Is George Bush Conservative?

Annie

Diamond Member
Nov 22, 2003
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Peggy Noonan takes aim and :2guns:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110007291
PEGGY NOONAN

'Whatever It Takes'
Is Bush's big spending a bridge to nowhere?

Thursday, September 22, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

George W. Bush, after five years in the presidency, does not intend to get sucker-punched by the Democrats over race and poverty. That was the driving force behind his Katrina speech last week. He is not going to play the part of the cranky accountant--"But where's the money going to come from?"--while the Democrats, in the middle of a national tragedy, swan around saying "Republicans don't care about black people," and "They're always tightwads with the poor."

In his Katrina policy the president is telling Democrats, "You can't possibly outspend me. Go ahead, try. By the time this is over Dennis Kucinich will be crying uncle, Bernie Sanders will be screaming about pork."

That's what's behind Mr. Bush's huge, comforting and boondogglish plan to spend $200 billion or $100 billion or whatever--"whatever it takes"--on Katrina's aftermath. And, I suppose, tomorrow's hurricane aftermath.

George W. Bush is a big spender. He has never vetoed a spending bill. When Congress serves up a big slab of fat, crackling pork, Mr. Bush responds with one big question: Got any barbecue sauce? The great Bush spending spree is about an arguably shrewd but ultimately unhelpful reading of history, domestic politics, Iraq and, I believe, vanity.

This, I believe, is the administration's shrewd if unhelpful reading of history: In a 50-50 nation, people expect and accept high spending. They don't like partisan bickering, there's nothing to gain by arguing around the edges, and arguing around the edges of spending bills is all we get to do anymore. The administration believes there's nothing in it for the Republicans to run around whining about cost. We will spend a lot and the Democrats will spend a lot. But the White House is more competent and will not raise taxes, so they believe Republicans win on this one in the long term.

Domestic politics: The administration believes it is time for the Republican Party to prove to the minority groups of the United States, and to those under stress, that the Republicans are their party, and not the enemy. The Democrats talk a good game, but Republicans deliver, and we know the facts. A lot of American families are broken, single mothers bringing up kids without a father come to see the government as the guy who'll help. It's right to help and we don't lose by helping.

Iraq: Mr. Bush decided long ago--I suspect on Sept. 12, 2001--that he would allow no secondary or tertiary issue to get in the way of the national unity needed to forge the war on terror. So no fighting with Congress over who put the pork in the pan. Cook it, eat it, go on to face the world arm in arm.

As for vanity, the president's aides sometimes seem to see themselves as The New Conservatives, a brave band of brothers who care about the poor, unlike those nasty, crabbed, cheapskate conservatives of an older, less enlightened era.

Republicans have grown alarmed at federal spending. It has come to a head not only because of Katrina but because of the huge pork-filled highway bill the president signed last month, which comes with its own poster child for bad behavior, the Bridge to Nowhere. The famous bridge in Alaska that costs $223 million and that connects one little place with two penguins and a bear with another little place with two bears and a penguin. The Bridge to Nowhere sounds, to conservative ears, like a metaphor for where endless careless spending leaves you. From the Bridge to the 21st Century to the Bridge to Nowhere: It doesn't feel like progress.

A lot of Bush supporters assumed the president would get serious about spending in his second term. With the highway bill he showed we misread his intentions.

The administration, in answering charges of profligate spending, has taken, interestingly, to slighting old conservative hero Ronald Reagan. This week it was the e-mail of a high White House aide informing us that Ronald Reagan spent tons of money bailing out the banks in the savings-and-loan scandal. This was startling information to Reaganites who remembered it was a fellow named George H.W. Bush who did that. Last month it was the president who blandly seemed to suggest that Reagan cut and ran after the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon.

Poor Reagan. If only he'd been strong he could have been a good president.

Before that, Mr. Mehlman was knocking previous generations of Republican leaders who just weren't as progressive as George W. Bush on race relations. I'm sure the administration would think to criticize the leadership of Bill Clinton if they weren't so busy having jolly mind-melds with him on Katrina relief. Mr. Clinton, on the other hand, is using his new closeness with the administration to add an edge of authority to his slams on Bush. That's a pol who knows how to do it.

