How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime
My newly published book, “How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime,” (Princeton University Press), is a first draft of the history of the Bush presidency in and an analysis of its unprecedented radicalism.
The fifth anniversary of 9/11 illustrated in many ways how Bush has exploited the trauma to pursue his radical agendas. The public was supposed to remember the event as the occasion of the president’s heroism. Not only are we to forget “My Pet Goat” but also Bush’s dismissal of the Aug. 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief, “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In United States.” We are encouraged to recall the iconic pose of Bush on the rubble of the World Trade Center, bullhorn in hand, arm wrapped around a fireman, but not the giddy president in airman’s uniform striding on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln to stand before a sign proclaiming, “Mission Accomplished.”
Vice President Dick Cheney was trotted out this Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press to express no apologies for the disinformation he put out to rationalize the Iraq war and to declare, as though he were Frank Skeffington in “The Last Hurrah,” that he’d do it all again. (Cheney, arrogant, menacing and surly, is an opposite character type from Skeffington, the classic lovable rogue, based on Boston mayor James Michael Curley.)
Bush has delivered a series of speeches, featuring hysterical rhetoric, tying all Islamic groups, Sunni and Shiite alike, into “a single movement,” and announcing that he is ending his torture policy, but not really. To begin with he said that there had been no torture or policy to justify it, that the rules for the thing that didn’t exist would change, and he proposed “alternative” methods of interrogation that amounted to torture, which of course he doesn’t condone.
Karl Rove, for his part, labored furiously to turn Bush’s new torture proposal into a means to demonize Democrats as weaklings against terrorists. Rove’s intent is to create TV ads for the mid-term elections campaign in order to maintain the Republican Congress and through that one-party rule that has suppressed regular oversight. The Republican National Committee has joined in with agitprop email about Democrats called “America Weakly.” By Monday, a right-wing group unreeled a TV commercial it obviously had planned beforehand, showing the burning Twin Towers: "They say we should close Guantanamo, where captured foes are kept from waging war against us. ... They seem to think we'll be safer if we cut and run." Then the voiceover tells voters to vote Republican—or die: "Vote as if your life depended on it. Because it does."
Throughout the 9/11 commemorations and Bush speeches, ABC broadcast a two-part program, “The Path to 9/11,” deliberately falsifying history, in particular inventing tales to blame the Clinton administration for al Qaeda’s terrorism. Unsurprisingly, it turned out that a right-wing operation had produced and written the film. ABC’s acquiescence in promoting false history is a telling example of the media’s abasing behavior toward the Bush administration. The appearance of the Orwellian fiction was perfectly timed to the kick-off of the Republican campaign. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that a Marine colonel intelligence officer in Iraq has filed an analysis stating that western Anbar province is lost politically.
I raise many issues in the book that I hope stir discussion on TPMCafe: Bush’s uniquely radical presidency; his war on national security career staff professionals; the power of the vice president and the proliferation of networks of ideological cadres under his wing; one-party rule, the “K Street Project” and congressional corruption; and Rove’s polarizing political strategies. Bush’s effort to concentrate unaccountable and unfettered power in the executive is the ultimate objective of his various policies and politics. I have included below excerpts from the introduction of “How Bush Rules,” which is entitled, “A Radical President.” (Salon.com has just published the entire 10,000-word introduction here.) No one predicted just how radical a president George W. Bush would be. Neither his opponents, nor the reporters covering him, nor his closest campaign aides suggested that he would be the most willfully radical president in American history….
Immediately upon assuming office, Bush launched upon a series of initiatives that began to undo the bipartisan traditions of internationalism, environmentalism, fiscal discipline, and scientific progress. His first nine months in office were a quick march to the right. The reasons were manifold ranging from Cheney and Rumsfeld’s extraordinary influence, Rove’s strategies, the neoconservatives’ inordinate sway, and Bush’s Southern conservatism. These deeper patterns were initially obscured by the surprising rapidity of Bush’s determined tack.
By September 10, Bush held the lowest job approval rating of any president to that early point in his tenure. He appeared to be falling into the pattern of presidents who arrived without a popular mandate and lasted only one term. The deadliest foreign attack on American soil transformed his foundering presidency.
The events of September 11 lent Bush the aura of legitimacy that Bush v. Gore had not granted. Catastrophe infused him with the charisma of a “war president,” as he proclaimed himself. At once, his radicalism had an unobstructed path….
Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were the prime movers behind the concentration of power in the executive. Their experience going back to the Nixon presidency had imbued them with belief in absolute presidential power, disdain for the Congress (“a bunch of annoying gnats,” Cheney called its members, of which he had once been one), and secrecy….
Foreign policy was captured by neoconservative ideologues, a small group of sectarians rooted in the hothouse environment of the capital’s right-wing think tanks. Its principals had been fired from the Reagan administration after the Iran-contra scandal and banished from the elder Bush’s administration, but Bush rewarded them with positions at the strategic heights of national security. These cadres operated with a Leninist sensibility following a party line, engaging in fierce polemics, using harsh invective, and showing equal contempt for traditional Republicans and liberal Democrats. Cheney acted as their sponsor, protector and promoter. Under his aegis, they ran foreign policy from the White House and the Pentagon. Secretary of State Colin Powell was sidelined. The Undersecretary of State John Bolton, inserted by Cheney, blocked Powell’s initiatives and spied on him and his team, reporting back to the Office of the Vice President. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made a separate peace and turned the National Security Council into an augmented force for Cheney and the neocons. Meanwhile, Republican realists, including elder Bush’s closest associates such as Brent Scowcroft, were isolated or purged….
Less than a year after September 11, the administration was beset by disclosures that it had refused to take terrorism seriously before the attacks and by stories about dysfunction at the FBI. An FBI agent at the Minneapolis bureau, Coleen Rowley, emerged with documentation of how the Bureau had ignored warnings of the coming terrorist strike. On the day that she testified before the Senate, June 6, 2002, Bush suddenly announced a dramatic reversal of his position against the Democratic proposal for a Department of Homeland Security. Rowley’s story was blotted out.
Bush now turned the issue of a new department against the Democrats in the midterm elections, following Rove’s script. In Bush’s proposal the department would not recognize unions, and because the Democrats believed that employees should have the right to form unions they were cast as weak on homeland security and terrorism. Against this backdrop, Rove helped direct attacks on the patriotism of Democrats in the 2002 midterm elections. In one Republican television commercial, the face of Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a Vietnam veteran who had lost three limbs, was morphed into that of Osama bin Laden, and Cleland lost. The Republicans captured the Senate by one seat….
