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Title: GOP Silent on Bush's Failures
Source:
WND
URL Source: http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=80002
Published: Nov 5, 2008
Author: Pat Buchanan
Post Date: 2008-11-05 13:38:15 by Rupert_Pupkin
Keywords: Bush, GOP, Buchanan
Views: 203
Comments: 17
PJB: But Where Did Bush Go Wrong? By Patrick J. Buchanan After losing control of the Senate and 30 House seats in 2006, the GOP is bracing for losses of six to nine in the Senate, and two dozen to three dozen additional seats in the House. If the party “were a dog food,” says Rep. Tom Davis, “they would take us off the shelf.” Bush’s approval is 25 percent. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton left office with ratings more than twice as high. But while John McCain and others have deplored the Bush failures, what, exactly, did he do wrong? What were the policy blunders to which Republicans vehemently objected at the time? That Bush is a Big Government Republican is undeniable. His two great social spending initiatives, prescription drug benefits for seniors under Medicare and No Child Left Behind, so testify. But how many Republicans opposed Bush on these initiatives? How many have called for the abolition of either program, or for raising payroll taxes to pay for prescription drugs? McCain now supports the Bush judges and justices and the Bush tax cuts, as do almost all Republicans. True, Bush sought amnesty for illegal aliens and backs the free-trade globalism that exported our manufacturing base and 3 million to 4 million jobs. But McCain is even more enthusiastic about both. Does the party dissent on free trade and mass immigration? Two-thirds of Americans now believe the Iraq war a mistake. Yet, all but a few Republicans backed the war. At the time of “Mission Accomplished!” in May 2003, the nation gave Bush a 90 percent approval rating, as his father had after Desert Storm. What turned America against the war was not the decision to invade, oust Saddam, destroy the weapons of mass destruction and depart, but the long, bloody slog, the five-year war, with nearly 5,000 dead, that Iraq became. It was not the lightning war of Tommy Franks, with journalists riding tanks into Baghdad, that soured America, but the unanticipated duration and cost of the war. Yet, Republicans still believe that the war was not a mistake, only mishandled. And now that Gen. Petraeus got it right in Iraq, they say, we should pursue the Petraeus policy in Afghanistan. How many Republicans have repudiated the Bush Doctrine that got us into Iraq — the belief that only by making the world democratic can we keep America secure and free? Americans no longer believe that, if ever they did. And history proves them right. For Iraq has never been democratic, and America has always been free. Yet, the Republican Party has never renounced the Bush Doctrine Indeed, it is being applied today in Afghanistan. That war, too, after we failed at Tora Bora to capture or kill bin Laden, has become a long slog to create a democratic Afghanistan, which, like a democratic Iraq, has never before existed. In Afghanistan, we are entering the eighth year of war with victory further away than ever. The Taliban grows stronger. U.S. casualties are surging. Opium exports are breaking records. Our NATO allies grow weary. Even the Brits are talking of reconciliation with the Taliban, perhaps accepting a dictator. These two wars helped to cripple the Bush presidency and end the GOP ascendancy. Yet, at the highest levels of the party, one hears no serious questioning of the ideology that produced these wars. McCain has pledged to stay in Iraq until “victory” and send 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Nor have Republicans objected to the U.S. air strikes that have killed hundreds of Afghans, or the Predator strikes that have inflamed Pakistan or the helicopter raid into Syria that humiliated Damascus and enraged the population. If Republicans disagree with these policies and actions, their voices are muted. Bush is for facing down Russia and bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Does any Republican disagree? For McCain is more hawkish than Bush when it come to Moscow. The party says it is losing because the economy went south. But who caused that? Was it not because Republicans colluded with Democrats in pushing “affordable housing,” subprime mortgages, for folks who could not afford houses? Is the GOP prepared to demand tough terms for home loans? Was it not GOP presidents who appointed the Fed chairmen who pumped up the money supply and created the bubble? How many Republicans objected to the easy money when the going was good? The country wishes to be rid of the Bush policies and the Bush presidency. But where does the Republican Party think Bush went wrong, other than to be asleep at the wheel during Katrina? The GOP needs to confront the truth: The failure of the Bush presidency lies not in a failed execution of policy but in the policies themselves and the neoconservative ideology that informed them. Yet, still, the party remains in denial, refusing to come to terms with the causes of its misfortune. One expects they will be given the time and opportunity for reflection soon. “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.”
Poster Comment: The GOP had a chance to wash its hands of Bush - by supporting Ron Paul. Then the Republicans would be a true alternative to the Democrats. Instead, the RNC and the neocon media marginalized Paul and threw their support behind people who may as well have been Bush and Cheney's long lost twins.
