MEGA PING!!
Posted on 01/11/2003 5:35:42 PM PST by ohioWfan
By Richard Reeves
WASHINGTON -- When he was still a governor in 1999, George W. Bush came to Los Angeles to speak to a polite but skeptical crowd of movie executives. Suspicions that the man from Texas was dim and uncertain seemed confirmed when he could not remember the name of a Californian he said he had worked with closely.
Bush snapped the tension with a crack: "Hey, I'm a big-picture guy."
Who knew he wasn't kidding? I have told that story before, but it seems appropriate right now. This president has knocked the wind out of Washington with his ambitions to change the rules of the world and the tax code of the United States. "Big" and "bold" are the words of the day, as in this headline over a Washington Post analysis: "Bush Goes With the Bold Stroke."
"Call it boldness, audacity or even chutzpah ..." begins the piece by Dana Milbank, which continues, "President Bush twice stunned the capital with proposals far beyond what was considered workable."
The heavy breathing began last Tuesday, when the president called for tax cuts that doubled even what many of the most anti-government Republicans expected -- and they were cuts that proudly favored the so-called "investing class." Rich people, families with incomes above $375,000 a year, the top 1 percent of earners, would get more than 30 percent of the new tax breaks.
Then a few hours later, the president followed with another right cross to the town's solar plexus. The conventional wisdom was that after the racial flap over Sen. Trent Lott's praise of segregationists past, Bush would look for more moderate conservatives to nominate for federal judgeships in the South. Wrong again! Bush once again nominated federal District Court Judge Charles Pickering to fill an appeals court vacancy. Pickering, a Lott protege from Mississippi, was rejected last year by the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) because of his record on racial matters. That was when Democrats controlled the Senate. Now Republicans are in control, so Bush stuck it to the new minority.
In case the Democrats did not get the message, he also renominated Texas Supreme Court Justice Patricia Owens for the same appeals court. She had been rejected in committee because Democrats believed she was determined to push a personal anti-abortion agenda on the bench.
Our president is a very tough guy, an in-your-face politician far tougher than people on both sides thought. "In for a penny, in for a pound," was the comment by one Republican in Congress. The idea, which surprised most people around here, was that if Bush is going to lose on some of his programs, particularly tax cuts, why not lose big?
Many in his own party, some of them uncomfortable with this boldness -- thinking it irresponsible -- believe that the president is haunted by his father's easygoing reputation. The conventional wisdom is that George H.W. Bush lost re-election in 1992 because he did not cash in the political capital (his own high standing in polls) after the first Gulf War (news - web sites) against Iraq. The political cliche on that one is, "Not like father, like son."
All of this happened, of course, while the president was threatening war in a couple of venues, old and new, and as the federal budget (and the budgets of state and local governments) were plunging once more into deficit because of relatively lower tax revenues. We've been there, done that, haven't we? The fact is that younger Bush is not like his father. He is like his father's old boss, Ronald Reagan (news - web sites). Borrow and borrow, spend and spend -- and ignore criticism.
He is, right or wrong -- and he certainly is convinced he's right -- a true big-picture guy. He may be riding for a fall, but he is trying to change the world and the country. Bush, right now, is moving to remake the world in an American image -- institutionalizing an American empire -- and remake the country in a conservative image with government power reduced by cutting its funding. And if people don't like it, they can go to court and appeal to the judges he picked.
I am half way through the book “The Right Man” and as far as I’m concerned there is nothing in this book controversial. I agree with Frum and his observations as well as his concerns concerning George W. Bush.
This book is just one more inside look into the leadership skills this president possesses. All through this book Frum concedes his “misunderestimation” along with his critics and I for one can identify with each and every one of his concerns and complaints. There is no cheerleading; there is no white wash. Just a view from someone who arrived in the Bush administration with some doubt of George W. Bush capability to lead compared to someone who left with out a doubt who was leading this country.
NO MATTER how the lame stream press portrays this book, It’s and honest depiction of a Speech Writers experience of his short time in the White House. Like it or not, His overall opinion of our President is a powerful one and it leaves no doubt who is leading the country.
I have read most, if not all the books on GWB and this one has been just one more view into the inner workings of a powerful and in control leader who has a vision for the Nation he leads.
I especially like one segment of Dubya’s speech to some Yale graduates. He said something like this:
“When I left Yale, I had no life plans, Some of us had some, Most of us had our ups and downs, But as time went on I realized that we are not the author”
These are words that comfort me. , Not because they portray GWB as some kind of protecting force, It’s because he is calling on a power greater than all of us that protects those who live in God's image and GWB is confident that Lord is guiding us and, "An Angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm"
I recommend this book to all of you
In May 2001, Bush gave the commencement address at Yale. When work began on the speech, Bush seemed uninterested in it. His feelings toward his old school were less than fond. When one of the writers working on the speech unearthed some curious bit of Yale history, Bush asked him with surprise: "Did you go to Yale?"
The writer said no.
Bush replied, "Well, you didn't miss much."
Yet he ended up working harder on that Yale speech than any speech he gave that spring except the State of the Union. The longer he worked on it, the more sentimental he became -- and the more candid. In the end, the speech evolved into the most self-revealing document of that first year. "When I left here, I didn't have much in the way of a life plan. I knew some people who thought they did. But it turned out that we were all in for ups and downs, most of them unexpected. Life takes its own turns, makes its own demands, writes its own story. And along the way, we start to realize we are not the author."
And that was why Bush was so confident: not because he was arrogant, but because he believed that the future was held in strong hands than his own."
As far as your remark
I for one can identify with each and every one of his concerns and complaints.
Everybody thinks we have no doubts at all; only somebody who DOES march in lockstep with a politican could believe that. I surely don't like or agree with every single thing he does.
That being said, I do NOT like distortions of what he HAS done, whether I agree with it or not.
I feel like Frum's book is one of many -- but I have this feeling that it's the fairest so far. It says some hard stuff. And the true test of a person is how they fare when people disclose "the hard stuff."
George W. Bush is not a god; he's only human; but I believe that he's doing the best he can for reasons that he truly believe are best for this country.
And I believe David Frum now thinks that, too.
(I doubt we'll see any other Bush books that are this critical.)
Buy the book!
To me!!!!. That is why George W. Bush said he got a "glimpse into his soul".... Putin was caught off guard with this statement and GWB figured Putin for a patriot who had his peoples best interest in mind than his ideology.
At a quick glance I would have to say Putin was a patriot to his country before I would call him a Stalinist. And I believe GWB thought so also
There were only two sentences of that speech that I thought was good. One was the the "We will make no distinction between the terrorist who committed these acts and those who harbor them" and this last remark "I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than all of us, Spoken through the ages in Psalm 23,
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. For you are with me"
This will teach me to IGNORE Matt Drudge, who has misled us on at least two occasions about books.
I still don't like the armchair psychology apparently inserted in this, but I will take your word that it is a miniscule part of the overall book.
This is far from the way the Left in the mainstream media has figured Frum's book "The Right Man"
It's a must read for those of us who can handle some mild criticism of our President. After all, GWB is human just like all of us
Overall, you see from the inside what a fine and honorable man George W. Bush is, and what a strong leader he is, and that's what's important, and the inside info is pretty interesting.
MJY.....I was so numb on the evening of September 11, that I thought the President did just fine in his speech.
btw...sorry I didn't answer your post earlier. My husband's stepfather passed on and he escorted his mother to Arlington Nat'l Cemetery to bury him. For the freedom we hold dear, great honor extends to Col. R. W. Sonneborn, Army Intelligence WWII.
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