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Title: COMPASSIONATE SOCIALISM: The Ideology Of George W. Bush
Source:
The Intellectual Activist
URL Source: http://none
Published: Oct 1, 1999
Author: By Andrew Lewis
Post Date: 2005-10-29 00:27:57 by Uncle Bill
Keywords: COMPASSIONATE, SOCIALISM:, Ideology
Views: 611
Comments: 17
The Intellectual Activist BEFORE THE PRIMARY RACE HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN, George W. Bush has been all but anointed as the Republican presidential candidate for 2000. His greatest source of appeal seems to be his reputation as a “moderate” and as a political pragmatist—which, the Republicans have concluded, is more popular than the more ideological “revolutionaries.” But Bush’s reputation as a pragmatist merely serves as useful camouflage for his deeper philosophical premises. His campaign platform of “compassionate conservatism” is more than the inevitable culmination of decades of Republican compromise with the Democrats; it is the explicit adoption by a conservative of the fundamental principles of socialism. Examine the premises smuggled into the title of the platform. Prosperity, Bush tells us, needs a purpose. “Conservatism” –which allegedly represents Capitalism—is practical, but lacks moral feeling. This is half true. Capitalism is the rational, practical system, and although it does have an underlying moral premise, that premise is not feelings, but justice. To Bush, however, the justice and practicality of capitalism are not a sufficient basis for a political system; they must be tempered by “compassion,” which is allegedly a feature of socialism. “Compassion,” in this view, is the exact opposite of justice; it is the idea that one must give to others, not as a choice to recognize the deserving, but as a duty to reward the undeserving. He says: “Compassion” is the euphemism Bush uses to enshrine altruism—enforced or otherwise—as this country’s moral code. “Compassionate conservatism,” the, is no mere compromise, but the official attempt to subordinate advocacy of the free market to advocacy of altruism. In practice, today’s conservatives and “compassionate” liberals are not separated by any profound gap. The two sides have always shared a basic agreement on essential values. Liberals, however, make no attempt to hide their socialism. Their cherished programs—universal health care, Social Security, and welfare programs, to name but a few—are all promoted in the name of collective responsibility and service to the needy. Today’s conservatives officially reject socialism, yet their commitment to religion and thus to the morality of altruism has led them consistently to betray their nominal commitment to the free market. Pragmatism and a lack of “political will” do not explain the Republicans’ repeated embrace of liberal policies, such as maintaining a welfare “safety net,” “saving” Social Security, supporting antitrust enforcement, promoting the volunteerism summit (which Bush’s father co-sponsored), and so on. Rather, it is the moral conviction and strength of political will they have found in adopting a more religious agenda that has brought them closer to the socialists’ program. Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in the ideological odyssey of Marvin Olasky, the “godfather” of compassionate conservatism and one of Bush’s leading advisors. Olasky, an evangelical Christian and ordained elder of his own church, founded New Start, a “faith-based” welfare-to-work program that is the model for Bush’s “armies of compassion.” Born a Jew, he renounced religion within a year of his bar mitzvah, then joined the communist party during the Vietnam War. While writing a thesis that began as a defense of the Reds allegedly persecuted by Hollywood, he reverted to religion—this time to Christianity. According to a recent interview, the conversion began when Olasky wondered whether Lenin might have been wrong about God’s existence. In 1989, he began researching charity organizations and the lack of religious instruction in welfare programs. His book, The Tragedy of American Compassion, trumpeting the need for religion as the basis of welfare, was published in 1992. William Bennett, former Secretary of Education, called it the “most important book on welfare and social policy in a decade,” and Newt Gingrich distributed copies to all incoming Republican freshmen, declaring that Olasky and Alexis de Tocqueville provided the cornerstones of Republican philosophy. Bush met Olasky during his 1993 gubernatorial campaign, and in 1995 he recruited Olasky for a task force that promoted religious drug-treatment centers, prison ministries, and religious day-care centers. Olasky is now Bush’s unofficial conscience and philosophical guide. Olasky’s series of conversions puzzles many, much as Fidel Castro’s enthusiastic welcome of the Pope mystified many last year. But an examination of their shared principles solves the mystery. The long war of words between religion and communism has always been superficial. It amounts to Olasky’s single objection to Lenin: the existence of God. Olasky’s dispute with Lenin was not “Suppose he was wrong about sacrifice and duty?” or “Suppose he was wrong about individual rights?” or “Suppose he was wrong about faith and the limits of reason?” Merely, “Suppose he was wrong about God?” In essence, religion and socialism agree on a single axiom; your life is not your own. That is the premise on which Bush bases his “compassion.” His “armies of compassion”—squads of semi-private volunteers who would allegedly replace government welfare, sacrificing themselves for the needy—descend directly from his father’s and President Clinton’s volunteerism summit. And notwithstanding those “armies,” Bush avowedly advocates the maintenance of all aspects of the current welfare state, especially Social Security and Medicare. But don’t forget that Bush’s compassion is “conservative”—and accordingly there is additional assault on freedom that he supports: the introduction of religious propaganda into state-financed welfare programs. Questioned recently about the dangers of merging church and state, Olasky cited the apparent success of his New Start program and said, “Are you willing to put up with these religious practices that you feel very uncomfortable with?...Or would you rather end those practices and see more assaults, rapes, drug use, and homicides?” Individual rights and the safeguards established in the Constitution mean nothing to Olasky—nor to Bush—if the “public good” is at stake. To regard Bush as a mere pragmatist is dangerously superficial. In fact, he is a ideologue. His ideology is a more consistent version of faith and altruism that would move the Republican Party even further away from the principle of individual rights. George W. Bush - Traitor to the Constitution - Worldnetdaily George W. Bush's Big Socialist Accomplishments BUSH - Spending the U.S. into Socialism - Insight Magazine Bush's skip down Socialism Lane - 15 year-old gets it Surge Of Socialism Under George W. Bush George Bush's Move to the Left - Socialism in America Bush administration land grab in the name of Green socialism Compassionate Conservatism Means Big Government Conservatism - "October 20, 1999" No to 'compassionate conservatism' It left me feeling empty. ..Marvin Olasky, the former Marxist journalism professor who coined the term. But he and George W. Bush are barking up the wrong tree if they think "compassionate conservatism" is going to rally popular support necessary to effect the real change needed to turn this country around." WALKS LIKE A DUCK; TALKS LIKE A DUCK George W. Bush - The Case for Impeachment - High crimes and misdemeanors Bush and God Bush’s “Third Way” Communitarianism is the “Worst Way” BUSH: MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS WORSHIP THE SAME GOD! I'LL TAKE THE WORD OF GOD OVER THE WORD OF G.W. BUSH Evangelical outrage over Bush's 'same God' remark Bush's Coming Betrayal of the