citing long standing claims that UNFPA money was being used to support the Chinese government's draconian population control policy, "One Couple, One Child" which involves involuntary sterilizations and abortions as late as 9 months, with some estimates as high as 10 million such abortions of which 80 to 90 percent were girls."

In fact, as a condition of restoring funding to the UNFPA in 1993, Clinton required that no U.S. money be spent by the UNFPA in China based on those same claims. I don't think the Chinese government policy or its cruelty is in dispute. The only dispute is whether or not UNFPA assistance is or can succeed in changing that policy. IMHO, it seems to be one of the bigger wastes of time and money.

But why is this included at all? It's not mentioned under the other Presidents who got involved with the UNFPA. Not under the President in office at the time the UNFPA was created, nor is it under Reagan who first cut off funding or G.H.W. Bush who continued the cut. It's not even mentioned under Clinton who restored the funding. Under the wiki UNFPA, ONLY the fact that funds were cut "in 2002, 2003, and 2004". All this suggests a biased point of view in simply mentioning it under Bush. The motivation doesn't seem to be a pragmatic summary of history. It seems to be a list of why the people who hate him, hate him. --JJLatWiki 17:37, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Then let's cut it. Anybody opposed? JDoorjam 01:24, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am. Cutting out the fact that prior to Bush's first term the senate had voted unanimously against this type of thing, makes it look like the was no precident for his later decision to not sign. Sort of like saying the Iraq war, which was primarily to remove Saddam from power, didn't have groundwork already established also during the Clinton administration.--MONGO 09:34, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
If you mean the UNFPA issue, it's been a point of significant criticism of Bush, so it should stay in. I have no problem with mentioning that he didn't pull the charges out of the air, but merely repeated charges others had made. We don't need to go into details about the allegations, though (and certainly not using a POV word like "draconian"). How about:
In July of 2002, Bush cut off all funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), citing charges that UNFPA money was being used to support involuntary sterilizations and late-term abortions in China.
I don't think we need to report the details of the UNFPA's response in this article. Perhaps we should say "charges (denied by the UNFPA) that UNFPA money..." but any further rebuttal of Bush's position should go in the UNFPA article. JamesMLane 21:15, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Why is "draconian" a POV word with regards to the Chinese Government's "One Family, One Child" policy? "Draconian" means "exceedingly harsh or very severe". If it were not draconian, why would every President since Reagan deny funding UNFPA if it goes to China. The very title of the policy is explicitly draconian. The manner by which the Chinese Government has enforced the policy is draconian. If anyone has creditable evidence that suggests the policy or its enforcement are not draconian, then let's debate it. "involuntary sterilizations and late-term abortions" ARE draconian population control measures. What POV would deny that?
Bush gets harsh criticism for everything he does. If he gets criticism for cutting UNFPA funding, it's because it's just another item to add to the list of misdirecting reasons to hate Bush. I suggest that if anyone wants the UNFPA information included under Bush, they should take the responsibility to cover UNFPA in all Presidents who dealt with it and complete the UNFPA wiki so that Bush is not the only President to cut funding. They should also explain that although Clinton restored UNFPA funding, Clinton conditioned US funding on none going to China. I don't like Bush, but I don't grasp at every thread for another reason to dislike him and that's what the mere mention of UNFPA (among others) seems like here. The only reason it was more than a blip on his presidency is that Bush-haters pluck every string hoping for a reaction and they don't want any last detail overlooked. --JJLatWiki 20:28, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
NO no no - please no more debate... we need to work towards a concensus on wording, not debate because its not getting anywhere. Draconian is without a shadow of a doubt POV, so you'd need to say something like "some people consider it draconian" etc. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 20:34, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bush is a born-again christian

It's well known Bush is a born-again christian it's the truth Jack Cox 19:52, 26 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't this need a reference though, or do we already have one? Ryan Norton T | @ | C 09:37, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think its fairly common knowledge. But it should be stated in a way that doesn't potentially seeem POV to other Christian denominations, who might disagree with the use of the term. The way the article phrases it now looks ok. keith 10:00, 27 August 2005 (UTC) ps Carter was born-again also.[reply]

9/11 Rubble Speech

If I remember correctly, according to Bush At War, he wasn't expected to give any speeches, and that the entire speech was off the cuff. It was the supervisor standing next to him during the speech that gave him the bullhorn. PPGMD 04:01, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Survey to remove NPOV tag

Arnoldlover has suggested removing the NPOV tag. Since the tag was first placed on this article, a great deal of thought and work (not to mention volumes of discussion) has gone into giving it a more NPOV making it NPOV. I think that the editors of this article should be recognized for their conscientious work and the tag removed. Sunray 22:27, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Please cast your vote for removing or keeping the NPOV tag. The survey results will be tabulated at noon (Washington time) on August 30, 2005.

