roosevelt is right.this is a free country!

if anybody wants to disparge bush they should feel free to do so because it is our right and our freedom in this great country to let our voices be heard and to have to stand for someone and keep your mouth shut even if though you don't like them reminds me of some opressed country called russia......

I have heard this stated many times before in one form or fashion. However, I think what is meant by the diaparagement reference is that the office of the president is what is sacred not the man.

Let's face it the media intimated Clinton was a murderer. Remember the Vince Foster, Ron Brown, James McDougal, Mary Mahoney

I have heard this stated many times before in one form or fashion. However, I think what is meant by the diaparagement reference is that the office of the president is what is sacred, not the man.

Let's face it the media intimated Clinton was a murderer. Remember the Vince Foster, Ron Brown, James McDougal, Mary Mahoney and numerous other people and how they were linked to the Clinton's.

Apparently, the Clinton's and the Whitewater Law firm were, so it was said, connected in some way to the deaths of these individuals. Of course nothing was ever proven one way or the other.

Nixon, was on the verge of getting impeached and he was branded by the media as a crook among other things.

Lyndon Johnson was painted as a war monger and murderer by some media outlets. Remember "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many boys did you kill today." This was printed over and over again.

So I believe old Teddy was right because we have as a Nation criticized out presidents a good deal over the decades. Much of it was media criticism.

Nixon felt that the office of the president was sacred and it was his luck that he was in that office. His logic followed that, therefore, he could do as he liked and because he was holding the office of the president he should not be accountable for his actions. He felt that the office of the president could do no wrong and therefore, once again, by his association with the office he could do no wrong.

I beleive it is in our best interest as a Nation to register our complaints about how our elected officials are performing, even the president.
After all I don't think that the government we have in this country is geared toward the people following blindly behind our leaders and hanging on their every word I believe you call that a dictatorship.

Floridian

thank you mike and floridian.   Free speech includes criticism not just sweet pablum.

Here, Here. Good quote by Teddy and good follow up comments. This is precisely why I'm so vocal about the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Negative speech against the president or his policies on terrorism can be construed as "aiding the enemy". We officially lost free speech the day he signed that into law.