Muscatine

Wow, speaking of approval ratings, do you suppose Copachosied has checked his lately?  Looks like  that respectometer is the  lowest in the history of the 'Hood.  I, for one, am worried that it's going to disappear completely and he'll drift away into cyberspace forever.  Perhaps a fundraiser is in order?  You know.....car wash, bake sale, pancake breakfast.........anyone?

Count me in, Daryl!  My car is dirty and I love pancakes and baked goods.  It might lift his spirits to know that so many care. 

Regarding the "estimated" strength of Al Quaeda:  It's hard to find a current (within last 6 months) legitimate estimate.   What I found was:

"At the center of the debate are the counter-terrorist community's two leading scholars, Marc Sageman and Bruce Hoffman. A former CIA officer and forensic psychiatrist, Sageman argues in his new book Leaderless Jihad that Al Qaeda's core operational capabilities are no more. What remains is a ragtag cohort of self-radicalized "wannabes" throughout the West and the greater Muslim world, unpredictable and dangerous but largely incapable of carrying out major attacks."

Bruce Hoffman, professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, strongly criticized Sageman's Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century.  Hoffman, using a report compiled last February by Mike McConnell the Director of the National Intelligence Agency, contends: 

"al Qaeda is alive and well and plotting high-profile terrorist attacks much as it did before 9/11.  Al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates continue to pose significant threats to the United States at home and abroad, and al Qaeda's central leadership based in the border area of Pakistan is its most dangerous component.   al Qaeda continues to exercise top-down direction and guidance even though it "has lost many of its senior operational planners over the years. . . . The group's adaptable decisionmaking process and bench of skilled operatives have enabled it to identify effective replacements."   Members of al Qaeda in Iraq have been dispatched "to establish cells in other countries" casts further doubt on Sageman's claims regarding al Qaeda's bottom-up organizational structure."

Soooo, I'd have to say the jury is still out on the actual strength of Al Quaeda, in Pakistan or anywhere else.

In addition, I don't buy equating military deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan to deaths resulting from attacks on our homeland.   Dead is dead, but they are not equivelant in their nature. 

It's all too common and convenient to forget that, at the time we entered the Iraq war, the vast majority of the Congress and Senate (including what I now call hypocritical Democrats) backed Bush based on their assessment of the potential danger to us at the time. 

My main contention, that an unbiased history will look at Bush a lot different than you and Chosen do is still valid.  It will be much like what has happened to Truman's reputation.  If you continue to live the profligate life style of an academic you probably won't be around to see it.

Hello,

Hard to misswith some of this assessment. I have always said that although I wouldn't have voted for the man, he did take hold of one HUGE BULL"S HORNS after 9/11 and he showed tremendous leadership afterward. But I'll always feel that they went too far while planning all of this. He should have reserved our forces and kept after the ones who actually attacked us from out of Afghanastan, as he Said he would. The whole world stood with us then and it WAS a noble cause.  Then- made a case for Sadam. Perhaps then it wouldn't even have been an issue?  Perhaps you are right too in that his intent has always been to protect this nation and our interests abroad. And, I did  make a comment recently regarding his, never admiting errors. I was told by the Mr. that GW did in fact finally state that "We have made some mistakes in Iraq" so to any posters that argued that point, I apologize and am sorry to have missed that. However as always, and to your points, his WILL be one tough legacy to define. Even Nixon had his good points in spite of the numbers. But over all I'd have to agree with his detractors, he wasn't the best and could well soon be decided that he wasn't the worst. Not gonna bet on that and hope we can stop measuring our leaders due to these issues, but we have four years now to see.

God Bless.