Posted on 12/21/2002 11:11:29 AM PST by Pokey78
As President Bush wraps up his second year in the White House, he finds himself juggling an armful of new crises and old problems. In recent weeks, he fired his two chief economic advisers and replaced them with a supposedly more telegenic and persuasive team led by Treasury Secretary-designate John Snow. He ordered the construction of a rudimentary and controversial antimissile system to be based in Alaska and California. He tried to balance his calls for "compassionate conservatism" with tepid support for the besieged Mississippi conservative Trent Lott, who finally withdrew from his post as Senate Republican leader five days before Christmas. Most important, the president took another step toward war by citing omissions and deceptions in Saddam Hussein's new United Nations-required report on the status of Iraq's weapons programs.
Yet, in a revealing year-end interview with U.S. News, Bush was optimistic about the future even as he acknowledged the daunting tasks ahead. He showed none of the cowboy swagger and Lone Ranger impulses for which he has been caricatured. "I hope the American people trust me," Bush said, sitting in front of an Oval Office fireplace bordered with pine cones, apples, and holiday greenery. "I hope they trust me when it comes to fighting this war on terror, and I hope they trust me when it comes to leading toward a more compassionate tomorrow, because I'm a compassionate person. The only thing I know to do is to speak my mind, show my heart as best I can, and to lead."
What came across most vividly was his desire not to settle for small victories in 2003 but to think big. In a separate interview, White House counselor Karl Rove told U.S. News: "You've got to stick with trying to achieve what you set out to do in the first place. But leadership is creating political capital and then expending it on behalf of big things, new big things that are in keeping with your philosophical approach. Once you pass a big idea that's part of your platformtax cut, education reform, trade promotion authority, and so forthyou have to go back and refresh the agenda and keep expanding it."
No bigotry. Lott's withdrawal as Senate leader gives the president the opportunity to renew his campaign to prove he is a different kind of Republican, without the complication of working with a man tainted as a sometime defender of segregation. In the interview, Bush was eager, for the first time, to detail his views on America's continuing racial divide. But just 48 hours before Lott stepped down, Bush said Lott "shouldn't leave his position." The president did not want to give Lott the final public shove, even while his allies were working behind the scenes to force Lott out. "My attitude about race is that we ought to confront bigotry, all forms of bigotry," Bush said, "and I believe the AmericanI know the American people are good, honorable, decent people. And occasionally the bigot has his day. I don't think Trent Lott is a bigot. I find him to be a, you know, he's a friend. . . . My job is to continue to work for an America that welcomes all and that is nondiscriminatory, and I will do that."
The controversy over whether Lott was fit to lead Senate Republicans ensures that Bush will feel compelled to address the racial issue in his State of the Union speech in late January. U.S. News has learned that White House aides were drafting what they called a "healing speech" for the mid-January Africa trip that Bush canceled the day Lott withdrew.
A visibly tired Bushwho was nursing a coldvolunteered that he was shaking hands with 1,500 people a night at the seemingly endless series of White House holiday parties. He emphasized that he didn't really mind the chore, but aides said he was looking forward to a brief vacation at his ranch in Texas.
Weighing war. When he returns from that getaway, he may face the most critical decision of his presidency: whether to go to war against Iraq. It is clear that this possibility is never far from Bush's mind. He argued that his foreign policy "has got to be bold, but it's also got to be understanding in that the nature of the new wars we face, in the nature of the problems we face, understanding the sense that we've got to work with others to achieve common objectives, and we're doing that."
"The biggest issues facing us in '03 will be continuing the war on terror," Bush said. "The al Qaeda is in 40, 50, 60 countries; they're scattered around. We will have to continue to pursue them, which means that we must continue to work hard to keep this coalition together. The war on terror will require a constant evaluation of progress. . . .
"A second phase of the war on terror, and an important part of the peace platform, will be Iraq. And we have worked closely with friends and allies in convincing them to join us and insisting that Saddam Hussein disarm. As you know, I have made it clear that if he won't disarm that we will lead a coalition of the willing to disarm him. My hope is that he will disarm."
If Saddam does not, the men and women of the armed forces may be called to do the job. "You know, when you've got kids off in Afghanistan, the remote regions of Afghanistan, hunting in caves for al Qaeda killers, you're asking a lot of people. And we'll continue asking them to make that sacrifice." As Bush knows all too well, ordering Americans into combat is a burden that only the commander in chief can fully understandand it is a decision he may face in Iraq all too soon.
...let me guess who made those comments....mmmmm....BONO ! No wait, he's not very popular here. Must be #43, my man George 'W'.
His foreign aid comments were made in March, in Mexico, in front of Vicente Fox. Much has changed.
His recent foreign aid announcement was called "Millenium Challenge", I think. It's the equivalent of Rush's "excrement list'. 'Play ball with us, or we cut the foreign aid'...a 'use our money against us, and you're toast' kinda' thing.
AND I neglected to include on my list the way 'W' embarrassed the UN, challenged the UN, and told the UN what a joke they are. I would think you've been waiting for that for a llloooonnngg, lloooonnngg time.
Nothings perfect, but this is our best chance to get back to some common sense. Please consider supporting the guy. You can't ignore what he's trying to do. Or you can.
