Posted on 01/16/2009 6:31:14 PM PST by Delacon
Credit: Several key triumphs make Bush’s tenure merely a mitigated disaster. He first deserves praise for preventing another Islamofascist massacre on American soil. History will applaud the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Libya’s consequent de-nuclearization. Bush’s tax cuts buoyed the economy before it sailed into the twin icebergs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Justices John Roberts and Sam Alito will keep the Supreme Court constitutional. The D.C. voucher bill remains a school-choice milestone.
Carter: Otherwise, Bush is the Republican Jimmy Carter. This weak, ill-prepared bumbler let Washington eat him alive. Far worse, his apostasies bankrupted America and bombed the GOP into Dresden (often while an equally unprincipled, profligate Republican Congress navigated). The principled, fiscally responsible free-market/conservative movement is hobbled for its association with Bush, despite his serial violations of its tenets. The Right now must spend years scrubbing away Bush’s stain with brushes and Ajax.
Core: Alas, Bush has no philosophical core. He has a few sensible instincts: Tax cuts good. Terrorists bad. Abortion ugly. Most else is up for grabs.
In 2001, Bush initiated federal stem-cell research. By 2008, Bush nationalized private companies and steered the republic into $13.35 trillion in bailout commitments.
Bush’s instant socialism is the legacy of his Saran Wrap-deep faith in free markets. Under Bush, federal spending grew 32 percent (or 4.1 percent annually) — more quickly than inflation, Heritage Foundation analyst Brian Riedl calculates. Absent the Iraq and Afghan wars, Homeland Security, and Katrina relief, spending swelled 26 percent, or 3.3 percent annually, after inflation.
Since 1932, only FDR expanded Washington’s share of the economy more rapidly than Bush did. The Medicare drug entitlement, No Child Left Behind, two massive farm-welfare bills, and 69,341 un-vetoed earmarks are among the ghastly monuments of “compassionate conservatism.”
Bush kicked fresh gravel into his supporters’ eyes when he kept the Education Department open, increased its budget 58 percent ahead of inflation, and then, for no apparent purpose, christened its headquarters the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building.
“More than 60 education laws were part of the vast number of legislative measures that made up the Great Society,” crowed Lynda Johnson Robb when the structure was renamed in September 2007. “But Daddy wasn’t as interested in the number of laws he helped enact as he was in the number of lives those laws help enrich.”
By signing the 822-page Energy Independence Act on Dec. 19, 2007, Bush extinguished the incandescent light bulb. This keystone of Yankee ingenuity failed in some 10,000 experiments until a perseverant Thomas Edison perfected it in 1880. Now it will become illegal in 2014. If compact-fluorescent and halogen bulbs outsell Edison’s invention, so be it. But for this quintessentially American creation to be prohibited by federal law is precisely the sort of abomination the Republican party was invented to prevent.
Communications: Bush raised the failure to communicate to a governing principle. This goes far beyond his linguistic pratfalls—such as Tuesday’s reference to helicopter pilots as “chopper drivers.” Besides not explaining its policies, the administration handed its opponents fresh truncheons with which to pound it silly.
Bush and his minions refused to detail the multifarious ties between Saddam Hussein and Islamofascist terrorists. They even stayed quiet about Manhattan-based, Clinton-appointed U.S. District judge Harold Baer’s May 7, 2003 decision that Hussein provided “material support” to the 9/11 conspirators. In Smith v. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Judge Baer ruled that Hussein's Baathist government and the Taliban assisted Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Judge Baer — who President Clinton nominated in April 1994 — ordered Hussein, Iraq’s former government, and this case’s other losing parties to pay $104 million in civil damages to the families of George Eric Smith and Timothy Soulas, both murdered on September 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center. Judge Baer added: “Again, since the al-Qaeda defendants and Iraq are jointly and severally liable, they are all responsible for the payment of any judgment that may be entered.”
Rather than publicize this federal court decision, Bush & Co. instead echoed the Left’s claims that Saddam Hussein had no connection to al-Qaeda, much less September 11.
Bush covered this topic most thoroughly at Kansas State University on Jan. 23, 2006. Bush said:
[Hussein] was a state sponsor of terror. In other words, the government had declared, you are a state sponsor of terror. . . . There’s a reason why he was declared a state sponsor of terror — because he was sponsoring terror.
