Posted on 03/14/2012 1:06:27 PM PDT by STARWISE
TransCanada Corp.s Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from landlocked Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast, is a no-brainer that would create jobs and bolster the economy, former President George W. Bush said on Tuesday.
The $7.6 billion Keystone XL line would generate private-sector employment and government revenue, he said at an American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers conference in San Diego. The U.S. governments budget deficit is unsustainable and must be reduced by supporting industry, Bush said.
The clear goal ought to be how to get the private sector to grow, said Bush, who spoke during a luncheon at the conference. If you say that, then an issue like the Keystone pipeline becomes an easy issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
What would Bush have been without 9-11?
I think President Bush allowed the Democrats to stampede him, especially right on the last, into all that stimulus spending through their “Chicken Little” squawking about the economy and the Fannie/Freddie debacle they had generated and shored up themselves. Intentional? Wouldn’t put anything past them - they’d been out of power too long and were hysterical. - Once Nancy P. got the power, it was downhill all the way. Add Obama, and you’ve got what we’ve got now.
Buffet would lose 2.3 million dollars a day if his trains can’t ship Canadian oil.
“Thats two former Presidents that have said so now.”
So what? Obama is against it BECAUSE it would be good for America. He doesn’t lack information OR understanding, and he isn’t “brain dead”.
He’s doing exactly what he said he would do. Don’t act all surprised.
Supporting our troops through Wounded Warriors, visitation at Ft. Hood (in secret) after the terrorist massacre, greeting troops at Dallas airport, supporting freedom fighters throughout the world, supporting literacy (particularly that of the women in Afghanistan), working with businesses, working with faith based initiatives, loving the Lord, and continuing the be the servant-leader and Christ-follower he was in office. (It's easy to find out if you're interested by checking out the George W. Bush Foundation in Dallas, TX).
btw, I came back mostly to apologize for the name-calling.
Seeing irrational hatred for President Bush makes me crazy, but it shouldn't make me sinful.
Taking a cue from the leader I admire and respect so very much (along with millions and millions of others), I'll bow out now.....
You are as ignorant about Presdient Bush now as you have always been, ray. (He didn't fight for McCain?? McCain was campaigning against HIM, and factually, Bush did not 'leave us' with Obama. There were a score of actual reasons Obama won. Bush's 'failure' -in your eyes - was not one of them).
It is because I do not participate in groupthink, that I do not agree with your hatred. It is because I think for myself, and am not swayed by the emotion du jour, that I did not lose respect for a leader who had earned that respect, even though I disagreed with some of his policies. It is because I have paid close attention, that I know much more than you do about who President Bush really is.
Take care, ray. We do agree on many things, but not on your irrational anger toward a man of great character and patriotism.
Peace.
My response to you goes far beyond politics and involves your world view.
As I see it, yYou are looking at the world through the eyes of a child (an extremely immature child)
I think the best description could be that you are a rabid child..... in the sense that you have not a whit of inclination to grow up.
You are at the very center of your world and you have passed judgement on GW Bush and probably most others in your life.
He did not measure up to your infantile fantasies....nor could he (or anyone)
Im sure you can find books in the library that would help you understand your condition, but Im also fairly certain you will not take the time to read or understand them.
However based on the replies to this article (and almost all articles about GW Bush) this condition seems to be rampant on this site and I find it sad .
It is sad because I expect those with liberal utopian fantasies to act like you do. People who remain children no matter how old they get, are at heart liberals.Their world view is based in a false belief that they can perfect the world around them if they just prod the ignorant to act better and do what they want. So they seek to use the government to do just that. Or like you they decide that their leaders are not good enough. It is self centered and self righteous, self involved, and it is a wonderful world view for a 2 year old.
This,however, is a site for conservatives and childishness and conservatism dont mix.
Conservatism requires a general acceptance of the state of mankind and the world that exists and a willingness to open ones eyes to and face reality.
It also requires people to think and question.
You and the others who condemn GW Bush refuse to do this.
Rather than see a real human being that is fallible who took on the mantle of leadership you see some projection of your own psyche.
