Left in the Reign: Responding to right wing friends

This was forwarded to me by a friend and associate who is far brighter and more knowledgeable than myself. Furthermore, it may be said that he has traces that are like wit, a wit with which he ably responds to his Republican friend. Well, to be fair, the friend is merely forwarding on someone else's argument. But he must share the responsibility for those words (in brown below) as I do for David's (in blue).
(Some personal identifying notations have been removed to protect their privacy.)

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I have an associate who has the misfortune of being a Republican, though he is a good guy anyway. Recently he sent me a missive and asked me to forward it along. It had a few factual errors and leaps of logic in it which I was kind enough to correct so as to not make my friend look foolish, and now in the spirit of friendship I will respect his request and forward his note.

----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis
To: David
Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 8:25 PM
Subject: Worst president in history? This is real food for thought

Hey David,

I thought you might like this.

Dennis

Liberals claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war. They complain about his mismanagement of it. One liberal recently claimed Bush was the worst president in U.S. history.

Worst in history... Don't know about that-but bottom 5.

Let's clear up one point:
President Bush didn't start the war on terror.

Neither did Iraq. However, in focusing on Iraq instead of Afghanistan, he allowed Bin Laden and Al Qaida to get out, reform and regroup. Furthermore, with the way he attacked a sovereign nation who had done nothing to us, he is making it easier for Al Qaida to recruit new terrorists. Because of that, Al Qaida has committed more acts of terrorism and is responsible for more deaths since 9/11 than in the three years leading up to it.
Remember, Bin Laden attacked us. And what did Bush say about him 6 months after the attack? "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

Try to remember, it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11. OK, let's look at the "worst" president nominees and "mismanagement"claims.

FDR led us into World War II.
Germany never attacked us, Japan did.
From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average of 112,500 per year.

Germany declared war on us within 3 days of the Pearl Harbor attack, before we sent a single troop over there, and in addition they had invaded several of our allies. Not sure how anyone with an understanding of history could compare the two situations.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea.
North Korea never attacked us.
From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,333 per year.

Korea was a mistake and a disaster to begin with. However, glad you brought it up. Around that same time we had a thing called McCarthyism. A time when the Constitution was thrown out the window and the government was spying on it's citizens and had neighbors spying on each other. It was one of the darkest, most shameful things to occur in America since the abolition of slavery and the massacre of the Indians in the 1800s. One would think we would have learned from history not to repeat it, but then along came John Ashcroft and The Patriot Act. McCarthyism with a fancy name.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
Vietnam never attacked us.
Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Another disaster which will historically harm Kennedy, LBJ, and Nixon to boot. And Iraq is looking like another Vietnam. The difference of course is that Vietnam was one of only several tests those three were given. Civil rights, normalizing relations with Russia and China, the Cuban Missile crisis etc. The whole of Iraq can be boiled down to one thing. Bush has only been tested once. We were attacked by Al Qaida. Bush responded by invading the wrong country.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
Bosnia never attacked us.

We did not go to war with Bosnia. We did not send troops over take over the country. Bad analogy.

Clinton was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and he did nothing.

Untrue. It is one of those urban legends that Republicans like to chant (like the Clintons vandalizing the White House), but the reality is that it never happened. Read Richard Clarke's book. Clinton was after Bin Laden for a long time and would have grabbed him if given the opportunity.

Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.
Over 2,900 lives were lost on 9/11.

I know, and so did Clinton. However, Republican lies are not the same thing as facts. BTW...9/11 happened on Bush's watch, not Clintons. No small part of that was that one of the first things Bush did was to cut the anti terrorism budget that had grown 7 fold during the Clinton administration and had Condi Rice take her focus off of Al Qaida (which is where it was under Clinton's watch) and instead focus on Iraq.

In the two years since terrorists attacked us, President Bush has liberated two countries, rushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran, and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

He also responded to the greatest attack on America in the history of the country by sending 11,000 troops over to find someone in a country almost the size of Texas. In so doing, the bad guys got away and are now most likely hiding in a Muslim country with nuclear capabilities. Instead of focusing on Al Qaida, Bush instead invaded a sovereign nation who had neither threatened us, nor had the ability to do so. He gave us a black eye in the Muslim world and is making it a lot easier for Al Qaida to recruit eager people looking to get the USA. As a result, not only is Al Qaida not crippled, but stronger and more active a presence in the world than they were before.

That is what Bush has accomplished.

We have lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year.

And killed in excess of 10,000 citizens of a country which had not attacked us, not declared war on us, not threatened us, nor were responsible for the death of any Americans.

Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.

Your point? Care to look at the numbers? Under Clinton 36 Americans died at the hands of foreign terrorists (and 17 of them were on the Cole which happened just before Bush took over. Bush decided not to pursue the perpetrators.) Under Reagan 535 Americans died at the hands of foreign terrorists. Under Bush, it is over 3,000.
Furthermore, if you break it down further, most of the victims of terrorists in both the Clinton and Reagan administrations occurred abroad. Why are you taking the terrorist attacks that took American's lives abroad under Bush off the table?

Worst president in history?

Sure doesn't appear to be Bush!

No, probably Grant, Harding, and Buchanan. Then Bush.

The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but...
It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound.
That was a 51 day operation.

In 51 days, it was over. Over a year after Bush declared victory, American soldiers are still dying over there on pretty much a daily basis. Don't know if you realize that a war isn't over when one country is still fighting and killing occupying forces just because Bush says it is over.

We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.

And what has been found in that time? Since Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell all said that they knew where the WMDs were, why haven't they found them yet?
But if you want to play silly history games, it also took less time than it took Bush to report for his National Guard duty in Alabama. And considerably less time than it took him to come clean about his criminal record.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Teddy Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.

Relevance?