Back for four years, more powerful than ever. Who's calling Bush an idiot now?

The Times (U.K.) ^ | 01/17/05 | Tim Hames

[dirtboy]

Who's calling Bush an idiot now?

The usual idiots.

[Theresawithanh]

"A contemporary politician remarked: “His speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea; sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought and bear it triumphantly a prisoner in their midst, until it died of servitude and overwork.” Hmm, sounds a lot like JK, doesn't it?

"...embark on the (usually fruitless) attempt to shape their own legacy" Now the author is describing Clinton!

[livius]

Sounds to me like even the usual idiots are having second thoughts. I even saw a positive AP article about Bush today!

[syriacus]

“His speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea; sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought and bear it triumphantly a prisoner in their midst, until it died of servitude and overwork.”

Sounds like my thoughts about

WJC's 1993 Inaugural Beee-Esss (Address).

I heard some of it on C-Span early today.

[vpintheak]

Well the problem with the left is they want it both ways. First George Bush is a blundering idiot who couln't run a car, and the next he is the evil warmongering dictator trying to runt he world. No core values, and constsant feel-good moral relativism makes them all a bunch of flip-flopping idiots in my book.

[Libloather]

He might legitimately stand up and state in five blunt words: “I own this town now” and then...

...read off his short list of judges...

...and then sit down again.

[marblehead17]

ping

[Southack]

"After that, the collective attention of American politics will turn to the mid-term elections of 2006 and from there to the identity of Mr Bush’s successor. That obsession will be intense because for the first time since 1952 neither the sitting President nor his Vice-President will be nominated for the Oval Office. Dick Cheney will be the first Vice-President to a two-term president to disavow completely a bid for the top slot since Thomas R. Marshall, who served under Woodrow Wilson, Harding’s predecessor."

For the moment, our success is masking a forthcoming problem. We currently control the House, Senate, Presidency, most state governorships, and most state legislatures. Moreover, we *will* gain a few additional Senate (due to cycles and demograpics) and House seats (due to our edge in earlier redistricting, retiring incumbents, etc.) in 2006.

By all appearances, we will be successfully advancing our Right Wing power. Sadly, these very real advances will continue to mask our problem for 2008.

And unless we successfully address that problem *now*, we're either going to be faced with nominating a moderate or liberal Republican for President in 2008, or else we will end up nominating a Barry Goldwater style conservative who will get crushed in the general Presidential election.

The problem, of course, is that we don't have a top-tier Conservative in position to run in 2008. VP Cheney, Justice Scalia, Justic Thomas, and Secretary Rumsfeld aren't going for the White House.

We have to drop down in national status to Senator Frist, Congressman DeLay, or Congressman Hastert to have a top-tier conservative running in '08...and it's only due to the Kerrick scandal that they would even be competitive in our primaries with Giuliani. Should McCain's health hold up, he'll be difficult for any of our 2nd tier conservatives to beat in the primaries...and such a win over MCCain by our 2nd-tier right wing would risk national electoral disaster in the general election....where we risk facing a very moderate Democratic Party challenge from Evan Bayh.

Can our right wing hero DeLay really beat the left's moderate hero Bayh in a national election? Could DeLay even win our Party's nomination over a McCain or Giuliani?

So from several different angles we are facing the likelihood that 2006 is our right-wing zenith. Because our Conservative A-Team is in no position (for a variety of different personal reasons) to run for the Presidency in 2008, it looks to me as though we currently will either run a big-name moderate such as McCain or Giuliani, or else we'll run a 2nd-tier national conservative name such as DeLay or Hastert who will have less electoral success against Bayh than Goldwater against LBJ.

...And in either case, that means that our right-wing gets kicked in the teeth in 2008...despite what will appear to be amazing successes for our ideology through the 2006 elections.

Consider: by 2006 we'll have voted to cap medical malpractice awards, i.e. we'll have our first major national tort reform on the law books. We'll have our Social Security system partially privatized, too. We'll have a fully functioning and deployed national missile defense system, and we'll be pushing for to repeal the entire national income tax code in favor of either a flat tax or a national sales tax.

