Us presidential election 2004

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]I mean according to the bible, Jesus was a true hippie: all was about peace, love and understanding. Pacifism and liberal values is in the very core of the new testament.

Jesus was not liberal....he was just Jesus....

Anyway,

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....tain_dc

Quote[/b] ]

British Meddling in U.S. Election Provokes Outrage

Tue Oct 19, 7:49 AM ET   Politics - Reuters

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - A pro-Kerry letter-writing campaign by Britain's left-leaning Guardian newspaper, targeting undecided U.S. voters, has provoked outrage across the Atlantic.

The paper has encouraged its readers to express their opinions on the November 2 presidential election to voters in the key swing state of Ohio -- a move which has prompted a deluge of indignant reactions.

"Hey England, Scotland and Wales, mind your own business. We don't need weenie-spined Limeys meddling in our presidential election," was one e-mail the paper printed.

The Fox national cable television network tore into the Guardian and even John Kerry (news - web sites)'s own Democrats expressed horror at the campaign.

"We all feel it is not a good idea. I think it was unwise. It is so poorly thought-out," said Sharon Manitta, spokeswoman in Britain for Democrats Abroad.

But the newspaper, whose cartoons regularly portray President Bush (news - web sites) as a semi-literate ape, was unrepentant.

"We did consult a number of opinions and made our decision accordingly," assistant features editor Paul MacInnes told Reuters. "It has been an operation to give our readers an opportunity to express their opinions."

With just two weeks to go before the election, Kerry is running neck and neck with Republican incumbent Bush.

Ohio is a key swing state which Bush won by just four percentage points in 2000, and Clark County, the target of the newspaper's campaign, is at its heart.

As of Monday night, more than 14,000 people had registered to write to a voter in Clark County, which has a population of just 143,000. The Guardian, which simply bought a list of registered voters and extracted those declared undecided, pledged that it would only give out the name of each voter once, to avoid them being swamped by unsolicited mail from complete strangers.

"We know that in many ways this is the world's election, and we understand the passion and concern in many parts of the world over it -- but I wonder how people here in the UK would react to Americans telling them how to vote," Democrats Abroad's Manitta said.

"This will certainly garner more votes for George Bush (news - web sites). I have strongly advised other media entities who have come to me and suggested this against doing so," she added.

While some e-mails to the Guardian from Democrats in Ohio were supportive, others suggested the campaign was misguided.

"I just read a hilarious proposal to involve your readership in the upcoming U.S. presidential election," wrote one. "I'm saying this as a Democrat ... Please, please be rational and move away from self-defeating hubris."

But the milder admonitions paled into insignificance against some of the more colorful opinions.

"Real Americans aren't interested in your pansy-ass, tea-sipping opinions. If you want to save the world, begin with you own worthless corner of it," wrote one from Texas, while another, from outraged of New York, ended by advising "yellow-teethed Britons" to wash out their mouths.

WoW! United We Stand...

[Akira 0]

Christian rock sucks ass.

They're not making Christianity better....they are making rock and roll

worse.

[billybob2002 0]

New sig time! Check it out...

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]I mean according to the bible, Jesus was a true hippie: all was about peace, love and understanding. Pacifism and liberal values is in the very core of the new testament.

Jesus was not liberal....he was just Jesus....

Of course Jesus was a liberal (if you believe the Bible, that is). He preached about helping the poor, being kind to fellow man and advocated tolerance and forgiveness.

He wasn't advocating tax cuts or for a strong military. Hell, Jesus was far more left wing than your average liberal. I'd say that Jesus was bordering on communism.

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24)

Or what about pre-emptive war? Does "Turn the other cheek" or "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" ring a bell?

What about death penatly? "Whatever you do to the least among men, you also do to me".

That kind of rethoric is very far away from what the Bush camp advocates.

If you claim that the old testament is right-wing and conservative, they you are probably right. But not the new testament. It's a hippie love-fest, bordering on communist utopia.

(As far as I'm concerned it's all nonsense, but one would expect the believers to put a little more faith in their sacred texts)

Quote[/b] ]

Anyway,

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....tain_dc

I tend to agree that it's a bad idea on several levels.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]I tend to agree that it's a bad idea on several levels.

