2004 Presidential Election.

[Renegade 13]

Speaking as someone who does not live in the US, and can perhaps provide a somewhat impartial opinion:

A few points: The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11/01 had exactly the effect they wanted them to have. Think about it; most people were saying they'd failed due to the relatively low death toll, compared to what it could be. However, look at the amount of money the US has recently spent on the "war against terrorism". Hundreds of billions!! I think your deficit for this year is something like half a TRILLION!!

The terrorists simply wanted to destroy the US economy, and with the massive anti-terrorist spending that has occured, they have succeeded in a huge way.

From the view of an outsider, it looks like the US is on its Last legs. If you don't pull your economy together sometime soon, that's going to be it, some other country, such as China, will be the lone world superpower. That's something I'm sure none of us want. I sure don't, as I'm from Canada, and to a certain extent we rely on the US to provide an amount of protection to us.

Basically, the terrorists succeeded.

Another point. Both of the candidates would, in my opinion, be horrible to have in office. Its simply a question of which would be the least of the two evils. Personally, if I was voting, I'd vote for Bush. Kerry is willing to make the US into a country with few personal freedoms, and if that would happen it would be a huge blow to world democracy. However, Bush was the one to put in the Patriot act in the first place! So who knows which of them would be worse for the freedom of Americans. Why would I vote for Bush? He's in favor of the owning of firearms, which I think is a right anyone should have, anywhere in the world (unless you're a convicted criminal, or some other good reason). That is about the only thing I can say that is in favor of either of the candidates.

Lets face facts; they're all politicians!! They will lie, cheat, distort the facts, whatever it takes to satisfy their own personal demons, or to try to accumulate power.

I for one, am quite glad I'm living in Canada, instead of the US. We have more freedom than you do now, we are politically stable, among other things.

I just hope the actions of the US leaders don't push the world into World War Three. Although I bet that within 15 years it will be happening, or have just happened. Rather than being a far off dread, it will be an immediate reality.

Of course, remember that all of this is my personal opinion. If any of the "facts" I have stated are in error, please correct me. Also, if you would like to contradict anything I said, or state a counter-opinion, I would greatly appreciate it if you do so. I will not be offended, or insult your opinions, as some others would do.

[Phoenix-D]

If you wanted to get anal about it, we could have gone after Iraq at any time; they never really fullfilled the conditions of the 1991 cease-fire.

By the time we knew for sure no significant WMDs would be found the war was over; and even if not, going in shooting things up and leaving is NOT an option.

[Atrocities]

csebal - That article is not at all accurate and it is designed to be as inflamatory as possible. You should have read the one about Clinton, and Gore a few years ago. And the one about Kerry is a lot better read than this one about Bush, and is backed up by facts and not some liberal democrates imagination.

[Fyron]

With assistance from my brother, governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing the election by possibly 500,000 votes.

Don't you just love the sheer ignorance of the US political system that causes people to say such things? The total, national popular vote is NOT a factor in the election of the President of the US. It never has been. This is completely irrelevant to Bush having won the election.

What causes a person to win the Presidential election is winning a majority of votes in the electoral college, which is NOT based on population directly. It is based on 2 votes per state + X votes based on population. Thus, 100 of the votes have nothing to do with population, but with geography. Many of them come from relatively very low population states. Further befuddling the issue is the fact that many states give their _entire_ electoral vote count to the candidate that wins the election in that state.

These things are what allows discrepencies between total popular vote and winner of the election to occur. Usually, the two go to the same person. But a few times (I think Bush Jr. was the 3rd), it has happened that the national popular vote and the electoral vote do not end up going to the same person. There is nothing illegal or fishy about this, at all. It is how the Presidential election system in the US works. Now, you be of the opinion that it is silly, and the election should be based entirely on the popular vote. You may or may not be right. But, saying that Bush did something wrong in 2000 just because he did not win the popular vote is wrong.

Now, whether Bush did something shady to win the vote in Florida is an entirely separate issue. It should NOT be confused with overall popular vote, which is, again, not related to who wins the US Presidential election. The whole issue was a big mess. Who knows what really happened. Gore did voluntarily cede the election to Bush at the end, so regardless of whether he legitimately won the Florida election, he did win the overall election, due to Gore ceding it to him. There is no contesting that fact.