Posted on 07/30/2003 5:18:48 PM PDT by derekftaylor
Edited on 07/30/2003 5:57:11 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Actual text of Rush's article:
1:15 PM ET BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
Consider this story by Steven E. Schier in The Hill magazine, "President Bush - A Radical With a Plan." Quote: "President Bush has had a rough summer, beset by a troublesome military occupation of Iraq, growing budget deficits and media challenges to his credibility." Get that: "media challenges." That's horse manure. These are not just "media." They may as well be elected Democrats. That's who's challenging Bush. They're one and the same.
More: "Lately, the White House has fought back hard in response to its Democratic critics. Why such an aggressive approach? The Bush presidency has a huge project at its heart, one now suddenly threatened by adverse events. The White House forcefulness towards its critics reflects the unusually large scale of Bushs presidential ambitions. Bushs goal is a big one to make the Republicans the natural, default party of government." Where have we heard this before? I guess this is this guy's version of The BIG Theory. "Karl Rove, the presidents chief political strategist, frequently mentions durable GOP dominance as a major goal of the Bush presidency. Bush seeks lasting conservative rule over American politics, completion of the rightward revolution begun by Ronald Reagan.
"The Bush administration is working steadily to create conservative dominance over political institutions, party and interest group alignments and the terms of policy debate. In the terms of Yale University political scientist Stephen Skowronek, Bush is an 'orthodox innovator' trying to adapt the Reagan approach for the 21st century. As James K. Polk restored the Democratic Party in the 1840s and Teddy Roosevelt reinvigorated the GOP at the turn of the 20th century, so Bush hopes to create a new Republican political coalition than can dominate national politics long after he leaves the White House.
"The risk for such orthodox-innovators, according to Skowronek, is that their innovations split their coalitions and end their partys dominance, as Roosevelts progressivism divided the GOP in 1912. So far, Bush has avoided that fate. Instead, his strategy, described to me by a White House official as 'base-plus,' seems to be working. The GOP base loves Bush, though his hold on centrist voters remains uncertain. If his proposed tax cuts stimulate the economy in time for the 2004 election and international events do not turn against the White House, Bushs long-term strategy will have an improved chance of succeeding.
"The worst news of the summer for Bush concerns the budget deficit, now likely to exceed $450 billion next year. His GOP base may well fracture in the long-term over the problem of large and persistent budget deficits resulting from his tax cuts." The base concerned about the deficit? Dream on! The base isn't going to care a rat's hair about it. "Deficits pose three political difficulties for his project. First, large deficits over time will produce increasing disunity among Congressional Republicans. Complaints about this years deficit are already issuing from GOP ranks on Capitol Hill. Second, deficits hand Democrats a national issue with which to put the GOP on the defensive.
"Bushs own father an orthodox innovator who failed found both Bill Clinton and Ross Perot effectively hammering him on the issue in 1992. Third, high deficits endanger other central policy goals of the administration, such as an increased defense buildup and Social Security privatization. The Bush administration promises tight spending control to reduce deficits. Its first two years in office do not seem to guarantee future discipline. Federal spending in 2001 and 2002 grew more than it did during Clintons first four years in office.
"And if such discipline is attempted, how will swing voters react to cuts in popular programs? Building a dominant conservative coalition for the long term is a task beset with practical political difficulties. This is an administration bent on huge changes in American politics and public policy and willing to take big risks to achieve them. Right now, theyre fighting hard to retain the political initiative behind this big project, facing some of the biggest political challenges of Bushs presidency. Whether or not they succeed, the Bush presidency promises to enter the history books as one of the most politically ambitious of all time because of its efforts to reshape the entire political landscape."
The author here, Steven Schier is Congdon Professor of Political Science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He's editor of a forthcoming book on the early presidency of George W. Bush. In essence, this is his version of the BIG Theory in which the president and his advisors are basically counting on the fact that the base will be their support no matter what, and they're going out there advancing a domestic agenda designed to attract Democrat liberal moderate centrist pinko voters to expand to the Republican base, make it so big that there's no longer a viable Democratic Party. So let me try to deal with this the most delicate way that I can.