Remove

  1. Remove: I'd vote for removing the NPOV tag. --Arnoldlover 21:39, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Remove: As stated above, a great deal of work has gone into this. It reads well now. Not perfect, but relatively meets generally accepted standards for NPOV, IMHO.Sunray 22:27, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
  3. Remove. --Golbez 22:31, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
  4. Remove. --Ryan Norton T | @ | C 22:32, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Remove.Voice of All(MTG) 04:16, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
  6. Remove. Negligible POV not worthy of having an ugly tag affixed at the top of the page for the next 3 years. --tomf688<TALK> 05:10, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
  7. Remove We may get accusations of bias (see below) but will they be reasonable ones. I think this article has got as neutral as it can get. DJ Clayworth 14:09, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Remove I don't see any reason to keep this tag here. I read through the article for the first time and didn't see anything that made me think it leaned one way or another. - Sleepnomore 02:00, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
  9. Remove per DJ Clayworth. Also, in response to those who would keep the tag because the article could be biased and not necessarily because it is, that's why we have the {controversial} tag on this talk page. We should remove the POV tag and put it back up only if a major edit war erupts or the article undergoes significant changes that affect its NPOV status. We shouldn't have that ugly tag on one of our most prominent pages just in case yet another newcomer comes along and says "THIS ARTICAL'S WRNONG11!11!!!" sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 03:42, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
    • It would be good to note that these remove votes aren't exactly what should be said for a removal. Things like "as neutral as it can get", "relatively npov", and "negligible pov" do not equate to NPOV. 172.147.85.188 05:06, 25 August 2005 (UTC) (Note: User's first edit) Incorrect. It is called dialup. A new IP is given each time you sign on. 172.147.85.188 09:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Right, I agree that "relatively npov" is not good wording. Let me rephrase that: "Meets the standard of NPOV when compared to other contentious articles in Wikipedia." The editors of this page really work at it and the results are evident. Sunray 19:32, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
      • Actually, an article doesn't have to meet a standard of "absolute NPOV" for the tag to come off. If that were the case, almost all our articles would have POV tags, if not TotallyDisputed tags. This is not because all Wikipedia's articles are biased and inaccurate, far from it. It's because NPOV is a goal we strive to reach, not an accomplishment. This article's at a point where we can say "well, it probably wouldn't pass FAC at this point, but we've made a lot of progress, and it's neutral enough so we don't need to leave that ugly tag staring at our readers". sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 07:31, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
        • Progress does not equal NPOV. If it is not NPOV, and its not even by the statements of those who wish to have it removed, one must understand the validity of the wish to include the tag. Ugly or not. Arguments of the sort of "We've worked hard" or "We've made progress" are not arguments against an article being NPOV or not. Also, see the comment regarding your edit above. 172.147.85.188 09:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • If you believe there are neutrality problems, please join in our discussion and point out where the problems are. The point of an NPOV tag is to alert wikipedians to a problem so that it can be fixed. "Inherently not NPOV" is neither constructive nor accurate. Will it be a constant battle to keep it neutral? You betcha. But it's doable. JDoorjam 12:06, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • I do believc their are neutrality problems, as do the people who even voted to remove the tag. But, I haven't edited this article, and thats why I haven't voted either way. I was commenting on the strange votes to remove that still acknowledged it not being NPOV. Oh, and I never said 'Inherently not NPOV'. 172.134.175.138 21:33, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Remove. People may claim we can remove the tag when his term is up, but that doesn't make a lot of sense. Do people know how much some people HATE George W. Bush? That's why we can get POV problems with people who have been dead for decades. In this politically charged atmosphere that we live in, this article is pretty NPOV. It has one or two minor things still, but I'm not sure that requires tagging the entire article. What ever happened to using {{POV-section}}? My two cents. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 21:08, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Remove. --kizzle 22:28, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Keep

  1. Keep -bro 172.208.130.133 03:09, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Keep The article suffers from systemic POV and until he is no longer President, it probably will continue to do so.--MONGO 03:41, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
  3. Keep. It is inevitable that a full-blown POV debate sparks up on this page at least once a fortnight. Harro5 10:07, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
  4. Keep. The tag is justified but its design should be less obnoxious. Also, given that people are extremely devided over Bush, bias is almost guaranteed. This is a case where actually guidelines should have the last word, not voting.NightBeAsT 22:03, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please explain "guidelines should have the last word, not voting." A survey may be conducted in accordance with the guideline on consensus to determine whether there is general agreement on some aspect of an article (such as the need for a tag). Sunray 01:57, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
  5. Keep. There is POV in the article, which I agree will be debated until GWB's term ends. I think after his term, it would be good to wrap up the loose POV ends and remove the tag at that time.--KBecks 13:14, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I really don't like this argument, as many controversial articles here (some even moreso then this) have become featured articles etc.. People here though need to try to keep their personal opinions etc. out of the way when editing, which is obviously not happening on this article... Ryan Norton T | @ | C 15:53, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Keep This President may not have a neutral wikipedia entry until after this and maybe the next generation are all dead. And if the most neutral acheivement is "we're working hard to be neutral", then so be it. But accept that it's not neutral. There are more people contributing to Wikipedia in general who hate Bush and it's worse for this article. So maybe the tag will encourage some of the other camp to contribute and will encourage children to look for more corroborating information before they use WP as their source.--JJLatWiki 22:10, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, because editors aren't keeping their personal feelings out of it is why I think the NPOV tag should be kept. Does the NPOV tag keep this from becoming a featured article? And if it were a featured article, can you imagine how fast it would be edited with POV/vandalized once it received the extra attention and exposure? I'd be very pleased to see GWB as a featured article after his term ends. P.S. I've added a few things to the talk page that I see as POV issues, and support my view on keeping the tag for now. --KBecks 14:10, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, it means npovsect tags should be applied, not a whole-article npov tag (parts of this article are npov). As for vandalism, it wouldn't get much more vandalism than other front-page articles (and randomly inserting POV to WP:POINT is not really just POV). Also, this guy is not going to stop being controversial for like another 20 years at least - so lets take care of the problems now rather than later. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 22:17, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Electoral college challenge

Cut from article:

A challenge of the electoral college results by members of the U.S. Congress, only the second in U.S. history, was defeated by a vote of 1-74 (Yea-Nay) in the Senate and by a vote of 31-267 in the House.

Why was this cut? Because it's untrue? Or irrelevant? Or covered better elsewhere? (I find it interesting, so if no one objects, I'd like to put it back.) Uncle Ed 22:46, August 27, 2005 (UTC)


Hi, it could be included in the article, but it does not fit in the intro to the article. I feel it fits better in the section that talks about presidential campaigns, and there is a statement already in that section that covers the challenge, but it does not have the vote counts.

I'd recommend that you edit the existing statement in the presidential campaigns area for whatever clarification you feel is needed. Hope this helps! --KBecks 14:21, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

removal of polling data

The only reason why I removed the two intermediate reports of Bush's approval ratings is that it seemed unnecessary to report these months rather than letting the graph speak for the most part. Let's include the "milestones" of his approval ratings (high after sept 11, spike after war, around 50 during election, and all-time sub-nixon levels at 36 now) and not the month-to-month reports in the text itself otherwise this is going to be a very long section. In addition, I don't think its censoring anything as we can clearly see the general trends of Bush's approval ratings from the included graph. --kizzle 23:06, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Just for the record my last rvv evidently was a mistake, as I meant to revert the anon who vandalized the page but evidently got your edit instead. Sorry about that :) Ryan Norton T | @ | C 23:57, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Most recently, a poll taken by American Research Group on August 18-21, 2005 [62] shows that 36% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president (6% below the number in July), while 58% disapprove. This figure is lower than President Nixon's approval rating of 39% during the Watergate scandal that evntually led to his resignation. However, to be fair, it is higher than Jimmy Carter's peak low of 17%.
I recently read in this book that Carter's approval rating was the lowest ever. But that wouldn't be too interesting of a fact for the guys at CNN, nah its more interesting to say lower than Nixon. I think we should now leave as is as it seems NPOV (at least to me) Redwolf24 (talk) 23:59, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it's because Nixon has been in the forefront of the public mind with Deep Throat coming out, plus Carter was a Dem while Nixon was a brother-Republican, which makes for a fairer comparison to Bush? Staxringold 00:12, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Not to mention when you think Nixon, you think crook. When you think Carter, you think Nobel Prize. He's a great man but his presidency sucked. Redwolf24 (talk) 00:23, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, when I think of Carter, I think of gas lines a mile or more long....interest rates that kept many out of home ownership, and inflation. But you are right...habitiat for humanity etc are all definitely wonderful things for him to be involved in.--MONGO 03:20, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

