Posted on 03/08/2006 7:08:13 AM PST by beeler
If the ancient political wisdom is correct that a charge unanswered is a charge agreed to, the Bush White House pleaded guilty yesterday at the Cato Institute to some extraordinary allegations.
"We did ask a few members of the Bush economic team to come," explained David Boaz, the think tank's executive vice president, as he moderated a discussion between two prominent conservatives about President Bush. "We didn't get that."
Now why would the administration pass up such an invitation?
Well, it could have been because of the first speaker, former Reagan aide Bruce Bartlett. Author of the new book "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," Bartlett called the administration "unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."
It might also have had something to do with speaker No. 2, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan. Author of the forthcoming "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It; How to Get It Back," Sullivan called Bush "reckless" and "a socialist," and accused him of betraying "almost every principle conservatism has ever stood for."
Nor was moderator Boaz a voice of moderation. He blamed Bush for "a 48 percent increase in spending in just six years," a "federalization of public schools" and "the biggest entitlement since LBJ."
True, the small-government libertarians represented by Cato have always been the odd men out of the Bush coalition. But the standing-room-only forum yesterday, where just a single questioner offered even a tepid defense of the president, underscored some deep disillusionment among conservatives over Bush's big-spending answer to Medicare and Hurricane Katrina, his vast claims of executive power, and his handling of postwar Iraq.
Bartlett, who lost his job at the free-market National Center for Policy Analysis because of his book, said that if conservatives were honest, more would join his complaint.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
High conservative turnout in recent elections was driven in part by conservative social issues on the ballot most notably bans on gay marriage. That issue is largely spent and I am not hearing of any similar initiative movement this year that will bring out the conservative base. I suspect the problem is that the conservatives won't go anywhere. They will just stay home. It only takes a few to not show up.
Personally I will be at the polls doing my part to punish any Wyoming Republican who votes for anything resembling a Guest Worker Shamnesty.
Actually, I believe they were referring to the legal axiom 'silence is implied consent'.
Well then let me take the 1st shot.
Um, wha? You're not trying to compare Bush to Reagan, are you? That would be funny...
Ronald Reagan once said that he did not leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party left him. However, he still had a major party to his right to move to.
If the GOP continues to tell conservatives to pound sand because there is no major party to the right of the GOP, and conservatives continue to accept that, then they will become like black voters within the Dems - voters who pull the levers no matter how often the national party sells out their core issues.
So unless the GOP decides to curtail spending and make a serious effort to address illegal immigration, among other matters, the only real solution is to start to threaten the GOP with first staying home in 2006, and then forming a new party in 2008 if they don't get the message in 2006.
I chaired our precinct caucuses in our very conservative town for the fourth time now, and witnessed a complete collapse of support for the GOP. Our attendance went from about 50 participants eight years ago, 80 in 2000 and last night...we had only five. Count'em five attendees. And we were supposed to pick approximately 25 delegates. Everyone who did show up was a rock-ribbed conservative. And all felt that it was a result of widespread disgruntlement with the administration's and Congressional betrayals on national security issues such as borders and ports and industry, plus governmental excess, spending and trade deficits, etc. No more trust. The blank check has been burned up.
Check this WND editorial out:
Dubya's last stand
By Joseph Farah, Posted: March 8, 2006
WorldNetDaily.com
Lame duck George W. Bush obviously has no care for how his party performs in the 2008 presidential election.
But he has a little more time to consider his own fate in the 2006 mid-term congressional elections.
Oh, it won't make any difference whether Republicans or Democrats are elected this fall to the rest of us. After all, with Republicans in charge of Congress and the White House for the last six years, spending has increased way beyond anything we imagined during President Clinton's eight years in office.
Republicans have also shown that they don't really care more about national security than their Democratic opponents. Just look at our still-unguarded borders and reflect on the plan to turn over port operations to the Islamists in the United Arab Emirates.
So, as far as I am concerned, I don't have a dog in this race. Republicans have so badly mangled any opportunity they had to show the American people a distinction between the two parties that I'm at the point where I wish for a plague on both their houses.
But Bush should care.
Why?
Because his legacy is at stake.
In fact, his presidency is at stake.
I'm going to make a prediction, and I don't think I'm out on a limb on this one.
If the Democrats win the House and Senate this fall – which appears to be a distinct possibility with Bush's 38 percent approval rating – then Bush will be impeached in 2007.
