An Open letter to Jim Robinson: Can the Bush-Bashers

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[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

Dear Mr. Robinson,

I have been a loyal member of the Free Republic since before the 2000 election. I have been a Conservative since the early days of Clinton. When I found this site, I thought "Thank God, people who think like me." I have continued to think this until the more recent days. Now, it seems that there are threads left and right bashing our President.

Why? There are things the President has done which I don't agree with but my loyality still lies with him. I am not sure if these "Bush-Bashers" fail to see the reality that with politics comes comprimise or it is something worse. I feel there is a cancer in the Free Republic. Some are eating their own.

I feel that some of these people are members of the dreaded democratic underground disguised as disgruntled conservatives. They are only here to stir up trouble. What's worse, they are doing just that. I am not sure what I think you should do.

As a conservative, I believe in our moral code but I also realize the reality of politics. I back our President but if he were doing something unsavory (like lying under oath,) I could not support him. This is unlike the left's clintonista dogma. What President Bush is doing is not betraying the conservative cause. He is using politics to confound the left. Those who do not understand this are either leftists themself or unable to separate themselves from their zealousness.

This is your show. You choose who gets to be a member and who does not. Those who break your rules are banished from the kingdom. I am not discouraging free speech, but this is free speech in your forum. These Bush-Bashers are brining us down. When this infighting happened in 1992, Bill Clinton got elected. let's not let that happen again.

Yours,

Big Guy and Rusty 99

[mercy]

I'm catching up on the morning responses to this thread that was running hot in the early am. I just thought you would like to know I'm passing along your gracious addition to the discussion to the moderator. It was so brilliant I thought it deserved official attention.

[texlok]

I would not like to see the Bush-bashing threads end. I enjoy the intensity of the posters on both sides of the line. I think the bashing threads bring to the surface most posters true beliefs.

I don't think people go looking for them either to bash Bush or to defend him, although there is a very small group that does seem to hop from thread to thread either trying damage control, or trying to inflict damage (and for the record, I don't think they are DU, I think they are probably McCain or Buchanan or other candidate backers that refuse to let go of past elections, or they are single issue folks, and I don't think they should be kicked).

I'm sure there are some lurkers here who are DU, but they have no reason to try and stir things up. We do a good job ourselves. Remember, Conservatives aren't afraid of debating issues and questioning the party line (in other words thinking for ourselves). Liberals are - If your a democrat you toe the party line like a good little leftist, i.e. look at NOW and women in general who supported Clinton, no matter how poorly he treated the women around him. I've worked with staunch democrats, as well as lived around them. I always got the impression they weren't exactly allowed to disagree with the party, at least openly, or they really couldn't think for themselves and had to have an ideology spoon-fed to them. That's just my opinion though.

I think the threads, call them Bush-bashing, whatever, are great. You see issues from all sides (if you allow yourself to) and usually they help either reaffirm what a person already believed, or got that person to think a little bit. They are kept in the family. It's not like those who disagree with Bush are going over to DU to post nasty things (at last I hope they aren't). We are doing it here, amongst fellow Conservatives. Free discussion of things we believe in does make us stronger.

[Willie Green]

Yeah, the druggies are usually the first to whine about anything being posted that doesn't reflect their own myopic little worldview.

[MozarkDawg]

Granted Bob Dole, who is a good man, and Newt, who let people down because of his own personal relationships, were not the best to press forward the conservative agenda.

Then why, knowing this to be the case, were these two the men whom the conservatives (read: pols, not voters) chose to press forward the agenda? The entire hierarchy knew that Dole wanted to run as one last feather in his cap, foisted him on us conservative voters. Personal stuff aside, which occured later, Newt Gingrich lost his power to press the very first day of the '95-'96 session, when Democrat after Democrat stood in the well of the House and lied about him, cast aspersions on his integrity, with no Republican whatsoever standing up to defend him. Any member of the ignorant voting public who witnessed that demonstration got an eye- and earful ... the GOP should have understood this from the start and fixed the problem, not exacerbate it with the same, tired, "Well, do you want a Dem instead?" threats.

[Amelia]

That goes for people on BOTH sides of the fence.

I agree. Perhaps I should have pointed that out more clearly?

[texlok]

I can see how disapointed someone would be if they supported him 100% from the outset. I also wonder if the 100%'ers only have an on/off switch and nothing in between.

I guess I should defend myself :-P The reason I supported him 100% was because I was happy with him for a term and a half as governor. I got to meet him once back when he was Governor, I thought he was a nice guy and sincere (and still is) and truly believed in what he said and did and was a true Conservative.

My support started eroding over the past year. He is a different person than when he was Governor. He has said several things and then went opposite of what he said. I don't think that's the real him, I think that's the people around him influencing him (call me idealistic). Either way, he is not the person I voted for. I don't like double-standards. I still support him on a few things, don't get me wrong, but the list grows smaller week by week.

He has become the consumate politician. It's the nature of the office if you want to stay in power for more than one term. I can't fault him for that, but I also don't have to agree with it.

