So you think George W. Bush is not a conservative?

SOTU transcript ^ | 1/22/04

[gatorbait]

Well, Yes, I have manifold reasons for supporting the President, most of which have been laid out for you,multi syllabic words and all. Frankly,you continue to prove to me you have the attention span of a fruit fly and political savvy of a brick.I shan't further attempt to get through your paranoid and close minded ranting. By all means, join with the rest of the unappeasables whose lives seem to wrapped in making themselves as miserable and marginal as is humanly possible.Have a nice life,Osama.

[skip2myloo]

I appreciate the pragmatic answer.

But, if Dubya's Education bill is a learning experience for the liberals, it sure is a costly lesson for the taxpayer - and, as you say, it is a circuitous path.

[gatorbait]

Your entire repertoire for people who don't toe the party line is derision and belittlement. That doesn't exactly make you an Einstein.

Addressing your last comment first, I'd bet I'm light years closer to the good doctor than you can count to,let alone aspire to. The former statement is laughable and indicates you are a typical thin skinned , narrowly focused zealot. Now, enjoy your misery with your fellow tinfoilers and keep a sharp eye out for those black helicopters, okay?

[skip2myloo]

For the life of me, I just don't understand their agenda.

There's got to be more to it than courting the vote of the Rainbow Coalition, it just can't be that simple.

Having said that, its obvious that part of the Dems long term strategy has been to build a majority where none exists.

When they court the Hispanics, and the blacks, and the immigrants, those who need welfare and the gays, gather them together and tell them lies that the GOP hates them, then they build a consensus where there is none.

The Dems create an issue where there is none. Lumped all together these folks represent a bloc of maybe 50% of the country.

The GOP needs to put the light of truth on this liberal lie, call a spade a shovel and get these folks thinking straight.

conservatives, more than any other political group, genuinely want success for everyone.

[skip2myloo]

"So maybe no Democrat is going to be able to make an end run and snag an important voting bloc this year."

I sure hope you're right.

As conservatives, we are unabashedly idealistic about how government should work – we believe, during their tenures, regardless of administration or personal political persuasions, all politicians, judges and public bureaucrats should take seriously their oaths to support and defend the letter of the Constitution and to uphold the rule of law.

Instead, the practical side of politics demands we contend with these political machines with goals that seem to have little to do with the long term benefit of our country.

Its disgusting. But I guess, as that communist Walter Cronkite says, 'that's the way it is.'

[honeygrl]

TSR: "Your entire repertoire for people who don't toe the party line is derision and belittlement."

gaterbait: "The former statement is laughable and indicates you are a typical thin skinned , narrowly focused zealot. Now, enjoy your misery with your fellow tinfoilers and keep a sharp eye out for those black helicopters, okay?"

Well gatorbait, you have just proven TSR's statement.

[George W. Bush]

Simple, he was and remains, a blatant liar and a full fledged lunatic. I know you must burst with pride thinking about Perot's handiwork

I never voted for or supported Perot. I was interested when he first ran, before he ducked out because he claimed those nasty Republican 'tricksters' tried to fake lesbo pictures of his daughter to ruin her wedding. Completely embarassing to him, his daughter, the country. Think abou it. And then he tried to weasel back in. And that running mate he chose... One embarassment after the next, all accompanied with those giant pie charts and his huge ears flapping in the wind of his own hot air.

No, I was not a Perot supporter.

[George W. Bush]

Hardly a ringing endorsement for the AWB,and,frankly,it was a very subtle way of dodging overwhelming bad press and kept the militia idiots off the front page as well. Secondly,we had some idiots on this forum bragging about knocking out a couple of Senators, notably Slade Gorton of Washington,who was pro 2a.

Ok. Promising to renew truly bad and stupid and ineffective (and unconstitutional) legislation as a political tactic is a Good Thing. Dumb ol' moi.

Your next statement about how FReepers were knocking off Senators sounds loony. I'll admit, I didn't find the Slade threads interesting and didn't read them regularly. But I don't recall anything that could be credibly described as 'bragging about knocking [him or others] out'.

But you apparently think that Bush is reading FR. You are aware that I'm not that George W. Bush, aren't you? Oh, and the other one doesn't come here under a false name either.