We'll probably even have at least a national inner-city pilot program for school vouchers in place, as well. Faith-based charities will be funded.

Afghanistan will be an unchallenged success by 2006, and Iraq's fledgling democracy will make the critics of our policy there wince.

No doubt we'll have made some additional progress on banning more abortions, and we'll probably have even put in a new Conservative Supreme Court Justice or two.

In the face of all of our right-wing successes, who would dare think that we had a problem going into 2008?

Yet we do. As things stand today we are going to step *back* from our rightward shift under any reasonable Presidential scenario for 2008.

Houston, we have a problem.

[Dog Gone]

It depends on who the Democrats nominate. Sure, Bayh would be a problem, but with the Moveon.org folks running the party, it's more likely that the Democrats will choose another leftie. If it's Hillary, I suspect most any stiff could beat her. She's poison.

There may not be an obvious GOP candidate today, but I don't remember anyone mentioning Dubya's name in 1997. We'll know more in a year or so.

[tet68]

It is unlikely that he will invade any more rogue states

I wouldn't want to bet on that bub.

[WHATNEXT?]

Well, O.K.---what about Condi?

[Southack]

Hillary's beatable, but would a "moderate" end up winning our own primaries (e.g. Giuliani, McCain)?

It's more than just who the Dems nominate...it's also who can win our own primaries.

I'm concerned that we're looking at stepping back from the Right in either of two ways: losing to a Dem moderate like Bayh, or winning with a moderate Pubbie like Giuliani or McCain.

None of the above are moves to the Right of President Bush. All of the above scenarios represent a leftward step.

[Carolinamom]

The author mistakenly refers to "two years more" of Bush's term in office. Who's the dummy?

[Southack]

Condi, DeLay, and Hastert are all wonderful conservatives (presuming that Condi has shifted to pro-life now)...but in national name recognition and status, they all rank below Giuliani and McCain.

Which is to say, even if Condi or Hastert won our primary, they'd lose against a Dem "moderate" like Bayh.

For us on the right, we LOSE ground if EITHER Pubbies nominate a moderate or else Dems win with anyone.

[hinckley buzzard]

Interesting scenario. In the absence of an obvious strong conservative presidential candidate, we nevertheless will still likely have a good majority in Congress.

A "moderate" GOP Presidential candidate would not need to campaign on repealing the Bush advances. He would just need to be acceptible to enough voters, which does not mean running to the left.

If Congress ran the agenda for awhile, with a strengthened conservative majority after 2006, that would not necessarily be a bad thing. Recall what Newt achieved with a clintonoid for president.

[Dog Gone]

We're not likely to nominate a moderate unless no one more conservative mounts a serious challenge. I don't think DeLay is interested, nor is Hastert.

We're more likely to find someone from the governors' ranks, perhaps Bill Owens or Mark Sanford. Jeb Bush would be a powerful candidate if he changes his mind.

My dark horse today would be Bill Frist. If he steps up and crushes the Democrat obstructionism in the Senate in the next two years, and then does not run for re-election he could easily be the heavyweight conservative darling going into 2008.

Of course, he has to do just that and it remains to be seen whether he will.

[cake_crumb]

I've been trying to come up with a strong Republican nominee for a while now. And having a hard time coming up with a viable candidate.

Bayh isn't as much of a problem as you think. Check out his voting record. He voted against sanctioning CHina if it sells illicit WMD, against putting a cap on foreign aid and thinks defending our country is isolationism...and THAT was in 2000.

[Cicero]

I'm not that gloomy yet. But I agree that the 2008 election is ours to lose, if the Republicans don't put forward another good candidate who will bring out the base Bush has built on. We can't afford to nominate a pro-abortion RINO, or the whole thing will fall apart.

[Dane]

I think that George Allen would be a great candidate for President in 2008.