Punter in Chief

Damn good take on this Flag. Sure leaves one to wonder where his head was.There is NO WAY he should EVER have let McCain-Feingold leave his desk with an autograph.Must be HE forgot which Constitution HIS oath was sworn to as well as his successor.As to the spending,this is what "compassionate conservatism" is all about?
Thanks,but no thanks. I'll take mine the old-fashioned way.

I agree with your assessment; as a matter of fact, back in May 2007 I wrote an essay on the Bush Legacy: http://viewfromtheisland.blogtownhall.com/2007/05/18/the_b ush_legacy.thtml

I think his legacy will be that of a badly-failed administration. The economic collapse was due just as much to Bush as to Clinton. BOTH were advocates of "increased minority home ownership" -- in Clinton's case for Blacks, in Bush's case for Latinos -- and fostered policies of relaxed lending practices that fomented conditions leading to the destruction. I didn't even touch on that in my essay, because back in those days the problem hadn't even arisen yet.

NCLB, Scrips for Seniors, bungling the Iraqi occupation, capped by the hysteria leading to the initial "bailout", in which his lack of presidential timbre was clear for all to see.

In 1982, when Reagan was faced with similar economic problems, he just told the country to calm down and let the market work. It did, just fine, thank you.

Not Bush; he was the first one to set his hair on fire.

I'm glad he's gone; good riddance. NO MORE BUSHES!

I just posted a new one; stop by for a chuckle or two.

clyde: I think his heart was in the right place, but his head was stuck in trying to promote "compassionate conservatism" at the expense of the principles his Party had espoused for years. And it is easy to sign bad bills when you're trting to keep a rift from growing within your Party, but if you are going to be a good leader you're going to tick off some of your own. It's like being a parent; sometimes doing what's right isn't going to make your kids happy, but you have to do what is right for them no matter what.

Brian: I'm going to withhold judgment on his legacy for now, because I really believe that we are too close to it to have a clear take on it. But he is certainly going to take some serious hits for many of the things you mentioned, and for some of the things he didn't fight for...like reforming Social Security.

No more BOOSHES!

BOOSH crapped on and thumbed his nose at conservatives by pandering to illegal aliens and refusing to enforce immigration laws,.....refusing to close the border,..and calling patriots and MM "vigilantes".

And to add insult to injury,...coined the term, "doing jobs Americans won't do"!

IMO, he can "go to hell"!

It's really funny, because both you guys raised issues that added to those I named. Good ones, too!

But, Flag, I understand your position.


Here's the thing: what did he really DO? That's the key question.

1 - Good on supporting gun rights, mostly through Ashcroft.

2 - Iraq: right war, wrong reasons, bungled occupation.

3 - There is no #3.

If he'd lost to either Gore or Kerry, we'd probably have already gone through our little "liberal Prez" period we need to periodically endure, and may well now have a CONSERVATIVE in office, because that "compassionate conservatism" Rovian BS would have lost and already be history, maybe along with the GOP's RINOism.

It could have all come and gone before the country ever got into this current financial fiasco brought about by Bush's innate liberalism, and thereby avoided this whole mess.

I lay this whole thing at the door of Bush and the GOP, because they held the reins of power for a loooong time and did nothing to avert it, in fact speeding it along.

Then, when it happened, they made the whole thing FAR worse in the process.


I'll stick by my assessment. I knew at the time Carter was a flaming a-hole, said so, predicted a harsh legacy, and thus it's come to pass.

Same with Bush.

I never bought into that lame PR crap about "Bush kept us safe from further attack". What a load of Bush-wah, frankly!


It's not like al Quaeda's some all-powerful nation-state with unlimited resources that can mount effective international attacks at will. People who make that statement sound like tyro boneheads to me every time they do it.

They spent most of their resources on one big action on which they got lucky, and gained notoriety by doing so... which, based on my not-inconsiderable experience, was their main goal. After all, terrorism is mostly a game of psy-ops, not real action.

