Talk:George W. Bush/Archive 18

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Minor factual corrections

I made some (imho very) minor changes to reflect the actual status of 2004 Election and reported Irregularities. -- RyanFreisling @ 20:17, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What is revert war over?

I don't see much actual debate on this talk page by either side. In my opinion there really is no reason to list election controversy info on Bush's bio article, it serves no purpose. A bio page is not a place for indirectly applicable current events or information that changes rapidly in my opinion. In fact, for the election fraud to be exposed it may take a few honest republicans. Zen Master 20:52, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree about "indirectly applicable current events", but there's nothing indirect about including the 2000 and 2004 elections here. Those events were central to Bush's bio. It's clear that election controversies should be mentioned in this article, with appropriate wikilinks for more detail. The close question is what should be said about the elections in the lead section as opposed to the body of the article. JamesMLane 23:53, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, a simple sentence with a wikilink to the election controversy article for more info should be sufficient. Zen Master 00:09, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, a simple sentence, that there have been concerns in some quarters as to the fairness of the elections, prompted in part by their closeness, the degree of controversy and polarisation of issues, however it is important to note that 1) there have been such issues in many elections, 2) nobody has pointed a finger at GWB as being involved in these, and 3) at this point the Democratic Party have accepted the results. Whats the issue? FT2 17:17, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

I vote for the 09:37, 3 Dec 2004 one--The_stuart 19:41, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Your point 2 is false, plenty of people allege (without much evidence) that GWB was involved in the 2000 irregularities. As to the dispute, why not finesse it? There's no need in the second sentence to say either that the election was decided by SCOTUS or that GWB "was elected by defeating Gore". Why should the election or the opponent be mentioned at all in the 1st paragraph? If Gore must be mentioned, simply state that his opponent was Vice-President Gore. That leaves the lead-in neutral on the controversy by avoiding it entirely. Wolfman 16:20, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the elections don't even need to be mentioned, the focus on those small issues is ridiculous for a president that has fought two wars and staved off an economic depression after an attack at the economic and financial heart of the U.S. The elections may ultimately become significant if they lead to reforms such as internet voting or proportional representation, but short of that they are merely a mindless obsession for some.--Silverback 01:27, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This argument is pretty blatant POV. If you approve of what Bush has done, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but it's no basis for withholding facts about the elections. If Bush is a shining hero and the facts about this aspect of his noble career take a bit of the luster off, well, that's the way the ball bounces. JamesMLane 02:25, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

He is hero is some areas, mass-murderer in others, lets stick to the facts and keep them in perspective. The election stuff should be mentioned here, especially since it meant he had to overcome a hostile and divisive environment, but it doesn't need to be mentioned in the first paragraphs, if people are opposing its mention elsewhere in the article, I'll support its mention there. it doesn't match the encyclopedic POV of other presidential bio's to include it in the overall summary. --Silverback 02:34, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

James, I certainly think the election controversies should be fully referenced in the article itself. Anything else would be white-washing. I'm just not sure it needs to be mentioned in the first paragraph of the article. Perhaps adding a simple descriptor such as 'controversial election' or 'hotly contested election' would be a reasonable compromise for the lead-in paragraph. Wolfman 02:42, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the close question is how much to put in the lead section. My view is still that some people, especially non-Americans, will come to this article having heard vaguely about election controversies, and not even being clear on the distinction between 2000 and 2004. For their benefit, while the 2004 election is "fresh", I'd include brief references in the lead. The lead will have to be rewritten anyway after January 20, and at that time the references to controversies and delayed outcomes could be removed unless there had been major developments. JamesMLane 05:32, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That seems a reasonable approach to me. Wolfman 05:41, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I can sign on to a compromise which accepts the election references until Jan 20, and then reduces this early summary paragraph emphasis then, if others agree that they will support the election demphasis in the first paragraphs then. We don't need unanimity, but a workable number from both sides agree to accept and defend the compromise, both before and after.--Silverback 05:47, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NPOV doesn't mean suppressing all criticism of Bush

People keep trying to remove passages that are unflattering to Bush, notably by arguing against the criticism -- Hatfield was a felon, Wormer didn't examine Bush, the Yale professors who graded him were probably liberal bigots, etc. The NPOV policy certainly requires that we not endorse any particular opinion, pro or con -- but NPOV permits, indeed requires, the reporting of those opinions, properly attributed. I'm restoring the huge mass of material that's been removed. That's not to say that all of it is perfectly OK. For example, there's this statement about Bush's governorship: "His tenure in office featured a positive reputation for bipartisan leadership." Now, that's an opinion, and unlike the negative things about Bush, it's not properly attributed and sourced. An article about a controversial subject has a particular need for editors to cite their sources. Someone notable could probably be found who said something like that, which is why I'm leaving it in for now, but it should be attributed. JamesMLane 16:43, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. -- RyanFreisling @ 19:47, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As I've stated already, I left in the DUI, the "Irresponsible youth", the drinking, et. al. But, when someone puts out an attack piece insinuating that He's a "Dry Drunk" without ever examining him either physically or mentally, I say that it has not been vetted properly for inclusion in the article. First Lensman 13:34, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I could pick this entire article apart with the constant unfootnoted inuendo such the repeated use of the terminology of "others have said" "it is the opinion" and each and everytime, this is without a reference to a source of who the "others" are. Let's look at another figure who may be considered to be a controversial leader, namely Robert E. Lee. Now in Lee's case, there is plenty of room for allusion, opinion and positions that are not NPOV. Yet I fail to find them there...the entire article meets the criteria of size and shape and offers a basic synopisis of the facts though in a brief format somewhat lacking in details that may be of importance to those that need more to diet on. I believe that the vast majority of the articles in Wiki are without bias and without inuendo based on weak and transparently leftist or right wing bias and take a NPOV. In the case of a few though, primarily those of more recent political aspects, it is hopelessly biased and the truth is that this bias is to the left. Constant reference to the kind of inuendo by those that perpetrate this to be good science fail to see that the support of the leftist arguments are no more reliable for truth than the National Enquirer would be. The reasoning that since it was written and therefore an opinion and is mentioned along with detractions that the source is without support is a built in refutation of the evidence and therefore it should be excluded. "This guy or organization said this, yet this guy or organization is essentially an unreliable witness to said events"...how does that philosophy make it credible to be included in what is supposed to be a NPOV article? With that in mind, it seems no different that an article on North American mammals should discuss Bigfoot because on at least 50 occasions, Bigfoot was spotted here or there as reported in certain issues of the National Enquirer. Editing out the inuendo of this article is good reporting. If anyone thinks I edited out all the "bad" or negative information about Bush, they are gravely mistaken. JamesMLane and similar charged persons are passionately opposed to Bush, while I am no fan of his, I am conservative and would not have voted for Kerry under almost any circumstance. Yet, polical affiliations aside, the negative aspects of this article are placed here without regard to their questionable source due to the fact that the detractors of Bush wish to slander him.--MONGO 21:06, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Please assume good faith. -- RyanFreisling @ 22:36, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I can assure you, MONGO, that there's no leftist bias in favor of Robert E. Lee. (Remember, it's leftists who want to remove the Confederate flag from U.S. state flags, who criticize Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University because of its segregationist policies, etc.) Instead, the difference between the two articles is that Bush is a contemporary politician. Articles on such people attract editors who support the subject and editors who oppose him or her. Both sides have a wealth of online source material (far more than in Lee's case). A better analogy would be John Kerry. He actually served in Vietnam, yet you'll see that the Wikipedia article reports the criticisms of his service. For example, it notes that "two of Kerry's former commanding officers, Grant Hibbard and George Elliott ... have alleged, respectively, that Kerry's first Purple Heart and Silver Star were undeserved." In fact, just as with Bush, the back-and-forth about what he did during the Vietnam War got so extensive that it was spun off to a separate article, leaving behind only a summary. That's why the articles on George W. Bush military service controversy and John Kerry military service controversy were created. As for unfootnoted statements, we don't need to provide a reference for noncontroversial stuff like his place of birth. Although you complain about "the repeated use of the terminology of 'others have said'", I searched the article for the word "others" and found only two uses: a quotation from Bush, and a reference to other previous elections. I invite you to call our attention to any specific passages that you think should be sourced. JamesMLane 23:49, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I did that aleady when I mentioned the Salon article. Where is their source for their allegation? I could start on online magazine or paper which made plenty of inuendo and provided propaganda of some sort or another. Because I said it in my paper, would it be a citable source for Wiki articles even if it itself provided no references or named sources? Depending on which version of this article you are talking about is the number of times you can find the passage of, in essence, "others have said" or similar. I once counted it 5 times. Naturally, I wouldn't expect a footnote in regards to his date of birth. I do expect, since a simple query in Yahoo brings you to this article within 5 links, that less innocent ones may wish to research the subject without having to be subjected to it's obvious left wing sentiment and unsubstantiated propaganda.--MONGO 07:50, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree that "others have said" and the like, at least where it presents controversial unsourced material, is not acceptable. Your edit was unacceptable, MONGO. Citation of a report under NPOV does not require that the primary source of newspaper/journal-reported allegations upon which we report be available. The newspaper/journal report is encyclopedic in itself (though the lack of a named primary source can be and should be noted). The removal was also far more extensive than justified by your criticism of the Salon report. You removed the entire section starting "Katherine Van Wormer" and ending with 'knew random drug testing was going to be implemented"', with the exception of the paragraph starting "The New York Times article". I am reverting the sections you removed for these several and distinct reasons. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:40, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What Rules Should Govern Opinion Piece Links?

I created the 'Opinion Pieces' sub-section so that some of the partisan commentary could be referenced there as opposed to in the main article. However, there should probably be some rules governing what sorts of opinion pieces are best-suited to the section and the article. It seems logical that, if an opinion piece is intelligently written and references factual circumstances or sources, it should be included. It's a bit tricky, though, to know when to draw the line. Perhaps the best policy is to review each link on a submission-by-submission basis. I'd say that a good goal for this section could be to avoid simple-minded propoganda for one viewpoint or another and aim for intelligent pieces. But, I know opinions will vary. So, if anyone has any input, it would be well-appreciated.