WTF! We agree on something...

[Llauma 0]

Still, I think it's very interesting how the right-wing Christians in the US seem to have an original interpretation of Christianity.

I mean according to the bible, Jesus was a true hippie: all was about peace, love and understanding. Pacifism and liberal values is in the very core of the new testament.

Yet many of those that claim to follow it (specifically the likes of the Christian Coalition) are conservative, intolerant and militant. It doesn't quite add up with the original message.

As in any other religion people tend to pay note to the parts that suites them and ignore the other parts.

'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy' from the old testament suites them better than what Jesus said we should do instead according to the new testament 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you'. So you can't actually live by the original message as you can't both love and hate your enemy except if you are Gollum/Smeagol.

But I guess anyone can interpret the bible as they want. It's not up to us to judge them bad Christians. According to their religion the judging will eventually be done by a higher authority.

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]I tend to agree that it's a bad idea on several levels.

WTF! We agree on something...

'What WERE you thinking?' - reactions to the Guardian Clark County campaign

Llauma:

Quote[/b] ]But I guess anyone can interpret the bible as they want. It's not up to us to judge them bad Christians. According to their religion the judging will eventually be done by a higher authority.

It's all fine and well, but since they are trying to insert their beliefs in the political system and into the law, they deserve to be scrutinized. Since they are trying to force others into sharing their beliefs, then the others have every right to question those beliefs.

While looking through the Guardian, I stumbled upon this Salon story that was reprinted:

Team Bush declares war on the New York Times [salon/Guardian]

Quote[/b] ]

The Bush White House's attacks on one of America's grandest newspapers mark a clear break with Republican tradition, writes Eric Boehlert

Tuesday October 19, 2004

During the closing weeks of the 2000 presidential campaign, at a campaign rally, George Bush spotted a veteran political reporter and turned to Dick Cheney, standing next to him on the platform, to remark: "There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times." "Oh yeah, big time," replied Cheney. Unbeknownst to them, their locker room exchange was caught by an open microphone. Four years later, nobody connected with the Bush-Cheney campaign appears even slightly concerned about being caught denigrating the Times; they are more than happy to do it on the record, as the White House has all but declared open warfare on the nation's leading newspaper.

The latest volley came over the weekend when Republican campaign officials accused the Times's Sunday magazine of fabricating a provocative quote from Bush in which he bragged - behind closed doors and speaking to wealthy supporters - that he would announce plans for "privatising of social security" early next year, after his re-election. When Democrats jumped on the remark, dubbing it the "January surprise", the Republican National Committee chairman, Ed Gillespie, dismissed the Times's work as "Kitty Kelley journalism", insisting Bush had never uttered the phrase attributed to him. But the Times stands by the 8,300-word story by Ron Suskind, author of The Price of Loyalty: George W Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill, a revealing account of the former secretary of the treasury published earlier this year.

Quote[/b] ]

denoir's comment: It's the one I posted here

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....st=3454 two days ago.

That confrontation, and the Bush campaign's harsh accusation that respected journalist Suskind and the editors of the Times are liars, come on the heels of a series of denigrations by the White House: the Times reporter was recently banned from Cheney's campaign plane; and in his acceptance speech before the Republican Convention Bush mocked the paper by distorting, out of context, one of its columnist's writings of almost 60 years ago. Early in his administration, Bush set the contentious tone when he broke with tradition by refusing to sit for an interview with the Times. He finally granted the paper a sit-down, just 30 minutes long, in August.

"Presidents like spin and secrets; journalists don't, so this is a relationship fraught with potential discomfort," says Times executive editor Bill Keller. He observes that the paper has dealt with difficult episodes with various White Houses in the past, but adds. "I admit we're puzzled over what seems to be a more intense antipathy at this White House, especially since the campaign heated up.

