Posted on 06/12/2002 5:19:42 AM PDT by Elkiejg
Cowboys, in the scornful imaginings of East Coast liberals, are simple-minded guys who are too quick to reach for their six-guns. Real life cowboys were pretty good poker players. So is the Texas "cowboy" in the White House, as Democrats who were trying to take partisan political advantage of Sept. 11 have learned to their sorrow. Bush saw them and raised them, and he's holding the aces.
Bush's proposed Department of Homeland Security is the largest and most important government reorganization since Harry Truman pushed the National Security Act of 1947, which unified the military services in the Department of Defense, and created the Central Intelligence Agency.
Though sweeping in scope, little in the plan is original. A consolidation of border security agencies had been proposed in two widely ignored commission reports in 1999 and 2000, and the Bush plan is similar to a bill introduced by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa).
Bureaucratic reshuffling, in and of itself, does little to protect us from terror, and can be a distraction to those who are performing this critical task. What really matters is that sufficient people and resources be devoted to the task, and that managers be held accountable for their performance.
But organizations have consequences. Most of the people in the border security agencies are decent, patriotic, hard-working men and women who are as frustrated as you and I with bureaucratic stovepiping, incompetence, and inertia. But currently they work in departments where security is an afterthought.
An immediate benefit of the reorganization will be to get the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration out from under Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, who - by making air travel more bothersome and expensive without making it more safe - is presiding over incipient disaster.
Putting the Transportation Security Administration into a larger agency with a broader perspective could put some boundaries on the empire-building of TSA Administrator John Magaw, who has been raping the Border Patrol and the Secret Service to build up a largely superfluous air marshal force.
A Bush trait which is sometimes a virtue and sometimes a vice is his loyalty to people, even when their performance has been sub-par. When Bush picked Mineta to be the lone Democrat in his Cabinet, he couldn't have known the job he gave him would become important. By taking the Coast Guard and TSA out of Transportation, he limits the ability of Mineta to do harm without publicly embarrassing him.
The Bush plan is sound in concept and bold in scope. What is most impressive about it is that it was prepared without word of it leaking. It's nice to know our government can keep some secrets.
The Bush plan is even better politics. It guarantees Congress will do little else for the remainder of this session except work on homeland security, denying Democrats opportunity to raise issues about which they'd rather talk.
Democrats can either agree with Bush on homeland security, which won't help them politically; or oppose him, which likely will hurt, since opinion surveys indicate more than 70 percent of Americans support the Bush plan.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) especially has to be squirming. If he pushes homeland security through the Senate this session, he'll be handing Bush a major triumph. If he doesn't, Democratic "obstruction" in a "do-nothing" Senate will be a major issue in the elections this November.
Serves him right for his cheesy attempt to imply Bush was negligent on Sept. 11.
Democrats like Lieberman and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Cal) who have been pushing for a Department of Homeland Security can feel, with justification, that Bush has "stolen" their issue. But that's the prerogative of presidents. Now Democrats know how Republicans felt when Bill Clinton embraced welfare reform.
Bush should lavish praise on Lieberman and Harman, and have them over to the White House to consult on details. It's the right thing to do, and it's good politics. I'm sure the Democrats will be happy to come. But I don't think they'll want to play cards with their host while they're there.
A few of us are watching and making side bets on the game. We think the game is being played with a cold deck, we know that Socialism is the house and that its rake is onerous, also we know even the best of players will go broke if they stay at the table too long and the rake is too high. This nation has been playing at the Socialist table for seventy years and the toll has been heavy. Many on this forum are optimistic on the future but some of us are putting our money on being prepared for the worst. One thing is for sure; could turn out to be the biggest gamble of all.
Hold on thar, podnuh!
I'm as Edmund Burke conservative as you can get, Mr.!!!
Conservatism is the respect for institutions that have worked well in the past, while liberalism is the adolescent arrogance to think that you know better than the hundreds of generations before you and are going to change the whole system around to make it right in one swell foop.
Well, then, according to Burke, a wholesale revolution of any status quo is de facto LIBERALISM. Likewise, a man of conviction walking into the White House and abolishing the IRS by decree would not be conservative at all! A man of conviction would halt all activities by the government not spelled out in the constitution, but a true conservative would set a course to get you back over a generation or so....much longer than "the whiners" on this board would tolerate. A conservative will try to gently redirect things in the manner of the wisdom of their elders and past institutions (the things proven to work), where as liberals radically alter things (typically for the worse....if it works don't fix it.)
That being said, I hope you will understand the position I come from. I am not a moderate, but a true conservative that eschews revolution as chaotic and dangerous. Those on this board that decry Bush for not being a man of conviction would probably be able to get us into much trouble if they held the reins of power for even 30 seconds!!!
Am I trying to start an argument? No. Am I exhausted with the foolish armchair QB'ing on here that doesn't give any credence to the inertia of the massive government? You betcha.
Put a foolish kid in a Miata and he may zip in and out of traffic at 70 mph. Put that kid on a clunky tractor and he may roll it over on top of himself at 5 mph.
The federal gubbmint is big and clunky (due in part to liberal demmys and pubbies both) and trying to turn it on a dime like so called "conservative die-hards" would like is far worse than having W offend their strongly held, but perhaps poorly thought out beliefs.
So by your definition I guess you're on board with social security as it is with no changes. It has worked well in the past. It has saved us from needing to take tax money to pay for those that didn't know how to save all their lives. And a majority of the population supports it.
What about abortion? The abortion rights group has a slight edge over the pro-life group, so does that mean it's working?
What about the IRS? Why on earth would a conservative (as you define it) want to change anything at all? After all, the US is the economic powerhouse, so our tax structure must be working.
Come to think about it? I guess the revolution was a liberal thing. Why did we need to get rid of the king? Taxation without representation was working fine, in fact, Great Britain was the most powerful nation in the world under that system.
Also how does campaign finance reform advance his conservative agenda? Or the bloated farm bill and the Kennedy Education bill?
For campaign finance reform, I guess you can say the existing laws weren't working because we didn't enforce them; therefore, we need more laws restricting the parties.
For the Education bill, I guess you can say education has been failing; therefore, increasing the education departments funding and mandate will help?
For the Farm Bill, I guess you can say our farmers need more money to not grow crops and capitalism doesn't work with farmers markets.
Now that just sounds absurd, so unless GW is one great planner I think he does a lot of things for political expediancy. He could have a master plan that by increasing these departments he knows they are doomed to fail; thus, allowing us to finally get rid of them once and for all. I find that hard to believe because he hasn't setup himself in such a way to pull that off.
If he said, we will try to let the education department fix our problems. We will increase their funding beyond what they request, but if we don't see improvements in Math by X%, Reading by X%, and Science by X% all funds will be withdrawn and the taxes that raised those funds sent back to the tax payers.
Or--unlike the chrome-and-rhinestone Kennedys and the trashy Clintons--being of royal blood.
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.