Traditional Republicans emerged among Bush’s most penetrating critics, from O’Neill to Wilkerson, from Zinni to Clarke. They were not hostile to Bush when he entered office; on the contrary, they were willing and eager to serve under him. They observed first-hand, more than opponents on the outside, the radical changes Bush was making within the government. As Republicans, more than Democrats, they understood which traditions of their own were being traduced….
The Bush White House, drawing harsh cautionary lessons from the Nixon experience, considered the press an extremely dangerous enemy that must be treated with contempt—isolated, intimidated, and, if not made pliable, discredited. The administration favored Fox News and other conservative media, using them as quasi-official government propaganda organs. Joining the long project by the conservative movement, the administration sought to bring the press into disrepute and marginalize it. If journalists did not support the administration’s talking points or operate from its premises, they were assailed as unfair and biased.
The conservative campaign against journalism as “liberal media” was Leninist in its assumption that truth and fact were inherently sectarian and instrumental. Acting on this premise, the press was subjected to constant and elaborate campaigns of intimidation. The administration enjoyed unprecedented success. Not a single report in any major newspaper or on the broadcast news networks covered the campaign of intimidation, as the press had once readily reported on Nixon’s early effort, progenitor of the current strategy….
Operationally, within the White House, the Office of the Vice President controlled foreign policy, making the National Security Council its auxiliary, and the flow of information to the president. No vice president was ever as powerful.
Bush was unusually incurious and passive in seeking facts. He never demanded worst-case scenarios. His circle of advisers was tightly restricted. Only a select few of the White House staff were permitted to see him, much less interact with him. He made no effort to establish independent sources of information. He never circulated to his staff articles that sparked a policy interest in him. When his support in public opinion declined, he soaked up the flattery of his aides that the people had momentarily lapsed in their appreciation of his heroic strength and vision….
Bush’s presidency was uniquely radical in its elevation of absolute executive power, dismissal of the other branches of government, contempt for law, dominant power of the vice president, networks of ideological cadres, principle of unaccountability, stifling of internal debate, reliance on one party rule, and overtly political use of war. Never before had a president shown disdain for science and sought to batter down the wall of separation between church and state. None of it seemed in the offing upon Bush’s inauguration in 2001. Yet these actions were not sudden impulses, spontaneous reactions or accidental gestures. They were based on deliberate decisions intended to change the presidency and government fundamentally and forever.
The Bush WH is just the culmination of a 20 year GOP political plan to increase polarization and shrink the center.
The last 6 years have been the flowering of that plan.
September 12, 2006 8:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Building Red America" by Thomas B Edsall is reviewed this morning in the NYTimes by Michiko Kakutani.
Blumenthal correctly describes the Bush governance as radical, the basis of which resides in the electoral strategy fabricated by the "architect". That strategy itself was given to Rove by Matt Dowd.
Thus the "traditional Republicans" Blumenthal refers to carry little or no weight so long as the "base is secured", because the battle at the polls will continue to be closer than close. If Rove gets them out to vote and not stay away from the voting booth from a fit of pique, he (they) wins.
September 12, 2006 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kakutani notes that Edsall derided the Democratic party's future long ago, before Clinton. She also quotes him, without expressing disagreement, as basing his argument on the idea that "“the social-issue left overwhelmingly sets the agenda of the Democratic Party.” You have to think about this. Isn't it precisely the GOP campaign line, at least when fear of terrorism fails, that the election is all about gay marriage?
Forget the politicians for a minute, in fact, and ask yourself: does that even characterize the presumably more strident blogosphere, if we're to judge by the topics of posts in the TPM Cafe site right here? I get once again the feeling that a Times reporter (Edsall) is pushing the (GOP) party line.
That aside, I gotta thank Blumenthal for posting here. He covered, at least for us, well-worn paths, but eloquently enough that he has me scared to death. I wish the book well. I only wonder whether the congratulate the fine editors at Princeton University Press for snaring it or to think how shameful it is that major commercial trade publishers did not. Or is that once again the mainstream media problem?
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 12, 2006 8:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
As S.B. points out, it was only after assuming the mantel of War President and manipulating the terror boogieman that they could effect their radicalism.
I think the Woo doctrine of a Unitary Executive is the underpinning of their extremism. Congress has acquiesced and given him almost everything he’s asked for. Now that the courts are beginning to repel their hijacking of the Constitution, Bush is trying to enlist Congress in giving him those powers and retroactive immunity from for his over-reaching.
September 12, 2006 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Blumenthal
I am curious about your views about the source of the Bush radicalism. Besides the neo-Cons do you think there is a role in this for the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife, A.H. Ahmanson, Coors and other rightwing wealthy men who have helped fund the Arkansas Project, various foundations, and are involved in an assualt on many of the mainstream Protestant Churches.
One is struck that while Americans as a group then to cling to the center but these men, Pat Buchanan and others, what to drive the United States back to a fantasy 1950s in which white men dominated and everyone else do their place and America itself dominated the world.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
September 12, 2006 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
The administration enjoyed unprecedented success. Not a single report in any major newspaper or on the broadcast news networks covered the campaign of intimidation, as the press had once readily reported on Nixon’s early effort, progenitor of the current strategy….
An informed citizenry is the key to making this whole democracy idea work. That's the real problem, not the political ideology of a particular President, no matter how radical.
It seems like people are coming around (we'll know for sure in Nov.), but it took way too long. 2004 was the real accountability moment -- now we'll have to settle for 2006, unfortunately for us, and the rest of the world.
Let's hope we have the good sense...
Dissent Protects Democracy.
September 12, 2006 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The memo — which declared that the center of the electorate had collapsed, that true swing voters made up a mere 6 percent of the electorate — destroyed, in Mr. Edsall’s words, “the rationale for Bush to govern as ‘a uniter, not a divider,’ ” as he had promised. Instead, it “freed Bush to discard centrist strategies” and promote “polarizing policies designed explicitly to appeal to the conservative Republican core.”
Mr. Dowd’s finding that “you can lose the swing voters and still win the election, if you make sure your base is bigger than theirs,” says Mr. Edsall, decisively affected the Bush administration’s policy making on matters ranging from tax cuts to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003."
