[Remember the Trade Center!!]
(4/24/03)
Posted on 04/25/2003 4:30:01 AM PDT by Chairman_December_19th_Society
We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail!
Good morning!! Do not let the victims of the attacks on New York and Washington, nor the brave members of our Nation's military who have given their lives to protect our freedom, die in vain!!
The BBC has criticized American networks for their "Gung Ho" coverage of the War Against Iraq.
The World Health Organization travel restrictions to certain areas - Canada, Vietnam, and Hong Kong - are likely to be eased over the next few weeks. The reason, according to a senior WHO official, is the world will learn "to live with the [SARS] virus."
Meanwhile, Communist Party officials still say the SARS caseload in Shanghai is still a "state secret."
For AMERICA - The Right Way, I remain yours in the Cause, the Chairman.
He is very secure in his decision making ability, in his advisors, in his instincts, in the love of his wife and family and in his GOD, and that drives his detractors crazy!
Excellent program, and you are quite right in reminding everyone about Common Tator's critique of Brokaw.
What struck me the most is that President Bush didn't seem at all tongue-tied. He is obviously conversant on a wide variety of topics, and able to explain them in plain speech.
I am more than ever convinced that the WMD sites will be located, along with the evidence. There isn't a bit of doubt, listening to the president.
My hope is that the announcement will be made about the time that Kerry, Edwards, and Dean are all whining about how we were duped into going to war. HA!
The Left reacts to him like vampires to a crucifix. It is amazing and quite revealing.
Look at all the quagmire comments. Two days later, the statue of Saddam was pulled down.
The President meant that there were weapons of mass destruction, and we will find them. He wasn't making it up or being a dupe. But the democrats are going to harp on this like there really is some doubt. They are obsessed with attacking on everything, you know.
You watch...it will happen as I said. I think God has a sense of humor and likes to help things along from time to time. Perhaps it is because President Bush is a joyful Christian.
Right after September 11 I noticed the appearance of references to stories long forgotten by most of the nation. In their struggle to describe the President and the War on Terror, reporters and columnists needed something grander than what they usually use. Because a few reporters were either lit majors or had a background in history, I suddenly began to see references to characters like Roland, St. George, King Arthur, Prince Hal.
I found it curious that reporters like Howard Fineman (who called him "our youthful St. George in a greying helmet") would describe a man they really didn't like or trust in this manner, even if they had approved of his actions right after 9/11.
God sometimes moves in mysterious ways. I took these references, suddenly appearing in mundane publications, as a sign that we are involved in something more important than simply muddling through a bad patch in our history. For some reason I honestly feel that great changes are in the wind, and that "the angel still rides the whirlwind and directs the storm."
We are in a time when people must choose between good and evil. One look at Hollywood tells you tht there are going to be manny who choose unwisely.
The object was to give the Majority leaders job to Frist. Frist was to perform superbly and be in line to take the presidential nomination in 2008.
The problem with that is when Bush showed no loyalty to Lott, none of the RINO Senators figured they owed Bush or Frist any loyalty. Since the RINOs told the DINOs what they were going to do, none of the DINOs have crossed the isle for Bush and Frist either. The DINOs figure their is nothing to be gained by supporting Bush. Let the implications of that sink in for a moment. It will tell you the magnitude of Bush's self induced Senate problem. Bush's judicial appointments are dead on arrival. Bush's economic plan is what ever the Democrats want to give him. If the economy does not improve, I do expect Bush will be re-elected. But he will only be as effective in his second term as Clinton was in his. Frist will be branded a failure and will have less chance to be president in 2008 than Bob Dole had in 1996.
You say the president can go around the Senate to the people but that makes no sense. If the Senate does not pass his programs those programs will not happen. Bush and Frist will not get Snowe, Chaffee or Voinovich to change their votes. They will get no DINO's. The RINOs and DINOs will vote against conservative judges and other conservative bills as well. The media will love Republicans that defy Bush. That is a powerful aphrodisiac to Voinovich and the rest. A 100 percent presidential approval rating will not change Tom Daschle's vote. It will not change Voinovich, Snowe or Chaffe's votes either. And with out them the Bush programs are dead in the water.
If the economy does not bounce back, and without a big tax cut how can it, the only possible conclusion is the conservative agenda was sacrificed in a successful effort to take down Trent Lott. It gained Bush nothing and cost him a Lott.
Don't bet the farm that before 2008 Frist will be voted out as Republican Senate leader. Sixty Republican senators in 2004 will not be enough to get the Bush plans passed. Rove can win elections.. but he will not get Bush's agenda passed. He can not keep the Bush administration from becoming domestically irrelevant.
