Glad you put a lot of stock in Dana Milbanks assessment of this.
I can't say I do.
No two ways about it. Bush hid his real self very well during his first campaign. And it came out in spades during his second....the globalist/elitist/near-liberal crawled out from under the faux-conservative makeup.
How utterly childish. More often, a charge unanswered is a charge too moronic to waste time on.
I know, it should be "on which to waste time", but that sounds weird.
I've been a conservative republican forever....and I am no longer going to tout the Party Line.
I'm hopin Rudy.
No more inside southern good ol boys....clintoon...W...Allen...they can't say no to there friends.
I want an outsider Yankee skinflint.
I didn't know that the Cato Institute was part of DU.
If Reagan was President you wouldnt like him
I chaired our precinct caucuses in our very conservative town for the fourth time now, and witnessed a complete collapse of support for the GOP. Our attendance went from about 50 participants eight years ago, 80 in 2000 and last night...we had only five. Count'em five attendees. And we were supposed to pick approximately 25 delegates. Everyone who did show up was a rock-ribbed conservative. And all felt that it was a result of widespread disgruntlement with the administration's and Congressional betrayals on national security issues such as borders and ports and industry, plus governmental excess, spending and trade deficits, etc. No more trust. The blank check has been burned up.
Check this WND editorial out:
Dubya's last stand
By Joseph Farah, Posted: March 8, 2006
WorldNetDaily.com
Lame duck George W. Bush obviously has no care for how his party performs in the 2008 presidential election.
But he has a little more time to consider his own fate in the 2006 mid-term congressional elections.
Oh, it won't make any difference whether Republicans or Democrats are elected this fall to the rest of us. After all, with Republicans in charge of Congress and the White House for the last six years, spending has increased way beyond anything we imagined during President Clinton's eight years in office.
Republicans have also shown that they don't really care more about national security than their Democratic opponents. Just look at our still-unguarded borders and reflect on the plan to turn over port operations to the Islamists in the United Arab Emirates.
So, as far as I am concerned, I don't have a dog in this race. Republicans have so badly mangled any opportunity they had to show the American people a distinction between the two parties that I'm at the point where I wish for a plague on both their houses.
But Bush should care.
Why?
Because his legacy is at stake.
In fact, his presidency is at stake.
I'm going to make a prediction, and I don't think I'm out on a limb on this one.
If the Democrats win the House and Senate this fall – which appears to be a distinct possibility with Bush's 38 percent approval rating – then Bush will be impeached in 2007.
I don't know what the grounds will be. Take your pick. The Democrats will find something – or invent something.
They will take revenge on the Republicans for the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
There is not a doubt in my mind. And, unlike the Republicans, if the Democrats control the Senate, Bush is no longer a lame duck – he's a dead duck.
And I for one won't lift a finger to defend him – even against charges that may be as bogus as a Jimmy Carter dollar bill.
While the Democrats will impeach Bush for the wrong reasons, I can't deny that in a righteous country that honored and lived up to its Constitution, Bush would surely deserve to be impeached.
In essence, he has been something we haven't seen in American politics for a long time – a kind of absentee president.
His failure to exercise a single veto in six years in office is perhaps the gravest indictment of his lack of leadership.
I'll never forget the first time I ever met George W. Bush. He was speaking to a relatively small but friendly crowd when he was asked a softball question: "Governor Bush, what will you do as president if a clearly unconstitutional bill arrives on your desk?"
Bush's unbelievable response was: "How will I know if it's unconstitutional?"
That was it for me. I vowed not to vote for Bush in 2000, even though he was running against a man I truly feared and have described as a fool and a demagogue – Al Gore. I couldn't bring myself to vote for Bush over Gore, even though I had personally been harassed and persecuted by the White House during his reign as vice president. I couldn't bring myself to vote for Bush in 2000, even though I knew his opponent to be a cheap crook.
Yet, some astute observers attributed Bush's victory over Gore to the latter's failure to win his home state of Tennessee, where an 18-part WND investigative series on his corrupt antics was widely reprinted and reported and talked about on radio shows. While Gore was clearly unworthy of the White House, I take little pride today in any role our expose played in benefiting Bush – despite the fact that the series resulted in a $165 million lawsuit against my own company – one we are still battling six years later.
If anyone were truly hoping to be proved wrong about George W. Bush, it was me.
Unfortunately, my initial assessment was right.
And while I did endorse him in 2004, it was strictly out of sympathy with the Swiftboat Vets and their righteous and successful bid to deny John Kerry, a traitor to his country, the White House. I make no apologies about that decision.
Bush's success has largely been due to the total unworthiness and unfitness of his opponents.
Unless he miraculously changes his governing style in the next six months and wins back the American people, he had better hope they are not up to the task of impeaching him. Because that is what's coming if the Democrats win big in November – as it appears they will.
I hate to tell you and others in this thread this...well, no I don't.
CATO is not a conservative think tank.
It is a LIBERTARIAN think tank.
LIBERTARIANS are not conservative and are NOT the Majority...much as they wish it were so.
Their featured speakers are Bartlett and Sullivan.
If ever a group wanted to harm itself, inviting Andrew Sullivan to be a featured speaker is one way to do it.
Schmuck.
"Read my lips, no-new-borrowing!"
Andrew Sullivan is no conservative.
OH - I thought this was about FreeRepublic.
A better question is why should anyone from the administration go? They have much better things to do.
Both parties seem to be coming apart at the seams. I think the Democrats are in worse shape than the Republicans, but there are a lot of disenchanted conservatives. Perhaps there are multiple parties in our future.
Trade Policy Analysis No. 19 October 15, 2002
 |
by Daniel Griswold
Daniel Griswold is associate director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies.
It might also have had something to do with speaker No. 2, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan.
True, the small-government libertarians represented by Cato have always been the odd men out of the Bush coalition.