Now, according to best analyses, they're broke!

Pah! Bush is getting unearned credit for averting something that MAYBE might have possibly happened if the moon and stars were in proper alignment. Crystal-balling at its worst.

As usual we have much to agree with, with some points of disagreement. I agree that at this moment Bush may not have a great list of accomplishments, but I will not lay the problems of the GOP at his feet or Rove's. Karl Rove was retained by Bush to help him win elections, and he did his job brilliantly and without lying about who his candidate was. Bush never tried to hide who he was, never ran from his record in Texas, and clearly communicated what "compassionate conservatism" meant to him. We should not have been fooled by the stances he took on many issues, because they were stances he always took, going back to his time as Governor of Texas. And the had truth is that he, his father, and John McCain are what the powerbrokers in the GOP always wanted the Party to be; they were the true representatives of the GOP hierarchy, not Ronald Reagan (or Newt Gingrich for that matter).

As for the terrorism thing, maybe he didn't literally protect us from another attack, but he gets some credit from me on the issue. His decision to wage war against an enemy that was already waging war on us was a sea change in our approach to the issue. No longer would we respond to armed attacks against us by dispatching the FBI to investigate, or send the Justice Department lawyers to court to get meaningless indictments against those attacking us. I firmly believe that by showing the willingness to fight back and take the fight to our enemies that Bush has made the terrorists think twice about launching anymore attacks, because there is actually a price they and their allies will pay for attacking us.

I remember Harry S. Truman. I remember his presidency and his popularity. I remember the Truman jokes on television by everyone from Sid Cesar to Milton Berle. No one liked Truman. He was hated. In my 7th Grade Civics class the weekly newspaper was a large maplike bold type news sheet hung on the blackboard and each news item read by someone in the class. In the election year close to November one item in that SEVENTH Grade 'paper' was an article about all 33 presidents and their administration. Grant and Truman were listed as Failures. I think today Truman is looked back upon as one of the great presidents of the 20th Century.It is too soon to judge President Bush XLIII but I don't believe he will be more than a mediocre grade president. He lied to the people on muslims, on illegal immigration and on too many other things. He pursued our enemies about like an overfed dog pursues a fat cottontail. He worried too much about what other nations would think of America and not enough about what America should do to protect herself.

When you say W "lied" about Muslims, what do you mean? If you are talking about the 'religion of peace' message, I don't see that as a lie, but as a statement made to signal Muslims that America was not at war with their religion, but with the fanatics who attacked us.

As for illegal aliens, he never lied about that. He was all for amnesty and never hid it, he just didn't want to call it amnesty. His intentions were always clear and he didn't try to hide them. He was open about pushing for the legitimation of those illegals, which is why so many conservatives were howling at him about it.

And I don't see where he ever sought international approval for his actions as C-In-C; if anything he was willing to try to work with other nations if they wanted to, but he was intent on pursuing what he deemed to be America's national interests whether the international community went along or not.

I do agree with you that GWB may end up as a mediocre President when time has given us a chance to look at what he did in office without the passions that we hold now. I don't think he'll ever bee seen as great, but I also don't think he will end up being fairly judged as horrible. But it all depends on who's doing the judging!

Flag, we're not really in disagreement. Like you, I consider Rove a straw man. But Bush WAS deceptive about his goals, until after his re-election, when he'd no longer have to run for anything; he wasn't at all clear about what "compassionate conservatism" meant -- at least to me, and I'm fairly bright -- until we saw it acted out in the two scamnesty attempts and his hair-on-fire Chicken Littling last Fall with the "bailout".

He seemed more a bungler (Harriett Meiers, anyone?) than the liberal he turned out to really be.

BTW, that amnesty BS cost him Congress, IMO. That was HUGE. He dragged the GOP down with him on that one.

I don't see history treating him kindly.


