So you think Reagan was a statist? ;-)
If you say Republicans are not laissez-faire enough, I'll agree with you. If you say GWB is even less so than the average Republican, I'll still have to agree with you, unfortunately. But if you say Republicans actually liked and profited from Communism ... well I think that's at least a bit too paranoid.
ask IBM workers in Szekesfehervar how they like globalization now
IBM came to Hungary because it was profitable for them to do so. When that profitability is no longer there, they have a right to lay off workers or pull out althogether. But I think you knew this.
You think Bush gives a flying youknowwhat about what the people in Hungary think of him or his policies?
I actually think that Republicans pay too much attention to "international opinion." The globalists in the UN are truly oblivious of what Americans think about them--so why should an American President worry about anyone's interests but those of Americans?
Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.Caleb C. Colton
Her ex-husband gave Bush 200k to buy an ambassadorship.
Sounds like "mudslinging as usual" to me. I like to judge a politician's character by what I actually see him do, not by what the media wants me to believe.
They media incessantly accused the Fidesz government of all sorts of sleazy machinations. When the subject was brought up in an interview after the elections, Prime Minister Orban said none of the allegations were true at all. And I believed him, as that picture was consistent with the way I had judged his character from what I had seen him say and do, whereas the dark picture the leftists had tried to paint just wasn't. This despite the fact that I had often disagreed with Fidesz's policies--perhaps more often than I had agreed.
The same applies to President Bush: while I sometimes wish he did things differently, on the whole, I definitely think he has good intentions. So I treat allegations against him as a jury should treat accusations against a defendant: I presume him innocent until proven guilty. My presumption of innocence is further strengthened by my knowledge that his detractors do not have good intentions of any kind.
Of course he was. Did the state expand or contract under his presidency? That said, he was the greatest president we had this century.
But if you say Republicans actually liked and profited from Communism ... well I think that's at least a bit too paranoid.
The national security state profited Democrats and Republicans alike, very handsomely. The well-connected got very rich from the state's radical expansion under the guise of fighting communism ("justified," of course, by grossly over-estimated -- likely for political reasons -- intelligence assessments of Soviet military power as we now know). The Dems never professed to desire smaller government, but the Republicans were the ones who babbled on about the need for smaller government. Don't forget: in order for Reagan to get the OK on expanding the national security state he had to toss domestic spending bones to the Dem-controlled Congress. So the question is not so much whether the Repubs liked communism (though in the post-communist era they have identified most closely with former communist dictators than with anti-communist democrats -- ask Lech and Antall and scores of others), but whether the national security state as justified by the Cold War was profitable to the politically-connected. No one with any understanding of how defense procurement works can argue otherwise.
I wrote: Her ex-husband gave Bush 200k to buy an ambassadorship.You replied: Sounds like "mudslinging as usual" to me.
Then you know nothing about how Brinker got her ambassadorship. She was gauche enough to brag in mixed company about the money that her husband gave Bush in exchange for the ambassadorship. Not very well-bred, but there you have it.
They media incessantly accused the Fidesz government of all sorts of sleazy machinations.
The communist media in Hungary is controlled. Nepszabadsag is the favored publication in the US government -- even in the Bush administration. You don't believe me? I could show you the daily CIA media translations from Hungary. Every article they translate comes either from Magyar Hirlap or Nepszabadsag or Nepszava. Rarely anything from Magyar Nemzet, never anything from Demokrata or, God forbid, Magyar Forum. So under the glorious conservative Bush and his adminstration, still you have only communist voices in the foreign policy analysis mix. One word from a political appointee at the DAS level could change this bias. Silence.
Are you Hungarian? You seem like an SzDSz supporter (no offense if you are not).