Posted on 06/22/2002 9:46:05 AM PDT by quidnunc
This summer will mark the 47th year since I took my first Republican job: as public relations director for the party in Minnesota. Since then I have rarely strayed from politics, or my party. I served as a staffer to two GOP congressmen, to a GOP governor, as a federal appointee to Richard Nixon and as a corporate executive who supported in Washington and Springfield much, if not all, of the Republican agenda.
You can describe me as a conservative. Thus I am qualified to say that although I dearly love conservatives, they tend to be querulous, disagreeable and threaten revolt when Republican office-holders don't please them. So it is now with George W. Bush. Here is a president who has surprised us all with the firmness and resolve he showed after 9/11. I must tell you I voted for him with less enthusiasm than I had for many of his predecessors. But his administration has pleased me often most notably on two issues: defense of America and social policy.
Yet, Bush has to get re-elected in a country that is evenly divided on philosophy. Thus he must occasionally on matters that sometimes offend conservatives dip into the other side's ideology for support. He has done so on three notable occasions: on the issue of steel protectionism, where he departed his free-market proclamations; on the signing of a campaign finance bill tailored by his enemies, and allowing his attorney general (in the words of Libertarian Nat Hentoff in the Washington Times) "to send disguised agents into religious institutions, libraries and meetings of citizens critical of government policy without a previous complaint, or reason to believe that a crime has been committed."
In a perfect political world, where conservatives are in the majority, these things would be sufficient to encourage a boycott of the polls. Either that or a protest vote for the Democratic opposition. But we are not in a perfect world. We conservatives have a president who didn't receive a majority of the votes, and has one house of Congress against him. He must make compromises to get re-elected. Conservatives who do not understand the nature of politics ought to stay in their air-conditioned ivory towers and refrain from political activity altogether. If they cannot adjudge the stakes in this election and the difference between Bush and an Al Gore or a John Kerry (D-Mass.) or a Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), they are foolish indeed.
-snip-
To read the remainder of this op/ed open the article via the link provided in the thread's header.
Sorry. I didn't realize how long the thread was and began at the beginning.
Think we can resurrect him so that we can ban him again?
YELLOW ALERT! THIS THREAD IS NOW INFECTED WITH:
The "Enemies List," of course.
Seriously, though. This is the kind of crap we don't need, and is every bit as bad as whatever the worst of the 100% Bush bashers do. We've been through factional battles before here (does "Coven" vs. "anti-Coven" ring any bells?), and it hurts us much more than it helps.
There are many people here who agree with the President some of the time, and disagree some of the time. I am one of those people, and I am not the enemy.
Now she is her own woman, but I don't think she would we saying that if her husband did not agree. This was some time ago and maybe some will argue, that it made no difference what she said, she was just trying to get along with the other side. I don't buy that.
Tom, you don't know that. That's an ASSUMPTION.
I am not in a contest with Mr. Roeser on our capacity to memorize trivia about Government. I gave my reasons for criticizing his article. He may know a lot about Government. It is his analytic ability that is questioned. In my reply at #72 (see, above), I gave one example where it was flawed. If you like, I can give more, even in the short piece posted.
As to your insulting inquiry, I owe no political allegiance to any group or entity on earth but to my State and the Union. As a loyal Ohioan, I serve America. As a loyal American, I serve my State. I am a registered Republican, but that is as a preference. It does not command my allegiance, only my preference. What is it about that that you cannot understand?
Again, to return to your actual subject: The issue as to your post is not what Roeser knows, but the soundness of his advice. It is a hopelessly flawed recipe for disaster.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Right. He also changed, at least for a while, the nature of the debate. It had been something like "how can government best solve this problem" to something like "should government be involved here".
He also, while not cutting/abolishing/ reducing did not do much in the way of advocating big leaps in government spending/involvement.....current farm bill comes to mind. As times passes, he looks even better and better.
Seriously, though. This is the kind of crap we don't need, and is every bit as bad as whatever the worst of the 100% Bush bashers do. We've been through factional battles before here (does "Coven" vs. "anti-Coven" ring any bells?), and it hurts us much more than it helps.
There are many people here who agree with the President some of the time, and disagree some of the time. I am one of those people, and I am not the enemy.
Very well said, and I agree wholeheartedly.
If it's the interview I'm thinking of, I believe she said that she didn't think the Supreme Court would overturn the prior decision, not that she thought Roe vs Wade should stand.
Compromise is give and take on both sides. Do we see any give on the other side except on the tax cut.
Either you have a philosophy or you don't. If you do, you stand up for it. That is my philosophy.I believe there are some things you cannot compromise on and if you do, you are lost.
If the idea is to keep a political party in the WH just so they can say they won and their man is in the WH - then that is their philosphy. This is a free (relatively speaking), country and I will not call anyone names for it. I just don't understand namecalling.
So, does this crowd (Howlin, Southflanknorthpawsis, Sinkspur, et al) now have an FR 'enemies lists' going, or what?
If allowed to, the dozen or so leaders of this corps on FR are going to take this site right down the toilet, IMO.
The list they are talking about, I am pretty sure, is a list of people they want to personally ignore once this software change is implemented.
I am curious though. Just what sort of actions would you have wanted the moderators to take if that wasn't the case?
Thanks
No, the AWW consists of people who want to demonize GWB. An example: A couple of weeks ago there was a silly vanity thread listing reasons why GWB is liberal. I'm paraphrasing quite a bit here, but this is the gist of it. One of the things on the list was that GWB is liberal because he made a comment that no American should have to pay more than a third of their income in income tax.
Now, any reasonable person understands that to mean that the president is objecting to the idea of us paying high taxes. These people who glommed onto that as a way to criticize the president pretended that it meant that the president was saying that paying one-third of our income in income tax is fine and dandy.
The Axis of Whining Weasels, as I understand it, are a group of people who, if GWB were to walk on water, would gripe because he got his shoes wet.
I don't understand why you are taking umberage at my inquiry.
During our last meeting on the Net you repeatedly and persistantly refused to forthrightly declare that you owed allegience to America, preferring instead to dance all around the point with dare I say it? weasel words.
I should think you would be flattered that I remembered you with such specificity.
And not to put too fine a point on it, I'm not going to waste my time in interaction with any American citizen who doesn't consider his primary non-family loyalty to be to America.
Now that we've settled that point we can move on.
I believe that most Conservative politicians are still ruled by their consciences and though they are driven to be in office making a difference for the better, they are repulsed by the slime of the liberal left that liberals gorge upon, that conservatives as well are forced to wade through, on the way to being elected.
We are expecting the humanly impossible when we demand that conservatives emerge into office pure as the driven snow after surviving the trek through the liberal swamp of political campaigns. We should rejoice when our own survive the journey and take office still ours despite the scars inflicted during the battle.
Fact is that liberals are bad, no matter how good our enemies say they are-Conservatives are good ,no matter how bad our friends say they are.
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