Posted on 07/18/2005 5:56:31 AM PDT by goldstategop
But the drive for party unity has always carried costs too, and they seem to be growing in Bush's second term.
By asking so few tough questions of Rove and DeLay congressional Republicans may be increasing their vulnerability to Democratic charges that the GOP is abusing its unified control over government to protect its own.
"They really have become so arrogant that they don't think the rules apply to them," Democratic consultant Joe Lockhart says an argument likely to headline many campaigns by Democrats next year.
The emphasis on party cohesion also constricts Bush's maneuverability on issues. Bush and Rove have achieved such overwhelming agreement in part by advancing an agenda that, on most major decisions, responds to the demands of the GOP's hard-core supporters. But in pursuing such an ideologically aggressive course, Republicans risk antagonizing more moderate voters....
For the Republican Congress, this year's trends are more ominous. In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released last week, the approval rating for Congress fell to 28%, with 55% disapproving. Numbers just a bit lower were the last poll figures congressional Democrats saw before the GOP's 1994 tidal wave swept them from the majority in the House and Senate.
Bush and congressional Republicans face a fundamental choice on how to rebuild toward the 2006 election. One approach would pursue more deals with Democrats to court moderate voters who recoil from partisan conflict. The other would detonate sharp ideological disputes in the hope of generating a big conservative-base turnout to overwhelm discontent in the center.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Joe Lockhart said that? Man.
You know, it's not the Constitution that the RATS believe is a living document but the Yiddish dictionary because they keep updating the definition of chutzpah.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Who ever reads that Rag paper must be a few bricks shy of having a full load.
Yeah, all three of them.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Hey Joe...just which administration had SO many "Special Prosecutors", you need a scorecard and numbered jerseys to keep them straight...which Admin was impeached for LYING to a Grand Jury...which admin ELEVATED the "politics of personal destruction" to a whole new level?! Which admin had the presstitutes lapping up the lies and marveling at how WELL the President and his shills lied and spun them?
Pot...kettle...black!
'Nuff said!
Brownstein is an idiot. Living in his la-la land cocoon he fails to judge correctly the importance of two issues: Which is the more powerful, Karl Rove or the Democrat's anti-war, anti-military cant?
It just drives the left nuts that principled people stand firm ... which of course, is "arrogance" to those who are thoroughly frustrated that we will not yield. Remember, these are the people who subscribe to the belief that it's not the evidence that's important, it's the seriousness of the charge.
Apparently, Judith Miller went to jail to protect one or more of the following choices: (take your choice)
Sources Judith Miller is protecting by going to jail:
1. Karl Rove
2. Dick Cheney
3. Colin Powell
4. Haliburton
5. Tom Delay
6. GW
7. Laura Bush and her twin daughters
8. Bush's Doggie
9. _____________ (Fill in the blank with any Republican!)
10. All of the above
11. None of the above. Miller is protecting her real sources, Plame/Wilson and Plame's last CIA boss, Foley.
Yeah, right. And the Democrats REALLY asked all the tough questions of Clinton and his unethical cronies. Lockhart's comments are laughable.
Let the delusional left believes their stupid polls as they did in 2000, 2002, and 2004 and assume they are going to win. Man, arent we lucky we have such idiots as our political opponents.
Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's cover?
It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.
Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:
He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.
Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.
Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.
I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.
However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair.
A highly relevant corroborating account is David Corn's at the Nation, who wrote about Valerie Plame the day after he met with Joe Wilson.
No need to read any further than that to get your laugh for the week. Joe "The Sneer" Lockhart accusing others of arrogance? That's like Ted Kennedy denouncing Abu Grahbe soldiers for using threats of drowning! Oh, wait, he did that...
Oh, damn, who do I sue for my sides hurting so much?
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