It's pretty pitiful to be so proud of his, for conservative voters ears, snipping at the U.N. as one of his only conservative accomplishments. That was pretty transparent and lame when he then turns around and throws more money at them in Monterry Mexico and cozies up to their Agenda 21 for the western hemisphere.
It became pretty apparent why he supported the Brizilian election of a communist when it turns out he and this communist will be "the two" on the committee for discussing the uniting the western hemisphere into one trading block, code word for no borders. And he loved Clintons U.N. tainted land grabbing E.O.'s so much he decided to keep them.
The list is unending, I could spend over an hour listing them, and may do just that if I have time when I get back from fighting the mall crowds. No one here in Jan 2001 was not thrilled at his victory over Gore, no one here was not beaming with joy and anticipation of a better tomorrow with Bush leading us to victory over the destructive elements in our government. We clung to every little tid bit thrown our way and tried to smile through and defend his, seemingly at the time, liberal blunders.
They were not liberal blunders, turns out they were "Compassionate Conservatism", doh. So, please don't ask us to support a man who clearly does not reciprocate the support. He told conservatives, move your principles far left or get out of the "big tent", well we did get out, what did he expect, that we had no place to go and wouldn't?
Tom Tancredo for President in 2004!
Bush's attempts to be nice to everybody are rather feeble in comparison with Jesse Helms' speech to the UN, which, by the way, embarrassed the GOP to no end. Instead of articulate refutation of the UN we get Carter/Clinton platitudes and policies which keep everyone smiling but conservatives.
You guys are not honest enough to admit he has highjacked the Republican Party and taken it on a wild ride far left. You would never sit still for this bull from a democrat, stem cell research, open borders, the Patriot Act, Home Land Security, a billion a year to Mexico in SS, the Farm Bill, 245i, decent people being rousted and stripped searched at the airports, naw, you would be screaming "Police State" and you would be right.
So how about not stomping your foot with me, defend him if you can. You can't can you, you can only get mad at those that are too conservative to support him no matter what. If people like me rid the Republican party of him in 2004, you will be back on our side, the right side. If that extreme is what it takes, it's really on wishy washy unprincipled Republicans, isn't it.
I'm truly sorry that you feel this president ought to take the most striden stances at this juncture, for such positions would work to end pro-life initiatives in the long run without accomplishing the many changes needed. Things got this horrific over decades. If things can be reversed and changed in a decade, I will be surprised. Some things must be addressed asap, like a ban on partial birth abortions. There are congressional voice that will be necessary to this effort, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, so putting your foot down and stating you will never vote for a president who doesn't follow the most striden agenda is conterproductive ... and insisting on making it your mission to denegrate this president really only hurts pro-life causes.
Let's leave that aside and take on the other issues I listed, or not even that, let's take on the issue of what was promised some of us conservatives by less conservative Feepers. And that was that we would all hold Bush's feet to the fire on issues that he was too liberal on. We would freep, we would be on him like stink on a year old virginia ham. Has that happened? no.
Conservatives have been left lifting the heavy end, and called "strident", "bush haters", "hysterical", while ya'll smile bravey through a proposed billion a year to Mexico in SS, the attachment to the Farm Bill that took the care and feeding of immigrants off the back of their sponsers, where the Welfare Reform Act placed it, and threw it back on the backs of tax payers, and an illegal and dangerous invasion from Mexico, all Americans being thrown into the same pot, guilty of being a suspected terrorist at the airports, and rousted, while arabs pass right through. Buying into the double standard, "none of the highjackers came in illegally through Mexico so there is no need to protect the borders", yet accepting, "all Americans must be treated as potential terrorists even though none of the 9-11 highjackers were anything other than Arab.
Dead silence on CFR, 245i, the ten billion extra to placate the U.N.'s desire to go global with a tax, and only the conservatives on this site howl. Ya'll should be on our side yelling into Bush's face or else what is D.C. to think? They will think all they are doing is fine and move farther left, that is what they will, and are, doing.
These "incremental steps" have landed conservatives in the position of having to fight the mass migration of moderates and liberals into the Republican Party. FR use to be full of fire breathing activism for the conservative way, where did that go? Oh, gee, we have a globalist/socialist in the White House, but he's a Republican so we can just go wheeew that's better than Gore, and that's IT? That's where our activism ends?
Just because ya'll are going to vote for him again doesn't mean you can't challange him when he is wrong, does it?
You know I have characterized the ESCR position accurately. You are making an assertion regarding the Stanford cloning, knowing the president could no more have stopped that than you could ... the issue is federal funding for these research 'black arts'. But you rave on, making yourself all the more transparent. You may accomplish even more than trashing Bush, you and your few may reformulate FR to fit your ilk, because very many of we 'not conservative enough for you' members can take just so much foolishness. It happened at other 'conservative' websites (like Luciana) and it can easily happen here. Keep it up. You will win something in the end.
You know, it is the mark of a true liberal to charge someone who lays out undeniable facts as "hateful" while never actually taking the facts head on, much easier to diss the person and take them on. You have nothing to be proud of in having attained that level. And that is what debate has degraded to. As far as hate goes, there is alot of hatred around for conservatives that are un-cooperative with a political agenda that is dead set anti-American coming from both parties. Hope you enjoy where that kind of passivity leads.
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