Posted on 07/08/2007 9:19:07 AM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Let's say you're a Republican president, a bit more than midway through your second term. You're scrambling to salvage what you can of a deeply unpopular war, you're facing a line of subpoenas from Democrats in Congress and your poll ratings are in the basement. What do you do?
You estrange the very Republicans whose backing you need the most.
That's precisely what President Bush has managed to accomplish during the two big political developments of recent weeks: the commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence and the defeat of comprehensive immigration reform. But the president's problems with the GOP base go beyond those awkward headlines. Republicans aren't mad at Bush for the same reasons that Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the devotees of MoveOn.org are; there's no new anti-Bush consensus among left and right. No, conservatives are unhappy because the president allied himself with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) over an immigration deal that leaned too far toward amnesty for illegal immigrants. They're unhappy because Bush has shown little interest in fiscal responsibility and limited government. And they're unhappy, above all, because he hasn't won the war in Iraq.
All of this has left Republicans saying, at least among themselves, something blunt and devastating: It's over.
"Bush fatigue has set in," declares one plugged-in GOP activist.
"We're ready for a new president," says a former state Republican Party official in the South.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yep, plenty of jilted GWB supporters out here. Bushfatigued.
The author is off on the Scooter Libby commutation. But he’s dead on about the illegal alien amnesty fiasco, perhaps the biggest blunder of the Bush Presidency.
The author could have also mentioned the Dubai Ports debacle, which was Bush’s first major alienation of the conservative base.
I’m wondering if The Washington Post published similar stories about the way Clinton managed to turn Congress over to the Pubs after nearly 40 years of Dem control. My bet would be “no”.
Que lastima...
bush stepped (crushed) all of his constituents when he pushed for that immigration reform bill and thank God it failed.
Deport those illegal aliens and stop trying to creat an underclass slave labor!
The author’s point is that we wanted Bush to pardon Scooter completely, not partially.
It would be one thing if you used up your political capital on issues which your base supported, but which might be more closely divided on a national basis. An example of this would be making the tax cuts permanent. But no. Jorge has to go out and run directly counter to his base, just to make friends with Kennedy. What is up with that? I fully realize just how hard it is to swim upstream for years, as Bush has with the M$M bucking him every step of the way. I guess his masters really do want the North American Union, badly. And screw us US citizens.
always a difficult question as to when to go public or what to say in public when one believes the leader has lost effectiveness.
Bush did appoint Roberts and acquiesced to Alito.
For me SCOTUS is job #1 for any conservative. I have said it many times on FR and will say ut again: The liberals on the Supreme Court have done FAR more harm to this nation than Al-Qaeda or Saddam ever did, especially considering the millions of lives wasted/ruined by abortion.
This is a simplification: but why not let Sunnis and Shiites decide between themselves what their government will be; we can keep an eye on them from a well-fortified permanent base in Basra, and get us OUT of Iraq otherwise, send those troops to the Mexican border, and win the next election and appoint 3 more Sam Alitos/Scalias.
Supreme Court is job #1.
I doubt it but that doesn’t make the story less true. After the immigration debacle was beat back for the second time, I asked if the Libby commutation made a difference and received a resounding “no.” GWB needs to take the message to heart and if he is really concerned about his legacy, he will make amends to his loyal base. If that is even possible, now, which I doubt. He jumped the duck, right into lameness.
I thought about adding my 2 cents to this thread, but then I remembered that neither Bush nor Congress is listening and neither one gives a damn about what any of us think.
The author is Byron York, a conservative, National Review’s White House correspondent, and the author of “The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.”
I think Bush-fatigue also stimulates dynasty-fatigue. No more Bushes and no more Clintons either. Oddly enough it helps Obama. The Clintons make a mistake when they campaign for “four more years”.
WHY?
1. Advocating Illegal Immigration and Amnesty.
2. Sending soldiers to War, only to prosecute them for “Murder” when they do their job. (Dumba$$ ROE’s)
3. Prosecuting Border Patrol Agents—somewhat like your father prosecuted LAPD after Rodney King.
4. Constantly “Kissing up” to Saudi’s abroad, and CAIR here at home.
5. Constantly letting Teddy Kennedy and the Democrats set the agenda.
Problem is that there’s still 18 months left in Bush’s presidency. Seems like he’s still more of an ally to us than Pelosi, Reed et al.
While I don’t agree with some of the President’s positions and wish he’d be as hard-headed on some conservative issues as he is on immigration and medicare prescriptions, he’s still the point man on vetoing unpopular Democrat bills in Congress and might get one more chance to alter the Supreme Court before he goes so let’s not abandon him yet.
What makes it worse is the fact that many in the GOP are aiming towards Bush redux.
No- I agree absolutely with the author. Libby should have been pardoned period. Pres. Bush should have said this was a political witch hunt, he could not believe a jury found Libby guilty-must have been a partisan jury and pardoned him. He tries to force the stupid immigration bill down our throats, but he can’t even go the full distance and pardon Libby-afraid of the Dems I guess. It might hurt the Kennedy-Bush friendship or perhaps the Clinton-Bush friendship.
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