I think we can do without the opinion pieces actually. The factual information they may contain can be gotten elsewhere, and the opinions themselves are not relevant to George Bush. I say we stick with "give people facts and let them make their own minds up." --fvw* 23:09, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)

I think the opinions are relevant to the article because one can only gain so much insight from facts alone. But I do think they should be limited to representative intelligent examples of each viewpoint and placed in the exlinks section as opposed to within the main article. The reason I think opinions are important for this article is because of the sharply differing viewpoints over the subject-matter. It would be nearly impossible to provide solely factual information and come away with an informed perspective. --Xaliqen 23:30, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)

Comment on content

The article still appears as somewhat left of NPOV, yet the current revision is the best one I have seen yet as of 12:30, 24 Jan 2005 Ferkelparade. I can concede this as an adequate series of alterations, and would not disagree with internal links to the Salon reports, Hatfield's book and van Wormer's discussion, so long as they don't constitute the main body of the article and remain as links to further reading if someone chooses to read such items.--MONGO 13:26, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Gazpacho's summary

The summary simply eviscerated all mention of substantive reports except to repeat Bush's own denials. Since the President's past life does attract a lot of interest (the afterword to the Hatfield biography, Boehlert's Salon piece, van Wormer's bizarre ad hoc diagnosis) I don't think a summary is appropriate here, and this summary in particular does not capture the breadth of speculation directed at the President by the media both before and during his Presidency. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:35, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you admit that it's speculation, then why on earth should it be in the article? The article does need a statement of when and how long the press focused on the cocaine allegations during the 2000 campaign. But aren't citation links a better way to present claims that are just based on someone saying "maybe"? Gazpacho 18:39, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is obvious to me that the administrator(s) of this page and major contributors to this article wish to present, as a major component of the article, unsubstantiated drivel as part of the basic synopsis of the life of Bush, which explains the current protected article. Repeatedly, it has been mentioned that I consider this to be poor reporting which should be eliminated. I conceded that I would support a brief mention of the unsubstantiated bias if it were linked to another source and out of the main body of this article. Those that say that I wish to see no negative aspect of the man here are deluded. I simply wish to see the facts, without the leftist bias, that are worthy as a form of communication and worthy of this forum. That the page is protected in situ in an earlier form makes it obvious to me that the administrator(s) are not to be persuaded that their position is not NPOV and that instead they use this medium as a way to argue that the irrelevent is relevent and that what rational human beings would regard as speculation, opinion and slander would be permissible in this article. The mention of these items of dispute is one thing, the elaboration of them is another. Obviously, this article is a poor example of what normally appears in Wiki, in that it is not NPOV...it is leftist bias, plain and simple. The page was protected because the adminstrators(s) wish to filibuster any attempts to weed out bad reporting.--MONGO 20:20, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The source given for the van Wormer thing was CounterPunch. In my opinion this is a fairly obscure source. I propose to remove the reference to the van Wormer "analysis" unless she should be shown to be notable or a more prominent source is found than CounterPunch. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:43, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh, much better. I traced the original to the Irish Times. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:58, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Wormer Article

I still say that this entire paragraph needs to be removed:

"Katherine van Wormer, a professor of social work and writer on addiction treatment, claims that Bush seems to have the mindset of a "dry drunk," an alcoholic who still exhibits thought patterns that accompany alcoholism[6] (http://www.counterpunch.org/wormer1011.html). She bases this view on her perception that his public speeches express rigidness, obsessiveness, impatience, and grandiosity. Wormer's assessment was published in Counterpunch, a magazine edited by frequent Bush detractor and Nation writer Alexander Cockburn. (See also [7] (http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/info/a/aa081397.htm), [8] (http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020924Bisbort.html), and [9] (http://www.counterpunch.org/mccarthy1019.html).)"

It has not been vetted through an actual physical or mental examination. If there were a report by a Bush physician that hinted there was "Dry Drunk" syndrome, I'd say leave it in. What we have here is someone who is trying to negatively label someone whose opinions and actions she disagrees with. Why don't we have a new article called "Wild Accusations About President Bush"? This would be a much better place to put this article! First Lensman 13:52, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion Wormer's claims are absolute bilge. However what is worthy of note is that a published author on addiction wrote this extraordinary nonsense about Bush and it was published in the Irish Times. We're writing a NPOV article here and this is encyclopedic by the standards we're using. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:01, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I guess I just don't agree with leaving "bilge" in. Just as I wouldn't put in the Pat Robertson claim that Bush has been sent by God to lead this country. In both cases, there is no proof. We need to have stricter criteria. Why not use the credo of Detective Friday on Dragnet -- "Just the facts"! First Lensman 14:23, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If it is a fact that Pat Robertson claimed that Bush has been sent by God to lead his country, then Pat Robertson's prominence, and the prominence with which the claim was published, would establish whether the claim was worthy of note. The fact reported would not be "Bush sent by God" but "Famous televangelist with massive following claims Bush sent by God." This is the essence of NPOV. We don't say Bush was or was not sent by God, we say Pat Robertson says this. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:36, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If it isn't a proven fact, then it shouldn't be included!!! First Lensman 15:12, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:NPOV. "assert facts, including facts about opinions — but don't assert opinions themselves." If Pat Robertson said that, it's a fact about his opinion that can be asserted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:35, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What swung it for me was The Irish Times. Published author in CounterPunch isn't much. Published author in the newspaper of record of a European nation of four million people and a longstanding US ally, that's quite a lot. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:46, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A reprint in a foreign newspaper doesn't validate an article. First Lensman 15:12, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree absolutely that it doesn't validate it. (I believe the article was originally an opinion piece in the Irish Times, actually). What it does is make it noteworthy. If we only reported opinions that were validated, Wikipedia would be a very small website. Instead Wikipedia reports opinions that are published prominently enough to gain wide circulation. If something is in the Irish Times, I can read it by popping down to my local newsagent in London. I should expect the same is true in most large US cities. That's what I call prominent. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:28, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"If we only reported opinions that were validated, Wikipedia would be a very small website." -- well at least small-er and I'm all for this !!! My concern is that by having a whole paragraph so prominent concerning an unproven opinion printed in a foriegn newspaper will make students believe it is truth, which it isn't. This encyclopedia is a resource that is not only used by adults, who can make the determination that it's hogwash, but by students, who can't make that determination. That is why we have to stick to "proven" facts and place a reference to the opinion piece in the Irish Times down in the "opinion" section that was just started. First Lensman 15:41, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If "students" will believe something is true just because it's printed in a newspaper, Wikipedia cannot help them. It is not Wikipedia policy to suppress reporting of opinion for fear of being seen to endorse that opinion, but you're welcome to start your own fork of Wikipedia that operates on policy to be determined by you. If we stuck only to proven facts we'd have to get rid of all reported third party opinion--this on a person who owes his office to the opinion of third parties. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:09, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, elected officials are especially appropriate subjects for inclusion of third-party opinions -- although, as Tony Sidaway has said, reporting the facts about opinions is our general policy anyway. If someone wants to add Robertson's opinion that Bush was sent by God, I think that would be an appropriate addition, if it's properly sourced. (I did a quick search and found Robertson saying a year ago that God had told him Bush would win in a landslide: "I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004." [1] I didn't find Robertson saying specifically that Bush was "sent by God" but I didn't check all the hits.) Robertson's opinion is quite clearly bilge (at least, it's clear to me), but we can let the readers decide for themselves. JamesMLane 17:48, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to continue off-topic, but I suspect that any such claim by Robertson would be an urban legend from those who never see his show. He has denounced Bush repeatedly. Others may have made such claims. Gazpacho 18:52, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't we hold ourselves to the same standard for evidentiary inclusion into our legal system? The DUI stays in because we have the record of the DUI. The drinking stays in because the President admitted to drinking and then giving it up. The "AWOL" charge is much more problematic. If you look at the President's record, he earned enough points (842) his first four years, which amounts to over 16 years of service credits at the minimum of 50 rate. So, he's more than earned his honorable discharge. He did skip some months, but the National Guard allows people to skip months as long as they are made up, which the president did. But, it has to be included not because of it's veracity, but as a note about the rabid attacks against the reelection of this president. The "Dry Drunk" was one article written without any substantiating proof and was not carried by the U.S. press or the Democratic party. Therefore, in my humble opinion, it doesn't warrant a whole paragraph in this article. A citation at the bottom under the new "opinion" section would suffice. First Lensman 19:21, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Protected

It is more apparent than ever to me that those that disagree with some of the context of this article are to be denied the opportunity of editing and that the administrator(s) pretend to open this up to a forum of discussion whereby a concensus will be reached that will result in those that are not to the extreme left and wish this article to actually be NPOV will find appeasement. Rubbish. The page is protected in an effort to maintain the bad reporting and to extend as encyclopedic left wing bias and propaganda. I doubt anything disussed here will result in any major improvements to this rag of an article because the administrator(s) are hopelessly POV, anti-Bush and determined to slander his character. They impose martial law because they are unwilling to admit that their position is weak. We can argue about the situation forever, but there is no doubt in my mind that unless you agree with the major contributors of this rag you will never get appeasement. Let's not pretend to think that we can hash things out here. Open to discussion...it's like farting in the wind.--MONGO 20:52, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"They impose martial law because they are unwilling to admit that their position is weak"

1. What position?

2. How is this position weak?

--kizzle 00:14, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Please assume good faith. It's a core wiki premise and without it, pages wind up protected and uneditable... -- RyanFreisling @ 20:54, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree with MONGO on one thing. The current protection of the page does not seem to be justified. There is a minor content dispute but nothing that is likely to cause great acrimony, and all parties seem to be behaving well. There has been some vandalism but I understand that is normal for this article and the regulars have all dealt well with that (a vprotect would be more appropriate in such a case, anyhow).

Has the administrator who protected the page made an entry here explaining why he did so? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:32, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Protection of this page was requested by two separate people on Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, and if you have an problem with it being protected, raise it there. You will also find entries in the protection log and on Wikipedia:Protected page where my action is recorded for review.

On the other hand, if you want to believe that this page is "protected in an effort to maintain the bad reporting and to extend as encyclopedic left wing bias and propaganda", and that I am "hopelessly POV, anti-Bush and determined to slander his character," or that I am imposing "martial law" because I am "unwilling to admit that [my] position is weak," then I invite you to take the righteous fury that consumes your heart from within to Wikipedia:Requests for comment and mark your territory there instead. silsor 22:04, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

You quoted me three times and then belittle me with inuendo that I am a dog. I accuse you of being biased and having deliberately protected THE WRONG PAGE. I guess in one paragraph you did a sufficient job of proving that the protection was done as a hostle act. Perhaps you are not worthy of being an admistrator to this article. Prove me wrong and unprotect or perhaps I'll follow your advice.--MONGO 11:44, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In addition to the links provided by silsor, anyone who wants to fight against this blatant use of page protection as a tool of leftist bias will find some useful suggestions here. JamesMLane 01:26, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

MONGO, I feel that you're partially responsible for the locking of this article. I've watched the revision history and it seems to be a good deal of people vs MONGO. I don't care if you're a fan of President Bush, you are removing factual information from the article. Just because said information has negative connotations does not make it untrue. Even references were provided.

