Hollywood divided over Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with George W. Bush

[Foosha]

I love it. 7 pages of XXXX right wing guy is literally Hitler. Bush? Hitler. Trump? Hitler. Cheney? Hitler. Mitt Romney? Hitler. Why do ONLY these threads stay up so long? What a crapshoot of a mod team. Poop emoji poop emoji

[INVASMANIXOXOXO]

Although the Iraq war is very hard to defend from certain angles. Especially in the light of fairly recent events, where it is very hard to argue that the middle east would be worse off with Sadam still in power.

I still sort of cling to some sort of hope that it was some sort of long term geopolitical play that will pay dividends in the long term for the US (and hopefully allies). But again with recent events and the growing influence of Russia/Iran in the region it is becoming a harder argument.

That being said, to the people saying George Bush is one of the most vile war criminals of all time. Would you slot JFK somewhere just above Bush on that list for his role in starting the Viet Nam war or no? I know this is a pretty blatant whataboutism, but the criticism of Bush seems overly hyperbolic at times.

All that being said. I know people kind of overlook it, but Bush has arguably done more for/saved more black lives than any human in history. His AIDS/Malaria initiatives have literally saved MILLIONS of lives (even the highest estimates of deaths Bush caused in the middle east fall short of a million unless you blame him for literally every violent death in middle east in the past two decades as some people in this thread seem to do). I know this may seem absurd, but I think the only person to do more for black people in history are Lincoln and Mandela. You could maybe also argue MLK and Obama, but I think its a stretch if you are considering all black people not just African Americans.

[Krastyn]

I don't have to be in the same room to know that he made the final call. Either way he is complicit.

I don't think words mean what you think they do. Bush may have been complicit in hindsight, but the point you're completely ignoring is any rationality or the reality of the situation. Unless you know exactly what information was presented, and by who, you cannot factually argue that he was complicit at the time.

That's like saying a judge who finds someone guilty based on doctored evidence is complicit in doctoring the evidence.

Furthermore, without a time machine, you have no idea how many people would have died from the war not happening.

The President is not responsible for fully vetting every single piece of information. The government has departments and teams for it. Aside from doing your due diligence, at some point you need to trust your team. Without seeing all the information that was presented to him (which to my knowledge has never been publicly released, accusing Bush of being complicit regardless of anything is just flat out ignorant. You seem like the type of person who if there actually were WMD's, the US didn't invade and Iraq used them on a civilian population, would call the US complicit in the deaths because they had information and didn't act on it.

[Fargus]

I don't think words mean what you think they do. Bush may have been complicit in hindsight, but the point you're completely ignoring is any rationality or the reality of the situation. Unless you know exactly what information was presented, and by who, you cannot factually argue that he was complicit at the time.

That's like saying a judge who finds someone guilty based on doctored evidence is complicit in doctoring the evidence.

Furthermore, without a time machine, you have no idea how many people would have died from the war not happening.

The President is not responsible for fully vetting every single piece of information. The government has departments and teams for it. Aside from doing your due diligence, at some point you need to trust your team. Without seeing all the information that was presented to him (which to my knowledge has never been publicly released, accusing Bush of being complicit regardless of anything is just flat out ignorant. You seem like the type of person who if there actually were WMD's, the US didn't invade and Iraq used them on a civilian population, would call the US complicit in the deaths because they had information and didn't act on it.

What is this gobbledygook?

He signed the order to invade and occupy these countries. There's no debate about this. That is a fact. Whether he genuinely thought it was reasonable or not is completely besides the point; these wars have resulted in a lot of unnecessary death and suffering. That's all that matters here. I care not for hypotheticals, it is outrageous to suggest someone in Bush's position wouldn't have any foresight about what a war would actually mean and the potential for loss of life and displacement. Once more, his administration kept troops occupying these countries despite the protests and facts showing that the purpose of it was misleading. Ultimately, the buck stops with him, to say he's not complicit is completely ridiculous.

[Sylvandoh]

George Bush is one of the most vile war criminals of all time. Nothing more to talk about.

Y'know… there's this saying that there are 6 degrees of separation between each and every human being.

With that in mind, and by following this logic put in place by people like you, shouldn't we all shame and CANCEL one another for being remotely associated to despicable human beings by default? Aren't we all ultimately guilty of this by those six degrees?

Or are there convenient exception clauses tailor-made to protect "the chosen ones"?

[Rennadrel]

I think a lot of people don't bother to take the time to put themselves in George's shoes when he was president. Yeah, invading Iraq was pretty stupid, but they had every right to retaliate against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan for 9/11, though logically speaking, going after Saudi Arabia would have been the second step and not Iraq. Everyone is entitled to being friends with people they don't agree with as well. Even though George Bush did some stupid shit as president, he deserves humanity as much as the next guy.

[Krastyn]

What is this gobbledygook?