[RightWinger]

Let Dubya be what he is, a moderate.
If he walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, he's a moderate.
He doesn't have to be ashamed of being a moderate, let him speak out and be proud of it!
It only ticks off Conservatives more when he tries to claim he's a Conservative.

[George W. Bush]

Thousands of posts? I was reading FR at the time and I believe you are, at best, mistaken.

I truthfully would not be surprised if it was tens of thousands of such posts (posts, not threads). That was a slow time of year for me and I was on FR all the time, wanting news.

It seemed every tenth post on the subject was a nuke-'em post for a while there. I understand the anger but you just don't advocate such indiscriminate use of nukes.

I guess I don't know how I could prove how many such posts there were though. FR's search capability would be unlikely to retrieve enough evidence. I assume that this is a software feature, not a bug since Unix systems are all equipped with excellent textual search components. They bristle with them actually (grep, awk, etc.). And those nuker posts are examples of the kinds of posts you can't compile evidence about easily. The Team is pretty shrewd on this.

I guess neither one of us can produce evidence on those threads one way or the other. And I haven't ever written a program to worm FR's threads and create my own search engine. You're probably aware, though, that this is how some of our content gets found and posted and that some people run, um, helper applications inside their browsers. I don't think anyone has created a true search engine either because obviously it would be detected by management and you'd probably get banned.

So I guess I'm stuck with saying that I still find it incredible that you could have missed that many nuke-the-raghead posts here.

---

Aha! I just took a shot in the dark and searched for 'nuke'. Toward the bottom, I found this thread:

Where's the "Nuke Mecca" crowd today??

If challenged enough, I could probably be motivated to find a way to compile or present quite a lot of replicable textual evidence. But why don't you read this one first and then tell me again there weren't many nuker posts.

[skip2myloo]

Somewhere on this thread, back about a 1,000 posts or so, somebody said the Dems had a simple mantra - Anybody but Bush, and they mean it. My personal mantra is anybody but a Dem, ANY Dem.

As usual, this election is going to boil down to two candidates, one from each major party - no one else has a chance of winning - that's just the plain old unblemished truth.

The Dems candidate will be either Dean or Kerry. Dean is nuts. Kerry is a lying sack of bananas who will say, or do, anything that, at the margin, might gain him just one more misguided vote. He's told so many lies, he doesn't even understand the concept of truth - his brain and his vocal cords aren't even connected. Plus he's been drinking liberal-flavored kool-aid for so long, he actually believes he's a genetic mutation of King Midas squeezing the Golden Goose taxpayer and Robin Hood redistributing wealth to the huddled masses yearning to be free.

In '92, we allowed Perot, Buchanan and others to dilute our votes and we ended up with Clinton/Rodham/Gore for 8 years.

In '00 is was a damn tight race, and if it weren't for Nader, Algore would be "leading" us in the war on terror (NOT). Algore won the popular vote by 500,000 - thank God for the Electoral College.

Even so, if it weren't for a margin of just a few hundred votes in Florida, and the SCOTUS - we'd still be reaping the benefits of SoreLoserman.

Now, I know how upset some folks are (and I'm one of them) that Bush is running off the reservation with CFR, Amnesty, spending on liberal schemes, Globalization, FTAA, and the Patriot Act plus a few more. I'm outraged too.

But, I believe the country can survive, maybe even thrive - on 4 more years of Bush.

C'mon, candidly you've got to admit, Bush has, in fact, done a lot of things we conservatives can admire.

In its current fragile condition, I'm absolutely certain our country cannot endure either a Kerry or Dean administration, not even for a single day.

Or how about Edwards, would anybody like to have a known greedy trial lawyer running the country ?? Not me !!

Back when I was just a little kid, my grandmother was adamant that I take a spoonful of cod liver oil everyday. Anybody here ever had any of that stuff ?? It is AWFUL.

Like that horrible Kevin Costner movie - there was no way out, I either took it, or grandma beat the bejesus out of me. It all boiled down to one rather practical choice. Even though quite odious, I'd literally hold my nose and swallow as quickly as I could, just to end the misery. To this day, I'm convinced it didn't do me one damn bit of good - but, I don't think it did me any harm either.