The current approval rating graph is somewhat misleading. The scale goes from 40% to 90%, but you can't read this in the smaller version on the page. You have to click the hi-res picture to be able to read the scale. On first glance, it appears that his approval rating in August 2005 was 10%, when if fact, it was 45%. I'm not a Bush supporter or opposer; I just came to the article to look something up and noticed the graph. I think a graph from 0% to 100% would be more appropriate. 24.208.178.93 16:18, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. It would be misleading even if you could read the axis. This is called a "suppressed zero" and, although common--particularly in graphs of non-scientific data--it is always a Bad Thing. IIRC Darrell Huff has a chapter about it in How to Lie with Statistics. The worst example I can remember was produced by Time magazine during the Vietnam War, during Johnson's presidency. The graph was called "Pulling Out" and it showed that the number of troops in Vietnam was decreasing. The thing was, it was a suppressed-zero graph in which you had a nice, impressive downward-sloping line... but the axis showed that the decrease was something like from 500,000 troops to 495,000. Apologists always say the same things about such graphs: "well, we're just trying to show the trend," "it makes the difference easier to see," "the numbers are on the axis." But the visual impression is misleading. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:28, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I feel this statement is POV

Ronald Reagan, at the time a former Governor of California, endorsed Bush's opponent in the Republican primary.

I don't feel this is significant. While Regan is a legendary political figure, the article does not go into any of the other endorsements. Plus, Bush obviously won the primary.

The point that is trying to be made is that Reagan did not favor Bush at the time. But because it deals with a primary election, it seems less than relevant and a POV slam towards Bush.

--KBecks 13:20, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree that it should be removed unless there are more facts to make it at least more interesting. Like, who was the opponent who got Reagan's endorsement? Did Reagan endorse Bush in the general election? It seems that Bush would have been lacking in experience so Reagan's endorsement was probably not a slight against Bush. How many other inexperienced Republican's did Reagan not endorse? As it is, the statement is uninteresting and not well researched.--JJLatWiki 21:58, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Another POV issue re: Powell / Rice

Colin Powell became the first African-American man to serve as Secretary of State during Bush's first term in office. In 2005 he was succeeded by Condoleezza Rice, who became the first African-American woman to hold the post.

It looks like this is intentionally presented to give Bush no credit for appointing Powell and Rice. In fact, it reads as if these things just "happened" all on their own.

I'd appreciate an edit, I've considered it, but am mentally struggling with how to edit without disrupting the flow.

Also, some additional informatin on Condi's first appointment by bush (not secretary of state) might be helpful.

Thank you, --KBecks 14:30, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I gave a bit more spin towards Bush Ryan Norton T | @ | C 14:39, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

More POV: Bushisms

Bush's many mistakes while publicly speaking have spawned a new term in America, bushism. This is the term used for a word, phrase, or other grammatical configuration unique to the style of President George W. Bush.

I don't have a problem with a Bushism mention, but feel that "many mistakes" is a slam. What exactly is many? and do we know how Bush compares to other prominent public figures?

I do feel that the Bushism mention is a bit fluffy though. Is it really needed, and helpful to readers? or is it a cheap shot?

A less POV option (if this needs to be kept) would be "Bush's public speaking has generated a new..."

The Bushism page is also loaded with POV, IMO.

--KBecks 14:40, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think if we change it to grammatical mistakes, then it should be NPOV, as that is pretty much not under debate. --kizzle 18:38, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds much better, thanks. --KBecks 20:25, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, wait -- I still take issue with the word "many" and would like to see it removed. --KBecks 20:28, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A limitation to "grammatical" wouldn't be accurate. He mispronounces words, uses the wrong word, says things that are grammatically correct but make no sense, etc. JamesMLane 21:19, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Syntactical? --kizzle 23:46, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
The man said: "Peeance freeance". And didn't even bat an eye. Sure made Bremer do a double take, though. (About 80% of the way through the video, where the transcript says "free and secure".[30] Gzuckier 01:15, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Too many pipes / links?

There are a lot of pipes in this article -- words like "man", "woman", "money".

Would it be OK to remove some of these very basic links?

  • Pipes are fine - but they should only pipe on the first occurance of the word. As for links see also and some of the transcripts in the external links section could be purged Ryan Norton T | @ | C 15:55, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
You're talking mainly about wikilinks, not pipes. A pipe is a specific form of wikilink in which the sentence in this article doesn't use the exact wording of the title of the other article, so the wikilink has a pipe dividing the article title from the way it's referred to here. In general, although we wikilink only the first occurrence of a word, there's reason to depart from that generalization when a term is introduced again in a later section of a long article like this one. Turning to specifics, I don't feel strongly about linking "man", "woman", and "money", but what other links did you have in mind for removal? JamesMLane 21:27, 28 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification, I don't know all the terminology yet. I removed money, but left man and woman since they're talking about gay marriage and there may be uncertainty to what a man and woman is although it seems obvious on the surface. I re-looked at the links and think they're OK. All the linked years and dates seem to clutter it up and not provide much relevance, IMO. --KBecks 14:02, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd really like to see a footnote for this

Many Democrats opposed changes that they felt were turning Social Security into a welfare program that would be politically vulnerable.