You could easily be practicing Marxists as you run about pronouncing people Bush bots or Romney bots or Rinos or what have you.
Somehow, the French Revolution also comes to mind and I only ask that you read up on what happened then.
I will stop as I doubt Im getting anywhere in convincing you or others like you of the truth of any of this. This is not the first article about something good President Bush has said or done. And based on the reality I have seen on this site your rabid childishness is not the first or last we have seen either.
Also based on what I have seen I think in all likelihood someday the pain of your life will be too much for you to bare (Ive seen it happen to a lot of people, myself included) You will be unable to remain smug and condescending and self righteous.
Because of your world view, you will find your relationship with others in tatters. I hope if and when that day comes you will not persist in your childish world view (liberals tend to do that) instead I hope you will simply put away your childish views and grow up .....you will also become more conservative at that point.
my response to Raybbr is above
Thanks for sharing that.
Without going into detail, I will say that I concur in your assessment, and have seen it repeatedly.
No problem.
Bump
Sanctimony. It fits you well.
Your replies are very good and I appreciate your being around
It strikes me that if an “independent “ voter ever wandered onto this site now looking for reason to vote for Gingrich or Santourum or whoever, they would have a hard time wading though the hatred for GW Bush
and how can we say that we want someone to vote for a Republican when there is so much contempt for the last Republican president.
I think McCaine hurt himself by not directly addressing the critics of Bush/Cheney and I think that whoever gets the nomination now should face it head on
I agree completely. McCain did the whole country a disservice by campaigning hard against Bush (while letting Obama get a free pass).
At some point, down the line, people will wake up and understand who President Bush was, apart from the leftist and hate-filled extreme right rhetoric (which often wins the day on FR, at the expense of logic, reason and truth).
I think we lost badly in 2006 because our candidates ran and hid from President Bush, our troops and the war in Iraq, and that McCain lost by a larger margin because his focus was on the wrong guy, and not the real enemy.
I hope whoever is our nominee has got a bit of courage to stand up and tell the truth.
I'm pretty sure that most of the haters on FR will never wake up (who are, as you have so accurately stated, still children), but I hope that the 'silent majority' starts speaking up louder on these kinds of threads. As it stands, the hostiles swarm pro-Bush threads destroying reason and making kindergarten comments like 'takes one to know one' without challenge.
Thanks for being one of the gutsy ones who step in with the truth! :)
You abandon him ? Over one or two decisions you disdain? Some fair weather foxhole buddy and loyal American you are. Deal with the urgent and severe stresses and stressors with which he dealt, 24/7, for nearly 7-1/2 years, and then you tell me how majestically your clarity might be applied on every single issue.
I have complete confidence that honest and accurate historians and accurately written history books will reflect the solemn devotion to his sworn presidential duties to which Pres. George W. Bush adhered and that he admirably succeeded in near catastrophic, mortally tragic and chaotic times.
He was consistent in not only relentlessly planning and working 24/7 to protect us from another terror attack after 9/11 and dealing with the appurtenant financial collapse, but he was exemplary in inspiring faith in the American people .. faith that we could and would survive and thrive and come back after these horrors. Some folks just have that "X Factor" that conveys peace of mind to the masses ... the voice of America's strength, optimism and confidence. He purposely projected that strength, brilliantly, and the rest of the world *knew* they'd be in for it big time if they chose to mess with us.
Care to be honest enough to compare the image the rest of the world and our enemies have of America today?
Have you forgotten that the horrendous 9/11 attack near the beginning of his term became our daily diet of fear of the unknown? Deep uncertainty .. what was coming next .. is my family's plane trip safe .. is it safe to go to the mall, to a baseball game; yet, he did what had to be done because it was his job, and he just did it, whatever it took. He held this country together, he inspired us, he led .. with dignity, devotion to duty and honor to the office, working constantly with the intel, military and economic experts to keep our ship afloat and positive.