He signed the order to invade and occupy these countries. There's no debate about this. That is a fact. Whether he genuinely thought it was reasonable or not is completely besides the point; these wars have resulted in a lot of unnecessary death and suffering. That's all that matters here. I care not for hypotheticals, it is outrageous to suggest someone in Bush's position wouldn't have any foresight about what a war would actually mean and the potential for loss of life and displacement. Once more, his administration kept troops occupying these countries despite the protests and facts showing that the purpose of it was misleading. Ultimately, the buck stops with him, to say he's not complicit is completely ridiculous.

Context really just completely flies over your head, doesn't it?

You keep judging actions by hindsight, and not by the actual contextual situation. At the time of the decision you have no way of knowing what his options were. You seem hell bent on blaming people for things they may have no way of knowing. That's a very, very dangerous position, and not at all how any form of civilized justice works. All wars cause unnecessary death and suffering. All wars have of life and displacement. Leaders need to weigh that possible outcome vs the inaction of doing nothing. So you can scream all you want about how hypotheticals don't matter, but they do.

Once more, you throw out another situation that requires a hypothetical in the decision. So Bush invades based on information he thought was correct. That decision is done. It doesn't matter anymore if the information was good or not. It's done. So now they can stay, or leave. Yes there were protests about them staying. There was also a general consensus by most experts that if they were to immediately leave that the country would head straight into a civil war. But I guess Bush shouldn't have cared about that. Just said "oops, our bad on the intel part, we'll leave".

[Molis]

Anyone that calls Bush an actual War Criminal and solely responsible for killing millions is not better than any arm chair quarterback.

You have no idea what went on or how things unfolded in the room.

All you want to do is condemn the man for something you thought happened a certain way in your head.

So Ellen wants to be friends with him. Who gives a fuck...seriously stop preaching from your high horse.

[Temp name]

When you consider her supposed leanings, hanging out with someone like that is really bad optics.

You can be friends with people who have different opinions than you. Why is it bad for her to do it?

[Guy4123]

Every president is a war criminal in one way or the other. I guess no one should be friends with any of em.

[Bryntrollian]

Bush is a pretty chill dude

[Frolk]

George Bush did nothing wrong, chill ur panties a bit.

[Fargus]

Context really just completely flies over your head, doesn't it?

You keep judging actions by hindsight, and not by the actual contextual situation. At the time of the decision you have no way of knowing what his options were. You seem hell bent on blaming people for things they may have no way of knowing. That's a very, very dangerous position, and not at all how any form of civilized justice works. All wars cause unnecessary death and suffering. All wars have of life and displacement. Leaders need to weigh that possible outcome vs the inaction of doing nothing. So you can scream all you want about how hypotheticals don't matter, but they do.

Once more, you throw out another situation that requires a hypothetical in the decision. So Bush invades based on information he thought was correct. That decision is done. It doesn't matter anymore if the information was good or not. It's done. So now they can stay, or leave. Yes there were protests about them staying. There was also a general consensus by most experts that if they were to immediately leave that the country would head straight into a civil war. But I guess Bush shouldn't have cared about that. Just said "oops, our bad on the intel part, we'll leave".

I'm saying it doesn't fucking matter. He still signed the order. At the end of the day, that decision was the wrong one and ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people. None of your bleating about "Dubya didn't know any better" matters one iota, it is irrelevant, it does not and should not excuse him. He, and his cabinet, should be held accountable for such an error. People make far less grievous mistakes in life and end up paying much more for them. To say he isn't complicit or a party to what happened is just stupid.

Ignorance isn't an excuse. Stop defending him. You talk about civilised justice... yet here you are defending a war criminal and their actions that contributed to a meaningless war, deliberate or not. What a joke, you're a parody, you really are.

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Anyone that calls Bush an actual War Criminal and solely responsible for killing millions is not better than any arm chair quarterback.

You have no idea what went on or how things unfolded in the room.

All you want to do is condemn the man for something you thought happened a certain way in your head.

So Ellen wants to be friends with him. Who gives a fuck...seriously stop preaching from your high horse.

Solely responsible? No.

But he still signed the order.

Ellen and her ilk are two-faced hypocrites, so if they opt to grandstand against war then no one should take them seriously.

[Burgerberg]

You keep judging actions by hindsight, and not by the actual contextual situation. At the time of the decision you have no way of knowing what his options were. You seem hell bent on blaming people for things they may have no way of knowing. That's a very, very dangerous position, and not at all how any form of civilized justice works. All wars cause unnecessary death and suffering.

As they should be. All that matters here are the consequences of such decisions. In your view, various high ranking members of the Nazi party should've been let off because their defense was ignorance. "I didn't know they were mass killing Jews when I signed the order to transport them to that concentration camp! I thought they were being re-educated!"

Had no way of knowing? Lol. He was the POTUS for god's sake. If Cheney and co were in his ear giving him the wrong information, then he's grossly incompetent at best. If I was incompetent at my job that led to the killing of multiple people, I'd be branded as a criminal and thrown in jail.

How is your back, by the way? The gymnastics you're doing to underplay his involvement and decision is quite impressive. I am looking forward to your next defense of other high-ranking individuals whose actions resulted in a lot of death and suffering, but that doesn't matter "because they didn't know any better". "Contextual situation", lol. Give me a spell. Such sleazy wordplay doesn't let someone like that off the hook.