Thanks, --KBecks 13:48, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This line was utter FUD. It's competely NOT what the "Many Democrats" were/are saying. I changed it to something more in line with reality. I'm sure some Repiblican hack will insist on replaceing it with a Neocon talking point. I've got news for you: Social Security IS SUPPOSED TO BE a "welfare program." That's what it's for. That's why we have it. The insurance companies don't like it becasue they can't profit from it. So, in comes the "New" Social Sucurity plan, (which is neither social nor secure) and it's poster boy 'dubya. -anonymous

No, Social Security is not a welfare program, nor is it "supposed to be". The term "welfare" is generally understood to mean a means-tested program. Such a program primarily benefits the poor. Bush's endorsement of "progressive indexation" would make Social Security less valuable to the middle class, and much less valuable to the rich; it would move Social Security in the direction of a welfare program, with the concomitant weakening of political support. Democrats did indeed argue that this was a reason to oppose Bush's plan. A few quotations/citations from various progressive sources:
  • "The President’s embrace of progressive price indexing for Social Security is just one more clever attempt to kill it. Converting the most successful government program in history into a welfare plan for the poor, practically guarantees it will lose political support and eventually get picked off." [31]
  • "Progressive price indexing would transform Social Security over time from a retirement program to more of a welfare system.... Making Social Security’s benefit formula this progressive could risk undermining some of the broad-based political support that Social Security enjoys...." (from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, quoted in NDN BLog)
  • Various comments that if Social Security is turned into a welfare program, it will be "gutted". [32]
  • "Social Security as Welfare", a column by George F. Will in which he explains how progressive indexation would change Social Security, and why Pat Moynihan was vigorously against a so-called "progressive" change that would erode support for Social Security and subject it to the same fate that AFDC met. [33]
This is just what I found quickly. If you want to be sure it can specifically be tied to Democratic leaders responding to Bush's plan, I'm pretty sure that Reid, Pelosi, or Rangel have made similar comments. I thought this passage didn't need citation because the point was pretty well known and not disputed. (That is, it's not disputed that this argument is being made; whether the argument is valid probably is disputed.) JamesMLane 10:31, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments, I found the statement confusing when I read it, so maybe it's a wording thing and not a footnote thing. I was surprised that Dems would criticize privatization as welfare, the two don't really make sense together in my head. So some sort of clearer copy might really help, IMHO. The points I'm making about POV here on the talk page aren't really to stir debates, but to hopefully inspire more clear and/or accurate phrasing for the article, making it easier to clearly understand. I'm not very familiar with the Dems position, so will leave this to someone else to hopefully clarify. Thanks again. --KBecks 13:11, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

POV - fragile?

Bush has pushed for tapping into oil reserves in the fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, thought by many to be the last untouched wilderness left in the US.

I think using the word fragile is POV, and unsubstantiated. Any objections to removing it? The 2nd part of the sentence covers environmental concern.

Thanks, --KBecks 13:54, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree it should be removed IMHO.... --AjaxSerix 17:25, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I concur with AjaxSerix. Voice of All(MTG) 17:48, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree. --JJLatWiki 21:57, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The entire thing is POV. The Arctic National Wildlife refuge is not the last untouched wilderness in the U.S., none of them are untouched. What the sentence should state is: Bush has supported legislation for allowing oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is a particularily sensitive ecosystem due to it's arctic location.--MONGO 03:16, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
Arctic ecosystems aren't more sensitive than any other ecosystem. It's a controversial topic not because of any claims of fragility, but opposition to human influence on the land. While it's true that the ANWR isn't untouched in the strictest sense of the word, this wilderness remains one of the most pristine and natural areas of the country. Designated wilderness areas in the lower 48 have strict standards to adhere to in an attempt to limit any influence humanity has on those areas, but volumes of tourism makes some impact unaviodable. This is a problem that ANWR hasn't had to deal with for the last hundred years or so, making it rather unique. Sdauson 06:53, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
While not completely disagreeing, and trying to not diverge away from the subject (Bush) I just want to remind you that due to the location of ANWR being north of the Brooks Range, the recovery of such an area can take centuries, whereby, much of Yellowstone National Park (about a third) experienced extensive fires in 1988 and in those areas, the trees have rejuvenated and are over 30 feet high in places. However, all the fear when the Alaska pipeline was built (caribou herd migrations, oil leaks, etc.) have come to naught, but only because the environmental protocols were established to ensure effective monitoring, land reclaimation and resource rehabilitation would be effectively applied. Human ecological impact is always greatest in colder climates due to shorter growing seasons. The cold has a tendency to lock things in time...vehicle tracks on the north slope made during WWII still look almost fresh.--MONGO 07:53, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

You two clearly know more about this topic, thanks for the comments and good luck on finding the most accurate wording to make the article most clear. --KBecks 13:13, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked without warning?

The following comment has been inserted in the very beginning of the article's wikitext: 'Anyone vandalizing this article will be blocked for up to 48 hours without further warning.' What's the point of this, and why should this particular article be treated any differently from any other one? I suggest the comment be removed. - ulayiti (talk) 00:59, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Because this article has the same few people vandalizing it and we shouldn't show tolerance. Its a highly vandalized article like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Jack Thompson (attorney). Redwolf24 (talk) 01:16, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If it has a few easy to identify vandals, then a 3RR rule should work fine. It is unfortunate when special rules are applied to articles when long standing and effective techniques to control vandalism are available. This is one of the most watched pages here, vandalism does not last long, and no one is overburdened with the task of watching it alone. NoSeptember 01:33, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
3RR doesn't work on AOL or proxies. That said, I believe Golbez added the notice during an avalanche of vandalism a while back, and I don't think enough admins are watching this article around the clock for this kind of blocking to happen. android79 01:40, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
3RR? 3RR of vandalism? 3RR has nothing to do with vandalism, thats for edit war prevention. We just block vandals for vandalism, 3RR has nothing to do with it. Redwolf24 (talk) 01:46, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It does if they violate 3RR, but again, trying to block AOL and proxies is so hard, I'm not sure the tag is necessary, but I sure do agree with it's intent.--MONGO 02:29, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
I like the intent also, but agree that it's unlikely that blocks for vandalism are occurring. So it's misleading and (sets false hopes for real contributors) if it cannot be adequately enforced. So I think it should either be policed better or taken down. --KBecks 13:30, 2 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed this comment while on rc patrol, I don't think this is a fair or helpful policy. Give the vandals their due warning, and then block them if they persist, its not like we're having trouble keeping up with vandalism on such a high-traffic page (every time i've tried to revert vandalism on this one, someone else already has) —siroχo 06:08, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

What happened to this edit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_W._Bush&oldid=22228134

Done by a political science professor, evidently. Looks like the person completely rewrote the page, killing most of the content....

