This guy's a total leftist, with surprisingly an intellectually honest bone in his body. (Albeit tongue-in-cheek with the obligatory Bush bashing)
ping
In another week, the left will be accusing Karl Rove of masterminding the leak of the tapes.
That's what they always do when an attepmted attack on Bush backfires. :)
Alas, this poor innocent has never met the sleazy likes of Pelosi, Reid, Waters, Dean and Kennedy. They certainly will find all the necessary meaning in W's tapes and inform us of what he really meant.
This would be interesting.
Absolutely, a very rare find. An ounce of honesty amoung a liberal. If Bush came out with a plan to feed the hungry, liberals would cry out that it is just a scheme to payoff Bush's 'Big Food' buddies.
Besides a trail of dead bodies including a previously trusted friend?
Some people just don't get it. After Podunk U. beats Notre Dame in basketball, you always hear how the Podunkers "over-achieved" and "played out of their minds", etc. etc.
You never heat the sportscasters or the prognosticators say "I GUESS OUR EXPECTATIONS WERE JUST PLAIN WRONG !"
Maybe the tapes weren't done in secret. The oped below is really interesting. Maybe the NY Slimes got roped a doped again by President Bush:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/02/are-we-sure-wead-tapes-were-recorded.html
Althouse
Politics and the aversion to politics, law and law school, high and low culture, and the way things look from Madison, Wisconsin.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Are we sure the Wead tapes were recorded secretly?
The NYT reports that Doug Wead secretly recorded private conversations he had with George Bush back when Bush was planning his run for the presidency:
Mr. Wead said he recorded the conversations because he viewed Mr. Bush as a historic figure, but he said he knew that the president might regard his actions as a betrayal. As the author of a new book about presidential childhoods, Mr. Wead could benefit from any publicity, but he said that was not a motive in disclosing the tapes.
"Might"? But of course it would be a flat-out betrayal to make secret recordings of a conversation with someone who came to you as an old friend and sought advice, as Bush purportedly did with the man he called "Weadie" or "Weadnik."
The NYT puts the story of the tapes on its front page, and the first few sentences hint that there may be some juicy morsels in the tapes. But:
The private Mr. Bush sounds remarkably similar in many ways to the public President Bush. Many of the taped comments foreshadow aspects of his presidency, including his opposition to both anti-gay language and recognizing same-sex marriage, his skepticism about the United Nations, his sense of moral purpose and his focus on cultivating conservative Christian voters.
The similarity between the private Bush and the public Bush is so great, in fact, that I suspect the Times is being taken for a ride and Bush actually knew he was being taped:
When Mr. Wead warned him that "power corrupts," for example, Mr. Bush told him not to worry: "I have got a great wife. And I read the Bible daily. The Bible is pretty good about keeping your ego in check."
Bush comes across as a remarkably consistent, morally grounded man. Look at the material about gay rights:
Mr. Bush appeared most worried that Christian conservatives would object to his determination not to criticize gay people. "I think he wants me to attack homosexuals," Mr. Bush said after meeting James Robison, a prominent evangelical minister in Texas.
But Mr. Bush said he did not intend to change his position. He said he told Mr. Robison: "Look, James, I got to tell you two things right off the bat. One, I'm not going to kick gays, because I'm a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?"
Later, he read aloud an aide's report from a convention of the Christian Coalition, a conservative political group: "This crowd uses gays as the enemy. It's hard to distinguish between fear of the homosexual political agenda and fear of homosexuality, however."
"This is an issue I have been trying to downplay," Mr. Bush said. "I think it is bad for Republicans to be kicking gays."
Told that one conservative supporter was saying Mr. Bush had pledged not to hire gay people, Mr. Bush said sharply: "No, what I said was, I wouldn't fire gays."
As early as 1998, however, Mr. Bush had already identified one gay-rights issue where he found common ground with conservative Christians: same-sex marriage. "Gay marriage, I am against that. Special rights, I am against that," Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead, five years before a Massachusetts court brought the issue to national attention.
If the tapes are what they purport to be, respect for Bush should grow. But how do we know Bush and his friend didn't stage the tapes? The Times tells us "The White House did not dispute the authenticity of the tapes or respond to their contents." Did the White House confirm the tapes were made secretly? That they were made at the time they are said to have been made?
The New York Times hired Tom Owen, an expert on audio authentication, to examine samples from the tapes. He concluded the voice was that of the president.
Well, good. But how did the Times convince itself that the tapes were made secretly? To me, they seem too good to be truly confidential conversations with an old friend.
From a president who has coined (and I use this word as disdainfully as possible) words such as "misunderestimate," "Hispanically," and "the Internets" in rehearsed stump speeches and - Heaven help us! - an actual presidential debate,OK, little college junior journalism student, why don't you actually grow up a little and get a job and some real world experience before you presume to disdain the president. You remind me of the little 12 year-old girl that the dems trotted out and thought it was so cute to see her reprimand the VP for his choice of words directed toward a reprehensible senator.
Freedom of speech means that you have the right to express yourself. Responsibility and maturity involves recognizing when you do and do not have the life experience that establishes your credibility to make an authoritative statement about something.
(Note - my comment is directed to the smarmy little author of the column and not to the Freeper "Flightdeck")
All it means is that he has a heart. In 15 years, he'll have a brain.
The only prt I really have interest in commenting on is this-
The disaster that conservatives crossed fingers in hopes of avoiding never came
I never crossed my fingers. I know my President. I voted largely for him in 2000 on basis of Character and Faith. He makes mistakes but he has a good soul. That is not subject to Doubt, at least in my case.
ping
This sounds remarkably like what you said on ATRW, post 51, slightly paraphrased, of course. You're famous! Sort of.
Bush Tapes Not a Precursor to Armageddon
(FR mentioned)Excerpt:The disaster that conservatives crossed fingers in hopes of avoiding never came, much to the chagrin of the circle-and-slash W. crowd. One relieved Free Republic
bloggerposter put it best: "Thank God... [Bush] is what he is, has been and will always be: himself."
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.
He started with the premise that Bush supporters, when first learning there were secret tapes of Bush conversations, feared what would be on them.
I can honestly say I never did. Learning what they contained only showed my lack of concern was well placed. The only umbrage I took was Wead's deceit, which he proceeded to compound by issuing his various lies about why he taped and what the plans for their use was.
" Just imagine the incrimination that would come from nine hours of off-the-cuff, "private" recordings between Clinton and a trusted friend. "
Jesse Jackson was Clinton's spiritual advisor after Monica.
Imagine if Jesse had secretly taped Clinton.
And offered them to the NYT- I bet their existence would never have seen the light of day.
Which would probably be a good thing, as even a triple XXX rating would't have been a sufficient warning.
"I don't know who the Freeper is who is quoted."
Actually, he was quoting me and last time I checked I was still a "she." Perhaps he felt the name "Virginia Queen" implied I was another type of queen.
Possibly a liberal, rather than a leftist - meaning there's hope for him. I thought the piece was fairly well written and extremely positive, albeit the truth is couched in leftyspekk so the target audience will understand his points.
When I meet people who, out of sincere conviction (usually religious) believe homosexuality is sinful and that public policy ought to be deployed to prevent this sinful behavior, I disagree with them, but understand that this sort of deep moral disagreement rooted in faith is a part of life.
When you see someone who knows perfectly well that the view he's adopted for political purposes is wrong, but who adopts it anyway out of cyncial thirst for power, well, then, that's just totally disgusting.
