Posted on 03/26/2002 3:28:09 PM PST by TLBSHOW
I'm reading a Time magazine Reporters' Notebook column and I tell you, I could have written this piece. Is this not amazing? The Boston Globe also has a column on Bush going along with so much of the Democrat agenda, suggesting it's for 2004, not 2002 as is the conventional wisdom. George Will has a column on this same topic, asking why Bush is giving in. Bill Bennett and Charles Krauthammer are also going the same way.
So I think some of you who have been telling me to shut up about my criticism of Bush have a lot of other people to write and tell to shut up. You might want to call or write and ask them to be quiet, because there seems to be a growing chorus of criticism. Yeah, I know, I started it. Is that right? Oh, I'm the one that paved the way? Yeah, yeah, it's my fault. I gave everybody the "go" sign. I made it okay for everybody to ask why the president has stopped pushing his agenda during the war, when, say, FDR pushed the New Deal through during WWII.
It's always going to fall back to me. I'm going to be the one responsible for it all happening since I'm the point man. I led off. But is Time magazine taking cues from me? I mean, they've written the same story that I've been doing since the stimulus package days, and it's quite illustrative of things. There are quite a few of these stories out there that are examining the political strategery of the Bush White House on the domestic agenda side versus the war side, and examining how they're doing and what they're doing and what it's all aimed at.
I just want to prepare you for it, because I know a lot of you think that there's been too much criticism here. We even read that the Democrats are emboldened, and will ask for even more money to buy votes. They know the president won't spend his political capital! This is frustrating, because you hear people saying Bush can do no wrong, so he should do what's right!
I know Bush is trying to get a workable majority in Congress, but this acting defensively to take issues away from the Democrats is not the way to do it. Even those "normal people" on the Jerry Springer Show, an e-mailer tells me, cheer Bush during the show. That's probably scripted, but there it is. They know it!
Bush being better than a Democrat shoudln't be confused with gravitas. Reagan had gravitas and didn't respect Bush Sr who lacked it. Bush Jr is a lightweight like his father and we're seeing new signs of it every day. He won't do anything politically dangerous which means he'll stay in the mushy middle, like father like son.
As for Will, well....who cares. Baseball season is here so he will be immersed in that.
And sorry Rush. You didn't start the bitching & moaning about Bush. It has always been going on by conservatives who are masters of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It's not always about you, Rush.
Conservatives bitched & moaned all during the election about everything the Bush campaign did or didn't do. The armchair campaing managers have turned into armchair generals and armchair policy wonks.
W will continue to be W. Like it or not. And if you don't like it, there is Howards Phillips, Pat Buchanan, Harry Browne, Gary Bauer, and the rest of the uber-conservatives who you can start leg humping on.
I'm convinced at this point Bush is a moderate centrist RINO. He's proved it on education, CFR, Airport Security, The Freedom Corps, immigration, spending etc. etc.
I other words his non-conservative "lapses" isolated, they're prevasive.
What a novel idea. Good on ya Rush.
Bush-Bashing by Bill Bennett
Patrick J. Buchanan
March 22 2002
"Your words can be interpreted in such ways that they hurt national resolve," thundered William J. Bennett at Jimmy Carter's remark that President Bush's "axis of evil" phrase was unhelpful.
Imputing a near lack of patriotism to war critics, Bennett that day launched his Americans for Victory Over Terrorism, AVOT. Mission: Stalk and shame the war critics. "Our goal," said Bennett, "is to fortify public opinion in the war against terrorism."
Only days later, a perfect AVOT target came into view. Under the contemptuous headline – "Where Bush Rewards Terror" – some wretch had accused our president of making "concessions to terrorism" and "ceding ... lands to dictators."
Stunned by this attack on our commander in chief on the op-ed page of the Washington Post, I wondered: "Where is AVOT? Where is Bill?" Then I noted the name of the miscreant who had savaged our president. It seemed familiar. Indeed it was – "William J. Bennett"!