We all appreciate how principled some of you are on this issue, and we admire your strong convictions, we really do. And, you certainly have every right to vote your conscience for a candidate who more closely adheres to your conservative ideology, a Libertarian, or a Constitutionalist. Some folks will even vote for Lyndon LaRouche.

No matter the strength of your conviction, nor the depth of your principles, nor your disgust with Bush and political chicanery in general - A THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE WILL NOT WIN.

And while you consider that reality, never forget those scum-sucking bottom-feeding liberal Democrats, they're ALL gonna be unified for one purpose, to kick Bush out of the White house.

So, you don't vote, or throw away your vote on someone who has no chance of winning - come 10 November and you're standing there in the ruin and ashes, just how will you feel about Kerry/Dean/Edwards/Clark becoming your next President ??

I know, I can hear it now - "serves Bush right, he should've listened to us,"

I got news for you, it won't hurt Dubya one bit to lose. He's filthy rich, he's just gonna go to Crawford, or Houston or Kennebunkport, or wherever Brahman Bush's go to hang out and enjoy his status as an elder statesmen, traveling around the world saying "I told you so." He'll still be invited to Bilderburg Group meetings and he'll be sitting next to Kissinger developing the Third Way (just kidding).

You and I, and the whole country, will be the ones who are the losers. Yup, Dubya ain't perfect; but, he ain't a maniac loony liberal like Dean; and, he ain't a Hanoi-Jane loving, French-looking UN-kissing lying communist like Kerry; and, he ain't no greedy bottom-feeding Breck-girl trial lawyer like Edwards; and, he ain't no disgraced lying incompetent general who was so bad that even the pervert-in-chief Xlinton was forced to fire him. Take your choice.

Now maybe, Hitlery will get drafted at the Dem Convention - and you think you might be able to tolerate her. Go for it.

So far, its still a free country - vote for whoever you will.

But as for me, based on what I know today - I'm gonna vote for Dubya. He isn't my ideal candidate, but he's a whole lot better than anybody else who is running that stands a snowball's chance of winning -- and I'm gonna do my best to see that he does.

And, I'm gonna work on replacing my RINO congresscritter while I'm at it.

Good luck.

[George W. Bush]

There is no line in the document barring military action sans declaration of war. There is nothing requiring a declaration of war. The only regulation is that Congress holds the power to pass one.

I really begin to think you're ignorant. I don't mean merely uninformed.

The Constitution confers ennumerated responsibilities and prohibitions upon central government power.

The only war authority the federal government is granted by the constitution is for Congress to declare war. And where the constitution is silent, the government is forbidden. All unenumerated powers are reserved to the states or to the people, an article of the Bill of Rights.

Now, the president is authorized to act as commander in chief. Under the Founders' ideas, this was to act in the event of border raids by Indian nations or by the French or British at various times. However, a federal army (inasmuch as they even imagined such a thing) can only operate on initial provision and then the Congress is supposed to declare war or tell the president to bring them home. In this way, the president is free to take us to war, to ward off attack, resist the Barbary pirates and the British and the French and those damned Canadians and yet the ability to wage a protracted war under federal authority still remains in the collective grasp of the people through their congressman.

Like it or not, that is what our government is authorized to do. And no more. The Vietnam police action is a perfect example of the stupidity that can follow when we let a president wage an executive war and Congress is allowed to evade its responsibility in voting the war either up or down and to be answerable to the voters for it.

Did you maybe fail civics?

For your edification, Congress did implement the War Powers Act which deals with this matter legislatively in some detail, all in accord with the Constitution.

The War Powers Act of 1973

Read section 5b. It's paragraph-sized. You can do it.

[George W. Bush]

It only ticks off Conservatives more when he tries to claim he's a Conservative.

That really is true. ; )

[Texasforever]

The only war authority the federal government is granted by the constitution is for Congress to declare war. And where the constitution is silent, the government is forbidden.

And you call others ignorant. The constitution vests the POWER to declare war in Congress. It does NOT REQUIRE congress to use that power or in what manner it is to be exercised NOR does it provide a boilerplate declaration of war to be used. The Congress gave the president it's authorization via the Iraq war resolution to take all means necessary, including war, to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Before you call others "ignorant" you may want to stop proving your own ignorance on a multitude of subjects including this one..

[George W. Bush]

And, I'm gonna work on replacing my RINO congresscritter while I'm at it.

