Posted on 01/30/2004 9:06:40 PM PST by Pokey78
Exactly!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1065774/posts "Republican lawmakers who generally back President Bush are not backing him on immigration. In fact, they want their leaders to know they have "serious concerns" about President Bush's proposed immigration policy. In a letter addressed to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and several other members of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus said they won't go along with the president's plan because it "does not address the problem appropriately." "In fact, in our view, it will further exacerbate the problem and create discontent amongst the Republican Party," the letter said." "
"I should mention the obvious fact that the political assasination of Dean has the Clinton's fingerprints all over the knife."
I liked the way Howlin boiled it all down to a nut shell, wherein 3 factions are fighting for control of the Democratic party:
Dean = Al Gore
Clark = The Clintons
Kerry = Ted Kennedy
Yep, for the sociopath won't be able to keep his mouth shut and fade away as he should. This is the BEST political asset Dubya has going for him in his endeavors to be reelected.
I was being sarcastic.
The way I see it, you can trade on your heroism politically within a narrow margin.
If you were a hero and supported the effort, that's your stand. If you were a hero and were against the war, that's your stand.
You can't have it both ways. And sooner or later people are going to wonder what you can do for them besides remind them what you did 30 years ago- even if you aren't so sure yourself.
For Democrats, this is likely to mean a sophisticated, predictable, low-risk national campaign, somewhat analogous to Bob Dole's 1996 challenge of President Clinton. A Kerry nomination is precisely the kind of result aimed for by Democratic chairman Terry McAuliffe in his drive to front-load the primaries, assuring an early nominee who will have plenty of time to unify the party. In a bonus for McAuliffe, the prospective nominee opted out of his federal matching-funds subsidy, exempting him from the anachronistically low fundraising limits assigned to nomination fights. The Kerry campaign is free to spend as much as it can raise between now and the party convention.Two possibilities -- the first is that the Dean campaign will now surge back, because Kerry doesn't interest most Democrats, bringing about a convention fight (which is the scenario I'd prefer, quite frankly). Dean supporters have an inexplicable devotion to their shallow hero's alleged positions on things.
What most infuriates Howard Dean about John Kerry is the latter's tendency to alternate between the two possible answers to such seemingly binary questions as President Bush's invasion of Iraq. Dean, like Kerry's other opponents, has watched helplessly as the front-runner alternately takes hawkish and dovish stances, depending on the headlines of the week.Yeah, right, because Dean never does that.
It marks the defeat of Howard Dean's antiwar, left-populist rebellion by the quintessential candidate of the Democratic establishment.Them's fightin' words for the Dean supporters, and also for the lifelong Democretins -- how dare you tell us what we're thinking?!?
For President Bush and his political team, the strategic landscape has become far simpler. Fallen by the wayside are such divergent scenarios as a centrist New Democrat trying to pick off a few of the red states, an anti-political man on horseback, an Old Left protectionist appeal to the agricultural and industrial heartland, and (within a very short time, we believe) a '60s-style challenge to America's role in the world.The only weakness in the Bush-Cheney ticket is Cheney. His health has been an issue right along. Obviously no one seems to much care, but it's apparently a carefully calculated false target, like the moving cape for the bull.
Stupid comment.
His reelection is by no means a certainty.
They'll stay home and pout...
I NEED EVIDENCE...
Then the President wins re-election by a very comfortable margin.
WASHINGTON - President Bush came to office saying he was a fiscal conservative, but federal spending has skyrocketed on his watch.
Overall spending is up at least 16 percent since he took office, far more than the 2 percent average annual inflation rate over the same period. According to one recent analysis, the government now spends $20,000 a year for every household in the United States, the most since World War II.
Today, Bush will usher in another big, new spending program, signing Medicare legislation that creates a prescription-drug benefit for senior citizens at an estimated cost of $400 billion over the next 10 years.
"Spending is up across the board," said Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research center. "In the past year and a half, we've had the biggest education bill in history, we've had the biggest farm bill in history, and now we're about to have the biggest expansion of the Great Society."
Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan budget watchdog group, said Bush had joined with the Republican-led Congress in "a huge explosion of spending."
"The Bush administration hasn't done anything to control spending," he said. "He hasn't vetoed a single [spending] bill as he contributes to the expansion of entitlement programs."
Spending on homeland security, an issue that drew little attention before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, increased by 85 percent last year with the creation of the Homeland Security Department. Even so, it cost only $41 billion in a federal budget of $2.1 trillion - about 2 percent of federal spending.
Bush's record is a big disappointment to conservatives, who share his stated goal of a leaner federal government. "President Bush has yet to meet a spending bill he doesn't like," the Wall Street Journal complained in a recent editorial denouncing what it called "the GOP's spending spree."
An analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian research center, branded Bush "the Mother of All Big Spenders" and compared him unfavorably to Clinton. By Cato's accounting, after adjusting for inflation, nondefense spending decreased 0.7 percent during Clinton's first three years in office while it increased nearly 21 percent during the comparable period under Bush.
The Heritage Foundation, usually a White House ally, found that 55 percent of the spending increases since Bush took office had nothing to do with defense or homeland security. The Heritage analysis also concluded that spending had reached $20,000 per household.
In some cases, Bush pushed for spending increases. For example, federal spending on education, a top presidential priority, has increased 65 percent under Bush.
On other issues, Bush accepted spending increases backed by Congress for popular programs. To the dismay of some conservatives, he signed a six-year, $249 billion farm bill last year that abandoned efforts to roll back agriculture subsidies.
Many Democrats contend that the problem is not excessive government spending, it's Bush's tax cuts. As spending was rising, tax reductions reduced Treasury revenues and were responsible for about one-third of this year's deficit, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan watchdog group. Deficit hawks say Bush has not matched his spending policies with his tax policies. {my note: After Bush expands the federal government and produces a massive deficit/debt, the Dims will solve the problemn by raising taxes when they come to power again}
Riedl, the Heritage budget expert, faults the President for failing to push harder for spending restraint.
"Congress must hold the line on unnecessary spending," he said during a September visit to Kansas City, Mo. "They need to understand that in order to cut the deficits in half, we must have spending discipline in Washington, D.C., and I will insist upon spending discipline." {my note: yeah, right. And if you believe that, I have a bridge near San Francisco to sell you.}
Contact reporter Ron Hutcheson at 202-383-6101 or rhutcheson@krwashington.com. © 2003 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.philly.com
So tell me, exactly when is Bush going to start behaving like a (fiscal) a Conservative? Seems to me he has been backing socialist policies since day one. I rest my case.
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