At any rate, Republican officials start diminishing Ronald Reagan, it is a bad sign about where they are psychologically. In the White House of George H.W. Bush they called the Reagan administration "the pre-Bush era." See where it got them.

Sometimes I think the Bush White House needs to be told: It's good to be a revolutionary. But do you guys really need to be opening up endless new fronts? Do you need--metaphor switch--seven or eight big pots boiling on the stove all at the same time? You think the kitchen and the house might get a little too hot that way?

The Republican (as opposed to conservative) default position when faced with criticism of the Bush administration is: But Kerry would have been worse! The Democrats are worse! All too true. The Democrats right now remind me of what the veteran political strategist David Garth told me about politicians. He was a veteran of many campaigns and many campaigners. I asked him if most or many of the politicians he'd worked with had serious and defining political beliefs. David thought for a moment and then said, "Most of them started with philosophy. But they wound up with hunger." That's how the Democrats seem to me these days: unorganized people who don't know what they stand for but want to win, because winning's pleasurable and profitable.

But saying The Bush administration is a lot better than having Democrats in there is not an answer to criticism, it's a way to squelch it. Which is another Bridge to Nowhere.

Mr. Bush started spending after 9/11. Again, anything to avoid a second level fight that distracts from the primary fight, the war on terror. That is, Mr. Bush had his reasons. They were not foolish. At the time they seemed smart. But four years later it is hard for a conservative not to protest. Some big mistakes have been made.

First and foremost Mr. Bush has abandoned all rhetorical ground. He never even speaks of high spending. He doesn't argue against it, and he doesn't make the moral case against it. When forced to spend, Reagan didn't like it, and he said so. He also tried to cut. Mr. Bush seems to like it and doesn't try to cut. He doesn't warn that endless high spending can leave a nation tapped out and future generations hemmed in. In abandoning this ground Bush has abandoned a great deal--including a primary argument of conservatism and a primary reason for voting Republican. And who will fill this rhetorical vacuum? Hillary Clinton. She knows an opening when she sees one, and knows her base won't believe her when she decries waste.

Second, Mr. Bush seems not to be noticing that once government spending reaches a new high level it is very hard to get it down, even a little, ever. So a decision to raise spending now is in effect a decision to raise spending forever.

Third, Mr. Bush seems not to be operating as if he knows the difficulties--the impossibility, really--of spending wisely from the federal level. Here is a secret we all should know: It is really not possible for a big federal government based in Washington to spend completely wisely, constructively and helpfully, and with a sense of personal responsibility. What is possible is to write the check. After that? In New Jersey they took federal Homeland Security funds and bought garbage trucks. FEMA was a hack-stack.

The one time a Homeland Security Department official spoke to me about that crucial new agency's efforts, she talked mostly about a memoir she was writing about a selfless HS official who tries to balance the demands of motherhood against the needs of a great nation. When she finally asked for advice on homeland security, I told her that her department's Web page is nothing but an advertisement for how great the department is, and since some people might actually turn to the site for help if their city is nuked it might be nice to offer survival hints. She took notes and nodded. It alarmed me that they needed to be told the obvious. But it didn't surprise me.

Of the $100 billion that may be spent on New Orleans, let's be serious. We love Louisiana and feel for Louisiana, but we all know what Louisiana is, a very human state with rather particular flaws. As Huey Long once said, "Some day Louisiana will have honest government, and they won't like it." We all know this, yes? Louisiana has many traditions, and one is a rich and unvaried culture of corruption. How much of the $100 billion coming its way is going to fall off the table? Half? OK, let's not get carried away. More than half.

Town spending tends to be more effective than county spending. County spending tends--tends--to be more efficacious than state spending. State spending tends to be more constructive than federal spending. This is how life works. The area closest to where the buck came from is most likely to be more careful with the buck. This is part of the reason conservatives are so disturbed by the gushing federal spigot.

Money is power. More money for the federal government and used by the federal government is more power for the federal government. Is this good? Is this what energy in the executive is--"Here's a check"? Are the philosophical differences between the two major parties coming down, in terms of spending, to "Who's your daddy? He's not your daddy, I'm your daddy." Do we want this? Do our kids? Is it safe? Is it, in its own way, a national security issue?

