Posted on 05/17/2007 3:07:01 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
The President is actively working to make the borders/illegals situation worse so, no, it won't be solved in the next three or four years. Bush is the President NOW, pointing to past presidents is just excuse making.
I agree.
What the hell else is George Bush or any Republican suppossed to do about abortion? Frankly, I’m tired of all the whining on this issue. Its not like we can just ban it. He appointed two pro-life judges. That is all he can do.
Too late. Compassionate Conservatism - Compassion for his enemies and none for Conservatives.
#15, #2, & #4.
#21 Chuck Hagel, #22 John McCain
My $.02 worth on my issues are:
2. Failure to secure the borders.
3. Amnesty.
10. Failure to protect private property.
11. Failure to abide by the constitution.
12. Failure to enforce the law.
14. Too many RINOs.
15. Lack of spine.
16. Loss of testicles.
17. Failure to run conservative candidates.
I guess my answer should be:
18. Most of the above.
bookmark
I’ve thought a while about how to respond to your position here, because it is a popular one. I’m not calling your argument stupid, senseless or anything like that. I am saying, however, that it is losing credibility with the GOP base.
After thinking about this for awhile, allow me to direct your attention to California, or, as the current governor would say “Kahl-ee-fornia.”
People got so disgusted with Grey Davis that some in the hard-core GOP base instigated a recall election, because they figured with Der Ahnuld indicating interest in the job, the GOP had a shot at booting Davis out and putting a Republican into Sacremento.
Trouble is, all of us who were cautioning the CA GOP that Ahnuld was no conservative and literally slept with a Kennedy were ignored. The results have been every bit as bad as if Davis had been allowed to remain in office with one very important exception: the GOP now gets the blame, because there is a “R” after the name of the guy the GOP put into the governor’s mansion. And the reason why the Republicans are going to get the blame is because the GOP just couldn’t step back and ask “Is this a situation we really want to own? Is this a political environment into which any true Republican can hold true to Republican principles with success?”
If the answers to those two questions are “no” and no better than “maybe”, then it might be best to allow the Democrats to own the blame, then pile the blame on higher and deeper, and hang the issues around the DNC’s neck.
So, to extend your argument: what should the GOP have done in California? Allow the DNC to own the show?
In my analysis, yes. Allow me to explain:
The GOP doesn’t sell ideas well. This has several causes, foremost among them is that GOP candidates, modulo Reagan, have always been very poor at communication in front of a TV camera. They don’t know how to hold themselves, they don’t know how to sound-bite an idea, and most importantly, they don’t know how to take down the competition with the artful quip that crushes the competition.
Ron Reagan did all of these things exceedingly well. That’s why we all miss him so: it wasn’t just that Reagan stood on the right side of history, it wasn’t just that he had a sunny disposition and was optimistic about what we could do in during a time when post-modernist pessimism was fashionable. It was because when you watch Reagan give a speech in a combative environment, he could come out with that one quip, that one joke, that one line that summed it all up so devastatingly well, the DNC guys had to laugh at how silly they were.
Given that we don’t have anyone on the national stage who communicates that well (Fred Thompson might be an exception, if his recent video response to Moore is any indication), what we should have done in California is allow Grey Davis to finish running the state into the ground and use it as a national foil in Washington DC. As in “The Democrats would like to do X, and we can see the results of X in California...” and just keep beating that drum relentlessly.
Eventually the California voters would have tossed many of the zanier liberals out of office, because they would have become a national liability. More importantly, the voters would have seen the inevitable results of what they’d been voting for all these years and realized “Uh, this ain’t gonna work. We’re going to have to at least listen to some different ideas.”
But no, the GOP decided that filling a seat with a mediocre guy in a state with a population that was merely voting their utility bill was a smart strategery. I think we can agree that it has been a disaster.
In 2004, if Kerry had won, the GOP would have made their hold on Congress more solid in 2006. The GOP always does better running *against* someone that in actually running the show, mostly owning to how many years the GOP was the minority party. When we’ve been an opposition party with coherent ideas, we’ve been able to hold the Democrat loony-toons in some semblance of check. Look at the 90’s under Clinton, or the GOP Senate in the early 80’s.
Instead, we’ve now lost Congress because we have far too many RINO’s and sell-outs, and without Congress, we’ve lost the power of the agenda, since Bush has shown himself to be a very, very poor domestic leader where agenda is concerned. In 2008, we will likely not retain the presidency, and the DNC will likely further cement control of Congress. In this situation, I now think it would have been preferable to let Bush go and keep the Congress, knowing that with some work and the natural mis-steps we could have expected from Kerry, that the GOP would have solidified their hold on Congress in ‘06 and ‘08. But no, we decided to allow the big picture to slip away from us, because we wanted anyone with an “R” after their name to fill the Big Chair.
