When did you last give Bush* "the benefit of the doubt"?

[elperromagico]

Poll question: When did you last give Bush* "the benefit of the doubt"?

In other words, when did you finally give up on Jorge Arbusto*?

[Fire Bush]

1. Kind of a no brainer there. n/t

[BurtWorm]

2. When has he ever demonstrated that he deserved the benefit of the doubt?

When he was a "pussy" obsessed drunken adolescent in his father's WH? A murderous governor of Texas? He's never needed, let alone earned, the benefit of my doubt, the motherfucker.

[elperromagico]

3. Oh, I agree. But some people want to give a president "a chance,"

no matter how awful he is.

[BurtWorm]

5. I wasn't implying that you thought he should be given one or shouldn't.

He just disgusts me.

[gottaB]

4. I must admit

I always took him for stupid, incompetent, arrogant and chockfull of wrong ideas, but stopped short of questioning his decency. With the abuse scandal, even though intellectually I believe that torture, rape, extortion and murder are all part of the plan, I didn't really anticipate feeling it. Now I feel it. The smirk. It's wicked.


Wicked. No. Chilling.

[salin]

6. for a couple of hours after his speech

after Gore conceded. He spoke almost humbly, said things along the lines of... I know you didn't all support me (he lost the popular vote?!).. but I will work to earn your respect... will work to represent and lead ALL of you. It was actually a pretty good speech. I listened - and while not fully buying it - decided as I headed for bed.. that I hoped this was true - that he recognized the exceptional fractiousness needed to be healed and that his show of humility would translate into something (what?!) But the pomposity was back immediately - and my good will "benefit of the doubt" evaporated... quickly.

[carols]

7. "Benefit of the doubt" isn't in my vocabulary when it comes to *

Of course it isn't in my vocabulary for a whole lot of things - I test software for a living and I get paid for my lack of trust. Bush v1.0 failed system testing a long time ago. Unfortunately they deployed it anyway.
Carol

[SCDem]

8. on 9/11

on 9/11 I immediately thought that Bush was behind or knowledgable about what I was watching on TV. It was all playing out in my head how this was a win win situation for me and how he could advance all his policies because of this. I felt bad and thought give him the benefit of the doubt. I thought to myself maybe I am being too synical.

I trust my instinct. It maybe synical but it is usually the truth.

[checks-n-balances]

9. Right after 9/11 and just before the "Axis of Evil" speech

That was it. I thought I was entering a parallel universe/twilight zone, and have ever since.

[jobycom]

10. When he traded Sammy Sosa and Wilson Alverez

And he's earned my distrust ever since.

[elperromagico]

11. LOL - good choice.

The man doesn't seem to have an ounce of business acumen in his body.

[DaveSZ]

16. Here's how I see it

He was the governor of my state so I always knew he was an idiotic Fundamentalist in the pocket of the corporations, but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined he could have done the amount of damage to our economy, environment, and world image as he's done.

It's truly amazing.

[jobycom]

21. I told my bosses at work

They were saying what a great president he'd be, and I told them once that he would get us into war, get the whole world mad at us, piss off OPEC, crash the economy and the stock market, drive oil prices up, and probably let his gaurd down so much that the terrorists would finally get their big strike on American soil.

I also said he might wind up drinking himself to death when he realized how hard the job was, but I missed on that one, although I think I came close with the "pretzel" incident.

BTW, I wasn't guessing, I backed up every point I made with references to Bush's stated policies and attitudes.

[argyl]

17. Good one.I couldn't stand to see him at TBA playing ballclub owner.

Camera would pan in on him and some announcer would comment on what a great governor he'd make.I knew back then that the fix was in.I've been watching this storm on the horizon for about twelve years.

[Zero Gravitas]

12. There never was any doubt about in him my mind

From the first time I saw him I realized that he was completely unfit to be President, that he was a useless aristocrat who had never achieved anything on his own merits and the was an ignoramus.

[AntiCoup2K4]

13. I have never given him, or his daddy, the benefit of the doubt.

Always assumed they were lying, because as it turned out, that was the case.

[natrat]

15. for a while there i gave his

dad the benefit of the doubt because he could actually put full sentences together and speak w/out a teleprompter. He actually seemed like a centrist.

[Maeve]

14. I really wanted him to grow up after 9/11

That was the last speech of his I tuned in for intentionally--I really wanted to believe there was more "there" there.

But there wasn't. I turned off the speech before it was over, praying we could survive his term in office.

[DaveSZ]

18. True

Bush's dad was more of a centrist.

His son is a maniac though.

[linazelle]

19. I tried to go along and did thru Afghanistan...the Iraq campaign did it

for me. I knew the SOB was lying from Day 1. I listened in horror for months, while the world seemed to be asleep as this man and his accomplices lied their way to war. I didn't know about DU then--and the few people I talked to close to me just didn't see it, or get the significance of this. Then with the "liberal" media covering *'s ass, it seemed like nobody cared. The media is as much responsible for this war as Bush is. Hannity, LimpBalls, O'Really--and the other media that simply did not air the overwhelming opposition to this ware all have blood on their hands with Bush.

[woofless]

20. Never. I have read Molly Ivins for years.

She was all over "Shrub" while he was running against Ann Richards and all through his time as Governor. I am still dazed that this POS is where he is today. Unbuckingfelievable.

[bmbmd]

22. Never-not now, not ever

not as governor, not as president.
The guy is an empty suit.

[The_Counsel]

23. 2000

Yes, kids, there actually was a point where I gave SmirkBoy "the benefit of the doubt." I was always reasonably sure I'd vote Democratic, but I forced myself to at least listen to what the Idiot Who Would Be King had to say before I dismissed him out of hand.

Where he lost it for me was when he started bad-mouthing Saddam and talking about a 21st century knock off of Reagan's ill-conceived strategic defense initiative (SDI). All I could think was "what's this bastard planning to do that would piss off some other nation enough to want to bomb us?" I was convinced that he was gonna get us all killed, and that SOMEBODY had to stop him. By that time, the only one that could have stopped him was Al Gore, and we already know the story about his less-than-stellar campaign...

So yeah, I gave Smirky a chance, but he fucked it up -- just like he does everything else...

[Delano]

24. Until the period...

Betweeen the Afghan war and the period when Iraq war murmurs started.

Reading about Colin Powell's bribing of the Taliban, then our threatening them to try to get a pipeline, paired with the impending sense that a ridiculously off-target war in Iraq was impending made me sure that this administration was batty.

[napi21]

25. Right after 9/11. I agreed with the statement

"The world hears you! We will find out who did this to us, and we will punish them." (or something close to that. I must say I felt the same way.
Shortly after that, it seemed to me to take too long to decend on Afghanistan. I'm certainly no military person, but their plan to get the Northern Afghans to do their dirty work didn't make sense to me, and then when he started to make noises aobut Iraq and putting an American face in the middle east, I knew he was just nuts.