Evangelicals Why Christians Should Not Vote for George W. Bush Polls / Re-election If Just One Or Two Percent Of Previous Bush Voters Simply Stay Home On November 2, Bush Will Lose Bush Is Losing: Kerry Ahead Of Bush In 13 of the 16 Battleground States - Wall Street Journal Washington Times - Bush Is In Big Trouble - Polls Show He Will Lose Bush Headed In Right Direction - Down Does A GOP Implosion Await? - [Real Conservative Consensus - Bush Sucks] Boycott Socialist Bush In 2004 Bush Is In Trouble, Big Trouble Kerry Is Winning - John LeBoutillier, Newsmax Bush Losing Electoral College Scoreboard: Kerry Picks Up Ohio, Leads 316-222 Writing On Wall For Another One-Term Bush When Bush Loses In November, He Will Have No One To Blame But Himself POLL FINDS MOST ARE PUT OFF BY BUSH VACATION WHY KERRY WILL WIN - By Joseph Farah President Kerry? - By Joseph Farah LATEST ZOGBY NUMBERS: KERRY STILL AHEAD - Kerry 47% - Bush 44% POLLS SHOW KERRY AHEAD ON ELECTORAL VOTE 64% - BUSH MORE TO BLAME FOR NOT PREVENTING THE 911 ATTACKS POLL: 80% OF CANADIANS DISLIKE BUSH POLL: INDEPENDENTS MOVING AWAY FROM BUSH - Only 45% approve of Bush GOP Frets About Bush Re-Election Chances BUSH DROPS AGAIN IN NEWSWEEK POLL - ONLY 44% WANT BUSH RE-ELECTED Bush Disapproval Rating on Iraq Exceeds 54% in Poll AG TARGETING JUDGE MOORE IS BUSH NOMINEE BILL PRYOR'S SHOCKING COMMENTS DURING ROY MOORE'S "TRIAL" AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS ENDING JUDICIAL TYRANNY: DON'T COUNT ON THE REPUBLICANS SUPPORT FOR BUSH DOWN IN LATEST POLLS - Has Fallen From 80% to 42% Bush's approval rating drops three points Dick Morris: Bush Approval Rating in 'Free Fall' Bush losing his conservative base KEY GOP VOTERS TO REJECT BUSH IN '04 Conservative groups break with Republican leadership Say anything, who would know? The Bush Betrayal - Chapter One Bush and GOP Socialism GEORGE W. BUSH - THE BIGGEST SPENDING SOCIALIST EVER Betrayed By Bush - "The Republican Party Has Signed Off On Economic Treason." Socialist Bush Team Keeps Conservative Agenda In Check - The Washington Times George W. Bush's Never Ending Socialism WHAT SHOULD REAGANITES DO NOW? U.S. Advisers Call for Health Insurance for All - BushCare Coming FROM DAWN TO DECADE -NCE : Big Government Socialist Bush/Republicans George F. Will: President Bush Has Turned Conservatism On Its Head, Infuriating Many Supporters Bush Administration Embraces Welfare State Fighting Our Way To Big Government Contact White House To Remove The Bush Lie From White House Website U.S. Sues 3 Businesses That Refuse to Withhold Taxes U.S. Economy: Budget Deficits Force Record Government Borrowing Drug Plan For Seniors Risks Replay Of 'Catastrophic' Past GEORGE W. BUSH - The Mother of All Big Spenders WHY REPUBLICANS DISGUST ME - By Joseph Farah GEORGE W. BUSH - A Bush Presidency Will Be Very Dangerous For America Immigration Isn't An Issue Says Congressional GOP Bush Open to Accepting Illegal Aliens International Socialist Conference Celebrates - They Admit Bush's Limited Government Hot Air BUSH: Clinton-style Amnesia Returns Nothing Frugal About Republicans A 'Big Government Conservatism' - Breed Socialism, Get With It! GEORGE W. BUSH - YOU'RE NO RONALD REAGAN WHERE'S THE FISCAL OUTRAGE? - BUSH AND THE GOP ARE TOTAL FRAUDS SENATE APPROVES $401.3 BILLION DEFENSE SPENDING BILL WHY I AM NOT A CONSERVATIVE - Joseph Farah REPUBLICANS REACH PRELIMINARY MEDICARE DEAL - SocialismRus WHERE ARE THE FISCAL CONSERVATIVES? A DECLARATION OF U.S. GOVERNMENT BANKRUPTCY? - Testimony of Kent Smetters - $43.4 Trillion Debt THE $44 TRILLION ABYSS - Bush Hides Findings FEDERAL SPENDING SOARS UNDER BUSH'S WATCH Federal Spending Skyrocketing Under Republicans ME TOO, PAL, ' says Bush, Hanging Up BUSH HUNG UP ON CONSERVATIVE CONGRESSMAN Republicans vow to move on judicial nominees - November 24, 2002 PRESIDENT BUSH SIGNS WETLANDS ACT BUSH BETRAYAL: SMALLER GOVERNMENT Medicare expansion and the mirage of fiscal responsibility REPUBLICANS TURN EFFORTS TO THE UNINSURED - More Bush/GOP Socialism WHAT'S NEXT FOR BIG BROTHER? - Bush/GOP Treason - CFR P G & E BAILOUT PUTS BURDEN ON CONSUMERS Who Outspent Who On Global Welfare--LBJ or George Bush? "CONSERVATIVES" INTOXICATED WITH BIG GOVERNMENT Ron Paul: GOP Abandons Conservatives BUSH SAYS: "subsidize home-buyers with downpayment and closing costs." Bush budget contains $10 in new spending for every dollar in tax cuts "This farm bill will cost the average American taxpaying family $4,300 in higher taxes." Federal Taxing and Spending Benefit Some States, Leave Others Footing the Bill STATE OF THE UNION: IN JEOPARDY DRUNKEN GOP SAILORS - The Wall Street Journal Commission to Allow Insurance Cuts for Retired Employees Since the Republicans took over Congress in 1995, the budget has grown by 50% "The burden of debt is as destructive to freedom as subjugation by conquest." "I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared." "No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable." Freeing the Nation from Debt "I consider the fortunes of our republic as depending in an eminent degree on the extinguishment of the public debt before we engage in any war; because that done, we shall have revenue enough to improve our country in peace and defend it in war without recurring either to new taxes or loans. But if the debt should once more be swelled to a formidable size, its entire discharge will be despaired of, and we shall be committed to the English career of debt, corruption and rottenness, closing with revolution. The discharge of public debt, therefore, is vital to the destinies of our government." "There is a measure which if not taken we are undone...It is to cease borrowing money and to pay off the national debt. If this cannot be done without dismissing the army and putting the ships out of commission, haul them up high and dry and reduce the army to the lowest point at which it was ever established. There does not exist an engine so corruptive of the government and so demoralizing of the nation as a public debt. It will bring on us more ruin at home than all the enemies from abroad against whom this army and navy are to protect us." "To preserve the independence of the people, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow- sufferers." "No earthly consideration could induce my consent to contract such a debt as England has by her wars for commerce, to reduce our citizens by taxes to such wretchedness, as that laboring sixteen of the twenty-four hours, they are still unable to afford themselves bread, or barely to earn as much oatmeal or potatoes as will keep soul and body together. And all this to feed the avidity of a few millionary merchants and to keep up one thousand ships of war for the protection of their commercial speculations." "Our distance from the wars of Europe, and our disposition to take no part in them, will, we hope, enable us to keep clear of the debts which they occasion to other powers." No Mention of Fiscal Gap Estimated As High as $72 Trillion - It's All Over Lessons in how to make $43 trillion disappear HOW BIG IS THE GOVERNMENT'S DEBT? - $33.1 trillion+ $3,400,000,000,000 Of Taxpayers' Money Is Missing THE WAR ON WASTE - Rumsfeld Says 2.3 Trillion Dollars Missing The Baby Boomer's Retirement Bubble Is About to Burst? - CNSNews Bush, GOP and Abortion PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION BAN - THE BETRAYAL IS NOW COMPLETE PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION BAN - THE BETRAYAL IS NOW COMPLETE PARTIAL-BIRTH BAN OF NO EFFECT Bush and Guns GUN GROUPS MAY NOT BE BUSH CAMPAIGN WEAPON Bush will back ongoing ban on assault weapons UPSET GUN OWNERS SET TO DUMP BUSH BUSH ADMINISTRATION POLICIES PROMPT SOME GUN OWNERS TO RECOIL Bush will back ongoing ban on assault weapons Bush Snuggles Up To Homosexual Agenda Bush cheers 'gay' church after 'Marriage Week' - LINKS Bush and War on Terrorism BUSH KNEW of Terrorist Plot to Hijack US Planes " I'M 100 PERCENT SURE THEY KNEW " - BUSH - 911 