I have pointed out every fact raised in this piece to one degree or another, over the course of the past three or four months, every fact raised in this piece. The problem with this piece is its conclusion, I think, which I just shared with you. This base plus approach is nothing new. Everybody tries this. Reagan reached out to the blue-collar and religious Democrats back in the '80s. I mean, that's where the phrase "Reagan Democrats" comes from. And as I've said repeatedly, he did so without stiffing his base time and time again. Back in the '80s, nobody who voted for Reagan was upset with what he was doing on the domestic agenda. I'll telling you, folks, nobody was. Yet the Reagan Democrats loved this guy.
The electoral strategic model that is being followed by the Bush operatives is not Reaganesque. Here comes the biggie...it's Nixonesque. Wait a minute, folks. Just hang on. I don't say that with any intent to diminish either Nixon or Bush. This is an analytical fact. Remember, just as Reagan won two landslides, Nixon won one as well - a huge one in 1972. Now, let's look at this. Richard Nixon, like Bush, embraced, I think, too much of the left's domestic agenda in an effort to attract support beyond his own base. Look at what Nixon did. He created the Environmental Protection Agency, he created OSHA, he created revenue sharing - which is the kind now touted by Hillary Clinton for the so-called homeland security purposes.
Nixon was the first president to put real teeth in the affirmative action laws, in case you're too young to know or have forgotten. It was Nixon who imposed wage and price controls when unemployment was at 3%, and Nixon, Nixon relied on the weakness and the public aversion of his opponent, George McGovern, to win his landslide. You'd be hard-pressed to argue that it was any kind of political revolution from a philosophical governing viewpoint. I mean, Nixon made a beeline for the things that McGovern voters liked on the domestic side. McGovern was a pure anti-war candidate, anti-Vietnam. I know some of you are going to be scratching your heads or worse, but it's a mistake to say that what Bush is doing is Reaganesque. There are far more similarities to Nixon.
Nixon would have signed a campaign finance reform bill. Reagan wouldn't have. Nixon would have signed any major expansion of Medicare. Reagan would have vetoed that before it got to the White House. Nixon tried to blur some of the principle distinctions between conservatism and liberalism, but Reagan never blurred the difference. He always referred to limited government and repeatedly spoke of it. He challenged liberal thought and policy on virtually every front. If there's a model that's being adopted - and I think the Bushes are being somewhat original and unique here with what Rove is doing, at least in how they're executing it - it's more Nixonian. Bush told the Urban League "[W]e need active government." Those words never would have crossed Reagan's lips. They would have crossed the lips of Nixon easily. When I heard that line I thought, "Who wrote this speech? Bill Kristol?" So we're looking at similarities, but not to Reagan.
In addition here to establishing, I think, very conclusively and almost inarguably that the Bush pattern here of "base plus," or the new theory that Bush more closely replicates what Nixon did certainly more than what Reagan did, let's deal more with foreign policy and national security, shall we? The comparison to Reagan and the Reagan Revolution does work. It's one area where I will agree with Schier's piece.
Both Bush and Reagan rejected the common wisdom and they've set their undiverted sites on destroying the enemy. In Bush's case, terrorism and Al-Qaeda. In Reagan's view, the evil empire. Reagan toppled the Soviet Union by rejecting containment and appeasement. Bush has terrorists all over the world on the run by doing the exact same thing. Both Reagan and Bush have been denounced by the mainstream media - and even by members of their own party. That's because Reagan was, and because Bush is, a visionary when it comes to the national security of his country. That's the similarity. If you want the similarity between Bush and Reagan, look at foreign policy. If you want the similarity between Bush and somebody else on the domestic side, regardless of what you think of it, you will find a far closer alignment with Richard Nixon in his 1972 campaign and its governance after his landslide victory in 1972....
Furthermore, what is the Nixon legacy? "Great foreign policy president," right? It certainly is. He opened the door to China and all that sort of stuff. What do you think Bush is angling for here? He's got the base plus, the BIG Theory. But the things that Bush is doing that will end up in history books are indeed Nixonian: foreign policy and wiping out of the terrorism.
(1:40 PM EST END TRANSCRIPT)
(1:57 PM EST BEGIN TRANSCRIPT)
Mr. Snerdley desperately tried to make the case that Bush is more like Reagan on the BIG Theory than Nixon, but you can't make that case - other than tax cuts. That's really the closest you can get. A final example is that, during Wednesday's show, President Bush made remarks at the White House celebrating the 38th anniversary of Medicare. Nixon would have done that; I don't know that Reagan did, although he might have been forced to. If Reagan did do it, he didn't want to.