At a conservative gathering this summer the talk turned to high spending. An intelligent young journalist observed that we shouldn't be surprised at Mr. Bush's spending, he ran from the beginning as a "compassionate conservative." The journalist noted that he'd never liked that phrase, that most conservatives he knew had disliked it, and I agreed. But conservatives understood Mr. Bush's thinking: they knew he was trying to signal to those voters who did not assume that conservatism held within it sympathy and regard for human beings, in fact springs from that sympathy and regard.

But conservatives also understood "compassionate conservatism" to be a form of the philosophy that is serious about the higher effectiveness of faith-based approaches to healing poverty--you spend prudently not to maintain the status quo, and not to avoid criticism, but to actually make things better. It meant an active and engaged interest in poverty and its pathologies. It meant a new way of doing old business.

I never understood compassionate conservatism to mean, and I don't know anyone who understood it to mean, a return to the pork-laden legislation of the 1970s. We did not understand it to mean never vetoing a spending bill. We did not understand it to mean a historic level of spending. We did not understand it to be a step back toward old ways that were bad ways.

I for one feel we need to go back to conservatism 101. We can start with a quote from Gerald Ford, if he isn't too much of a crabbed and reactionary old Republican to quote. He said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have."

The administration knows that Republicans are becoming alarmed. Its attitude is: "We're having some trouble with part of the base but"--smile--"we can weather that."

Well, they probably can, short term.

Long term, they've had bad history with weather. It can change.

Here are some questions for conservative and Republicans. In answering them, they will be defining their future party.

If we are going to spend like the romantics and operators of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society;

If we are going to thereby change the very meaning and nature of conservatism;

If we are going to increase spending and the debt every year;

If we are going to become a movement that supports big government and a party whose unspoken motto is "Whatever it takes";

If all these things, shouldn't we perhaps at least discuss it? Shouldn't we be talking about it? Shouldn't our senators, congressmen and governors who wish to lead in the future come forward to take a stand?

And shouldn't the Bush administration seriously address these questions, share more of their thinking, assumptions and philosophy?

It is possible that political history will show, in time, that those who worried about spending in 2005 were dinosaurs. If we are, we are. But we shouldn't become extinct without a roar.
 
IS Bush Conservative? About as much as Guiliani is. Not as much as i'd like him to be. He is conservative on Defense. He believes in a big military and defending the country. When it comes to the money though, he might as well be Clinton. The money is flowing out of Washington these days would make Jimmy Carter look fiscally responsible.

I doubt he'll change anytime soon, but he has been good enough on the defense that his glaring defeciencies in finance are ALMOST passable. Anymore money comes flying out in the form of a medicare bill or something and all bets are off.
 
I doubt he'll change anytime soon, but he has been good enough on the defense that his glaring defeciencies in finance are ALMOST passable.

Oh yeah, he's done a great job "defending" our country. Doesn't anyone remember the "Bin Laden determined to attack in the US" brief we learned about from the 9/11 commission? Instead of reading the brief, Bush was on vacation at his dude ranch. What a great defender! Not! :lame2:
 
Hagbard Celine said:
Oh yeah, he's done a great job "defending" our country. Doesn't anyone remember the "Bin Laden determined to attack in the US" brief we learned about from the 9/11 commission? Instead of reading the brief, Bush was on vacation at his dude ranch. What a great defender! Not! :lame2:
Gee I can read away from school, even grade papers and write lesson plans. Your point?
 
George Bush is a flat-out socialist. Oh, he may not be the type of socialist that today's self-described socialists like. But remember, there's more than one wing of socialism.

But the White House is more competent and will not raise taxes, so they believe Republicans win on this one in the long term.

If democrats had any bit of sense, they would hammer home the point that taxes are not the only way the government can extract money from the private economy. Borrowing isn't just a tax on future generations, it also soaks up private sector funds that could have been used for non-government spending. Soak up enough money from investors, and the interest rates start going up...which brings us to method #3--lean on the Federal Reserve and start cranking up the printing press! The ONLY thing that matters is: what percentage of the GNP is government spending. Any other talk is just a smokescreen.