Ryan Norton T | @ | C 05:15, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

pretty table for major legislation signed

Year     Legislation signed
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005


Does the above look better than the current way? Ryan Norton T | @ | C 05:49, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The NPOV tag stays

According to the recent survey (above), the NPOV tag stays. Seventeen people voted. Eleven (65%) were in favor of removing the tag and six opposed. The guideline for consensus suggests a two thirds majority as a measure of consensus on talk pages. So it's close but no cigar for those who want to remove that tag. Although it was close, strong feelings were expressed by many of the folks who voted to retain the tag. Perhaps we could look at it again down the road. I do think it is a good article, though. Sunray 14:56, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Nah - what we decided (I believe) is tagging individual problem sections with the sectnpov tag, as just tagging the whole article in this case isn't helping anyone Ryan Norton T | @ | C 21:46, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, that was not the decision. The vote was on removing the tag, it failed. 70.110.5.170 20:49, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

hey yall

should it really say "succeeded by: incumbent" in the infobox at the topp? Incumbent describes someone in a position to be reelected, no? I don't know if the phrase "succeeded by" is needed at all. has this been discussed? Schzz-niddl-bam snip snap sack 18:43, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's just how the infobox is designed. --Golbez 18:50, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Foreign views

This section shouldn't just focus on Iraq. It really needs to make it clear that he is depised and ridiculed in a way that no other U.S. President has ever been for everything he is and everything he does. There is general bewilderment that America could have elected the sort of dim aristocrat who stopped reaching high office in Europe a hundred years ago. He is a figure of fun and contempt to billions of people, and outside the U.S he has no partisan base to support him . All this needs to be put in neutral language of course, but really the current section gives no idea how widely he is loathed and belittled he is. It is a historical phenomenon that a U.S. leader could be loathed by people who support democracy and capitalism in the way this one is. He is the despair of America's friends, and has given the global anti-American movement it's biggest boost since the end of the Cold War. 82.35.34.11 03:55, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just thought I'd point out that there have been many, many U.S. Presidents who were hated as much as Bush. Even by U.S. citizens themselves. How quickly it is that people forget history. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:44, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Golfing while New Orleans burns

It seems that Bush, aside from asserting that no one thought the Levee's would give - seems to have been golfing during "a disaster of historic and unprecedented magnitude" (according to his Homeland Defense Czar). Does this need more mention? Benjamin Gatti

Is it just me or was that a bit POV? Redwolf24 (talk) 04:04, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
POV indeed. --tomf688<TALK> 04:12, September 5, 2005 (UTC)


Bush's commitment to golf appears to trump his interest in leading the country in a time of "unprecedented" need. Bush, is one of the few people in this country who can conduct the affairs of the country in real time. - Need walmart to start a caravan of water heading south - Bush can simply order it. The State of Luisianna clearly does not have the resources to handle this alone. It needs a leader with the authority to adapt every institution in the country to address the problem. Bush seems to think his presence would only be a distraction - what a shame, that the person chosen to lead the country considers himself to be in the way when the country needs leadership the most. Benjamin Gatti
Do not try to start a political debate, as that looks like what you're trying :-/ Redwolf24 (talk) 04:23, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If, as a matter of neutral and objective fact, Bush places golf before his obligations as leader of this country - why shouldn't that be reflected in the article? Benjamin Gatti
Because its inherently POV. Redwolf24 (talk) 04:32, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
At Wikipedia, we have to remain WP:NPOV. While if it is true that Bush went golfing during the whole mess, it can be reported, but must be worded in a way to show no bias. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 04:34, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. But where is the bias - perhaps we're showing a bias by placing to much focus on his being President. Again - if He himself - prefers golf to managing historical crisis as leader of the free world, then we should not place an undue bias on the other aspects of his life. Apparently Condi was shopping for shoes and killing time in a theatre while people's lives were in danger. Benjamin Gatti
You show an alarming inablility to separate facts from opinion. Dmcdevit·t 04:45, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
Condi is the Secretary of State and, technically, this is out of her jusidiction. She can only request for foreign aid, but Bush seems to be rejecting it. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 04:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Find a reliable source and write "President George W. Bush was playing golf on X day at Y time" in an appropriate place of the article. It is factual, it does not insert any connotation, and it can be verified. You don't have to spell it out, people who read wikipedia are intelligent enough to realize that playing golf during a national emergency is a bad thing. --Howrealisreal 04:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How about: It has been widely reported that George Bush was played golf during the worst natural disaster ever to hit the Continent. By contrast a Category 5 Hurrican struck Cuba and alert and non-drowsy leadership ensured that No one died.


[35] [36]

could that be any more POV? Redwolf24 (talk) 06:34, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I believe it could. How about:

How about: It has been widely reported that George Bush was playing golf during the worst natural disaster ever to hit the Continent in which hundreds if not thousands of the weakes members of society died while waiting for much promised aid to arrive. By contrast a Category 5 Hurricane struck Cuba and by strong and effective leadership no one died. Benjamin Gatti

Hooray Castro, leader of men. Redwolf24 (talk) 06:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't widely reported that Bush was golfing...only in left wing blogs...I haven't seen that even once in a reputable newspaper, etc. Comparing him to Castro is silly and POV...no one can really know if anyone died in Cuba or not from the storm there due to the state run media...besides, New Orleans is below sea level...and no place in Cuba is. However, I agree that this fiasco of a situation in New Orleans is due to gross mismanagement by FEMA.--MONGO 07:18, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

This "golf" thing isn't so widespread; on the other hand, it is commons knowledge that Bush was on holiday and stayed there for two days. It has also been reported that the Army was called in after one week, though I am unsure what this means, perhaps the Army vs the National Guard, or something... Rama 07:29, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone want to know my true sentiments...check out my userpage or [37]--MONGO 08:00, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, Political effects of Hurricane Katrina already covers this quite well, a mere link might be more useful. Rama 09:03, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, written by POV pushing edit warriors, Hell bent on assuming it's gotta be GWB's fault...it isn't his fault, it's the fault of the logistics and the fact that a few people George depends on to do the job right have zero capacity to know how to get there firstest with the mostest...until the General showed up, no one knew how to do this.--MONGO 09:50, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Can't we find some snarky things to say about Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was known to lift a golf club from time to time, or FDR, who made construction of public golf courses a national priority? Dpbsmith (talk) 11:31, 5 September 2005 (UTC) P. S. Before my time, but I was once told a very complicated nerdish joke, in which the setup involves the integral of force, f, over distance, which (to make the joke work) has to be designed r. The punchline is: "And f dr really did do an infinitesimal amount of work." My parents communicated the received wisdom that the lines in FDR's face were the result of carrying the heavy burden of Presidential office, but Roosevelt-haters obviously felt otherwise. Roosevelt-hatred, by the way, was so intense that it was still being expressed in the late 1950s, which is when I heard this. Dpbsmith (talk) 11:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I believe a President who decides to commit a nation to war on a lie deserves to "think about the war every day - every single day" i fact, i suggest that every hour our best and brightest are fighting an (imaginary) enemy, the President ought to be engaged. There is this tendency to blame middle management, but the President is the one person who can cut through Red tape and coordinate a relief effort without worrying about chain of comand and limits of authority. BTW Walmart showed up with a truck full of water - AND WAS TURNED AWAY. There is pretty solid evidence that FEMA was in the way during this crisis. Let's take a vote and guess the youngest grade school class who, in A SINGLE CLASSROOM HOUR can drum up a relief plan which could have reached the ill and injured in 8 hours - while getting fresh water and transportation to those trapped by the flood.

