Dayton Kitchens
Banned
The people of Louisiana would blame him. Frankly, I don't think that he would be at all excused by the fact that he was new.
So????????
The people of Louisiana would blame him. Frankly, I don't think that he would be at all excused by the fact that he was new.
Why does everyone assume that Hurricane Katrina happens the same as it did in OTL?
The big thing about President Bush was that he was perceived as being insensitive to the suffering in New Orleans and that he made complimentary remarks about FEMA Director Brown.
I doubt Cheney would make such statements.
That's a pretty rapid application of butterfly theory there!
But then again I've never seen the moderation community or anyone else give us a time scale over which chaos theory should lead to changes of a given magnitude, so you can assert it if you want to I suppose.
While my subjective impression is that Katrina and the perception of Bush's role in the response was indeed an "Aha!" moment for very large numbers of Americans, the nature of the epiphany was not so much that everything was just fine until then, then suddenly a beloved and admired President made a single colossal mistake. Rather it was an iconic confirmation of something millions of us saw all along and millions more had been suspecting, against their inclinations and hopes, for some time, and despite the rebukes for the nature of his reactions Bush got OTL, he would continue to confirm the nature of himself and his Administration as the '06 midterms approached.
Why do we assume that Cheney would go down the same path Bush did? Largely because the Bush/Cheney partnership was not one of those casually made choices to "balance a ticket" or otherwise perform political trimming that VP choices so often are, a mere afterthought of last-minute politics. Cheney was deeply involved in Bush the Younger's candidacy from the beginning and his activities were an integral part of the Administration's program to the very end. It has been astute of TinyTatar to pick up on Bush's role in doing things that Cheney probably could not accomplish, such as personal junketing to Iraq and Afghanistan to negotiate one-on-one with the people we tried to back there. But my perception is, this was very much a role, that the Bush Administration was not so much an expression of his personal leadership as a team effort to get a certain ideological, factional agenda executed. It often did seem as if Cheney was much more the brains and leader, if one person needed to be singled out, and both of them were carrying out a long series of plans that had been decided on long before the term began.
There is no daylight visible between Bush and Cheney's positions on any matter of significance, and so no reason to think Cheney would govern any differently--save in the matter of Cheney perhaps being unable to do things Bush could. There is no vice versa; anything Bush couldn't do Cheney could was done for him by Cheney.
How well the Bush team's spin-masters could manipulate the unfortunate murder of their main figurehead is an interesting question that perhaps has not been given enough attention.
Obviously some of us, myself quite admittedly included, don't like Bush or any of the deeds of his terms of office very much. By 2008, the majority of those who troubled themselves to vote came around to our way of thinking, more or less, so I don't see any reason to apologize for it. (Nor would I if McCain had won; I'm more used to being on the losing side than not).
Anyway whether you honestly see the deeds of the 8 years of the younger Bush's administrations as necessary, or as inherent and obvious disaster from the point of view of the interests of the majority of Americans and those of the people of the world as a whole as I do, there can be no doubting that as of 2008, they were in retrospect, wrongly or rightly, seen as a painful embarrassment by the majority of US voters. If we naysayers were wrong, it is still not evident to us where we were mistaken. The perception, right or wrong, was that the entire Republican agenda and its officers, whether in the White House or in Congress, were on a wrong, unfortunate but consistent and united path.
So, why would VP Cheney's tragic elevation to the chief position change any of that?
It is interesting you point out the JFK-LBJ analogy. Had Bush been assassinated, or met an accidental death, before November 2004, I would guess, and obviously coming from me this is hardly wishful thinking, that Cheney would step up and run for the Presidency and win, trouncing Kerry handily. And it would be exactly as you say--the voters would either agree with the agenda of the Bush-Cheney administration and therefore quite logically vote for Cheney, or have sympathy for the stricken President and therefore overlook the personal differences between the men and vote for Cheney as Bush's avatar. Some of us were fixed not to vote for either of them and wouldn't of course, but we'd lose.
