Bush II's Popularity is soaring

[Lexicus]

I have not once said that speeches matter more than war crimes. I have said that ignoring what the president say to focus exclusively on what the president does is stupid, and that yes, his twitter and what he says on it *does* matter. The intellectual elitism that says it doesn't is, for American democracy, the kind of Darwin-award-level negligence that lost the Democrats the 2016 election.

Well, as I never said that his tweets don't matter I suppose there's a lot of this going around about now.

As for war crimes : the reason I don't put much weight on "Bush did war crimes" is because, having studied international criminal law? I don't think you're getting much of anything to stick to bush in an actual (state-backed, but fair) war crime trial.

The legalistic aspect of the accusation is not really The Point. I am also aware we would need some, ah, revolutionary reforms to actually convict Bush of anything. I do think a fair trial would convict him of more than just torture, but the American President will never have a fair trial under the current international system.

(and for all that the Nazis et al richly deserved everything they got, those were largely Kangaroo courts making up laws as they went along, not an ideal to aspire to or a basis for a system of justice),

Here I really don't agree with you. While you're not wrong about them being in essence Kangaroo courts, I think they point the way toward an ideal to aspire to.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Wasnt House of cards based on the Clintons ?

It was based on a British drama of the same name from the early 90's. I've seen the first episode or two of the original and I think there was a lot of similarities but I can't recall how closely it hewed to the original. Likely it just took the inspiration and ran with it.

Don't know, I never watched the show. I was just going off the fact that Kevin Spacey has always been politically aligned with Democrats.

Another thought I had regarding this matter: Has Trump pretty much ruined presidential campaigns for future "political outsiders"? I ask because even though he's not an outsider*, Trump has styled himself as such and the fact that he's doing such a terrible job might put a negative stigma in voters' minds about electing another anti-establishment candidate. That means true anti-establishment candidates in the future who might actually have some good ideas and real leadership skills might get passed over by voters in favor of career politicians because of what Trump has done. You know, people might start to think "outsiders" simply can't get the job done or are too extreme in their views to be effective leaders.

*Even though this is the first elected office Trump has held, he is no stranger to Washington politics. He has been a prominent figure in the fundraising campaigns of several career politicians, most of whom still hold office to this day.

The first couple of seasons are well worth watching. By the third season it came off the rails and I am hoping that Spacey's departure lead to a serious reset of the craziness going on in it.

On your other topic - I've hear political scientists theorize that actually Trump has blazed the way for political outsiders to mount serious campaigns going forward. They also speculate that if the RNC had superdelagates like the DNC, Trump might have been stopped. I follow the logic but I don't know that peculiar institution is something the RNC should emulate.

 

[Lexicus]

On your other topic - I've hear political scientists theorize that actually Trump has blazed the way for political outsiders to mount serious campaigns going forward. They also speculate that if the RNC had superdelagates like the DNC, Trump might have been stopped. I follow the logic but I don't know that peculiar institution is something the RNC should emulate.

Well, this is sort of the great irony of the whole 2016 election. The Democrats insisted that their "responsible" system of filtering out reckless outsider candidates who couldn't possibly win general elections was the only way to win anything, and of course you young whippersnappers need to just stay out of things, we know how to win elections, you don't, now sit down and shut up, be grateful for Hillary Clinton who will be our next President.

The Republican Party gave the lie to basically every bit of this conventional wisdom. Their party was bitterly divided, they had a genuinely democratic primary election in which an "irresponsible" outsider candidate won (not to say that the Democrats didn't, since Hillary got the most votes and won, but the superdelegates mean that the potential is always there for the will of the voters to be ignored), and they won the general election anyway. Indeed, some might claim, with justice, that they won the general election in part because of these things.

 

[Mouthwash]

I think what Trump has done has more long-reaching consequences for the US rather than Immediate.
Taking us out of certain trade agreements, taking us out of the role of Climate change leadership and overall making the US more isolationist and his racist overtones have strengthened Neo-Nazis and groups like the KKK. He's appointments are also going in the direction of destroying the EPA and dismantling our national park system.

Yes, far worse than merely destroying half of the Middle East.

EDIT: what the heck: "taking us out of the role of Climate change leadership"

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, this is sort of the great irony of the whole 2016 election. The Democrats insisted that their "responsible" system of filtering out reckless outsider candidates who couldn't possibly win general elections was the only way to win anything, and of course you young whippersnappers need to just stay out of things, we know how to win elections, you don't, now sit down and shut up, be grateful for Hillary Clinton who will be our next President.