My question is at what point does the Republican base get fed up at the politicians' inability to deliver on such matters as overturning Roe and Congressional passage for starters of the anti-gay marriage Constitutional amendment?
Sure, Republicans can keep feeding the hatred of the Democrats on these issues, and that is a motivator. But at some point, when the people you are busting your hump to put into office, believing they will really act on your concerns, don't do that, isn't your level of passion and commitment--the fuel you run on--necessarily diminished?
Thomas Frank in WTMWK reported that there already is a perception among some right-wing Republican activists on social issues that the party leadership has "gone Washington"--that it always was committed to the Country Club Republican economic agenda and either never did, or don't now, have a real commitment to their issues.
September 12, 2006 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Edsall wrote for the Washington Post. I do not know if he is carrying water for GOP.
Could be.
It's hard to deny value of the Matt Dowd revelation that the middle has collapsed. When coupled with Rove's "factor analysis" of voters that uncovered the huge number of christian values voters who stayed away from the voting booth only to show up in the four elections Rove ran for Bush (two in Texas and two for President) you have to admit Rove still wins if as Dowd told him "your base is bigger than theirs."
I think the radical governance began with the tax cuts and went from there. Did they not precede the twin towers?
September 12, 2006 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. If you go by which threads create the most discussion and partisanship among democrats...therefore clearly it is seen from the out side as a definite hot button defining issue.
September 12, 2006 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
My take: At bottom Bush is both a shallow and a hollow man. IMO he did not really know why he wanted to be president and found himself uncomfortable with the burdens of the job from the beginning. It's kind of like this was the family business and he let himself believe he had no choice. Although I do not think Ted Kennedy is remotely shallow or hollow he had difficulty answering the "Why do you want to be President?" question back in 1980 as well.
When he came into office Bush was driven by one very strong conviction, however, one which was a negative conviction reflecting that weakness: he was not going to be his father's son.
That meant he surrounded himself with people who were not the people who surrounded his father, nor like them. They had a much more aggressively partisan political cast of mind. As far as Cheney was concerned Powell was for show and to keep him in the tent. And they sure used him when they needed to at the UN, didn't they? Condi was in over her head as NSC chief and was no match for the highly seasoned and ruthless Cheney faction.
Bush largely deferred to Cheney on foreign policy. At some point, maybe (maybe not) we will find out just when and how Cheney snapped and lost whatever more sane and sensible impulses he may have had.
On the economic issues, the interests who financed his campaign simply were not going to let him get away with anything less than full commitment to pushing their tax-cuts-for-the-rich agenda. They are the core of the Republican party.
On the social issues, personally I think Bush's instincts are somewhat more moderate. He's known he absolutely needed the right-wing social issue advocates to go all out in order for him to win, though. So he made it his business to learn, and speak, their language.
September 12, 2006 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Chrissie. Just to let you know, I cross posted this to another thread, with appropriate attribution to you, of course.
September 12, 2006 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
A great article but in my opinion the most crucial situation is not covered : two stolen presidential elections.
“By September 10, Bush held the lowest job approval rating of any president to that early point in his tenure. He appeared to be falling into the pattern of presidents who arrived without a popular mandate and lasted only one term. “ (from this article)
“Without a popular mandate” is a misleading understatement of the situation. Why are the Democrats, Independents and the Bloggers and MSM not making voter fraud and two stolen presidential elections the number one issue? This is the number one crisis in our country. We must confront this reality -- that past elections were fixed, and the 2006 elections are just as vulnerable. These findings deserve front-page treatment and they are not getting it. Two presidential elections have been stolen. If this trend continues America will be an empire not a democracy.
Electronic voting machines can be programmed to record a vote for one candidate and give a paper receipt showing a vote for the other candidate. We must insist on paper ballots and hand counting.
(For an in-depth analysis of voter fraud via electronic voting machines, see: Brennan Center for Justice-Press Release or search “voter fraud “ for numerous articles and books, especially: “The Best Democracy That Money Can Buy” by Greg Pallast.)
The Diebolt no paper trail touch screen voting machines and optical scanners, as well as other voter fraud techniques, allowed this Administration to seize control of our government. Cheney and the Neocons then worked to establish a de facto dictatorship which is now sustained through propaganda and fear. “ The deadliest foreign attack on American soil transformed his foundering presidency. “ (from this article)
I believe that explains LIHOP (let it happen on purpose) or maybe even MIHOP (made it happen on purpose). Anyone interested in why at least 36% of Americans hold these beliefs might start by googling 9/11truth.org and start by reading an article listed at the top, “Top 40 Reasons to Doubt the ‘Official Story’ of Sept. 11” Then ask oneself “Who benefited?”
“Then the voiceover tells voters to vote Republican— or die: ‘Vote as if your life depended on it. Because it does.’ " (from this article) Republicans who argue that the country is safer can't really point to a major plot that's been foiled or point to anything they did to make it so. Who is going to get me if I vote Democratic, the Bogieman? I personally will feel safer if the Democrats gain control of at least the House of Representatives, safer still if they also gain control of the Senate.
September 12, 2006 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Blumenthal, thank you for your usual high standard of elegant prose and deep thinking.
To my mind, a corollary to the radical amassing of executive power by the Bush administration is the subterranean effort to undo the republic at the ballot box. In this sense, the appropriate historical model for the modern republican party is the PRI of Mexico, which maintained power for 70 years by a combination of brutal exercise of power and theft of votes. Vicente Fox may have defeated the PRI, but he has adopted their preferred MO at the ballot box it would appear.
There is the question of evidence to support my concern, but at the least the well documented massive purge of votes in Florida in 2000 by Katherine Harris and Choice Point, the extraordinary shenanigans in Ohio by Mr. Blackwell and crew in 2004, and the vast number of irregularities all over (although there is good reason to believe that Brian Bilbray legitimately had the votes to beat Francine Busby, particularly after her unfortunate comments about immigrants, it is very odd to say the least that voting machines were taken home and Bilbray was sworn in before certification...) lead me to believe that they really are professionalizing the murky business of gaming elections. Without even expanding on my great suspicions on touch screen voting, the very idea of having the vote software controlled by private companies is antithetical to democracy.
Mark Crispin Miller, on KPFA in Berkeley this morning, opined that Bush and Rove do not really care if the current islamofascism/threat to civilization speeches budge his approval ratings or rally the base. Rather, it is to provide a very plausible cover story for the day after the election when, in Miller's words, we awake to find the republican majority well intact. This view reflects the other great and radical power of this administration to manipulate the media to create at least the perception of reality.