Have you forgotten how wounded and terrified we all were, on the edge of frazzled nerves? And none so much as the New Yorkers during the World Series just weeks after the attacks that year. He courageously .. YES, courageously .. decided to purposely go. To show Americans and the world, we don't cave, you can't take us down .. and he made himself the symbol of America and a target, daring our enemies.
Have you forgotten how you and your family/friends felt that day and the chills, tears and pride in this moment .. that this man was damning personal fear and standing up for our America, for all of us and our values and way of life? How he united the whole country with his courage and resolve?
And he threw a strike. USA, USA, USA .. all that left your selective menory?
It can't be overstated that he accomplished and achieved this impenetrably strong image to the world and our enemies in the face of utterly despicable attacks, obstructionism and mockery from the dem congress, who tried to thwart him at every turn. And the scandalous press and blogosphere .. aah yes.
Just do a search for George Bush ape
http://tinyurl.com/7743mhm
George Bush monkey
http://tinyurl.com/7al3gaf
George Bush stupid
http://tinyurl.com/75jln7x
George Bush idiot
http://tinyurl.com/7x5k42c
The personal, the profane, the vile, the filthy .. they covered all the dirty bases targeting him and his family members... daily, relentlessly mocking, demeaning and smearing and outright distorting truth and facts with lies and omission.
Yet, throughout all the pressure, strain, worry and managing our new world 24/7, you never saw him dishonor the office. He wouldn't even enter the Oval without a jacket and tie, and he always exhibited integrity in his presidential duties, here and abroad, deflecting the viciousness and slings and arrows with self-deprecating humor (this, the ONLY US President with an MBA at the time), graciousness, goodness, good will, compassion, faith in God and belief in the sanctity of all life, and righteous American strength.
There's no doubt he acted consequentially and consistently on those, his core principles.
No, I know to my core, and I will go to my grave knowing that you are SO wrong, and so do non BDS, non nitpicking whiners.
You all never walked a day, an hour in his shoes, experiencing the worry and stress, the chilling sweat of the latest intel report, the planning and brainstorming he was sworn to do that he did with what all the public knew was happening and all we DIDN'T and will NEVER know, yet you all wanted him to do everything just like YOU wanted him to do.
You all expected and demanded something from him that YOU don't and can't achieve yourselves, nor could you or I EVER achieve, nor that ANY human achieves: PERFECTION.
What a pitiable, personal reflection of you and glance backward upon which to gaze, as you sit here judging, picking .. ungrateful .. while your city or town weren't bombed, yours or your family's plane weren't blown up in a million pieces over the country, and a suitcase bomb didn't go off in your closest large mall.
Yet, YOU pooh pooh that major accomplishment .. you had/have OTHER issues .. he shoulda done this, he shoulda done that, why did he do that? Just pick that ONE issue .. he just didn't measure up in your imperious estimation, so you whine because he just didn't please YOU totally. What a prince you must be in real life.
Reality alert: we're all flawed and imperfect .. intentionally by God's design .. and I'm so very grateful for Pres. Bush, just when we needed him and his character and devotion to duty .. for his entire term with which we were blessed.
He undeniably succeeded directly through his perseverance, resolve and efforts in leading our experts in his HIGHEST and most critical priority and duty as POTUS: safeguarding America, and he did it with integrity, good will and humor, never sinking to vengefulness or the filthy sewer level smackdowns of his (and OUR) enemies, easy as that would have been, given his intelligence and wit, but he was the President of the United States, he had somber and solemn responsibilities on this critical mission .. and he achieved them, truly against all expected and predicted odds.
Yes, pitiable...
Please note that this vanity was written without the benefit of hindsight granted by six years since 2006 which only confirms everything that was written and, revealingly, does not contain a conclusion subsequently reached that the Iraq war was one of the greatest follies since Vietnam. You ask whether our position abroad has improved? I can tell you as one who has been living in Germany 20 years that the Germans, at least, are only confirmed in their early prejudices against George Bush because of the Iraq war. Whether you think the Iraq war was wise or foolish, there can be no doubt that George Bush set us back diplomatically for years in Europe.
