Bush reaches out to conservatives to quell revolt

Forbes ^ | Feb. 20, 2004 | Adam Entous

[FairOpinion]

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The White House has been reaching out to conservative groups to quell a rebellion over government spending and budget deficits, hoping to shore up President George W. Bush's political base in an election year.

Conservative leaders who have taken part in private White House meetings in recent weeks said on Friday officials have promised to all but freeze non-defense spending, and assured them Bush will follow through on his threat to veto major highway legislation if Congress refuses to scale it back.

The price tag on a six-year highway and transportation bill stalled in the House of Representatives is $375 billion while a Senate highway bill calls for spending $318 billion. The White House has proposed a $256 billion measure.

"Bush has been very attentive to the critique from the right," said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a politically powerful conservative group -- offering tentative praise where once he talked openly of a brewing rebellion.

But if the White House does not follow through, said Heritage Foundation vice president for government relations, Michael Franc, "all bets are off."

"This is not something you can address with a handshake, a pat on the back and an invitation to the White House. You address it by actions," he added.

The White House is used to being attacked by Democrats, but it came as something of a shock when fellow Republicans broke ranks over growth in government spending, hurting Bush at a time when his job approval numbers were already falling.

Conservatives from the Cato Institute criticized the president for overseeing a nearly 25 percent surge in spending over the last three years -- the fastest pace since the Johnson administration of the mid-1960s.

Others singled out his failure to lay out concrete plans to reduce the federal budget deficit, projected at a record $521 billion this year. Even some of Bush's Republican allies in the House warned of a backlash against his budget priorities.

In what one administration official called a "concerted effort," senior White House officials have been meeting with Republicans in Congress to smooth over their differences.

Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been meeting with conservative groups, an aide said. The effort may be paying off.

"Stung by a lot of the criticism from the right, Bush is going to be steadfast about sticking to his spending targets," said Moore, who warned in January that a rebellion among conservatives was brewing.

Now Moore says, "They clearly are trying to reach out. I think the complaints of conservatives have been heeded."

Heritage analyst Brian Riedl once described the mood of conservatives as "angry."

Now Riedl says, "I think the White House is definitely moving in the right direction," though he added, "There's a lot of work ahead of them."

William Niskanen, the chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute who advised former President Ronald Reagan, said he has personally not seen much of an outreach effort. "We'll have to see" what the White House does, he said.

[NittanyLion]

Yes, you being the saddest of them all.Are you really Ed Asner?

LOL. I suppose you'll be breaking out the "I'm rubber and you're glue" routine next.

[Sabertooth]

Let's try all the NYT and WP , not too mention the LAT articles you have used to bash the President

Well, not only have you not been specific, and not only is this an appeal to emotion, it's also a fallacy of irrelevance.

You said that I paraphrased DU talking points. Let's see them.

Let's see one.

C,mon, if you have a sh read of intellectual honesty, you have to admit any story from these sources is as good as a script from McAuliffe's office. You've been overjoyed to use them as hammers on President Bush.When he comes out against gay marriage, somehow, he is listening to you,therefore ,your constant carping attacks on him helped him see the light?

Information from those sources stands or falls on its merits. If the information from, say, a NYT article seems shaky, then the more persuasive argument is against the information, not the NYT.

For example, at this post on a thread a few days ago about the NYT article "Disenchanted Bush Voters Consider Crossing Over," I said:

This article is crap. The men on the street who are cited are all using Democrat talking points: economy, no WMDs, body bags, etc. These are not the areas where internal GOP conflict has any resonance.

Is that a DU talking point?

You know, sometimes you do post things that are interesting and I can actually enjoy agreeing with.This new thing about how you and the rest of We-hate-Bush clowder about helping the President is very much like the We support the troops but not the War crowd. It does not stand scrutiny. It stand less scrutiny after reading some of the heavy thoughts I've seen posted over at LP. Good God, why don't you all call it Der Sturmer online and be done with it? Same rational thinking and same basic Uber Alles groupthink.

Not sure what this has to do with your allegation that I've paraphrased DU talking points, evidence of which you should be able to produce, since you claim that the positions I've taken don't "stand scrutiny."

Why don't you scrutinize my posts, and see what you can find in the way of paraphrasing DU talking points.

I have nothing to prove to you, frankly.You love to accuse others of being lockstep and groupthink, yet each one of your Kameraden file almost the same posts. I think there's a hell of a lot of transference going on there and it is a warning sign of bipolar syndrome.

Well, you made an allegation and you've done nothing to support it with evidence, this ad hominem notwithstanding.

What DU talking points have I paraphrased?

Now, you and the rest of the clowder feel free to hack up a few hairballs, moan how offended and hurt you all are and sit on the fringe and convince yourselves that your claim of "helping" the President really flies. You sure can dish it out, but apparently not one of you can take it. Don't you have some illegal aliens to hunt down?

Is hunting down Illegal Aliens a DU talking point?

I guess I can picture one of them asking "Don't you have some illegal aliens to hunt down?"

[Tamzee]

Nope.....it's send there to die/be hidden from view. And that's exactly what the fringers want...for threads to be buried.

Because they have "principles" :-)

[Sabertooth]

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To: Drago

Nope.....it's send there to die/be hidden from view. And that's exactly what the fringers want...for threads to be buried.

537 posted on 02/25/2004 6:06:44 PM PST by nopardons

[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 536 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

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To: nopardons; FairOpinion

Nope.....it's send there to die/be hidden from view. And that's exactly what the fringers want...for threads to be buried.

Because they have "principles" :-)

543 posted on 02/25/2004 6:38:27 PM PST by Tamsey (The Democrat Party...... Kerrying water for Communism since 1971)

[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 537 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

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This is most amusing.