Case in point-the cover story in 2004 was massive republican GOTV efforts and rallying of the values voters. The latter was of course debunked, and while republican GOTV has obviously improved dramatically with Rove and Mehlman, there was a huge democratic effort that got ambushed by the ferocious voter suppression/vote theft counterinsurgency. They still got that values voters meme to dominate the discussion for sometime after the election.
While I think Miller takes a perhaps overly dark view of our election integrity, the concern is real, and I simply don't see it taken seriously by the national democratic leadership. Hammering on the issues and getting out the vote will not matter if the votes are miscounted or suppressed.
Can we use blogs like this to encourage a more coherent national oversight of the vote?
September 12, 2006 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr Blumenthal,
I haven't read your book. However, your precis strikes me as containing little that is original and really contains no new insights. I certainly agree with much of what you say but, since this is supposed to be a discussion about the book, can you explain briefly why TPM readers should buy it?
Thanks
September 12, 2006 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Crissie, the WP. Right, sorry about that. I hope it's a small point, though. But I don't mean he is carrying water in the sense of trying to promote a party line. It's just that key mainstream reporting has amounted very much to passing on what they're told, spin intact. What he adds here is the impression that it's his remarkable discovery, and that makes it worse.
Re An informed citizenry is the key to making this whole democracy idea work. That's the real problem, not the political ideology of a particular President, no matter how radical.
Oh, when CSSC sayw "it seems like people are coming around," where an "informed" citizenship is the key, betcha even after the latest official report on the obvious and Bush's concession of it Monday night, at least half the country still think Iraq was behind 9/11. It'll be interesting to see. I've a feeling that people have soured on Bush because they hate losing, but they haven't turned to the opposition not just because of fear of terrorism, but also because they're unwilling to question the assumptions they've themselves made this long. They're ready to blame someone, anyone, everyone. That's about it.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 12, 2006 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I share your sense of outrage at what a banana republic we have become, with elections being just one example. Was it you who mentioned here that Carter would not even think of having his group certify US elections because we would not even come close to meeting minimal standards?
I don't know if federal legislation requiring a paper trail, among the wide range of other things that need to be done, would be #1 on my list of things I would hope Congress would act on. But it would be very high up there if we can win the Congress back. Make the Republicans filibuster it in the Senate or dare Bush to veto it. This is elemental stuff. Clean up the frickin' mess.
If the US Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore could toss the election to Bush on the basis of the supposed violations of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment that the Florida court-ordered recount would have led to, then surely such an affront to our democratic sensibilities merited speedy redress by the Republican Congress back in 2001, right? What could be more basic to our sense of how our government is supposed to function?
Instead they passed HAVA (Help America Vote Act), which had some useful elements but is utterly inadequate as a fix. That way they could say they fixed the problem without fixing it. Likewise the various versions of "lobbying reform" do not come close to dramatically reducing the corrupting influence of money on the political process. But they are nice for show-and-tell purposes at election time.
September 12, 2006 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not that I'm an expert on Bush's brain, or anything else in this sickening stew, but it strikes me that one of the decisive factors in determining where Bush has gone policy and ideology-wise has been Bush's utter lack of understanding, indeed his lack of curiosity, about the nature of things. Whether it's the Sunni/Shiite divide in pre-invasion Iraq, his foolish claim of victory on the Lincoln, or his apparent ignorance over the destruction his leadership is wreaking on the institution of government, to me it keeps suggesting that he hasn't a clue about what's going on, and truly couldn't care less, as long as the political winds blow favorably on him. Bush delegates and defers not to experts on policy, for whom he and his cohort have nothing less than utter contempt, but experts on political warfare.
The sense I have of the President is that he is an empty vessel. When he talks, there is never any depth to his ideas, they all seem like window dressing. There is no coherent ideology, no consistent theme or philosophy to his discussion, and when he tosses out an idea it seems more like he's chumming the waters than actually catching fish.
His radical regime is not the result of sinister misrepresentation of himself as a uniter, when really he's a torturer, a dictator, a democracy-hater. I see his radicalism as almost a random walk, a gut-level in the moment choosing off a menu of options tossed out by his advisers. If it feels right, he goes for it. He jerks out his decision pistol and fires, and because he's president, he doesn't even have to ask questions later.
What's scary to me is that he seems to have no idea of the implications of his administrative choices, no sense of what preceded him, no consideration for the weight and import of tradition, legal precedent, relationships, the way things work. He's contemptuous of precedent, history. And what's even scarier is that some significant portion of the public think of his ignorance and disinterest as an admirable, rather than utterly foolhardy, way of handling the affairs of state.
Ted Bucklin
September 12, 2006 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Yes. If you go by which threads create the most discussion and partisanship among democrats." I can't agree with you. I'm seeing long threads and hotly written comments on the war, Lieberman, economics, etc., etc. About gays, women, even guns? Nada. Zippo. No interest. Nothing. Ok there's been one Graff post in recent memory, and it received, if I remember correctly, not a single comment.
I'm not saying she was unjustly neglected by bigoted straight men like me. Maybe, maybe not. I just mean that the GOP base's spin on what the election is "about" is still so obviously wrong.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 12, 2006 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't know who Bush really is.
I recall hearing him described, during the Reagan administration when HW was VP, as the real conservative in the Bush family, the enforcer of loyalty, the born-again Christian. I do not know what to make of his "faith"fulness.
I took a quick look at Wayne Slater's latest book on Rove wherein he states that Rove is agnostic on matters of faith.
Bush has to know that. So if Rove is purely pragmatic politically, does that tell me anything about Bush? Does that say anything about the christian right base he owes his election to? I don't know.
When I hear the gossip about Bush's "blue" language and it is attributed to "texas manly man talk", I wonder about those Christian friends who go to church with him. What do they think- do they know?
So is he a hypocrite or just one hell of an expedient politician?
September 12, 2006 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have just read your article in Salon. Thank you for your review of progressive Southerners - showing how exceptional Bush really is. I have just returned from a family reunion where the most vocal people had swallowed the Bush line completely. It is refreshing to be reminded that things do not have to be that way
September 12, 2006 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
This, unfortunately, is a piece of work that history will not remember.
First, Bush's actions are not radical. They are pre-meditated and concise. What's more, the policy endeavors of this president are not surprising and should not fool anybody who cares to look at them closely. Again, this means that they are not radical.
