Bush's Record Calls into Question His Conservative Label

The American Partisan ^ | June 5, 2002 | David T. Pyne

[rightwing2]

Didn't take but about 5 minutes for this excellent analysis to be followed up with polling data. Great post. Thanks.

Those who put politicians above party and especially above conservative principles always run to the polls when confronted with hard facts and unpleasant truths which they remain unwilling to face about their favorite politician(s). Bush is still popular, so "what me worry" if he is becoming increasingly successful in signing the liberal Democrap agenda into law.

[Jhoffa_]

I noticed that also.

Some might call it "reactionary"

(While others might just call it "idol worship")

[RAT Patrol]

Yep! Excellent analysis.

[dead]

He is currently having what is best in life..... "What is best in life? To crush your enemies. To see them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women..."

Good for him. But I was kinda hoping he’d shrink the size of government and its influence in our lives.

If listening to the lamentations of Eleanor Clift is more important to you, this must be a wonderful time.

[rightwing2]

The author offered this advice to the President. I disagree with that advice. I don't believe "center-right" is the tonic that will cure what ails this country. Just my opinion.

So what is your policy recommendation for the President? Unrestricted libertarianism I should think...The President needs to return to conservative principles. If right of center is all he can manage so be it, but his ultracentrist policies are for the birds.

[verity]

The realistic choices were Bush or Gore!

[hobbes1]

Cutting Taxes, while Increasing the Military IS shrinking Government. Further, if we could get Privatization Of Social Security, that will be a huge blow to Gov. spending, and will further the Anti tax attitude that The 401(k) helped bring.(Making this Reagans Greatest, yet Unheralded domestic gift)

Who dislikes government spending? Those that actually have Money getting Taken from them. Get it? Shrink the size of those dependant on Government, and increase the size of those being taxed.

[rightwing2]

Apparently you have not read the article by Slate that was posted here today. Your arguments in reference to Bush and Global Warming are now proven not only bogus, but part of a left-wing conspiracy.

Well, I guess you would hold that the Washington Times is part of your "left-wing conspiracy" as well since it published a couple of hard-hitting articles on how Bush looks set to implement the Kyoto Treaty by stealth. I'll send it to you tonight. In any case, you cannot deny Bush's own statements during the campaign that global warming was a major threat confronting this country. Ironically, it may have been these far-out "me-too Gore" statements, which bought Bush enough of the neo-communist Green vote to get him elected President.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Do you know how long it took to build up to the D-Day Invasion? Why didn't we go blasting in when we entered the war, why did we wait several years until 1944? How many lives were lost in the delay, how much more destruction took place, all because we were waffling and appeasing Hitler?

Clearly Eisenhower was no general.

[Miss Marple]

You know, it is quite possible that there is global warming, but that the Kyoto Treaty won't do anything to help it but will harm our economy.

Denying global warming, if it turns out to be true, is a losing issue. Much better to do research and find out if it is indeed occurring and come up with conservative, pro-American solutions.

And who in the world listens to the Washington Post? They are only marginally better than the New York Times!

[usconservative]

Great list, thanks. You neglected his success in the war on terror though. ;)

[WhiteGuy]

Right now, today, what he needs most, to effect lasting CONSERVATIVE change is +2 in the Senate. Then we can fill Judgeships, and maybe get a couple more conservatives on SCOTUS.

On the SOCTUS issue.

1. There are no openings right now.

2. Even with a +2 in the senate, a true conservative would have a tough time being confirmed.

The problem is not being one seat short in the senate, it's lack of conservative leadership.

I don't have a bit of confidence that bush would nomiate a conservative.

[massadvj]

OK, so Bush's liberal policies will insure a "win" in for the GOP in November. Let's say that's true. What will have been won? Higher deficits, more government spending, tariffs and amnesty for illegals. I can get that with the Democrats, plus I would be less likely to subject my rights to the martial law being imposed by the present administration.

I can't imagine how Al Gore would have been worse.

[Ben Ficklin]

The Washington Times piece you refer to was a Op-Ed opinion, not an article of substance. If you will go back and read it again, you can also see that bush has put the Senate Democrats in a lose-lose situation. After all, this is wednesday and they haven't said a peep.

[WhiteGuy]

Ron Paul in 2004

[dead]

Cutting Taxes, while Increasing the Military IS shrinking Government.

The tax cut was pitiable, but probably the best he could get in this atmosphere.

