Do you really expect George W. Bush to accompany MSHA inspectors personally on Air Force One?

No Gid. But OSHA and MSHA have suffered a lot of personnel cuts (and policy directives to ease things out) and this undermines their effectiveness. that is the problem. Every time anyone says anything about this administration you guys go to Bush personally. do i have to tell you that any president doesnt do anything himself, but he sets the policies and appoints people who do. you are a conservative and supposed to be smart, why do you say these things?

You say the GOP is responsible for gross incompetent and mismanagement. I say you're only HALF right.

That is the whole point. not half of it. if there is any other half, it is that the GOP presidents usually dont care about what is happening to most of the people or the resources of the country.

I am in no way saying that Dem's presidents are perfect or have no failures. It is the obvious fact that the most and wide-spread failures belong to the GOP's presidents.

Since it is apparent that you don't want to discuss here, but only engage in partisan attacks,

Far from it, i will be glad to discuss any issue, but jumping to conclusions and personal attacks are not my style. I am not liberal in the first place, if that means anything to anyone. but i am also not conservative either. i call it as i see it. i dont generally assume anything or accuse anyone of anything they didnt say. Calling people ignorant and have no idea of what they are talking about is not a good way to discuss anything. is it?

S**t Happens. The real issue is LEADERSHIP (or the lack of it). We need a President who is able to chart a course that effectively deals with the major issues facing our country and is able to get Congress to enact laws that will accomplish those solutions. That has been lacking to some extent for a long time but especially during the past 7 years! We are ignoring the most important challenges and misallocating our resources to areas that do not resolve our problems. In fact we are creating new PROBLEMS AS WELL AS NOT RESOLVING EXISTING ISSUES!

I didn't call you ignorant. I DID state that I was tired of people talking about underground mining who had no farking idea what they're talking about. I stand corrected in that you aren't one of those; but think about it, TA...for the most part, do you see my issue on this one?

The deaths from the mine disasters are a result of a system that has simply not enforced laws on the books...and that was long in place before Bush.

You say you're not a Dem. I believe you. Then let's talk about a President that sold us down the river on NAFTA. Let's talk about the fact that EVERY national level politician is bought and sold by corporations, and the people no longer matter.

Yes, TA. Bush sucks. On that we can agree. The problem is, Bush is not running for President in 2008. If you focus your attack solely on Bush, that means Dems will sweep in with vote totals that will make them declare a "mandate" and the country will suffer for it. Diligence means looking for enemies under any uniform they wear.

The real issue is LEADERSHIP (or the lack of it). We need a President who is able to chart a course that effectively deals with the major issues facing our country and is able to get Congress to enact laws that will accomplish those solutions. That has been lacking to some extent for a long time but especially during the past 7 years! We are ignoring the most important challenges and misallocating our resources to areas that do not resolve our problems. In fact we are creating new PROBLEMS AS WELL AS NOT RESOLVING EXISTING ISSUES!

Can't agree with you more.

If you focus your attack solely on Bush, that means Dems will sweep in with vote totals that will make them declare a "mandate" and the country will suffer for it.

Comon Gid. Did i even mention Bush? you guys brought him up. i talked about a trend that included 3 other presidents. Doesnt that tell you that you guys are hyper-sensitive about your darling Bush.

whether he is running or not doesnt make any difference. i was talking about the GOP for god's sake. are you fixated on Bush?

the reason i started with Reagan's era is something i dont think any one of you guys remember or even noticed at the time.

Do you know what he said when he came to office? i remember that speech. i was working in the office and have the radio on listening. and he said: We must change this country to "SERVICE" economy. I was shocked. I said to myself " this guy is going to transfer us to a society that depends on others for our goods and materials?" that was the most stupid idea i ever heard.

But sure enough, he gave huge tax breaks for companies who build "new" plants. not fix or expand new ones !!!!!.

the transfer was on. and you tell me NAFTA. if we transfer our manufacturing to other countries, how do you think we can guarantee access to them ? we have to insure no-interference from those countries through regulations or taxes . now you see why NAFTA and GAT were invented? and it all started by a guy the GOP holds as an icon. now all we have are low-level service jobs. The great manufacturing empires died ..... on the hands of the GOP. and you know why? because at the time, UNIONS were really stupid, really astonishingly stupid and over-played their hands. instead of fixing the problem and getting them in check, the GOP/Busin. alliance said to the heck with you guys. we are going out. and they did. no thought was paid to the impact on the country or its future....... if GAT or NAFTA were not there, you think we will get those products as cheap as we get them now? all those countries will impose Export taxes because they know they will still be cheaper and they know we NEED them.

