Plain speaking (Interview with W)

U.S. News ^ | 12/30/2002 | KENNETH T. WALSH

[Leclair10]

Look RLK if conservative is as I get your meaning a governement minimalist, things like that just are not a realistic approach to modern politics as matter of fact the amount of people in this country who are right of center politically is great the amount of people who are very very right of center is few. Newt Gingrich actually said it best on Greta's show a year back you can have a very successful right of center government but you can have a disasterous very right of center government, same applies for the lefties as well you can apply this to 1994 when Bill Clinton was viewed by the American people as to liberal and they hurt his party dearly for it only to vote for him in 1996 when the republicans forced him to moderate his positions and to the american peoples liking. If you talk conservatism as strictly applying the government along constitutional lines and shrinking the other departments as such I think only Pat Buchanon and Ron Paul would support you but if your talking a right of center government with more market based approaches to alot of todays problems such as health care or education you'll find a healthy majority of the public that supports you. As for Bush the guy knows the game ask Anee Richards, John Mccain, Tom Dachle, Dick Gebhardt, Al Gore....... the guys list of victims is impressive and he understands its better to underestimated and surprise then overestimated and dissappoint.

[weikel]

I agree with your strategic analysis.

[justshe]

Very late to this thread but just wanted to commend you on your excellent list of accomplishments. We should start an ongoing thread that is simply additions to this list. Then when the naysayers and the so-called TRUE conservatives want to paint the last 2 years with their 'woe is us' broad brush, PERSPECTIVE could be attained by just linking them to that thread.

Good job, chiller.

[chiller]

...as we were saying....

...let me guess who made those comments....mmmmm....BONO ! No wait, he's not very popular here. Must be #43, my man George 'W'.

His foreign aid comments were made in March, in Mexico, in front of Vicente Fox. Much has changed.

His recent foreign aid announcement was called "Millenium Challenge", I think. It's the equivalent of Rush's "excrement list'. 'Play ball with us, or we cut the foreign aid'...a 'use our money against us, and you're toast' kinda' thing.

AND I neglected to include on my list the way 'W' embarrassed the UN, challenged the UN, and told the UN what a joke they are. I would think you've been waiting for that for a llloooonnngg, lloooonnngg time.

Nothings perfect, but this is our best chance to get back to some common sense. Please consider supporting the guy. You can't ignore what he's trying to do. Or you can.

[MissAmericanPie]

Don't worry, none of us are ignoring for a second what the man is trying to do.

It's pretty pitiful to be so proud of his, for conservative voters ears, snipping at the U.N. as one of his only conservative accomplishments. That was pretty transparent and lame when he then turns around and throws more money at them in Monterry Mexico and cozies up to their Agenda 21 for the western hemisphere.

It became pretty apparent why he supported the Brizilian election of a communist when it turns out he and this communist will be "the two" on the committee for discussing the uniting the western hemisphere into one trading block, code word for no borders. And he loved Clintons U.N. tainted land grabbing E.O.'s so much he decided to keep them.

The list is unending, I could spend over an hour listing them, and may do just that if I have time when I get back from fighting the mall crowds. No one here in Jan 2001 was not thrilled at his victory over Gore, no one here was not beaming with joy and anticipation of a better tomorrow with Bush leading us to victory over the destructive elements in our government. We clung to every little tid bit thrown our way and tried to smile through and defend his, seemingly at the time, liberal blunders.

They were not liberal blunders, turns out they were "Compassionate Conservatism", doh. So, please don't ask us to support a man who clearly does not reciprocate the support. He told conservatives, move your principles far left or get out of the "big tent", well we did get out, what did he expect, that we had no place to go and wouldn't?

Tom Tancredo for President in 2004!

[Mortimer Snavely]

Conservatives are pretty much an embarrassment to the GOP these days. We get a few nice connotation words and phrases thrown our way while policy is made indistinguishable from Carter and Clinton in attempts to "win the center," which has been moving leftward extremely quickly. Pointing things like this out is considered extremely déclassé.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

It is obvious that you, a true conservative, understand the meaning of conservatism more clearly than anyone else , are more enlightenend than we. This may be so, having been around the political scene for so much longer than any one else here. Or so you think.

I suppose your definition of a conservative is some one who interprets the constitution literally. Which most of us here do. I do not view it as a living document. However, the fools that came before W. did, and enacted irreparable harm on our Constitution, via the SCOTUS. The devestating results of which we now all get to suffer with.

If there is a chance to return to the 1776 government formed in strict accordance with the Constitution just written and ratified what would it be and how would you
the Conservative's Conservative effect such a change?

Please enlighten all us non believers out here who only think we are conservative. You sound more like a donkey than an elephant.

[Mortimer Snavely]

"...the way 'W' embarrassed the UN, challenged the UN, and told the UN what a joke they are."