And, while justified, I don’t know how on earth you can say increasing the military is shrinking government. That’s nonsensical.

And, while I support privatization of Social Security, I don’t know how that would possibly qualify as a “huge blow to Gov. spending” or anti-tax. The plans to allow a small portion of our social security taxes to be invested in the stock market do not include any decrease in the percentage confiscated from us. It merely allows us, in theory, a better return on our forced investment. The issues aren’t even tangently related.

Adjusted, non-military, federal government spending is still growing. I didn’t vote for that. Get it?

[William Tell]

hobbes1 said: "Right now, today, what he needs most, to effect lasting CONSERVATIVE change is +2 in the Senate. Then we can fill Judgeships, and maybe get a couple more conservatives on SCOTUS. "

Absolutely. Only the Supreme Court has the power to reverse the terrible slide into socialism and tyranny that passes for Constitutional government today.

If Bush accomplishes nothing other than strengthening the Constitution in the Supreme Court, it will have an impact which will outlast any other accomplishments he might consider.

[rightwing2]

I've seen this vaunted list of Bush accomplishments before and it simply doesn't wash for the reason that many if not most of the accomplishments you list as conservative are in fact betrayals of the conservative cause. See the list below for specific examples.

The Real Bush Record
3-29-02 (since modified)
rightwing2

* Began implementation of his plan to unilaterally disarm the US of 75% of its strategic deterrent, which will eliminate the US as a nuclear superpower and permit the Sino-Russian alliance to supplant the US as the most powerful political and military force on the planet. It will also make the world safe for nuclear war by eliminating the US ability to deter nuclear attack from the superior nuclear forces of the Russian Federation.

* Supported anti-nuke wacko proposals to ‘de-alert’ much of our remaining nuclear triad making it impossible to fire except within several days or weeks upon the decision being made to do so.

* Agreed to continue the Democrap Congress mandated ban on nuclear testing, which his father opposed.

* Supported a Clinton initiated Army Transformation plan which will unilaterally disarm the Army of all of its war-winning main-battle tanks and tracked vehicles including the Crusader SP artillery system.

* Attempted to forge a strategic partnership with prime 9-11 terrorist state sponsor Iran in the misnamed “war against terrorism” in addition to other terrorist state sponsors like Syria and the Sudan.

* Appeased Communist China and embarrassed his country by disgracefully apologizing to the Communist Chinese hostagetakers who kidnapped the brave crew of the EP-3 recon plane they forced down.

* Appeased Communist China with an executive order legalizing the sale of computers 50-100 times as powerful as those sold under Clinton’s watch during the Chinagate scandal which caused Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the International Relations Committee to remark that these 600 US supercomputers purchased by Communist China gave it “more computing power than the entire Department of Defense.”

* Forced a vote in Congress on permanent Most Favored Nation trade status with and WTO membership for Communist China so that the PRC would continue to enjoy a $100 billion a year trade surplus with which to build themselves into the best nuclear superpower enemy US trade surplus can buy.

* Refused to support repeal of the 1994 Clinton gun-ban and championed tougher implementation of all draconian gun-control legislation now on the books by pledging to throw gun-control violaters into prison and throw away the key.

* Forced a stealth vote on the amnesty of two million illegal aliens in the House of Represenative as the first step in a much broader amnesty plan to effect millions more.

* Passed the radical Ted Kennedy education bill which federalizes education and providing tens of billions more a year for the liberal Department of Education and NEA to foist their perverse atheist liberal dogma upon our children.

* Appointed as the head of the Supreme Court Justice nominee search team and announced that the front-runner for his first Supreme Court pick is White House Counsel Albert Gonzales, a pro-abortion liberal who as Bush’s appointed Texas Supreme Court Justice found Bush’s own tepid parental notification on abortion legislation to be constitutionally impermissible. Why didn’t Bush appoint earstwhile pro-life champion Attorney General John Ashcroft to lead the Supreme Court nominee search team?

* Championed a Kyoto Lite Plan to appease the environmental wackos.

* Sent a report to the UN on climate change and the profound and very much imagined and fanciful “danger” of global warming.

* Signed the Democrat Congressional Majority Insurance Bill which, when implemented, will have the effect of bringing a permanent end to the hard-won Republican majority in Congress and making it much more difficult for Republicans to get elected nationwide.

* Left 99.9% of Clinton’s last minute unconstitutional executive orders in place.