[Rennadrel]

I love it. 7 pages of XXXX right wing guy is literally Hitler. Bush? Hitler. Trump? Hitler. Cheney? Hitler. Mitt Romney? Hitler. Why do ONLY these threads stay up so long? What a crapshoot of a mod team. Poop emoji poop emoji

Cheney literally violated the US Constitution and the rights of Americans when he and his lawyer drafted the national spying network in the wake of 9/11. What Bush did was unethical but he did what he thought was right, and he's admitted it was wrong since. Sometimes it takes hindsight to understand where we went wrong.

[zenkai]

Ignorance isn't an excuse. Stop defending him. You talk about civilised justice... yet here you are defending a war criminal and their actions that contributed to a meaningless war, deliberate or not. What a joke, you're a parody, you really are.

That's very judgemental and dismissive of his argument. I guess you are the one person in the world who never made a decision based on wrong information.

[Krastyn]

I'm saying it doesn't fucking matter. He still signed the order. At the end of the day, that decision was the wrong one and ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people. None of your bleating about "Dubya didn't know any better" matters one iota, it is irrelevant, it does not and should not excuse him. He, and his cabinet, should be held accountable for such an error. People make far less grievous mistakes in life and end up paying much more for them. To say he isn't complicit or a party to what happened is just stupid.

Ignorance isn't an excuse. Stop defending him. You talk about civilised justice... yet here you are defending a war criminal and their actions that contributed to a meaningless war, deliberate or not. What a joke, you're a parody, you really are.

So why aren't you screaming for judges who sentence people wrong based on tampered evidence to be disbarred?

At the end of the day you're fucking crazy if you think actions should be judged only on hindsight, and I hope you're never in a position of power.

It's not ignorance. Bush didn't willingly choose to ignore everything. He took the information that was given to him and made a decision. That's how society works.

I'll ask you the same question as Heidelstein:
Is there any situation for you where it is right for someone to declare war? Or is it only dependent on waiting and seeing the aftermath of that decision to decide what is "right"?

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As they should be. All that matters here are the consequences of such decisions. In your view, various high ranking members of the Nazi party should've been let off because their defense was ignorance. "I didn't know they were mass killing Jews when I signed the order to transport them to that concentration camp! I thought they were being re-educated!"

Holy false equivalence, batman. For one, you would need to compare Bush to Hitler himself, since they are in the similar position. Secondly, sending ANY civilian to any prison camp for whatever reason based on their ethnicity or religious beliefs is wrong. Nice apples to atomic bomb comparison.

Do you honestly expect every single persons decisions to be based on the outcomes and not on the situation and the context?

Had no way of knowing? Lol. He was the POTUS for god's sake. If Cheney and co were in his ear giving him the wrong information, then he's grossly incompetent at best. If I was incompetent at my job that led to the killing of multiple people, I'd be branded as a criminal and thrown in jail.

Just because he is the POTUS doesn't make him omnipotent. He's not a master spy. He has an entire fucking intelligence agency working for him, but you think he should know better than all of them.

It's really easy to sit there in hindsight and armchair president to say "Well he should have known the information was faulty". Yet you don't even know what information was presented in the room, nor how he was supposed to know what parts of the information was faulty. Solid argument there.

How is your back, by the way? The gymnastics you're doing to underplay his involvement and decision is quite impressive. I am looking forward to your next defense of other high-ranking individuals whose actions resulted in a lot of death and suffering, but that doesn't matter "because they didn't know any better". "Contextual situation", lol. Give me a spell. Such sleazy wordplay doesn't let someone like that off the hook.

My back is just fine. There is really no gymnastics needed. I'm not from the US, but the way justice works there, situation and context matter. It's crazy to just judge a decision on the outcome alone, especially when we don't do that for literally any other situation.

War always results in death and suffering. So do you believe that every country that has ever gone to war, on either side, should be charged? I mean, the outcome lead to the deaths of multiple people. They should be a criminal and in jail, according to you. Outcome is what matters.

The US shouldn't have declared war on Germany, because doing so resulted in many deaths. They should have just minded their own business.

The US shouldn't have nuked Japan, because doing so resulted in many deaths. They should have just waited them out.

Is there any situation for you where it is right for someone to declare war? Or is it only dependent on waiting and seeing the aftermath of that decision to decide what is "right"?

[Ooid]

“N-noooooo! You can’t associate with people whose politics differ from what we find acceptable! You bigot! Give back your lgbt pass RIGHT NOOWWW!”

[Mekkle]

I don't have to be in the same room to know that he made the final call. Either way he is complicit.

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It's simply pointing out that it's really bad optics and massive hypocrisy... and that people shouldn't really turn a blind eye to it.

yea im aware of it, but what can i do about it? tv show hosts lie all the time/change their positions constantly.

[Wilian]

“N-noooooo! You can’t associate with people whose politics differ from what we find acceptable! You bigot! Give back your lgbt pass RIGHT NOOWWW!”

Do you make a habit of hanging out with mass murderers?