2:00 PM EST END FINAL TRANSCRIPT
It's instiituting a New World Order as spelled out during meetings at the Bohemian (sp?) Grove where all manner of devil worship takes place (so says Alex Jones who has actual video and has studied such things!) ...
And, my sex has absolutely NOTHING, whatsoever, with my analysis of Rush, nor my cognative abilities. I know many men, who agree with me about Rush.
Now, I listen to him rarely and when I do tune in, I shut the radio off rather quickly. His " news " is old , his mannerisms have grown worse and more obnoxious, and his opinions/takes on things ... lame.
For every rat and appeaser and socialist, there is more then one of us!
Considering selective hearing, inability to understand communications in a "man's world" ... no parallel experiences to 'relate' to ...
Yeah - shouldn't matter a whit!
(MAYBE you should consider that YOU'VE changed, and not Rush. Reviewing from time to time his tapes from that era reaffirms my assertions that he hasn't changed as much as some CLAIM he has.)
It was true early on and into the campaign. I'm not sure when he finally saw the light and realized he was wrong, but he did say it. Are you speaking from an earwitness account or are you guessing what his words might have been?
Minor issue, but it still shows he was wrong on Hillary running. and seeings how he's not God he's bound to be wrong sometime or other.
President Bush isn't " instituting " anything; least of all a " NEW WORLD ORDER " !
And, dear, I happen to know men who belong to Bohemian Grove. YOU DON'T ! Alex Jones just wants to sell books/dupe the gullible . Please adjust your tinfoil...it seems to have cut off the blood supply to your brain.
But beyond the witicism [at least I think it's a witicism...could be the truth, I suppose] that's a hard call when you are running an election. When you run an election you have to go for every single vote that it's possible to get. Elections are too amorphous to control that expertly...expertly enough to know that you are getting just the 51% and that it's only the "right" people voting for you. You've got to go all out to get as many votes as you can...because in an election you control very little of what is happening out in the voting society.
You just can't cut it that fine. If you tried, you'd probably end up losing 90% of the time. Any little thing that could go wrong would sink you (ask either Bush...or Gore). You need margins, you need to appeal broadly because you just don't know how many votes from strange and different places you are going to need to win.
And the worst thing in the world...the biggest waste of your life's time and money is spending it in the nasty business of elections, if you are going to risk losing. No bigger bummer, nothing that could be a bigger, more unpleasant waste of your time. No human being in their right mind subject themselves to it unless they were really going to try everything to win. Losing is just a complete waste, it never gains anything.
Wow ... SELECTIVE HEARING ...
There may have been a FEW MINUTES on that subject with CONTINUITY from day to day, but, apparently to you NOW it appears to have been an entire three hour program - that's more a product of SELECTIVE RECALL on your part BTW ...
IF you knew the week (BUT you MORE than likely don't) I have TAPES from that era too ... proving you WRONG would be *so* easy.
Savage, whom I've only heard a couple of times is dreadful. Jay Sevrin, who used to take over for Bob Grant, in N.Y., prior to his Boston gig, used to be good. Then, as years passed, he became a loon. Something happened to him; I'm not exactly sure just what ... something about not getting a full time job with WABC and something about his dog. He became sort of a hermit, for a while. Nervous breakdown, or something like.
Rush made outright statements about Hillary not running, both for the senate 3 years ago and very recently and about 2004.
Alex Jones is the one you have to tell/convince to the contrary.
Alex Jones continues to insist on these point every day. His 'proof' are the videos he somehow secretly made (and now peddles over-the-air and on his website) ...
I ONLY mention it as the other party brought up the issue that Bush had an ulterior motive for some of his actions ... I don't believe a WORD of it myself ...
No way! I guess now that he's found FR there's never a moment without something relevant to talk about.
Maybe the hearing issue has cause him to change a bit.
YOU'D better check on WHAT he's saying now about Hilliary! and 2004 Charlie ... it's IMPORTANT to understand the FACTORS that come together for such an APPRAISAL of a political situation and NOT just the final prediction pronouncement!
Of course, if you're simple Joe Citizen who laps up every word the press issues I can understand why you would latch onto only a very few words spoken by Rush ...
(It's obvious that you *don't* listen to him.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.