Then I'd predict the next four years would go very much the same way as Bush's second term OTL; the same decisions would be made, pretty much the same hurricanes would strike with much the same results. We'd expect a different tone in Cheney's remarks than we'd have looked for from Bush, but their content would be the same. And the gradual disillusionment, the successive splintering of the support for the White House and the Republicans in general, would go on much as OTL so that the touted mandate of 2004 would dissolve into the Democratic comeback of 2006.
How exactly do you think Cheney would make it otherwise? Where do you perceive a notable difference between his goals and Bush's, or where did Bush leave Cheney's talents, such as they were, unused on behalf of their shared agenda?
All you've offered is the suggestion that Katrina would be less bad, because of butterflies (and why would it not be even worse, because of butterflies?) and that he wouldn't double down on asserting the integrity of his own administrative team members. If Cheney is anything, it seems to me, he is a bureaucratic team player, and as a manager it seems entirely likely he would go to bat for his own team.
Or if not, if he turned out to be the kind of manager who well knows when heads should be seen to roll--how do you know, in the discontented mood the American public was getting into by this late date, that denouncing and punishing Brown won't be seen for the scapegoating it is, and held against Cheney and the Republican mentality generally?
I suggest to you that by 2006 the Republicans generally were reaping a whirlwind of their own wanton sowing, and having a literal one come out of the Gulf to strike at their very electoral heartland (bearing in mind how conservative Louisiana Democrats tended to be) was just too good a metaphor to miss OTL. But it doesn't matter if you will it away or not; the American voter of 2006 was pretty unhappy. Call us wrong if you like but you can't tell us that wasn't the way we felt by then (those of us who hadn't felt that way all along anyhow).
Cheney's best chance at either a legacy or getting his views even further promoted would have been to choose some Republican successor very carefully, get him or her appointed VP before the Democrats got control of either house, then resign fast and hope a change of image would shake off the accumulated karma of Bush's and his own actions coming home to roost, and rejuvenate the Republican brand well enough to squeak by in 2008. I think such a maneuver would fail, since what the American people were reacting against was the essence of what they stood for, but obviously a person like Cheney who actually believed this stuff was good (for someone anyway) would hope what they saw as virtue would shine through in the end, well enough to win anyway. So that's what I'd look to see him try, between his own bad health that would make himself a poor standard bearer, and his own shrewdness (no one ever said Dick Cheney was stupid) that told him such a drastic maneuver was in order.
But I can't imagine what Republican leader (Arnold Schwarzenegger being ineligible having been born a citizen of another country) could possibly appoint as his strategic successor who could successfully redeem the Republican brand in time for 2006, let alone '08. Perhaps you have some ideas along those lines.
IMHO, a makeover was too late; some true maverick who would take the party onto decisively different tacks might have done the trick, except by then the party had been purged of such deviants and had one such holdout been found (again, Arnold comes to mind) they would be at odds with the entire mainstream of their party, if perhaps in better step with the nation. Cheney was and is a team player and would never make that choice, nor would it be likely to do anything but backfire. "Stay the course!" was the most resonant message they had left at that point; either their actions had been right all along, or they weren't worth defending and defeat loomed inevitable.
Perhaps we are all wrong, but you've asked repeatedly why this unanimity of opinion that the Bush admin was going down and why Cheney in office makes no helpful difference. (And dismissed a perfectly cogent and relevant point with a "So????????" with eight question marks...I counted).
I hope I've clarified this obscure matter for you.
That's a pretty rapid application of butterfly theory there!
But then again I've never seen the moderation community or anyone else give us a time scale over which chaos theory should lead to changes of a given magnitude, so you can assert it if you want to I suppose.