With the benefit of hindsight it is clear George Bush is as responsible for the war in Iraq as any man alive and history will judge him on the war and not, regrettably, according your lights. History will not be kind to him for our participation in the Iraq war which has set us back terribly geostrategicly in the war against militant Islam and served only to advance the ambitions of Iran. For the record, I favored the war in Iraq at the time and I acknowledge I was in error.
Here is a portion of the vanity I wrote in November of 2006 immediately after the debacle of that election, entitled Why We Lost which was largely generated by the ineptitude of George Bush, the bill of particulars of which follows:
One goes to the very essence of the character of George Bush. I've long published that he is not a movement conservative, in fact he is not a conservative at all but rather he is a patrician with loyalties to family, friends, and country. His politics are animated not by conservative ideology but by a noblisse oblige which, as a substitute for political philosophy, move him to act from loyalty and love of country. The result of this is that he does not weigh his words and actions against a coherent standard grounded in conservatism, but instinctively reacts to do what is right for family, friends, and country. Thus we get Harriet Meirs, pandering to the Clintons and Kennedys, prescription drug laws, campaign finance laws, runaway spending, and the war in Iraq. The conservative movement is left muddled and confused and the Republican Party undisciplined and leaderless. In these circumstances all manner of mischief is possible beginning with corruption and indiscipline in the ranks. To be effective, a president must be feared as well is loved. A President is more than just Commander in Chief and Chief Executive of the nation, he is the titular head of his party and he must rule it. If Bush was willing to pander to the likes of Teddy Kennedy, what did Senator John McCain have to fear from him? Bush has utterly failed in his role as head wrangler of the Republican Party.
Other subjective reasons for the debacle involve Bush's personal character. He is essentially a nonconfrontational man who would rather operate through collegiality than through power. This is reinforced by his Christian belief and he will almost literally turn the other cheek. So, his loyalty to family and friends affects his appointments and produce mediocrities like Brown at FEMA and Ridge at Homeland Security and Harriet Meirs. It makes him shrink from prosecuting the crimes of his enemies even to the point of overlooking real security lapses committed by The New York Times. It makes it very difficult for Bush to discipline his troops and fire incompetent or disloyal subordinates. Instead he soothes them with the Medal of Freedom.
George Bush is a singularly inarticulate man. When he is not delivering a prepared speech, his sincerity and goodness of character come through, but his policies often die an agonizing death along with the syntax. The truth is that Bush has never been able, Ronald Reagan style, to articulate well the three or four fundamental issues which move the times in which we live. One need only cite the bootless efforts to reform Social Security as an example. His inability to tell America why we must fight in Iraq to win the greater worldwide war against terrorism, or how we are even going to win in Iraq, has been fatal to the Republicans' chances in this election. Of course, one can carry this Billy Budd characterization too far and it is easy to overemphasize its importance, but it is part of the general pattern which has led us to this pass. It is a very great pity that the bully pulpit has been squandered in the hands of a man so inarticulate. That the bully pulpit was wasted means that there are no great guiding principles for the country, for the party, for the administration, for Congress to follow, or for the voters to be inspired by. If the voters went into the booth confused about what the Republican Party stands for, the fault is primarily George Bush's.
There are structural problems for the Republicans as well. By the demographic breakdown of the Northeast and the ambitions of senators such as McCain, there was no coherent Republican policy in the Senate. It is in the nature of the Senate that wayward senators are difficult to bring to heel in any circumstance and Bush's inability properly to act as party leader has given Mavericks a green light to commit terrible damage to the Republicans' electoral posture. This demographic trend is destined to get worse and the self survival instincts of what is left of the Republican Party outside of the South will only become more acute and lead to more defections. Other senators, even when not motivated by personal ambition or demographic problems in blue states, felt free to engage in an extravaganza of corrupt spending to benefit their districts and soothe their contributors. There is a regrettable tendency to underemphasize the demographic handicap under which we conservatives struggle. Bush failed to provide leadership on spending. Merely cutting taxes is only one leg of the stool, fiscal discipline must be maintained. Failing to impose party discipline is a grave sin, but Bush magnified it exponentially with the mindless prescription drug entitlement, farm supports, and educational spending. If Bush can have his prescription drug program that nobody wanted, why cannot Senator Stevens in Alaska have his bridge that nobody needed? Bush not only failed to set the proper example in fiscal discipline, he affirmatively set the wrong example of profligacy.