[rabbitdog]

I don't want to pretend I know what is happening in the mind of our leaders, but I just think the President wants to calm things down in the Middle East and Pakistan/India to get everyone focused on Iraq. I think that Saddam and the Al Queda believe this and are feeding the flames of these two conflicts. The President has said that he will not allow Israel to be crushed and I believe him. This President, unlike the last one, has never met with Arafat and has continually said that Arafat has not earned his trust (political speech for we need to deal with someone else to accomplish anything). On Afghanistan becoming another Vietnam, I just don't see it. It is going to take time for that govt to come around, but they had so many problems that it would be almost impossible to think it would turnaround overnight. If anyone should take the heat for there not being a conservative agenda would be Jeffords. His switching has kept the Republicans from getting any type of conservative agenda through the Senate. Fortunately, we got some tax cuts in before his switch, but everything else that would be seen as conservative has been bottled up in Dasholes office. We all need to keep in mind that the majority of voters want to see both parties work together and are apolitical for the most part. The President understands what needs to take place to govern and is doing the best he can with the cards he's being dealt.

[mercy]

I found your post to me extraordinarily sappy and banal. Where do you get your info? It seems to be quite imaginary really.

W not only has done nothing to clean up clintoons era of corruption ... he has actively cut short DOJ investigations of same. We will never know what clintoon and the Chinese cooked up together thanks to W.

Your views and other's like you are made up out of whole cloth. Evidently the clintoon years were so traumatic for you that you felt the need to invent a great President out of this self serving pol we have in the Whitehouse now.

If even half of what he has accomplished for the left's agenda had been put through by clintoon you and your ilk would have screemed bloody murder. But your need to believe in the fantasy of W is so great that you actually call it GOOD. This is madness.

If you ran your personal life this way you'd have your life savings taken from you, they'd fire you from your job for mental instability, the mortgage company would take your house and the winos out in the street with you would strip you naked. Wake up for God's sake!

[RightWhale]

FR allows such ranting from the opposition and it is a good thing. First it increases our ability to recognize various qualities and shades of opposition and learn how to deal with it. Second, FR would produce nothing but impractical idealizing just like most other political websites if such posters were all banned; this could be considered training for the real world, and highly effective training at that.

[TBP]

So we should just circle the wagons and get behing the President, no matter what he does? On issue after issue, he has abandoned conservatie principles and advanced the liberal agenda. Compromise is one thing, but we should be moving the ball in our direction, and instead this Administration has moved the ball in the liberals' direction -- granted, not as much as a Dimmycrap administration woudl have, but still in the direction of more expensive, more intrusive Big Government. As a principled conservative, I can't support that.

[meanspirit77]

I missed your deleted post.Would you post it again?

I always want to see, what others tell me is unfit to see.

[mercy]

I disagree. He has no center. His administration flops around like a tailess kite in a high wind. The man allows himself to be lead around by the nose like a small boy.

First this policy and now that and then the other. If he knew sh*t from shinola before he got in the office he would not allow himself to be cuckholded like this. No he is without a center. He is a pol. A blank slate.

Everything he expresses about himself is made up. He invented himself with the help of political handlers. This is who he is. A construction. A hollow man. We called clintoon poll directed. Well Bush is poll created.

[mercy]

That's a banning offense. Gee think of it. Lazamataz ... banned. It SURELY won't be FR anymore when that happens.

Go ahead Laz. Dare em to ban you. I did. They did. For one day. C'mon, join the club.

[rabbitdog]

I think your right about Republican response and support for Newt at the time. From what I recall there was no Republican at the time who just stood out and Dole won. I just believe that Republicans thought the voters wouldn't buy a lot of this Democrat nonsense, but they did. I think that for now if we get a majority in both houses that will allow the conservative agenda to be voted on, it will pass. I thought it interesting that the tax cut got several democratic senators after it was brought up for a final vote.

[Lazamataz]

I missed your deleted post.Would you post it again? I always want to see, what others tell me is unfit to see.

Well, can I?

[VRWC_minion]

I guess I should defend myself :-P

I wasn't attacking, I was making an observation that may explain the disconnect many of us are having in reaction to Bush.

From the outset I thought of Bush as Bush Lite. I didn't trust him to be anything but a repeat of his Daddy. Slowly he gained my respect that he knows how to outsmart the Rat's and I began to appreciate his strategic ability. I maintain that strategy is one of his major strengths and I would never wager against him in chess or poker.

As far as his posistions, I never felt thrilled with them. They were better than the alternative but hardly as strong as I would have liked say compared to the Gingrich revolution.

But getting to the main point, my expectations of George Bush was far less than 100%. I can appreciate that someone who supported him at that level would be deeply disapinted. But from my vantage point he is about on par with my expectations.

I wonder if its our original expectations that divides us on how we see Bush more than anything.

[Amelia]

I disagree. He has no center. His administration flops around like a tailess kite in a high wind. The man allows himself to be lead around by the nose like a small boy.

First this policy and now that and then the other. If he knew sh*t from shinola before he got in the office he would not allow himself to be cuckholded like this. No he is without a center. He is a pol. A blank slate.

Everything he expresses about himself is made up. He invented himself with the help of political handlers. This is who he is. A construction. A hollow man. We called clintoon poll directed. Well Bush is poll created.

Funny, my Democratic relatives say the same thing.

I'm not meaning this as an insult to you, but it does seem odd to me that the left and the far right have the same opinion. Can you perhaps explain that?

[Lazamataz]

They banned me for a day when I geniunely did step over the line. I had no objections to that ban, because I really deserved it. I remained more careful thereafter, chastened and having learned from my imprudence.

But pulling my thread today has no justification.

[tallhappy]

Did you forget to put in "religious" in far right?

No.

[Amelia]

I agree with your #776.