Posted on 05/31/2007 9:19:25 PM PDT by gpapa
What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker--"At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Bush needs bashing on the immigration issue!
“One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they’d earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he’d been elected to Reagan’s third term. He thought he’d been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.
Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering. “
Bush family legacy. Except we won’t let Jorge pass amnesty!!
I will do what I can to insure that traitors who vote to sellout my Country are never elected again. Who they are running against is unimportant. Traitors must never be supported. I don't know whether there are enough like me to "crush the party", but I would not be surprised to see a number of Republican incumbent Senators lose their next election.
Well said...I’m 90% with President Bush but disagree on the so called “fix” for illegal immigration.
One thing we should all do and its hard to do is simply not put any politician on a pedestal and place all your hopes and beliefs in him/her.
Look at any election as the choice of two lesser evils... expect them to be turncoats eventually.
That way it saves your blood pressure and just plain disappointment later.
ping
The President's troop surge is working. The Dems' anti-war coalition has been torn asunder by the President. Bush' long term legacy will be a positive one as he will be seen as transforming the Middle East in a positive way.
Peggy Nooner attacking Bush....again! Some of us have left the conservative movement for being anti-business and pro-minimum wage over immigration.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Like his daddy “read my lips” before him—he is a traitor to the ideals that built the country.
She nailed this out of the park. Absolutely crushed it. I left the Republican party years ago and remain an independent, but I still am staunchly conservative. It’s a shame that the morons running that party don’t get it.
This is a great piece...
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who feels this way about Bush. A vague, uneasy feeling. Sort of like an old friend who refuses a simple request
What true conservative doesn’t feel the pain of betrayal by a man who misprepresented himself to his constituents...of course we all feel we were ‘suckered’ by another self-serving politician. My gut feelings when I voted for him in 2000 were right.. GWB would be too much like his father..but where else could we turn? The ominous thing is...it may be too late to recover the party from the shambles he has made of it. And his father’s ineptitude gave us the destroyer Clinton. With a fractured party, will we have another and more socialist Clinton? May God save the Republic ( because this present crop of politicians can’t and won’t!)
New recruit?
I want to see the poll nubmers now! They said they could never go lower!
Well met.
President Bush was right on the war. No question. But if he follows through with illegal alien amnesty, future generations will curse his name.
Nailed It!
“I still have my W ‘04 sticker on the back of my Tahoe, but it’s been quite some time since I was a proud Republican. I’ll vote Republican again because I believe the alternatives are far worse, but I hate knowing that my vote will be viewed as an endorsement of this party and their leadership. I put GWB on a pedestal, and maybe that’s part of the problem for me.”
Would it be better if we were listening to President John F’ing Kerry every day?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.