Posted on 05/16/2002 9:10:34 PM PDT by Pokey78
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:04:29 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The president sacrifices whatever he must to win the war--just as FDR did.
Let me tell you what I think of the criticism that President Bush (a) reversed a half century of Republican philosophy on free trade and caved in on tariffs, and (b) accepted and endorsed a big-government farm bill that was so greasy, pork-filled and fat-laden that if you took the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 in your hand and held a match to it would hiss, pop and sizzle like bacon in a big black skillet.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
"...kicking the President in the groin..."Three words: Pot, kettle, black."...bash Bush..."
"This kind of hyperbole discredits many of these very threrads."
How pithy. Too bad the effect is ruined by it's dishonesty. As I said, the knee-jerk goes both ways.
You (and like-minded Freepers) criticize President Bush for every perceived deviation from your orthodoxy and what you have determined he should do or say. Fine. Just admit the bias and stop attempting to play the objective, truth-seeking impartial observer. That pose is a farce and an insult to our intelligence. Drop it.
The difference here is that I'll agree that President Bush made some mistakes (i.e. CFR) but I maintain that he's a good man doing a good job and as conservative a president as we're ever going to see in our lifetime. You won't, or not without a dozen caveats to add. Then the protestations of innocence start; i.e. "I've voted Republican for fifty years but this Bush guy is too much for me to take..." blah, blah blah. Yeah, right.
It's either just a fraud or sore losers who never liked Bush from the git-go, never wanted him in the White House and will not support him under any conditions but use the fig leaf of 'honest, impartial observation' to blast the man at every perceived opportunity. That's your right but drop the dishonesty of being objective. I'm pro-Bush and say so upfront (check my profile page). Unlike others, I didn't expect God or Pat Buchanan or Alan Keyes to be President, I voted for a compromising politician with core moral values and a conservative bent.
President Bush has done plenty I approve of (including a tax cut) and he's able to get things accomplished that the ultra-rights' heros never dreamed of. Republicans will regain the senate and increase the house majority this fall and President Bush will be (most of) the reason. With that majority he'll be able to appoint federal judges and accomplish a lot more for conservatives, but you'll probably still complain. So be it. Have at it then but be honest enough to state your bias upfront. Thus said the pot to the kettle.
You've just surpassed hyperbole with an outright lie. Answering specific criticism with sweeping generalization demonizing the critic is a tactic that certain overzealous Republicans have copied from overzealous democrats. It's embarassing.
Translation: I nailed you and you don't like it. Tough.
Just admit your bias and stop sputtering. You're not the lofty pundit handing down fair and objective presidential criticism that you pretend. You know it and I know it. Give up the charade and pretense to objectivity you cling to in order to justify your bias. It doesn't play here. By the way, the superiority pose doesn't do much for you, either.
Translation: "I can't attack HB's positions so I'll attack HB."
Poor baby.
No 'Harrison', I'll simply point out your hypocrisy and you'll continue to dance around it and play posting ping-pong while avoiding facing the truth of your evident anti-Bush bias that seems to cloud every 'position' you take concerning the President.
Maybe it's just his Republicanism you dislike so much. Dunno, don't care much. This is getting old. I can respond to every post you make but who has the time or the interest? You may, I do not. I'm off to other, newer threads of more interest than this one. Have at it.
She thinks as good as she looks!!!
LOL! Uh huh, you gave me "the last word" about eight posts ago. Apparently, your ability to debate intelligently suffers due to the "time and interest" you dedicate to name calling and hysteria.
No.
He (or she) would be instantly demonized as racist and every pro-immigrant special-interest group would be on him like fleas on a dog - and you should know that. The liberal media would destroy him. Look at the 'Bush Knew' crapola coming out of the newspapers and TV shows. A lie and a smear but it's had an effect on his popularity. Think what a screaming media blitz backed by liberal Democrats would do to an 'anti-immigration' would-be candidate. Not pretty.
It's a fantasy that if only some heroic person would stand up and claim all the principles you subscribe to and vow to implement every policy you believe America needs he would be instantly adored by the masses and carried into office by a grateful nation - and you'll have put him there.
