I E-MAILED THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS TO ONE OF OUR SNARKIER UBER-CON BLOGGERS . . . I ENCOURAGE YOU TO SAVE THIS POST SO THAT YOU WILL HAVE THE FACTS AND LINKS AT YOUR DISPOSAL FOR FUTURE REFERENCE!!
Dear xxxx
I've had it!. . . I've had it with conservative pundits/bloggers who take every opportunity to denigrate the President by demeaning his ability to communicate . . . Funny, I don't recall reading or hearing such snarky criticisms between 2001 and 2003/4. Has the President changed? NO! -- He remains the same plain-spoken, resolute, visionary leader he was on 9/20/01 when he delivered one of the best speeches in presidential history.
Who then has changed?. . . YOU (the 'conservative' punditry) and the rest of THE MEDIA!
Between 2001 and the beginning of 2004, the MSM permitted President Bush to FRAME his own message at least 50% of the time! The outcome: In early 2004, President Bush had a 61% job approval rating. Unfortunately for the President and the country, the MSM changed its approach during the final months of the 2004 election cycle . . . They wanted a Democrat in the White House and were willing to use any means necessary to achieve this end. Specifically, they did the unprecedented and the unthinkable: They RE-FRAMED negatively EVERY speech or comment uttered by the President and then used PUSH POLLS to reinforce this re-framing.
BECAUSE PRESIDENT BUSH IS SUCH AN EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNICATOR ON THE STUMP (as a voter in Ohio, I attended no less than 20 of his amazing 'stump' speeches), he was able to overcome the MSM's reframed messages and push polls in 2004 to win an historic re-election. Since the election, however, the MSM has intensified its 'reframing' strategy (with rightwing pundits/bloggers too frequently enabling their behavior) and now unabashedly block the President's every attempt to communicate with the American public!
For a detailed overview of the MSM's unprecedented REFRAMING/PUSH POLLING attacks on President Bush and his administration, I strongly encourage you to read the following book:
"BUSH'S WAR: MEDIA BIAS AND JUSTIFICATIONS FOR WAR IN A TERRORIST AGE (Communication, Media, and Politics)"
by Jim A. Kuypers
http://www.amazon.com/Bushs-War-Justifications-Terrorist-Communication/dp/074253653X/sr=8-1/qid=1168985398/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-2968648-8922510?ie=UTF8&s=books
And before you start using a bastardized version of President Reagan's presidency to argue that President Bush should 'pull a Reagan' by communicating OVER and AROUND the Media, I encourage you to learn the FACTS of the Reagan presidency (the good, the bad, and the ugly):
THE SIXTH YEAR SLUMP
By Noemie Emery
. . . In his second term, that film star (Ronald Reagan) also seemed the consummate fumbler, having started his presidency off in the time-honored fashion by shooting himself in both feet. He accepted the ill-advised job switch of Treasury Secretary Don Regan for the more gifted James Baker, his first term chief of staff, ending up with a chief of staff who was both crude and arrogant. A trip to honor the "boys of Pointe du Hoc" on the 40th anniversary of D-Day stood out as one of the high points of his first term; a second-term trip to a German war cemetery was a disaster, when it turned out that senior SS officers were buried there. His chief message guru was convicted of perjury. He took a bath in the 1986 midterms, losing the Senate to Demo crats. But nothing would harm him as much as the Iran-contra scandal, which reads now like an opera bouffe production, but was considered so serious when it broke just after the '86 elections that the word "impeachment" was uttered.
. . . it was really no wonder Reagan was also politically spent. "As a commanding political force, Ronald Reagan was unmade," said McManus and Mayer. "When GOP voters were asked if they would vote for Reagan again, only 40 percent said yes." Polls taken that spring showed that most voters wanted the next president to "set the nation on a new direction"--a "blunt rejection" of Reagan's agenda, and surely of Reagan himself. Yet in November 1988, Reagan's vice president beat Democrat Michael Dukakis by a seven-point margin. In November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, taking with it the Communist empire. In 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the formidable Gorbachev was a frightened man in captivity. Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas lost in a free election to a center-right party, and El Salvador stabilized. When Reagan died in 2004, he would be eulogized as the liberator of Eastern Europe and Central America, and one of the most important leaders this country has seen.
You can read the entire commentary at
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/794zveoi.asp?pg=1
RIDDLE ME THIS (ONE): If President Reagan were able to eschew the Media/Democrats by speaking directly to the American people, why did he do the following:
--sign an amnesty bill
--first cut taxes and then raise taxes multiple times
--help create the biggest deficit (as % of GDP) in American history
--empower the terrorists by withdrawing US troops from Lebanon after hundreds of our Marines were slaughtered
--'talk' the pro-life rhetoric but fail to promote or sign any pro-life legislation (in fact, he signed pro-abortion legislation during his tenure as governor)
--put two left-of-center judges on the Supreme Court (while failing to get Bork on the court)
--'talk' about reducing the size of government while actually presiding over an INCREASE in the size of government, and so on, and on
[President Bush has committed NONE of the aforementioned 'conservative sins' yet is continually lambasted by conservative purists?!]
