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Conservatives, Cut Bush Slack
The Chicago Sun-Times ^ | June 22, 2002 | Thomas Roeser

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:
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To: Roscoe
"Stroke of the pen, law of the land" isn't how the regulatory process works.

Great. The regulations are already in place; they're simply unenforced. You understand selective enforcement and selective unenforcement, don't you?

1,961 posted on 06/24/2002 7:38:14 AM PDT by toenail
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To: Mudboy Slim
Bullseye, Mud

Warner is a ego maniac.

1,962 posted on 06/24/2002 7:39:04 AM PDT by Militiaman7
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To: Militiaman7
"Warner is a ego maniac."

Yep...when are we goin' FReepin'again, my FRiend?!

FReegards...MUD

1,963 posted on 06/24/2002 7:44:13 AM PDT by Mudboy Slim
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To: Texasforever
If this is the best level of discourse you have -- talking about my underwear and begging me to insult you -- then you are in my Bit Bucket.

Buh bye.

1,964 posted on 06/24/2002 7:51:14 AM PDT by Lazamataz
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To: Roscoe
"But I detest sparring with the lazy and deliberately uninformed."

Odd. You apparently don't mind being lazy and deliberately uninformed.

Analysis:

Tautology. Mindless repetition of anothers sentence, turning the speaker into the subject.

Origin: 3rd year elementary playground. Example: "I know you are but what am I?"

Techical difficulty: 1 of 10.
Style: 2 of 10.
Execution: 2 of 10.


1,965 posted on 06/24/2002 8:00:09 AM PDT by Lazamataz
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To: EternalVigilance
It is my opinion that the moderators, and Jim, should take a new approach to how they handle the problems we are faced with here: I believe that every post that is delivered with malice should be history.

You ARE so correct. There are too MANY malicing posts. I cant understand why people say BAD things about President Bush. We are in a WAR now and President Bush is ON our side. The TERRRORISTS are on the OTHER side. Sometimes I see people WRITE terrible things about President Bush and I THINK maybe not everybody in America is ON our side. You are also RIGHT about God. God made all the apples, peaches, watermelons AND oranges. They are a GIFT from God to us. They GET ripe and beautiful when they are ON the trees. If they fall OFF the trees then they fall on the ground and get so ROTTEN that even the birds will not eat them. When I see someone ATTACK President Bush in the WAR I think there GOES another fruit falling OFF the tree. When THEY fall off the tree like that I CANT tell if they are male or female BUT I know that the person WILL be ROTTEN soon.

1,966 posted on 06/24/2002 8:03:27 AM PDT by Wordee
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To: B. A. Conservative
This is my intellectual opinion. Any one who believes "the sooner the secession train leaves the station the better", has got a serious problem with reality and those related aspects of living in a civilized society. You also believe that by 2016, there won't be any presidential elections, because America won't be a nation any longer. Now I believe all American's are entitled to their personal viewpoints, even if they are out there on the fringe of political extremism. But these viewpoints don't just challenge "conventional wisdom", as you say. They even go well beyond what most open minded people would call, dangerous extremist positions. IMO, these ideas you publically voice, directly question your sanity. I am an eternal optimist, so I may be leaving myself open to attack in some regards, but I don't believe disagreeing with your warped outlook of life on Earth, is something I'll need to defend to reasonable and rational American's.
1,967 posted on 06/24/2002 8:14:50 AM PDT by Reagan Man
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To: for-q-clinton
>>>What do you mean you said nothing to me? I read your post with your nasty comments to a general audience and I didn't like it. It was ugly, mean spirited, and just plain rude. So yes, my response was provoked from you. If you don't want people replying with comments similiar to yours don't post mean things.

I'm sure the general audience of your fellow inmates at the asylum, enjoyed you reading to them out loud. Probably made their day. But did you limit this reading to just my remarks, or did you include tpaine's remarks and your remarks as well? Well, back to reality and the truth.

I want you to show us all, exactly what I said to you, prior to the personal attack you made against me at post RE:#1669 and here's the LINK. You can provide absolutely nothing, because we never had any exchanges before this name calling incident by you. So if I provoked you, it was in a discussion with someone else and calling me an ass is no way to strike up a civilized public discourse. You started this and I'll guarantee you, I'll be around to finish it. If you choose to take sides with the riffraff ---the misfits, mallcontents & militants --- here at FreeRepublic, you will be in the minority and you will be hearing from more then just me.

1,968 posted on 06/24/2002 8:40:06 AM PDT by Reagan Man
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To: Southflanknorthpawsis
Until the GOP has this large a majority in congress, not a lot of what we want is going to be accomplished.
1,969 posted on 06/24/2002 8:51:49 AM PDT by LarryLied
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To: agrandis
What I see from a lot of "conservatives" is....sore...

Typo. Make that "sour," not "sore" -- although "sore" might apply too. Whatever it is, it isn't very appealing.

1,970 posted on 06/24/2002 8:51:55 AM PDT by My2Cents
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To: LarryLied
Until the GOP has this large a majority in congress, not a lot of what we want is going to be accomplished.