Those who believe 12th graders will solve the problem:

Those who believe 7th graders will solve the problem:

Those who believe 4th graders will find a practical solution:

BTW this test was done for the Titanic, and a means of saving all those on board was indeed found by untrained students. the problem in times of crisis is that feeble minds freeze up. GWB doesn't have the commitment to the nations problems, or the horsepower to solve problems. Benjamin Gatti

Opinion noted, and the point is? How does your opinion get put into the article and make it encyclopedic? GWB has at least been tested (unlike the almost impeached Clinton) , twice in fact, perhaps he failed, perhaps he hasn't failed...Hillary Clinton, the savior of our future, has requested that a commission such as the one after 9/11 be established to ascertain whether there was gross mismanagement. I am inclined to believe that yes, there has been, but I don't see how it is Bush's fault personally....that's okay though as we have CNN reporting, again, that Bush is now back in the gulf region for another "photo op"...sure, if he stayed home CNN would say he's disassociated from the events or unconcerned.--MONGO 15:12, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
Well given that the orders to move the National Guard from the different states to reinforce New Orleans and to mobilise the Army could be given only by the President himself, his personal responsability is somewhat questioned. But this all belongs in a separate article anyway. Rama 15:28, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Good, that ends that...then go put it in a different article.--MONGO 15:33, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
I have zero faith in HC - but for sake of argument, what would be wrong with empanelling the criticism panel during the emergency. I doubt President Bush would ever have moved his royal horse if it hadn't been for Geraldo and Shephard going down there and standing with those who were dying. Benjamin Gatti
Just pure opinion.--MONGO 17:34, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
A minor point, MONGO: Clinton was impeached. However, like Andrew Johnson (the other impeached president), he was not convicted (since neither article of impeachment received the required 2/3 vote in the Senate), and thus he remained in office. I think Bush pretty much has a lock on "worst president in history." I fervently hope that Hillary is not the Democratic nominee in 2008. Krakatoa 16:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I am well aware that the Senate didn't "convict" in either case. As far as worse President in history, now that's a big stretch...worse than Harding? Worse than Lyndon Johnson? Worse than Grant (okay General but horrible President), worse than Buchanan (the one before Lincoln you know)...I hope Hillary IS the Democratic nominee...in fact, I relish the notion! Once elected, she'll probably divorce Bill and get Rosie O'Donnell to move in with her.--MONGO 17:34, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
Oh don't worry, if Our Leader's gay anti-gay chums (Mehlman, McClellan, Rove, Gannon) have their way, such brash and flamboyantly 'out' left-wingers will be on one-way trains soon enough... feel better? -- RyanFreisling @ 17:42, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Twas a joke...I actually don't have a problem with Hillary...she might not do so badly.--MONGO 17:53, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
I know, I was ribbin' ya back. I think she'd do well, as a polarizing candidate - but she'd take every hit 'head-on', and might not stand up to the attack machine for the duration of a campaign. Seems good for her to be the middle-term front-runner, while the actual candidate preps and declares a bit later. -- RyanFreisling @ 17:56, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hillary may be a bit too controlling(in the White house as 1st lady), but that, in a way, is who she is. She takes a view and fights for without cheating and stealing. She uses all power to get what she believes needs to be done. People often don't like it when women do that, although men can get away with it alot more I've noticed. She would make an effective leader, to say the least. I think this is the last political thing I am going to say for a long while.Voice of All(MTG) 18:41, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
The progression of this discussion is quite fascinating. But take it from a New Yorker, Hillary as the democratic nominee would be a hand out to the Republicans in 2008. Even with Bush's perpetual blunders, the rest of the United States will undoubtedly pick the GOP than the neo-liberal republicrat imitation. It happened with Gore and Kerry and will happen again unless the Democrats truely re-think their views. Lets face it, why buy the knock-off DLC brand when you can get the GOP name brand at the same price? Don't be sad, the DLC has it coming to them for creating a platform that only Bill Clinton could carry. --Howrealisreal 19:04, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bush's Potemkin Villages

Bush has a real history of staged photo-ops:

Plastic turkey A Baghdad Thanksgiving's Lingering Aftertaste Stuffed by a plastic turkey Bush's gesture politics suggest a man seriously worried about his career

Mission accomplished Commander in Chief lands on USS Lincoln off the coast of San Diego, California

Mount Rushmore President Talks Homeland/Economic Security at Mt. Rushmore

Iraqui Amputeee "Journalist" Who Arranged Iraqi Amputee Photo-Op Is A Bush Donor

Bush's rescue of Louisiana Sen. Landrieu: Bush brought rescue resources for staged photo op, and then removed it.[38]