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#1. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#0)
(Edited)
Does the party dissent on free trade and mass immigration? The people reject globalism. The people reject the presence of 45,000,000 illegal pieces of third-world shit. The people reject Bush The Whore of Satan. A pox on the GOP, they clung to Bush and his failed-ideology with a death-grip as the ship went down last night. Feel free to abuse the GOP staff with your witty missives here: It would be a very short list of what Bush did right, so lets start there.
Can someone try and post this on FReeperville? I wonder if they're ready for reality? (I know, silly question)
I can only think of two things that Bush did right: 1) Bush supported a tax credit for people who opt out of employer-subsidized health insurance to purchase their own. Not a big deal, but a step in the right direction. 2) Imposed limits on steel dumping from Russia and Brazil early in his first term. That was the one and only concession the Bush administration ever made to the backlash against GATT. And that's it. I could fill every page of Webster's Dictionary with lists of what Bush did wrong and still have material to spare.
Thank you George Bush, thank you Republicans, for SCREWING UP SO BAD youy let in what might be the worst President ever, worse even than Bush, which I didn't think was possible.
Turtle's secret Indian name is Two Stuck Dogs.
Thank you. I'll fire them off a cyber finger.
They probably wouldn't let you post an article by Buchanan, never mind one criticizing Saint George W. Why did it take so long for Pat to finally take off the gloves?
I was saying the same about Clinton 8 years ago. I predict that every President from now on will be worse than the one before him.
Is it that bad? God, no wonder they got their ass kicked.
In that case just put chimpanzees in charge of the government.
Turtle's secret Indian name is Two Stuck Dogs.
Just a guess. I try not to look there much, it gives me the urge to smash the computer monitor in disgust and rage to think that there are people so stupid out there. The last time I did look, I saw a post stating that Bush would be remembered as one of America's greatest Presidents and as a man who defended freedom and democracy all over the world. I think his exact words to describe W. were "that fine man."
Will Ron Paul take off the gloves now that he's retained his House seat?? He could spill the beans on who in the GOP got to him this year.
I went back to the Traitors for Ron Paul. I'm out, not going back, never. Won't do it. Wouldn't be prudent ;-)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Spill the beans on what? How both the liberal and neocon media blacked him out during the primaries while the RNC machine did everything it could to promote hacks like McCain, Romney, and Giuliani? That's not exactly a big secret. Unlike Buchanan, who endorsed Bush in 2004, Ron Paul refused to endorse his party's ticket. That already puts him ahead of Buchanan when it comes to principle. PJB can still write a good column, but he's a party animal. Ron Paul belongs to the GOP because it's the only way to win a Congressional seat.
It's an amazing thing to see, isn't it? It makes me wonder how they even survived for as long as they have. Just how stupid does one have to be before one is too stupid to live? Seriously, I equate their idiocy with people that engage in "extreme sports", or keep black mambas as pets. And yes, some do keep them as pets.
Have you ever seen VENOM (a British B-thriller about a kidnapped rich kid and a black mamba loose in the house, with hilarious scenery-chewing by Klaus Kinski, Nicol Williamson, and Oliver Reed)?
Not that one. But I did see someone on Animal Planet that kept one, and was bitten. Another found a gaboon viper in her garage. Some people like "hot" snakes. One of them gets loose, and God help those that find it accidently and dont know what they have found.
True, Bush sought amnesty for illegal aliens and backs the free- trade globalism that exported our manufacturing base and 3 million to 4 million jobs. But McCain is even more enthusiastic about both.
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#2. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#0)
But while John McCain and others have deplored the Bush failures, what, exactly, did he do wrong?
#3. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#0)
The failure of the Bush presidency lies not in a failed execution of policy but in the policies themselves and the neoconservative ideology that informed them.
#4. To: Cynicom (#2)
It would be a very short list of what Bush did right, so lets start there.
#5. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#0)
#6. To: X-15 (#1)
Feel free to abuse the GOP staff with your witty missives here
#7. To: Jethro Tull (#3)
(Edited)
Can someone try and post this on FReeperville
#8. To: Turtle (#5)
Thank you George Bush, thank you Republicans, for SCREWING UP SO BAD youy let in what might be the worst President ever, worse even than Bush, which I didn't think was possible
#9. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#7)
#10. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#8)
I was saying the same about Clinton 8 years ago. I predict that every President from now on will be worse than the one before him.
#11. To: Jethro Tull (#9)
(Edited)
#12. To: Rupert_Pupkin, Jethro Tull, christine (#7)
Why did it take so long for Pat to finally take off the gloves?
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#13. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#0)
#14. To: X-15 (#12)
Will Ron Paul take off the gloves now that he's retained his House seat?? He could spill the beans on who in the GOP got to him this year.
#15. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#11)
I saw a post stating that Bush would be remembered as one of America's greatest Presidents and as a man who defended freedom and democracy all over the world. I think his exact words to describe W. were "that fine man."
#16. To: PSUSA (#15)
or keep black mambas as pets
#17. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#16)
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