"I can only speculate, but some of it may be that they think whacking a big newspaper with 'New York' in its name plays well with the [conservative] base. Perhaps they think if they beat up on us, we'll go soft on them. Or maybe they have decided to blame the newsroom for our opinion pages, though they certainly know that the editorial writers and columnists operate completely independent of reporters and editors." (On Sunday, the Times published an endorsement of Senator John Kerry, in which it commented: "The Bush White House has always given us the worst aspects of the American right without any of the advantages. We get the radical goals but not the efficient management.")

The controversial quote from Suskind's story came near the end of a lengthy feature article, Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W Bush, which examines the extraordinary degree to which Bush and his senior aides rely on their "faith" and their "gut" to make key policy decisions, and how those who raise questions based on facts or "reality" are cut out of the inner circle. According to Suskind, Bush recently told a closed meeting of major contributors: "I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatising of social security." Suskind reported that the statements were relayed to him by sources present at the event.

On Sunday the RNC sent out emails - one complete with Suskind's photo and voter registration information - that attacked him professionally and said the passages in question were "third-hand, made-up quotes" designed to "scare seniors." But the editor of the Times magazine, Gerald Marzorati, told Salon in an email: "Ron Suskind's reporting was carefully reported and vigorously fact-checked."

If Times readers did not already know the paper's relationship with the White House was in serious disrepair, they found out on September 18. That day, Times reporter Rick Lyman wrote a front-page piece about how, despite having been assigned by the country's most influential newspaper to cover Cheney's re-election campaign, he was not welcome on Air Force Two, where 10 seats were reserved for the travelling press corps. None was available for him, or for the previous Times reporter assigned to the Cheney beat. Lyman's article, headlined Chasing Dick Cheney, was written with a slightly tongue-in-cheek tone (as much irony as the still-staid Times allows) but could not mask the strain between the paper and the White House, the kind of rift usually kept from public view as administration and news officials exchange behind-the-scene phone calls to try to patch things up.

Cheney had already made clear this summer that he had no intentions of maintaining cordial relations with the Times when he blasted its coverage of the 9/11 commission as "outrageous" and "malicious."

And in August, during his convention acceptance speech just 10 blocks from the Times newsroom, Bush derided the paper, suggesting it was a fount of wrongheaded pessimism. "In 1946, 18 months after the fall of Berlin to allied forces, a journalist wrote in the New York Times: 'Germany is ... a land in an acute stage of economic, political and moral crisis. [European] capitals are frightened. In every [military] headquarters one meets alarmed officials doing their utmost to deal with the consequences of the occupation policy that they admit has failed.' End quote. Maybe that same person is still around, writing editorials."

Bush was referring to Anne O'Hare McCormick, the pioneering, Pulitzer prize-winning Times journalist. And he twisted her dispatch about Germany: in fact she was criticising the "moral crisis" in the British and French sectors while reporting that Americans were doing a better job of reconstruction. She also urged the US to commit more troops to the occupation. Times columnist Maureen Dowd, discussing the speech, wrote: "Bush swift-boated her."

"It takes a certain amount of gall to criticise the New York Times in the middle of Madison Square Garden, on the paper's home turf," says Susan Tifft, co-author with Alex Jones of The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times."

On one level the Times seems an odd choice for the White House's wrath: during the 2000 campaign, despite Bush's "asshole" remark, the paper's coverage of the candidate was considered to be among the most generous of any of the major dailies', particularly the work of Frank Bruni, the beat reporter who travelled extensively with the Bush campaign. In his book about that time, Ambling Into History, published in 2002, Bruni wrote that while watching the first debate from the audience, he thought Bush had done so poorly that he was sure he had lost the election. Yet Bruni never mentioned his sinking feeling to readers during his generally upbeat coverage of the Bush campaign. The Times was also very reserved in its coverage of the exposure during the final weekend of the campaign of Bush's old drink-driving arrest.

During the period leading up to the Iraq war, the Times was instrumental in the administration's political choreography of its case that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, in particular that he was producing nuclear weapons. But this year, the newspaper felt compelled to essentially apologise for what amounted to its participation in an elaborate disinformation campaign. "The Times didn't cover itself in glory during that period," says Michael Massing, author of Now They Tell Us: The American Press and Iraq. "The paper", he says, "was far too credulous towards the administration during the run-up to the war. The irony is the Times helped the administration's case before the war."

