Call Bush what you want, but don't call him evil

George W. Bush has finally convinced liberals that he’s not an idiot. Problem is, they’ve now decided he’s a devious tyrant.

During his visit to England last week, thousands marched the streets of London with blood-stained signs reading “A killer comes to town” and “World’s #1 Terrorist.” They died the water in the Trafalgar Square fountain red and took down a Bush statue.

On October 28, a columnist for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian said this: “Dubya is one of the single most evil men roaming free right now, a man whose deviousness and maliciousness is equaled by only a few. Bush is a creature on the same level as bin Laden or, more appropriately, Hitler.”

And it isn’t just the far left. The President is assaulted daily by mainstream Democratic politicians.

John Kerry and Dick Gephardt have used war allusions to attack Bush. Kerry said that “we need a regime change in America” while Gephardt accused Bush of having “declared war on the American people.”

Ted Kennedy gave this evaluation of war with Iraq: “This was made up in Texas…this whole thing was a fraud.”

And as for Howard Dean, he has risen from complete obscurity to the front running and best funded Democratic candidate by angrily railing against “Bush and his cronies” daily.

Today’s climate of burning leftist hatred is a far cry from two years ago, when the President enjoyed an 89% approval rating and respect across the spectrum. A shoo-in for reelection then, he now polls around 50%. And as even his biggest supporters often admit, Bush has in fact fueled some of the fires against him through a series of actions that liberals consider offensive. Here are four:

1) The Patriot Act. Though it passed the Senate 98-1, the Patriot Act has now become synonymous with egregious civil liberties violations. The President, however, brushes off suggestions that it was too sweeping a piece of legislation.

2) Tax cuts. The President has actively pursued domestic tax cuts. Nothing has deterred him in his quest, be it recession, deficit, or allegations that he only cuts taxes “for the rich.”

3) War with Iraq. Simply put, President Bush was determined to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime. Neither casualties nor evidence of intelligence failures have caused him to waver in his claim that invasion was necessary.

4) Halliburton. Amid accusations that he attacked Iraq for oil, President Bush assigned control of its oil supply to Halliburton, the Republican-friendly corporation that Vice President Cheney was once CEO of.

All of these acts have hurt the President’s poll numbers, and liberals interpret them as evidence of his corruption:

Bush won’t repeal the Patriot Act, they say, because he desires the power. He won’t stop cutting taxes, they claim, because he wants his rich friends to get richer. He invaded Iraq, it continues, because he didn’t care about casualties and knew he could get what he wanted. And he didn’t assign Iraq’s oil to another corporation because he wanted Halliburton to get the payout.

There it is—the liberal argument of today. “Bush” (spitefully enunciated), is doing things which he and his “crony” Karl Rove know are endangering his chances at reelection because they’re just that tyrannical, greedy, and corrupt.

President Bush is a deeply principled man who realized after 9/11 that he holds an awesome responsibility to look out for Americans. He believes that law enforcement needs the Patriot Act to prevent terrorist attacks. He saw Saddam Hussein as a grave threat to national security. He agreed with experts who said that Halliburton was uniquely qualified to handle Iraq’s oil. And he holds the economic ideology that tax cuts improve economies and create jobs. He therefore unequivocally supports the Patriot Act, military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, and tax cuts.

On September 20, 2001, in his “axis of evil” speech, the President addressed Congress and outlined this very strategy of governing. He received thunderous applause. For two years, he has held to the plan. Liberals, meanwhile, have changed their minds and stopped applauding.

Call the President inflexible or wrongheaded. But don’t call him evil. If he isn’t reelected, it’s for one reason—he stuck to his guns.

I have been very critical of Bush on certain things on this site. And there are few Freepers who slavishly worship Bush without questions. There has been criticism of Bush from all directions on this site. No politician can please everyone all the time. You can't judge a politician from just your own narrow perspective but look at the big picture. Yeah- I disagree with Bush on some pretty big issues. But he isn't "evil". I may digree with certain courses he has taken but I rest assured that he believes in the course he takes and did it because he believed it to be right.

I had no such faith in the previous President whom I don't think believed a word he himself said and whose every public act was cynical and self serving.

David Brooks in the NYT today regarding the Halliburton slander:

Last week, Kelman wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Post on the alleged links between contributions and reconstruction contracts. "One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded — whether a career civil servant working on procurement or an independent academic expert — who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd," he observed.

The fact is that unlike the Congressional pork barrel machine, the federal procurement system is a highly structured process, which is largely insulated from crass political pressures. The idea that a Bush political appointee can parachute down and persuade a large group of civil servants to risk their careers by steering business to a big donor is the stuff of fantasy novels, not reality.

The real story is that the Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, won an open competition to provide the service support for overseas troops. This contract is called the Logcap, and is awarded every few years. KBR won the competition in 1992. It lost to DynCorp in 1997, and won it again in 2001.

Under the deal, KBR builds bases, supplies water, operates laundries and performs thousands of other tasks. Though the G.A.O. has found that KBR sometimes overcharges, in general the company has an outstanding reputation among the panoply of auditing agencies that monitor these contracts.

But some circumstances are not covered under Logcap. During the Clinton administration, the Pentagon issued a temporary no-bid contract to KBR to continue its work in the Balkans. In the months leading up to the Iraq war, Defense officials realized they needed plans in case Saddam Hussein once again set his oil wells ablaze. KBR did the study under Logcap. Then in February, with the war looming, Pentagon planners issued an additional bridge contract to KBR to put out any fires that were set. KBR had the experience. Its personnel were in place. It would have been crazy to open up a three-to-five-month bidding process at that time.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1018969/posts

I would point out that Halliburton, unlike the UN, is still there.

The "Hailburton" story of the Left is just bunk. There are very few companies in the world today that actually can do the work needed in Iraq to upgrade and repair their oil infrastructure. Bechtel and Haliburton could do it. But Bechtel had their share of the pork and more in the Big Dig in Boston. Schlumberger of France is about the only other company that could rize to the challenge in Iraq. But would we ever give that contract to a French owned company? NO WAY! Haliburton was the only rational choice. ANd just to show how impartial I am I will admit to this- I am against this war in Iraq. But if we are going to be there- then we better make sure that American companies benefit!

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