Where do you stand on criticizing a wartime President?

[Burgold]

Is it okay to criticize a wartime President? Is it okay to hope that a wartime President's policies fail.

I actually think it is okay. I thought it was cool when Bush was Pres and I think so today. Now, I heard a tremendous number of conservatives say that it was completely uncool for anyone to vocally criticize the President on any subject because it empowers our enemies. So, I wanted to formally ask this of the board?

Where do you stand on criticizing a wartime President?

Poll coming.

[twa]

I think you need to be careful not to undermine a war effort or needlessly endanger lives....but constructive criticism is part of the process.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I think you can criticize and disagree...but I think being disrespectful and showing no class like a lot of people have in the past 8 years is wrong.

[Burgold]

I really don't disagree with that... dependent on how one defines "constructive" Sometimes, being very hard, blunt, and honest is useful. Sometimes, screaming your head off about the problem is okay even if as a citizen you can't be constructive in developing an alternative.

Heck, I'm loony enough to think the Boston Tea Party was constructive criticism. The British just didn't take heed. (others would say it was destructive criticism, and still others would call it an act of terrorism)

SS,

I think there is a rightful place for angry comment as long as it's honest. Unfortunately, if you were to argue that many of the angry comments were dishonest or at least calculated I probably would agree with you.

[alexey]

I'll take first 3:

It is essential to criticize things that we feel are wrong
(because)
Our country is strong enough to withstand criticism,
(and criticism is what makes us strong, but)
One must be very careful in criticizing a President in war (to make sure we remain respectful and keep the discussion civil)
:)

[twa]

promoting improvement or development is close enough

Mainly that it has a higher purpose than simply attacking or weakening the target for political gain or pettiness.

[Burgold]

promoting improvement or development is close enough

Mainly that it has a higher purpose than simply attacking or weakening the target for political gain or pettiness.

With this stipulation, I can endorse the Texas Delegate's position.

Mind you, I suspect may have a wider view of what can fall into that Constructive slot, but your definition is sufficiently broad.

[twa]

With this stipulation, I can approve the Texas Delegate's position.

It would not be healthy for the other delegates.:silly:

“If nominated, I will not accept; if drafted, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.” W.T>

[Temple]

Fundamentally, I don't think we Americans should ever hesitate to exercise our first amendment rights--especially when it comes to criticizing or questioning our elected leaders on issues related to war.

The way I see it, members of our armed forces are--due to the nature of their duty--not able to openly or directly criticize the political leaders who make the decisions which affect their missions. Obviously. But since the soldiers can't speak up, I see it as the duty of civilians to voice their moral disagreements with policy. Someone must hold the powerful to account.

Furthermore, it's absurd to suggest that we ought to scale back our first amendment rights simply because it's "war-time" when over at least the last 100 years our nation has had some form of ongoing military operation in some foreign land without pause. I mean, technically, what's going on now in Iraq and Afghanistan isn't even "war." War was never officially declared by Congress.

And I do agree with Spiff that one can and should express dissent without being a dick about it.

[Burgold]

Well, so far so good. I take it as a sign of growth that so many seem to have changed their highly vocalized opinions unless those who were vocal before have simply chosen to be silent now. Looking at some of the names on the poll, I'm not sure if most of those that voted have altered their opinions significantly.

[greenspandan]

i voted "essential". i'm a liberal so take that for what it's worth.

[JohnLockesGhost]

Henry David Thoreau refused to pay taxes because he disagreed with the Mexican War. We've lost our collective backbone.

[twa]

Henry David Thoreau refused to pay taxes because he disagreed with the Mexican War. We've lost our collective backbone.


I agree, but he also carefully reasoned out his position and expounded on it.

Dissent for dissents sake,or ignoring the consequences is foolish.


I feel like a leper in this poll,but that's alright...I like my own company:D

[redskins0756]

Fundamentally, I don't think we Americans should ever hesitate to exercise our first amendment rights--especially when it comes to criticizing or questioning our elected leaders on issues related to war.

The way I see it, members of our armed forces are--due to the nature of their duty--not able to openly or directly criticize the political leaders who make the decisions which affect their missions. Obviously. But since the soldiers can't speak up, I see it as the duty of civilians to voice their moral disagreements with policy. Someone must hold the powerful to account.

Furthermore, it's absurd to suggest that we ought to scale back our first amendment rights simply because it's "war-time" when over at least the last 100 years our nation has had some form of ongoing military operation in some foreign land without pause. I mean, technically, what's going on now in Iraq and Afghanistan isn't even "war." War was never officially declared by Congress.

And I do agree with Spiff that one can and should express dissent without being a dick about it.

That's the key right there.

I have no problem being critical of political decisions by the president. But when I saw people booing him at the Nationals ball park or being disrespectful at the inauguration, that showed no class.