Of course, the democrats can't do that because they were never afraid to use borrowing and inflation either. I'm afraid the only way the government will ever stop spending is when they default on their loans and their credit rating drops to zero.

edit: http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=19635
 
Gee I can read away from school, even grade papers and write lesson plans. Your point?

If you really can't comprehend the point of what I said then I have trouble believing that you can even walk and chew gum at the same time. :confused:

This president hasn't done anything right during his presidency. Any attempt to candy coat this sinking ship is wishful thinking. Bush is less popular right now than Nixon was during Watergate.

historical bush approval ratings

Harsh reality paints Bush into corner
Bob Herbert - New York Times
Friday, September 23, 2005

Maybe, just maybe, the public is beginning to see through the toxic fog of fantasy, propaganda and deliberate misrepresentation that has been such a hallmark of the George W. Bush administration, which is in danger of being judged by history as one of the worst of all time.

President Bush's approval ratings have tanked as increasing numbers of Americans worry that their president, who seems to like nothing better than running off to his ranch to clear brush and ride his bike, may not be up to the job.

The most recent New York Times/CBS News Poll strongly indicated that the public --- tired of the war-without-end in Iraq and dismayed by the federal response to the catastrophe in New Orleans --- "has growing doubts about the president's capacity to deal with pressing problems."

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found for the first time that a majority of Americans do not see Bush as a strong and decisive leader. In an article in USA Today, Carroll Doherty of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center said of Bush: "He's lost ground among independents. He seems to be starting to lose ground among his own party. And he lost the Democrats a long time ago."

Reality is caving in on a president who was held aloft for so long by a combination of ideological mumbo-jumbo, the public relations legerdemain of Karl Rove and the buoyant patriotism that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. The Bush people were never big on reality, so sooner or later they were bound to be blindsided by it.

There was already a war going on when Katrina came to call. I've always believed that war is a serious matter. But the president was on vacation. Dick Cheney was on vacation. And Condi Rice was in New York, taking in the sights and shopping for shoes. That Americans were fighting and dying on foreign soil was not enough to demand their full attention. They were busy having fun. So it's no wonder it took a good long while before they noticed that a whole section of America had been wiped out in a calamity of biblical proportions.

What Americans are finally catching onto is the utter incompetence of this crowd. And if we didn't know before, we're learning now, in the harshest possible ways, that incompetence has bitter consequences. The body count of Americans killed in Iraq has now passed 1,900, with many more deaths to come. But there's still no strategy, no plan. The White House hasn't the slightest clue about what to do. So the dying will continue.

Bush's "Top Gun" moment aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln was 2 1/2 years ago. It was another example of the president in fantasyland. The war was a botch from the beginning. Bush never sent enough troops to get the job done, and he never provided enough armor to protect the troops that he did send. Thin-skinned, the president got rid of anyone who had the temerity to suggest he might be wrong about some of the decisions he was making.

Here at home, even loyal Republicans are beginning to bail out on Bush's fiendish willingness to shove the monumental costs of the federal government's operations --- including his war, his tax cuts and his promised reconstruction of the Gulf Coast --- onto the unsuspecting backs of generations still to come.

There is a general sense now that things are falling apart. The economy was already faltering before Katrina hit. Gasoline prices are starting to undermine the standard of living of some Americans, and a full-blown home-heating-oil crisis could erupt this winter. The administration's awful response to the agony of the Gulf Coast has left most Americans believing that we are not prepared to cope with a large terrorist attack. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.

This is what happens when voters choose a president because he seems like a nice guy, like someone who'd be fun at a barbecue or a ballgame. You'd never use that criterion when choosing a surgeon, or a pilot to fly your family across the country.

Bush will be at the helm of the ship of state for three more years, so we have no choice but to hang on. But the next time around, voters need to keep in mind that beyond the incessant yammering about left and right, big government and small, Democrats and Republicans, is a more immediate issue, and that's competence.