The Republican Party gave the lie to basically every bit of this conventional wisdom. Their party was bitterly divided, they had a genuinely democratic primary election in which an "irresponsible" outsider candidate won (not to say that the Democrats didn't, since Hillary got the most votes and won, but the superdelegates mean that the potential is always there for the will of the voters to be ignored), and they won the general election anyway. Indeed, some might claim, with justice, that they won the general election in part because of these things.

Of course the democrats were themselves emulating the RNC system that gave the Republicans whitewash landslides from the fifties through 1992 with very limited interruption, ending only when their own version of Bernie Sanders made an opening for the Democrats.

 

[Lexicus]

EDIT: what the heck: "taking us out of the role of Climate change leadership"

Good point, were we ever really playing this role? I don't think so - at least not nearly to the degree we should have been. I hope that Trump's total idiocy on the subject will fuel a backlash.

Of course the democrats were themselves emulating the RNC system that gave the Republicans whitewash landslides from the fifties through 1992 with very limited interruption, ending only when their own version of Bernie Sanders made an opening for the Democrats.

Can you explain a bit more? I'm ignorant of this. I read an article on the origins of the Democratic superdelegates once but I can't remember it mentioning the Republicans having a similar system.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Can you explain a bit more? I'm ignorant of this. I read an article on the origins of the Democratic superdelegates once but I can't remember it mentioning the Republicans having a similar system.

Well, up until 1968 the whole thing was basically "superdelegates." The conventions were where who would run got decided and the voters really had very little to do with it. The two parties picked their candidates, and the voters got to choose between them and that was that. Primaries were used to provide the party with information about how "electable" various potential candidates might be, but they weren't generally binding at all, in either party. In 68 when the democratic party rank and file presented a serious threat to burn down the convention for nominating yet another party hack there was a general consensus that reforms were in order.

The GOP was sort of immunized from the results of those reforms until 1980 because they were just nominating the incumbent and hoping for the best, so they didn't really participate in the shift towards binding primaries until then. When they did the Republicans made it abundantly clear that they would structure the primaries so that only the candidate with the big Republican money behind them would have a chance to win. They did the Iowa and New Hampshire thing to test the waters and decide who to fund, and then did enough primaries all on one day to ensure that anyone other than "the chosen one" couldn't afford to compete. Once that day showed a massive blowout victory for the chosen one the race was over. So instead of the party bosses picking the nominee at the convention, they picked the nominee in a back room somewhere the day after the New Hampshire primary...and they continued to pick winners.

The bottom line of the GOP has always been "if we pick a nominee who actually represents our voters we don't have a chance in hell."

 

[Evie]

Well, as I never said that his tweets don't matter I suppose there's a lot of this going around about now.

Fair enough.

The legalistic aspect of the accusation is not really The Point. I am also aware we would need some, ah, revolutionary reforms to actually convict Bush of anything. I do think a fair trial would convict him of more than just torture, but the American President will never have a fair trial under the current international system.

True, but I stand by my assessment of the probable result of an actual fair trial. Beyond torture, you're talking about a command responsibility case, and that require demonstrating (for any war crime you want to pin on Bush) that he knew or should have known the war crime was occurring and subsequently failed to reasonably act to prevent, stop or punish it (and really, even putting aside the legalistic aspects, that's the only way to make command responsibility a remotely fair standard). Given that Bush was halfway around the world, exercising only largely indirect control on the military (since, as chief of state, he has many other duties than just supervising the military), with many commanders at various ranks between him and the war crimes in question (whose actual duty *was* managing the military).

Arguing that the president "knew or should have known" about the detail of the actions undertaken by his troops...no. He's just not in a position to have *that* detailed a ground-level view of the action. Barring evidence of a widespread systemic problem across the military (and I don't come close to believing we have anything close to that evidence), there are so many layers of responsibility between the president and the crime that at some point, you can't reasonably argue it anymore.

"War crimes" make a great political talking points. But it doesn't make a particularly convincing case (except for the torture policy. Maybe for Abu Ghraib, and even that's a stretch), either at the ethics or actual law level.

Here I really don't agree with you. While you're not wrong about them being in essence Kangaroo courts, I think they point the way toward an ideal to aspire to.

They were sort of at the crossroad between the emerging system of written laws of war of the twentieth century (Geneva conventions, etc), and the ad-hoc war crime trials dating all the way back to Peter von Hagenbach in the Burgundian wars, where the winners used war crimes as a mean of inflicting victor's justice on the losers. Nuremberg and Tokyo, in my opinion, still had far too much of the old victor's justice in them. I agree with you that they point to an ideal to aspire to ; but they do so (to me) more by pointing out the the *need* for such an ideal, rather than providing that ideal (ie, Nurembert and Tokyo, through their fault, demonstrated the *need* for such an ideal ; they don't provide an example of striving toward that ideal themselves).