The Bush White House's open feud with the Times represents a clear break with the tradition of most Republican presidents - including the current president's father - tolerating the major mainstream press outlets despite misgivings or unhappiness with their coverage. The days when the Times publisher Arthur "Punch" Sulzberger Sr travelled to the White House during the height of the Reagan administration for a cordial lunch with the president, his vice-president, George Bush Sr, and the secretary of state, George Shultz, are long gone. While President Nixon "had no love for the New York Times ... even he felt he had to deal with them. Bush officials do not feel like they have to deal with the gatekeepers," says Tifft. "They have taken advantage of cable channels and talk radio and websites that are sympathetic toward them. What they have basically done by words and deeds is to say to the New York Times: 'We don't need you. We can get our message out without you.'"

Bush and his campaign apparently see little political downside to a public fight with the allegedly liberal press. That very point was made in Suskind's Times magazine article, which quoted Bush political consultant Mark McKinnon as saying: "All of you ... up and down the west coast, the east coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street, let me clue you in: we don't care. You see, you're outnumbered two to one by folks in the big, wide middle of America - busy, working people who don't read the New York Times or Washington Post or The LA Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!"

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]'What WERE you thinking?' - reactions to the Guardian Clark County campaign

hehe

Quote[/b] ]

that last comment from azulitasola was supposed to make me feel dumb or something?

if you insist i could make fun of how only one out of ten britons has straight teeth. i could do that. i could make fun of how pasty and pale their skin tends to be to where i might actually be taken for a black man by mistake if i stood next to a guy from wales. i could make fun of how a briton got his head knocked around so bad at the last soccer game (that's football for my limey buddies our there) it gave him permanent brain damage and so he went to the pub and drank himself into more brain damage and then went on a twenty minute rant about how violent and idiotic americans are.

that make you feel any better?

Anyway, if this story picks up wind, the black helicopter people are going come out the woodworks.

[DarkLight 0]

(As far as I'm concerned it's all nonsense, but one would expect the believers to put a little more faith in their sacred texts)

That's the only thing that i like about religion...  Everyone just does with it what they want, accept a few rules, ignore some other...

I think it's funny and shocking at the same time... You can justify pretty much everything like this, just look at al qaeda and ppl like them.  While some muslims may say that what they are doing is wrong, AQ's view on the holy macaroni justifies everything they do...

oh well, to be honest i don't like religion at all... i respect every person his beliefs as long as they respect mine... personally i don't really care if you believe in God, Allah, Buddha or some Purple Rhino.

It's all the same to me...

In my eyes religion causes pretty much nothing more than bad stuff...  and i'm sure that if good ol' God really is up there, he'll send me to heaven anyway... because after all, he made us as we are, and he made me critical enough to doubt his existance... so i don't think the old man should be angry...

I'm just a stupid kid with an opinion, you know...

edit: Hmmm 4 ppl were able to reply before i finished my post damn..... i sure am sloooooooooooow

[Bernadotte 0]

I think it's quite alarming what kind of interpretation these people have. "Decency" on TV - like not showing breasts on TV is an issue, while starting a war that killed thousands of people is not.

TV Censor 1:  Hold it right there!  What is that man sticking into that woman??!!  

TV Censor 2:  Um... I believe it's a knife, sir.

TV Censor 1:  Oh... alright then, my mistake.

 

[DarkLight 0]

I think it's quite alarming what kind of interpretation these people have. "Decency" on TV - like not showing breasts on TV is an issue, while starting a war that killed thousands of people is not.

TV Censor 1:  Hold it right there!  What is that man sticking into that woman??!!  

TV Censor 2:  Um... I believe it's a knife, sir.

TV Censor 1:  Oh... alright then, my mistake.

 

Hehehe damn sometimes i really love this stupid world...

.... in a stupid way... of course...

[Llauma 0]

Llauma:

Quote[/b] ]But I guess anyone can interpret the bible as they want. It's not up to us to judge them bad Christians. According to their religion the judging will eventually be done by a higher authority.

It's all fine and well, but since they are trying to insert their beliefs in the political system and into the law, they deserve to be scrutinized. Since they are trying to force others into sharing their beliefs, then the others have every right to question those beliefs.