Harsh Reality Paints Bush Into Corner
 
LOL Herbert from NY Times is really persuasive. Sheesh :rolleyes:
 
Hagbard Celine said:
Oh yeah, he's done a great job "defending" our country. Doesn't anyone remember the "Bin Laden determined to attack in the US" brief we learned about from the 9/11 commission? Instead of reading the brief, Bush was on vacation at his dude ranch. What a great defender! Not! :lame2:

if you new that one day i will walk up behind you and sucker punch you would you be able to prevent it.....forever?

what would your reaction be......

to go home and get a blow job or to hunt me down and kick the shit out of me
 
what would your reaction be......

to go home and get a blow job or to hunt me down and kick the shit out of me

If it were me, I'd call a thug to kick the shit out of you while I was getting the bj. But that's just my style. :2guns:
 
BaronVonBigmeat said:
George Bush is a flat-out socialist. Oh, he may not be the type of socialist that today's self-described socialists like. But remember, there's more than one wing of socialism.

Hm, I've been thinking of Bush more like a liberal and Hillary as a socialist.

However, if Bush is a "flat-out socialist", then Hillary must be a flat-out communist.
 
Is Bush Conservative?

bush_jesus.jpg


Hmmm, that's a tough one.
 
Hagbard Celine said:
Is Bush Conservative?

bush_jesus.jpg


Hmmm, that's a tough one.

I think... you just may have crossed the line! Does "fire and Brimstone" ring a bell...or "Soddam and Gommorah" not nice to equate mortal with immortal!
 
HEY!!!!!!!!! WTF???? KATHIANNE!!!!! Leave my reputation out of this. I DIDN"T SET UP THAT PHOTO OP TO ASSOCIATE BUSHY BOY WITH YOUR SAVIOR, WHITE HOUSE PUBLIC IMAGE PEOPLE DID!!!!!!

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!! THEY PUT HIM IN FRONT OF THAT MURAL TO ASSOCIATE HIM WITH THE CHURCH!!!!!! YOU THINK IMAGES LIKE THAT HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT????? THIS IMAGE WAS ENGINEERED TO APPEAL TO BUSH'S CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN BASE. DUUUHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

:blowup:
 
think... you just may have crossed the line! Does "fire and Brimstone" ring a bell...or "Soddam and Gommorah" not nice to equate mortal with immortal!

If, in the 21st Century, a grown person still believes that a deity can rain down fire and brimstone, then I have lost all faith in the human species.

Thank you Archangel for destroying my faith in man kind. You alone are responsible. Thanks for nothing.
 
Hagbard Celine said:
If, in the 21st Century, a grown woman still believes that a deity can rain down fire and brimstone, then I have lost all faith in the human species.

Thank you Kathianne for destroying my faith in man kind. You alone are responsible. Thanks for nothing.
:laugh: At least you didn't blame GW. I guess I can take one person on a messageboard. :rolleyes: YOU made the choice to post it here.
 
Hagbard Celine said:
If, in the 21st Century, a grown woman still believes that a deity can rain down fire and brimstone, then I have lost all faith in the human species.

Thank you Kathianne for destroying my faith in man kind. You alone are responsible. Thanks for nothing.

why are you attacking Kathianne...I Archangel said this not Kathy...a reading comprehension problem here?


then again maybe there was a pm involved...my bad!
 
archangel said:
why are you attacking Kathianne...I Archangel said this not Kathy...a reading comprehension problem here?
LOL, he's so mad he got the posts confused. He's mad that I didn't like what he posted-the pick of GW and Jesus. Hey, he got you to come to MY defense, the man is a miracle worker! :thup: He'll find it hard to get that we don't all get along, all the time!
 
Hagbard Celine said:
If, in the 21st Century, a grown person still believes that a deity can rain down fire and brimstone, then I have lost all faith in the human species.

Thank you Archangel for destroying my faith in man kind. You alone are responsible. Thanks for nothing.

are we that desperate? It was a medifore..you brought up the picture to make a point! you alone are responsible for the outcome...another liberal diatribe and running from stupid examples of debate!
 
Hey, if you guys are so outraged that that lowlife Bush would associate himself with Jesus, then take it up with him! I think this picture clearly illustrates Bush's conservatism. Afterall, the thread is called "Is Bush really a conservative" isn't it? This image was designed to send a message: that Bush holds traditional Christian conservative ideals!

I think the only right thing to do is repair the unwarranted attack on my reputation. :halo:
 

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