Reaching Out is a Two-Way Street

Mark,

I found this to be quite amusing. However, what George. Bush needs to do is take his hand out of his ass, reach out-SIDE that oval office window and touch a tree. 2) figure out what trees do 3)Grab the bible, and realize that those things are what God was talking about in Genesis and then... 4) Now have some concrete evidence to serve as "his" inspiration to save em.

If only he realized that tree conservation is one of the oldest Christian teachings.......hmmmmm................isn't that ironic.

Mark, great article. It was both amusing and informative. Let me share a few thoughts of my own:

1. I think you make an excellent point about what happens to people who "reach out" into the communities that don't naturally support them. Almost without fail, the receiving party stabs the reacher in the back. I think this is true with just about any politician. What's bad is that instead of trying to see the good points of the person doing the reaching, the receiving party tends to focus on any negativity they can find to show that the reacher didn't do enough. This creates a bit of bad press against the reacher, but even worse, it lessens the chance that the reaching person will ever try to reach again. In the end, all the back-stabbing has done is help to ensure that the person in power will never attempt to help the receiving party again. The irony of it all baffles me, yet you see it time and time again.

2. Reaching out may not make the opposing side like you, but it might be just enough to trick them for awhile. I think controlling the more fickle sections of our nation is an art that must be mastered in order to gain political power. As much as I dislike negative campaigning, Bush seemed to have it mastered. I've never heard more people so certain that a man was inherently evil based on so few facts than those opposing John Kerry. I think Bush knows how to "Reach Out" when he needs to, just not in the sense that the Democrats have been recently talking about.

I think Niccolo Machiavelli had some interesting ideas on the topic of Reaching Out (from "The Prince"):

"Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his citizens will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them faithful. ... One prince of the present time, whom it is not well to name, never preaches anything else but peace and good faith, and to both he is most hostile, and either, if he had kept it, would have deprived him of reputation and kingdom many a time."

3. I totally agree that the loser has no input after an election. The nation just decided that your thoughts aren't the predominant ones. In our form of government, that equates to them being wrong. As you said Mark, this should be a strong indicator to the loser that perhaps it's time to go back to the ol' drawing board and find out what it is that the public wants. Until elected, the voice of the loser is just an echoing opinion to which no one has to listen.

So if you lose, preach on. It's your government-given right. Just don't expect the people who won to act on your words. (Because that's their government-given right too!)

OK, and I just got finished reading an article on how bad Clinton was for the economy. Does this mean that I should go around accusing Bill Clinton of destroying the economy along with philandering and deploying the military to more places than any other Commander in Chief? Really, if you are going to quote something, please make sense, because if you don't, your feelings will get hurt. The good news is that Bill Clinton really DID all of the above, INCLUDING destroy the strongest economy in world history.

Note to self: DO NOT START RANTING!!!!!

G

Can everyone please STFU about Bush being bad for the environment until you have some concrete examples? Bush is no better or worse than any one president, simply because not that much in the environment can be changed in four years.

Where do you think paper came from BEFORE the Bush administration?!? Did Bush buy every single one of the house sized SUV's I see on the road every day? What was I pumping into my car before January 20th, 2001?

Everyone was pissed at Bush because he FORMALLY canned Kyoto, but they forget that Kyoto was dead before he came to office. Clinton made the decision not to send it to the Senate for a vote. Why? He would have lost and thus looked like an idiot-not Clinton's style.

Kyoto is a terrible treaty that would have harmed the US economy, because we actually would have followed it, while not hurting India and China, the really big polluters, because they would not have lived up to it.

Erstair, I still love you...

Erin,

Please forgive me, I did not mean to hurt your feelings. You continue to be correct about everything, and nobody else has a single valid point. We will continue to worship the ground that you walk on and wait attentively for the pearls of wisdome that you drop for us to struggle with. As it stands, I have, finally become aware of the fact that I know nothing, and you are a political genius. I only hope that my attempt at Reaching Out does not result in my hand getting slapped down, for that would result in me losing the willingness to try to Reach Out ever again.

G