Yep......there is no getting around that reality.

1,971 posted on 06/24/2002 8:56:07 AM PDT by Southflanknorthpawsis
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To: Registered
No, it is not likely that you are willing to discuss your leftest Senators. The BashBots ignore reality. Perhaps you can explain to me why a very large percentage of BashBots are located in leftest states.

Even though the article at the top of the thread points out the futility in dealing with BashBots, and in spite of the fact that you are unwilling to address my questions to you about the roles of Levin, I will speak to airport security.

No one favors more federal employees, but if one is to be objective, both sides of the coin need to be examined. The BashBots can say that it was Bush, acting totally by himself, who decided to federalize the screeners, but by doing so, they show their ignorance and /or dishonesty. The reality is that there was imput from everyone concerned, and likely included Congress, agency staff, airlines, airport management, security contractors, passengers.

There are numerous justifications but let me limit myself to the one that seems most important to me: If the passenger says that there needs to be more security while the passenger also says that he doesn't want to pay for, or deal with the nuisance of, more security, then the only option is to inject a higher authority.

1,972 posted on 06/24/2002 9:07:57 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: Ben Ficklin
I did address your questions if you'd just open your eyes and read it. Sheesh.
1,973 posted on 06/24/2002 9:11:38 AM PDT by Registered
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To: Jesse
Bush isn't a conservative. Anyone who doesn't see this is a Hollywood conservative. As in, Bush is to conservatives as watching a movie is to reality...requires the willing suspension of disbelief LOL! I'll have to remember that one!
1,974 posted on 06/24/2002 9:12:49 AM PDT by RAT Patrol
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To: IanSherwood
Nope. He is not going to appoint any conservative judges. He is horse-whipped by Leahy. A President with balls would already have Leahy in irons for his violations of national security with his leaks. And as to Social Issues, this clown Roeser needs to count the number of Clinton Executive Orders still in place on the issue. Any guesses? And let's take a look at the most recent betrayals on the Life Issue:

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. Just Click here or read the attached.

Monday, June 24, 2002

White House killed human-cloning ban? Bush 'hung the pro-life community out to dry,' complain bill supporters

Posted: June 24, 2002 1:00 a.m. Eastern 2002 Human Events

The White House lobbied last week to kill a Senate Republican effort to effectively stop commercial human cloning in the United States, Senate sources have told Human Events.

Although President Bush has endorsed a complete ban on human cloning sponsored by senators Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., and Mary Landrieu, D.-La., White House lobbyists contacted Republican senators June 18 to ask them to vote that morning for cloture (a closing of debate to bring a legislative question to a vote) on the Senate's terrorism insurance bill (S 2600), thus preventing an up-or-down vote on a human cloning amendment that Brownback wanted to attach to the bill. His amendment would have banned the patenting of human embryos – effectively destroying any economic incentive for the experimental cloning of human beings.

The Senate did vote for cloture – 65 to 31 – so Brownback was prevented from trying to attach his amendment.

The terrorism insurance bill – which passed later that day, 84 to 14 – would require the government to cover almost all insurance losses in excess of $10 billion due to terrorist activity.

Cloning proponent Sen. Ted Kennedy, D.-Mass., said on the Senate floor that Brownback's amendment would have achieved Brownback's "long-held goal of banning this medical research entirely" by removing the economic incentives for it.

White House spokeswoman Mercy Viana, asked to explain why White House lobbyists worked against letting Brownback's amendment come to a vote, said it was "imperative for the Senate to move on this [insurance] bill, it was a priority for the president, it was a priority for America's economic security."

"We are working closely with the senators, and we are not going to get into the specific conversations that they [the White House lobbyists and the senators] had," Viana said.

She stressed that the president still supports Brownback's bill to completely ban human cloning.

"It's clear that the president is committed to banning human cloning," she said, "and he supports Sen. Brownback in his efforts to ban human cloning."

Many Senate staffers and conservative activists, nonetheless, were dismayed that the White House killed what they viewed as a rare opportunity for a Senate vote on human cloning – an opportunity that emerged only when anti-cloning forces jumped on a rare parliamentary blunder by pro-cloning senators.

The House of Representatives last summer passed a bill to ban completely human cloning by a 100-vote majority. Two months ago, President Bush held a special event at the White House to formally endorse Brownback's Senate version of the bill. In his speech that day, the president made a powerful argument against the procedure and said that any law that did anything less than ban all human cloning would be "unethical."

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D.-S.D., however, opposes a complete ban on human cloning. Ever since the House acted last summer, he has repeatedly reneged on a series of promises to have the Senate take up such a bill. When Daschle finally offered a vote on the bill in early June, it was only under a parliamentary arrangement designed to make it fail.

Daschle wanted to give political cover to pro-cloning senators – mostly Democrats – who intended to vote against Brownback's bill by giving them the opportunity at the same time to support a cloning bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D.-Mass., and Diane Feinstein, D.-Calif. The Kennedy-Feinstein bill would allow human cloning for scientific experimentation as long as the cloned embryos are killed and not implanted in a woman's uterus.