Therein lies the problem, the term "factual information". An article by a biased source in a biased magazine, that just happened to have been regurgitated in the Irish Times, is being pushed as fact. The Wormer article is nothing more than smear since it was not substatiated by any physical or psychological examination of George W. Bush. This paragraph needs to be either eliminated completely, or the article needs to be footnoted in the "Opinions Against" section that was started. Something like this happened to my family. A family member, who was in the medical profession, convinced my wife and I that my daughter has ADD and should be put on medication. Turns out, after an examination, she was deemed highly intelligent and was just bored with the material presented in school. My daughter explained to the doctor that she knew that stuff already and wanted to move on to other, more interesting topics. So, you see, even the supposed "experts" can get it all wrong. This is the crux of my concern with stating this article as "fact". First Lensman 17:24, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Whoa, many of you mistake firm disagreement for anger and use of strong tone as wrath. I mean no harm here. I have mentioned previously that I wanted to see the elimination of certain passages because I considered them to be bad reporting. I moderated that request to say that I concur to the BRIEF mention of the articles I keep deleting with a sentence that explains and directs the informed reader to a link which can elborate as much as necessary to support the commentary. I did not and do not think that the Salon article, the J.H. Hatfield book nor the van Wormer material to be reliable witnesses and have compared them to National Enquirer level of reporting. But, as I stated, I would agree to a link to these articles. No sooner do I make this concession do I find this article protected and hence my disappointment and accusations. Trust me in this: I still find that even with these articles completely removed, the entire article is biased. In the eyes of a conservative, I consider much of it to be revisionist history and smacking of left wing slander which I have a serious problem with. Without trying to insult further, I also have serious doubts that my efforts and or my concession will be honored.--MONGO 09:01, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Whoa whoa whoa. I requested the page protection of George W. Bush at WP:RFP due to all the reverts being made at the page history. Some of them were vandalism, and some of them were disagreements over POV/NPOV. In any rate, it seemed some of the vandalism and NPOV corrections were being lumped together. It looked as much as edit war with vandalism in progress. As I can not personally approve the request myself, even though I am an administrator, I went through the proper channels and waited for other people to agree and approve the request. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:53, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)-

AllyUnion, thanks for going through the appropriate channels to get this page protected. I do appreciate that. However I disagree that there is any substantive edit warring going on. Mongo making edits to remove stuff and a few different people restoring it, and the odd attempt at producing a compromise, in my opinion doesn't merit protection. The vandalism is a different matter but apparently it is normal for this page and with all the eyes watching it the page content is in no danger from vandalism.

I'm not in agreement with Mongo that the page is biased (or rather, I remain to be convinced on the matter). I also don't have any problem with people who disagree with me and think the current content dispute or the vandalism merits protection--it would be a dull old world if we always agreed all the time. But I remain of the opinion that the page should probably be unprotected to enable us to use normal editing to work out a good compromise on the content that Mongo disagrees with. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:28, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

UNprotected

Thank you for proving me wrong and unprotecting the page.--MONGO 08:29, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Explanation of excision of "validity..uncertain"

I removed the following statement

The validity of the claims asserted Amy Reiter and Salon.com is uncertain.

However it is a fact that in 1999 Amy Reiter of Salon.com reported on the rumor and also reported on Salon's phone conversation with the director of the center, Madge Bush, who she reported as saying of George W. Bush (no relation): "I've never heard of him doing community services here at this agency, and I've been the only director for 31 and a half years." There is no reason to cast this in an uncertain light. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:56, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I see it to be bad reporting. Why would you put this inuendo in here, if it is self discrediting unless the goal was to allude to Bush having used cocaine. If that constitutes what should be considered encyclopedic than there is no reason I cannot begin to edit in articles from known right wing periodicals which are also self discrediting. Quid pro quo, my friend. I say remove all the inuendo from this article which includes unsubstantiated reporting such as one would expect from Salon. I think it has been twisted around in here long enough and discussed and it seems that some folks here would like it to be true, when it is not. Personally, I would be surprised if Bush didn't use cocaine! But I would rather it come from a more solid resource that can truly support the allegation.--MONGO 10:16, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

None of the sources report that Bush used cocaine; like you they wouldn't be surprised but unlike you they have actually investigated, they have followed up what leads they could find and reported factually on the outcome. Omitting the sources would sound like a cover-up; everybody knows the rumors and it is a matter of legitimate public concern on a man's fitness for public office. Putting them in and detailing the investigations (which are generally of reasonable quality) and the conclusions (largely negative--little or no evidence found to support the allegations) is fairer to the reader, whom I presume to be reasonably intelligent and able to evaluate the evidence presented for himself. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:29, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't consider all readers of this to be intelligent and able to make up their own minds, I consider a large number of them to be "innocents" in that they may be coming to this site so that they can reference what is in most cases, reliable reporting, and using the references for a term paper, etc. I'm sorry, but I do not consider Salon to be NPOV and I have clicked the links in this article and am shocked that anyone would consider this to be any better than National Enquirer type of mish mash. It is all argumentative and as such, it should remain outside of this article. I do not appreciate the innuendo that I didn't do my research as well. As I said, I think many would like it to be true, and maybe it is, but nothing you have offered is anything other than liberal anti-Bush POV, and the continued use of this type of poor reporting is unworthy of Wikipedia.--MONGO 11:09, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I certainly don't claim that Salon is NPOV--indeed few if any sources cited in Wikipedia aspire to the NPOV. But if you read the Salon article you will see that they did investigate the report and did come up with a pretty conclusive blank. It is very unlikely that the young Bush worked on a community service program at MLK in Houston. The gist of the evidence for this (specifically Madge Bush's assertion) is quoted in the current version of the article.

On your concerns for the intelligence of the reader, well I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about that. Many will be able to understand what is being written, others will not. Wikipedia policy is to write accurately and to NPOV, and while we should certainly avoid ambiguity, we don't have a policy of writing in such a manner that what we write cannot under any circumstances be misunderstood. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:42, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Then at the least, since you yourself seem to be unable to prove the allegation due to the unsubstantitive and weak argument provided by Salon, for the sake of the innocent reader, return the statement that the article is not substantive: The validity of the claims asserted (by) Amy Reiter and Salon.com are uncertain. I would consider this to be less POV and to be more in line with NPOV. Yeah, I know, NO ARTICLE REALLY IS NPOV....but this one doesn't come close! The inclusion of anything from Salon, which specializes sensationalist reporting is certainly not of the level of say The Washington Post et al and other more traditionally liberal/centrist mediums. This article might be substantive in a treatise on Bush under the label of mud on the President, but I can hardly accept it as worthwhile to be placed in here. To most readers, this article is an example of how NOT to write a term paper and thesis....--MONGO 19:38, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Salon does a pretty good job of documenting its assertions 'sensationalist' though they may be. So, just to clear the air, exactly what kind of evidence would be expected to be unearthed to prove that somebody did not serve somewhere where they were supposed to, if the absence of any positive evidence that they did is insufficient? A report from someone who followed the person for the entire time in question and can state that they never did what they said they did? The impossibility of proving a negative is well known and well used by those who can just glance at each new piece of evidence and state 'Not convincing enough. Try again'. (See also, 'Global Warming Skeptics'). This is why in an ideal research world, one must frame the question first, and decide what evidence would result in a positive or negative outcome before gathering the evidence, rather than evaluating each chunk of evidence as it comes along. Although this doesn't happen in the political world, it's never too late to start. Can you state what kind of evidence would convince you of the Prez's absence, in the purely hypothetical possibility that he was absent? Gzuckier 19:52, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Argument circular...the entire treatise makes and or alludes and imposes on readers the thought that whether it is true or not, there is the possiblilty that he is currently a cocaine user. I repeat that it is a slander based on less than creditable sources. I would not consider the Salon innuendo to be anything other than hypothetical.--MONGO 20:00, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think your position presupposes that this stuff about George W. Bush being a bit of a playboy prince during his teens and twenties originated in Salon. It doesn't; Bush himself is a self-described recovering alcoholic. I think you should trust the reader more--Bush himself trusted the voters and was rewarded well for it. The bottom line is that rumors have surfaced about Bush's younger days and the better journals investigate before publishing. In that Salon investigated and drew what amounted to a negative, and stated so in its report, Salon is one of the better journals, at least as far as that report goes.

This is emphatically not restricted to yellow journalism. A New York times editorial in August, 199 said: If Mr Bush never used illegal drugs, he should say so. If he did, he should 'fess up. The Washington Post as early as February, 1999 carried a piece about Mr Bush's evasiveness on this issue. I don't think the subject merits more than we have put in, but I could expand with quotes only from the Times, the Post and some other more reputable dailies if you prefer. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:08, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Disagree. I didn't say anything about him never using drugs or being a former alcoholic. I just said that the remarks allude to make the reader think that this is still the case. Whether it says it is the case isn't the point, the point is that the illusion is that he still does. Round and round we go. I am quite familiar with all the charges and they are unsubstantiated. Why is it so difficult to wish to stick to the facts that can be proven unless the piece is supposed to be an exercise in slander? Examples: we know the facts such as his name, where he was born, comments from his speeches, legislation he dealt with, his confession to being a drunk, the premise he had to go to war with Iraq...we know these things are as solid as concrete. But when I see this type of innuendo, that is all written based on circumstantial evidence or heresay, then I see no place here for it. Sure, state facts about opinions etc. I have read all that and that's fine....but isn't this supposed to be NPOV....how is circumstantial evidence that is not backed up by facts appropriate here unless you are trying to push a point of view? Example: I've seen the video of Bush at the wedding, acting goofy and at the end he does certainly appear to swallow down the nasty lasty of a glass of something....but is it beer, is it alcohol, or is it water? Who knows! It can't be proven that it was alcohol and there is no one to collaborate that it was alcohol. These type of items are not appropriate because they are conjecture and they are misleading. Once again, I know, facts about opinions...well, that doesn't suffice. Then whowrote this opinion?: Should Bush not meet with the NAACP before he leaves office, he will become the first sitting President to have not met with the NAACP since Herbert Hoover. How can anyone ascertain future? ybe he will meet with the NAACP and maybe he won't...but the innuedo suggests that he is a bigot to the casual reader. The FACTS that Bush appointed Powell to the highest cabinet post ever held by an African American man and followed that up by having Rice confirmed for the same post, becoming the highest level attained by an African American female, is hardly alluded to....just a comment that his cabinet is the most ethnically diverse. My extrapolated point is that the entire article is filled with uses of certain words, inclusion of circumstantial evidence and omission of some positive issues which makes this thing look almost like some childish prank.--MONGO 08:41, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I still get the impression that you're uneasy about this piece because, firstly, it could be misread by an inattentive or unintelligent reader as an assertion that George W Bush once used cocaine, and secondly you believe that we should only include facts about opinions that can themselves be proven to be factually correct. I've addressed both of these points already.

In my opinion there would be no problem with including a reference to the wedding video and the interpretation that some commentators have put on it, provided this was reported prominently enough to break out of a narrow niche. As it happens, that piece was reported by Drudge and picked up by Slate, who went to some journalists for opinions. Christoper Caldwell, who writes for the The Weekly Standard and the Financial Times, was quoted (he was a fence-sitter on the subject, and gave some good reasons for and against). Writers from the Wall Street Journal, the National Review, the New Republic, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker also gave their opinions. By themselves, I don't rate Drudge or Slate very highly, but I think the fact that Slate got the opinion of some first rank journalists makes it relevant. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:32, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In a perfect world, I would like to see all this stuff...Hatfield's book, van Wormer's opinion, the Salon referenced issues, and other skeptical sources of knowledge to be withdrawn. I would settle for them to be greatly condensed and then linked to another piece which can be as detailed as anyone would wish, based on the Wikipedia standards, which I would not edit. ie: It is the opinion of some that Bush has used cocaine in the past, has consumed alcohol after claiming that he no longer drank alcohol, has been considered to be clinically a Dry Drunk....etc.....for further clarification on these issues the reader is directed here.....and then create a "Bush substance abuse controversy page"...outside of the main body of this article. But, I am still not satisfied...as witnessed to my bringing up the issue of Bush not meeting with the NAACP. I don't think forecasts of the future should be in here....unless you can find where it was referenced from, which I suspect may be hard to do. But if anyone can, the Wikihawks can.--MONGO 11:53, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Why would you want them removed? It is a fact that there has been a great deal of speculation and rumor about Bush's younger years. That this speculation exists is not controversial, it's a solid fact upon which any honest biographer would have to report. I don't think it's important enough to spin off into an article on its own, though. A few paragraphs in the main article should be sufficient.