While my subjective impression is that Katrina and the perception of Bush's role in the response was indeed an "Aha!" moment for very large numbers of Americans, the nature of the epiphany was not so much that everything was just fine until then, then suddenly a beloved and admired President made a single colossal mistake. Rather it was an iconic confirmation of something millions of us saw all along and millions more had been suspecting, against their inclinations and hopes, for some time, and despite the rebukes for the nature of his reactions Bush got OTL, he would continue to confirm the nature of himself and his Administration as the '06 midterms approached.
Why do we assume that Cheney would go down the same path Bush did? Largely because the Bush/Cheney partnership was not one of those casually made choices to "balance a ticket" or otherwise perform political trimming that VP choices so often are, a mere afterthought of last-minute politics. Cheney was deeply involved in Bush the Younger's candidacy from the beginning and his activities were an integral part of the Administration's program to the very end. It has been astute of TinyTatar to pick up on Bush's role in doing things that Cheney probably could not accomplish, such as personal junketing to Iraq and Afghanistan to negotiate one-on-one with the people we tried to back there. But my perception is, this was very much a role, that the Bush Administration was not so much an expression of his personal leadership as a team effort to get a certain ideological, factional agenda executed. It often did seem as if Cheney was much more the brains and leader, if one person needed to be singled out, and both of them were carrying out a long series of plans that had been decided on long before the term began.
There is no daylight visible between Bush and Cheney's positions on any matter of significance, and so no reason to think Cheney would govern any differently--save in the matter of Cheney perhaps being unable to do things Bush could. There is no vice versa; anything Bush couldn't do Cheney could was done for him by Cheney.
How well the Bush team's spin-masters could manipulate the unfortunate murder of their main figurehead is an interesting question that perhaps has not been given enough attention.
Obviously some of us, myself quite admittedly included, don't like Bush or any of the deeds of his terms of office very much. By 2008, the majority of those who troubled themselves to vote came around to our way of thinking, more or less, so I don't see any reason to apologize for it. (Nor would I if McCain had won; I'm more used to being on the losing side than not).
Anyway whether you honestly see the deeds of the 8 years of the younger Bush's administrations as necessary, or as inherent and obvious disaster from the point of view of the interests of the majority of Americans and those of the people of the world as a whole as I do, there can be no doubting that as of 2008, they were in retrospect, wrongly or rightly, seen as a painful embarrassment by the majority of US voters. If we naysayers were wrong, it is still not evident to us where we were mistaken. The perception, right or wrong, was that the entire Republican agenda and its officers, whether in the White House or in Congress, were on a wrong, unfortunate but consistent and united path.
So, why would VP Cheney's tragic elevation to the chief position change any of that?
It is interesting you point out the JFK-LBJ analogy. Had Bush been assassinated, or met an accidental death, before November 2004, I would guess, and obviously coming from me this is hardly wishful thinking, that Cheney would step up and run for the Presidency and win, trouncing Kerry handily. And it would be exactly as you say--the voters would either agree with the agenda of the Bush-Cheney administration and therefore quite logically vote for Cheney, or have sympathy for the stricken President and therefore overlook the personal differences between the men and vote for Cheney as Bush's avatar. Some of us were fixed not to vote for either of them and wouldn't of course, but we'd lose.
Then I'd predict the next four years would go very much the same way as Bush's second term OTL; the same decisions would be made, pretty much the same hurricanes would strike with much the same results. We'd expect a different tone in Cheney's remarks than we'd have looked for from Bush, but their content would be the same. And the gradual disillusionment, the successive splintering of the support for the White House and the Republicans in general, would go on much as OTL so that the touted mandate of 2004 would dissolve into the Democratic comeback of 2006.
How exactly do you think Cheney would make it otherwise? Where do you perceive a notable difference between his goals and Bush's, or where did Bush leave Cheney's talents, such as they were, unused on behalf of their shared agenda?
All you've offered is the suggestion that Katrina would be less bad, because of butterflies (and why would it not be even worse, because of butterflies?) and that he wouldn't double down on asserting the integrity of his own administrative team members. If Cheney is anything, it seems to me, he is a bureaucratic team player, and as a manager it seems entirely likely he would go to bat for his own team.