When the administration found 3,894 pounds of low-enriched uranium in Iraq, Bush did not call a news conference. Instead, the Energy Department issued an almost totally ignored press release on July 6, 2004. Ditto the 606.3 tons of yellowcake uranium that the administration moved from Iraq to Canada last July. Despite the Left’s relentless charges that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein’s fondness for yellowcake, this development passed in near silence.
Bush’s Nov. 5, 2003 signing of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban (a good thing) featured Bush onstage at Washington’s Constitution Hall. Behind him stood GOP lawmakers Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert, Orrin Hatch, Rick Santorum, James Sensenbrenner, and others — all male. The White House press and advance teams arranged this much-needed curtailment of abortion rights and yet could not place even one woman beside the president. Why were no female senators nor congresswomen near Bush? Better yet, why not surround him with pro-life moms and their infants, perhaps some who were saved through crisis-pregnancy counseling? This public-relations malpractice let the National Organization for Women use a photo of Bush and the boys as an Internet recruitment and fundraising tool.
Cheek: Bush turned the other cheek until both were bloodied beyond recognition. Too nice by half, his “new tone in Washington” unilaterally disarmed Team Bush against critics who devoured them like piranhas.
This problem began with reports that outgoing Clinton staffers had trashed the White House. Had Bush brought in news cameras to document the destruction then only verbally described in the media, Bill and Hillary would have been terminally discredited. But Bush & Co. covered up for the Clintons, perhaps thinking this would buy peace with the Left. Yeah, right.
When then-senator James Jeffords (R., Vt.) became an independent in June 2001, the Senate switched from Republican to Democratic control. The day before the hand-off, Bush included Jeffords in a Cabinet Room photo opportunity. Message: “Go ahead. Ruin Bush’s day; get a bear hug.”
Bush took heat for skipping the NAACP’s 2004 convention. He and his publicists could have detailed the repugnant “old tone” comments by NAACP leaders, such as its then-executive director Kweisi Mfume. He said Bush is “prepared to take us back to the days of Jim Crow segregation and dominance.” Instead, these noxious words went unrepeated, and the notion that Bush is anti-black went unrefuted.
Bush’s lackadaisical response to Hurricane Katrina generated outrageous genocide accusations.
“George Bush is our Bull Connor,” Rep. Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.) said on Sept. 22, 2005. “If you’re black in this country, and you’re poor in this country, it’s not an inconvenience. It’s a death sentence.”
Rather than loudly rebuff such sludge with facts (e.g., the Coast Guard rescued 33,544 Katrina survivors as soon as wind speeds allowed; between 2000 and 2003, federal anti-poverty spending grew in Orleans Parish, La., by 73.3 percent per recipient under Bush), the White House rolled over and played dead, silently confirming for many the despicable lie that Bush let blacks drown in New Orleans attics just for kicks.
Crawford: His ranch in Crawford, Texas, is the perfect place for G. W. Bush to disappear and never be heard from again.
— Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH *gasps for breath* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!
Bush became the left’s national punching bag; he never fought back, even though he had experienced heavyweight brawlers in Cheney and Bolton that could battle with best of them.
It’s time to take the gloves off and slip the brass knuckles on, Mr. Milquetoast republicans. Stop being saps.
“It’s time to take the gloves off and slip the brass knuckles on, Mr. Milquetoast republicans. Stop being saps.”
The first step towards doing that is recognizing that Pres. Bush was not a good president. Not as a conservative and not politically. Politics is the art of convincing people to willingly do what you want them to do. Bush wasn’t good at that.
So, yeah -- this is kind of silly.
Was Reagan acting as a conservative when he signed on to amnesty?
What is conservatism anyway? Is there one definition everyone can agree upon? Is there no room for any debate on issues? Or must one perfectly tow the line at every single moment in order not to be expunged from the movement?
I agree with the previous poster. We need to put on the brass knuckles and attack the Bush haters like yourself.
You laugh because you have no counter arguments
Reagan ducked tail and ran from the terrorists in Lebanon.
Laugh some more.
“I agree with the previous poster. We need to put on the brass knuckles and attack the Bush haters like yourself.”
Couldn’t coattail another republican into the presidency. Lost both houses of congress. Leaving with the lowest rating since Truman. Republican party in obvious disarray. Made the republican party a laughing stock with his spending. But go ahead and give it your best shot.
