[Lazamataz]

We ignore this editorial at our own peril.

[harpo11]

What a job American presidents have, approximately 270 million critics and that is just in the homeland.

[astudent]

For the long-term I believe that Bush will be proven wrong on several major issues:

Steel Import Tariff ---- Big mistake. Shows fear of confidence in free trade

Farm Bill --- Another Big Mistake. Too much money going to support non competition

Refusal to Acknowledge Questionable Business dealings ---Bush should have acknowledge that he received favoritism because of his name and heritage, but that what he did, though questionable, was legal. He should apologize to the American public and get on with things. Hiding, denying, misleading the American public about his questionable business dealings of the past is a mistake that will continue to haunt him

Inability to reduce --or make an effort to reduce government spending --- Thhis is a tragic mistake that likely will end up costing him the election as the government reduires more funds and the deficit grows.

Besides these areas, he has acted conservatively and in the best interests of the American people. Let's give him a B plus and hope that he will concentrate on correcting the above errors

[Gelato]

This article implies that advocating tax spending alone qualifies a person as a Democrat. But it's not the spending, per se, that makes a person in favor of Big Government. It's what the money is spent on that counts.

Spending tax money on defense is a legitimate action of government. In fact, protection is what government was invented for in the first place! It's when that spending is used outside of this function, and is wasted on social programs and other pork, that it is to be criticized.

From the article:

Though Bush bristles at the notion that this is the very big government he ran against, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have forced him to major expansions from hiring 40,000 baggage screeners to increases in the Border Patrol, Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Immigration and Naturalization Service.

If this wasn't enough to give him membership in the tax and spend Democratic Club that conservatives all deplore, for the last 10 weeks Bush has been working on a major crackdown on the same big business that put up so much money to send him to Washington.

I'm sorry, but that is ridiculous. Spending money for baggage handlers is not socialism.

The only problem that needs to be resolved is, of course, that there's not enough money to go around--so if we want large increases in the defense budget, we'll need to offset that by rolling back spending on the non-essentials in the social programs started by the Democrats.

[cynicom]

Laz....

Go back and check the platform that FDR ran on for his first term. He toured the country in 1931 railing AGAINST BIG GOVERNMENT, OVER REGULATION, all on a conservative program. He won in a landslide with his platform, then see what we got.

[PGalt]

The President isn't getting serviced by an intern, multitudes of people aren't dying around him, enablers aren't going on tv lying for him, he isn't telling bold-faced lies while wagging his finger at us, he isn't using the military for deceptive purposes, the First Lady isn't taking over a large chunk of the nation's economy and his cabinet members aren't under indictment.

Life is good.

[ned]

no less a supply-sider than Jude Wanniski sent a warning to House leaders that forcing firms to report stock options as a business expense, where the investors would see it, would have chilling effect on the entrepreneurs who built the boom of the dot.coms.

Has it really become too late for honest accounting?

[Bounceback]

"... took away all the Democrat issues - preempted them, by God we did by enacting all of them, - so they wouldn't have any talking points with the electorate come November, ... and although the House and Senate were lost in 2002 and, ultimately, the presidency in 2004, nevertheless ... ."

- fragment of old print newspaper article found floating in space, newpaper and author unknown, discovered in 3012 by junior high school children loitering on their way to a picnic on Calisto.

[Jesse]

Well, even some Bushbots are starting to get it, finally. Remains to be seen if anything productive will come of it.

[swheats]

We ignore this editorial at our own peril.

Why? Because the author compared Bush to a democrat (you guys do that daily, doesn't make it so) or because he used words like draconian, or Roosevelt's New Deal? Hit piece by any other name is still a hit piece. Intellectual honesty is a terrible thing to lose. The author wrote all of that to once again keep the connection of Cheney to Halliburton and Bush to Harken still in the public arena.

Concerning the Aug 14th deadline, that was needful. What other way would have satisfied the fact that we needed to know what corp's books were legit in a timely manner? If surgery needs to be done, the cutting can be swift and immediate or strategic and accurate. My hope is that after it's all over my investments and 401k is not at zero after profit revisions.

[ozzymandus]

Blah,blah,blah. I grew tired of all the whining Bush-bashing long ago.

[staytrue]

If zell miller is so conservative, then why does he not switch and had the republicans the senate so that so of bush's judges get through. No zell is just as bad as the rest of them.

[PhiKapMom]

Laz --

Sorry I took it out on you about Miller but that pushed a real hot button. I have been saying for months that he is fooling conservatives and really isn't that conservative.

Now if you had mentioned Ralph Hall from TX -- the response would have been much more positive.

I say it is time for Pres Bush to take off the gloves and come out swinging, make some recess appointments, and use the veto pen. You cannot deal with this bunch of Democrats -- they have absolutely no integrity -- zero, zip, nada. And IMHO the people like daschle, clinton, leahy, gephardt, and others could care less about this Country which they have demonstrated with their actions and gleeful attitude with the markets going down.

Hear one more time about this "new tone" in Washington and I think I will scream! Just like when so many Republicans in 1994 signing on to three terms and they are out of there -- you don't see the DemocRATS doing that. Republicans need to get smart and quit being wishy washy and get some backbone! We need to sweep as many RATs out of Congress as we can and being touchy feely "nice" is not going to do it!

My mini rant for this thread!

[Uncle Bill]

Bttt