A Day In The Life of George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Saudi Arabia Falluja withdrawal plan signals reversal in US policy FBI AND US SPY AGENTS SAY BUSH SPIKED BIN LADEN PROBES BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11 Republicans Want Terror Law Made Permanent Chronology Of A Cover-up: George W. Clinton FBI Failed To Use Credible Intelligence and Forewarnings To Move Against Terror Cells In Time WE LYNCHED LADY LIBERTY: He Says We’re Good Little Patriots Soldier Might Face Court Martial For Radio Comments BUSH TO IGNORE RULE ON WRITTEN NOTICES OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIONS CHINA DOLL - The FBI's "Parlor Maid" Bush Gets a 'Can Do Better' From Terror Panel Bush / Border / Illegal Aliens Bush Immigration Plan Borders On Treason BUSH AMNESTY PLAN PRODUCING HUGE INCREASE OF ILLEGAL ALIENS BORDER INVASION ABROAD, BORDER BETRAYAL AT HOME Michelle Malkin calls Bush Delusional on Fox News Show Our Immigration Policy Has Gone Beyond Reckless Immigration Plan Envisions 'Incentives' To Illegal Aliens Savage: Impeach Bush over immigration plan BUSH GIVES COUNTRY AWAY - Joseph Farah AMNESTY BY ANY OTHER NAME - Phyllis Schlafly WAVE GOODBYE TO CALIFORNIA - Alien Invasion MEXICO SAYS LEGALIZE CROSSERS OR NO DEAL Bush, backers part ways on immigration reform BASHING BUSH FROM GOP STRONGHOLD WHITE HOUSE VERIFIES IMMIGRATION REVIEW - Bush To Give Amnesty For Millions Of Illegal Aliens SOCIAL SECURITY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS PRESIDENT Wants to GRANT AMNESTY to 4 Million ILLEGAL Aliens MEXAMERICA HERE WE COME - Patrick J. Buchanan Border council calls Bush plan 'slap in the face' Bush Open to Accepting Illegal Aliens FOX GUARDING NARCO HEN HOUSE - George W. Bush's "friend" Home A Safe Haven For Mexican Suspects WHAT PART OF "ILLEGAL" DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? INVITING CONTEMPT WITH THIS AMNESTY THE CONSTITUTION AND THE RULE OF LAW FINA - Section USC 1324(a) (1) (A)(iv)(b)(iii) - Just Curious, When Does Bush Go To Prison? REAL MESSAGE OF THE BUSH AMNESTY - Pat Buchanan Bush's Immigration Package Makes Bad Policy Worse AMNESTY - We're Giving Away the Whole Enchilada! BACKERS SAY BUSH PLAN GOES BEYOND IMMIGRATION VOTE AGAINST BUSH'S AMNESTY IN YOUR STATE PRIMARY! BUSH IMMIGRATION PLAN A BAD IDEA - David Limbaugh AMNESTY MEASURE A FAILURE ON ALL FRONTS BUSH IMMIGRATION PLAN BORDERS ON TREASON U.S. DEPORTS ONLY 1% OF ILLEGAL ALIENS GOP DEFIES BILL CLINTON ON ILLEGAL ALIENS BUSH: AGENTS TOLD TO BE SILENT ON DETAILS OF BORDER PLAN Evil Never Dies; It Just Goes To Hell To Regroup - Bush Amnesty Border Authorities Fear Influx From Bush Plan AMERICANS OPPOSE INCREASE IN IMMIGRATION BUSH "AMNESTY" PLAN RAISES IMMIGRATION CONCERNS Bush immigration plan could pass Congress, aides predict Illegal Aliens Get Christmas Gift From White House - "AMNESTY" Immigration Isn't An Issue Says Congressional GOP GOP bill offers legal status to farmworkers TOM RIDGE: DO YOUR JOB OR RESIGN OR BE FIRED "I've shown that they've ruined the country and Bush should be impeached." "The plan is so disastrous to our country's well being and so fraught with potential risk to our country's security that the plan should be regarded as bordering treason!" "83 percent of Americans support mandatory detention and forfeiture of property for illegal immigrants, followed by deportation." "Conservatives are not interested in the Republican Party or a "big tent." Conservatives are interested in the country, the Constitution, limited government, personal liberty, low taxes, a strong military and national security. Conservatives believe that they are the loyal supporters who worked, voted and contributed money for Bush, yet ever since his inauguration they've seen him ignoring them and reaching out to his enemies. They think Bush cares more about pleasing his political foes than his friends. They feel taken for granted." "Beyond undermining the rule of law, this plan devalues the uniqueness of American citizenship" "Bush has a 'yes, we can't' attitude when it comes to imposing discipline on the illegal problem" "Now I know the definition of a compassionate conservative: it's a person who campaigns as a conservative, then sells out key conservative principles." "Bush claims he is "against blanket amnesty," but "blanket" is his weasel word. He apparently is for amnesty for the 8 to 12 million illegals already in this country." "Eagle Forum will not support any member of Congress who votes for this, or for amnesty in any form," "Hey, you know all those illegal aliens you risked 'life and limb´ to apprehend? FAH-GED-ABOWD- IT," Bush /Enron / Harken BAXTER DEATH LOOKS A LOT LIKE FOSTER'S Enron Probe Crosses Many Political Borders IRAQ Exposing Bush's Talking-points War - U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski Bush, Washington, D.C., Not Baghdad, Threatening Our Liberties "Our case is alleging that Bush and his puppets Rice and Cheney and Mueller and Rumsfeld and so forth, Tenet, were all involved not only in aiding and abetting and allowing 9/11 to happen but in actually ordering it to happen. Bush personally ordered it to happen. We have some very incriminating documents as well as eye-witnesses, that Bush personally ordered this event to happen in order to gain political advantage, to pursue a bogus political agenda on behalf of the neocons and their deluded thinking in the Middle East." Bush is beginning to sound desperate: President can't control news from Iraq Bush administration has used 27 rationales for war in Iraq, study says "We found the weapons of mass destruction." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice Defends Prewar Assertions San Francisco Chronicle (Baltimore Sun) | 4 Oct 2004 | Staff What did the Bush Cabal say when he first took the office? "We are able to keep arms from him(Saddam Hussein). His military forces have not been rebuilt." "He(Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction; he is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." Washington -- National security adviser Condoleezza Rice defended on Sunday the emphatic statements she made in the run-up to the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program, as a news report said prominent officials had voiced doubts much earlier about the evidence behind her claims. Rice acknowledged that she knew in 2002 of a dispute among intelligence officials about a central piece of evidence that she and other senior Bush administration officials were using to justify the war -- that Hussein was trying to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. But she said the administration did not want to underestimate the threat of Hussein, so it took the evidence seriously. "A policy-maker cannot afford to be wrong on the short side, underestimating the ability of a tyrant like Saddam Hussein" to build a nuclear program, Rice said on ABC's "This Week." Rice was responding to a report Sunday in the New York Times that the government's pre-eminent nuclear experts had said as early as 2001 that they did not believe the aluminum tubes were part of a nuclear program, but for small artillery rockets. Vice President Dick Cheney said in a September 2002 speech that the United States had irrefutable evidence that the tubes were for Iraqi uranium centrifuges. That same week, Rice told CNN in an interview that the tubes "are only really suited for nuclear-weapons programs," adding a now-famous phrase: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." "We found the weapons of mass destruction. .. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." "If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." "The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it." "We know for a fact that there are weapons there." "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, and is determined to make more." "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." "So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not." "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." "There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them." "I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction." "One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites." "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." "Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty." "I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found." "We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them." "There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country." "We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so." "I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now." "We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country." "I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program." "U.S. officials never expected that we were going to open garages and find weapons of mass destruction." "I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago - - whether they were destroyed right before the war, or whether they're still hidden." "Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found." "Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction." "They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer." "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." "It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there." "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." "You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons ...They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on And we'll find more weapons as time goes on." "We are going to assemble that evidence and present it properly to people, a complete picture." (Of a new intelligence dossier with fresh evidence about Iraq's illegal arsenal) "We've made sure Iraq is not going to be used as an arsenal for terrorist groups. We're going to look. We'll reveal the truth. But one thing is certain: no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime because the Iraqi regime is no more." "We didn't just make them up one night. Those were eyewitness accounts of people who had worked in the program and knew it was going on, multiple accounts. 'Oh, it was a hydrogen-making thing for balloons. ' No, There's no question in my mind what it was designed for." "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." "Iraq had a weapons program. Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out that they did have a weapons program." (From a Cabinet meeting on June 9) "The president, in saying programs, also applies that to weapons. The president had repeatedly said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that includes everything knowable up to the opening shots of the war. We still have confidence in that information. You could say Iraq continues to have weapons of mass destruction. We have confidence we're going to find them. They're still there." "We did not know at the time, maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery. Of course it was information that was mistaken." (From Sunday interview) "I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons… I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. That's fact number one." "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his nuclear mujahideen.... his nuclear holy warriors.. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof.... the smoking gun.... that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." "This nation acted to a threat from the dictator of Iraq. Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them" George W. Bush - A Coward and a Liar "Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there," Say what? Is Bush Going Crazy? His Own Administration Officials/Aides Think So New Information Suggests Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional Bush Going Crazy, Say Bush Aides "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear." What I Have Learned From The Twentieth Century "I can no longer think of any moral reason not to "shoot the bastards." "COMPASSIONATE" SOCIALISM: The Ideology of George W. Bush 
"COMPASSIONATE" SOCIALISM: The Ideology of George W. Bush
By Andrew Lewis
Volume 13, Number 11
November 1999I have a conservative mind and a conservative heart. It is conservative to cut tax rates and compassionate to help families still left struggling. It is conservative to set education standards and hold kids to them, and it is compassionate to see that not one kid gets left behind. It is conservative to expect people on welfare to find work but compassionate to encourage charity and help those who really can’t make it.
Compassionate conservatism is about socialism
"Well, we've all witnessed the "compassionate conservative" convention.
Celebrating Bush's tax cuts is like thanking a pickpocket for returning $10 of the $100 he just stole
Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Jefferson - letter to William Plumer, July 21, 1816.
George Washington, Message to the House of Representatives, December 3, 1793.
Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1809. FE 9:264.
Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1821. (*) FE 10:193.
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39.
Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:29.
Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 1790. ME 8:47.
Michael Savage - The Savage Nation - January 12, 2004.
Chuck Baldwin - Source
MARK STEYN - January 11, 2004 - Chicago Sun Times.
Rush Limbaugh - Source.
David Limbaugh - Source
Bill O'Reilly - Source
LAURA INGRAHAM - Source
Phyllis Schlafly - Eagle Forum President - Source
Phyllis Schlafly - Eagle Forum President - Source.
John Frecker - Vice President, National Border Patrol Council.
Stanley Hilton, attorney for 9/11 taxpayers lawsuit, former Bob Dole aide and counsel.
George W. Bush - SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html
CONDOLEEZA RICE - July, 2001.
SECRETARY POWELL - February, 2001.
George W. Bush - SOURCE: http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html
WMD Quotes Before & After The Invasion
Dick Cheney - August 26, 2002.
George W. Bush - September 12, 2002.
Ari Fleischer - December 2, 2002.
Ari Fleischer December 6, 2002.
Ari Fleischer January 9, 2003.
George W. Bush - January 28, 2003.
Colin Powell - February 5, 2003.
George W. Bush - February 8, 2003.
Colin Powell - March 7, 2003.
George W. Bush - March 17, 2003.
Ari Fleisher - March 21, 2003.
Gen. Tommy Franks - March 22, 2003.
Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board member - March 23, 2003.
Victoria Clark, Pentagon Spokeswoman - March 22, 2003.
Donald Rumsfeld - March 30, 2003.
Robert Kagan, Neocon scholar Robert Kagan - April 9, 2003.
Ari Fleischer - April 10, 2003.
George W. Bush - April 24, 2003.
Donald Rumsfeld - April 25, 2003.
George W. Bush - May 3, 2003.
Colin Powell - May 4, 2003.
Donald Rumsfeld - May 4, 2003.
George W. Bush - May 6, 2003.
Condoleeza Rice - May 12, 2003.
Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne - May 13, 2003.
Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps - May 21, 2003.
Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff - May 26, 2003.
Donald Rumsfeld - May 27, 2003.
Paul Wolfowitz - May 28, 2003.
Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force - May 30, 2003.
George W. Bush - Interview with TVP Poland - May 30, 2003.
George W. Bush - Press Briefing - May 30, 2003.
Prime Minister Blair - London Daily Telegraph - June 2, 2003.
President Bush - New York Times - June 5, 2003.
Secretary Powell - Time - June 9, 2003.
Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz - Vanity Fair - July 2003
President Bush - Washington Post - June 10, 2003.
Press Secretary Fleischer - Washington Post - June 10, 2003.
Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor - Los Angeles Times.
Donald Rumsfeld June 2003.
LISTEN To MP3 Clip
George W. Bush - October 2002.
LISTEN To MP3 Clip
George W. Bush - June 17, 2003. Source.