But he stood up to and destroyed the biggest terrorists of all. Shrub is not fit to shine Reagan’s shoes.
Bush “polls low,” not because he was a rotten president, but because he did some things most folks on the Left disliked and he did some things that most folks on the Right disliked.
There aren’t too many people remaining, who saw things exactly the way Bush did.
> Bush did what he honestly thought was right.
That isn’t enough when you are leading the free world. You actually have to BE right for a majority of your decisions, and there were many times that W did not make a decision, just let things sort of happen.
Here are two examples of this that I noted at the time. There are many more.
1) 9-11 was a perfect opportunity to rally the nation to service and action. We were all ready! Our hearts ached to help this country. We could have been rallied to join public service, military or community service, develop energy independence, conserve oil to deplete the islamofascist source of income. Instead, he told us to shop.
2) NOT ONE veto of ANY pork bill. NOT ONE hint of leadership of HIS OWN PARTY when they were throwing chunks of money around and bloating up the government like a fat pig balloon.
Most recently, of course, Bush did not do what he thinks is right, unless at his heart he is a socialist. In a big way. What do you think the bailout was? A huge, whopping capitulation to socialism, giving 0bama the green light to go much, much further.
Does all the blame go to Bush? No. He was aided and abetted by the scores of traitorous RINOs infecting Congress. Together, they have turned the GOP into a party I no longer recognize from the one I knew in my youth, one riddled with corruption and lust for power, virtually indistinguishable now in so many ways from the America-hating Dims.
If the GOP hopes ever to be relevant again, it better take a good look at itself and do massive chemotherapy to rid itself of the cancer that has seeped into its very bones.
Murdoch is very apt in his criticisms. One thing however would be to opine how Gore would have done in the same situations. Perhaps for the protection and war against Islamofascism, W will be the good guy. Otherwise, I too see the credit and all the minuses that Deroy mentioned. They are point on and the destruction of the GOP will not be a loved item for its proponents.
NO, the history of Third Parties is woeful. The fact is, the GOP will fade, fade unless it stands up for its conserv foundations but the Dems will expand if the Messiah is anywhere near correct on his socialist pacifist views and stimulus. People nowadays want security over freedom. That means the real Socialist Party, the Dems will benefit.No Third Party is worth the powder you could blow them up with. Their votes this time was one of the worst % in history. Sorry , but no one is rising to be a new Messiah in that level so one must pray that the GOP grows some courage and communication skills with conservReaganism renewed or we fac actually a new tyranny that we have never really face, just one Party running the show. It is almost that now.
I admire George Bush for not selling out Christian principles. He may have been a bad politician, but he apparently understands that his standing before God is more important than the praise of men.
I also don't see the Christian values behind Please explain why he stole money from our children
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai
and our children's children to give to those who had
already stolen from the taxpayers ?
inviting criminals to invade our country to
continue their crime and reward the criminal
behavior with citizenship?
Ours has been upside down since election day. It’s high on a pole smack dab in front of our house.
I pretty much agree with you, although Deroy makes some good points. I would have to say that Bush got the number one thing right, but he was a lukewarm conservative at best and his second term has been a disaster for the GOP.
“I think that we will never see another Republican President elected ... at least in my lifetime.”
I’m in my mid 40s. I don’t expect to see a Republican president again in my life time, and I fear that conservatives are about to become an endangered species.
About as fair and accurate an assessment as one could make.
One quibble, though. I wouldn't ascribe the turmoil in the GOP solely to Bush. The actions of the GOP majority and its leadership in Congress did much to foul the nest.
I recall our incessantly having to make excuses for them -- well, they don't really have a majority...well, there are some political realities they have to deal with, etc.
Next time, we should know better. Be merciless toward our elected officials. Hold their feet to the fire. And, if necessary, burn them in the primary.
“That isn’t enough when you are leading the free world. You actually have to BE right for a majority of your decisions, and there were many times that W did not make a decision, just let things sort of happen.”
I didn’t say it was; I just said he seemed genuinely honest about what he thought, and not simply a way to stay “on the good side” of voters and politicos.
I sure don’t think of W as even a Reagan or a truly great president (or Republican), but I do think he is genuine and not a sham artist. What you see is what you get.
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