Actually what the NAACP says is this: Although candidate Bush appeared at the NAACP’s Convention in 2000, in 2004 President Bush became the first President since Warren G. Harding to refuse to meet with the country’s oldest and largest civil rights organization when he declined an invitation to speak at the 2004 NAACP Annual Convention in Philadelphia.

So the point NAACP is making is that he's the first leader since Harding to have turned down a specific invitation to address their Convention while in office. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:19, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Now that is a FACT...and should be included, but it doesn't address the speculation that he will not still meet with them...so that part needs to go. See, you Wikihawks are so resourceful....continue to find true FACTS and you'll never get an argument out of me...--MONGO 12:37, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Infobox

The newer version of the box (as found in this version of the article) seems to me to be not an improvement. Wikilinking some key points, like Bush's predecessory, wife, and VP, is helpful, even if they're also linked in article text; this pulls them together. Inclusion of the lines for death information is redundant when the box already says that he's the incumbent. More generally, use of the template makes it harder to edit. My attempts to edit within the changed format produced various forms of mess, so I finally gave up and went back to the old one. JamesMLane 09:11, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

i love george w. bush. he is by far one of the smartest men to serve our country !

Keep article about Bush

Noticed reversal of edit I made which took out comparative statement of Bush and Clinton regarding federal budgets/deficit. This article is about Bush, not Clinton. The only relevency of reverting back to the the comparison would be to continue to cast Bush in a negative fashion which suits the leftwing and is therefore a POV. Everyone knows that Bush has created a gigantic federal deficit and that information is a FACT and should be included, but the article is not about Clinton, so his budget surpluses are not relevent.--MONGO 13:29, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The text removed reads: In the last year of the Clinton administration, the federal budget showed an annual surplus of more than $230 billion. [2] Under Bush, however, the government returned to deficit spending.

In my opinion the fact that the final Clinton budget had a surplus is relevant to Bush's fiscal performance. Had he inherited a huge deficit this would mitigate his fiscal record; conversely the fact that he did not adds to our understanding of his performance. We could remove Clinton's name if you prefer. In the last year of the previous administration...' --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:57, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Still feel that that this alludes to and enhances the reader's view that Bush has done a worse job than his predecessor and everyone already knows who that was. It passes judgement and doesn't take into account that the main reasons for the deficits are related to such things as a downturn in the economy (which was already happening prior to Bush's first election), the impact of 9/11, the fact that Bush cut taxes, and then had a huge military spending bill passed...something that Clinton didn't have to do per se. I say state the facts and let the reader be educated and enlightened, not state the facts and let the reader decide...this constitutes the great rift between myself and many of the editors here. Likewise, could we put in there that so far, Bush has had a better professional relationship with his White House interns than Clinton, in that he has yet to use his position of power to use that as a magnet to young obsessive women? I think not.--MONGO 21:14, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The federal budget is huge; even a President, for all the power of the office, can't turn it around completely in a short time. Therefore, the information about what kind of budget a President inherited is relevant. If Bush had come into office facing a $700 billion annual deficit and had managed to whittle it down to "only" $400 billion, that would reflect a different fiscal history of his administration than what we actually see. If you think the baseline Bush inherited in other areas was similarly significant, feel free to include it. The treatment of interns obviously wouldn't be a good example, because that's something that the President can change immediately and unilaterally, regardless of what the situation was under any prior administration. JamesMLane 21:26, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well like it or not, MONGO, fiscal performance is something that US Presidents have been judged on since Carter at least. Chasing interns around the Oval Office, while not compulsory, doesn't seem to have hurt the last incumbent's reputation in the long term. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:07, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, without going to far off on that tangent, I was not the least bit unhappy with Clinton until the situation with the intern came up, so his reputation in my eyes from that point on went downhill. Iused this contrast to show that I didn't want to do comparisons, not because I do...and you can't predict the future.--MONGO 08:45, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Who put up the disputed page tag?

68.49.191.97 please identify yourself by contributing here in discussion or remove the tag please.--MONGO 09:02, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'll remove it with an edit comment asking whoever to make an entry here explaining why he disputes the factual accuracy of the piece. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:11, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I thought it was a good idea, but agree with you that if it is to be done, they should hash it out here.--MONGO 12:02, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Business man?

Where is the proof?

--Relaxation 18:41, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Did you read the article? The parts talking about the businesses he owned/ran? That's your proof. RickK 23:46, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Information.

[delete copyright violation] - RickK 23:49, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

--Relaxation 20:14, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

So? We call Gerald Ford a President. - Calmypal 20:58, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Objectivity?

Neither "positive" or "negative" facts belong in an encyclopedia.

Also, Taking a statement like "Bush is a fool, a charlatan and a criminal"... and changing it to "X said that `Bush is a fool, a charlatan and a criminal'"

is an extremely transparent and futile attempt to make such statements seem neutral.

80% of this article has a hopelessly transparent political bias.

An encyclopedia should only contained generally accepted information that everybody agrees is true, not a debate.

This page needs peer review... if there's any hope for Wikipedia at all.

I second that. The article is approached with one goal by major contributors and that is to cast Bush in a bad light. It is not a NPOV article by any measure of the imagination. We need to be careful with the wording of positive and negative facts...if they are facts, then they belong...but these facts are based on concrete evidence and without any major skeptical sourcing or innuendo. There is no doubt in my mind when some of the people that have reverted my edits claim to be to the far left politically...."left of scary leftists", "hostile to the right", or display a Soviet Union Hammer and Sickle medal on their user page (as if that is something to be pround of in light of what it was like to be in the Soviet union in the 1930's for the average citizen) etc., etc. that those that wish to continue to leave this work as the benchmark are doing so to push their opinion and that opinion is to slander Bush from a left wing perspective, not to educate based on the provable evidence.--MONGO 16:06, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, I added this to illustrate what a piece of junk this entire article is: "Eric Alterman, some political columnist that I just googled off the web 3 minutes ago, said in The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021125&s=alterman) that "Bush is a liar".

A friend of mine once said that Bush was mentally retarded. He based this view on listening to Bush's speeches - particularly his use of poor grammar. He hasn't written an opinion piece for any newspapers, but he's probably a lot smarter than whoever the hell Katherine van Wormer is."

Ironically, I don't even *like* Bush - but I have some idea about what sort of material belongs in an Encyclopedia and what doesn't. I shouldn't have bothered but, hey, it's a Sunday and I'm bored.

This page demonstrates everything that is wrong with Wikipedia. Heading back to the mathematics section which at least isn't full of raving mis-guided lunatics. - anonymous (guy who made a good-faith effort to improve this article the first time around anyway)

The statement that 'Neither "positive" or "negative" facts belong in an encyclopedia.' is mystifying. It seems to imply that an undisputed fact shouldn't be reported if it would tend to put Bush in a good light or a bad light. That wouldn't leave very much.

Also wrong is the claim that attributing a controversial opinion "is an extremely transparent and futile attempt to make such statements seem neutral." It is neutral to report someone's stated opinion. This is Wikipedia's general policy, not the product of a cabal of Bolsheviks who are out to undermine Bush. Here's an excerpt from the policy:

Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts and only facts. Where we might want to state opinions, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. . . . (It's often best to cite a prominent representative of the view.)

The foregoing is from Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#A simple formulation. If you disagree with the policy, you should take it up on Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view instead of trying to make Bush a special case who's immune from any report of the criticisms he's received.

Finally, with regard to "peer review", Wikipedia will never have peer review in the sense used in academia. I do note, however, that MONGO's attempt to suppress anything unflattering to Bush included this edit, in which, among other significant deletions, he removed not only the comparison of Bush's fiscal record with Clinton's, but also the news reports stating the undisputed amounts of Bush's deficits, and the open letter from more than 100 professors of business and economics ascribing the deficits to Bush's tax cuts. Indeed, in the MONGO "encyclopedic edit", the very fact that Bush had run a deficit was omitted. It's hardly encyclopedic to conceal from the reader all information about one of the most aspects of Bush's presidency. JamesMLane 00:43, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I liked that edit, and would have edited out more but sensed that it was foolish to engage in edit wars, so I decided to hash it out in discussion. Truthfully, being new to editing, I mistakenly took out more than I thought I had. Repeatedly, I have stated that I feel that this article is a vehicle of exercise in how not to write an encyclopedic NPOV article, and have stated that I expect that this article if any would be filled with POV, both left and right wing. I doubt that the major contributors to this are anything other than very intelligent people, but am mystified at their choice of quotes and quality of evidence. A large portion of this article reads like a left wing slam fest, not as a NPOV article. I have also stated that what appears to be the hawks that watch over this page have openly stated in their user pages and in other written form that they come from a far left perspective on the matter and are therefore incapable of remaining neutral, especially in this situation.--MONGO 08:31, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The underlying issue here isn't a left-versus-right divide. The underlying issue is how to handle controversial subjects in general. Wikipedia policy, applicable to many, many controversial articles that have nothing to do with George W. Bush, is not to exclude statements of opinion, as you seem to think it is or should be. Instead, the policy is that opinions, when held by large numbers of people or prominent spokespersons or qualified experts, can be reported, if properly attributed, and if presented in a way that does not give an appearance of Wikipedia's endorsement. (For example, I've frequently edited statements along the lines of "So-and-so pointed out that...." because "pointed out" suggests that it's true. "So-and-so argued that...." is preferable.) Certainly a different policy could be formulated and logically defended. Unless and until some other general policy is adopted, however, we should treat Bush the same way we treat other controversial people or topics. JamesMLane 08:45, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Really? What about Bush is controversial? I mean isn't he universally liked...what with the "Mandate" he has! But here's the thing, if known left leaning periodicals and other forms of reporting which use sensationalist forms of editing suffice to be considered good sources for this forum, then why not the National Enquirer...why not Rush Limbaugh??? I mean I could reluctantly go into Rush and find all sorts of grandstanding about Bush...but I consider his opinion to be right wing, not NPOV. I dunno, it still looks to me like this thing is hopelessly POV. Also liked the editor (silsor) linking me into the boilerplate complaints page...saw that yesterday...but then he took out the link from there back to here...I thought I was almost famous! infamous?--MONGO 09:08, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Trying to get some clarification here -- Do you disagree with current Wikipedia policy on NPOV? Do you disagree that that policy, as applied to someone like Bush, calls for reporting opinions about him, even leftist opinions, even opinions with which you disagree? Do you take both these positions? Or do you take neither, and your objection is on some other grounds? I keep getting the feeling that you think Bush should be given the benefit of a different set of rules from what's applied to all our other controversial articles, but perhaps I'm misinterpreting you.