As Niall Ferguson reported in this week's "Time" magazine in his peice entitled "The Nation That Fell To Earth," history will likely look much kinder upon the Bush presidency than contemporary society.
Why?
Ferguson argues that 30 years from now 9/11 will be seen not so much as a tragedy (as we who experienced it view it) but more of an abberation. A proverbial blip in the radar screen. A freak occurrence.
What's more, when future generations view footage of the Twin Towers crumbling to the ground after two airplanes slammed into them, the rationale for the Bush Doctrine will be much easier to understand. Lies, fabricated intelligence, and broader economic goals will be largely overlooked.
In essence, the "radicalism" that you speak of will be viewed as anything but.
September 12, 2006 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jim Borgman, the cartoonist for the Cincinnati Enquirer suggested that since Bush sees himself as the CEO of America, Inc., we try a buyout of his contract.
September 12, 2006 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
When I attended a family reunion down South this weekend, I had hopes that there might be some small evidence that the Bush supporters were beginning to be shaken by the reality of the Bush Administration - particularly on the war, which was the only political issue that was discussed. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. I am very concerned about that. It is hard for me to see what will shake their confidence. It almost seems like the worse things get, the more it affirms their opinions. This seems to me like classic paranoia.
September 12, 2006 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
SB,
I read with interest your very readable Salon.com piece. It seems to me that those who knew about Vice President Bush's first born knew him to be a born-again right-wing conservative Republican who along with Mary Matalin and Karl Rove learned his political craft from the notorious Lee Atwater.
What W did in his gubernatorial and presidential campaigns was run to the center, with his hail-fellow-well-met, Mr. Smoke-and- Joke routine, all the while using language that his Christian right-wing supports knew well but hadn't heard emanating from the mouth of a Republican, words with fundamentalist Christian connotations. And as W was doing that, Rove in his feral way was skinning opponents, left and right.
No one could really have believed that George W. Bush was anything but a right-wing fundamentalist. It was wishful thinking to even suggest otherwise. But it was a problem.
I can recall being asked why I didn't like Bush during the 2000 election. My answer was: because Bush doesn't show you who he really is.
The Texan, manly-man, thing was one of the many successful ironies perpetrated by W on an all-too-willing to be deceived public. Now tell me, how could a recovering alcoholic be some one you would 'most like to have a beer with'? I often wondered how much money the PR hack who thought that one up earned.
September 12, 2006 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, I have to concur. Bush's radicalism is essentially merely a magnification of a number of streaks in America's foreign policy. He's bigger, dumber, more brutal and more stupid. But not radically divergent. The difference is in quantity, not quality.
Sadly, taking one or two aspirin is fine. Taking a few bottles can be very dangerous.
The reality is that he has taken a sledgehammer in to what is necessarily a surgical art. His brutality and incompetence is catching up.
America will pay the price. Sadly, your day is passing.
History will not be kind.
September 12, 2006 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many congratulations on a great book on a great topic!
September 12, 2006 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've buried myself in some Hunter S Thompson literature the past couple of weeks... apart from the laugh-out-loud vitriol, the comical hubris, the eye-popping imagery, HST serves up priceless insight, and I came away with my own stream of ideas after absorbing another refreshing dose of gonzo screed.
The first thing was this extraordinary (prescient?) thought just after the '92 election - HST described the Nixon as man so vile that he drove good people into politics, but feared that Clinton, with his peculiar vices, would drive all but the worst people out of politics. You look at the entire political spectrum these days - the ubiquitous greedheads, the laziest law-makers in living memory - and you wonder if HST nailed this one.
But the main thing which stuck in my mind was the characterization of Jack and Bobby Kennedy as the last two Democrat leaders who held a pathological loathing of their Republican enemies (HST did regard Carville - especially - and Begala as lethal operatives, but obviously they were not Dem leaders). There's a part of me that can see how HST's loathing of Nixon caused him to love the two Dems who kept Nixon at bay, but I think there's a point because Jack and Bobby were prepared to campaign just about anywhere, and enact policies that they knew would drive their enemies insane.
So here's the thing for the Dem Class of 2006 - the Bush administration is really unpopular. The sustained assault on the 1st and 4th Amendments; the concentration of executive power; the imperial foreign policy; the coddling of big business; the rejection of scientific progress; social-security privatization... these are all greatly cherished present-day GOP initiatives, and it would piss the GOP leadership off no end if a leading Dem went right at these issues. Because they are precious to the GOP, but unpopular in general... and the GOP fear that an electorate faced with a choice between an defensive incumbent and an aggressive populist, in a nation that wants change, the Dems might catch a good break.
But you've got to be seen to be standing up to the bastards. All day, every day. And you've got hate these people, the people who brought you the George Bush horror-show, and have the desire to attack these bums for as long as you have fresh air in your lungs.
September 12, 2006 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would not say America's day is passing. It would be 'radical' to assert that Bush's 8 years can or will undo the progress made over the last 230+ years.
I don't see much improvement as long as oil remains the 'be all end all' of domestic and foreign policy.
But just as the Industrial Revolution skyrocketed American enterprise following the disastrous civil war, the need for technological advancement following the exhaustion of oil will naturally come from the U.S. because we have more money and resources than anyone else.
September 12, 2006 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Valdron, you and Gettysburg, if I read you correctly, are only addressing Bush's foreign policy. If we grant that the United States foreign policy has always been more aggressive than most Americans are aware, then you are right that Bush is only (or primarily) "radical" in the sense of "extreme," rather than "categorically different." I don't think that contradicts Sidney's thesis, however.
Furthermore, Sidney is also concerned with domestic policy. He makes the point that Bush was genuinely surprising to many people, including some people who went to work for him. Even if you find precedents for Bush's domestic policy in the Golden Age, that is still extreme enough that I think it is fair to call Bush a radical - at least in his intentions, whether or not he is ultimately successful.
September 12, 2006 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I, too, am looking forward to the next round of polls...
Dissent Protects Democracy.
September 12, 2006 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gettysburg
I would suggest that you and Feerguson might want to take Bush at his word. He distinguishes his Middle Eastern policy from the past 60 years. He said it again in his speech last night.