I don't know what the grounds will be. Take your pick. The Democrats will find something – or invent something.
They will take revenge on the Republicans for the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
There is not a doubt in my mind. And, unlike the Republicans, if the Democrats control the Senate, Bush is no longer a lame duck – he's a dead duck.
And I for one won't lift a finger to defend him – even against charges that may be as bogus as a Jimmy Carter dollar bill.
While the Democrats will impeach Bush for the wrong reasons, I can't deny that in a righteous country that honored and lived up to its Constitution, Bush would surely deserve to be impeached.
In essence, he has been something we haven't seen in American politics for a long time – a kind of absentee president.
His failure to exercise a single veto in six years in office is perhaps the gravest indictment of his lack of leadership.
I'll never forget the first time I ever met George W. Bush. He was speaking to a relatively small but friendly crowd when he was asked a softball question: "Governor Bush, what will you do as president if a clearly unconstitutional bill arrives on your desk?"
Bush's unbelievable response was: "How will I know if it's unconstitutional?"
That was it for me. I vowed not to vote for Bush in 2000, even though he was running against a man I truly feared and have described as a fool and a demagogue – Al Gore. I couldn't bring myself to vote for Bush over Gore, even though I had personally been harassed and persecuted by the White House during his reign as vice president. I couldn't bring myself to vote for Bush in 2000, even though I knew his opponent to be a cheap crook.
Yet, some astute observers attributed Bush's victory over Gore to the latter's failure to win his home state of Tennessee, where an 18-part WND investigative series on his corrupt antics was widely reprinted and reported and talked about on radio shows. While Gore was clearly unworthy of the White House, I take little pride today in any role our expose played in benefiting Bush – despite the fact that the series resulted in a $165 million lawsuit against my own company – one we are still battling six years later.
If anyone were truly hoping to be proved wrong about George W. Bush, it was me.
Unfortunately, my initial assessment was right.
And while I did endorse him in 2004, it was strictly out of sympathy with the Swiftboat Vets and their righteous and successful bid to deny John Kerry, a traitor to his country, the White House. I make no apologies about that decision.
Bush's success has largely been due to the total unworthiness and unfitness of his opponents.
Unless he miraculously changes his governing style in the next six months and wins back the American people, he had better hope they are not up to the task of impeaching him. Because that is what's coming if the Democrats win big in November – as it appears they will.
PS: I know that you are either trolls, or third party voters, and did not vote for President Bush.
Are you crying over what Bush did in the Supreme Court?
I see you are young
It explains a lot
Do you stand by this statement all the way till elections day?
I voted for BUSH Twice and I resent being called a TROLL!!!
Are you saying that the supreme court is the only reason I should remain a party line republican????
I voted for Bush in 2000 but for the Constitution Party in 2004. After the first 4 years I knew Bush was lying when he claimed to be a conservative. As for the war, if it is not serious enough that we would bother to secure our borders, then it is a joke. Illegal immigrants are killing more Americans and inflicting more financial harm on taxpayers then the Islamic terrorists.
I hate to tell you and others in this thread this...well, no I don't.
CATO is not a conservative think tank.
It is a LIBERTARIAN think tank.
LIBERTARIANS are not conservative and are NOT the Majority...much as they wish it were so.
Their featured speakers are Bartlett and Sullivan.
If ever a group wanted to harm itself, inviting Andrew Sullivan to be a featured speaker is one way to do it.
Schmuck.
Upon seeing that...I instantly disregarded this. No wonder the WaPo ran this story. Just another hit piece on Bush.
Joseph Farah has been always wrong in every single political prediction and analysis he has made. Joseph Farah is the equivalent of the liberal pundits and analysts who never get it right anytime. Joseph Farah has been always a Bush Hater and a Bush Basher. He is a Buchanananite type conservative who is bitter and wrong all the time. I am glad that Joseph Farah and the Buchannaite have been kicked out long time ago form the Republican Party or left on their own the, if they were still with us we would be losing one election after another as the democrats have been suffering from under the control of their left wing hateful kooks.
By the time silly GOP apologists get done discarding every conservative organization that critizes the presently ridiculous party line, the DU might well be the largest supporter of the liberal infested GOP.
I'm no Libertarian but they seem to me now to be much more conservative than the GOP.
"Read my lips, no-new-borrowing!"
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