RateItAll: The Opinion Network

I honestly don't know if this is a personal attribute of his or not. I suggest that the compassion he showed for the victims and the families of 9/11, while real is nothing special. Who but a sociopath would not show such compassion? And for all my distaste for Bush, I do not regard him as a sociopath.

I believe, however, that EXCESSIVE compassion is overrated as a desireable characteristic in politicians.

We seem to have a very short memory. Many months after 9/11 President Bush never ceased to show his compassion for the victims and their families and was very passionate about encouraging all Americans to show the same compassion. I don't recall ever seeing a President cry. President Bush did. That speaks volumes of his compassionate heart.

He is clearly empathetic to the concerns of aging white corporate presidents and stockholders, who donate to the Republican Party.

Compassionate would equal a pardon for those two Border Patrol agents, not letting Scooter Libby off the hook...

His using maimed soldiers for photo ops doesn't strike me as being very compassionate.

I tend to think of "How The Grinch Stole Xmas" ( animated version) whenever this absolutely farcical character trait Of Bush, that, according to some, he supposedly possesses, comes up. Specifically, I think about that song that says "you've got spiders in your smile" and so forth. Compassion does not include frying people left and right as governor, visiting Bob Jones University, cynically attempting to smear McCain in '00- thereby playing on the race fears of a significant portion of their constituency, trampling on civil liberties, heavily, HEAVILY favoring the wealthiest people, mass spying on American citizens, insulting/ alienating most of the rest of the world, screwing the average Americans- even those who actually voted for him, squandering the goodwill of the world by not focusing on Afghanistan, involving us in an unnecessary and protracted mess that's essentially achieving nothing beyond creating more widows, shipping out jobs, basically doing whatever the F they feel like, and almost certainly ruining the country for the foreseeable future. I could go on and on. Compassion is a character trait often associated with great but humble people such as The Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, and Jesus, though the hardline right wing fundies, the Hagees and so on, seem to act like THEY have a divine right/ stranglehold on what Jesus was all about lately. I wouldn't dream of being able to solve deep spiritual matters for myself, never mind others, but, whatever Jesus was really about, it certainly wasn't about this kind of nonsense and self-serving, frankly anti-humanistic behavior, run amok.

Durring the 04 campaign a woman told W than she worked three jobs.
W-"thats uniquely American".

For himself maybe?

The man has not so much as a shred of humanity in him, let alone compassion. The day that he even dons a veneer of compassion for his fellow man is the day that I will believe the oxymoron that is "compassionate conservative".

Selectively compassionate. I don't think he is an ogre, but he appears to lack compassion for people outside of his comfort zone.

Ask the 9,000+ innocent civilians (I said civilians) that are dead because of this lie of a war. . .they probably think he oozes compassion. Remember kids, there is a special chair in hell for liars who are responsible for innocent deaths. Happy cooking.

i believe there are plenty of compassionate conservatives, i happen to be friends with a handful, but bush is not compassionate.

When he was Governor,and decided to execute people (and the point being made is not if the execution was wrong or right) HE MADE FUN OF THEIR PLEAS FOR THEIR LIFE.A compassionate man would never do that-not to mention pushing for an un-necessary war that killed countless children,women,and elderly as well as soldiers.

pretends well but does not give a damn

Almost 4 years later I still have to ask: What he hell is 'compassionate conservatism?'

I'll believe he's compassionate when everyone in this country has health insurance and when he realizes that there are initial alternatives to declaring war.

I don't think he is a cold or an unfeeling ogre;I think he is limited by his pampered upbringing. His family is very well-to-do and he went to the finest schools. I don't think he associated much with common, ordinary, people, and this has made it difficult for him to relate to them.

Shows a lot of compassion on your taxes if you are rich, the owner of a big drug company, a CEO, or an oil millionare.

cover-up the deaths of U.S. servicemen can be said to be compassionate.

George gets a two. He may actually care more about ALL people than any republican in the modern era. Unfortunately, that doesn't take much.

Has all the compassion of a vulture over a carcas. How much compassion is there for the stock holders that lost their life savings at Enron. He won't even pressure the Justice Dept to go after his #1 donor, Ken Lay. Ask the people of Africa where he blocked access to AIDS medication. Ask the innocent victims in Iraq. Ask the millions that he has put into the unemployment lines so that he can keep more of his inheritance instead of trying to work for a living like they were doing when Clinton was President. Yeah, right....very compassionate.

I would laugh at the absurdity of the idea of Bush being compassionate, except there's nothing funny about murdering innocent civilians, slashing all social funding (except for faith-based charities, who get tax breaks anyway), executing a record number of people, ruining the environment, sending patriotic young men and women out to die so that his friends' stock can go up a quarter of a point, slashing all veterans benefits at the same time he is beating the drums of war, and refusing to visit any of the war-wounded in hospital because it would look bad on TV. Oh yeah, he's a regular Mother Teresa.

I see much compassion. The fact he had a tax cut for the middle class illustrates that.

George Jr. has tremendous compassion for all the poor little millionaires who've had their 401(k) plans ruined during his tenure. Deficit Schmeficit, he cares about healing the country ... by cutting taxes on stock market dividends.

Has compassion to Americans; none for terrorists(the way it should be). Did the 20 highjackers have compassion for the 3,000 victims? I think not.