Don't question their beliefs.. For religious fanatics everything comes in secondhand after their beliefs. You can't change their beliefs.

What you can do is to see that people with beliefs and values that differs from your own doesn't get elected into power. If they still get elected I guess it's because the majority of the voters shares those beliefs.

But I agree with you that it's very strange that their beliefs is almost the opposite to the original beliefs Jesus had which their whole religion is based on.

[red oct 2]

I think it's quite alarming what kind of interpretation these people have. "Decency" on TV - like not showing breasts on TV is an issue, while starting a war that killed thousands of people is not.

TV Censor 1: Hold it right there! What is that man sticking into that woman??!!

TV Censor 2: Um... I believe it's a knife, sir.

TV Censor 1: Oh... alright then, my mistake.

actually you might find this odd, but TV never seems to have a problem w/ censorship. maybe public television, but satalite and cable practicly air what ever they want. Radio stations on the other hand do have some rather strick censorship polices that they have to follow. Howard Stern has been taking a lota heat over some the stuff he airs, and its imo pretty tame compared to what i've seen on TV.

[DarkLight 0]

I think it's quite alarming what kind of interpretation these people have. "Decency" on TV - like not showing breasts on TV is an issue, while starting a war that killed thousands of people is not.

TV Censor 1:  Hold it right there!  What is that man sticking into that woman??!!  

TV Censor 2:  Um... I believe it's a knife, sir.

TV Censor 1:  Oh... alright then, my mistake.

 

actually you might find this odd, but TV never seems to have a problem w/ censorship. maybe public television, but satalite and cable practicly air what ever they want. Radio stations on the other hand do have some rather strick censorship polices that they have to follow. Howard Stern has been taking a lota heat over some the stuff he airs, and its imo pretty tame compared to what i've seen on TV.

You should hear Wim Oosterlinck here in Belgium

This guy kicks some serious ass

He presents this show on the radio from monday till friday and he's pretty daaaaamn funny

Talks about sex whole the freakin' time

I just hope not too many kids listen to that station when they wake up hehehehehe

[DanAK47 1]

Sometimes regular people act like religious fanatics with their beliefs.

As for censorship it should be optional. Built in like closed captioning. People shouldn't have to listen to people use bad language if they don't want to. It's easy to turn on the TV and see something that could offend someone and usually you don't get a warning.

[Akira 0]

It's easy to turn on the TV and see something that could offend someone and usually you don't get a warning.

It's also just as easy to not turn on the TV at all.

[DanAK47 1]

Let's just air pictures of fecal matter. If you don't like it you can blow up your TV, Akira.

[denoir 0]

Regarding the Guardian Clark Country campaign:

A Clever Trick? [FOX News]

Quote[/b] ]

Last week I told you about Britain's Guardian newspaper organizing Brits — and people from all over the world, actually — to write to voters in a small swing county in Ohio to urge them to vote President Bush (search) out.

After three prominent Britons wrote letters to voters in Ohio telling them in high-minded English how dumb they would be to vote for Bush,Americans began to write back.

Monday, The Guardian printed a column with a sample of the earful it got from outraged Americans:

"We Ohioans are an ornery sort and don't take meddling well, even if it comes from people we admire and with their sincere goodwill," said one writer from Springfield, Ohio.

One from Washington D.C. wrote: "You vote for your leaders and we'll vote for ours. Your problem is with your leaders, not ours."

And these were the nice ones. Dozens of others were angry, hostile, truculent, threatening and exceedingly obscene. I can't say here on the air a fraction of what outraged Americans had to say about and to the Brits who thought it would be helpful for voters in America to be educated on what a bad president George Bush has been. And I must say that I've decided this was a sly and clever trap set by The Guardian.What The Guardian editors wanted was to show what louts and lowlifes Americans are... and so they baited the trap with someone like Lady Antonia Fraser lecturing us about our politics.

Then The Guardian got all these wild letters from wild Americans. And I think that was their point, really: To show Brits that Americans are still loutish frontiersmen wearing animal skins and scratching and spitting and cursing.The Guardian's point in all of this was to show the world that the American voter is not qualified to select the leader of the free world. And the letters they got from us will confirm that opinion among many around the world.