I've tried this on my RINO. Mission Impossible. Now I hear he's going to come home and run for governor!

It sucks.

I guess on the upside, I don't have to write to DeLay and to conservative congressmen that they need to save us all from the liberal weirdness of my congress-RINO and to place him only on the most harmless and powerless committees, never listen to him because he is a big liberal pinko.

What's funny is that they'll actually call you up and talk to you if you toss 'em some red meat. Those staffers are a hoot. So if you can't eject your RINO, try to spay and neuter him through appeals to the conservative leadership and offer them some dirt and hard info on him.

[skip2myloo]

Trying to replace them does get discouraging after awhile - I've been trying for 10 years.

He's so useless, he was one of the RINOs who voted against Newt as Speaker, that's what got me started.

He's so good at running down both sides of the fence simultaneously, in '02 not only was he unopposed by any other Republicans, the Democrats couldn't even find anybody who would run against him.

Frankly, I don't know what committees he sits on anymore, but he brings home lots of federal pork - he's loved almost universally in this district.

With the White house, Senate and House all in the hands of the GOP, he has shifted some to the right, but he still makes me sick.

[George W. Bush]

The Congress gave the president it's authorization via the Iraq war resolution to take all means necessary, including war, to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Before you call others "ignorant" you may want to stop proving your own ignorance on a multitude of subjects including this one.

What are you raving about? I said, very very plainly, and I think more than once, that Bush entirely fulfilled his constitutional duties in the authorization of war. I have offered no criticism. In fact, no objection to his conduct in this regard can exist if you understand the law and the Constitution. Even the normally cowardly Congress didn't abdicate their duty this time or dump it on the executive branch.

You really can't see anything other than a love-Bush or hate-Bush thing, can you? In your mind, all political opinion is actually a binary state machine. And the object of your fixation is Bush. Constitution, rule of law, Bill of Rights, just screw 'em all. President Bush is the political center of your universe, actually may be your entire political universe. Tell me, is it really only because he's from Texas?

And I thought the Flat-Earthers had died out. But thank God for the Texans in DeLay's office.

[Republican Wildcat]

My comment was until you can prove I said all those things shut your mouth. Ranting on about what you THINK I said as opposed to what I've said is not proving that I've said them.

LOL.

[George W. Bush]

Sounds like a very slick operator. My RINO is probably the most famous and popular person in the history of my state. A pinko who masquerades as a conservative. No one actually believes it. They just vote for him anyway. So my RINO is basically immune to voter retaliation too.

I count it a victory that he can't even get a hearing for his pet legislative fetish and is planted on the least harmful committees. Sidelined.

If you're determined, you can divert them if you can't stop them. One of the best things you can do is dig up the local dirt and provide documentary evidence on them (their statements in the papers, newspaper stories about them, any court appearances, personal info and peccadillos, stupid gaffes, anything that indicates they are not representative of their district or are liberal weasels). The evidence needs to be in the form of broadcast transcripts by time/date/source or dated newspaper articles (original or reprint). This way, your Whip has some real leverage against him.

You need to recall, we're dealing with complete political bastards on every hand at this level of government. Just pass the ammo to a motivated shooter.

These tactics should only be used if you're certain he'll only stab you in the back and will never change.

Sometimes, I feel sorry for DeLay, trying to figure out where to deploy these RINOs on committees where they'll do the least damage, what conservatives to place with them on committee to keep them from saying stupid things or voting with the Dims or at least try to cancel their votes.

Tom DeLay is my Congress-hero. Even more than Gingrich was which is saying a lot. But I still like Ron Paul and the Liberty Caucus very very much. If only that useless creature who pretends to represent me could be enticed into joining the Liberty Caucus...

[George W. Bush]

You and I, and the whole country, will be the ones who are the losers. Yup, Dubya ain't perfect; but, he ain't a maniac loony liberal like Dean; and, he ain't a Hanoi-Jane loving, French-looking UN-kissing lying communist like Kerry; and, he ain't no greedy bottom-feeding Breck-girl trial lawyer like Edwards; and, he ain't no disgraced lying incompetent general who was so bad that even the pervert-in-chief Xlinton was forced to fire him. Take your choice.

Nicely written. As good an argument for sticking with Bush as anything on this very long thread. Classic FR stuff.