I think a section should be devoted to his staged photo-ops. Kgrr 18:19, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm getting increasingly disgusted at those who are making political hay of this tragedy. There's a noisy bunch on the left who are almost gleeful that the tragedy has occurred, because it gives them more opportunity to take pot shots.
Lots of mistakes have been made at all levels. It is always so in disaster relief. (After Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Senator Hollings said FEMA was a bunch of "bureaucratic jackasses.)
And it's a no-win situation. If President Bush does not go to the site, he doesn't care; if he does go; it's a photo op. [...].Pollinator 18:34, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
Comment removed, I know those claims are opportunistic and lose-lose, but please don't flame, it will only make you look bad.Voice of All(MTG) 18:53, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
FEMA was a bunch of bureaucratic jackasses in 1989. Clinton brought in his Arkansas Office of Emergency Management director who had done a great job, and he turned FEMA into a crack outfit. Bush even praised the guy's performance in Texas disasters during the first debate. Then when he got in, he gave the guy the boot and installed his campaign manager. Then that guy left, and was succeeded by his deputy, who he had brought in because he was his college roommate and the guy had lost his job as an administrator of judging at the association of arabian thoroughbred horses. (not making this up). And then FEMA got stuck under the dept of homeland security, and even this guy feels frustrated. And even though mistakes have been made at all levels, do you believe anybody will admit to any, let alone get fired over them? Gzuckier 05:27, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If you think someone is trolling, it's usually best just to ignore it. android79 18:38, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
You are probably right. But I've been in three hurricanes myself and worked relief in two more, and this shrill harping and pointing fingers always comes up. It hurts morale among those who are really trying to help. Pollinator 18:45, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
If he goes to the site to see and be seen, then he loses, The White House operates like 10 Helicopters - so he could have gone there with 10 helicopters and made a difference. He could grabbed a general and marched into the worst part of the flood with a caravan of supplies and boats. This could all be organized in 90 minutes. Instead, he was celebrating this and vacationing that. Elected officials get paid to do a lot of nothing - we expect them to be planning for emergencies, (FEME for exmaple) so when we have an emergency we get to see hwether thay have been merely enjoying the high life, or doing their job. I think its abundantly clear now which it is. Benjamin Gatti
Michael Chertoff calling the presence of desperate people at the New Orleans Convention Center a "rumor" was pretty bad. Chertoff saying that "this major breach of the levees was outside the scope of what people reasonably foresaw" was worse. That one falls in the category of making up a plausible excuse out of your head and hoping that it will magically be true. Bush calling the relief efforts "unsatisfactory," was good. But then, not following up, not holding anyone accountable, and praising Chertoff is pretty bad. I'm not sure where the buck stops in this administration. I almost get the impression that Bush is trying to pass the buck to New Orleans and Louisiana officials. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:20, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Benjamin, while I would agree that Bush could have done more using his presidencial powers(executive orders, emergy powers ect...), I don't think he could have helped directly, as he is not a professional. He would only hinder a resue missions because he is just a civilian without harnass/medical experience. Therefore, even if he acted like a rescuer using White House helicopters, it would only be a political stunt.
dpbsmith, I think that everyone is shifting blame around, not just the president. We need to put all this down and concentrate on everyone's mistakes, on all levels, so that damge from future disasters can perhaps be minimized.Voice of All(MTG) 20:45, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
Android, this post was not intended to be a troll. I am merely commenting on a pattern I have observed. Bush does stage photo-ops. All the examples I gave are very well documented and not just a left-wing conspiracy theories.
Pollinator, Benjamin, and Dpbsmith, I think you are missing the topic of my original question. I am asking if there is a pattern with staged photo-ops with Bush. Kgrr 20:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say it was a troll, though it seems others have interpreted it that way. Regarding the photo ops: I don't think Bush is the only politician that has staged things for political advantage. And, IIRC, the "fake turkey" thing was misreported. android79 03:49, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
I think it would be difficult to find any kind of reasonably objective measure that would show that he does so much more of it than other Presidents that it would be an encyclopedic fact. I don't think you're ever likely to get consensus on this. And your very use of the phrase "Potemkin village" shows that it is hardly a new phenomenon. Since my mother taught me that the essence of a lie was not the literal truth of a statement, but the intention to deceive, I think that all such staged photo-ops are lies and I would like to see them all exposed. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Android, the fake turkey was all a stage show - plastic. The Guardian is a reliable news source.[39] and so is the Seattle Times [40] It's part of the plastic image that I think needs to be recorded in this article. Smith, Yes, clearly the intention of a "Potemkin Village" is to deceive. Unfortunately what this encyclopedia article needs to reflect is that there is a lot of effort being put forth to create a home-town tough guy image that is really not there. Bush led a very sheltered life and has mostly gotten a free ride through private schools, his Yale party days, the military and Harvard. His political and oil careers came mostly on the coat tails of his Dad. Albeit, every politician is involved in image shaping. However, it seems that Bush needs to fight *much harder* than other Presidents to keep up his image. For example, the Mission Accomplished photo-op was to signal the end of the war. We are supposed to be working a peace-keeping mission now. We are never shown caskets or pictures of dead bodies - it's all a deception to keep us engaged in a war of agression (it's not a war preemption or defense of the country) Until these lies are exposed, I believe this article is politically biased. In fairness, I believe a section covering the Potemkin village should be created. Kgrr 14:22, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I see it the same way you do. Roughly half of the country sees it differently from me. Regardless of what you and I think, nothing is going to get into the article and stick unless it passes muster with both Bush opponents and supporters. You'd better start looking for reasonably neutral, quotable sources that say that this administration is notable for its use of more plastic turkeys than other administrations.
Actually, if you've ever watched photographers, they're an amazingly dishonest bunch. I'm not saying it happened this way, but even IF Bush had personally served a big platter of real turkey to hungry servicemen, it is perfectly plausible to imagine a photographer saying, "OK, now let's get another, only this time stand over here where the background is better, and let's use this plastic turkey because it photographs much better than the real one." Probably half the food in any published photo is fake or inedible or has had motor oil sprayed on it to make it look juicy or something.
IIRC the famous photo of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima had, uh, problems....
Now, if Bush were the kind of person I'd like to imagine a President as being, I'd like to think he'd say "Go do something anatomically impossible, nobody is photographing me with a plastic turkey." But fussing about this still falls in the category of a "cheap shot." I loved it when Michael Moore caught Wolfowitz slobbering drool onto his comb, but, you know, that doesn't really have a lot to do with whether Wolfowitz is a good policymaker. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:56, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bush abortion

Scimitar-

"When I said that we had proof, I am referring to knowing who the girl was, knowing who the doctor was that performed the abortion, evidence from girlfriends of hers at the time, who knew about the romance and the subsequent abortion. The young lady does not want to go public, and without her willingness, we don't feel that we're on solid enough legal ground to go with the story, because she would say it never happened... One of the things that interested us was that this abortion took place before Roe v. Wade in 1970, which made it a crime at the time. I'd just like the national media to ask him (Bush) if abortion is okay for him and his family, but not for the rest of America..." [41] [42]

(Comment moved from top of page to bottom of page)

  • To describe Flynt as "joining the frenzy of mudslinging" is not terribly encyclopedic. Furthermore, major changes should be discussed on the talk page first. Additionally, since we're a tertiary source of information, our references should be impecable (i.e. MSM, etc.). If it is the opinion of the majority of editors that this information should be included, go for it. I'm thinking, probably not. --Scimitar parley 22:32, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • major changes? i do not know what MSM is, i guess its one of those laughable news agencies the americans have for feeding them the lies they need and love. the fact that he is being criticised by Flynt remains a fact. "majority of editors"? free information!
    • MSM means mainstream media, which an atheist Bush-hate site is not. Please do not introduce fringe conspiracies to Wikipedia. Harro5 10:08, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

Shrug

Well, I tried being draconian, but there are too many IPs. Looking at the block log, it looks like many of them have been blocked - but there's only a certain amount of vandalism the article can take in a certain timeframe before you lock up.

