Posted on 05/20/2006 5:11:47 PM PDT by gwb43_2004
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Maybe there are a lot more good people than you think there are (I think there are).
Perhaps, if you can't find true friends, YOU are the problem.
Howzzat? I think Pombo has been doing a *great* job as head of the natural resources committee.
Who would you replace him with and why?
Cheating on a spouse doesn't necessarily make someone a dreadful person. That's my main point, really.
Short of murder, that is about as low as you can go. Just for information what are your morals with regards to marriage?
For me it was a gradual process.
Signing the CFR and lack of response in immediately securing the borders after 911 set some doubts in the air.
Then there was the bankruptcy bill viewed as a failure to hold the line against that human condition which knows no boundary, greed. Although there are many irresponsible people, they are always with us and there will always be those that prey upon their foolishness and weaknesses. Creditors and money lenders creat the problem of those that are overextended, the debt laden. The Bible set the standard of forgiveness of 7 years whereas George W. Bush allowed the greed of money lenders to begin reestablishing the road to debtor prisons, in whatever form they will be reconstructed.
And there then was the formation of the Tax Reform Commission in which the President deferred all policy development with minimal direction. Although minimal direction may have seemed appropriate, the developed product was so poor that the Commission should have been shut down in the first quarterly review after its launch or in the alternative it should have had more of the Conservative stamp on it since it was after all a Conservative agenda item.
Then there was a strange silence, unwillingness to use the bully pulpit over the Kelo decision whereby senior citizens who wished nothing more than to live out their days in their homes would be forceably removed from their homes by a ruthless group of private interests that bribed their way forward using a mockery of eminent domain.
And then there was the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. A strange nomination that the Administration could not explain other than perhaps Laura Bush wanted a female justice.
And then there were the disparaging remarks made through the press to the Swift Boat Veterans and later to the Minutemen in the same tone.
And all along the way there were insults to the American laborers that Mexicans would do the jobs they did not want to do and that carried over to insulting those who waited in line after applying to legally immigrate to America.
And Conservatives have all along given the benefit of the doubt to the President. Perhaps no longer.
Still we will not attack or abandon the President. We will remain unified. The House still echos the Conservative principles that we all share, and we must do all we can to retain the House and make it more Conservative.
I am abroad. What do you need to know? I spent four years in Korea and a year so far in Italy. What's up? What is your experience? I also have lived in Panama for two years? What's up? What is your deal? You are yelling at everyone? Where have you lived that you can say these lines? Please let us know. Everyone is holding their breath.
I said the same thing, UNTIL GWB began to push this suicidal third world open borders amnesty baloney on the country.
In fact I was so enamored of President Bush in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 that I would get into a heated debate at the drop of an insult against him. (I quite two jobs cause I couldn't stand listening to the Bush-hating whacko libs who worked there)
I doorknocked for Bush/Cheney 2000 and 2004. I donated. I called radio shows. I wrote editorials. I loved the man.
NOW, I see Bush only as a pathetic failed man who, via his flawed and assinine devotion to revolutionary type masses in the Central American Hispanic world, Bush is on a mission to send the demographic makeup of America into the toilet.
And for that, you and other blind spotters expect good hard working Americans to stand up and salute.
Personally, I plan to fight this invasion all the way. I refuse to have my kids, grandkids, and great grandkids fighting to speak English, fighting to retain good neighborhoods free from MS13 type gangs.
I refuse to support a suicidal plan that would grant such enormous power to one group, one that has already expressed it animosity toward prosperous Americans with European anscestry.
If you dont believe me, please explain the chants and the hatred expressed at those demonstrations across the country several weeks ago.
Why do you think these Central and South American countries have all gone Socialist/Communist in the past few years. BECAUSE THEY ARE FILLED with anarchist type social revolutionaries, the same people who are flooding across our southern border by the millions each year.
In several years, THEY will have the political power, and on that day America will descend into civil war, I;m afraid.
And for that, you expect me to salute. Puhleeze.
I am sick to my stomach over this.
These situations are nowhere close to murder, by the way. Check your moral scale again, it might be broken.
See morals are what each individual decides. I would not vote for a person who committed murder just the same as someone who cheated on their wife. Period. However, I do not pick my friends like that. I would be friends with someone who did cheat, but I don't have to trust them with a nuclear bomb. I think that is a huge difference.
The straw that broke the last of my trust--when he warned us Neanderthals to be "civil" to the punks waving the Mexican flag just before the big protest, and then he takes off for a Cancun honeymoon with Vicente.
And there wasn't anything left when I found out he'd been trying to intimidate the Minutemen by sharing intel with Mexico about their activities.
Worsened by the dministration sending Gillespie and Laura Bush out to insult us as sexist elites.
And, yet, we tried to put that behind us. Remember we switched to promoting Alito then helped boost his approval numbers when he made his round of war speeches leading up to Christmas. Then, he stopped. Again. Fast forward a few months and we have a President attacking oil companies, giving Liberal speeches on addiction to oil, and takng a Liberal position on our borders while we're in the midst of a war and practicing "compassionate liberalism" while attacking the people that have kept him afloat for six years. At a certain point enough is enough. I'm tired of Ted kennedy, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Vicente Foxe, the majority of the black community that belives he blew up levies, and practically everyone that NEVER supported him being treated with more respect then those that got him there. If he does this out of Christian principle, fine, but while Jesus may have loved his enemies he also loved those that were loyal to him. Those that were his friends, and genuinely cared about him.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
Worth reviewing that history for those that have forgotton.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!)
LOL
Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
Agreed with this. Parties corrupt. They compromise. Movements need to be devote firstly to ideals, and candidates should be promoted on the basis of their philosophies not the letter by their name.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer. As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
About sums up my feelings right now.
Living in Southern California I couldn't get any closer if I tried.
I am mostly on your side and agreement with you. The only difference might be that we might be in that drastic position now. Perhaps not, but it just seems to be.
That's pretty much what I said. I usually discount anything that the NY Times or the Washington Post publish about Republicans, because it is always meant to be destructive, to divide and conquer the enemy.
But in this case, Bush has already done the dividing, in spades. I said as much in commenting on Bush's immigration speech on that thread. He simply doesn't seem to understand how much damage he is doing to himself and whatever it is--country, party, donors--he thinks he represents.
I have tried to suggest that those who are friends to Bush needed to get the message across to him that he is only damaging himself. In the Miers nomination, for instance, those who blindly supported the nomination only made things worse.
At this point, however, it looks as if Bush simply cannot be helped out with friendly advice any longer. It's just gone on too long. Like Viguerie, I have also noticed that since the 2004 election, Bush has hardly done anything right. Maybe it really is because he figures he doesn't need his base any longer. If so, that is truly stupid. The left will oppose him, come hell or high water. Without the right, he is losing all political support.
And it's not just Bush. Our Senators and Congresscritters are just as bad, with a few honorable exceptions.
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