Posted on 01/26/2008 5:57:27 AM PST by fightinJAG
[snip]
On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"
This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Do you mean that Republican primary voters became so uninformed that they nominated poor almost non-Republican candidates?
What Peggy Noonan has written here is little different from what Phyllis Schlafly has been saying and documenting for years now.
I heard her on O’Reilly last night (with Laura Ingraham). I really didn’t agree with much I heard her say. Basically she kept saying, “I was wrong, and it is hard to say that”, and she felt one of Bush’s addresses was way too “aggressive”. But she didn’t define how.
Laura, in essence didn’t contradict her but did say the Congress was full of Republicans to share the blame.
Rush had it right. He said in the beginning of this whole thing, when we had both houses and the presidency, that if we sit back and cease to educate we will lose it all.
GW Bush had the ‘Coach’ Hastert Republican Congress and never ever vetoed any of their spending.
Phyllis Schlafly said that George Bush destroyed the Republican party? Well in that case, I disagree with Phyllis Schlafly AND Peggy Noonan.
You said it for me.
I quit giving money to the RNS 6 months before the election whee the Dems rained control of both houses. The GOP asked for it. It was led from the inside by the RINOS.
rained=gained
Going for more coffee
We're spoiled. We want instant gratification and we want it NOW, and anyone who doesn't give it to us NOW, will REALLY be sorry because we'll hold our votes until we're blue in the face.
If we can't have a wall, we refuse to compromise and build a fence.
If we can only get a couple of hundred miles of fence at a time, we refuse to vote for those incrementally trying to get that fence built.
If we can't have a candidate who's "conservative enough" and President Bush campaigned as a moderate with very conservative values about some issues, then we must self flagellate at the alter of "pure conservatism" by voting Democrat.
It was "conservatives" voting "the bums out" that got us a Democrat controlled House and Senate, where NOTHING we want will be accomplished.
President Reagan would disagree with these practices. He would have compromised and he would have kept pounding away until he got all or as much as possible of his and the voters' will accomplished. He wouldn't have recommended a public hanging.
I will go along with that.
he spends like a drunken Democrat.
His prescription program cost a friggin fortune.
I could understand having to spend after 911 to dampen all the fires. But he's done more to grow govt than Clinton even.
The list goes on and on.
But I find his stance on illegals to be revolting. Repubs are supposed to be the defenders of America. It's their number one advantage with the electorate and its their number one selling point.
During the amnesty debate, we had almost as many R's voting for the amnesty as D's. This is CONSERVATIVE??? No, it's not.
I don't demand that a politco agree with me 100% but I do agree that they agree with me and my values at least 80% otherwise why bother? At this stage, I'm in the why bother category about all the candidates.
As far as I'm concerned the Party's broken.
Some Kennedys ski backwards into trees.
Other Kennedys get on aircraft when their electrical engineer officers refuse to board.
JFK got his 3 V-12, av gas Packard PT boat run over by a ship three times his size, half his speed and five times his turning radius that he was supposedly looking for.
And of course, Ted.
This is why our founders where better. Leaders grew up and lived physical lives that educated idiots that there is a whole world of things that doesn't care who you pappy was, or what school you went to. These people knew that falling off a common horse will kill you. That ship captains and sailors were skilled and courageous men. They knew the smell and sound of musket. Todays' leaders come out of paperpushing mills, and are fairly effete and couldn't hammer a nail if their lives depended upon it. I'm not a big fan of this trend. I especially see it in todays young males from upper income families. They are ( gross generalization ) clueless.
President Reagan didn’t close the borders either, because he was dedicated, free market capitalist - like President Bush - and the party didn’t self destruct.
I believe “globalism” in it’s present definition was coined after he left office, but could be wrong: maybe it’s just that it’s being slung around almost as much as “divisive” nowadays. Seems that, if it had been much in use then, that tag would have fitted President Reagan just as much as either President Bush.
You are SO right.
Oh yes, don’t forget he put those Supreme Court judges in too, Alito and Roberts. No credit for that, Peggy????
Uh huh. Have fun with Pauly boy.
This is a tough problem. Let us take a very devisive one on to start. What is the conservative position on the war on drugs? The moralistic right who want to use law to enforce social norms think it is just fine. Those who worry about a police state, growth of government, the cost, social consequences and morality of keeping large numbers of folks locked up in a for profit prison system (privatization gone amock), the effect on our constitution, etc., think we have gone mad.
Turns out we actually had Sadam pretty well bottled up long before the invasion, but the neocons (neoimperialists) wanted Iraq. A good conservative supports the defense of the country, etc. but expending blood and treasure to create chaos in a place foresaken by our saviour when sorting it all out is beyond our wisdon - is that the conservative position?
What is our position on the WOT? We have a director of homeland security who has run so amok that he has declared England the next enemy. My view is that terrorism is best fought by the DoD and a well organized foreign intelligence service, to the extent we have one. Otherwise, don't keep the names of suspected terrorists on a secret list. Post their names, faces and crimes on the internet. A well-informed citizenry will do the rest and we can let gandma's in walkers and 4 year old blond girls go about their business unmolested.
Why do you think Ron Paul is so popular? I am a sort of supporter in a way. It is not because I think that RP is going to get into the white house or even should be President. A few of his positions are a bit extreme. But, he serves a very useful function in reminding us how far the Republican party and the country has drifted from constitutional conservatism, the governing principles of our founding fathers.
In brief, defining the conservative philosphy is key. It was easy under Regan because new deal liberalism had degenerated into socialist/communistic sloganeering. All one needed was to establish a party based on things that we knew were true as opposed to a lot of things that just were not so.
Right, and Roberts and Alito, too. The Base won’t thank him for Roberts and Alito if the SCOTUS upholds the Second Amendment, though. The Base WILL excoriate him for Roberts and Alito if the SCOTUS somehow does not.
ditto that.........worse than my disagreement w/ this wanna be ,is her selfishness , she is slapping the GOP during a primary ?
I watched her arrogance on BOR w/ Laura sitting in....
just for the record, if anyone saw Peggy last night,
could she make herself any less attractive
I believe “moderate” is the key word here. Moderation in all things, does not apply to principles, which is what we are being told we must accept.
“Advisors”, is another key word. Presidents are defined by their advisors, as they must be. The problem is when they are “re”defined by their advisors, which I beleve, has happened to almost, if not all Presidents, for at least the past hundred years (FDR being the best example).
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