I Hate NFTA and GAT but unless we restore our manufacturing base, we need both .... Badly.

You think a Dem in 1981 would have done that? .... i dont think so.

Wow.  I mean, talk about living in glass houses.

How about talking about definitive actions in history. That is, things that a given party explicitly supported:

Slavery - Democrats were the party of slavery.

Undermining the Civil War - During the civil war, northern Democrats unsuccessfully urged an end in the fighting - a two-state solution

The income tax - The Democrats were the ones who we can thank for this.

World War I - Thanks to Wilson, hundreds of thousands of Americans died for no particular reason.

Massive taxation - For decades, the most productive Americans had the vast majority of their earnings taxed away by Democrats

Communism - at best, you can say the Demcorats were far more..sympathetic to Communism than Socialism (Democrats love calling people Nazis because to them, that's an insult but never seem to consider calling someone a Communist an insult).

Segregation - Democrats were the ones in favor of segratation.  It was Eisenhower, a Republican, who had to send in troops into Little Rock to enforce integration.

The Vietnam War - if you think the Iraq War is a bad thing, thank the Democrats for getting the US into the biggest and most expensive quagmire ever. Over 60,000 Americans died with nothing to show for it.

Iran - We can thank Jimmy Carter in particular for the mess we have with Iran today.

Next to these explicit events that the Democrats either directly caused or explicitly supported the ambiguous and petty list you have in your post seems silly.  I mean really, blaming the Challenger disaster on the Republicans? That's like blaming the weather on Republicans (oh wait, Democrats already blame the weather on Republicans).

Many of the other things in your list are really a stretch (either not bad - like the first gulf war) or just an exmaple of stupid government that has nothing to do with party (Katrina relief).

The Republicans aren't perfect but anyone with even a casual grasp of history can see that the Democrats, by far, have a long track record of being on the wrong side of history.

lets see you forgot the energy crisis when we didn't have one.

you forgot the health care scare. which is still going on.

you forgot about the to many doctors scare. and now we don't have enough. it takes 10 years of school, and i don't know how many years after school to become a doctor. we also don't have enough nurses.

The Republicans aren't perfect but anyone with even a casual grasp of history can see that the Democrats, by far, have a long track record of being on the wrong side of history.

your list is a haphazard collection of false information and fact-spinning.

Dem's are responsible for Communism and also started the Vietnam war? why fight it if they support it?

and also Dems responsible for segregation and at the same time get the Civil-Rights laws?

and they were the ones who put the Shah back on the throne against the well of the people of Iran?

and they started the Vietnam war?

and you want to build a superpower with no taxes?

and we should have stood idle while Germany are sweeping Europe?

and why didn't you list WWII also? A Dem was president during that one too.

and who pushed for the integration laws in the first place?

check the dates for the things you write and you will see who started what.

your response is a proof of what i said in the article: huge tendancy to lie , spin the facts and confuse the issue.

TA, TA, TA....learn your history here.

I've posted this before. The research is there. While SOME Dems supported the Civil Rights laws, a great number OPPOSED them. Revise history all you want, but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would never have passed without broad REPUBLICAN support. That's not theory; it's provable FACT.

these were put in place to counter the minimum wage that started at the same time.

Global Warming is caused by the reduction of piracy.  It has been shown conclusively the correlation between the level of piracy, and the average global termperature, so the causality must follow.  There can be no doubt.

Now, if you want to be taken even partially seriously, you would instead list the causes of the situations you listed, and how they would be caused by who was in the whitehouse.  WIthout using Mickey morons 6 degrees of separation that shows when a buttferfly farts in ohio, it is bush's fault

Piracy is on the rise, actually. It's the perfect crime... out on the sea, taking out boats with AK-47s... scary.

Actually, I have definitively traced global warming to the state of the buffalo.

See, after the last ice age, the mammal became the dominant class of animals. Buffalo thrived on the continent and the planet warmed. We arrived on the continent and hunted them to near extinction, the planet cooled. Now, thanks to conservation efforts, they are thriving and the planet is warming.

"Need firestick, kemosabe. Me hunt buffalo for greater good!"