Posted on 01/20/2009 2:50:44 AM PST by VU4G10
Newsmax.com Editorial
"This administration has had a good, solid record, and I'm very proud of it. I tell people I leave town with a great sense of accomplishment and my head held high.”
—George W. Bush, Jan. 13, 2009
As the 43rd president waves goodbye to Washington, relatively few Americans share his proud assessment of his own presidency.
George W. Bush leaves the White House with one of the lowest approval ratings in history. According to Gallup, only Richard Nixon and Harry Truman, who suffered the double whammy of a bad economy and the unpopular Korean War, had lower approval ratings when they left the White House.
Today, Bush’s legacy to his successor is two unresolved wars, a global image that is deeply tarnished, and the greatest economic crisis in modern times.
Conservatives who backed Bush in two successive elections have little to show for their efforts. Bush, in fact, has decimated the Republican brand.
Bush oversaw the greatest increase in discretionary social spending in history as the federal government usurped new powers in its war on terror. He placed the United States on a global interventionist path for the elusive goal of “democracy.” Ronald Reagan would not be able to recognize the party he knew, which espoused limited government, protection of personal liberty, and the idea that the U.S. should lead globally by example rather than by force.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
> True conservatives were disappointed in his presidency as were true liberals. That is quite an accomplishment!
He was a “Compassionate Conservative”. Just like he advertized. By definition that will disappoint the far right and the far left.
Think about it.
HOW OBAMA GOT ELECTED Bush's stupidest and most condemnable act was to send Karl Rove to reassure the La Raza racists that Third World illegal aliens violating our borders that US laws would NOT be enforced to allow aliens to come here for a "better life."
Sap-happy Rove also suggested that, once here, criminals and lawbreakers would become so enamored with democracy, they would forget their corrupt ways and embrace democracy and all it stands for (famous last words).
Bush/Rove were sucking up to latinos and promising to turn the US into a Third World for their pleasure AT THE SAME TIME illegals were getting 100% mortgages, flipping them back and forth between family members at higher and higher prices, then defaulting and absconding to Mexico with huge pots of money----leaving banks (and US citizens) holding the bag.
Thanks to Bush, tens of thousands of illegals hightailed it over the border after reading Mexican newspapers ads headlining : "Free Houses in the USA."
Illegals were establishing several identities with forged documents and stolen SS nos, getting on the US gravy train---and sending billions of US dollars back to Mexico.
They are now lining up for Obama's stimulus freebies, thanks to Bush/Rove creating an "illegals voting bloc" that elected Obama.
Rove and Bush also made a side deal with Mexico----and now the Mexican government is salivating over getting their hands on more and more US assets (begins when the US "helps" Mexico "fight the drug war".......billions of US tax dollars start flowing into the pockets of federales.)
> I’m surprised more people don’t “get” what you wrote.
(grin!) Cheers for that, mate!
The US has never had a far right president and it's unlikely that it ever will. Reagan was conservative, but he was not far right.
But from all indications, as of noon today, we will have probably our first really far left president.
I fully agree. Bush did a great job on war, terror, etc., however failed miserably on border, spending, big government. He cannot simply be judged by war and terror efforts. While he kept country safe, he destroyed it with his other actions on spending, kissing Marxists butts, not closing borders, etc. Those things are the root of current problems.
There is true, and there is not true. Basic principles cannot be true somewhere and not true somewhere else. Socialism has never worked anywhere it has been tried. Even you admit that your socialistic health-care system, for which you are forced to pay under threat, has flaws. If you had a free country (and for that matter, if we had one), you would not be forced to pay for anything for your fellow man, and you would be free to give to anyone at your discretion, not some bureaucrat’s who might give to the “Save the Tasmanian Rabbits” fund instead of what you want.
Charity is a virtue. The government’s stealing your money to give “charity” to another man is a crime.
Let me take it one step farther . . . people who don’t get it essentially are admitting that they didn’t pay much attention in the first place.
The fallout from naive attitudes like yours is easily predictable:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1968154/posts?page=42#42
Conservatives didn’t expect “Compassionate Conservative” to mean spending taxpayer dollars like LBJ. It all was an ambiguous ruse to get elected.
Bush has decimated the GOP and limped away as a dismal failure.
I find it bad logic to blame Bush for the unresolved part whilst trying prosecute those wars with half of the Congress literally trying to sabotage those efforts.
Would Saddam have become the next Hitler? Thankfully, that has been relegated to a moot, academic exercise, as we will thankfully never have to know.
Sometimes, protecting your people is like raising teen-agers, who you love dearly even as they yell that they hate you, and that you know nothing or just don't understand. Thanks W!
...and yet Hannity and Beck can’t get enough of Mr. Rove.
Were all the Bush apologists here pleased with his choices for the Supreme Court: Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers?
Hannity is really beginning to wear thin. Calling Rove "The Architect" has really gotten old. Rove was more like "The Wrecking Ball" of the Republican Party from 2004 on, and maybe before.
And, Hannity enjoys waaaay too much hearing Obama say his (Hannity's) name, replaying all those lead ins where Obama said Hannity's name during the campaign.
> Basic principles cannot be true somewhere and not true somewhere else.
Not so!
The United States embraces a slightly different subset of “basic principles” than what we in New Zealand do. So what is “true” in the United States is “not true” here.
Give you an example: gun rights. In the US you have the right to Keep and Bear Arms that shall not be infringed. That is True in the US. We don’t have that right. It is Not True here.