This is just symptomatic of the larger issue here in the immigration debate today: The GOP Congress seems willing to sacrifice long-term viability on the altar of short-term press approval and winning elections. The GOP in the Karl Rove era seems utterly incapable of seeing beyond the next election cycle.
Since Newt has stepped down, we have no coherent party philosophy on issues. It has all been tactical positioning WRT to the Democrats and the press. That is no formula for long-term success. We need to regain a coherent epistemology that will guide the party in all issues, so that when some issue comes up, we already know what the GOP’s general position and desired outcome is. We need to find candidates who understand and agree (in broad outline) with this epistemology, so we no longer have RINO’s like McCain, et al. And we need to set higher ethical standards for our candidates: if we had done this, McCain wouldn’t been in office at all. Foley would never have been an issue, etc.
BTW — on the PBA ‘ban’ — I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the way for the GOP to win on the abortion issue to to make abortion as plentiful, common and widespread as possible, and when doing so, cite the political eugenics the Democrats are performing on themselves in the last 30+ years. We should all gleefully offer to drive women who are registered Democrats to abortion clinics as often as we can, and do it with a smile and without any preaching. The GOP needs to quit preaching on this issue. No one likes being preached at by a politician, most of all because everyone knows that the pol is probably pretty iffy on morals himself.
If we give the DNC everything they want on abortion, with glee and assistance, sooner or later, the DNC will realize we’re serious about political eugenics and the DNC will dump NARAL/NOW/etc overboard like an anvil and then we’ll see the end of abortion.
Harsh? Yes. But then such things usually are.
STANDING OVATION!!!!!
All of the above plus having Teddy over to the White House for pop corn and a movie.
I hope that said betrayals would only affect the perpetrating liberal Republicans. I will vote for conservatives in any party, including the GOP, despite the opposition the liberals in their party give them.
Good advice.
As I said before, this President has a lot on his plate. I'm not going to throw him under the bus because he doesn't automatically sign the order to throw out each and every illegal immigrant.
Well, I’m certainly glad you posted this. For a while, I was thinking that no one here on Free Republic could see a disaster coming down the road. But, now, I know that at least someone does...
It doesn’t mean I’m happy about it; it just means that all this stuff is not looking good.
1. the war.
president bush had the country’s loyalty and attention after 9.11, but he failed keep the country focused.
meanwhile, as usual, the leftist american media relentlessly attacked the war. should we be surprised? the boomers in charge of the media grew up against the vietnam war, as an older generation of communists forwarded american military secrets to the chicoms during the korean war.
bush looked arrogant and aloof to many tv viewers. americans tire of wars; it has gone on too long, as william bennett noted last week on dennis prager’s radio show.
in my republican-held u.s. congressional and state assembly district the “support our troops” bumper stickers have almost disappeared. even republicans are angry at bush.
ronnie earle d.a. of travis country took tom delay out with one swoop. “duke” cunningham imploded. the democraps exposed foley, and meanwhile, made the fat, stupid-looking dennis hassert appear ineffective to tv audiences. meanwhile, the pubbies can’t even get congressman jefferson, who appeared on tv with $90,000 in his freezer, removed from office! is it too much to expect that men keep their zippers up while serving in public office? wolfowitz imploded. bush’s friend albozo gonzalez looks like a disney cartoon character.
and the bush white house exposure by the democrap media goes on, and will go on until the 2008 election.
the cia, rumsfeld, franks, bremer, et. al. made big errors. the former’s lightning attack on iraq which ignored traditional military supply lines almost upended the invasion. marines surrounded by terrorists had to be resupplied by helicopters, endangering the crews.
the cia’s expectations were that the americans would be greeted as liberators. wrong. instead, a sophisticated terrorism greeted the americans.
franks’ generals were asked by president bush before the war, “do you have everything you need?” under duress of losing their commands, the generals lied to the president; they did not. franks’ high command ignored the grunts and officers’ perceptions on the ground, that the cia was wrong.
bremer eliminated the republican guards from the nascent government; in reaction, the sunnis refused to vote. big error. the sunnis and shia started fighting.
memo to the next president wanting to fight a war: you’re fighting 2 wars, stupid—the media war is more important than the real war. you can’t win the latter if you lose the former.
the media destroyed bush with abu ghraib, guantanamo, new orleans, etc. tv-morons that i know believe that american “torture” was worse than the terrorist beheadings, etc. janet reno used the american military to kill innocent religious civilians and bush’s war on terror looks worse to many tv viewers.
could there be any greater orwellian indictment of tv?
Amen to that...
Yeah, and the buttkissers are coming out of the woodwork. Why don't you define your definition of conservatism to the rest of us. "I haven't seen any "anti conservative trolls" on this thread, unless you got to see the three replies that were pulled. Probably a Rudy supporter...
I support Thompson/Hunter or Hunter/Thompson. Rudy, McPain & Romney do not deserve my support.
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