* Championed and increased funding for Clinton’s fascistic AmeriKorps national service program

* Repealed only one of Clinton’s infamous four pro-abortion executive orders, which Clinton signed on the first day of his Presidency in January 1993 to reward the militant pro-abortion feminist constituency. Clinton’s pro-abortion executive orders had in turn repealed Ronald Reagan’s and President Bush’s own father’s pro-life executive orders. The Clinton executive orders concerned federal funding of international family planning agencies that fund and encourage abortions abroad, mandated that military hospitals offer abortions, mandated that federally-subsidized family planning clinics offer abortion as an alternative to women seeking counseling and provided federal funding for the harvesting of stem cells from aborted babies. President Bush repealed only the first although he has continued to support Congressional funding to provide funding to international organizations that themselves fund abortions abroad.

* Repealed his own temporary ban on continued federal funding for the harvesting of stem cells from aborted babies.

* Hosted Communist President Dos Santos of Angola only days after his assasination of Reagan's favorite anti-Communist freedom fighter, Dr. Jonas Savimbi failing to utter one word of protest over this assassination which was a flagrant violation of the peace process which Bush claimed to support.

* Refused to campaign with or do a TV commercial for conservative gubernatorial Republican nominee for Governor Mark Earley when all post-election polls and studies show that had he done so the Repubilcans would have won the Governorship and the Lt Governorship, whereas the Democrap candidates narrowly won both, subjecting my home state to Democrap rule for the first time in 8 years.

* Championed the election of moderate to liberal candidates in state primaries nationwide including most notably Richard Riorden for Governor of California, a RINO to the left of Bill Clinton who has championed partial birth abortion, gay rights, endorsed scores of Democrap incumbents and has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrap candidates.

* Engineered a successful takeover attempt of the once-conservative California Republican Party by arch-liberal Gerald Parsky who has called for the California Republican Party to be pro-gay, pro-abortion, and pro-illegal immigrant as the only way to win elections and denounced moderate conservative GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon as an extremist for being pro-life. This one Bush mistake alone will likely prevent an otherwise likely GOP victory in the critical California Governor's race in November due to Parsky's continuing refusal to support Simon or help him raise money.

* Championed a globalist Free Trade for the America's Treaty which would serve as the precursor to uniting the Western Hemisphere into a North American Union similar to the EU.

* Supporting the entry of Russia into NATO as a full-voting de-facto member with veto power ,which will mean the complete and permanent end of NATO as a military alliance capable of opposing Russian and Communist aggression.

* Submitted the first unbalanced budget to Congress in five years with deficits in the $200 billion range for the next few years.

* Opposed the Israel’s efforts to defend itself from Palestinian terrorist suicide bombers and called for the immediate withdrawal of Israel from “the occupied territories”, of which Israel's claim is at least as great as that of the Palestinians.

* Supported the creation of a Palestinian state led by longtime PLO terrorist leader Yassir Arafat, something even Bill Clinton refused to do.

* Signed an $80 billion farm subsidy bill reversing the hard won gains of the GOP Congress which had nearly succeeded in phasing out this FDR-era socialistic govt subisidy.

* Refused to investigate numerous Clinton crimes against the Constitution and instead attempted to help cover them up.

* Courted the homosexual vote by speaking to homosexual groups and appointing prominant homosexuals to influential positions in the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense.

Sure Bush has done some good things. However, as you can see Bush's overall bipartisan "moderate" record and betrayals of the conservative Republican cause are very much widespread and not limited to merely a few isolated incidents. I am all too willing to support a united front except when it does more to advance the liberal Clintonite agenda as Bush has done. I put my allegience to conservative principles and party first, not to any one man who in this case has betrayed both.

[Republican Wildcat]

My goodness. So many exaggerations, and even some blatant inaccuracies...and so little time for those of us that actually work for a living. Overall it is just plain stupid.

[rdavis84]

Some real expertise on the side of those Pollsters mentioned ---'specially that one named "GOP Polls".

Here's a brief bio on the COOK REPORT writer ===

"Cook is Editor and Publisher of The Cook Political Report, and political analyst for the National Journal Group, where he writes weekly for National Journal magazine and CongressDailyAM. He is also an analyst for CNN, appearing regularly on the highly rated Inside Politics. As one of the most sought-after political experts, Charlie has appeared on all the major network news shows, including NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week and Nightline, CBS's Evening News with Dan Rather and PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."