So far, he's avoided trouble. But sooner or later there will be problems. Any speculations?

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 13, 2001

Answers

He wipes his ass the wrong way?

-- pavilion (pavilion@getoverit.jog), February 13, 2001.

Face-baithed

-- (nemesis@awol.com), February 14, 2001.

Politically, failing to back Sharon. 2nd, commiting when it's too late to matter.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), February 14, 2001.

Do you think we should be more involved in Israel, Carlos? That place scares me.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 14, 2001.

Whaddya' mean "first" F-up? So far he's wracked up:

1) Denying aid to birth control clinics

2) Repealed environmental protections

3) Promotes tax cuts for the rich

4) Installed the Uber Conservative Ashcroft as A.G.

5) Turned his back on California's energy problems.

6) Pledged Federal Funds to religious organizations.

7) Dumped on the military.

8) Plans on cutting the FAA budget

9) Stalled the Patients' Bill of Rights

So far he's averaging three F-ups a week but I suspect these are just warm-ups!

-- Quiet (Knight@Camelot.com), February 14, 2001.

Plans on cutting the FAA budget??? Please provide a link. It was a disaster when Reaganfaught the air traffic controllers! We all heard during the Y2K debate about the ancient computers running them, the analog computers run with vacume tubes they were so old. The air traffic controllers were striking because they knew those computers were falling apart and so old that some parts for them weren't even being made any more. I know republicans back big business over the individual, put making money ahead of a lot of things like the enviroment and workers, but to put big business ahead of safety is insane. The polititions ride in those aircraft, don't they realise that the FAA already ignores safety problems until they get too big and too many accidents cause a stink, they need to get rid of the people running it and replace them with honest people who don't put airlines ahead of safety.

Another big problem with the airlines now is the pilots. The lack of experienced trained and experienced military pilots has left a big vacency of pilots for passenger aircraft. The training standards have hit bottom, pilots are being certified with the bare basics of training and experience. Jets are not cars and you wouldn't want young, inexperienced, "hot rodding" pilots in control of an aircraft. The crash of the 737 into the Patomic was caused by an young, impatient, inexperienced pilot who took off before he was told to because they were backed up and he got irritated with waiting. The FAA has a bad habit of bowing to airline pressure does not create rules and regulations that cost the airlines money to impliment. Today I heard about another vehecle recal one for a minivan that has been sold for about 4 years. We can't afford to allow aircraft to be sold under those kinds of conditions, where it is only after hundreds of accidents and thousands of lives that the company is forced to accept responsibility and fix problems.

Right now is such a bad time to decrease funding to the FAA, most people who work on aircraft, like pilots, were trained and gained experience in the military. Since the downsizing of the military has decreased the number of people with that background, and the last of the ones who were trained are at retirement age or beyond, the quality of maintenance on aircraft is about shot to hell. That stripped screw that brought down the aircraft last year is a good example of the problems that are out there. Mix that with the attitude today a lot of people have towards trying to get away with doing as little work as they can and companies efforts towards profit over quality of work (or numbers of workers they have to pay) and you can kiss your airline stock goodby. It might be a good idea to invest in railroad stock because after we start getting aircraft falling out of the sky more often, people will stop flying completely and start taking the trains.

It is things like this that elaberate what is wrong about Bush being president. He has his advisors to do his thinking for him, the advisors are people who's interests lay in the direction of business, the businesses he is going to make decisions about. I don't know of any advisors he has who could be considered devel's advocates, who will try to show him the reasons why businesses can't have a regulation free reign to do what they want. There are good reasons why most restraints and regulations have been made in the first place. Checks and balances are not a bad thing, if voluntary policing worked then we would not have had to make these restraints.

Unfortunatly it takes some businesses being sued and paying out large monitary sums to convince them that they need to do something right, Bush brags about doing away with frivolous lawsuits in Texas, if he does that nationally then there will be no insentive for business to do the right thing. How many people remember when businesses were run without safety rules and other such things? A lot of people lost their lives working for industry. It was only after a regulations were imposed on them that a lot of industry implimented safety measures in the workplace.

Unfortunatly it is because so many rules and regulations have been forced down the throat of indusry, and everytthing else in this country that there is this backlash of business trying to get them removed or to be allowed to do it themself. Extremes again, safety requirements were a good thing to dictate to them. But as always seems to happen, it went overboard and so many petty, irrelevent rules have also been added on top of the needed ones that it destroyed the whole concept. I think I just realized that the reason so many people are fed up with the way things are today is because of the fact that so many good things that were done by government were taken to such an extreme that it defeated the origional purposes of the origional concept.

The answer though is not to go back to the way things were done origionally, not to undo all the good that was done, but to go back towards the center, make thing work correctly. If it is possible.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), February 14, 2001.

I bet he picks his nose on camera again, or calls someone else an asshole around an open mike.

Those are about the only f-ups he will be responsible for. Since he's just a figurehead, the really big mistakes will be caused by Cheney and his staff.

-- (@ .), February 14, 2001.

"Your guess on Bush's first F-up?"

My guess is he'll be attending a state dinner in a foreign land when he suddenly takes ill and unexpectedly spews vomit onto the lap of that land's leader.

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), February 14, 2001.

Plans on cutting the FAA budget??? Please provide a link.

"Under the Bush outline, the Federal Aviation Administration's budget would be cut by $568 million - $200 million from operations and $368 million from capital projects such as airport improvements, sources say. They said this is part of the overall cutback and that the administration didn't even ask what the possible effect might be."

-- Quiet (Knight@Camelot.com), February 14, 2001.

Ah, we all had good fun on this one. Well that is what we are here for. Probably, I should re-state my question--what do you guess might be Bush's first crisis of leadership? Not "mistake", but "crisis".

"Quiet", you list policies that you do not personally support. So far, these are not fuckups; they are not crises. Perhaps in due time. Then you can tell us that you had predicted it and I'm sure you will.

I would guess that the first major crisis will have little to do with domestic policy. I am thinking of a terrorist attack, a natural disaster etc. I don't see a Clintonesque scandal, as least not as the first crisis, probably never.

IMO it will be something that will give us a non-political yardstick by which to measure the man and the quality of his leadership.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 14, 2001.

Thanks Quiet. Hopefully saner heads will prevail.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), February 14, 2001.