Well, here's a news flash to all those people wherever they are: We don't care.

That's My Word.

I think he's really on to something there. When you look at both at the selected responses and the unfiltered complete feedback, you can see that 99% of the Bush supporters are behaving like complete asses. They resort to very nasty racist insults against the British in general and are just insulting people and being rude. It really leaves a bad image of Bush supporters.

If this gets enough publicity, it might be quite a sucessful anti-Bush PR coup. Not the letters to the voters, but the hateful responses from Bush supporters and the display of an apparent UK/US rift.

[DanAK47 1]

Same deal with the liberals who write in to news shows, magazines, etc, in response to pro-Bush content.

I think the majority of people who are level headed do not waste time responding to those sort of things.

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]Last week G2 launched Operation Clark County to help readers have a say in the American election by writing to undecided voters in the crucial state of Ohio. In the first three days, more than 11,000 people requested addresses. Here is some of the reaction to the project that we received from the US

The bold part says it all. Why are British citizens supposed to have a say in American elections ? What if the Washington Times had made it official policy to ask Americans to write letters to Australians saying "Please vote for Howard" ?

Edit - Changed

[kerosene 0]

The Guardian isnt the prime minister of Britain though, its not the same thing at all.

I thought the whole thing was kind of stupid anyway

[Akira 0]

Let's just air pictures of fecal matter. If you don't like it you can blow up your TV, Akira.

Been done and bitchin' about it ain't gonna change it. People have bitched about the content of TV for years, and it hasn't changed anything, it's only gotten worse. The simple fact is, if you don't like it, THEN DON'T WATCH IT. That is the only way to get at the networks.

I don't have cable, I have a pair of bunny ears perched on my TV. I watch mostly PBS, football, The Amazing Race, and Lost because its better than your average show. And ya know what. I still survive in today's world.

If I could choose what cable channels I got, then I would get cable, and I can assure you SpikeTV, MTV, and the other crap would not be on my choices.

Quote[/b] ]

The bold part says it all. Why are British citizens supposed to have a say in American elections ? What if the Washington Times had made it official policy to ask Americans to write letters to Australians saying "Please vote for Howard" ?

Maybe since their country got sucked into the Iraq War by Bush's lies, and have had their countrymen killed, they do indeed have a right to say what they think and feel.

Last time I checked we weren't sucked into an Australian war...

[turms 0]

Quote[/b] ]The bold part says it all. Why are British citizens supposed to have a say in American elections  ? What if the Washington Times had made it official policy to ask Americans to write letters to Australians saying "Please vote for Howard"  ?

When USA starts to mind its own bussiness, instead of invading countrys, then it is not anyones elses bussiness.

EDIT: Akira said it better

[Llauma 0]

Quote[/b] ]The bold part says it all. Why are British citizens supposed to have a say in American elections  ? What if the Washington Times had made it official policy to ask Americans to write letters to Australians saying "Please vote for Howard"  ?

When USA starts to mind its own bussiness, instead of invading countrys, then it is not anyones elses bussiness.

They are not invading but liberating..

[Bernadotte 0]

Why are British citizens supposed to have a say in American elections ?

Why is Vladimir Putin supposed to have a say in American elections ?  [<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/10/18/putin.iraq/index.html

" target="_blank">Putin urges voters to back Bush</a>]

What if the Washington Times had made it official policy to ask Americans to write letters to Australians saying "Please vote for Howard" ?

Did you even bother to read the Guardian article?

It doesn't mention the name of either candidate.

Perhaps if you paid a little more attention to the facts:

Quote[/b] ]Of course, who you urge your voter to support is entirely up to you.  -- Guardian Article

...And paid a little less attention to FoxNews:

Quote[/b] ]Last week I told you about Britain's Guardian newspaper organizing Brits — and people from all over the world, actually — to write to voters in a small swing county in Ohio to urge them to vote President Bush out.

...Then foreigners might have a bit more confidence in your ability to make a decision that will have a significant affect on them.