 

[Lexicus]

True, but I stand by my assessment of the probable result of an actual fair trial. Beyond torture, you're talking about a command responsibility case, and that require demonstrating (for any war crime you want to pin on Bush) that he knew or should have known the war crime was occurring and subsequently failed to reasonably act to prevent, stop or punish it (and really, even putting aside the legalistic aspects, that's the only way to make command responsibility a remotely fair standard). Given that Bush was halfway around the world, exercising only largely indirect control on the military (since, as chief of state, he has many other duties than just supervising the military), with many commanders at various ranks between him and the war crimes in question (whose actual duty *was* managing the military).

"War crimes" make a great political talking points. But it doesn't make a particularly convincing case, either at the ethics or actual law level.

You could convict him of crimes against peace, which aren't technically war crimes. The Iraq War was quite clearly an aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter.

"War crimes" make a great political talking points. But it doesn't make a particularly convincing case, either at the ethics or actual law level.

Legally, sure, but ethically, I can't agree. The ethics of the matter are quite clear to me: the only possible just outcome would be Bush dancing at the end of a noose (with some company, I might add). Just as you said the Nazis deserved everything they got in spite of the kangaroo court thing, my position is that Bush & co richly deserve similar punishment.

Well, up until 1968 the whole thing was basically "superdelegates." The conventions were where who would run got decided and the voters really had very little to do with it. The two parties picked their candidates, and the voters got to choose between them and that was that. Primaries were used to provide the party with information about how "electable" various potential candidates might be, but they weren't generally binding at all, in either party. In 68 when the democratic party rank and file presented a serious threat to burn down the convention for nominating yet another party hack there was a general consensus that reforms were in order.

The GOP was sort of immunized from the results of those reforms until 1980 because they were just nominating the incumbent and hoping for the best, so they didn't really participate in the shift towards binding primaries until then. When they did the Republicans made it abundantly clear that they would structure the primaries so that only the candidate with the big Republican money behind them would have a chance to win. They did the Iowa and New Hampshire thing to test the waters and decide who to fund, and then did enough primaries all on one day to ensure that anyone other than "the chosen one" couldn't afford to compete. Once that day showed a massive blowout victory for the chosen one the race was over. So instead of the party bosses picking the nominee at the convention, they picked the nominee in a back room somewhere the day after the New Hampshire primary...and they continued to pick winners.

The bottom line of the GOP has always been "if we pick a nominee who actually represents our voters we don't have a chance in hell."

So you mean that the superdelegates are designed to emulate the GOP's sewn-up primaries? And who's the Republican equivalent of Bernie Sanders?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So you mean that the superdelegates are designed to emulate the GOP's sewn-up primaries? And who's the Republican equivalent of Bernie Sanders?

Right. The party picks the candidate to win the general, not to satisfy the rank and file. The process isn't the same, but the intended outcome is.

Ross Perot. The Republicans picked their candidate to win, and one of their own rebelled against their choice and threw the election to the opposing party, represented by Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton recognized that what he went through to win the nomination had left him very unlikely to win the general election and only the intervention of Ross Perot ended the Republican dominance of the White House, so he used his position as president to restructure the Democratic party process in a way that would allow them to pick candidates that could compete against the Republicans.

 

[Lexicus]

Ahh, I thought he might be who you were talking about. I don't know enough about that '92 election but I have heard people argue that Clinton would have beat Bush without Perot.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ahh, I thought he might be who you were talking about. I don't know enough about that '92 election but I have heard people argue that Clinton would have beat Bush without Perot.

I've also heard people argue that the Earth is flat, but I don't buy that either. The arguments that the earth is flat are actually harder to dismiss than any argument that Clinton was gonna win without Perot. The only argument that carries any weight at all is the highly suspect "if Perot had not run all the Perot voters would have just stayed home."

Perot was the tea party before they were the tea party. He didn't siphon any significant number of Democrat votes from Clinton. Clinton beat Bush by six million votes, and Perot got twenty million. If even half of the Perot voters had not had him on the ballot and turned out anyway that puts Bush up by four million in the popular vote. Without Perot Clinton might have gotten a couple more states than Dukakis did in 88, but he would have gotten crushed and everyone knew it, including him.

 

[stinkubus]

Perot did not cost Bush the election. The gist of this article is that polling shows Clinton was the preferred second choice for a majority of Perot voters. The only state which would have plausibly flipped if Perot had not been on the ballot was Ohio which still leaves Clinton with with 160 EV margin of victory.