[Larry]

What Party is he?

[Koolblue13]

I signed three impeachment petitions and wanted to see him tried for treason, so I think we know where I stand.

[addicted]

The answer to the question in my opinion is the third, One must be very careful in criticizing a President in war.

Yes we all have the rights to speak out when we would like about our policies and leaders but in a time of war, one must use a more controlled tounge or we all run the risk of being manipulated by our enemies with the sole purpose of undermining our mission and causing the country to lose the war. As much as our media pretends to think we all have access to the same information availible to the highest office, we don't. President Obama once he took office said to the nation he didn't realize how bad things actually were in the country once he was briefed and given the information the President has. We do not know what the President knows.

Lets us not forget the old sayings with important meanings like "Loose lips, sink ships" and remember that in times of war the enemy is watching and looking for ways to promote discontent within our borders towards our leaders and that usually starts with people being careless with what they say.

[SpringfieldSkins]

Yes, it's alright to criticize the president... unless of course the president is from your own party at which point it is completely unAmerican for anyone to criticize the president.

[Mad Mike]

We must be careful with when and how we criticize. Never losing focus of who is the enemy and who is a fellow american. Never losing focus on victory.

[Redskins Diehard]

It is certainly okay to disagree with a wartime president. and criticism has its place. constructive criticism that is carefully thought out and not a knee jerk "he did it, so i oppose it" position.

Wishing the President's policies fail I think is a different issue all together. Disagreeing with the surge one thing....hoping the surge fails another. Disagreeing with a timetable one thing...hoping it leads to mission failure another.

I think a distinction must be made between "hoping he fails in implementing his policies" and "hoping his policies fail once they are implemented".

edit:
I actually don't view the first three choices as mutually exclusive at all.

[Redd]

If you don't believe in criticizing a president during wartime then why are you living in the United States that gives us the freedom to do such things. Go live in a country that punishes you for speaking out against their leaders. If I don't like what somebody is doing I don't care if he's my Commander in Chief I'll let it be known.:2cents:

Now bitching to just ***** because you either hate the party he/she's with or to stir up some hate is wrong imo but again this is America and you have every right to do such things.

[Capt. Kaos]

You can call me an idiot or a blind patriot but I believe that it is an act of treason to openly criticize a wartime president. He has made decisions that would cause most of us to have a breakdown. The president knows things that we do not know and he has access to information that we will never see.

Do I agree with everything that every president has ever done under wartime conditions? No. Would I ever openly criticize the acting president during those times? No.

[ACW]

You can call me an idiot...You're an idiot. :D
NOT a patriot; a TRUE patriot criticizes what he feels is wrong. I chose the first option, also agreeing w/ the second. :2cents:

[Capt. Kaos]

You're an idiot. :D
NOT a patriot; a TRUE patriot criticizes what he feels is wrong. I chose the first option, also agreeing w/ the second. :2cents:

I asked for that. Fair enough. :silly:

As for your true patriot statement: I think any and all US citizens have the right to criticize whoever, whenever and for whatever when they have ALL the information that the person or entity being criticized had when they made the decision(s). If they do not have all the information then it is, as far as I'm concerned, the responsibility of those same people to trust that those involved have made the right decision(s) no matter if you like them or not. and thats my :2cents:

[ACW]

If they do not have all the information then it is, as far as I'm concerned, the responsibility of those same people to trust that those involved have made the right decision(s) no matter if you like them or not. and thats my :2cents:That could be AWFULLY dangerous though.

[BigMike619]

it was worded a little differently then what I would have said but I dont criticize my prez once he is in office. at least not to the outside world. i feel it is always important to have a united front to the world and then behind closed doors we can talk.

[Redd]

Hmmm, how would citizens get all the information necessary to criticize the President. They wouldn't so how would that work? Doesn't the President serve the people and uphold the constitution?

[Califan007]

I actually don't view the first three choices as mutually exclusive at all.
I don't, either. I'd vote for the top three.

And as numerous people have said, criticizing a sitting president during wartime is not the same as criticizing him when there is peace and no troops are in harms' way. Like it or not, the media is used just as much as a weapon as guns, hand grenades and bombs. And if you think our criticisms don't effect the troops, just relive Kerry's attempt to criticize Bush in the last election, and that extremely cool photo the troops took in response.

There are a million different ways of criticizing an administration's decisions...the normal petty mudslinging that goes on between parties for the sake of tearing down the opposition for political gain should really take a backseat as much as possible during wartime, imo.

[Califan007]

Fundamentally, I don't think we Americans should ever hesitate to exercise our first amendment rights--especially when it comes to criticizing or questioning our elected leaders on issues related to war.