Some people will always assume that conservatives are not compassionate. These people are fools. Dems grandstand about every problem in life and propose government solutions, that often erode incentives for individuals to be responsible for themselves and crowd out civil society institutions already addressing certain needs. Bush has done a good job of thinking broadly about how to solve needs -- really improving healthcare for seniors, not just increasing "gov't benefits" in ways that make the system unaffordable for others; addressing the AIDS crisis that is ravaging Africa; developing a vision for how the Palestinians could have an independent state (by disengaging with Arafat and his terrorists). Because Bush has given us every reason to trust his own personal integrity, when he shows compassion, you know its honest. He doesn't cheapen solemn moments by making it be about him. Someone noted how he almost never uses the first person, esp. in speeches about things like the Colombia accident; whereas Clinton's Oklahoma City speech used "I" "we" and "Hillary and I" dozens of times... Great to see someone who realizes that compassion is only meaningful when it's genuine -- not some "I feel your pain" Oprah-moment....

DUMP DUBYA!!!

I believe that President Bush is a genuinely compassionate man. Some people tend to equate conservatism with being an evil war monger; this is definitely an unfair characterization that I take dispute with. Conservatives like Bush don't want to throw single moms out into the streets with their kids, destroy the environment or send us into a world war. What Bush does believe in is in a smaller government that does a lot of things as effectively and efficiently as possible. This does not by any stretch of the imagine mean that the President wants people not to receive government assistance, what he wants is for people to be as self-reliant as possible. Government will always exist to provide people with assistance in getting by, conservatives just want to do it better. A lot of people have also indicted Bush with being too close to industrial polluters. Now this is really unfair, people who are doing this are using mere guilt by association to accuse the President of being the un-environmental president. Well, there hasn't been a massive rollback of environmental policies. In fact, Bush has become more pro-environment over his term, he said he would evaluate the global warming issue during his issue and he has. Policy shouldn't be based on theories that haven't been tested over a long period of time, right? Global warming is only a theory, but scientific data over the past 5 years has indicated that it indeed may be occuring. Bush has gotten in front of this by encouraging people not to be so dependent on fossil fuels, for it's bad for the environment and it makes us dependent on hostile regimes. This bring me to my last point; the war monger charge. Bush believes that while war is indeed a horrible thing, sometimes it is necessary to take care of people that can upset global peace. Saddam Hussein is a good example of this; Saddam would like to become a regional hegemon and his weapons program will bring him closer to this goal. 1. He can potential upset the delicate balance in this region where we have a lot of critical interests 2. Terrorists can get biological and chemical weapons from Iraq. Al Qaeda isn't friendly with Iraq, but their relationship current can be exemplified by the maxim "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Iraq could really, directly or indirectly, hurt western countries. Believe it or not, the President is trying to save lives by going to war to rid the world of Saddam and his weapons program. By the way, who are these rich and wealthy friends that Bush has? What is King Midas his best friend or something like that? All powerful people have rich friends, it's inevitable. They need their money to back their power. He doesn't always give them what they want either; the public and private sectors are always in conflict with one another. All this said, I think that President Bush's actions after 9/11 show what a compassionate man he is. When he was in New York after the bombing, he went to a hospital to visit the victims; this would have been the perfect photo op to end off the day, but no, he decided that he wanted to personally visit with each victim without the media. He wanted to tell them how he felt for them. Clinton would have treated the event like a dog and pony show, but Bush doesn't act that way, he wanted to console. He genuinely has the personal touch, unlike Clinton, who was phony all the way.

Bush...compassionate...HA! All he cares about is MONEY! The only reason he acted so compassionate was to win people over so he could go start a war and get more money.

I thought I saw a compasionate president at the rubble of the WTC. I thought he had become a leader, a true compasionate conservative. Now I have discovered that he is merely conservative. He cares nothing for the people whose lives he effects (the ones that don't give him money). If he did, he would not be so anxious to wage a war that could mean high civilian casualties.

Bush's idea of "compassion" consists of outsourcing compassionate public-sector works to private churches, thus holding social programs hostage to dogma and religious discrimination and effectively destroying the wall of separation between church and state so carefully constructed by Jefferson and Madison.

One of the more genuinely caring/compassionate presidents we've had since LBJ. One has but to look at President Bush to see that he is full of sincere caring and concern for people.

Come on the guy is obviously compassionate. He has handled the columbia disater with clear and real compassion. After 9/11 when speaking in front of the house he actually teared up. If anything you could make the arguement he is to emotional.

or lack there of, which he should have in regards to warlords and terrorist, but he needs to respect others opinions more

Compassion with cameras rolling is his style. Cutting funding and massive tax breaks for rich is the true insight.

let's not be silly. we all know pupets have no emotions.

To all you people who said he had no compassion: GIVE ME A BREAK. I would like to see what all those narrow minded people would have had to say to the families of the 9/11 victims. I never saw slick Willy Clinton cry on TV. He was probably to busy thinking of Monica.

For a Leader in war time, he is excessively compassionate but that is an acceptable virtue in creating a just peace and good society.

He's more compassionate than most of his fellow ulrta-conservatives, but that ain't saying much. Much of what he calls compassion actually equates to religion, and "compassionate conservatism" means "let's fund the churches with taxpayer money." This thinking goes: the government has no valid role in compassionate works; that's religion's job. The upshot of such a policy will be that people in need of compassion will have to accept church dogma to be considered worthy of compassion--music to the ears of right-wing evangelicals like Bush.

No neocon is compassionate, except to other plutocrats.