Posted on 06/03/2002 11:43:15 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Rush Limbaugh, the nation's leading talk-show host and normally a strong supporter of President Bush and the Republican agenda, today ridiculed the administration's apparent flip-flop on global warming, wondering aloud before millions of listeners whether things would have been much different had political nemesis Al Gore won the presidency.
The unusually harsh critique of the administration by Limbaugh followed the release of a climate report to the United Nations detailing specific and far-reaching effects that the Bush administration now says global warming will inflict on the American environment. In the report, disclosed by the New York Times today, the administration for the first time mostly blames human actions for recent global warming. It says the main culprit is the burning of fossil fuels that send heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Limbaugh accused the Bush administration of ignoring and undermining many good scientists who have expressed contrary views on global warming.
"I don't believe there is any conclusive evidence of global warming," he said. "And I certainly don't believe that it can be attributed to human activity – and particularly not by activity by the United States. That is the political agenda behind the global warming scare. It is an anti-West, anti-U.S., anti-free enterprise movement."
Limbaugh accused the administration of trying to score political points with political opponents at the expense of the truth and the U.S. economy.
The new document, "U.S. Climate Action Report 2002," presents a sharp contrast to previous statements on climate change by the administration, which has always emphasized the need for much more research to resolve scientific questions.
Without a news release or announcement, the new report was shipped last week to the United Nations offices that administer the treaty and posted on the Web.
Some callers took Limbaugh to task for his criticisms of Bush, pointing out how much better off the United States is today than it was under the previous administration.
"Should we compare ourselves to where we were under Clinton?" Limbaugh asked. "Is that the standard we as conservatives should use to determine how we as a nation are doing? That's not a very high standard. Anyone could do better than that."
Limbaugh asked callers what, if anything, would be different if Gore had been elected. He conceded that the nation is more secure and that military morale is higher. But he had trouble – and so did callers – coming up with any other substantive policy issues that are being handled differently than they might have been under a Gore administration.
"I don't enjoy this," Limbaugh said. "But I am a conservative. I'm criticizing the administration over policy issues. It's not personal."
Limbaugh said he considered not mentioning the global warming report yesterday. He also said he considered joking about it.
"But I decided to do what I always do – tell you exactly what I think. It appears to be the hijacking of conservatism. George W. Al Gore, anyone?"
He wants to know whether there were any warning signs that the conservative movement was being "hijacked" (to spin on the navel-gazing of our intelligence operations as of late). What he needs to be asking is:
1) Why did he fail to see Bush's policy of compromise and capitulation while Governor of Texas? The record was there. He never bothered to look.
2) Why did he fail to notice when Bush brought aboard Norman Mineta and some leftist types in the Republican party into his cabinet that perhaps they would be able to influence policy?
3) Does the Republican Party suffer from "Battered Wife Syndrome"? Are Republicans so used to being abused by Democrats that they cannot assert their own power to lead themselves? Why is it that the **minority party** continues to set the agenda and get what they want while the **majority party** knuckles under to their will, offering only half-hearted liberalism not federal rollback conservatism??
The answer to the first two are obvious. In his zeal to see a Republican in the White House again, Limbaugh and many other leaders in the conservative movement simply failed to see what Bush really was. A conservative that was all hat and no cattle in his conservatism. Talks a good game, sounds real convincing but rarely stands up to the Democrats when it counts. The answer to the third question gets clearer every day. We have a party so accustomed to being kowtowed that they'd rather be beaten up than to stand on principle. And it looks like this will get worse before it gets better.
Limbaugh is late to the party. Rather than trying to convince us that W. is "Reaganesque", he should have been examining what this man actually did while running the state of Texas.
He's "The Great Compromiser". Anyone who wanted to look through his record as Governor could find it.
Yes, he a damn sight better than Clinton. He got a (ahem...watered down) tax cut, stood up on Kyoto, didn't totally cave on fetal stem cell research and has prosecuted the war in excellent fashion. But, ultimately, he's part of the Bush-Dole wing of the party that, while not as despicable as the Jeffords-Shays-Chafee-McCain wing of the party, leave a lot to be desired when it comes to conservative thought and conservative principles.
The *real* question is this:
Do we want to be the majority party with no principles or the principled party with no majority?
Yep. We've been screwed for about 35 years. As long as the schools keep churning out a great proportion of dumbed-down, socialist, moral-relativist, non-thinking, self indulgent kids from the public schools and the universities each year, we will be screwed. There are more lame thinking liberals produced and indoctrinated every day, and our weak politicians (and Gore W. Bush is one of them) feel they must pander to them. The days of the Republic are over. There are few good men alive in this country. The founders would be ill at the sight of this country's people and voters! When I look into the faces of our Congressmen it sickens me. Gore W. Bush is falling right in line! Laura should give him a good slap.
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