While the United States has always had a moralistic streak in its foreign policy it has been dominated by realism. Even WWII and WWI were precipitated by an attack not a crusade to bring democracy to the world. Bush is arguing that 9/11 changed everything including what is necessary in foreign policy. Unless you are saying he is lying about that, as opposed to just wrong, then he is saying his presidency is a radical departutre.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
September 12, 2006 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I hear the gossip about Bush's "blue" language and it is attributed to "texas manly man talk", I wonder about those Christian friends who go to church with him. What do they think- do they know?
As a former Baptist, I can tell you that there are plenty of "Christians" who use foul language. They just don't like for other people to do it.
Jan Knaus
September 12, 2006 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Daniel
As Sidney points out, Bush did indeed view the 9/11 attacks as a sort of "Pearl Harbor."
The clearly defined problem is that the enemy is far from being a sovereign; there is no Germany or Japan to fight.
The illusion of American military dominance was very real even after the 9/11 attacks. And it was real to most of the world. As I have argued in the Discussion Boards, it was only a matter of time before someone like Bush came along to test this illusion. Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton showed a surprising amount of patience with regard to using the military, but that was bound to change.
Putting his clandestine economic endeavors aside, Bush and his administration have demonstrated to the U.S. and the world that no amount of military might can eradicate an idea.
That, in and of itself, is important because no substantive progress can be made until the very strong and seemingly omni-present illusion of American military superiority is dispelled.
I think the Bush administration has granted us that favor, even if by accident and of his own poor construct.
September 12, 2006 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
There seems to me to be a fundamental misperception here about the difference between "radical" and "impetuous." What you're saying seems to assume that radicals can't be premeditated. That's simply not correct.
The threat that the president and his ilk are concerned about -- legitimately -- was the "campfire meeting" (or others like it) between OBL and folks like A.Q. Khan. The assumption underlying this is that States act rationally--terrorist acts, if traced back to them, would result in retaliation. A plane over scotland results in isolation; striking down a building on american soil will get you overthrown or worse. (Having oil might sure won't hurt your chances of sticking around.)
OBL and his ilk, however, are stateless. They and their suicidal compatriots have no qualms about dying in furtherance of their cause--they literally have nothing to lose. An open society cannot defend against that kind of threat. The goal of US foreign policy should be to make it clear that state harboring of terrorists will be treated as a hostile act against the united states. Afghanistan was a perfect example of this principle. It gives predictability to the actions of nations, which some people think is important. (this group, not so much).
The so-called Bush Doctrine extended this principle to the "capacity" to "provide" materials to terrorists. If there is a one percent chance that a regime can provide materials to terrorists, that regime must be taken out. That's the so-called "One Percent Doctrine" in operation. It's a radical approach to both foreign and domestic policy. It is not an impetuous one, as it has the incidental (and significant) benefit of consolidating government power in the hands of the executive, and yanking up the ladder behind those who obtain that power. It is also completely inconsistent with an open democratic society--here or abroad.
September 12, 2006 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree mostly, but not about the consideration (or lack of) behind the "Doctrine".
It was impetuous because there was zero postition study before it was promulgated, it is poorly defined, and it is unachievable. It was not even an inkling until a political opportunity presented itself. It was a result of pure panic, not reflection. Thus impetuous.
If it was serious it would have absolutely precluded Iraq from consideration, since Iraq was down at or below the 1% mark, and Pakistan, House of Saud, Yemen, Somalia, etc. way up there.
I don't consider them radical, because there really is no "them". There is a vacuum at the center, with Bush's foreign-policy concept displayed in his comment, in 1999 to the family biographer, that if he had the chance to invade Iraq he wouldn't pass it up. He has no direction at all, so others pursue their own agendas.
Cheney wants enhanced Presidential power and prerogatives. Rumsfeld wants more departmental power over a more efficient Pentagon. Various neo-con supporters want transformative foreign adventures.
This is why the policies are mostly incoherent. One day it's privatisation of Social Security (pleasing Norquist et al), the next it is gay marriage (for the moral crowd) then it's Iran (for the neocons), etc.
It seems radical becuase there is no Congress to ask WTF? It's a runaway train.
September 12, 2006 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fair points all, but I have always viewed Bush as the useful idiot in all this. The theories of Cheney/Rumsfeld et al were lurking in the shadows of the government and needed a triggering event, which they got.
I agree with you about most of this, 'cept we needed Pakistan for Afghanistan. We do not have hostile relations with the Sauds, who cracked down on the internal stuff once they figured out that they were next in the crosshairs. (Whether they continue to do so I don't know). Yemen--again, no history of hostile relations/no tie to Cole bombing. I think you could distinguish these instances--including somalia--from iraq.
September 12, 2006 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
First a disclaimer - I'm a fan and look forward to reading the book.
But I wonder, and apoligize in advance if this seems too strong. Not really. The point is as a liberal, I'm too nice. We need to adopt the take no prisoners attitude of the Right:
Do Democrats and Progressives really want to overturn the Bush changes to the government. Should Democrats want to overturn the changes?
After all, if and when we Democrats take back control of the government, don't we want to be able to arrest these abusers of our history? Impeach them. Try them. Round up the right wing fundementalist religous terrorists and put them in Gitmo and torture them to find out what their real agenda was? Don't we want to waterboard all the Republicans named Dick? W?
I've always been saddened that Democrats won't treat the Republicans the way they so obviously want to be treated. Read their accusations about us and see it as transferance. Then put the bastards where they belong. In the camps they so thoughfully want built for brown people.
Rather than arrest 11 Million illegal immigrants, use the camps and put the right wing bigots and their ignorant fellow travellers in them and throw away the key.
I say this with tongue not firmly in cheek, but in all seriousness. Democrats, Liberals, Progressives. Where are your balls?
September 12, 2006 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quite right. But consider that this is normal "realism". It requires the 1% to be set aside for pargmatic short-term needs. I only meant that applying 1% led to a string of countries, of which Iraq was the least.
So it fits into the 1% being bogus or at least a vague ideal at best. I give it no more intellectual or moral value than preventive war as a coherent policy.
Realism is realistic, at least. It may be venal or corrupt, but it's coherent and works in the short term. 1% has shown no successes to date.
September 12, 2006 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Screw that, the parachute would be both expensive and immoral.
He's the CEO and running the country like Enron. I only hope he lives to see his disgrace.
September 12, 2006 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is tempting, but I'll quote Lincoln: "As I would not wish to be a slave, nor would I wish to be a master."
