re: #75 2by2

Immigrant voice (naturalized US citizen) here:
Isn’t it more American to support the President, since he is after all the elected commander in chief, and if he fails (in the real sense of the word, not just his policies failing) doesn’t our country fail with him?
I don’t mean that he or his policies should not be criticized or scrutinized, but to wish that he fails, seems to evoke something apocalyptic. It also makes for bad politics, I agree with Zombie on that.
So while I voted for the competition and certainly have reservations specially regarding his foreign policies, I do wish that the president does well for his and my country.

This has come up here before. The question boils down to one of context. When discussing the success or failure of a policy maker, are you talking about their failure to enact policy, or the failure of that policy after it is enacted?

If the former, one must use their own judgement and values to determine if the policy maker’s goals with this policy line up with yours/what you view as American, AND whether it is an effective & moral means of achieving those goals even if they are right.

[Example: I think Obama’s goals with the stimulis is primarily to improve the economy, and secondarily to that to fund left wing causes. I agree with the former but think it has a poor chance of doing so, and I disagree with the latter and think it will do so, so on both counts I hoped very much that he would fail to convince lawmakers to enact it, but without any hope due to democratic majority.]

As for wishing for the failure of policies once enacted, one must posit in what sense they want failure, if that is the meaning. You can hope for short term failure because you expect that it will have poor long term side effects without hoping for long term failure of the country. On the other hand, as an objective measure of the countries well-being, it would as you say be less American to hope for any failure of the country due to the actions of a policy maker just to embarrass or discredit that politican.

[For example, now that the stimulus is passed, I hope that I am wrong that it will lead to prolonged economic problems and increased dependancy on the government. I hope in retrospect wildly big government spending turns out to be a wise policy. I really doubt this is the case, so at the least I hope the stimulus fails to empower left wing social activists that thrive on government money.]

In each of the examples, my hope for failure or not is based on what I genuinely expect will be best for the country, not political gain or loss for any particular faction.

But of course Charles & Zombie’s point that it is bad politics to say this as simplisticly as Rush does is valid.