What had the president done to merit Bennett's invoking of Munich and the Holocaust? ("The world, we thought, would long note what the long march of Jewish blood libels, mixed with the ceding of land to dictators, caused.")
The president had suggested that Ariel Sharon's rampage through refugee camps with tanks, where hundreds were cut down including women and children, was "not helpful." Worse, his vice president had agreed to meet with Yasser Arafat, if Arafat showed seriousness in trying to halt the violence.
What is going on here? Bennett's piece is a shot across the president's bow by a front man for "Bibi's Boys," those acolytes of the once-and-future Prime Minister "Bibi" Netanyahu. Their scribblings may be found, disguised as "conservative commentary," on op-ed pages of the major media and in National Review, Commentary, The New Republic and The Weekly Standard.
Bibi's Boys have seized upon Sept. 11 as their last, best hope to morph America's war into Israel's war. They look with anticipation to what Norman Podhoretz calls "World War IV," a clash of civilizations between America and Islam, with Israel as America's first, even if only, ally.
"America's fate and Israel's fate are one and the same," proclaims Bennett.
But how can this be? Between 1776 and 1948, America grew from 13 rural colonies on the seaboard of North America into the greatest economic and military power in history – a republic without peer – before Israel ever existed. In what sense, then, are our fates "one and the same"? Bennett's answer: "We are both democracies."
Well, yes, but the United States and Britain are both democracies, and were allies in two world wars. But that did not prevent President Eisenhower from telling Britain – and Israel's David Ben Gurion – to get out of Suez and Sinai in 1956.
Bennett is constantly calling for "moral clarity." But, mental clarity is also in order here. While Israel is indeed our ally in the war on terror, its annexations of Arab land, its dispossession of the Palestinian people, and its denial of their right to a homeland and state of their own on land their fathers farmed for a thousand years are a principal cause of this war and a primary reason why America's reputation has been ravaged in the Arab world.
Bennett also savages the president's father for having restrained Israel in 1991. "[W]hen the United States asked Israel not to defend itself after Saddam Hussein launched Scud missiles at it during the liberation of Kuwait," America sent the world a message, says Bennett. "The message is this: Jewish blood is cheap. ... Terrorism works. The message may not be deliberate, but it is tragically clear."
This is a blood libel against the president's father. In 1991, he gave Israel Patriot missile batteries, $5 billion in aid and $10 billion in loan guarantees, then smashed Israel's mortal enemy, Iraq, asking only that America be allowed to do it ourselves. To Bennett, this translates into "Jewish blood is cheap." Someone should remind Bennett that, in the Gulf War, it was American blood that was shed.
"Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza is not the problem for the Arabs. Democracy is the problem," writes Bennett. But is Bennett saying that if Israel became a dictatorship, she would be welcome in the Middle East? This is nonsense.
The president must and does condemn as barbaric and evil these terror attacks on Israeli civilians. But if America is to be the Great Power broker of peace in the Middle East, we must make clear where American policy differs from Sharonite practices – or Ariel Sharon will drag America's reputation through the mud and blood of Ramallah and Bethlehem until there is nothing left of it.
But if the president does, as he must, he must also expect more of the same from Bibi's Boys.
For once in 8 years we are proud of our CinC.
So now we know!
Our country was spared an immense tragedy when Pat Buchanan failed to do to President Bush what Ralph Nader succeeded in doing to Vice President Gore.
Some folks just can't understand that the man is President of the whole country and has the future of the whole world on his shoulders right now.
We can respect our president and disagree with his policy positions on a variety of issues. Laura Bush vowed to take him for better or worse. Did we?
That's a foolish plan.
The Republican party will run the incumbent RINOs (who should be run out of office) because of the idiotic idea that any Republican is better than any Democrat. At least with the leftist Democrats you never trust or rely on them.
For the most part, Republicans will get to vote for an incumbent RINO or a party-selected RINO to run against the incumbent Dem with the instructions to vote for the RINO or else help elect a Democrat. Some choice. No garantee that there'll be a Republican majority that Dasshole can't buy off either.
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