Posted on 08/13/2009 1:15:39 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Oh, I understand that completely. But I don’t think that lets George W. Bush completely off the hook for a whole series of government-expanding, budget-expanding initiatives (Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, TARP, etc.). In the end, “compassionate conservatism” sure wasn’t conservative, and I don’t think it was terribly compassionate for the folks who are going to pay for it down the road—you, me, and our kids.
GWB doesn’t deserve anywhere near the hate he gets from the left or the right (and it sure looks like Bartlett thinks he ran over his dog or something). But at the same time, let’s be clear-eyed about the mistakes he made in addition to the fantastic job he did against Islamic terror.
}:-)4
Oh what earthly use is being angry at a guy who is no longer POTUS? Bush made a bunch of policy and strategic errors but that has little impact in real time.
We are fighting against policies and proposals which some are trying to force on us. It is about the present and the future not the damned past.
The historical lesson to be learned from the Bush years is don’t elect a non-conservative to the office if you can avoid it. Nevertheless, Bush was better than the Democrat alternative. Politics is about choosing from available choices. If I could have my fantasy POTUS it would be Reagan at age 36 with no 22nd Amendment.
Including VOTING FOR THE STUFF WE'RE MAD ABOUT!
Until conservatives once again hold Republicans to the same standard they hold Democrats, they will have no credibility and deserve no respect. They can start building some by admitting to themselves that Bush caused many of the problems they are protesting.
Where has this guy been? It's CONSERVATIVES who have been griping at the GOP to the point many of us left the party long ago!! Why do they all confuse conservatives with Republicans?
In 2003, the Bush administration repeatedly lied about the cost of the drug benefit to get it passed, and Bush himself heavily pressured reluctant conservatives to vote for the program.
For the record, a good many conservatives said don't pass this entitlement. But really, is this something this guy wants to use in his argument, when 0bama and the Dems are crowing about how they've "won significant benefit for Medicare patients by eliminating the doughnut hole", meaning they took a program that is costing umpteen and cannot be sustained and will be making it worse!!
Finally, conservatives have an absurdly unjustified view that Republicans have a better record on federal finances. It is well-known that Clinton left office with a budget surplus and Bush left with the largest deficit in history. Less well-known is Clintons cutting of spending on his watch, reducing federal outlays from 22.1 percent of GDP to 18.4 percent of GDP.
I am so tired of these people giving Clinton credit for anything along the lines of fiscal responsibility, welfare reform, etc. It was the TRUE CONSERVATIVES in the GOP back in 1995 who wrote the budget reforms/legislation, it was not Clinton and his big spenders in his administration. He is not the one who cut (real, true minuses, not the phony cuts in proposed increases) spending, the GOP is. If he hadn't pushed so much on the citizens over their vociferous objection, the Dems would not have lost all those seats, Mr. Newt would not have had the chance to pass the Contract With America. It was not Clinton at all -- only look at the difference in what he did in 1993 and what he signed in 1995-2000. PLEASE already!!
Oh, so because Republicans were screwups we shouldn’t hold Obama to account for his own screwups? LOL
I believe I recall getting in Bush and the Republican’s faces over amnesty, Miers and the stimulas. Now we’re getting in Obama and Democrat’s face over this government takeover of the health industry. Rest assured if Republicans find themselves in power again due to Democrat incompetance that the old days of party over principle are over. I’ll be just as strident against them if they, I guess when they is more likely, propose similiar destructive policy.
Maybe it’s time the Left did the same and realized the true enenmy is the government they wish expnded and the elites that scorn average Americans.
Conservatives are angry at Bush. You don’t get an approval rating below 30% without really annoying your own base.
demholes took over Congress in ‘06. That’s when it all started going downhill.
Dude, (Bartlett), look what happened when the conservative Republicans attempted to begin serious, reasonable Medicare reform in 1995 -- Rep. John Lewis (among other Dems) on the Floor of the House: "They're coming for the old! They're coming for the poor! They're coming for the chil'ren!!"
This guy is fruit loops, or he's got an agenda.
Bruce Bartlett is a self serving IDIOT!
Nothing more or less!
When you see his by line on something read no further is my advice.
No kidding. They keep trying to use Bush as the bogeyman and can’t understand why it doesn’t work. It’s only partly because he’s no longer in office. The other part is that conservatives still hold him somewhat responsible for where we are today in domestic policy and partisanship breakdowns on government. For some reason they have developed amnesia about the intra party fights they enjoyed from the sidelines so much during Bush’s second term.
Word to Libs. We no more like Republicans than Democrats. It’s just you are the majority party now so you’ll rightly receive the bulk of anger.
It will take a century of Republican rule to clean up this idiot’s mess.
He makes Carter’s legacy look like a windfall for America.
And that hate is bi-partisan.
Amazing << Hear this. Feel this, and tell me that this isn't music.
Oh, dear...
Agreed.
0bummer simply ran as "Not Bush" and won.
Hundreds of billions transferred from taxpayers and taxpayers' children into the pockets of the politically influential, based on the lie that "we gotta do something RIGHT NOW, there's a CRISIS".
In that sense it is Bush's fault.
And if we replace Obama with a Republican who continues to prop up the investment banking zombies with government debt, in the long run we'll be no better off.
Value is based upon perception of long term worth. The more power government exerts the less predictable things are because while the market is predictable, government is irrational and arbitrary.
IIRC, Bartlett was a paleoPaulie fan which is enough to eliminate him as rational now and forever. Just another poseur on autosmooch for Islamofascist butts.
Excellent summary. Those words should be engraved in stone some place where the congress critters can read them every day as they pass by on their way to another day of destroying the country at the orders of Dear Leader.
But I think as more unfolds about his admin, we're going to see that he did an astounding job defeating AQ and keeping us safe.
Unfortunately their thinking is upside down. They think the market is irrational arbitrary and unpredictable while government is rational.
The law of unintended consequences never occurs to them. Subsidize unwed motherhood, and watch it become a way of life. Provide the people with subsidized bread cheaper than the wheat in it, and watch farmers feed bread to pigs. The tragedy of the commons on anything that is not owned just used, and thus ill used.
I wish I could claim credit for my way of thinking but I have to cite Walter Williams, Tomas Sowell, and Edgar Rice Burroughs (through the character of Dejah Thoris).
After reading this I think it is safe to assume the entirety of creation came about only when Bush was elected and he told God personally to screw things up.
"Bush sucks, but Obama swallows."
All fixed now.
Cheers!
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