Bill:
Well firstly, it's drawing a bit of a long bow to talk about the "heard" not always being right when I seem to remember that you were one of the ones who spun my criticism of Bush to mean I was being disrespectful to all Americans because the American people (now referred to as "the heard" apparently) had elected him. Correct me if I'm wrong about that. You can't have it both ways. You can't talk of the will of the people when it goes your way and "the heard," when it doesn't.
You're mistaken on the first part. By the time Bush was re-elected in 2004, I was pretty much burned out from political threads after the madness on here going into Iraq, so I made an effort to mostly stay away from the political threads up until this election. But to clarify on that: even though I'm far more supportive of President Bush than about 95% of the members here, I'm certainly not going to say that he or any President is exempt from constructive criticism just on the basis of being elected. By that logic, we could extend it to: "Well, we shouldn't criticize President Nixon over Watergate, because he was elected twice." Or for that matter, any problem regarding any President or world leader. I think we'd both agree that would be ridiculous. So constructive criticism is fine; the problem is when people replace that with vile and horrific ad-hominem attacks on President Bush, which IS disrespectful. Disagreeing with his policies and with the way he has handled his Presidency is one thing and fair game... but throwing incredibly vicious insults at him is an entirely different matter altogether.
Bill:
Most of the goodwill is going to come not from electing a likable guy but from showing a willingness to move away from a discredited ideology that has alienated so much of the world. I said that in my original post.
But there's three problems I find with this. First off, there are legitimate reasons to question how much goodwill there will be over time. You did address this in other posts, so I'll leave that alone. Secondly, there are reasons to doubt whether this new found goodwill is genuine and deep. Lastly, it's a matter of philosophy on whether or not Bush's ideas are a "discredited ideology." Discrediting (or affirming) an ideology can't be determined by the flat "just cause I say so," but that's another subject which I'll leave alone.
Bill:
If it helps, I'll break it down for you: Popularity does not equal goodness, Goodness equals popularity. Beyond that, I refer you to my signature.
So I just want to be clear here. What you are saying is that popularity does not equal goodness, but goodness equals popularity. In other words, just because something is popular doesn't mean that it is good, but if something is good, then it will be popular. In short, popularity is necessary for goodness. Not necessarily sufficient, but necessary. The problem is, Bill, this logic leads to absurd conclusions. Based on this, does that mean that there is nothing that is good that can't be popular? How about the abolitionists? Were they wrong? Wasn't their actions and ideas good? That was very unpopular. Heck, I'll even give you a music example: did the Smiths suck because they weren't able to break in the U.S. and thus weren't all that popular? Or even Macca: does the fact that interest in his new music since the mid-1980's has declined mean that his music is worse now than before, because it's not as popular? I mean, "Wings At The Speed Of Sound" sold far better and was more popular than "Flaming Pie," but which one is more highly regarded in his catalog? And to use a more apt example, theoretically, if President-elect Obama becomes unpopular then, according to this, he ceases to be good. Now I could keep firing off the examples, but I think you get my point: if goodness equals popularity, then you must accept my above examples.