Incidentally, if the National Enquirer reports that Bush is actually a reptilian kitten-eating space alien, that comment would not merit inclusion in the article under current Wikipedia policy. JamesMLane 10:17, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Addendum: Lest anyone think that my hypothetical example means that I've been using a few controlled substances myself, let me add that I didn't make it up. It comes from our friends to the north. See Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet. JamesMLane 10:48, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, that is my point isn't it? If the sourcing for your version of encyclopedic citation is as it is then why not include all subversive horseradish on the guy even if it is about Bush being a reptillian kitten eater from another planet. Is it really postulated that books that are pulled from shelves, vague little known social workers with obscure opinions cited in vague obscure sensationalist POV magazines and other sources of what you refer to as creditable witness should be included in this article, then why not the National Enquirer...or Rush Limbaugh? I understand that Rush Limbaugh has a large following on the air and on line...so certainly his right leaning bias should be admissible, that is if your left leaning mumbo jumbo is. I look through the John Kerry article and I consider it to be much reduced in POV...much more neutral...there still is the supposed controversy over his military service etc., but the article isn't some effort to be a slam fest by either the right or the left wing political factions. The leftist bias in this rag are as plain as the nose on your face! I think some are so caught up in vilifying Bush that they can't get around their hatred of him enough to ever be neutral.--MONGO 11:53, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I believe that the coverage of Kerry and the coverage of Bush (both in multiple articles) are largely in keeping with Wikipedia policy. I say "largely" because if I looked over all those articles in detail, I'd probably find something that could usefully be edited for greater compliance with policy, but after months of being haggled over by editors of varying political views, the articles show no great deviations from policy. JamesMLane 12:41, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

":I believe that the coverage of Kerry and the coverage of Bush (both in multiple articles) are largely in keeping with Wikipedia policy. "

OK - that's your opinion. A lot of people (including myself) strongly disagree with you. That makes this material controversial, and this article, as it states at the top, is already way too long and difficult to navigate. A compromise that has already been suggested is to place this stuff in a separate "Bush drug controversy" article. People could then still debate the accuracy/relevancy/objectivity of including the claims there.

In a normal Encyclopedia, the editor retains control of the content. That can be bad, if she is biased, but at least her name goes on the article. Everyone knows who she is, and history can judge what she wrote and whether she was a true scholar or not.

In Wikipedia, it is only those who are willing and able to tirelessly revert/change edits that keep control of the content. This won't be the smartest, or most knowledgeable people. It will be those with enough time to sit and monitor a page day-in, day-out. IMO, that's going to rule out the people most qualified to write the article.

Even better! It has already occurred to the conspiracy theorist in me that if a political party really cared enough about the content of this site, they could *pay* someone to watch and edit pages like this. i.e. the highest bidder can effectively buy what is written on Wikipedia, just by paying some individual (or group of individuals) to "watch"/"revert" it continuously.

Worse, because this editing can be done anonymously, no-one can even allege/prove that it is happening (unlike normal political advertising).

Perform a google search for "George W Bush" and this Wikipedia article makes it on the first page. That's got to be worth some votes, if the page says what you want it to say.

Right now I'm not getting paid, but if you can persuade the Democratic National Committee to come up with the dough, I'll cut you in for a 10% finder's fee. JamesMLane 01:07, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Now that is scary...and it brings up my point made before and that is that when you run a search off almost any browser for George Bush, this article comes up in one to five links. I doubt the conspiracy theory, but it's as possible as thinking that this van Wormer fool who has never had a one on one personally with Bush should be able to be considered a creditable witness regardless of her level of expertise on the issue of who is and who isn't a DRY DRUNK. Her innuendo of slurred speech...expert opinion...hogwash. But there is a lot more...I can hardly wait for her expert opinion...[3]. Who would buy the books people like her sell if they weren't full of their "expert" opinion. If someone can cite any known clinical proof based on an actual medical and or psychological evaluation and diagnosis from a person to person examination of George Bush and which shows validity to the argument that Bush is a Dry Drunk, then by all means, it should be in here...but to quote some person who has never met with Bush in a patient/doctor scenario is tantamount to pushing a POV.--MONGO 12:37, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Subpage for drug use allegations

The parties in this dispute seem to be on a path that usually leads deep into the dispute resolution process. Have they considered taking the same approach that was done with the national guard allegations, and moving the details to George W. Bush drug controversy, or something similar? Gazpacho 10:18, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A move like that is appropriate for topics that are accumulating so much detail that they overwhelm the article. I don't think that's the case here. Furthermore, even when a lot of the detail on such a topic is moved to a daughter article, it's appropriate to leave a summary in the main article, as is done for both Bush and Kerry with the allegations about their military service. Yet, in this case, we've seen repeated attempts to delete even the very terse summary of the Bush military service allegations. The underlying dispute isn't over the level of detail in the passages about drug use; it's about whether the information should be completely suppressed. Therefore, I don't think that creation of a daughter article would help. As long as anyone keeps trying to suppress the subject, the dispute will go on. JamesMLane 10:33, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My argument is over the entire article. It is over the content, the dubious quality of the evidence, and the use of verbage. I suggested before that the entire area of discussion in regards to his drinking, drugs and other related weaknesses be placed on another page, and there the user can decide. But for the bulk of this article much would still need to be done to make it neutral. I say let the reader be enlightened and educated with FACTS...not by opinions which can be construed as facts by the less articulate.--MONGO 12:09, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It looks like you're losing your right wing propaganda censorship war, Mongo. Propose and/or create separate pages for any positive facts as well as negative facts, and you probably wouldn't have any problem with anyone other than the vandalizing idiots. This page and this talk page is getting way too big. --Karmafist 02:02, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Right wing propaganda censorship war? Hardly. If you are leftist enough to think that I have ever deliberately edited out any substantive negative facts then there is no hope for you. I say the major contributors that hawk over this page come here with a predisposition to use much less than credible reporting and then attempt to pass it off as encyclopedic. The reason this article is too long is because of all the mish mash. I haven't made continuous editing to his oil deals, his Texas Rangers profiteering, the argument that he lied essentially about why we needed to wage war in Iraq...once again, I have stated that the innuendo of his cocaine use, the dry drunk garbage and all that other stuff takes up 80 percent of the section on his personal life section. I think folks like you just want to use this medium as a way to lampoon Bush, not as a way to educate.--MONGO 11:46, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well here's one of your edits: [4]. You edited out quite a lot of good reporting of the various negative opinions, rumors and whatnot that Bush has tended to accrue. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:49, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I do think you have deliberately edited out substative negative facts, and there is hope for me, regardless of what your censor-happy extremist opinion is.

And if you don't realize by now that his reason for going to war with Iraq (Weapons of Mass Destruction) was a lie, then i'm sorry MONGO, but there is no hope for you.

--Karmafist 20:05, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wow, what a revelation you bring, Karmafist...is that possible? Is it possible that we went to war with Iraq due to a lie...or maybe it was to finish what Daddy couldn't...or maybe it was purely due to oil...oh, yeah, so Halliburton could reap a big windfall...sure, it's possible that Bush has killed thousands just because of his vanity. Let's agree to disagree. As far as editing, Tony, I see that the vast bulk of your arguement is based on sensationalist POV reporting from known left wing sources.--MONGO 20:57, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Cocaine allegations

Gazpacho, I think your edit omits too much. To Bush supporters, it's important to note that Hatfield had a felony conviction and that his original publisher withdrew the book. To Bush detractors, it's important to note that Bush said he had no drug use in the 15 years preceding 1989 but refused to answer as to the period before 1974. I do agree with you about the anonymous email as a source, and I've tried to clarify that the email was contradicted when journalists checked with the very contact suggested in the email. Also, in looking into this, I found that our article copied too much verbatim from Salon, so I reworded some passages. I also put in more sources. You removed the link to Bush's characterization of Hatfield's book as "totally ridiculous", but I think that, on a controversial subject, it's especially important to cite sources. JamesMLane 11:59, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hunting.

What's his view on hunting?

--Relaxation 17:42, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Eliminate Opinion Pieces Section

I noticed that opinion pieces were briefly discussed above. However, I don't believe a consensus was reached on whether this section should be kept or what links should be included. I'm raising the questions again after I noticed that the "Against Bush" links outnumber the "For Bush" links 6 to 1. All of the links (on both sides) are extremely partisan (as would be expected) and add very little, if anything, to the article. I propose that this section be eliminated. I don't believe this section serves any purpose other than to give biased users a chance to insert POV links into the article. Carrp 20:30, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No one is stopping anyone from adding "For Bush" links. And the whole purpose of opinions is a POV -- these viewpoints on this extremely contreversial president add to the depth of this article. However, it would be good if made some more spinoff articles.

--Karmafist 20:47, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that you added the three most recent links (in one edit [5]). How exactly do those links "add to the depth of this article". What spinoff articles would you like to see? I just don't see these links adding anything except POV. Carrp 20:55, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Carrp in that this could easily turn into an extremely large section mostly comprised of editorials which simply state what many other articles have said. I think we should put a cap to this (like 10-12), split it down the middle both pro- and con-, and select only the best articles which are not redundant and add more to the discussion or at the very least make us use our head rather than pull at our emotions.--kizzle 23:41, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Don't rationalize with him...he is only here to push a leftwing bunch of rubbage...I don't think Bush is extremely controversial...only those that are extremist to the left would label him as such.--MONGO 21:10, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Assume good faith Mongo...basic wikipedia etiquette.--kizzle 23:41, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

Apparently, by MONGO's definition, 48% of the American voters are "extremist to the left", along with majorities of the adults in many of our longtime democratic allies.