I hope the Bush haters are happy - now they can't edit it at all. :) --Golbez 01:22, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

(cough)...semi-protection...(cough). Thanks Golbez for keeping up the blocks on vandalism. --kizzle 01:53, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
(cough)...semi-protection...(cough)...Amen brother...!--MONGO 02:58, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
(cough)...semi-protection...(cough)...you're preaching to the choir man!Voice of All(MTG) 03:01, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
I've tried it before Golbez. It really is futile, we can't block a page until January of 09, no matter HOW many admins we have. The only non-legal page we kept locked is the Main Page, and all templates on it, to keep penises from the eyes of the casual visitor. Redwolf24 (talk) 01:59, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, I'm so confused, why is this article locked? by locking it, aren't you basically letting the vandals have their way?--Wikiwarrior 03:08, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No. I don't even see how that makes sense. We're making it so the SysOps have their way ;) Redwolf24 (talk) 03:57, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
2 out of the last 50 edits were useful, one of which was by a logged-in user. 21 vandalisms were performed by 17 unique non-logged-in IPs and 2 logged-in users. All within 21 hours. Can we protect pages so they can only be edited by logged-in users? DDerby(talk) 05:10, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
We tried to push that and I forget where the link is in :meta I think...Kizzle can probably direct you as he pointed it out to me.--MONGO 09:30, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

A note to anyone who unprotects this article (which I'll probably do in a few hours): Remember to then protect it from moving. Redwolf24 (talk) 03:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]


" his administration culminated in September 2005"

This line is false by definition, as Mr. Bush is still President, we have no way of knowing if criticism has culminated, which of course means a "high water mark" Suggest changing to: "Criticism reached new heights" or "Some argue that criticism for his administration crystalized in September 2005" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.239.61.39 (talk • contribs) 09:53, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"However, some praised the actions of his administration and others shifted criticism to state and local governments of the region."

Can we be more specific about the "some" who "praised" the federal response to Katrina? And a link maybe? Otherwise I think it should go. The criticism is attributed to many victims, the praise to an unspecified "some." Like many people, I have been following this story closely, and although I have seen the federal response excused, the only praise I have heard has come from feds themselves (Bush telling "Brownie" he's doing a great job, Sen. Landrieu praising Bush, etc.) And even Bush himself flip-flopped, having first stated that the response was "unacceptable." And the reaction to the response from some conservative commentators like David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, and others has been extremely negative. So can we have some specifics please, or are we just making stuff up and calling that balance? 68.110.199.122 15:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I dont know about any praise. Bush never said the response was unacceptable though. He said the results were unacceptable. Banes 11:56, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good, then I'll change the word "praise" to "defend." 68.110.199.122 02:09, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Scratch that, I see an edit has already been done. 68.110.199.122 02:15, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Spoils System

Something about the Spoils System should be added to his article, it is very clear he has used this system for the majority of his nomination and appointments and it can still reside within a NPOV --64.251.52.4 14:32, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

George W. Bush has a lower approval rating proving Americans are getting smarter. Hopefully they will show it on the next election by voting someone who isn't a religious right wing nut.

People like you are so funny. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 16:11, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Russian translation

Is it really appropriate to have Bush's name in Russian here? I know we do it for others, but I thought that was only for foreign names. --Scimitar parley 23:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Already reverted. Much to my surprise, Babelfish said that it was a legitimate translation. I suspected "monkey brain" or somesuch. android79 23:58, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Removal of Items in Further Reading Section

Several so-called ultraliberal books that have been added recently (not by me) have been removed (Redwolf24 "reverting the addition of about 12 ultraliberal books to further reading. This isn't to endorse Bush, but rather to make Wikipedia seem NPOV".) While I make no assertions to the contents of these books, I do believe that these books definitely do fit into this article as they are valid references and have been properly published. The correct way to make Wikipedia seem more NPOV would be to add several pro-Bush books instead of removing anti-Bush books. Otherwise it's just a form of censorship, and Wikipedia should not support that. 212.147.95.59 00:53, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Censorship eh? I was trying to keep it NPOV, and I coculd either remove those, or spend an hour finding some books no one has heard of in which the author wants some people to see them. Removing them was faster and easier. Also, I am normally a follower of the 1RR rule, so if any registered user (who isnt an account just made) puts them back, I'll leave them be. Redwolf24 (talk) 00:59, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Links to legit books is not POV. Your laziness is not an excuse for censorship. If you don't want to look up pro-Bush books, leave a note here asking somebody less lazy to do it. 68.110.199.122 02:07, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Why not link to the National Enquirer or any other number of ridiculous far out "books".--MONGO 02:11, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
False comparison. 68.110.199.122 02:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the books don't really even seem notable. We aren't just a repository of books about Bush. Plus about calling me lazy, you didn't find the pro-Bush books yourself, showing you seem to be POV-pushing. And just so you know, I'm apolitical. I'm not Republican or Democratic. Redwolf24 (talk) 02:14, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agenda pushing is teh sux. Redwolf24 (talk) 02:16, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's fine without the books. (Liberal here, but some random anti-Bush books aren't necessarily notable) Ral315 02:19, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
Redwolf, you yourself wrote that you adopted the course of action because it was "faster and easier." Is that the way Wikipedia problems should be solved? And I never accused you of any kind of Republican bias. I only said that you were censoring out of laziness. And I stand by that. I don't even know what the books were. I just have a real problem with deletions in general, and especially when resorted to because it is "faster and easier" than other, possibly better solutions. You don't want to do something right, post a note here and ask someone else to do it.68.110.199.122 02:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't matter anyway, note the consensus against them? We will remove anything that fails to meet WP:NPOV. Redwolf24 (talk) 02:25, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tongue in Pig Incident

Sept. 14, 2005

Look at the section on Bush's college education. Err, is that true? How could I have missed this story? -Winston Laremy

I've removed it. If someone provides a source, then we can consider whether it's worth mentioning. JamesMLane 16:54, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of NPOV?

For several months this article was essentialy a hotbed of POV disputes. I was quite shocked to find the tag had been removed upon my visit just now. For what reason has the NPOV tag been removed?

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