As a result of Daschle's refusal to allow a clean vote on his bill, Brownback has been forced to resort to guerrilla parliamentary tactics, seeking an opportunity to insert anti-cloning provisions into other legislation. On June 13, he got an unexpected chance, the likes of which may not come again as long as Democrats control the U.S. Senate.

During the debate on Brownback's amendment to the insurance bill that would ban the patenting of human embryos, Sen. Arlen Specter, R.-Pa., a strong supporter of experimental human cloning, was assigned to man the floor for the pro-cloning side. But when Specter was forced to leave the floor for 30 seconds to take a telephone call, cloning opponent Sen. John Ensign, R.-Nev., seized the unusual opportunity of an open floor to effectively lock in Brownback's amendment as the pending business. Because no one was present to object, Ensign's maneuver made a vote on cloning almost inevitable.

This left Daschle with only one option to prevent that vote from happening. He called for a cloture vote on the terror insurance bill, which would stop debate and kill any non-relevant amendments.

The cloture vote, which requires a 60-vote majority, was scheduled for five days later. The White House lobbyists waited until the morning of the vote before getting involved to support cloture.

"The White House hung the pro-life community out to dry," said one Senate source familiar with the incident.

Separate sources claimed that White House lobbyists deceived some Republican senators into voting, in effect, to kill Brownback's amendment, incorrectly informing them just before the cloture roll call that pro-life groups – including the Family Research Council – would not be scoring that procedural vote in their annual ranking of Congress.

In fact, the Family Research Council had notified 49 senators of their intention to score the cloture vote, a spokesman told Human Events. But the president's lobbyists reportedly told senators that this had changed. For whatever reason, a decisive number of senators did appear to flip on the vote at the last moment.

Three senators who had explicitly indicated their support for Brownback's amendment the day before – James Inhofe, R.-Okla., George Allen, R.-Va., and Pete Fitzgerald, R.-Ill. – ended up voting for cloture, which killed the amendment.

A spokesman for the staunchly pro-life Inhofe, a long-time conservative champion, said the senator voted for cloture because he thought it was important to have a clean anti-terrorism insurance bill. Inhofe, a co-sponsor of Brownback's complete ban on human cloning, believes there will be another opportunity in this Senate to vote on Brownback's bill, the spokesman said.

A spokeswoman for Sen. George Allen, R.-Va., confirmed that the White House had asked for a "yes" vote. Allen, she said, feared that if the cloture vote failed, "the terrorism insurance legislation would have been set aside" by Daschle.

A spokesman for Fitzgerald did not return calls for comment.

According to an eyewitness, Fitzgerald and three other Republican senators – Pete Domenici, R.-N.M., Bob Bennett, R.-Utah, and Mike Crapo, R.-Idaho – actually voted with Brownback at first, then reversed their votes before the voting period was up. Domenici declined to talk to Human Events about his reversal. Spokesmen for Bennett and Crapo did not return calls.

If these six senators had voted with Brownback against cloture, cloture would have fallen short with only 59 votes. As a result, nothing could have stopped a vote on Brownback's amendment to prohibit the patenting of human embryos.

Family Research Council President Ken Connor was sharply critical of the White House moves in supporting cloture.

"The vote on the Brownback amendment would likely have been the most significant pro-life vote in this session of Congress," Connor said in a written statement. "The White House had an opportunity to lead on an issue of critical importance to pro-family/pro-life groups, but instead chose to dissemble."

1,975 posted on 06/24/2002 9:22:57 AM PDT by Paul Ross
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To: Lazamataz
Zero signal to noise. What else is new?
1,976 posted on 06/24/2002 9:45:03 AM PDT by Roscoe
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To: Roscoe
Go back to bed.

You were making more sense then.

1,977 posted on 06/24/2002 9:46:42 AM PDT by Lazamataz
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To: Ben Ficklin
I won't be truly happy until G.W. Bush sings the L'Internationale.


1,978 posted on 06/24/2002 9:50:13 AM PDT by Lazamataz
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To: Texasforever
Bravo Tex, I couldn't agree with you more. I believe there is a contest going on to see which one of these "Reform Party Orphans" are the most pure in thought. They live in a dream world, so reality will never be an issue for them. GREAT POST
1,979 posted on 06/24/2002 9:56:59 AM PDT by MJY1288
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To: toenail
The regulations are already in place

The regulations you linked make no mention of abortion clinics.

You understand selective enforcement and selective unenforcement, don't you?

How was this alleged "selective unenforcement" arrived at? Rulemakings? Regulatory case precedents? Written policies or letters? Procedure manuals?

Once again, pursuant to what law could a President order a change in the manner that regulations are interpreted and/or applied by a regulatory agency?

Your analysis is lazy and uninformed, you don't have a clue what actions that the President can take.

1,980 posted on 06/24/2002 9:59:56 AM PDT by Roscoe
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