Putting aside that indefensible view, the fact remains that there are a lot of websites about Bush. There are supporters and opponents, but opponents are probably more strongly motivated to put up a website. We don't want to try to list them all or any appreciable fraction. Wikipedia articles aren't "[m]ere collections of external links." ([Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files|Wikipedia is not...]]) The question of when to add external links hasn't been definitively settled within the community (see Wikipedia:External links and other pages cited therein). The question is particularly problematic in a case like this one, with so many links out there clamoring for attention. My inclination would be: (1) A particular external site that's a source for an assertion in the article should be linked at that point in the article, and needn't be repeated in "External links". (2) External sites that focus on particular issues might more usefully be linked in the appropriate daughter article rather than here. (3) There might be some particular value in linking to sites that are frequently updated. If a site's main value is static information, we could just steal (uh, pardon me, incorporate) the information rather than linking to the site. (4) Some people get touchy about links, so, as a practical matter, I usually wimp out and refrain from removing links, even when I think the linkomania is getting excessive. In this particular case, I haven't looked at the "Opinion Pieces" links. MONGO, if you want to add more pro-Bush links, I'll probably think the whole exercise is getting out of hand, but I also probably won't bother deleting. (5) This might be an appropriate subject for posting on RfC if anyone feels strongly enough about it. I suspect there are several people who have no interest in the Bush article but who would jump in to present their strongly held opinions about when we should or should not include an external link. JamesMLane 05:12, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No I said that those pushing the leftist bias of this article are extremist to the left. I suggest that many others here need to assume good faith and put it into practice by making some attempt at transforming this article into a neutral one. I could hardly agree that there is a conspiracy here to present a left leaning viewpoint and I anticipate that many of the folks here are from academia (which has a natural liberal tilt, no insult intended)or are not in favor of presenting a neutral article because they do not agree with Bush's policies, his actions or his deeds. That is fine, but if they can't let go of this bias, then they shouldn't contribute here if they expect this article to ever be neutral. I have been accused repeatedly of removing ALL bad information in the article and that is simply false. What makes you think that all those that voted for John Kerry did so because they believe that Bush is controversial? Perhaps they voted against Bush more than for Kerry...in that they oppose the current Iraq war and are dissatisfied with the economy, etc. You stated: "there are a lot of websites about Bush. There are supporters and opponents, but opponents are probably more strongly motivated to put up a website." So in essence you answered my premise that the major contributors here are, in all liklihood, opponents of Bush. If you look for answers to support your premise then you'll probably find them. If you come here with a predispostion against someone or something, then in all liklihood, that will be produced in the evidence you gather. I say get rid of the opinion pieces...they are opinion and have no reason to be here.--MONGO 09:47, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Given that millions of Americans wanted to remove Bush from office, and given that millions of Europeans and others consider him a graver threat to world peace than Osama bin Laden, it's incomprehensible to me that anyone could suggest he's not controversial. Heck, I voted for Kerry, and I'd have no problem saying that Kerry is also a controversial figure. With regard to the websites, I don't understand your comments. I wasn't suggesting that we should do a headcount of all the sites out there and tailor our coverage accordingly. The point that you keep missing, though, is that a certain amount of reporting of POV's is within the NPOV policy. You repeatedly delete specific, duly attributed opinions, and you make general comments that suggest you don't understand the NPOV policy or you don't want to apply it to Bush. External links to opinionated websites can help illuminate specific points in the article. The tough question is the kind of general external link we find in "Opinion pieces", not cited in support of any specific assertion. To say that opinions "have no reason to be here" goes too far, though. JamesMLane 10:05, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, MONGO, I find your latest edit interesting. You removed all the opinion pieces, which were clearly labeled as opinions. You had no problem, however, with the recently added passage that stated -- without attribution, without a reference, but simply as a flat Wikipedia assertion -- that the Afghan elections "were a huge success". Should I infer that you didn't happen to notice it? Or do you consider that an expression of opinion of that sort is justified? I return again to the idea of treating this article according to generally applicable policies, rather than giving Bush his own special rules, so I'm deleting that and related passages that clearly violate NPOV. JamesMLane 10:42, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You should infer that I didn't happen to notice it. I removed the opinion pieces because they are , uh, opinions. Who cares about someone's opinions. I continue to say the opinion pieces should be removed. I don't know that the Afgan elections were a huge success. But I can say that since elections were held, and though they may have been seriously flawed in comparison to what us lucky westerners get to enjoy, they were still a step in the right direction. I bet some here wish democracy in Afganistan and Iraq would fail, just so you could enjoy the opportunity to see the policies of the current administration also as failures. I also remember quite vividly when Reagan was President and how all the leftist said he was leading us down a path towards nuclear war and how he was a threat to world peace. Time will tell.--MONGO 12:18, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I stated before that the purpose of an opinion pieces section would ideally be to have a few select external links for each point of view that are well-chosen in that they are referenced, cogent and defensible. I believe the value in this is to provide for greater understanding about the various viewpoints which surround the current President. There are things that do not belong in a strictly encyclopedic article that are, nevertheless, informative and important in gaining a clearer understanding of the 'greater picture' surrounding an issue. If the consensus believe this section should not belong, then it should be removed. However, I do not think a final agreement on the matter was reached before MONGO removed the section. I do not lightly make judgments about this sort of thing, but MONGO, I believe you have a very strong point of view. I respect that, but I also believe that occasionally your point of view clouds your judgment as an editor. I think this is something you should keep in mind when you're contemplating removing entire sections of an article. I will leave it for the community to decide whether it is appropriate to re-add the Opinion Pieces section or something akin to it. I strongly believe that the standards of NPOV should be adhered to, but, for the reasons stated above, I also strongly support a section wherein controversial subject-matter can link to the varying salient opinions on an issue. Xaliqen 02:47, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

MONGO, I don't check this page for a day and there's already a slew of replies to this discussion alone, let alone Bush himself. If you can't realize there's contreversy in this topic, then you don't understand what contreversy is.

Heck, Bush is easily one of the most contreversial figures, let alone presidents, in American History. One just needs to look at his polling numbers from 9/11 when they were around 90 percent to just before the election when they were around 50. In a mere three years he managed to piss off 40 percent of the American population, and if he didn't secure Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell's wrongdoing, he'd probably have sprung a coup by now.

As for your POV concerns, you should follow your own advice, you constantly censor things that don't jibe with your world views. Opinions are never correct or incorrect, only facts are. Unfortunately, facts are often shaded with people's opinions, so what can be proven and what cannot is blurred(read up on defamation for more on this). I don't delete extremist right wing opinions unless they are presented as false facts because I am a liberal, and one of the key beliefs of being a true liberal is taking everyone's opinion into account(those on "our side" who think otherwise are just as conservative as Bush, if only as a counter-conservative)

And as for spinoff articles, my suggestion was meant towards making the main page into basically a directory of Wikilinks in order to shrink the page down to a managable size.

--Karmafist 05:42, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Haven't heard that one...well, I did hear it but it was swept under the table...the Ohio vote I am referring to...but maybe it didn't make a big splash in the press because they have all become right wing nut cases and are therefore duty bound to suppress all negative views on Bush. Just as I have been doing here, right? Let me state this very clearly..I consider a large portion of this article to be leftwing bias. I would like to delete a lot more than I ever have in any one single deletion. Those that think that I have edited out all the negative are not being factual. I could go into lots of right wing articles and link them into this and I don't because I think that would be pushing a POV. I am not asking for anything other than for everyone here to make an attempt to be neutral. But remarks about coups, fixed elections or how 40% of the American people became pissed off can hardly be construed to be anything other than your political bias clouding your ability to remain neutral. Just because 40% of the people became dissatisfied enough to voice a negative opinion poll doesn't mean they were pissed off. People rallied around the national leader in a time of crisis and his polls rose, when the economy slumped and then the war in Iraq bogged down, the polls dropped. Bush alienates most liberals because he is quite conservative for our time. But that doesn't mean that this forum should be used as a medium to demonize him. I don't go into the John Kerry or Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton articles and force some right wing sensationalist allegations and opinions there. Weren't we talking about opinion pieces? I say get rid of them...the opinions are not that illuminating anyway.--MONGO 10:50, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If the 40% fact is untrue, remove it. If it is simply a "negative opinion poll" or whatever, we should use the original wording from wherever that source was found. However, removing it is not ok. The more detail one can draw to a subject, the better, as long as its organized in a proper fashion. It is 100% encouraged to make text more resemble the prose that its citation is based upon, but do not remove material simply because it paints Bush in a bad light, and thus is "liberal." (or the converse). The meat of wikipedia articles is fact, we try to skin off the fat of opinion or of taking sides contained within the articles. However, linking to opinions is also correct. In my philosophy reader at school, we had two different opinions on ethical topics so that we could come to our own conclusion. Same with the Supreme Court and dissenting opinions. We would not detail a Supreme Court case without linking to both the normal and dissenting opinion. Opinions are not meaningless in themselves, we must be careful to balance them with each other. In addition, since everyone on the internet has an opinion about Bush, we must be careful to select a few choice opinions on both sides and not just any blogger who has an audience of more than 1000 people.--kizzle 20:03, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Why is it the folks who know the least, lecture the most? The statement of a 40% drop in the opinion polls isn't in the article fully...the above was my response to it being labelled as an example to prove that people were pissed of...which has no correlation.--MONGO 09:25, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Attributing opinions

Although MONGO says, "Who cares about someone's opinions", there are plenty of instances in which the objective reporting of a subjective opinion is sufficiently informative to be included. The Wikipedia policy to that effect also calls for attributing such opinions, though. I've therefore removed this unattributed sentence: "Advocates of the conquest of Iraq have responded by pointing out the billions of embezzled dolalrs those officials at the UN, and in several of the other opposing countries, had gained from the corruption of the Iraqioil for food program." Even aside from the improper characterization "conquest of Iraq", I don't think this belongs in the article about Bush unless the Bush administration commented on the subject. I'm sure the administration has criticized the Oil for Food program, but linking that program to other nations' stances at the UN is another matter. Putting it in this context implies that Bush has drawn that link, which shouldn't be stated unless it can be sourced. If it's only some other people raising the charge, it should be covered in Oil for Food program but not here. JamesMLane 18:44, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The opinion as expressed above is also making or relying on unsupported factual statements. The use of the term "pointed out" implies that the expressed opinion (that officials at the UN, etc, embezzled billions of dollars in funds) is true. There are assumptions there too (that any embezzlement was exclusively by or on behalf of non-US nationals). It's a bit of a mess. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:34, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

One way of recognizing when someone is trying to add PoV when they dispute part of an article is that they complain about specific parts of something they find embarassing to their agenda, but instead of fixing the questionable details, they simply delete the whole thing. If it mention of the opposition to the conquest of Iraq by France and the UN are acceptable, then the counter-arguments popularly given, attributing their motivation to their profit in the food-for-oil fiasco, is equally appropriate. You can arguably dispute the precise delivery, but not the validity of the information itself. Kaz 18:08, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In the above, JamesMLane and I have indeed questioned the validity because it was not attributed. If there is an attribution that would be verifiable and there would be no problem. Sometimes an item when it first appeats is no more than hearsay and weaseling, but the originator if he makes the effort can find an attributable source and transform it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:36, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