There are perfectly-good NZ Conservatives that do not embrace the right to Keep and Bear Arms. There are perfectly-good NZ Conservatives who do (I am one of the latter). But because the subset of values is different between the two places, so equally is the definition of True and Not True.
> Even you admit that your socialistic health-care system, for which you are forced to pay under threat, has flaws.
Yet I am totally unaware of any NZer in his/her right mind who would vote in favor of doing away with our social medicine scheme: it is too good and works too well. Anybody who proposed doing away with it for a “user-pays-only” system would be laughed to scorn, or perhaps tar-and-feathered and run out of town on a rail.
> If you had a free country (and for that matter, if we had one), you would not be forced to pay for anything for your fellow man,
That is an excellent example of one of the core values that we have that you do not have. New Zealanders are Team Players and we always have been. The Maori who first populated our islands were excellent at rowing huge boats across the Pacific Ocean in well-synchronized teams, and then fighting battles in well-ordered teams. So were the Scots and Irish who settled here. We play as a Team: that is why we dominate in Rugby and nearly every Team sport we take up. So helping your Team-mate with his medical bills is something that is deeply ingrained in our psyche.
America is the opposite: you value the rugged individual and individual achievement. You see, we don’t. To us the “rugged individual” is “an old weirf bugga what keeps to ‘imself” — not something to be aspired to.
> Charity is a virtue.
More than that: in New Zealand, Charity is the Law. It is therefore illegal for us to be unvirtuous!
What did you expect "Compassionate Conservative" to mean?
Compassion n. Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. See synonyms at pity.
Great definition. Everything that Bush did -- even the bailouts -- fall within this definition.
Bush delivered on being a Compassionate Conservative. You got exactly what you paid for. If you were expecting something different, you're a mug and it's your fault: he told you up-front what to expect.
Demonstrating his breathtaking stupidity, Bush allowed himself to be duped by the punkneos---Bush ensconced these termites in their own WH office. God knows the damage the skunk punks did to US national security. Bush was told the Iraquis would throw roses at his feet as their liberator----instead he got the ultimate Iraqi insult---shoes thrown at him as he stood on the world stage.
The punks include--David Frum, Michael Gerson, David Brooks, Richard Perle, Billy Kritol and his Dearest Daddy (Daddy was Giuliani's foreign policy advisor). Punkneo Douglas Feith bept busy creating fake WMD documents on his home computer to dupe the stupid president.
Trillions of US tax dollars blanketed the Mideast into the pockets of war profiteers....chief among the profiteers is punkneo Richard Perle now starting up an oil business in Iraq with his cut. The punks made Iraq safe for Perle's oil business with US tax dollars........that apparently was the punks' chief goal.
Keep in mind the punks have no visible means of employment---unless you call lolling around a think tank, or sucking off the taxpayers' teat, being employed.
SUMMING UP Punkneo Irving Krisol (Billy's daddy) crapped on conservatives when he pontificated: "The historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be.....to convert the Republican Party and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy."
The punks squatted in the Repub Party and obsessively began religiously cleansing and kicking conservatives to the curb. The conservative-hating punks are also the architects of the amnesty debacle.
Understand the power these punks have---after all of this, Bush was fearful of pointing the finger of blame for his downfall at these creeps.
Although W and the big spending congressional GOP appropriators deserve plenty of blame, the worst behavior was by the libs who extorted funding for their favorite programs in exchange not blocking the war effort. That started right after 911 with all the pork added to “Homeland Security.”
NO I do not like the idea that in order to placate the left he used ‘compassionate’ as though conservatives lacked compassion. Because to liberals that became his weakness and they knew there was nothing they could not demand based upon the deception of being compassionate. However, lord McCain was leading the AMNESTY charge and there was literally NO way to have government load up millions of peoples already here and return them to country of origin.
And let's not forget early on in President Bush first term what the A.N.S.W.E.R. crowd was attempting to bring upon our cities... they attempted to make our cities war zones. And remember all those demonstrations in the cities regarding what Americans would be without when the illegals took a day off work... Think that was NOT an in your face threat?
Given who hides in and behind the leftist I have no doubt there is a lust to have blood shed if they can cause it with a face of a ‘Republican’ as the cause.
NO I do not like it one bit, and as much as I despise the leftist destructive nature, toooooo many moderate Republicans really liked the access to CHEAP labor to cut their grass and clean their toilets. And they upon their moderate higher ground pointed their ugly fingers at anyone needing safety and security with border control as being ‘purists’... Tells me the money crowd had the President's ear. (I remember that accusation even flying around on FR not that long ago.)
It is interesting how though that same highly self esteemed wealthy crowd had their panties all in a wad when the President said that it was wrong for a county judge to take authority to pronounce a death sentence upon an innocent woman.... We shall see how well the gated moderate above the rest of US communities fare in a Bamanation... but they will be first in line to demand their social security the rest of US be .amned.
And you cannot ignore the ‘religious’ sanctuary cities role in this as well. We are talking about human beings who were being used by their own governments as well as the privileged above the rest moderates on both sides of the political aisle.
Those who would oppose this viewpoint, in my opinion, are merely steeped in Bushbot-ism, which is destined for the ash heap of history. They would best come back to Conservatism and embrace it, or otherwise split off and form their own, small party, the Bush Party. Maybe they could get 10-15% of the vote. That is certainly where most of the country is these days, across all aspects of the political spectrum.
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