Bush was extremely unpopular at the time of the 92 election due to his breaking a promise not to raise taxes and a very nasty recession in 90-91.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...f4f-8e7f-f3ee9f2325d1/?utm_term=.8ddf7b622480

 

[Evie]

You could convict him of crimes against peace, which aren't technically war crimes. The Iraq War was quite clearly an aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter.

Welllll. Yes and no. An act of aggression is only such under the UN charter when the Security Council labels it such (Art. 39). Which obviously didn't happen, couldn't happen, and was never going to happen. There's a very good case to be made that the "Act of aggression" bit was never meant to limit the Big Five. Even without that, the UN Charter is not (or rather was not, at the time) a international criminal law document - it was a pact between nations. The potential consequences for breaking the pact (eg, embargos, blockade, military intervention, etc) are all directed at punishing the nation, not at treating individual crimes.

And therein lies the big rub on "Crime of aggression". It was an ad-hoc label and a general notion we threw around at Nuremberg...and then proceeded to miserably fail to actually define and write into law for the next 65 years. The International Law Commission lobbed around a very general definition of aggression in the 50s ; it never was adopted in any binding way. The UN proposed a resolution in the 70s ; people spent the next two decades criticizing it (and it never had legal force either). The signatories of the 1998 Rome statute of the ICJ all agreed "crimes of agression" should be under the purview of the court...but then immediately inserted a provision that said the court would only examine crimes of aggression once the signatories could agree on a definition. Which they only did in 2010.

So now we have a definition (although the US, at last count, still hasn't signed up on it), and *now* violating the UN Charter is a crime under international law...but only since 2010, otherwise known as after the end of the Bush presidency. That definition really can't be used against him.

 

[stinkubus]

The US can't commit war crimes because they have veto power over UN resolutions required to define them? I hope lawyers don't have to wonder why they are despised by the public.

 

[Lexicus]

Welllll. Yes and no. An act of aggression is only such under the UN charter when the Security Council labels it such (Art. 39). Which obviously didn't happen, couldn't happen, and was never going to happen. There's a very good case to be made that the "Act of aggression" bit was never meant to limit the Big Five. Even without that, the UN Charter is not (or rather was not, at the time) a international criminal law document - it was a pact between nations. The potential consequences for breaking the pact (eg, embargos, blockade, military intervention, etc) are all directed at punishing the nation, not at treating individual crimes. I

And therein lies the big rub on "Crime of aggression". It was an ad-hoc label and a general notion we threw around at Nuremberg...and then proceeded to miserably fail to actually define and write into law for the next 65 years. The International Law Commission lobbed around a very general definition of aggression in the 50s ; it never was adopted in any binding way. The UN proposed a resolution in the 70s ; people spent the next two decades criticizing it (and it never had legal force either). The signatories of the 1998 Rome statute of the ICJ all agreed "crimes of agression" should be under the purview of the court...but then immediately inserted a provision that said the court would only examine crimes of aggression once the signatories could agree on a definition. Which they only did in 2010.

So now we have a definition (although the US, at last count, still hasn't signed up on it), and *now* violating the UN Charter is a crime under international law...but only since 2010, otherwise known as after the end of the Bush presidency. That definition really can't be used against him.

I think this is where I point out that one of the "revolutionary reforms" I mentioned earlier would naturally have to be the destruction of the US empire.

 

[Gori the Grey]

It's hilarious that Hillary got 5% more of the popular vote than Bill did in his first election and still didn't win.

You know, hilarious in a sad way.

 

[Evie]

Which still wouldn't solve the difficulty posed by paragraph 2 and 3 (and the second half of paragraph 1). "Crimes against the peace" (or "Crimes of aggression") are a very important concept, but not a very well defined one, nor one that had (until recently) much legal weight.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Perot did not cost Bush the election. The gist of this article is that polling shows Clinton was the preferred second choice for a majority of Perot voters. The only state which would have plausibly flipped if Perot had not been on the ballot was Ohio which still leaves Clinton with with 160 EV margin of victory.

Bush was extremely unpopular at the time of the 92 election due to his breaking a promise not to raise taxes and a very nasty recession in 90-91.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...f4f-8e7f-f3ee9f2325d1/?utm_term=.8ddf7b622480

Sure, Republicans were mad at Bush. Mad enough to vote for Perot, and mad enough to talk smack about voting for Clinton. Just like the never Trumpers talked smack about how they "would vote for a Democrat, just you watch"...right up until they got in the booth and pulled the lever for Trump. Tea partiers can talk all the smack they want, but unless they are given a choice like Perot they will always vote for any Republican against any Democrat, period.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The US can't commit war crimes because they have veto power over UN resolutions required to define them?

Yup. Just like Israel.