van Wormer's Opinion

Why is Katherine van Wormer's opinion that Bush displays "all the classic patterns of addictive thinking" included in this article? As this is simply one person's opinion, shouldn't this be an external link in the opinion section? Carrp 16:11, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, in general we shouldn't relegate significant opinions to external links (the opinion section of links serves no meaningful function in my opinion). Van Wormer's piece is significant because she's a professionally qualified specialist and published author on addiction and the piece was published in the Irish Times. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:27, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't disagree that she is qualified, but it's still only her opinion. Without extensive testing and, at the very least, interviewing Bush, her opinion cannot be considered an official diagnosis. It's very common for doctors to disagree about psychological and behavioral diagnoses. How many other qualified specialists concur with van Wormer? There is already information in this article that details Bush's drinking and drug problems. Van Wormer's opinion doesn't add much factual information. I do think the Irish Times article is worth adding to the external link section (I also agree that the opinion section is fairly useless). Carrp 16:38, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the piece is not illustrative in any legitimate sense of Bush's psychological state. Perhaps it needs reworking to make it plain that it isn't in the article to back up any factual statement. All it actually says, which I think is extraordinary enough, is that this published expert on addiction came out with this extraordinary pseudo-diagnosis and got it printed in a major European newspaper. I find Bush's behavior inexplicable, but I think that's more because I'm a left wing European than because he is or ever was an addict. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:18, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's a disputed statement, so you're certainly right that it shouldn't be presented as if it were purely factual. It was first included with the line "It has been observed that", which was clearly improper, because "observed" has a connotation that the statement is correct. I was the one who made the change to "It has been argued that". (I still think "argue" is better than "claim" but I haven't cared about it enough to fight over it.) Either "claimed" or "argued" is enough to convey the point that it's someone's opinion, not a statement of undisputed fact. JamesMLane 21:42, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It is only here to cast Bush in a bad light. It is not a definition accepted by the medical community, not based on anything other than her opinions which were not reached in a typical doctor/patient scenario, and they are her words she has opinionated because she disagrees with Bush on a political basis. It is best off in the opinion pieces which I think don't belong here either. Just think, if you put it there, I have only one edit to do instead of two!--MONGO 10:42, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How does it cast Bush in a bad light? I agree with you that here, apparently, is a professional prostituting her credentials in order to score a cheap political point. So how does it reflect badly on Bush? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:51, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Because it is a cheap political point.....it is her opinion. Her opinion carries no more weight than yours or mine on this subject regardless of her supposed credentials because it is not based on a typical doctor/patient relationship and would not be rendered as fact by any medical journal or institute. Lots of opinions are published and lots of them are not based on facts...that is why they are opinions. It alludes that because she thinks he is suffering from this malase it explains the reasons why he acts the way he does and for the decisions he has made but it does this in an effort to push a POV, not because she is behaving in a typical concerned doctor manner.--MONGO 12:31, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but could you try to answer my question? How does van Wormer's behavior reflect badly on Bush? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:37, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Where did her behavior come in? Her behavior reflects badly on her, not on Bush. She is using her "expert opinion" to push her POV and to sell her book(s). I don't think I can make it simpler than that.--MONGO 13:10, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good, then we're agreed that it doesn't reflect on Bush. Therefore by arguing for it to be there I'm not doing so in order to "cast Bush in a bad light", as you put it. I'm only putting it there because it's part of the story of the Bush Presidency that, like Clinton before him, he has sometimes experienced some rather overheated attacks upon his character in the quality press. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:18, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We haven't agreed on anything as far as this goes. It has nothing to do with her behavior...it has to do with her unmedical opinion...and your continuous insistance that it is worthwhile reporting just because it appeared in a foreign newspaper...Her opinion casts Bush in a bad light because it insinuates that his behavior seems similar in her eyes to what she has come to know as a "dry drunk". Look, while assuming good faith, I cannot agree that her opinion is anything other than that and it is here because it helps support your own biases about him. Your question about her behavior has nothing to do with the point.--MONGO 09:18, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bush is commonly known as...

I removed this recent addition:

Bush is commonly known as extremely conservative in nature, opposing gay marriage, stem cell research, abortion, and misleading the nation over the invasion of Iraq, typically governing from a Christian perspetive, despite our separation of church and state.

It's really just a "well my friends and I think this..." kind of insertion which isn't a lot of use (practically my whole city think that Bush is a raving nutcase but that isn't going into this article unless we run a poll). I think this kind of thing (especially the bit about misleading people) should have some kind of psephological basis. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:17, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Extra pro-Bush articles?

Perhaps some extra pro-Bush articles could be added to the opinion pieces links. There's 1 pro link and 6 con.

I cut the Against link section down to three links which is, I think, a pretty good number to keep things at. If you have two good links you could add to the Pro section, then please do. --Xaliqen 12:13, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Some NPOV edits

In response to MONGO's latest edits "to make this more of a NPOV article", I made several changes, some prompted by his edit, some that should have been changed a while ago.

• I've restored, yet again, the information that MONGO keeps trying to delete -- that Bush's record budget deficit is in the context of his having inherited a record surplus. I previously pointed out that Bush's actual performance, of turning a $200 billion surplus into a $400 billion deficit, is significantly different from, as a hypothetical example, trimming a $700 billion deficit to $400 billion. Therefore, the context is highly relevant. MONGO, you haven't answered that argument or any of the arguments that several other editors advanced.
• This constant harping on "van Wormer never examined Bush" is pretty silly. It would be obvious to the reader. Nevertheless, since MONGO makes such a cause about it, I've left it in, but as long as we're stating the obvious, I'll add that Bush has never submitted to such an examination. Even leaving in this silliness, the conclusion that van Wormer's opinion "therefore carries little weight" is POV and must be removed. Also, although it wasn't in MONGO's latest edit and I forget who inserted it, the crack about this being "an easy target for the press" serves no purpose but to denigrate one side of the controversy.
  • Mongo, if you disagree with the above, read Wikipedia:Spoon Feeding --kizzle 23:17, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
• The van Wormer material was recently expanded to include a longish quotation from her article. I think the previous, shorter version was better; anyone who wanted to see her elaboration could just click on the link. Nevertheless, perhaps the Bush partisans prefer it this way on the theory that it makes her opinion look like just a rationalization for disagreeing with his politics. I prefer the shorter version but I can live with it either way.
• I removed another silly remark, "According to CBS news and Dan Rather, he never served in any army at any time."
• There's no reason to censor the controversy over Bush's TV appearance in the matter of Tucker's execution.
• The "Pet Goat" episode has been prominent in the public discussion of Bush's presidency. I've restored the deleted photo.
• There is language in here, which MONGO didn't change, about U.S. sale of WMD's to Iraq. That's the kind of controversial point that needs a citation. I've left it in for now, but if it can't be sourced (possibly with an attribution instead of being a flat assertion), it should be deleted.
• Similarly, I previously commented that the passage about Oil for Food shouldn't just be ascribed to unnamed "critics". It's been rewritten but the flaw is the same. The passage should identify some notable person or entity that supports this view. If none such can be identified, it should be deleted.

JamesMLane 11:41, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your constant harping that van Wormers unmedical opinion should be in here at all is pretty silly too, James! How could the insertion of this be anything but support for your liberal bias....for the last time, it is a bunch of hogwash! The pet goat picture is another tired innuendo that Bush was perhaps perplexed...unknowing what to do next, after being told about the planes hitting the WTC towers etc...you have it here to support your bias that he is unintelligent...what other purpose could it serve other than that? What does that picture have to do with anything else? Tony sidaway keeps putting that picture back in after others take it out stating that he likes the picture...so what. What purpose does it serve except to allude to something untrue that was, in all liklihood, taken out of context. Show me where the grade point average is in the John Kerry article, or Bill Clinton. The left likes it here because they think it makes Bush look of average intelligence. Well, Lincoln had little if any formal education as did a number of other people highly regarded as intelligent. As far as budget comparisons, it is the same deal...you want it here because it continues to support your point of view. You think it is significant but it is taken out of context and fails to address the reasons. It is done as an innuendo to suggest that Bush is less capable than Clinton at managing his budget. I see little you add here that has any basis in neutrality, James. You even state that the issue of WMD sale by the U.S. to Iraq should be referenced, but you leave it in anyway. If it was an issue I had deleted you would quickly scamper to find some vague periodical that would support the claim, no matter how poorly regarded that article may be, just to bolster your neverending effort to display your radical left wing ideas of neutrality. Hence my discussion that we might as well cite the National Enquirer! There is every reason to eliminate the issue of Bush being cynical about the Tucker execution. Where is your reference for this? This article states "The execution of Karla Faye Tucker, who repented in prison and become a born-again Christian, was particularly controversial, in part because Bush appeared on television publicly mocking and mimicking her appeals for clemency." What television, and where? When I read this article it is so full of things taken out of context, falsehoods, innuendo which supports a leftwing bias and misconceptions it reminds of me of reading a treatise on evolution written by creationists.--MONGO 13:49, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

MONGO, your personal attacks are growing very tiresome. I left in the part about sale of weapons for the same reason I left in the unattributed slur on several UN members that dared to disagree with Our Glorious Leader: I was following the Wikipedia standard of assuming good faith. On these two points, which could be seen as one pro-Bush and one anti-Bush, I didn't just delete, but called the editors' attention to the need for citation. Do you agree with me that, unless they can be properly sourced, both points should be deleted? Beyond those specifics, if you want to think, without evidence, that I automatically "scamper to find some vague periodical" in support of anything anti-Bush, fine, you go right and think whatever you like. JamesMLane 20:45, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Mongo, first of all, exercise some judgment and Wikipedia:Assume good faith, don't call it a bunch of hogwash. Keep it simple, simply disagree and submit an argument for your perspective of how the article should be, and shut up about everything else. My personal feelings about the Van Wormer piece are undecided at this point. Has her book or opinion been cited on television or any other avenue for public exposure? If the group thinks that the book for better or worse has received enough public attention than I think it should be included but with JML's explicit disclaimer that Bush has never submitted to such an examination. If its not prominent in the public eye, however, I'm not so sure that it should belong here simply for being a low degree of relevancy and significance. However, JML is dead on about several other things. The context of Bush inheriting a $200 billion surplus and turning it into a $400 deficit is vitally important, as dropping the former changes the meaning and significance of the latter. How is mentioning this in any way taking things out of context? Just use the line that every other Bush supporter uses, "it was due to 9/11". But don't censor the fact that he started out way on top. Another thing, "according to CBS news and Dan Rather" is obviously laced with so much innuendo it can hardly be called neutral. The Pet Goat episode is one of the primary bones of contention for opposers of Bush and is one of the most memorable scenes of a movie that grossed more than any other documentary in box office history. However, if there are no references to the passages you cite, then they should be removed until someone can find a source for the information. Stop bitching about left and right interests on this page, just make your point and back it up, there is no wiki liberal cabal that rules all here, the only currency that carries weight here is properly referenced non-analytical descriptive sentences. One is a lot more likely to listen to your viewpoint if it contains much more reasoning and less complaining. --kizzle 23:17, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't know that the pet goat picture was in that documentary...but in light of the fact that that documentary was not seen by me, it should be no wonder. I'm sure I would have found it enlightening. You complain about me "bitching" and also tell me to "shut up". That's very nice. Here's my answer: when this article becomes neutral, then I will do both of those things. Incredible that you would tell me to assume good faith then demand that I shut up. I never claimed to say that Bush isn't to be credited with a huge federal deficit, only that it isn't necessary to compare it. The pet goat picture is only here because most of us remember that Bush did sit quizzing himself after being told about the WTC...so what..who wouldn't be in a state of shock somewhat...which is what I took it to be. I do not see the importance of it, especially since it isn't referenced. I didn't know it was in the documentary because I didn't see it. The issue of Karla Faye Tucker's execution and the supposed public mocking of the event by Bush isn't referenced either...where is the proof. Put the proof in there and it stays for sure, for I am opposed to the death penalty anyway. As far as WMD being sold by the U.S. to Iraq, I am not familar to this issue and need to research it more before I can discuss this matter. I have discussed Hatfield's book, which isn't even on the shelves anymore, as also being a less than credible source. I do see in this article many many links to other references, but I do not think they are in some cases very strong unbiased treatises on the issue referenced. If you wish to prove to me that you and others that find this article to be neutral then you won't do so by lecturing me, being condescending or by telling me to shut up.--MONGO 08:30, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Why do people who know the least, lecture the most?", now that's condescending.