Press bias, says you?. One need only cite the unrelenting hostility of the Washington Post against Senator Allen to demonstrate Republican difficulties in this area. Allen's real opponent was the Washington Post. But this is not new, the Washington Post did the same thing to Ollie North several cycles ago and will do so again whenever it gets the chance. Republicans have been able to overcome this handicap in recent elections, so long as they had an effective affirmative story to tell. In fairness to the Republicans, it is true to say that the hostility of the press has reached even more egregious dimensions as a result of the war in Iraq. The remedy for this is to get a policy and tell your story well. In short, set the agenda, one which the public hears and understands in spite of the media. The classic example of this is Newt Gingrich's brilliant contract with America in 1994 in which he stole the entire agenda right out from under the noses of the drive-by media. I think their visceral hatred of Gingrich has as much to do with this coup as it does with the actual right wing policies contained in the contract with America. If one is not willing to accept the world as it is with all of its media bias then one is ultimately confounded. If one cannot move until press bias is corrected, then one cannot move on until the bias in academia or in immigrant groups is eliminated. The scale will never be balanced and conservatism, too anguished to move, will never find another majority.
While some exit polls say that only 7% of voters regarded immigration as the important issue, I am personally convinced that the percentage is much higher among conservatives and, anyway, the implications for the Republican Party and the conservative cause of unchecked illegal immigration is nothing short of catastrophic. Bush bashing or not, the cold reality is that George Bush has willfully and deliberately failed to enforce the nation's laws on immigration. Bush has simply got a blind spot here, he wants amnesty and, by God, now he is going to get it because the Democrats are going to give it to him. The only hope for sanity in controlling immigration has died with Republican control of the House. Bush's duty was to enforce existing law against employers who seek unfair competitive advantage by hiring illegals at substandard wages. Now we have upwards of 30 million illegals in America and there is no conservative branch of government that can stop these people getting the vote eventually and, believe me, they will not vote conservative in my lifetime. Bush's stealth legacy to the Republican Party will become apparent as he exits the White House and Republicans remain in minority status for as long as the eye can see. Bush's dereliction in this regard justifies every conservative in turning his face from Bush and many did on election Day.
Lest this become a Bush bashing fest, let us note that Congressmen and Senators are for the most part alpha males (and sometimes bitchy females) who quite rightly should be expected to do the right thing without the fear and admonition of the President. But they did not. The single most appropriate word which identifies the Republican Congress before the election is, "arrogance" - although "greed" must run a very close second. Winston Churchill once said of the Socialist Clement Atley, "he is a very modest man, and he has much to be modest about." Running the gamut from sordid affiliations with K street lobbyists and the Abramoffs of the world, to unseemly earmarks, and continuing all the way to outright venality, the Republicans have much to be more than modest about. The voters have just dealt them their comeuppance and it is long overdue. But elections are blunt instruments for weeding out corruption; the voters wrath, like God's rain, falls on the just and the unjust alike. So honest and incorrupt conservative representatives of the people like Rick Santorum fall with the Cunninghams and the Neys and the Foleys while Democrat Menendez enjoys a pass. While it does not discriminate among Republicans, the voters wrath does discriminate between parties and so their wrath fell disproportionately on Republicans because they are the party in power. This also has been remedied by this election. Finally, in a strange way the voters grim unhappiness with the course of the war in Iraq finds expression in this general repugnance of the corruption and venality and directs it almost exclusively against the Republicans, because they are the party associated with the war. It is human nature to react to an irritant disproportionately when the soul is troubled by larger problems. This identification as the party solely responsible for the war is something the Republicans must remedy in the next two years.