I repeat ... trashing Trent Lott was the dumbest political move make by a president in my lifetime. Frist can not even garner the votes to stop a filibuster so the democrats don't even have to filibuster. Lott got all the Republicans and 15 Democrats in a lame duck session last year to confirm Strom Thurman's assistant to the appeals court. Under Lott is was the Democrats who were folding. Now under Frist it is the Republicans who are folding. Lott was still only Minority leader when he garnered all the Rinos and 15 Democrats. Frist as Majority leader has yet to get a single DINO vote and has failed on every occasion to even get RINO votes. How many liberals like Souter will appointed to the Supreme Court because that is all Bush and Frist can get confirmed? How big a Senate failure will it take before you agree that I am right?
And I agree with you that the downside of his removal is the empowerment of Daschle, that it took from the DINOs all reason to cooperate with the Republicans.
I note that you agree with me that the President will win in '04 regardless of what happens in the Senate. The question, then, as you say, is what happens to his agenda.
The President is getting little more in the Senate now than he did during his first Congress, when Daschle controlled it. With the Republican majority he ought be getting far more in this, his second, Congress.
Missing in your dymanic is that the Democrats were limited by Clinton, and they were limited in their two-year hold of the Senate. Just the same, minority parties are freed of the responsibility of power. You noted that Lott got Thurman's assistant to the appeals court. He did it as Minority, not Majority Leader.
The greater dynamic in this is the party split. Lott was an effective ML under an opposition President. He was an effective Minority Leader under a friendly President. I am not convinced that he would be an effective ML under a friendly President. Obviously, his President was unhappy with his leadership. His loss cannot be blamed on Bush alone. He played an equal role to Bush in his own expulsion.
Frist is thus far a bust. He caved on the filibuster and he's caved on the tax cut. I never understood that he was being positioned for '08, as you say. I don't think Rove and Co. would ever lay their bets on a Senator for '08. I think they're playing for a certain Governor from FLA, instead.
I don't agree that this was, as you say, "the dumbest political move make by a president in [your] lifetime." As we discovered on this thread, Lott played his hand too early. He changed Conference rules months before to ensure his selection as ML. That did not sit well with his caucus. He got away with it, until the President stepped in, taking advantage of Lott's weakness. By then, Lott was lost.
The worst case was that Lott would resign and thereby give the Senate back to Daschle. That did not happen. That alone was a huge Bush victory. We cannot know what would have been had Lott stayed put, and the President backed him. You will say that Lott would have gotten the President's agenda through. I'm not so sure. While Bush has lost the DINOs and the RINOs, he has kept the core Republicans, whom Lott had already lost. That may have been a greater disaster than to have lost the RINOs.
It happened to Taft in 1909/1911. Taft tossed the RINOs. In exchange he kept the Republican party, which he would have lost had he played to the RINOs. It salvaged his agenda, which made it into law to a degree far above most presidents. You'll have to read my book on this before you can agree with me... but it was so.
We are still seeing the effect of the power vacuum from Lott's removal. As with all coups, there is a period of instability. We are in it now. It's too early to say how this will play out. I don't see any more Souters. I see an Estrada confirmation, and several Bush appointments of strong conservatives to the Scotus, including Chief Justice. If it does not come now, it will most certainly come in '05.
You raise an interesting point of whether a 2nd termer can run things. 2nd termers have mostly had a hard time. Grant tanked. TR tanked. LBJ tanked. Reagan, domestically, tanked. Ike did pretty well. Washington, Monroe, and Lincoln (in his sole month) kicked ass. History is mixed on this. Bush has the advantage of not having his mandate clear until his second term. His mandate will be enormous in '05. That was my reference to his playing outside the Senate.
What Trent Lott said was that Strom Thurman would have made a better president than Harry Truman on racial matters. I know we would not have had the riots and killings if Strom Thurman had been president. Had Strom Thurman been president in the 50's he would not have hid under the table while white leadership on race relations fell to Racist Democrats like Orval Faubus and George Wallace. The first southern senator to hire black staffers in important positions was Strom Thurman. For forty five years in the senate Strom Thurman hired on the basis of abiltiy and NOT RACE. Strom Thurman complied with the courts decisions on race in his own life, while IKE and Kennedy ignored it. LBJ stirred it into a crisis of major proportions. Strom would have solved the race problems in the Ssouth as he did in his own staff... by demanding compliance with the law and setting an example. It is very difficult to get older blacks in South Carolina to say anything bad about Strom Thurman. He was a real friend to blacks and they knew it.
Do you know which two Southern Senators hold the records for getting the highest percentage of BLACK votes in any Senate election? They are Strom Thurman and Trent Lott. Lott in the 2000 election got over 4 times as many black votes in Mississippi as George Dubya Bush did.
The vote totals tell you that Mississippi blacks think Lott is on their side and that Bush is not. YOu can say that Trent Lott and Strom Thurman are racist. But the black voters in South Carolina and Mississippi say otherwise.
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