Ridicule and a complete disgrace of the authoritarian principles being exploited is the goal. I want to see the dishonest conservatism portrayed as a failed philosophy because of its inherent immorality.
September 12, 2006 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Mr. Dowd’s finding that “you can lose the swing voters and still win the election, if you make sure your base is bigger than theirs,” says Mr. Edsall, decisively affected the Bush administration’s policy making on matters ranging from tax cuts to the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003."
I knew Lee Atwater socially, from a time in the early 80's when we were once stuck together on the proverbial Delta Airlines "flight from hell" from DC to Columbia SC through Atlanta. We shared a non-political interest, blues, and loosely stayed in touch over the years before he died. Of course, we did discuss politics some.
The Dowd memo mentioned above simply reflects accomplishment of the long standing goal that I heard articulated by Atwater years ago-- to make the middle irrelevant. As we Southerners say, there isn't anything in the middle of a road other than dead skunks/dead possums/dead armadillos (take your pick.)
Were he alive today, I have no doubt that Atwater would be awed by how hard the chattering classes have fallen for the idea tht Rove is Bush's brain. They were both Atwater acolytes. The GOP has lived off of Atwater's strategic legacy for the better part of two decades-- there hasn't been an original idea since. Both Bush and Rove learned all they know from him. Sure, the technology available today lets you run a better GOTV campaign today, but Atwater's belief that the way to win elections is to slice the electorate so that your side gets the larger share is what drives Bush-- and his underling, Rove. Atwater was simply "hired help" to Bush 41, Rove is no more to Bush 43.
September 12, 2006 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's because Barbara Bush divides everyone into two groups: our friends and "the help".
I understand that before he died, Atwater asked forgiveness from everyone he had wronged. Can't get to heaven otherwise.
Seriously, I heard Atwater was pretty good with a guitar.
September 12, 2006 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I share your sense of outrage at what a banana republic we have become,………
An early sign of becoming a banana republic was the naming of buildings, airports, aircraft carriers, and streets, after Reagan while he was still alive. How third world is that?
A very large chunk of the American electorate know less about Reagan in any way that could intelligently inform their vote than they know about Leonard Fillmore. All they know is from the background voice that droned for their whole life, when it wasn’t screaming,that the guy was a hero in so many ways, and that he was a Republican.
I accept that he was a hero, he must have been, they named an aircraft carrier after him, didn’t they?
Verifying the vote is critical. I have a plan. After the next election we should pick a couple of close Democratic victories, if there are any close ones that go to the Democrats, and, as soon as it appears too late to change anything, we should start, or support, rumors that the Democrat stole the win. Try to make the Repugs scream for fair elections.
September 12, 2006 10:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Back down in Winnipeg there used to be a man called Ashdown. J. Ashdown. Practically ran the whole town back in the turn of the (previous) century. He had it all, a commanding position, and so much influence that he arranged the laws so that he could vote in every municipal district in which he was a property holdler. This was a man who could vote 50 times, while 2/3 of the city couldn't vote at all.
Anyway, he died. His son took over the family business. His son didn't have the Dad's mercantile flair. In fact, he was quite inept. He made disastrous mistakes. Within a few years it was all gone.
A masterpiece of stained glass can take a genius a lifetime to produce. It takes a moron with a rock but a minute to destroy.
This is the way the world works. The United States is a great and glorious land. It is the work of generations of people struggling with their own frailties and failings to build a better world, a better place, to elevate that which is good and noble.
But a moron with a rock...
India, China and Europe have greater populations. Russia and Japan have smaller but comparable populations. Russia, Europe and China control similar sized or larger territories. Europe's economy is larger. Japan's is significantly large. China and India are progressing rapidly. Brazil has a large population and large territory and while lagging behind China and India, may have its own growth spurt.
Meanwhile the American economy labours under crushing debt, deindustrialization, erosion of the middle class, impoverishment of the working class.
Frankly, I admire your optimism. But I can't keep from thinking about the fragility of life and the dangers of morons with rocks. It is always far too easy to quickly destroy or spend the wealth and beauty that has taken lifetimes to garner.
America is precious. I do not believe it is indestructible.
September 12, 2006 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only is there no Germany or Japan to fight, something that Rumsfeld in particular never wanted to accept, but until 9/11 Americans never suffered all that much at the hands of those using terrorism. I know some would disagree with this but we could have and it would have been better if Clinton launched an attack on Al Qaeda in the 1990s. However, not only would the Republicans have had apoplexy but the American People would not have supported it either.
Bush did not just seek to defeat an enemy. It launched a moral crusade of good versus evil using a lackluster amount of military power.
I disgree that military might has been shown not to work. It might not be able to work alone. However, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq the United States could destroy those nations. We did to use a more intelligent insurgency strategy as well as the massive power that can be brough to bear. Additionally, the United States needs both a department that is more about nation building and policing than military power and the United States needs to orgnize the world in a police, finance and the like control of the Islamic radicals who are willing to use terrorism.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
September 13, 2006 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd say that usually what we mean by "doesn't work" is precisely that: force may be necessary but is rarely sufficient.
September 13, 2006 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
A roundup with attributed sources is useful, even it it revisits ground some os uf find familiar.
I find the administration less radical than bug-eyed crazy. They believed much of their doctrine, starting with Iraq WMD.
I disagree with Gettysburg on history's judgement, agree that an industrial revolution is in the works, disagree that it is certain to occur in the US.
Some development is happening here but the strongest markets are in Europe.
September 13, 2006 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've buried myself in some Hunter S Thompson literature the past couple of weeks...
Wow, how impressive! Taking the time to read the depraved ramblings of a career drug and alcohol abusing miscreant (who committed the cowardly act of killing himself in the vicinity of his wife and son) and actually finding some merit in the literature, if you can call it that.
Doesn't say much for you, does it, pal?
September 18, 2006 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where are your balls?
I can tell you where are the balls of lib scumbags ... sold lock, stock, and barrel to the high priests and priestesses of NOW, GLAAD, internationalism, egalitarianism, the NAACP, the ACLU, PETA, NARAL, anti-American sedition (i.e. Cindy Sheehan) and the anti-Israeli left.
Their latest cowardly retreat is in the face of Islamo-fascism. Show me ONE leftist correspondent, pundit, blogger, etc, that has avoided criticizing Israel but has condemned Hezbollah and has called for their complete annihilation for their outspoken decree to destroy Israel and kill all Jews.