All of these factors so far cited are in themselves not party breakers and could have been managed and mitigated but for the elephant in the room: The war in Iraq. Indeed, the superficially inconsistent results of this election cannot be understood unless one accepts the centrality of the issue of the war in Iraq. It was the fulcrum upon which all else turned. Why did the voters overlook the corruption of Democrats and punish disproportionately Republicans? The war in Iraq. Why did the electorate conclude that the administration has been incompetent in handling hurricane Katrina while resolutely declining to consider other explanations? The war in Iraq. The Democrats and the media contrived to make Katrina a metaphor for Iraq and the people largely bought it because they were uneasy about Iraq but patriotic enough to want victory. So they could resolve their ambivalence by reacting to Katrina. The same analysis applies to the issue of the culture of corruption. Why were conservative issues respectfully treated by the electorate when it came to referenda? Because they were not tainted by the war in Iraq. Why was Lincoln Chafee turned out in Rhode Island even though he was adamantly against the war in Iraq? Because his identification as a member of the party responsible for the war overcame his individual posture. The rabidly antiwar voters in Rhode Island knew that Chafee would be casting his votes for control of the Senate with the Republican war party. Why was Senator Lieberman returned in Connecticut as independent despite his support for the war? I have no explanation except to say this anomaly can be explained in terms of Republican defection into his camp and the extraordinarily high personal appeal and integrity of a man who only two cycles ago was his party's vice presidential nominee. Besides, Lieberman made it clear that he would cast his votes for Senate control with the Democrats-the antiwar party in this election. Why do polls show that the administration and the party have lost the confidence of the people in conducting the overall war against terror? Because the people have concluded that the war in Iraq has been conducted incompetently. Katrina or Iraq, chicken or the egg, it all feeds upon itself.
When an uneasy independent voter drew the curtain in the booth he had to choose, statistically speaking, between a Democrat and a Republican. Uneasy about the war, this voter could resolve this dilemma by rationalizing his choice for the Democrats on other grounds like corruption, or incompetence. When a thinking conservative entered the booth, or more likely considers whether to travel to the polling place at all, he could resolve his logical dilemma by staying home where he would not have to choose between his party and his logic because he could justify that decision out of anger over spending and immigration. This conservative voter is like the man who comes home unexpectedly from a business trip, goes upstairs, enters the bedroom where he finds his wife naked in bed, opens the closet door and finds a naked man there with an erection, and hears his wife say, "who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" Well, the conservative voter, deeply troubled by what he sees concerning the war in Iraq, can avoid the dilemma by not opening the closet door, by not going to the polling place.
That fits his dad, alright. Doesn't quite fit W. I suppose love of country and noblesse oblige may go some way to explaining "compassionate conservatism" and the rest of Bush's presidency, but you can't leave out Karl Rove's political strategizing and Cheney's recasting of conservatism along nationalistic, centralizing lines. Sheer inertia and the impossibility of turning things around on a dime also account for a lot of what goes on in Washington.
Other subjective reasons for the debacle involve Bush's personal character. He is essentially a nonconfrontational man who would rather operate through collegiality than through power. This is reinforced by his Christian belief and he will almost literally turn the other cheek. So, his loyalty to family and friends affects his appointments and produce mediocrities like Brown at FEMA and Ridge at Homeland Security and Harriet Meirs. It makes him shrink from prosecuting the crimes of his enemies even to the point of overlooking real security lapses committed by The New York Times.
I guess so, but ideologues are always looking to prosecute their opponents, and politicians generally refuse to do so. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Show trials would still be going on and making political divisions even more venomous if politicians didn't resist vindictive impulses.
Please see my comment # 61 .... I was thinking of responding to Nathan Bedford but Im beginning to realize just how futile it is to try to communicate with these folks
In April the Bush Institute is having an Economic Growth Conference, hosted by the President, called "Tax Policies for 4% Growth."
The haters have fuzzy memories and seem to forget unemployment at less than 5% and economic growth above 5%, as well as pro-growth policies and a consistent tax cutting record (better than Reagan's, I might add).
President Bush, through the Bush Instutute is continuing to promote strong economic principles and pro-American policies.
He's just doing things quietly, consistent with his character and respect for others that showed through so clearly when he was in office.
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