George W. Bush - October 7, 2004. Source
Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
Claire Wolfe - August 9, 2004. Source
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#1. To: Uncle Bill (#0)
Did you know about the 500 tons of Yellow Cake found in Iraq?
Feel the love? In Bush we trust? Worldnetdaily That the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers has been mercifully euthanized is good news. What this bizarre episode says about the "conservatism" of George W. Bush is the bad news. Whenever someone tries to tell me about the supposed commitment to the cause of our 43rd president, my off-handed response is: "Colin Powell, Christine Todd Whitman, Alberto Gonzales, Arlen Specter (Bush supported RINO Arlen over a real Republican in last year's GOP primary), mega-deficits, Nobody's-gonna-outspend-me-on-Katrina-aid, signing the campaign- finance fraud, Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace, Ramadan fetes in the White House, an amnesty for illegal immigrants thinly disguised as a guest-worker program, didn't support a Federal Marriage Amendment until it was politically convenient, supported the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and a Palestinian state." If Bush is a conservative, Al Franken is a deep thinker, Michael Moore is a patriot, Osama bin Laden is a Zionist, and Bill Clinton is chaste. Look, I voted for Bush twice and wrote countless columns supporting him over Al Gore and John Kerry. Given the alternatives in the last two presidential elections, I'd vote for him again. And, yes, I gladly acknowledge that the president has gotten some things right – the war on terrorism (with certain exceptions, most notably the Saudis, the Pakistanis and the Palestinians), some excellent nominations for the appellate courts and occasional pro-life gestures. I'll go further and say that I believe the president is a decent man who's sincere in his faith. But a conservative he's not. Supreme Court nominations are now a matter of life or death – life or death for unborn children, life or death for the family, and life or death for Judeo- Christian morality. Here, the president has failed us miserably. John Roberts was a mistake. Harriet Meirs was a catastrophe of abrupt-climate-change magnitude. Mr. Bush lied to us repeatedly – through two presidential campaigns – when he promised to appoint justices like Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia to the nation's highest court. By this, it's reasonable to assume that the president did not mean justices who are either black or Italian, or justices who he thinks are strict constructionists, or candidates who we had to hope were committed to the doctrine of original intent. The obvious implication of the president's pledge was that he'd choose Supreme Court justices who (like Scalia and Thomas when they were nominated) were an open book – nominees with a paper trail wide as a four-lane highway and long as an interstate whose record demonstrated their judicial philosophy beyond a shadow of a doubt. Instead, we got stealth and super-stealth. The more we learned of Meirs, the more she looked like David Souter in drag. Her lack of qualifications aside (she never served on the bench, litigated before the Supreme Court or even dealt with constitutional questions) Meirs – or her law firm – contributed to the campaigns of Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. Should we check Norman Thomas' donor list? Bush assured us that HM "will not legislate from the bench." How did he know that? Did she have an "I-won't-legislate-from-the-bench" bumper sticker on her car? Did she come to work at the White House wearing an "I-heart-original- intent" T-shirt? Seriously, how did he know that, once she got on the Supreme Court, Miers won't "grow" into another Anthony Kennedy – because the lady who works for him told him what she knew he wanted to hear? The president maintained he never asked Miers' opinion on Roe v Wade. Now, that I believe. I don't think the president cares enough about overturning Blackmun's monstrosity to pose such a question. In 2000, the president told us the nation wasn't ready to scrap Roe – as if the nation/people had anything to do with giving us the horror of 33 million abortions since 1973. Forget Roe. Did the president ask Miers if she thinks there's a right to sodomy in the First Amendment, if the Establishment Clause makes "One Nation Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, if the Fifth Amendment's public-taking clause can be used to evict an 87-year-old woman from her home for a private development, if the 14th Amendment actually means what it says (that a state shall not "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" based on race), if foreign law can be used as a basis for "interpreting" the Constitution? The answer to all of the above is: Your guess is as good as the president's. If Bush had nominated Janice Rogers Brown, Edith Jones or any of a dozen other exceptional originalists on the appellate bench, we'd know exactly what we were getting. It wouldn't be a grab bag – where we could pluck out a William Rehnquist or a Sandra Day O'Connor or a David Souter (Republican nominees all), depending entirely on luck. But the president doesn't have the stomach for a fight with Senate Democrats, left-wing interests and a biased media. Such a battle royal would inform the American people, energize his base and set the stage for an election over real issues next year. Instead, the president's base was on suicide watch for the past month, and the Beltway-based conservative movement finally revolted. For most conservative pundits, grass-roots groups and court-watchers on the right, Meirs was a bridge too far. The last straw was revelations of some speeches the president's counsel gave in the early 1990s, wherein Miers declared that "self-determination" (for the woman, not the unborn child) should be the deciding factor in the abortion debate. Said she, "Legislating religion or morality we gave up on that a long time ago." Really? Who's we? This brilliant constitutional scholar doesn't understand that all legislation is morality legislation. In a speech called "Women and Courage," Miers cited judicial Jacobin Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Hollywood airhead Barbra Streisand as examples of feminine fortitude. Someone in the White House should have checked to see if she has Emma Goldman's name inside a heart tattooed on her arm. If the right hadn't robotically fallen in line behind John Roberts' nomination (we were told that Roberts only did a few hours of pro-bono work paving the way for Romer v. Evans, which established men who schtup other men as a protected class for civil-rights purposes), the president might have thought twice about trying to stuff Miers down our gullets. Over the past five and a half years, the movement has swallowed so much from this administration that the public could be forgiven for thinking conservatives have turned into an auxiliary of the Republican National Committee. I've spent many sleepless nights pondering this phenomenon. Here are the factors that have contributed to co-opting what once was an independent and vibrant movement: The war on terrorism – Many conservatives consider it unpatriotic to break ranks with the president in time of war. And while Mr. Bush has made some bold moves here, he's also undercut his success by his inability to identify the Islamist roots of the conflict (terrorism is a technique, not an ideology), his choice of allies (if the Pakistanis and Saudis are our friends, we could use more enemies) and his ceaseless agitation for a Palestinian state (Genocide-istan). Bamboozled by Bush rhetoric – The president is great at role-playing. The lesson Karl Rove learned from 1992 (when conservative disaffection resulted in the defeat of Bush Sr.) was: Promise them anything but give them Arpege. Thus, every now and then, Mr. Bush will talk conservative and toss a tidbit to his lapdogs on the right (pushing domestic energy development and Social Security reform or appointments like John Bolton as U.N. ambassador), but he has no real commitment to conservative principles, or even understands them, for that matter. My-enemy's-enemy-is-my-friend – The left's hatred for Bush borders on the pathological. It's assumed that anyone despised by the New York Times editorial pages must be an OK guy. But the left loathed Richard Nixon – no one's idea of a conservative – ditto Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. Has it now reached the point where liberals are allowed to define "conservative"? What-choice-do-we-have? – Bush is the only game in town – the only way to get any part of our agenda through – so best we put up with his nonsense. This ignores the fact that the president needs us more than we need him. Without grass-roots conservative support, he will lose Congress next year, as he would have lost his bid for re-election last year. Bush carried Ohio with 51.25 percent of the vote. The Ohio defense of marriage amendment (which brought out hundreds of thousands of evangelical voters) passed by over 64 percent. If Bush hadn't carried the Buckeye state, Kerry would be filling Supreme Court vacancies. The conservative movement needs to declare its independence from George Bush. "W" will reside in the White House for another three years. Conservatives need to plan for a future well beyond that (which is why lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court are crucial). I am not suggesting that conservatives become a bunch of knee-jerk Bush- bashers – rather, that we cease being blonde cheerleaders for whatever dumb move the president makes. Here are a few guidelines: Never assume the president has our interests at heart. Remind Bush who elected him to the presidency twice. (Hint: It wasn't Charles Schumer or any of the other lefties currently urging Bush not to cave in to his right-wing base. At this point, a massive cave-in is advisable.) Present the president with copies of the 2000 and 2004 Republican National Platforms. Suggest he study them closely. With the next Supreme Court nomination, take nothing for granted. Insist the president finally keep his campaign pledge to nominate a Thomas or a Scalia – not someone he thinks is a Thomas or a Scalia, not someone he tells us is a Thomas or a Scalia, but someone we immediately recognize as an intellectual clone of those distinguished jurists. (Hello, Janice Rogers Brown!) Bush 41 had a problem with "the vision thing." It's about time "W" got "the conservative thing."
Really? Then why aren't you over there in Iraq fighting to save us from it, chickenhawk pussyboy?
Yeah.. right, lie much? OR maybe you just meant Betty Crocker has been seen in Bagdad.
LOL!
Maybe I'll go over there and see if I can find any honey cakes ;)
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert Einstein
A very long list of people now know that Bush is a socialist. Ten Questions and Answers - An interview with Karen Kwiatkowski Imperial socialism. Imperial because we want it for everyone, or at least those that have some perceived economic or strategic value to us, and we are willing to use our standing army to enforce our wishes and create dependencies. Socialism applies, I think, because we are practicing it at home, and preaching it as our vassal’s salvation as well. George W. Bush says we are spreading freedom and democracy, but in reality we are spreading secular statism, economic centralism, and martial law and, for convenience I guess, we call it freedom and democracy."
IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT -- EVER? Yahoo News President John F. Kennedy was considered a historian because of his book "Profiles in Courage," so he received periodic requests to rate the presidents, those lists that usually begin "1. Lincoln, 2. Washington ..." But after he actually became president himself, he stopped filling them out. "No one knows what it's like in this office," he said after being in the job. "Even with poor James Buchanan, you can't understand what he did and why without sitting in his place, looking at the papers that passed on his desk, knowing the people he talked with." Poor James Buchanan, the 15th president, is generally considered the worst president in history. Ironically, the Pennsylvania Democrat, elected in 1856, was one of the most qualified of the 43 men who have served in the highest office. A lawyer, a self-made man, Buchanan served with some distinction in the House, served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and secretary of state under President James K. Polk. He had a great deal to do with the United States becoming a continental nation -- "Manifest Destiny," war with Mexico, and all that. He was also ambassador to Great Britain and was offered a seat on the Supreme Court three separate times. But he was a confused, indecisive president, who may have made the Civil War inevitable by trying to appease or negotiate with the South. His most recent biographer, Jean Clark, writing for the prestigious American Presidents Series, concluded this year that his actions probably constituted treason. It also did not help that his administration was as corrupt as any in history, and he was widely believed to be homosexual. Whatever his sexual preferences, his real failures were in refusing to move after South Carolina announced secession from the Union and attacked Fort Sumter, and in supporting both the legality of the pro-slavery constitution of Kansas and the Supreme Court ruling in the Dred Scott class declaring that escaped slaves were not people but property. He was the guy who in 1861 passed on the mess to the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan set the standard, a tough record to beat. But there are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will prove to do that, be worse than Buchanan. I have talked with three significant historians in the past few months who would not say it in public, but who are saying privately that Bush will be remembered as the worst of the presidents. There are some numbers. The History News Network at George Mason University has just polled historians informally on the Bush record. Four hundred and fifteen, about a third of those contacted, answered -- maybe they were all crazed liberals -- making the project as unofficial as it was interesting. These were the results: 338 said they believed Bush was failing, while 77 said he was succeeding. Fifty said they thought he was the worst president ever. Worse than Buchanan. This is what those historians said -- and it should be noted that some of the criticism about deficit spending and misuse of the military came from self- identified conservatives -- about the Bush record: He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process; He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich; He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state; He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign; He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign ( Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida); He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity; He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress; He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime. Quite an indictment. It is, of course, too early to evaluate a president. That, historically, takes decades, and views change over times as results and impact become more obvious. Besides, many of the historians note that however bad Bush seems, they have indeed since worse men around the White House. Some say Buchanan. Many say Vice President Dick Cheney.
Bush's Medicare Drug Benefit Is Dragging The Nation Deeper Into Socialized Medicine
George W. Bush: The conservative's worst nightmare - Bruce Bartlett REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL PREDICTS BUSH IMPEACHMENT
Excerpt from 'Impostor' by Bruce Bartlett Chapter 1 I Know Conservatives, and George W. Bush Is No Conservative George W. Bush is widely considered to be one of the most politically conservative presidents in history. His invasion of Iraq, his huge tax cuts, and his intervention in the Terri Schiavo case are among the issues where those on the left view him as being to the right of Attila the Hun. But those on the right have a different perspective -- mostly discussed among themselves or in forums that fly below the major media's radar. They know that Bush has never really been one of them the way Ronald Reagan was. Bush is more like Richard Nixon -- a man who used the right to pursue his agenda, but was never really part of it. In short, he is an impostor, a pretend conservative. I write as a Reaganite, by which I mean someone who believes in the historical conservative philosophy of small government, federalism, free trade, and the Constitution as originally understood by the Founding Fathers. On that basis, Bush clearly is not a Reaganite or "small c" conservative. Philosophically, he has more in common with liberals, who see no limits to state power as long as it is used to advance what they think is right. In the same way, Bush has used government to pursue a "conservative" agenda as he sees it. But that is something that runs totally contrary to the restraints and limits to power inherent in the very nature of traditional conservatism. It is inconceivable to traditional conservatives that there could ever be such a thing as "big government conservatism," a term often used to describe Bush's philosophy. Perhaps the greatest sin of liberals is their belief that it is possible for them to know everything necessary to manage the economy and society. To conservatives, such conceit leads directly to socialism and totalitarianism. At a minimum, it makes for errors that are hard to correct. By contrast, conservatives like Ronald Reagan understand that the collective knowledge of people as expressed in the free market is far greater than any individual, government bureau, or even the most powerful computer can possibly have. And in politics, they believe that the will of the people as expressed through democratic institutions is more likely to result in correct policies than those devised by Platonic philosopher kings. Liberals, on the other hand, are fundamentally distrustful of the wisdom and judgment of the people, preferring instead the absolutism of the courts to the chaos and uncertainty of democracy. Traditional conservatives view the federal government as being untrustworthy and undependable. They utilize it only for those necessary functions like national defense that by their nature cannot be provided at the state and local level or privately. The idea that government could ever be used actively to promote their goals in some positive sense is a contradiction in terms to them. It smacks too much of saying that the ends justify the means, which conservatives have condemned since at least the French Revolution. George W. Bush, by contrast, often looks first to government to solve societal problems without even considering other options. Said Bush in 2003, "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." A more succinct description of liberalism would be hard to find. My main concern is with Bush's economic policy because that is my field of expertise. But it doesn't mean that I am content with the rest of his program. I am deeply concerned about the Iraq operation, which has more in common with Woodrow Wilson's policy of making the world safe for