Furthermore, it's absurd to suggest that we ought to scale back our first amendment rights simply because it's "war-time" when over at least the last 100 years our nation has had some form of ongoing military operation in some foreign land without pause. I mean, technically, what's going on now in Iraq and Afghanistan isn't even "war." War was never officially declared by Congress.

We shouldn't scale back our first amendment rights "simply because it's war-time", but we should ratchet up the responsibility that goes along with having those rights during war-time. We owe that to the troops at least.

[Califan007]

Now, I heard a tremendous number of conservatives say that it was completely uncool for anyone to vocally criticize the President on any subject because it empowers our enemies.
A "tremendous amount"? You must know a different type of conservative than I do lol...because of the ones I either know well or interact with regularly, none of them felt that you shouldn't criticize the president on ANY subject whatsoever during wartime. Hell, most of them criticized Bush on certain things over the last 8 years themselves, on many of the spending bills and his stance on illegal immigration for starters. "Tremendous amount" and "any subject" seems a bit too broad of a generalization there...

[jnhay]

it was worded a little differently then what I would have said but I dont criticize my prez once he is in office. at least not to the outside world. i feel it is always important to have a united front to the world and then behind closed doors we can talk.

What do you mean by "the outside world"? Even if you knew of terrible decisions being made, you wouldn't bother telling fellow citizens?

[Califan007]

What do you mean by "the outside world"? Even if you knew of terrible decisions being made, you wouldn't bother telling fellow citizens?
I think his "outside world" means other countries, and "behind closed doors" means criticisms between fellow citizens.

[BigMike619]

I think his "outside world" means other countries, and "behind closed doors" means criticisms between fellow citizens.

dont you speak for me!!

haha..actually I couldnt have said it better myself. You nailed exactly what I meant.

[Califan007]

dont you speak for me!!

haha..actually I couldnt have said it better myself. You nailed exactly what I meant.
Yeah, I do. You hired me as your press secretary last month, remember?

[BigMike619]

aah..that would explain a lot of weird things going on around here.

good job! you deserve a raise.

[Who Del]

If you can't take the heat then get out of the kitchen.

Sorry, but why should he above criticism just because we're at war? He is making decisions that affect every one of us and the World's image of us. (I know some people don't care but some of us do care how the World views us.)

He holds the highest office in the World. He should be under a microscope at all times. And if he can't handle that.. then he shouldn't be President of the United Mother****ing States of America.

[Jumbo]

I agree, but he also carefully reasoned out his position and expounded on it.

Dissent for dissents sake,or ignoring the consequences is foolish.


I feel like a leper in this poll,but that's alright...I like my own company:D


Welcome to the colony. :)

I agree with everything you posted in the thread, and I should say you described my personal approach best.

More, I am impressed with the number of of well-said and reasonable posts in it (as well as Larry's funny/serious one). It is a rare ratio for me to enter a political thread in the tailgate and see such a one-sided ratio of intelliegnt > not.

Even Kool's more extreme position fits my beliefs that very very few holds should be barred in criticism of government, though I have no respect for those obviously of the partisan hack type. There were only a couple posts that didn't resonate with me, and they were still fine. I thought I'd get in the compliments to the contributors and by extension to the forum before it all went to hell. :D

[AsburySkinsFan]

And I do agree with Spiff that one can and should express dissent without being a dick about it.

Fundamentally I agree with everything you are saying, although I reserve the right to be an angry prick when the President consistently shows that he will not listen to the people who elected him, in the end he is still a civil service employee whether he wants to admit it or not.

[IHOPSkins]

Be VERY critical in private

Be VERY careful of being critical in public

The NYSlimes is a perfect example of NOT following the second point

How many people DIED because of the NYSlimes BS argument..."Need to Know"?

[SkinsHokieFan]

I never had a problem with it the past 7.5 years when it was civil

For example, Joe Biden in 2005 criticizing the carrying out of the Iraq War and proposing an alternative solution.

I do have a problem when its clearly political. For example MoveOn.orgs General "Betrayus" advertisement

[twa]

, in the end he is still a civil service employee whether he wants to admit it or not.

This is where I disagree ,you cannot be a chief executive and most importantly CIC in war time and worry overly much about public opinion.

It is true he serves at our pleasure,but they made it difficult to replace him for good reason as well.

[luckydevil]

As far as the whole dick part goes, how about not being a dick in general. That would be nice.

