I'm glad Taylor is running. It's always good when outsiders enter the political process.

However, having viewed his YouTube video I'm not impressed - at least not with Taylor. He comes off as querulous and a bit deranged. Bush on the other hand comes off great, handles the questions with good humor and honesty, and in the part which is cut off at the end, answers all of Taylor's complaints cogently and effectively.

Not that Taylor isn't right to have concerns, but he doesn't come off as the savior you might like to think he is and this isn't the real life version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Dave

Oh, how the view through our spectacles differs depending on whether they're tinted rose red or forget-me-not blue!

As Ms Camwell points out, Dave, Harry Taylor is just a concerned citizen. A professional politician would have been able to make his points more forcefully and cogently. No doubt he's had a lot more practice at public speaking since then!

Bush comes off "great", as you put it, because he's in his comfort zone. Every person in that audience apart from Taylor, it seems, backs him 100%. He also comes across as a bully, albeit a very clever one. He interrupts, rudely but with just the right charm and timing necessary to disarm his opponent. It's a credit to Taylor that he isn't derailed by Bush's tactics.

Bush's response to Taylor's wiretapping criticism isn't as convincing as you seem to think. He's just regurgitating the same old talking points we've heard the White House use to justify the program ever since its inception.

As far as Taylor being "a bit deranged" goes, that's just not so. He's just an unpolished citizen voicing some legitimate concerns about his President.

I'd be interested, though, in a source for your contention that Bush answers all of Taylor's criticisms. The news report only covers one. Is there another, longer version on YouTube or anywhere else?

I've got to disagree with most everything written so far.

Taylor didn't sound deranged. He sounded like a nervous public speaker. That's a tough situation, in front of the President and a hostile crowd, with international press in attendence.

He was completely partisan. Probably not motivated by partisanship, but everything he said was the position of one of the major parties, the one he's chosen to run for Congress under. There's no shame in that. Likewise, there's no surprise in Bush's reaction. Whether manipulative or not, he was right to silence the crowd. And his response was clear. What would you expect, that without Cheney nearby, Bush would wet himself or blurt out a confession?

Lastly, as to Taylor's message, I've got to disagree there too. The fact is, he insulted the administration right to the President's face, in a hostile crowd, and he wasn't arrested or disappeared.

OK, what I wrote is wrong. I just saw a longer clip of Taylor's comment, and he thanks the President for having the opportunity to speak his mind. Still, that seems to contradict the image of a police state which Taylor paints in his comment.

Taylor sounds surprised he didn't get tasered and dragged off. I think that expectation for the nervous and or deranged impression.

however, what is very clear about Taylor is that no matter hus good intentions he's been turned into another creature of the puppetmasters at moveon..org just like cindy sheehan. If he really does have integrity he'll wind up a broken man when it's all over.

Lumpy, not everyone who criticizes the administration is having their strings pulled by moveon. What you're saying is really no different than liberals charging that everything conservatives do is manipulated by Karl Rove.

And Baronius, your hyperbole is showing. To criticize Bush is not the same thing as insulting him. That is indeed a rather Rovian statement! ;-)

"What you're saying is really no different than liberals charging that everything conservatives do is manipulated by Karl Rove."

Doc, I've got a good answer for that, but I haven't been able to contact Mr. Rove for a green light.

I'll get back to you.

Today, with Bush's approval ratings atwirl in the crapper, and a legacy of deceit, greed, cronyism, ignorance and mediocrity, it is easy to forget that when Harry Taylor spoke up, America was in a state of Bush-induced paralysis...and speaking up was likely to mark one as traitorious or terroristic...or worse...evil! Oooooo!
And yet this Carolina gentleman took the tender-minded Texan to task, and said what needed to be said. He became a tipping point for truth, theretofore constipative, with the helpful aiding and abetting greasy shoehorn of the big bad media, whose pom-poms were eveready to endure a sale of war toys and distant blood.

I don't fault Bush for demanding that Mister Taylor be heard. With everyone else there on his side, he could make Taylor his whipping-boy, and show why it is not good to question your fuhrer.
If Bush would have gone outside and passed a microphone to all the folks that were locked out...then I would praise his great work in the field of free speech.
Instead what we get is cheap speech.
Bush is no sage. Nor is he a visionary, a creative, an intellectual, an artist, a musician, an author, a saint, athlete or scholar. And he is probably not evil, at least intentionally. His handlers, however, may well be. Someone has to be held accountable for all the deaths that have occurred as a direct result of Bush's visionless actions.
But if no one speaks up, the Cheney-fed BushWorldView -- being a child born of ego, fear, greed, and ignorance -- might well infect to the ends of the earth...if not the end of the earth.

VOTE HARRY TAYLOR
He ain't a Bush.
He's a tree.

I hear that the Bush claque has tightened up admission requirements for his public appearances so that audience members are background checked and they must sign a sortof loyalty oath (loyalty to GWB, not the USA) beforehand.

"What you're saying is really no different than liberals charging that everything conservatives do is manipulated by Karl Rove."

As a liberal myself, I don't believe Karl Rove manipulates all conservatives; but it is quite a coincidence that so many of them dodged the draft during Vietnam like he did...

Far more "liberals" than "conservatives" dodged the draft during Vietnam.

The difference is, of course, that the liberals were pricipled; they did it because the conscientiously objected to the war, not for personal reasons of getting out of serving.

Or anyway, that's what they all said...

In my unit, we had two genuine conscientious objectors (for religious reasons), whom I greatly admired, because they served anyway, as medics. They refused to carry or even touch weapons, and , never hesitating to place themselves in danger, with no means of defending themselves, except their faith, to tend to those who needed them.

They were the two bravest men I've ever known in my life

"Far more "liberals" than "conservatives" dodged the draft during Vietnam."
- Clavos

The differences being: 1) conservative Republicans are the self-proclaimed "party of national security"; and 2) there are no liberal chickenhawks**, and millions of conservative chickenhawks**.

**One who promotes, "supports" and antagonizes war...as long as SOMEONE ELSE does the fighting.

Doctor, I've never felt more ashamed of you and your comments in my entire life.

I appear to have touched a nerve.

I stand by my comments, though. Nothing I've said was as shameful as your apparent contention that it is not possible to criticize the President without insulting him.

...

Clavos, #8: LOL!

(BTW, I submitted your comment to moveon.org for examination. You'll be happy to know that they pronounced it free of racism, sexism and capitalism and gave me the go-ahead to post the above response.)

Oops - Sorry, Doc. I was trying to be cute, throwing Taylor's words against you. I guess my comic timing is off today.

Darn. That'll teach me to try and comment at work, in between phone calls...

You would hope that from time to time that I have the humility and grace to wait until I get home before visiting BC.