Bush's attempts to be nice to everybody are rather feeble in comparison with Jesse Helms' speech to the UN, which, by the way, embarrassed the GOP to no end. Instead of articulate refutation of the UN we get Carter/Clinton platitudes and policies which keep everyone smiling but conservatives.

[1rudeboy]

Is Tancredo in favor of employment quotas, production subsidies, higher tariffs, and government-dictated industrial policy? I was wondering if he's "conservative" enough for me.

[MHGinTN]

Trust him? Not in this lifetime. Vote for him again? Never. #40 posted by MissAmericanPie Such foot stomping has brought loads of lieberal bilge into the nation's character because of 'dropoutism'. I suspect you may not have voted for him in 2000, perhaps maintaining your lofty position by not casting a vote for president in that election. I grow tired of FR posters citing reasons to not vote for this administration, while leaving the liberal nation killersd to play out their stealth games of division and obfuscation. I suppose it is easiest to just constantly find fault with those in office, but to repeatedly assert one will never vote for the man 'again' smacks of never did.

[MissAmericanPie]

Much to my dismay, I did vote for Bush in 2000, not only that I was dumb enough to go Freep for him on a street corner in Dallas, then in Ft. Worth. I'm not foot stomping I am done with Bush 2, the reasons cited not to vote for him are the same exact reasons for not voting for "liberal nation killers". Bush is just exactly the same if not worse than they, he gets away with more than they do because of people like you, who dump conservatives until election time and that is why I will attempt to see him back in Crawford in 2004.

You guys are not honest enough to admit he has highjacked the Republican Party and taken it on a wild ride far left. You would never sit still for this bull from a democrat, stem cell research, open borders, the Patriot Act, Home Land Security, a billion a year to Mexico in SS, the Farm Bill, 245i, decent people being rousted and stripped searched at the airports, naw, you would be screaming "Police State" and you would be right.

So how about not stomping your foot with me, defend him if you can. You can't can you, you can only get mad at those that are too conservative to support him no matter what. If people like me rid the Republican party of him in 2004, you will be back on our side, the right side. If that extreme is what it takes, it's really on wishy washy unprincipled Republicans, isn't it.

[MHGinTN]

In deference to our past common efforts, I will address one of the 'positions' you wish to cite as 'left', stem cell research. The president cannot stop private research, so he allowed federal funding only using the cell lines already established, with no funding for research to establish new lines, killing new embryos. Such a compromise was not going to satisfy anyone wishing the most extreme position to be the president's approach, but it was the only compromise that wouldn't expose more embryos to exploitation at the hands of givernment funding. It is the responsibility of the Congress to handle further restrictions via new laws, then the president can sign those. That approach is working with cloning and there will be a similar effort regarding stem cell research.

I'm truly sorry that you feel this president ought to take the most striden stances at this juncture, for such positions would work to end pro-life initiatives in the long run without accomplishing the many changes needed. Things got this horrific over decades. If things can be reversed and changed in a decade, I will be surprised. Some things must be addressed asap, like a ban on partial birth abortions. There are congressional voice that will be necessary to this effort, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, so putting your foot down and stating you will never vote for a president who doesn't follow the most striden agenda is conterproductive ... and insisting on making it your mission to denegrate this president really only hurts pro-life causes.

[MHGinTN]

This sort of rhetoric sounds more like a stealth Bagal than a true conservative: If people like me rid the Republican party of him in 2004, you will be back on our side, the right side. If that extreme is what it takes, it's really on wishy washy unprincipled Republicans, isn't it. It serves the despotic democrat methodology to divide and conquer. You're making a good effort at division, to say the least.

[MissAmericanPie]

"Striden stances", "That approach is working with cloning"? Come on MHGinTN, Standford U just announced it will clone human cells, Bush cracked the door open for it.

Let's leave that aside and take on the other issues I listed, or not even that, let's take on the issue of what was promised some of us conservatives by less conservative Feepers. And that was that we would all hold Bush's feet to the fire on issues that he was too liberal on. We would freep, we would be on him like stink on a year old virginia ham. Has that happened? no.

Conservatives have been left lifting the heavy end, and called "strident", "bush haters", "hysterical", while ya'll smile bravey through a proposed billion a year to Mexico in SS, the attachment to the Farm Bill that took the care and feeding of immigrants off the back of their sponsers, where the Welfare Reform Act placed it, and threw it back on the backs of tax payers, and an illegal and dangerous invasion from Mexico, all Americans being thrown into the same pot, guilty of being a suspected terrorist at the airports, and rousted, while arabs pass right through. Buying into the double standard, "none of the highjackers came in illegally through Mexico so there is no need to protect the borders", yet accepting, "all Americans must be treated as potential terrorists even though none of the 9-11 highjackers were anything other than Arab.

