Posted on 05/05/2006 1:31:43 PM PDT by TBP
Theres nothing harder in public life than admitting youre wrong. By the way, admitting youre wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you dont believe me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in public, its out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.
So, Im saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that hes the worst President, period.
In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasnt sure about the Texas Governor. He had name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What? Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President Gore was unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.
For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents, no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.
Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.
And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11 murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them.
I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all, thats where the Taliban was, thats where al-Qaida trained the killers, thats where Bin Laden was.
And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.
Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.
I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, The Project for the New American Century. Its been around since 92, and it raised alarm bells because it was based on a theory, Democratizing the Middle East and I prefer pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a radical new basis, pre-emptive war. Any time we do something without historical precedent I get nervous.
But the President shifted the argument to WMDs and the urgent threat of Iraq getting atomic weapons. The debate turned to Saddam passing nukes on to terror groups. After 9-11, the risk was too great. As the President said, The next smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud. At least thats what I thought at the time.
I grew up in New York and watched them build the World Trade Center. I worked with a guy, Frank OBrien, who put the elevators in both towers. I lost a very close friend on September 11th. 103 floor, tower one, Cantor Fitzgerald. Tim Coughlin was his name. If we had to take out Iraq to make sure something like that, or worse, never happened again, so be it. I knew the consequences. We have a soldier in our house. None of this was theoretical in my house.
But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th.
I have watched the President say the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield decisions, and the war wont be run from Washington. Yet, politics has consistently determined what the troops can and cant do on the ground and any commander who did not go along with the administration was sacked, and in some cases, maligned.
I watched and tried to justify the looting in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. I watched and tried to justify the dismantling of the entire Iraqi army. I tired to explain the complexities of building a functional new Iraqi army. I urged patience when no WMDs were found. Then the Vice President told us we were in the waning days of the insurgency. And I started wincing again. The President says we have to stay the course but what if its the wrong course?
It was the wrong course. All of it was wrong. We are not on the road to victory. Were about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear armed Iran in our wake. Bali was bombed. Madrid was bombed. London was bombed. And Bin Laden is still making tapes. Its unspeakable. The liberal media didnt create this reality, bad policy did.
Most historians believe it takes 30-50 years before we get a reasonably accurate take on a Presidents place in history. So, maybe 50 years from now Iraq will be a peaceful member of the brotherhood of nations and George W. Bush will be celebrated as a visionary genius.
But we dont live fifty years in the future. We live now. We have to make public policy decisions now. We have to live with the consequences of the votes we cast and the leaders we chose now.
After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush Ive reached the conclusion hes either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.
Presidential failures. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Warren Harding- the competition is fierce for the worst of the worst. Still, the damage this President has done is enormous. It will take decades to undo, and thats assuming we do everything right from now on. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.
And speaking of domestic embarrassments, lets talk for a minute about President Bushs domestic record. Yes, he cut taxes. But tax cuts combined with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the publics money. Were drunk at the mall with our great grandchildrens credit cards. Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?
Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to his own party to get it passed. He lied to the country about its true cost. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It helps nobody except the multinationals that lobbied for it. So much for smaller government. In fact, virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, or environmental protection, and/or workers rights.
Ive talked so often about the border issue, I wont bore you with a rehash. Its enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of working people; hes debased the work ethic itself. Jobs Americans wont do! He doesnt believe in the sovereign borders of the country hes sworn to protect and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The Presidents January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me. I couldnt and didnt vote for him in 2004. And Im glad I didnt.
Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, skyrocketing gas prices, shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open borders, contempt for the opinion of the American people, the war on science, media manipulation, faith based initives, a cavalier attitude toward fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any Americans lifetime.
You can make a case that Abraham Lincoln did what he had to do, the public be damned. If you roll the dice on your gut and youre right, history remembers you well. But, when your gut led you from one business failure to another, when your gut told you to trade Sammy Sosa to the Cubs, and you use the same gut to send our sons and daughters to fight and die in a distraction from the real war on terror, then history will and should be unapologetic in its condemnation.
None of this, by the way, should be interpreted as an endorsement of the opposition party. The Democrats are equally bankrupt. This is the second crime of our age. Again, historically speaking, its times like these when America needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. It requires it. It doesnt work without one. Like the high and low tides keep the oceans alive, a healthy, positive opposition offers a path back to the center where all healthy societies live.
Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything. In fairness, I dont believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq. Unfortunately, I dont know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. And thats one of the many problems with the Democrats.
The two party system has always been clumsy and imperfect, but it has only collapsed once, in the 1850s, and the result was civil war.
I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the brink of a second collapsed. Its currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and pots and pots and pots of money.
Were being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of media manipulation and fund raising. Theyve learned the lessons of Watergate and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain. They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.
This is painful to say, and Im sure for many of you, painful to read. But its impossible to heal the country until were willing to acknowledge the truth no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies.
With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken, its almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask?
It may be decades before we have the full picture of how paranoid and contemptuous this administration has been. And I am open to the possibility that Im all wet about everything Ive just said. But Im putting it out there, because I have to call it as I see it, and this is how I see it today. I dont say any of this lightly. Ive thought about this for months and months. But eventually, the weight of evidence takes on a gravitational force of its own.
I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I dont believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means were on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and its rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.
So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesnt generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldnt be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point whose buying the act?
Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while hes down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.
You were right, I was wrong.
Nonsense. You Whiners were screaming the same thing about Reagan in 1986 you say about Bush now. Funny how you ALL forget the trash talk your threw are Reagan all during the 1980s to claim him as your God now. Fools and Frauds, not a real Conservative in the Whine All The Time Choir
So which Democrat Part Campaign group do you work for?
Judges, Judges Judges. You lose DNC "Virtual Campaigner". So go spew the DNC's wacko talking points elesewhere. No one is fooled by psuedo "Conservative" who spend all their time on Freeper spewing Democrat Party propaganda.
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=1627512%2C27
Republicans Shouldn't Run Away from Bush
Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | 5/3/06 | Rush Limbaugh
RUSH: There are Republicans planning to abandon George W. Bush in droves, particularly during this election year. Bush has had it, a 36%, 33% approval rating. The guy's an albatross around their neck. "We've got to get out of there! We don't want Bush doing anything but raising money for this," blah, blah, blah, blah. There's precedent for this. By the way, a couple of pollsters saying it's a bad move for the Republicans. You know, Republicans, I'll just give you some advice right now. All of you Republicans in Congress -- including you, Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snowe and all the rest of them, McCain -- you want to win reelection in this year, if you're up?
You want the Republicans to hold the House? Unify behind George W. Bush. Just do it. Just do it. Don't try to please moderate or Democrat voters by showing your independence. Just go out there and unify and support the president on a number of issues that you can. Fred Barnes, who at the time was a senior editor of the New Republic, posted a piece in the LA Times December 9th, 1986, Ronald Reagan's sixth year. Conservatives in '86 were abandoning Reagan, the most important conservative in the history of the movement in America.
"A dozen or so conservative leaders met privately at a Washington hotel last week to discuss the future of their political movement. Edward Feulner of the Heritage Foundation was there. So were New Right strategist Paul Weyrich, several fund-raisers, two officials of the Reagan Administration and a few Capitol Hill aides. Not surprisingly, the conversation turned to President Reagan and the Iran arms scandal. Forget Reagan, they agreed. The President's a goner, his influence shattered forever. We've got to decide how to press our agenda without him. Only William Kristol, a top official of the Department of Education, dissented, insisting that Reagan should be defended.
"Thus, the Iran scandal has achieved what Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, the 1981-82 recession and the Marines debacle in Lebanon couldn't. It has caused the disintegration of the Reagan coalition, that blend of conservatives from fundamentalist Christians to libertarians that held together as the most unified single bloc in American politics for a decade. And even if the coalition is revived on an issue or two -- aid to the Nicaraguan contras, say, or funding the Strategic Defense Initiative -- as Reagan serves out his final two years in the White House, it won't be the dominant political force anymore.
"The matter can be put quite succinctly: Without Reagan the conservatives lack a popular leader, and without the conservatives Reagan lacks a broad ideological base. Both wind up losers, and the political balance of power tilts away from them. Sure, the conservatives are still sentimentally attached to Reagan, but he's no longer the same rallying point. Worse, there's no replacement in sight. Conservatives are fragmented on who should be the Republican presidential nominee in 1988. The gravity of the split is only now dawning on Reagan and his allies. Last Tuesday, Secretary of Education William J. Bennett denounced conservatives for ingratitude and political stupidity in abandoning Reagan.
"'There is no conservative agenda without Ronald Reagan,' Bennett said. 'He is the man who made whatever good has happened to this Administration happen, and people should be mindful of that.' Patrick J. Buchanan, the White House communications director, is even more blunt. 'There's an old saying that the major failing of American conservatives is they don't retrieve their wounded,' he said. 'Now's the time you take an inventory of your friends.' Not too many friends are turning up, however. Human Events, the weekly conservative publication that Reagan reads faithfully, has only half-heartedly defended him on the Iran arms deal.
"Linda Chavez, a White House aide until last winter, published a column in the Washington Post denouncing Lt. Col. Oliver North, the ousted National Security Council official blamed for diverting profits from the Iranian arms sales to the contras; she said that he was not a 'true conservative.' Bennett, who got Chavez her first job in the Administration, was so mad about this that he quickly spread the word that he was sorry he'd ever sponsored her. Why are conservatives so wary of supporting Reagan in his moment of greatest need?
"'Nobody believes in the issue, giving arms to Iran,' says Allan Ryskind, the editor of Human Events. 'Nobody's persuaded by the arguments. And while conservatives love the contras, they think that aiding them has now been jeopardized.' (Military aid was only narrowly approved by Congress this year, and the scandal over diverted funds makes renewal of aid less than likely.) Another source of wariness by most conservatives was the firing of North. 'Was North scapegoated or did he deserve to be fired?' asks Jeffrey Bell, an adviser to Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.). 'Until conservatives know that, they'll be on hold. They love North.' And though many conservatives may be inclined to stand with Reagan, they're unsure where to do that. With new revelations in the Iran scandal occurring daily, 'they don't know what ground to stand on,' says Bell.
"Complains Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus: 'The nature of the issue keeps changing.' Finally, there are conservatives like Phillips who always regarded Reagan as too moderate for their taste. 'We wish the best for him, but we're going to focus more on the 1988 presidential race than on helping his cause,' Phillips says. 'Reagan has turned over the substance of policy to people in fundamental disagreement with the policies he's rhetorically espoused.' Phillips is resistant to lobbying. His friend Buchanan pleaded with him over dinner last Wednesday to come to the President's defense. Afterwards, Phillips went on ABC-TV's 'Nightline' and trashed Reagan."
Is it not interesting? It seems like history is repeating. Now, I know Bush is no Reagan (don't misunderstand) in the sense of leading a movement, and I've been the first to say this. But what's interesting is they just want to abandon him, and I'll tell you, there is something in here that's really true: Conservatives do not retrieve their "wounded" from the battlefield; they abandon them. There is so much -- especially more so today than ever before, there's so much -- competition out there. Conservatism has gotten so big; it has so many people who want to claim to be the leader, claim to be the definers, that if anybody takes a hit, they're happy to let them fade away because of the competition.
You know, conservatives do have competitors within the ranks. When the competitors bite the bullet, bite the dust, they're only too willing to let them, some of them them are, just fade away. There is not a whole lot of public defense, including of the president. Now, it's true the president is not defending himself, either. But I'll tell you something, I remember this period. I was working in Sacramento at the time, and I was wondering during this whole Iran Contra stuff, where's Reagan? He was being trashed every day in the media. "Where's Reagan? Why didn't he get up there and answer this stuff?"
Some people were saying, "Because he can't! Because he can't. Because it's true," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They say the same thing about Bush. "Why doesn't he go out there and defend himself?" Well Bush's answer is he doesn't care. He's got his job to do and he doesn't think it's PR spin. It's the same thing with Cheney. Cheney's got a piece coming out in Vanity Fair, I guess, or an interview with him, and they ask him (summarized): "What about your horrible public image?" He said, "I'm not in the public image business. I guess I could improve it if I went out there and tried to improve it, but that's not what my job is. My job is not public spin. My job is not my public image," and so it's amazing, these parallels.
Yet when Ronald Reagan died, all these people who abandoned him (those still around) were muscling trying to get in the front row, trying to make sure they were all over the place to be seen as loyal, never-wavering supporters. The '86 midterm elections, you know, these defections, and people who said, "We can't run with Reagan! Why, Reagan is destroying us." There's always been this tendency on the conservative side to, when there's trouble, split the scene and run away -- and, you know, Reagan did some things to irritate conservatives. While he cut taxes he also raised them at times. You know, abandoning Lebanon after the Marine barracks was hit, that wasn't popular with people. But look how time changes things. When you go back and you look at the totality of a period of time, I don't remember during the funeral week of Ronald Reagan, other than his son and maybe a couple Democrats, but even they were pretty quiet. I don't remember any of these conservatives stepping forward to remind everybody how effectiveless and worthless and pointless the last two or three years of Reagan's term were, do you?
END TRANSCRIPT
Jesus Doug, what bug crawled up McIntyre's arse?
I don't know what happened to him, Bob. The border issue has him really angry (as we all are), but this seems to have carried over to the war in Iraq.
You are absolutely correct, my friend.
I was livid about our defacto open borders policy under Clinton too, (and before that) and even wrote several articles (am a newspaper reporter) about it using much info garnered by Federation for Immigration Reform.
As I remember, my lib editor and me had several scathing arguments because she attempted, and succeeded, to cut out many of the opinions posed by people who fear we are being overrun by what in essence are the dregs of ...
I remember her saying, "You can't let people say that. We can't print thaaaaat," whenever someone I quoted would raise the question of the possibility that illegal immigrants would create crime, wage, and health problems.
Anyway, I had always lived on the belief President GWB, when push came to shove, would NOT allow the floodgates to continue.
Alas, I was deceived.
Suggestion: Don't post if someone from the WH hasn't faxed it to you.
I'm with you here but throw in some Savage. Has Rick Roberts ever been doing the nasties toward the illegals. It's wonderful.
Yipes, a face made for radio. Who is this guy and why should we care about what he has to say, exactly?
"In 2000, I was a McCain guy."
All you need to know about the judgment of the author, this sentence sums it up perfectly.
---
Yet in 2008, were things to go as the MSM so wishes it to, we all may have to reevaluate our ownselves and see if we too are now..
"McCain folks".
Life just ain't fair. ;-)
Hey, if I want to vote for a "mentally-ill-American", I have a plethora of 'Rats to choose from.
Oh, he voted for Bush the first time around. He was on the air 5 hours a night throughout the 2000 election crisis. He was an overnight open book.
Maybe it's time for a serious third party. How about The Coservative Party? They have one in New York State. It does pretty well.
"...You should take this article, roll it up real tight, and stick it up your *ss..."
Why would you attack the FReeper who started the thread for posting a publicly-available article authored by a liberal posing as a conservative who hosts the "McIntyre in the Morning" show on 790 KABC - AM radio? It seems like a very angry response to a longtime FReeper who is simply sharing the message.
If anything, it provides a warning for when we might listen to this Doug McIntyre dimwit while driving our cars.
~ Blue Jays ~
You are right, it made me very angry. Why would anyone post a flaming DU quality article like this?
I can read this crap on Daily Kos anytime I want. This thread should have been zotted, and I don't care who posted it.
If there had been a "barf alert" it would have been different.
My tendency is to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who has been posting here for seven years if they forgot a [BARF WARNING] in the title. Heck, I determined it was barfworthy within the first couple of sentences.
My point is that I prefer to keep abreast of what the vile lefties are doing...even if they're people like Doug McIntyre and cleverly disguised as a conservative most of the time.
It appears the account for FReeper TBD has been suspended...so I'm sure he'll get the message loud n' clear to add sufficient editorial comment and the proper BARF warnings next time around.
~ Blue Jays ~
This guy had ample opportunity to add a barf alert and didn't.
To keep up with morons, I go to moron sites.
There seems to be a lot of trolls nowadays that signed up early, I figure he/she was one of them.
This was just a cheap shot intended to continue the conservative divide and insult GWB.
I stand by my earlier comments. Sorry if I offended you, but I hope I offended him/her.
No offense taken! :-)
~ Blue Jays ~
No problem...good to talk to you.
It's funny that he says "Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers?"
Truman had the lowest approval rating of any president (22%) since approval ratings have been measured. It just goes to show you that you need to have some perspective to know a great president.
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