Fantasies are fun but what you propose is not realistic in the slightest and your desire to see yourself and like-minded individuals as the key to saving the Republic from statism is familiar but will ultimately leave you disappointed and probably bitter. This is how 'third-party' fakers get on the ballot. They know they have no chance of winning more than a tiny percentage of votes so they can proclaim whatever truth you subscribe to and have you sending money and working hard to elect them, only to see them remain a blip on the political radar at election time. This happens every Presidential election cycle. Folks like you come on here and post endlessly about the President's failures and how only Fill-in-thge-blank' can save us; the debates rage on and on, with nothing to show but the bitterness I often see from those who wish to return to 1800 and politics to be a fair game again, if it ever was.
The grim truth of politics in America in the twenty-first century is that, like it or not, we are a nation of very diverse interests and a nation of people that look to government to solve ordinary problems. We like our tax breaks on mortgage interest and our student loans. We like Social Security and Unemployment benefits being available. We like government grants.
I could say goodbye to these types of things and I know you would too, but remember, hardly 50% of the (eligible) population even bothers to vote and a total of 80% of those are solid Democrat or Republican. Your precious 20% is crucial but that rugged independence you treasure also is held by independent voters who want more government goodies and don't see the losses of freedoms they often trade them for. Don't get too smug about the 'Independent' voter group. Not all are conservatives.
When I voted for GW Bush - as I told another FReeper in this thread - I didn't expect Buchanan, Browne or even Robert Taft. I expected a President that could lead, compromise where he had to and that was moral and held some conservative values. President Bush meets that critria and in a diverse nation where the Democrats run the Senate and have lots of power in the House, a nation with a powerful media that loathes Bush the way Clinton loathed the military and academia that serves as a training ground for ultra-liberalism, President Bush does very well, indeed, even if some here love to pile on him and find him as lacking as his other enemies, the Democrat party does.
Aside from his leadership in the War on terrorism, the Bush accomplishments over the past 18 months are well known here - but ignored.
From a 1.35 trillion dollar tax cut (always derided as too little by the Bush-bashers) to the scrapping of the ABM treaty and the insane Koyoto Accords to his strengthing of the military (planned before 9/11 - redoubled since) President Bush has accomplished much considering the fierce Democrat opposition in Congress (how quickly we forget that when it's Bush-bashing time at FR) and the openly, hostile, lying media that loathes the man.
Yes, the education bill was a waste of money for the most part, CFR is partly unconstitutional and I have doubts about his immigration policies but this does not make Bush a liberal or anti-conservative in any way. He's dealing with a weakened economy and has to spend billions on defense and Homeland Security and this changes things. Social Security reform won't go anywhere now and frankly, the President has a war to think about and will not spend political capital on things like CFR. For this you may complain (that he should) but President Bush is a politician, not a conservative icon like Pat Buchanan (for one) that will throw away his Presidency to appease one section of the electorate. You may vote for someone else and feel good about it, even powerful, but it won't change the political landscape and if you simply wish to vindicate your principles and abandon Bush, fine. No one will really notice and he will not be swept out of office by some mythic conservative hero.
I understand the criticism of Bush in some quarters but the vilification and sheer hatred of the man that I often see from the anti-Bush posters is depressing. Too many demand the impossible and I think they liked it better when Clinton was President and they had a more legitimate outlet for their anger. Now, they have to paint Bush as the anti-Christ in order to contiue to spew bile at him, when in fact, I think it's often the very political system that angers these folks. In any case, Bush will survive them all and America will not dissolve or become the hell-hole some foresee.
I'm just weary of the 'Bush is a traitor to conservatives' mantra I see here day after day, week after week, month after month. President Bush did not run as a 'conservative'. he wouldn't have been elected if he had. He ran as a moderate-conservative, at best. That's what wins elections in America. Not liberalism, not hard-core conservativism, either. Bush governs as a moderate. He isn't 'right' on every issue.
The constant harping that the President somehow 'failed' conservatives is absurd. He's an excellent leader and while he takes a ton of heat from both sides, I support the man and see American politics for what they are, not some idealistic fantasy where all our constitutionalist dreams come true - in 90 days - if only some hero would stand up and 'save' us. Please, lets be realistic, shall we?