The "fringers" are hardly the ones who were unhappy that "Bush [reached] out to conservatives to quell revolt." I think the article is pretty good news, myself.

[nopardons]

Is that what mordant stupidity,baiting, and delusion is being called now? LOL

[Tamzee]

Uh-Oh...it is the Smokey Back Room...how many Freepers even know it exists?

It is hard to tell there is an actual room under there...

[NittanyLion]

mordant stupidity

Isn't that an oxymoron? I'm not sure it's possible to have "incisive stupidity" or "biting and caustic stupidity".

[Tamzee]

Oh, hesh up, Saber.... we've been the folks all along backing Bush even while we all disagree with him in various amounts on various issues. Several of us have even predicted that he was simply verbally stroking the left while intending more conservative positions when it came time for him to take a stand.

The snits have all been so predictable that it amazes me some folks think to get all puffed up that "Bush is listening to conservatives". Based on what happened to his father, it's entirely possible that Bush predicted every puffed up screech of outrage from the hard-right and planned from the start how he would deal with it as the year unfolded.

[Tamzee]

Is that what mordant stupidity,baiting, and delusion is being called now? LOL

Yes, precisely. Although we can qualify that a bit... some here are not necessarily stupid and delusional, but seem to take immense pleasure in baiting. Others are not stupid, but do qualify as delusional and baiting. And then there are a special few that exemplify all three characteristics... and appear so much like the hard left it's nauseating.

[Sabertooth]

Oh, hesh up, Saber.... we've been the folks all along backing Bush even while we all disagree with him in various amounts on various issues. Several of us have even predicted that he was simply verbally stroking the left while intending more conservative positions when it came time for him to take a stand.

So, he was stringing the left along all along?

Won't that make them mad?

The snits have all been so predictable that it amazes me some folks think to get all puffed up that "Bush is listening to conservatives". Based on what happened to his father, it's entirely possible that Bush predicted every puffed up screech of outrage from the hard-right and planned from the start how he would deal with it as the year unfolded.

Are you suggesting he's just going where he wanted to go anyway?

[BigSkyFreeper]

Don't have bears out here on the eastern plains of Montana, but we do have alot of coyotes and wolves! The shrill noise they howl is enough to make your skin crawl! So far we haven't lost any livestock. There's a wolf den about a mile south of the homestead here, but they can "throw their voices" to where it sounds like they're in the back yard. LOL

[nopardons]

Good break down. :-)

But there's one catagory left out.......the smarmily uncious,whose nics should be Uriah H.,or a variation of that Dickensonian personification of evil clothed in humbleness and humility, seething, scheming, duplicitousness and villany.

[cyborg]

my my your accurate observations are stunning!

[Tamzee]

I'm jealous...I'd love to hear wolves! We have a few around here and even more coyote. I've had neighbors tell me they heard them but my timing is off or something ;-)

One thing I've always wondered... we have several people around here that swear they've seen mountain lions but game officials insist we don't have them in the Poconos. Why would it be so important to them to downplay or brush aside actual sightings?

[Tamzee]

Won't that make them mad?

Why do you pretend to care that the left would be angry at Bush?

Are you suggesting he's just going where he wanted to go anyway?

It's entirely possible but you could only see that as a possibility if you step back and look at this over the course of several months. You also have to view his statements as political maneuvers (most presidential statements are). Instead what I've seen coming from some of our hard-right fellow travelers are knee-jerk reactions, determination to use the worst possible interpretation of Bush's statements and a lack of willingness to give him any benefit of the doubt whatsoever or wait to see what the end results are after both sides finish hammering out a compromise.

[Mo1]

So this is where everyone is huh?

So what's the beef this time?

[jammer]

In one paragraph:

"...dimbulb...", "...too stupid...", "...gasbag fringers...", "... tsuicidals[sic]...", "...self agrandized[sic]...", "...Homer..."

ROFLMAO! Man, your meds aren't working. You are a trip!!!!

Okay, if you've addressed the issues, then I suppose you're for the AWB, for CFR, for porous borders, for huge increases in social spending, and for huge increases in Medicare obligations, along with a war that--let's both agree on this--is necessary. So, tell me, oh majestic one who calls ME a Deanite, how does that differ from the policies of arguably the worst president of the last century, Lyndon Johnson? Not a damned bit. And you call ME a Democrat?

Please don't get your dosage changed. This is too much entertainment. If it were intellectually challenging, I would resent your IEB (Internet Enhanced Balls), because you lack the class to confine your online statements to things you would also say to someone's face. But, I don't resent it. You are wonderful! We're just laughing.

Thanks for another great afternoon! BTW, I know the "tsuicidals" was a typo, but "aggrandize" has 2 "g"s. If you can't spell 'em, then don't use 'em.

[gatorbait]

because you lack the class to confine your online statements to things you would also say to someone's face.

okay little girl,you got me..oooooooooo noooooooooooo.Oaf I see no point in having more to do with you,yellow belly.

[BigSkyFreeper]

One thing I've always wondered... we have several people around here that swear they've seen mountain lions but game officials insist we don't have them in the Poconos. Why would it be so important to them to downplay or brush aside actual sightings?

That's odd, you'd think the governmental agencies in charge would keep the public-at-large informed about the mountain lions that could at anytime, show up in someone's backyard for matters of saving a few lives, and not just human lives, but the lives of pets.

[Tamzee]

Same befuddlement I had LOL

Fish and Game brush aside sightings as mis-identification and insist the people had to have see bobcats... we just finally had a Fish and Game fella recently admit we have at least one because someone he respects saw it personally. BUT... they still insist it could be someone's exotic pet that got loose?

Go figure LOL