democracy than with traditional conservative foreign policy, which is based on defending the American homeland and avoiding unnecessary political and military entanglements with other countries -- a view best expressed in George Washington's Farewell Address. I am also concerned with Bush's cavalier attitude toward federalism and his insistence on absolute, unquestioning loyalty, which stifles honest criticism and creates a cult of personality around him that I find disturbing. As former Reagan speechwriter John Podhoretz, author of a sympathetic book about Bush, has observed, "One of the remarkable aspects of this White House has been the fanatical loyalty its people have displayed toward Bush -- even talking to friendly journalists like me, it's been nearly impossible to get past the feel- good spin." For example, in 2002, the White House directly ordered the firing of former Republican congressman Mike Parker of Mississippi as head of the Army Corps of Engineers because he publicly disagreed with the administration's budget request for his agency. In 2005, it ordered the demotion of a Justice Department statistician who merely put out some data that the White House found inconvenient. This micromanagement of such low-level personnel is extraordinary in my experience. Columnist Robert Novak referred to this sort of thing as the Bush White House's "authoritarian aura." In White Houses filled with high-caliber people, dissent invariably arises and becomes known. The apparent lack of dissent in this White House, therefore, is an indication to me of something troubling -- an unwillingness to question policies even behind closed doors, an anti-intellectual distrust of facts and analysis, and blind acceptance of whatever decisions have been made by the boss. The only alternative is something equally bad -- fear of telling Bush something he doesn't want to hear. When asked whether he ever disagreed with him, Mark McKinnon, Bush's chief campaign media adviser in 2004, said, "I prefer for others to go into the propeller first." This is the sort of thing that has gotten many big corporations like Enron in trouble in recent years, and I fear similar results from some of Bush's ill-considered policies, especially the disastrous unfunded expansion of Medicare. In thinking about Bush, I keep coming back to Ronald Reagan. Although derided as an amiable dunce by his enemies, it is clear from recent research that his knowledge and intellect were far deeper than they imagined. Articles and speeches drafted in his own hand leave no doubt that Reagan was exceptionally well read and had an excellent grasp of both history and current issues, including highly technical matters and complex statistics. This knowledge was honed by decades of reading the classics of conservative thought and having spent much of his life publicly debating those whose views were diametrically opposed to his. By contrast, George W. Bush brags about never even reading a daily newspaper. Having worked in the White House, I know how cloistered the environment can be and how limited its information resources are -- much of what White House staffers know about what is going on in the White House actually comes from reporters and news reports rather than inside knowledge, which is frequently much less than reporters imagine. It's distressing to contemplate the possibility that the president's opinion about the worthlessness of outside information sources is widely held within the White House. Unfortunately, I know from experience that the president sets the tone and style for everyone in the White House, suggesting that it is more likely than not that this view does indeed permeate the West Wing -- a suspicion confirmed by the memoirs of those who have worked in this White House. Reagan, on the other hand, had a conservative distrust of his own ability to know all the facts and arguments before making important decisions. That is one reason why he was so tolerant of leaks from the White House during his administration. Reagan knew that this was an important safety valve that allowed dissenting viewpoints to reach him without being blocked by those with their own agendas. Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Darman, who controlled the paper flow in and out of the Oval Office, for example, was often accused of preventing Reagan from seeing memos that argued against positions Darman favored. I was involved in one very small effort to get around Darman myself. One day early in the Reagan Administration, while I was still working on Capitol Hill, a midlevel White House staffer whom I knew called me. He had written a memo to the president that he couldn't get through the bureaucracy. Knowing that Reagan was an avid reader of Human Events, the conservative weekly newspaper, my friend suggested that I take his memo, put my name on it, and publish it as an article in Human Events. I did, thereby getting the information and analysis to the president that my friend thought he needed. Others in the White House frequently did the same thing by leaking memos to the Washington Post or the New York Times that appeared as news stories. By contrast, the Bush White House is obsessive about secrecy, viewing leaks of even the most mundane information as the equivalent of high treason. Ironically, this attitude can be self-defeating, since "leaks" are a very effective way of getting one's message out -- as the Clinton White House often demonstrated. Think of it as giving an exclusive story to a reporter who has no choice but to accept the leaker's "spin." In this way, a leak can garner more and better press for a White House initiative than more conventional means like press releases. Leaking, in short, is not a moral issue, but can be a useful public relations technique. Conservative Doubts Traditional conservatives had grave doubts about George W. Bush since day one. First, he was his father's son. George H. W. Bush ran as Reagan's heir, but did not govern like him. Indeed, the elder Bush signaled that there would be a sharp break with Reagan-style conservatism in his inaugural address, when he spoke of being "kinder" and "gentler." Conservatives immediately asked themselves, "Kinder and gentler than whom?" To them, the answer was obvious: Ronald Reagan. In effect, Bush was accusing his predecessor and the philosophy he stood for as being the opposite of kind and gentle -- nasty and brutish, perhaps. As columnist George Will later put it, Bush was determined "to distinguish himself from Reagan by disparaging Reagan." George H. W. Bush's break with Reagan quickly became apparent in other ways as well. For instance, he fired virtually every Reagan political appointee in the federal government just as thoroughly as if he had been a Democrat. Of course, the Reagan appointees all knew that they were liable to be replaced at some point, but the suddenness and thoroughness of the purge caught them all by surprise -- there had been no forewarning before Inauguration Day. It created a lot of ill will that came back to haunt the elder Bush when he got into political trouble later on. Most of the Reagan people sat on their hands rather than come to his aid. I was spared the purge only because Reagan had appointed Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady in the last days of his administration, knowing that he was a close friend of then–Vice President Bush. Since Brady stayed on, that spared Treasury the "transition" that other departments underwent and thus avoided a purge. Within a year or so, most of the senior political appointees moved on anyway and Bush had his chance to appoint their successors. The same thing would have happened in all the other departments, too, thereby saving Bush a lot of unnecessary antagonism from the Reagan crowd. It would have helped Bush govern as well, since many of the purged positions remained vacant for some time for various reasons and were often filled with less competent and experienced replacements. Moreover, many of the so-called Bush people turned out to have no meaningful connection to him and were nothing more than friends of friends, serving in government just to get a line on their résumés and not because they had anything to accomplish in terms of policy. One of the first things I noticed when the new crowd came in in 1989 was that they would very seldom mention Ronald Reagan's name. When necessary, they always referred to the "previous administration." And it was quite clear that they viewed Reagan's "hard-line" conservatism as passé and counterproductive to governing. They, on the other hand, thought themselves to be much more politically astute and believed that they would be far more effective by jettisoning Reagan's ideological baggage. The problem was that having abandoned Reagan's principles, they had nothing to replace them with except political expediency. This culminated in the infamous abandonment of the no-new-taxes