GW Bush is the closest we're going to get to a conservative President in this day and age. He's not a dictator or all-powerful, like some Ceasar of old. The President has to deal with Congress and both parties as well as a politically apathetic public who respond to symbols and slogans (Bill Clinton understood this). Our President works hard and with a Republican election victory in Congress this fall, he'll be able to do a lot more but he'll never satidy a pure conservative agenda. Never. That is simply fact and all the posts on FR won't change it, nor will angry vows to vote for 'Anybody but Bush' in 2004. That's foot-shooting of the first order and I hope you'll see the folly of it, eventually.
Not nearly a good enough reason to vote for him is it. Not for me anyway, which is my point. If the Republican Party has come to this, it will die on the vine.
And I think you are wrong, people don't vote, and I have heard this a thousand times, because "All politicans are alike anyway". While the European American is hanging by his fingernails at 60% of the population, someone better make some move now, because we can lose that advantage in a decade. Even some democrats are tired of the flood of immigration, some are not even afraid to say so. Anyone running on a halt to immigration, will get people at the polls like no one would dream. We need a hero, for me that hero is Tancredo, which means the Republican Party will never run him as a candidate unless forced to.
Like I said, I'm not the only one that feels this way, going along with the herd over the cliff is just not me. I'm going to try a third way, I hear the "third way" is real popular in D.C..=o)
I offer you the last public word, politely contact you with a Freep mail to offer my reasonable private objections to your insults and you act like someone broke into your house and wrote graffito on the walls. Boo Hoo.
Grow up little fellow. If you can't take the same kind of criticism you freely dish out, you're way too immature for this forum. It's not your personal playground. Some of us diagree with you and are quite willing to tell you so. Deal with it. If you can't, too bad. Stop whining. It's embarrassing to the adults here, and no, I won't bother with private messages again, you're obviously too frightened or timid to deal with the concept of private correspondence that challenges you. Scary, isn't it?
As a sense of decorum obviously escapes you we'll just trade insults right here, in public.
I'm going to dinner but I believe you're next unless you wish to knock it off. If not, I'll get back to you when time permits as unlike some, I have a real life off the internet. Have fun.
Yes, quite.
Boy, you certainly scare easily.
Careful now, someone might send you one of those dreaded Private Messages with a challenge to your comments and well, we simply can't have that. "Call a cop, He's being mean to me and I'm frightened!"
You're as ridiculous as you are tedious. Grow up, son.
Since Dubya has increased NON-military domestic spending more in his first two years than anyone since LBJ (The Great Society), I fear for your brand of 'conservative'.
In other words you'll understand: Get over yourself, boy. You lost an argument. It happens. Now go away and sulk but give this a rest. You're wasting FR bandwidth and my time.
Yikes.
About time we had a President who put the country above his own political ambitions.
Now if only the citizens would follow that commendable path.
Unfortunately, there are too many who care only for themselves and abandon the man when he doesn't give them everything they want the country be darned.
We truly aren't rid of the "me generation" of the 70's and 80's in spite of Sept. 11th.
I wonder what the reaction will be when and if we have another terrorist attack? Will those who abandoned the President because he had to make the hard choices realize they maybe should have supported him in his efforts?
I can only hope, but I am afraid that this is wishful thinking.
If this administration is far too busy trying to slip 245i past frightened American citizens, pandering to illegals so they can hit my neighborhood and threaten harm to my child because he refuses to let them steal his bike. If this administration is too busy hugging the heads of terrorist charity fronts to their breasts on national tv, and celebrating Rahmadan at the "People's House". If this administration is too busy continuing to attempt to dissolve our border to the south and destroy our sovereignty, to have time to tackle the little problem of terrorist attacks against American citizens because it's just not on their schedule, then they have made a horrible mistake about their chances of re-election if they are counting on my vote.
I am done with the excuses, excuses, excuses. I don't need to wait until my child is dying in my arms at my freshly bombed out neighborhood grocery store, or laying in the street because the thug invaders have caught him alone and gotten even, to get a freakin clue that it has become starkly apparent that both parties in D.C. are out to leave me helpless before my enemies, lest I violate their civil rights, and interfer with politicans free trade/no borders agenda. People are going to die, and they are going to die no matter who is in office, a Democrat or a Republican. I'm done with their globalist PC game, I am done with being chided with the unbelievably lame accusation that I am pouting because I am not getting everything I want this week. I consider what I want pretty darn important to our survival. I have calmly decided to write in the politican most likely to help me and my family, Tancerdo. But hey, you go right ahead and keep feeding that monster before he gets to you.
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