You won't find one, because you libs are COWARDS who should be the ones beheaded on Al-Jazeera or raped, tortured, and killed by Muslim animals while being held captive in a school building for over 72 hours.
Remember when some Muslim "separatists" (what a nice, PC name your lib pundits labeled these fucking animals) did to 1200 school children and teachers in Beslan, Chechnya on Sept 1, 2004?
of course you don't, you'd rather complain with Christiane Amanpour about how Israel treats Pally quislings on the West Bank.
yea sure, you might have huffed and puffed indignantly over Beslan for about three seconds, but you know you are COWARDS when it comes to calling for the destruction of Islamo-fascism. You know that doing so would make YOU a target and you just couldn't handle that, could you?
Why don't you direct your ire against what's truly a threat to the world, instead of railing against Republicans?
I know why you won't... because you know Republicans won't threaten to behead you on al-Jazeera.
How I despise you people for your cowardice.
September 18, 2006 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
But the main thing which stuck in my mind was the characterization of Jack and Bobby Kennedy as the last two Democrat leaders who held a pathological loathing of their Republican enemies
Only a perpetually stoned loser like HST couldn't see the hypocrisy of two career philanderers who expressed soooo much love for the "people" but treated their wives and children like shit by cheating on them constantly.
Oswald and Sirhan did the world a favor by offing those two SOBs.
Long live the Kennedy curse! Nothing brings me more pleasure than seeing more misfortune befall them. They deserve it.
September 18, 2006 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Fred Dobbs" says: "How I despise you people for your cowardice."
Consider the feeling mutual.
You lack the cojones to post an email address, so stuff it.
September 18, 2006 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was impetuous because there was zero postition study before it was promulgated
Right, people like you have to risk more innocent American lives lost while you "study" and handwring and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk ... meanwhile, your enemy is scurrying around fortifying his position for the next attack.
You libs have no capacity for thinking like warriors and how to kill the enemy before they have the chance to kill you. All you know is how to capitulate and appease others.
September 18, 2006 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
You lack the cojones to post an email address, so stuff it.
And invite more spam and junk mail to clog my server? No thanks. If you want to say something to me, say it here in front of everybody, chump.
Why would I want to converse with you in private? I don't know you.
September 18, 2006 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Mr. Blumethal: After five years removed from being one of Bill Clinton's White House buttboys, I've heard that your lip imprints can still be found on his as well as Hillary's (MUCH bigger) lard ass. Is this true?
And why exactly did you attempt to disrupt the duty of the independent counsel by planting smear stories in the media about Mr. Starr? What a virtuous job you had, how proud you must have been, for having to deny and obfuscate your darling's philandering, lying, vanity, etc. every day.
September 18, 2006 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear mr. Blumenthal: why did you lie by once saying that David Horowitz "abandoned" his wife and children?
And how did that lawsuit against Drudge work out fer ya, huh? Didja collect big bucks? But really, how could your "good" repuation have been harmed, when you really didn't have a "good" reputation to begin with?
September 18, 2006 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
tell us, Tom, what are YOU doing to counter this alleged "inherent immorality," or is it actually "inherent immortality"?
How much of your life's earnings have you given away? How many homeless people are you presently housing? Have you given away your car and now only ride a bicycle? How far are you taking your commitment to lib ideals, if you feel they are superior to conservative ideals?
September 19, 2006 4:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't know if I should bother answering. Any words will be wasted on you but I'll bite, anyway.
One liberal principle is the value of government in improving people's lives, so I vote, directly and indirectly, for programs to do some of those things like providing housing. I ride my bike to the El train to commute, and my car gets pretty good mileage. I don't selfishly complain my taxes should be lower. I ask, instead, for effective action by the government.
Tell us, Fred, what is moral about invading a country that just might, possibly, in the indeterminate future, be a problem? What is moral about deciding in advance that someone is beyond humanity and deserving of torture? What is moral about taxing earned income and not dividends or estates (unearned income). Why should my sweat and effort be taxable and someone's effortless receipt of a lump sum be untouchable?
Go away.
September 19, 2006 6:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
The rules about language and what other folks cannot do applies to breaking up a family.
When I moved into very religious region (Idaho/Utah dominated by Mormons/Latter Day Saints) I was amazed at the amount of divorce and then relatively quick finding another to marry. Family values and traditional families look different for insiders compared non-believers.
Who knew? Who can speak the truth without fear of retribution?
September 19, 2006 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
One liberal principle is the value of government in improving people's lives,
Enslaving people to social programs and robbing them of the incentive to be self-sufficient in NOT improving their lives for the long term. It's a short term fix. You libs can only think for the short term. It's the same way you don't get that the war on Islamo-fascism is going top go on for many many years.
Tell us, Fred, what is moral about invading a country that just might, possibly, in the indeterminate future, be a problem?
Every militant Muslim state (Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq) at present poses a threat to US interests and Israel's interests and safety.
What is moral about deciding in advance that someone is beyond humanity and deserving of torture?
All I need to know to decide what to do with Islamo-fascist prisoners is to recall what was done at Beslan in 2004 and what was done to Daniel Perl and Nick Berg. That's right, Christiane Amanpour and Wolf Blitzer didn't dwell on those incidents very much, did they?
What is moral about taxing earned income and not dividends or estates (unearned income).
Dividends are unearned? What are you smoking, Tom? If I can earn $500 in one hour by selling stock while you have to work all week to earn that same amount, that's YOUR problem, not mine. You should have learned finance in school instead of social work.
September 19, 2006 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Tom Wright, the ubermensch, the man of the people, the People's Populist, always with the right dig on corporations and the lucky Haves of the world (who only ARE Haves because of ill gotten gain right, Tom?)!
Thank you, Tom Wright, the obvious Have Not who reminds the rest of us why many of the middle class deserve to have their dignity stripped because they don't know how to exercise it properly to begin with.
September 19, 2006 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
A little reminder to an apparent Have, or wannabee, that there are more Have-Nots and revolutions do happen. BTW, I exercise my 2nd Amendment rights and would be pleased to embarass you in a shooting contest.
September 19, 2006 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
A little reminder to an apparent Have, or wannabee, that there are more Have-Nots and revolutions do happen.
keep smoking those Havana reefers you enjoy, Tom, perhaps such a revolution will happen in your mind someday. Just don't smoke before firing weapons, you may hit an innocent bystander
September 20, 2006 3:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
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Death Before Dhimmitude
September 24, 2006 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink