{"id":175,"date":"2007-01-25T11:13:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-25T11:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html"},"modified":"2007-01-25T11:13:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-25T11:13:00","slug":"how-far-president-bush-has-fallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html","title":{"rendered":"How far President Bush has fallen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How bad has it gotten?<\/p>\n<p>Pat Robertson&#8217;s news site &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbn.com\">cbn.com<\/a> &#8211; has discussion boards up for people to talk about various topics. I looked at it suspecting to find one group who supported the war and the president in aboslute terms.  Quite the opposite. One the discussion boards asking whether <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbn.com\/board\/eboard.aspx?bKey=IraqStrategy\">the &#8220;troop surge&#8221; should be supported<\/a> features these as the most recent posts:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Not a chance! First of all, the war was built on lies (WMD&#8217;s &amp; Iraq was involved in 9-11), false hopes (that the US would be embraced in Iraq), misguided bravado (Bush went ahead mostly alone and without exhausting dipolomacy), and without a clear plan to win the peace. On top of that, the war has been mismanaged &#8211; thanks to Rumsfeld and those at the top, not our brave troops. In fact, it&#8217;s surprising that America supported this folly as long as it did. I credit Karl Rove&#8217;s spin with that. But as with Vietnam, it all is finally catching up with a President, who no matter how he tries, still has that deer-in-the-headlights look and feel.Not a chance! First of all, the war was built on lies (WMD&#8217;s &amp; Iraq was involved in 9-11), false hopes (that the US would be embraced in Iraq), misguided bravado (Bush went ahead mostly alone and without exhausting dipolomacy), and without a clear plan to win the peace. On top of that, the war has been mismanaged &#8211; thanks to Rumsfeld and those at the top, not our brave troops. In fact, it&#8217;s surprising that America supported this folly as long as it did. I credit Karl Rove&#8217;s spin with that. But as with Vietnam, it all is finally catching up with a President, who no matter how he tries, still has that deer-in-the-headlights look and feel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The next one:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The &#8220;new&#8221; Iraq strategy is merely a rehash of the old. This is no real troop surge, since with fluctuating troop levels over the 4 years of the war, we&#8217;ve actually had this planned number of troops in Iraq already, and we&#8217;ve seen the results. And we&#8217;ve sent billions to Iraq already for infrastructure that got lost in the quagmire somewhere. It will take a better plan and better people with a more accurate world view to win the conflict and the hearts of Americans who feel burned and betrayed. I&#8217;m tired of old rich men creating wars for poor young ones to die in. I&#8217;m not anti-war. Desert Storm and ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban in a (failed) hunt for bin Laden were just conflicts and causes. This one never was. Sadly, over 3000 Americans, many of them just kids, have paid the price of the mistakes of a few, however well-intentioned.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Keep in mind that these are evangelical viewers\/readers of Pat Robertson&#8217;s news channel and website&#8230;go and<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbn.com\/board\/eboard.aspx?bKey=IraqStrategy\"> see for yoursel<\/a>f it is extraordinary because these aren&#8217;t isolated examples.  Sure there are some who support but they are a minority.  Amazing. I don&#8217;t think anyone could have ever imagined this kind of revolt against the president from those who were his most ardent and strident supporters.<\/p>\n<p>It is also further evidence of this &#8211; evangelicals supported Bush so blindly because his team seduced them into thinking he was a good Christian and that was all that was important. Now? Not only are his policies terrifying, but the name of Jesus has been corrupted in the process because Jesus&#8217; name is now so identified with Republican politics. A bad trade across the board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How bad has it gotten? Pat Robertson&#8217;s news site &#8211; cbn.com &#8211; has discussion boards up for people to talk about various topics. I looked at it suspecting to find one group who supported the war and the president in aboslute terms. Quite the opposite. One the discussion boards asking whether the &#8220;troop surge&#8221; should&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How far President Bush has fallen - J Walking<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How far President Bush has fallen - J Walking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How bad has it gotten? Pat Robertson&#8217;s news site &#8211; cbn.com &#8211; has discussion boards up for people to talk about various topics. I looked at it suspecting to find one group who supported the war and the president in aboslute terms. Quite the opposite. One the discussion boards asking whether the &#8220;troop surge&#8221; should&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"J Walking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-01-25T11:13:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"J-Walking\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How far President Bush has fallen - J Walking","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How far President Bush has fallen - J Walking","og_description":"How bad has it gotten? Pat Robertson&#8217;s news site &#8211; cbn.com &#8211; has discussion boards up for people to talk about various topics. I looked at it suspecting to find one group who supported the war and the president in aboslute terms. Quite the opposite. One the discussion boards asking whether the &#8220;troop surge&#8221; should&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html","og_site_name":"J Walking","article_published_time":"2007-01-25T11:13:00+00:00","author":"J-Walking","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html","name":"How far President Bush has fallen - J Walking","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-01-25T11:13:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-01-25T11:13:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#\/schema\/person\/8d4e1f712af51628c9c9c6fe0b4dab15"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/01\/how-far-president-bush-has-fallen.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How far President Bush has fallen"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/","name":"J Walking","description":"David Kuo blog, faith, politics, christian blog, tempting faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#\/schema\/person\/8d4e1f712af51628c9c9c6fe0b4dab15","name":"J-Walking","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/5f6\/5f63a6f1b5a441bc89c6916d974cce16x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/5f6\/5f63a6f1b5a441bc89c6916d974cce16x96.jpg","caption":"J-Walking"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/author\/jwalking"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}