RIDDLE ME THIS (TWO): If President Reagan were able to eschew the Media/Democrats by speaking directly to the country, why did he post sub-par job approval ratings for much of his presidency (Gallup):
1981: despite a major bump after the assassination attempt, President Reagan ended the year with a JA rating below 50%
1982: averaged a JA rating of 41% for the year
1983: after beginning the year with a JA rating of 35%, averaged 44% for the year
1984: averaged JA ratings in the low 50s yet still won re-election in a landslide
1985: averaged JA ratings in the 50s/low 60s
1986: averaged JA ratings in the low 60s until December when the Iran-Contra scandal broke -- within one month, President Reagan's JA rating dropped double digits (a record) to the mid-40s
1987: averaged JA ratings in the 40s
1988: averaged JA ratings in the 40s/low 50s . . . And even though only 40% of Republicans would have voted to re-elect him, Reagan recovered enough to help get his Vice President elected
1992: According to Gallup, President Reagan received a 47% approve/49% disapprove JA rating while Jimmy Carter received a 49.5% approve/43% disapprove -- UNBELIEVABLE!
1993: According to Gallup, 28% of Americans considered Reagan's economic policies a FAILURE
2004: President Reagan is lauded by Republicans and Democrats alike . . . now considered one of the best presidents of all time! . . . I predict the same result for President George W Bush, the most transformational president of modern times!
For more insight (and a major REALITY CHECK), please read the following commentary from COMMENTARY magazine:
IS CONSERVATISM FINISHED?
By Wilfred M. McClay
. . . We also forget that the Reagan administration itself, far from being happily unified, was driven by internal battles between “pragmatists” and “ideologues,” conflicts that prefigured many of the policy battles of the present. And we forget that, outside the administration, Reagan got plenty of grief from his own Right as well.
The querulous Richard Viguerie, for example, an influential but notably unhappy camper in those halcyon days, began hectoring the Reagan presidency almost from the beginning, complaining to the Associated Press in January 1981 that with his cabinet appointments Reagan had given conservatives “the back of his hand.” A July 1981 op-ed by Viguerie in the Washington Post, entitled “For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over,” was thoughtfully timed less than four months after the President had nearly been killed by an assassin’s bullet. By December 1987, Viguerie was declaring that Reagan had actually “changed sides” and was “now allied with his former adversaries, the liberals, the Democrats, and the Soviets.” A year later, in the final months of his presidency, when it was clear to all that Reagan had fundamentally changed the terms of debate in American politics, Viguerie announced that, thanks to his tenure in office, “the conservative movement is directionless.”
It is especially pertinent to recall such statements when one opens Viguerie’s current book, a catalog of Bush-administration horrors whose pages are replete with inspirational Reagan quotations and the highest praise for Reagan and his appointees. For a movement that claims to rest upon long perspectives and deep cultural sources, American conservatism can be remarkably short-sighted, impatient, brittle, fractious, and downright petulant. Indeed, conservatism has been found by its adherents to have “cracked up” or “lost its soul” more times than are worth counting in the years since 1980 (at least as many times as America has “lost its innocence”).
You can read this entire MUST READ commentary at
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/cm/main/viewArticle.aip?id=10812&page=all
Again, STOP the snarky, historically inaccurate criticisms and START supporting our Commander in Chief during this critical time in our nation's history!
xxxxxxx
great letter Deb
thanks for sharing
Very well said. Your research is impeccable, Deb. Keep holding their feet to the fire! The president needs many more advocates as passionate as you!
Thanks, Deb!
Glad I stopped back in before going to bed. :)
What a great resource of TRUTH you have provided!
Neither one were perfect and yes some mistakes were made
But when his is finally told .. President Bush will also be ranked as one of our best Presidents
I also want to say .. though I think it's wrong the media slams and attacks against President Bush .. I can at least understand why they do it
They are majority liberal and hate anything Conservative
What I can not understand is the pundits on OUR side .. if you criticize them .. they call you a koolaide drinker
I am sick of that BS .. so off goes my radio and TV
If I want to listen to that kind of BS .. I'd turn on Chris Matthews show
WOO-HOO for you, Deb! Way to go, girlfriend!!!
Just awesome! I'm glad you sent that info about Richard Viguerie and that load of hypocrisy!!
I have no illusions that Rush will pay any attention to anything I send him. I simply turned him off, and will let his station know why.
You are terrific!