Or if not, if he turned out to be the kind of manager who well knows when heads should be seen to roll--how do you know, in the discontented mood the American public was getting into by this late date, that denouncing and punishing Brown won't be seen for the scapegoating it is, and held against Cheney and the Republican mentality generally?
I suggest to you that by 2006 the Republicans generally were reaping a whirlwind of their own wanton sowing, and having a literal one come out of the Gulf to strike at their very electoral heartland (bearing in mind how conservative Louisiana Democrats tended to be) was just too good a metaphor to miss OTL. But it doesn't matter if you will it away or not; the American voter of 2006 was pretty unhappy. Call us wrong if you like but you can't tell us that wasn't the way we felt by then (those of us who hadn't felt that way all along anyhow).
Cheney's best chance at either a legacy or getting his views even further promoted would have been to choose some Republican successor very carefully, get him or her appointed VP before the Democrats got control of either house, then resign fast and hope a change of image would shake off the accumulated karma of Bush's and his own actions coming home to roost, and rejuvenate the Republican brand well enough to squeak by in 2008. I think such a maneuver would fail, since what the American people were reacting against was the essence of what they stood for, but obviously a person like Cheney who actually believed this stuff was good (for someone anyway) would hope what they saw as virtue would shine through in the end, well enough to win anyway. So that's what I'd look to see him try, between his own bad health that would make himself a poor standard bearer, and his own shrewdness (no one ever said Dick Cheney was stupid) that told him such a drastic maneuver was in order.
But I can't imagine what Republican leader (Arnold Schwarzenegger being ineligible having been born a citizen of another country) could possibly appoint as his strategic successor who could successfully redeem the Republican brand in time for 2006, let alone '08. Perhaps you have some ideas along those lines.
IMHO, a makeover was too late; some true maverick who would take the party onto decisively different tacks might have done the trick, except by then the party had been purged of such deviants and had one such holdout been found (again, Arnold comes to mind) they would be at odds with the entire mainstream of their party, if perhaps in better step with the nation. Cheney was and is a team player and would never make that choice, nor would it be likely to do anything but backfire. "Stay the course!" was the most resonant message they had left at that point; either their actions had been right all along, or they weren't worth defending and defeat loomed inevitable.
Perhaps we are all wrong, but you've asked repeatedly why this unanimity of opinion that the Bush admin was going down and why Cheney in office makes no helpful difference. (And dismissed a perfectly cogent and relevant point with a "So????????" with eight question marks...I counted).
I hope I've clarified this obscure matter for you.
Utterly ridiculous.
Ok, look. I don't want this to turn into an ideological flamewar, because someone'll get banned. That said, while you're certainly allowed to disagree with a poster, you should probably articulate why you feel thus. Things like "So????????" and "Utterly ridiculous" don't suffice.
So, again, if you disagree with Shevek23's post, please tell us why.
George W. Bush becomes a beloved "martyred president". The first murdered on foreign soil.
President Dick Cheney is elected in 2008 and serves a total of 7 years before being succeeded by Barack Obama.
definitely agree with Bush being a beloved "martyred president" and GOP has a better 06 midterm elections than OTL. It is a possibility that Cheney wins in 08 because he is more competent than people believe but it will depend on how Iraq and the financial collapse shake out.
If President Bush is killed in May of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina happens President Cheney will still be considered to be well within the traditional "honeymoon period" of a new administration.
Very few are likely to blame him for problems with the Katrina response as he would've only been president for a few months.
I don't think that Cheney could have handled the crisis at all well. We've also mostly reached the consensus that he won't run in '08, if he's even still alive.
I don't think that Cheney could have handled the crisis at all well. We've also mostly reached the consensus that he won't run in '08, if he's even still alive.
He was Bush's Vice President, I could see people going "Well, he *was* Veep when Bush was in office..."