Posted on 03/29/2002 3:08:59 PM PST by TLBSHOW
Right on! I am so past stem-cell research and the Adarand challenge. Bush is selling out big time. All in the name of getting votes. So much for principles.
Consider your sources. You're disagreeing with a fine list of conservatives (noted above) and agreeing with a liberal hack.
He is pushing Israel to compromise in its endless war against the Palestinians in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank.
He's turned into just another smooth talker who, when in office, sells out those he once claimed to represent.
I challenge purists who think Reagan didn't compromise all the time to read his own book, "An American Life," where he constantly complained about the "HARD RIGHT," and how they sabotaged elections.
There are two things at work here, totally unrelated. The first is 9/11, and if indeed (as many suspect) Bush sees not only this 4-year term, but his next, taken up primarily with confronting this evil that Clinton put off for 8 years, then it is likely he will "cave" on several conservative issues. (By the way, can we please understand that not all conservatives agree that "amnesty" is wrong; that CFR is bad; or that tariffs are dumb.) Nevertheless, Reagan gave in time and again (higher taxes in 1986, no killing of the Ed Dept., trade with the USSR) in order to militarily and politically defeat the Soviets.
I don't claim to know Bush enough to know if this is indeed his mindset, but it is a reasonable theory.
The second thing that happened was Jumpin' Jim. But even before Jumpin' Jim, we were pretty well screwed in the Senate. Lott is so incompetent that even with a 10 seat MAJORITY he'd be at a disadvantage. When Jeffords went, though, we have seen how now the Dems can make their own stupid 60-vote rules and bottle things up in committee.
Given that, Bush has brilliantly run rings around these guys, using executive orders on three separate occasions to reduce abortions; making the recess appointments; getting the tax cut through; and, for all its bad side, at least using CFR to likely ensure that the GOP gets a majority in the Senate. What they can do with it is anyone's guess, but I would bet if the GOP has a 3-4 seat majority, Miller and possibly Breaux would switch parties to get in the majority.
If not, then you would agree that the war on terrorism should be abandoned?
Second, true, Bush did rein in Israel a couple of weeks ago, but TODAY'S statement by Powell had a much different tone. If this represents the "new" policy, then it means that as always, Bush gives you ONE CHANCE to "straighten up and fly right," then he clobbers you. He gave Arafat his chance.
But third, you and all other American conservatives (like Rush) need to get something through your heads: Israel is DIVIDED on the "proper" policy, and they booted Netanyahu OUT. I think they should boot the Palestinians out, but it isn't my country. Until Israel, and the vast majority of liberal Israelis (imagine New York City in the Middle East!) decide that they cannot negotiate with the Palestinian terrorists, neither Bush nor all the upset conservatives in the world can do one thing. This is Israel's call, REGARDLESS of what Bush or the U.S. says.
Do you realize that Israel can tell us to stick our $3 billion in aid? They haven't because they like that aid. But when they come to the point that they see their security is more important than that money, then they can truly say that we have "let their people go." At that point, God help the Arabs, because Allah sure won't.
The fact is that on election day, you only have a reasonable choice between two people and a handful of wasted votes. Most people will choose the candidate who, despite his flaws, is CLOSEST to their views, and believe me, in 2004 that will be Bush unless Henry "Scoop" Jackson comes out of the grave for the Democrats.
In case you people here have forgotten, there is not ONE DEM of national standing who believes in national security and in destroying our enemies. Not one. That alone would cause those elephants to remember real quickly "who brung em to the ball."
Just admit that you're siding with the liberal author of this column over the Washington Times and other conservative publications.
While just how Enron was looted baffles first sight, a criminal spine to Enron scandals is both clear and familiar to the people: a thief (Mr. Lay) gives much cash to a politician (Bush); thereafter, the thief enjoys great favor and wealth as the politician rises to greater power still. That is a clear fact of the circumstance everybody understands, and therefore none can successfully hide.
Republican electoral success depends on great financial predominance. The willingness of rich rightists to donate large sums to Bush is a principal weapon in the enemy’s armory. The exigencies of wartime politics have already acted to reduce his fundraising capabilities somewhat, by rendering unseemly any aggressively partisan activity by a purportedly national leader (as Bush claims himself to be).
By political action emphasizing Mr. Lay’s great investments in Bush, as well as the clear favor Mr. Lay enjoyed, Bush’s ability to raise party funds can be reduced still further.
Any number of Bush’s "Pioneer" bag-men will be discovered still active, tainted by connections to Mr. Lay, and shown to be enjoying presently favors from Bush, just like the ones Mr. Lay did.
Rightist voting strength depends on a coalition of free-market believers and traditionalists. It is unwieldy: nothing is so corrosive of traditional mores as free markets; nothing is more traditional than calling for government curbs on thieving merchants.
Mr. Lay’s thieving shows so all can clearly see that markets are neither free nor well regulated, simply rigged, and Bush’s connivance in the thefts makes the realization he is in on the fix just as unavoidable.
Free market believers have no defense against a fact of rigged markets; traditionalists always suspect markets of being rigged.
Free market believers without much real property of their own, the greatest proportion of them by far, must view with some alarm the routine deception of major accounting firms and mutual funds that Mr. Lay, by leave of Bush, engaged in, to his and his cronies profit. Free market believers with little property know enough to know it is they themselves who are the sheep these wolves seek.
Traditionalists, who are moved by a conscious thrill of virtue when, instead of serving their material interests by voting left, they stand and do the "right" thing by voting for a rightist candidate, with integrity and values, must view with some repulsion the greed displayed by those they have trusted to lead the nation. Mr. Lay’s thieving, and Bush’s cash-bought conniving in it,
Win what?
Please point out for me our big "wins" the past 35 years.
From 1968 to 1992 the Democrats ate their own. I sure hope the Republicans don't fall into a trap like that.
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