pledge in 1990. The Bush people thought they were being so clever by simply posting a notice in the White House pressroom on June 26, 1990, which said that budget negotiations with congressional Democrats would take place and include discussion of "tax revenue increases." They seem to have thought that no one would notice this fundamental reversal of Bush's position on taxes. Needless to say, it was noticed instantaneously, causing an almost immediate decline in Bush's poll ratings. I was told by one of the key participants in this decision that they never intended it as a repudiation of the pledge, but merely as an acknowledgment that in a growing economy taxes automatically rise. If this is true, it certainly is not evidence of political sophistication, but rather its opposite. Being the only Reaganite left in the Treasury Department, apparently I was the only one who knew how negatively Bush's concession would be perceived by the Republican rank and file. Unfortunately, no one asked my opinion before the decision was made. I bring all this up because when George W. Bush first came on the radar screen as a potential presidential candidate, all that most conservatives knew about him was that he was the son of a president who had abandoned a successful conservative governing philosophy in favor of what they saw as squishy moderation, and was appropriately punished by voters for his sins. So when the younger Bush started talking about "compassionate conservatism," therefore, traditional conservatives immediately were suspicious of another Bush betrayal. As Richard Miniter wrote in the conservative Manchester Union Leader, "Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' strikes some as insulting and signals a return to his father's 'kinder and gentler' conservatism, which led to tax hikes and the loss of the White House." As National Review's Andrew Stuttaford later put it, compassionate conservatism is an idea that should have been "strangled in the cradle." To even call it an idea is "flattery," he said. For the most part, it is little more than "pork wrapped up in schmaltz." Right from the beginning, George W. Bush made it clear that he was not a conservative in the Reagan mold. In a speech in Indianapolis on July 22, 1999, he called the idea that our problems would be better solved if government would just get out of the way a "destructive mind-set." Government is "wasteful and grasping," Bush said, but "we must correct it, not disdain it." Commenting on this speech, Cato Institute president Ed Crane said it could have come straight out of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank allied with the Democratic Party. Even in front of explicitly conservative audiences, Bush continued his theme that government was not the enemy, but just wasn't being used for the proper ends. In a speech to the Manhattan Institute on October 5, 1999, Bush put it this way: "Too often, my party has confused the need for limited government with disdain for government itself." He went on to complain that the government was too weak to do what was needed. It was "grasping" and "impotent," he said. Excerpted from Impostor by Bruce Bartlett Copyright (c)2006 by Bruce Bartlett. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
"I want to apologize for spending way too much of your money, we need to get our act together. If we don’t turn it around, we’ll pay in 2006. We have tripled and quadrupled the number of earmarks on our watch. Shame on us." We're sorry we're faster spending socialists than the Democrats, but please vote for us anyway.
Too little, too late. Sorry Lindsey, I once admired you...no more.
Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction. ~George W. Bush
GOP/Bush 2004 Party Platform - Limited Taxes, Limited Spending, Federal Government Should Be Limited And Restricted To The Functions Mandated By The U.S. Constitution GOP.Com | 1 Sep 2004 | By Serfdom Facilitators of the GOP http://www.gop.com/media/2004pl at form.pdf "We believe that good government is based on a system of limited taxes and spending. Furthermore, we believe that the federal government should be limited and restricted to the functions mandated by the functions of the United States Constitution. The taxation system should not be used to redistribute wealth or fund ever-increasing entitlements and social programs."
He spends too much to be one of us Los Angeles Times AS A LIFELONG conservative, I have to be honest: George W. Bush is not one of us and has never been. There can be no denying that he has enacted policies contrary to conservative principles on far too many occasions. In my view, his greatest failing has been a total lack of control over federal spending — to the point where liberal Democrat Bill Clinton's administration is looking more and more like the "good old days." According to the Office of Management and Budget, overall spending has increased from 18.4% of the gross domestic product in 2000 to 20.8% this year, an increase of 2.4%. Clinton, by contrast, reduced spending from 22.1% of GDP to 18.4% during his two terms, a reduction of 3.7%. (This is really the best way to look at spending because it holds constant things like inflation that distort dollar figures). Although much of the Bush increase is accounted for by national security and entitlements such as Medicare, the fact is that domestic discretionary spending has also risen. Education spending, for example, is up 137%, according to Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation, and spending on community and regional development is up 342%. Moreover, Bush has repeatedly pushed for big projects, such as the manned mission to Mars that NASA can ill afford and that will come at the expense of basic science. The number of identifiable pork-barrel projects that benefit particular states and congressional districts has risen from 958 in 1996 to 13,999 in 2005, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group. Spending on such projects has risen from $12.5 billion per year to $27.3 billion. Bush, like most presidents, decries this wasteful spending. But unlike others, he refuses to use his veto pen to stop it. He is the first president since James Garfield, elected in 1880, not to have vetoed anything. But Garfield at least had the excuse of being assassinated shortly into his presidency. John Quincy Adams (1824-1828) is the last president to serve a full four-year term without a veto. And one must go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson (1800- 1808), our third president, to find one who served in office as long as Bush without vetoing a single bill. Bush's greatest sin, in my book, was ramming the Medicare drug benefit through Congress by covering up its true cost and strong-arming principled conservatives into voting for it. According to the Medicare trustees' latest report, the program has an unfunded liability of $18 trillion in current value terms. That means we would need that much in a mutual fund today, earning a return, to pay its unfunded liability. Although there was a case for allowing Medicare to pay for prescription drugs, the rest of Medicare has an unfunded liability of $50 trillion. Bush's action, therefore, pushed it up to $68 trillion in total. By contrast, the unfunded liability of Social Security, which he told us time and again last year was in dire financial straights, has an unfunded liability of just $11 trillion. I and a growing number of other budget analysts now think the only way of avoiding a financial Katrina when the baby boom generation starts to retire is a massive tax increase. Future presidents may be the ones to enact it. But Bush's policies will have caused it.
BTTT
Press 1 for English, Press 2 for English, Press 3 for deportation
#2. To: OKCSubmariner, christine, robin (#1)
By Don Feder
October 29, 2005
Source
#3. To: _Jim (#1)
#4. To: _Jim (#1)
Did you know about the 500 tons of Yellow Cake found in Iraq?
#5. To: Zipporah (#4)
#6. To: Zipporah (#4)
Did you know about the 500 tons of Yellow Cake found in Iraq?
#7. To: christine, robin, OKCSubmariner (#6)
Q. How would you describe current American foreign policy? 
#8. To: christine (#7)
By Richard Reeves
Fri Dec 2, 8:13 PM ET
#9. To: OKCSubmariner (#1)
"Young workers have not fully experienced the cruelly empty promises of socialism. Trust us, they will."
#10. To: OKCSubmariner (#9)
#11. To: OKCSubmariner (#10)
#12. To: Zipporah, christine, robin (#4)
Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican-S.C. - Source.
#13. To: Uncle Bill (#12)
Shame on us.
#14. To: robin (#13)
#15. To: robin, OKCSubmariner (#13)
By Bruce Bartlett
BRUCE BARTLETT is the author of "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted
America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," just published by Doubleday.
March 12, 2006
#16. To: OKCSubmariner (#15)
#17. To: robin (#13)
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