Dead silence on CFR, 245i, the ten billion extra to placate the U.N.'s desire to go global with a tax, and only the conservatives on this site howl. Ya'll should be on our side yelling into Bush's face or else what is D.C. to think? They will think all they are doing is fine and move farther left, that is what they will, and are, doing.

These "incremental steps" have landed conservatives in the position of having to fight the mass migration of moderates and liberals into the Republican Party. FR use to be full of fire breathing activism for the conservative way, where did that go? Oh, gee, we have a globalist/socialist in the White House, but he's a Republican so we can just go wheeew that's better than Gore, and that's IT? That's where our activism ends?

Just because ya'll are going to vote for him again doesn't mean you can't challange him when he is wrong, does it?

[MissAmericanPie]

Bush divided and conqured, don't lay it on me. To quote the words of a great President, "I didn't leave my party, they left me".

[MHGinTN]

You appear to like to take pot shots. Why don't you make a list for us here at FR that lists your demands of this administration ... and for that matter, any candidate you 'would' vote for. Oh, and make it a complete list so you don't have the luxury of sallying off in obtuse directions when you run out of passion to denegrate the administration on one or two particular positions. In the end, you don't actually understand politics and operate from an imagined perspective of perfection. Changes made throught the political processes take time and not all stupid spending of taxpayer dollars can be eliminated in one sweep of the presidential pens ... but you know that yet seek to characterize theis administration as leftist for not doing just that. And if they did it, you'd have despotic democrats elected for the next fifty years, if the nation lasted that long following the 'harkari' you want to install asap.

You know I have characterized the ESCR position accurately. You are making an assertion regarding the Stanford cloning, knowing the president could no more have stopped that than you could ... the issue is federal funding for these research 'black arts'. But you rave on, making yourself all the more transparent. You may accomplish even more than trashing Bush, you and your few may reformulate FR to fit your ilk, because very many of we 'not conservative enough for you' members can take just so much foolishness. It happened at other 'conservative' websites (like Luciana) and it can easily happen here. Keep it up. You will win something in the end.

[MHGinTN]

You may characterize the president in any defamatory way you choose, but I will respond this one last time to your mischaracterizations of me: Just because ya'll are going to vote for him again I haven't made that decision yet and you don't offer a thing to help me make up my mind because one finds it hard to get beyond the shrill hate you have festering in your craw as you spew forth with your self-righteous characterizations of the president and any who do not fall in tow with your bilge pipes doesn't mean you can't challange him when he is wrong, does it? You don't have access to the e-mails and faxes I've sent to not just this president but members of Congress, so peddle your tripe somewhere else. I will challenge this president as I see fit and have challenged members of Congress in the past. If you ever get the chance, ask Senator Frist who sent him the fax which blasted him, then admonished him to 'first, do no harm' over his support for open embryonic stem cell research. [I'm just about sick of your self-righteous libertarianesque/ultra-conservative crap. I don't think I'll bother to assist you further with your self-aggrandizement by responding to your bilge. Have a happy Christmas ... and take my name off any ping list you have.]

[MissAmericanPie]

Pot shots that are right on the mark evidently since you can never seem to bring yourself to address my points but engage in, what? Threats? Charges against an ordinary run of the mill conservative of being too ultra conservative, because the party has moved too far left from my unmoved position?

That a conservative who expects that government spending find a line and hold it somewhere is considered too conservative shows just what kind of trouble the Republican Party is in. Thirty two billion for Home Land Security to merge 22 useless agencies into one useless blob, while the two agencies that need to be merged, the FBI and CIA, remain without oversight while they are handed a weapon as powerful as the Patriot Act. The humongus Farm Bill, the less than worthless stripped and very expensive Education Bill, shall I go on?

You seem to want to blame me for the split when it was Bush who sent Rove to California and told enraged conservatives there to adjust or leave the tent. They drove the wedge, I'm suppose to ignore that it's there and take the blame for their actions? Fold? Give up? Go along and get along? I don't think so.

I have no idea who or what Luciana is, and could care less what that veiled threat is about. Obviously you are pleased as punch with the direction the party is headed in, it's obvious you have no plans to address much other than what a bad republican I am, so we will just have to disagree and carry on. See ya

[MissAmericanPie]

I just saw your post #57, you know full well that I mean organized activism by all of FR. BTW they don't read your faxes and emails, you are wasting your time with that approach.

You know, it is the mark of a true liberal to charge someone who lays out undeniable facts as "hateful" while never actually taking the facts head on, much easier to diss the person and take them on. You have nothing to be proud of in having attained that level. And that is what debate has degraded to. As far as hate goes, there is alot of hatred around for conservatives that are un-cooperative with a political agenda that is dead set anti-American coming from both parties. Hope you enjoy where that kind of passivity leads.

[RLK]

Suit yourself. I wash my hands of the matter.