[Jumbo]

since I didn't see one choice only I liked, i didn't check the poll before i read. it was interesting to do so after i posted, because it seems like some votes, once people had to prioritze, indicated less openess about such criticism than the actual posts made by some members. so i find more difference with others via the vote than the expressed sentiments.

vote-wise, i don't care for the "essential" concept in the first choice, and the second one is a "duh" to me (like the country isn't strong enought to handle it--what kind of thinking would that be?) but if forced to deal with it as set up, i would lean to the first two choices and easily pass on the second two. voting for the last one is simply wrong-thinking, IMO. if there's one thing both pointless and uber-stupid in the political discussions, it's the overuse and support of the whole "anti-american" shtick as applied to people criticizing (even intensely) the goverment. and it is very clear that rap is very one-sided in how it's wielded, with the right applying it to the left 90% of the time. this simply underlines the stupidly partisan nature in which the premise usually is deployed.

ever since the ff's, we as a people can be rife with dissent in one direction or many and often very colorful, passionate, and even over-the-top in our hsitorical and current arguments. they were even back then (of course, duh), until one plan or another emerged surviving the carnage. we (imo) should be grateful for the width and depth of political thinking/traits (not just one group of those thoughts/traits) that the incomparable range of freedom we have in this country allows to flourish.

traitorous and treasonous behaviors, if you want to be carnival-dramatic in the spirit of the typical "anti-american" flatulence, should maybe include thinking that narrowing patriotism and desireable national political character traits to the myopic preferences of "right" or "left" is a good thing.


and if being stupid or a prick is ok for people advancing support of a policy out of their personal construct of national loyalty, then it is equally fine to be stupid or a prick in castigating all who support or advance that policy you think is seriously wrong. usually, if you scratch the surface of the former's behavior you will find a hypocritical partisan. they will lambast everything about the opposition they feel like, leaving little unsaid, but then attack those doing the same to "their guy" as "not being patriotic or respectful."

and while each "wing" has their own amazing mountain of stupid uniquely theirs as well as shared, i note that most of this "anti-american" kind of stuff i describe has always been far more attached to right-on-left circle-jerking.

[Jumbo]

Be VERY critical in private

Be VERY careful of being critical in public

The NYSlimes is a perfect example of NOT following the second point

How many people DIED because of the NYSlimes BS argument..."Need to Know"?


Strongly disagree with you and am grateful "your way" is not "the way." Reporters (or anyone) leaking tactical information is obviously not what I'm talking about, but dealing with the reality that dissent may favor some designs of some enemy somehow is part of the reality of having the very degree of freedom we are willing to die for---it isn't free, as we know. I would rebel at any idea that the government should try to stifle or control the dissent beyond normal civil law, and certainly don't support your citizen-view of a need to be "very careful" even when I find some dissent (or agreement) with some policy really offensive to my principles and love for this nation.

Telling citizens they NEED to be VERY careful in dissent is closer to "un-American" thinking than being openly critical is (and of course I don't think your view is "un-American" at all, just making my point).

I never had a problem with it the past 7.5 years when it was civil

For example, Joe Biden in 2005 criticizing the carrying out of the Iraq War and proposing an alternative solution.

I do have a problem when its clearly political. For example MoveOn.orgs General "Betrayus" advertisement

Absolutely. :)

This is where I disagree ,you cannot be a chief executive and most importantly CIC in war time and worry overly much about public opinion.

It is true he serves at our pleasure,but they made it difficult to replace him for good reason as well.

And, agreed again. :)

[AsburySkinsFan]

This is where I disagree ,you cannot be a chief executive and most importantly CIC in war time and worry overly much about public opinion.

And herein lies the balancing act, the CIC must be able to actually listen to those around him who have legitimate concerns lest he not be a good CIC, if he cannot hear others then he is arrogant in the extreme thinking he knows it all.

[twa]

And herein lies the balancing act, the CIC must be able to actually listen to those around him who have legitimate concerns lest he not be a good CIC, if he cannot hear others then he is arrogant in the extreme thinking he knows it all.

Indeed it is a balancing act:cheers:,but you cannot simply base decisions on ever changing concerns and hope to achieve a goal or win a war.

I do agree you need good counsel/advisers,but in the end choices must be made based on overriding some concerns.
Just because a concern is legitimate does not make it primary.

[Chachie]

Someone must hold the powerful to account.




Simple and truest answer. No matter who's policies are in power.

[Ax]

Criticism by whom?

The public? We are, for the most part, way too uninformed to offer any criticism that could be of much use to anyone but ourselves.

Our elected officials? Most are so blindly partisan that it's absurd. Even when they know better, they'll tow the party line and defend, or criticize, the President.

The media? They're whores for headlines. $$$$ is their puppet master.

My question would be, if said "criticism" has a greater chance to help our enemy, than it does us, then why do it during wartime? And, I realize, the problem is agreeing to what is, or isn't.

It's why I voted for being "careful" about it.

[Burgold]

As to the poll itself. I didn't want the options to be discreet, but rather on a continuum. I think they work to that respect. If you chose option 1, you were choosing the broadest range in the ability to criticize, but that could also include options 2 and three. If you choose option 4, you negated any of the above.

Nice discussion overall so far. I can understand almost all of these viewpoints even the ones I disagree with.