In analyzing how a president did, we take what the country was like the day he took office to when he left. When Bush took office, he had a $200B surplus, now its up to a $400B deficit ... that's a net loss of $600B under Bush's term. Seems to me like an important thing to note. Like I said, if that's taken out of context, then apply the context that is missing, don't censor the existing essential facts (i.e. "blame it on 9/11"). I must correct myself that the picture of the pet goat probably does not come directly from F9/11, the event was just made public for most people by the movie, of which that scene where he waits 7 minutes is one of the most memorable. I had said it earlier, maybe I didn't word it correctly, that I agree that if certain aspects of this page like the death penalty mocking incident isn't referenced, then take it out. I don't think anyone would have a problem with that unless they can find a source. --kizzle 19:39, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

It isn't so much the comparison, it is the context. I do not think it is up to us to analyize how a President did...to such a degree. The deficit can be blamed on many things, some of which include...reduced corporate profits and therefore reduced tax revenue, reduced taxes to citizens, increased spending especially for defense, and much lower on the list is the issue of 9/11...but that is still causal to some of the other tax hikes. I think it is enough to simply say that Bush has the largest federal deficit in history...and then the comparison isn't necessary. However, in comparison to the current GDP, the current deficit is still not a record. But to put that in would be a positive for Bush, so I don't add it because I do want this to be neutral.--68.13.116.52 21:17, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yowza!

What a gobshite! How the hell did he get a second term? do Americans read te newpapers? are they aware of politics at all? god help us.--Crestville 03:54, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

reordering books

just wanted to maybe sort the book section by author's last name, unless someone has a problem i'll do it later tonight. --kizzle 19:45, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Karla Faye Tucker

The statement we had, that Bush mocked her on television, was wrong. She appeared on television (on Larry King). Tucker Carlson wrote a magazine article (in Talk) that reported on Bush's mocking of her TV appearance. I haven't looked up the paper copy of Talk, and website (like the magazine) is defunct, but the passage was quoted on many websites, so I'm comfortable with it unless and until someone finds it's an error. (Talk magazine, September 1999, page 106 is the cite I saw.) The link I gave is to a site quoting the article and also quoting a Salon interview with Carlson. I don't subscribe to Salon; maybe someone who does can check out the Salon link to verify it. (An amusing sidenote is that Carlson was worried that his profile would be seen as "a suck-up piece", but Salon characterized it as "the most damaging profile of [Bush] yet written". JamesMLane 21:42, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here is a link to some further info regarding the Tucker incident: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17670 and here is another link from the National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/daily/nr080999.html --Xaliqen 21:49, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC) Sorry, didn't realize that you'd already linked the NY Review of Books article --Xaliqen 21:53, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Everyone will have to forgive me for this and will probably chalk it up to what may be perceived as a pro Bush agenda...but I do not find either of these links satisfying. I know you researched it throughly but do not believe it to be substantial enough, and I would like to see a link to the original interview or quotes as they were reported in Talk. These links are secondary to the main article. If you can find a copy of that Talk edition, scan it in and create a website for it, I doubt there would be any copywrite enfringement in light of the magazine being defunct. The interviewer may feel otherwise...in that he is a conservative. I searched for the information myself and cannot find any to add. I will say that a quote from a magazine or article that quotes a now defunct magazine isn't sufficent unless the original citation can be accessed.--MONGO 07:07, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There is no reason to exclude widely reported information simply because the source is not internet accessable. A proper citation should be more than sufficient. Also, we shouldn't be a party to a copyright violation simply for our own convienence. The magazine may not be around, but the company who owned the magazine probably is, and the editor of the magazine and the author of the article are still alive. Gamaliel 07:24, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Then it needs to be found as I do not consider third party citations as qualifying.--MONGO 09:28, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you that I'd like to see a link for every point in an article, but it's not always possible. Wikipedia frequently cites printed sources that aren't available online. It's not our usual practice to scan such sources and create a website. Furthermore, Gamaliel is correct that printed material doesn't pass into the public domain just because a magazine stops publishing. I've given a link to my source. Any reader who shares your skepticism about third-party citations can see that this one is a third-party citation and can discount it accordingly. Such a reader can also do a Google search and discount all the many other websites that quote the Talk article to the same effect. JamesMLane 14:06, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The objection that we can't include widely documented information unless we can link to a direct version of an article in a periodical which no longer exists is absolutely indefensible. It is clear from the articles linked here, if one bothers to examine them, that this incident did indeed happen, unless Carlson, a pro-Bush pundit, was lying about his own interview with Bush. This does indeed seem like yet another PoV censorship trick, trying to keep a fact embarassing to one's own agenda silent. As with the goat pic, allowing this is a matter of principle, regardless of whether one likes the perception it creates. We should defend the posting of factual material that we dislike more stridently than the stuff we support, just as a society can only have liberty if people are free to make unpopular choices. Kaz 18:13, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've tracked down the publication details, the volume and number (it was vol1 no 1), the name of the article and the page numbers. Thus we have a verifiable citation. The incident, from Carlson's article as source, was widely reported in news media at the time and has often been referenced since. I'm not happy with the wording we have now, however, until someone can track down a copy and verify. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:50, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think I am coming accross as an obstructionist on this issue. Probably I am. It goes back to my belief that I don't think Salon or some of the other sources of information are very creditible in that they do tend to be sensationalistic and left wing. I've read up on this Carlson guy and it appears to me that his family influence is the main reason he is employed in his field, as he is not all that respected in his field, kind of a Rush Limbaugh type, going off the deep end on a number of issues, being insulting, etc. In that, he appears to be somewhat sensationalistic too. I am conceding defeat on this issue because I know now after looking hard myself that it isn't probably possible to find the original citation and all of you have found more credible citations than were here before. Furthermore, being a conservative, though I don't trust him, Carlson probably did witness this event during his interview with Bush and it is unlikely he would have recited it if it wasn't true. I still do not think the van wormer opinion or Hatfields book or anything from Salon to be creditible however. No, it's not that I accept bad information about Bush solely from conservative sources, I just find these three areas to be unworthy of Wikipedia standards.--MONGO 20:06, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well MONGO, I sure don't think the National Review is left-wing. First of all, it was founded by William F. Buckley Jr. Second, if you go to the front-page of their web-site, it's quite clear that the focus is on conservative issues from a conservative perspective. As for its reliability, it's been published since 1955, not that longevity determines reliability, but it is certainly a respected publication in a number of circles. --Xaliqen 21:17, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, National Review is a Neo-Conservative magazine, which means that right now it's devoutly Bush League, for better or worse, since he's successfully advancing their number one agenda. Kaz 04:02, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well Xaliqen, if you read my discussion then you would see that I had indeed praised those that found more credible sources in this matter. So why are you still unsatisfied?--MONGO 08:00, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

TotallyDisputed tag

This article doesn't need the TotallyDisputed tag. The way I see it, that's a heavy-duty tag that goes on articles that are blatantly biased, like, say, all those "Palestinian children" lists. George W. Bush is a controversial man, as all US Presidents were to some degree. No matter how neutral or accurate this article is, there will always be someone out there who disputes its neutrality/accuracy. Also, and I know this is no reason to take off the tag, this is obviously one of Wikipedia's most visible articles. Think of what that says about us, when one of our most basic, vital articles has an ugly tag reserved for the worst of the worst POV offenders. In addition, I haven't seen much of a case made on the talk page that this article truly is biased or inaccurate. Szyslak 02:50, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree more. I think this article is nowhere near as neutral as other contemporary articles in which you would expect to find disagreements on context, sourcing of information and discussion. When I look at the pages on contemporary politicians such as Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry etc., there is little if any flag waving either way...they appear to be tremendously more neutral than this article is. Let me provide examples: (1)The use of the Pet Goat picture here has no purpose except to put Bush in a bad light...why isn't there a picture of Monica Lewinsky in the Bill Clinton article? The ordeal is discussed and it represents one of the most disgusting abuses of power of any President, but it is discussed only briefly. In the John Kerry article there is a picture of him when he got arrested for an anti Vietnam protest but the entire connotations are different from the Pet Goat picture. (2)In the Bush article, there are numerous paprgraphs detailing his alleged drug and alcohol abuse, but all the sourcing is from conspicuously less than authoritative sources. Whereby in the Clinton article the issue of him smoking dope but not inhaling is mentioned but briefly. (3) In the John Kerry article, there is paragraph after paragraph detailing his actions which resulted in him winning numerous awards and only one paprgraph which discusses those that say his awards were not justified and even that paragraph has detractions built into it. The Bush article discusses only Bush's attempts, as it would read, to weasel out of service, with only one paragraph which discusses his promotions. That's three comparisons...there are many many more. This article is hardly a neutral treatise on the subject matter.--MONGO 08:41, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There absolutely should be a picture of Monica Lewinsky in the Clinton article. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:14, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've compared the Goat pic to the pic of Clinton laughing at Ron Brown's funeral. It may be controversial, but only in a way which actually makes it /more/ appropriate in an article about the man. Like the pic of Nixon desperately throwing victory signs as he leaves on the plane. And I agree, it's ridiculous that there's not a pic of Clinton and Lewinsky together in the Clinton article. The problem is that there are Clinton apologists censoring that article, just like Bush apologists are doing here, and both ought to be ashamed of themselves. Kaz 17:52, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bush v. Gore in lead section

We had some discussion late last year about the coverage of the election disputes in the lead section. My feeling then was that the controversy over the 2004 election was fresh enough that it would help orient the reader if we gave some information of the type that Neutrality has now put in the lead. Back then, however, some other editors were determined to keep this kind of thing out. Much as I disagreed with them then, I think that, with the Inauguration having passed, the election controversies don't deserve this much prominence. Obviously, the subject should be (and is) covered, but it doesn't seem to me that it needs to be in the lead section. We haven't revisited this question lately; what do others think? JamesMLane 03:44, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it is appropriate for the article to focus on whatever is timely. Insofar as the elections are now several months passed, it seems appropriate to focus on more timely subject-matter. If one finds it necessary to discuss the latest controversy, then it seems to me the controversy over Bush's appointments to Secretary of State and Attorney General are more timely than the election controversy. --Xaliqen 13:19, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the lead paragraphs of this article, which I take it is what we're discussing, I must agree. Bush v Gore was relevent right after it happened, and in fact maybe all through the first term, since it was pivotal to him being President...but now he's been elected with no sane controversey (aside from the long-standing question of the electoral college, ballot access laws, campaign finance reform, et cetera), so it really belongs only in chronological order in the article's body. Kaz 18:25, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hey, why not change it to the "Controversial" tag? Kaz 18:32, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"POV" Deletions

It's amazing how positive facts/opinions on people like this can be viewed as "information" while negative facts/opinions are "POV problems". I don't like editing wars like most Wikipedians, but I will not be censored in the name of protocol. If you want to remove someone putting in the word "poop" or something, i'm cool with that, but don't try to squelch different viewpoints. That's what makes Wikipedia great.

--Karmafist 04:28, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A Way to Stop Vandalism

If we assign someone to "edit" and make submissions only possible after a review, maybe the vandalism will stop. It seems that people vandalize this page most often, and this seems like the logical solution to the problem. --68.161.103.108 22:59, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, that's representative totalitarianism. Given the diverse opinions on this subject, I recommend we follow Wiki policy. Vandalism happens. Edit wars can be prevented. Two different issues. This page has experienced vandalism for a long time, one of the two reasons it was protected.

The other, more important (imho) reason, that caused the page to be protected, was an edit war containing assertions of bad faith. The way to avoid it is for those who choose to edit to assume good faith and work together to resolve disagreements. -- RyanFreisling @ 23:50, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)