Buck, gotta disagree with you, too. I don't think Truman is rated anywhere near that highly. He gets chops for using the A-bomb in WW2. He's mostly noted for being a straight-talker --- the Real Deal, not a phony like McNutter.

But other than that, he didn't accomplish much of anything, and I think the height of admiration for him peaked 15 or 20 years ago, and he's kind of sunk back into obscurity.

I DO agree with your assessment of Bush, obviously.

I just re-read your post to Buck, and have to disagree with you. Bush was NEVER open about wanting to amnestize illegal aliens until the issue arose in 2006. He kept that one totally hidden.

And believe me, after Simpson-Mazzoli in 1986, I'd have caught that right away if he had taken a position like that earlier, particularly during his elections. It never came up at all when he ran against Gore and Kerry, and HE sure as hell never raised it.

The best estimates are that about 60% of the illegals currently in the country came in on Bush's watch; CLINTON actually did a better job of border security.

So, Bush let benign neglect be his policy on border security until the amnesty issue became political: no border or workplace enforcement.


Finally, after the 2006 GOP spanking, he started stepping up enforcement efforts -- very reluctantly -- by building some of the fence, some workplace raids, and some beefing up of personnel on the border; obviously an attempt to help his party out in last year's elections.

Too little, too late.

Buck Fush, as far as I'm concerned.

NO MORE BUSHES!

I am not saying that Bush was standing on the rooftops shouting "Let them in!", but his views on illegals was pretty open to me. The fact that he never did anything to close the border, that he never wanted to mention it all told me all I needed to know. When your base sees something as an important issue and you can't ever get around to addressing it, that pretty much tells me what your position is. You just don't want to put your opinion out there to be picked apart by your base AND your opponents. As you called it, his benign neglect was the clue for me!

Check these out for size:
http://www.emailthepresident.com/news/2006/05-15-bush-outli nes-immigration-reform-plan.html

http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol3Issue2/Vo l3Issue2AngrisaniPFV.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/07/bush.immigration/ index.html

And if you check out the 4president.org site you'll see that GWB was advocating changes in immigration law and wanting a comprehensive reform of the system. He claimed that he wanted to increase border security, but during the 2004 election cycle he was pushing a plan to give illegals visas that could last up to 6 years if they managed to stay employed and out of jail. The information was out there, and his claims of wanting to close the border paled when you looked at his plan to let illegals stay for up to 6 years...while trying to get them some amnesty down the road.

look at the dates on those articles; they're all after his election to office. That's my point. If he'd come out with that crap during his first election, particularly during the primaries leading up to it, he'd have tanked in no time.

Or maybe not, as I think about it because the alternative was.... McS**thead!

As I think about it, we were faced with the same problem in 2000 as in 2008: RINO candidates from the GOP.

Well, I drank the Kool-Aid in 2000 and 2004, but never again. That's for DAMNED sure.


I think that's what's happened. The paradigm's changed as a result of the GOP's wasting and/or abuse of their time in power. Bush turned out to be pretty bad as Prez, and a lot of conservatives are simply sick to death of it. He poisoned the well of whatever goodwill was left, and now it's over for the GOP "moderates" as far as a lot of conservatives are concerned.

Bushes seem to have a tendency to do that.

The last article was released in January of 2004, the first month of an election year...and he basically stole the Democrat's idea about immigration, to their chagrin.

As for his first election, he did run as hard to the right as he could, but with McCain as his opponent he didn't have to break that hard to the right. What with McCain calling his own Party "The Death Star" and denigrating conservatives at every turn, it wasn't very hard to garner the votes needed for the nomination.

BTW, I am curious about something. What time do you guys get prime time television programming? Does it start at 8:00 your time or mine (EST)? I have always been curious about that, because I know a lot of sports get broadcast to you on our time.

my comments; I was very careful in stating that his FIRST election was the important one, and where the issue never even hit the table.

Re-elections aren't as important unless a Pres is really unpopular. He's the incumbent, and for a Republican that's usually almost a shoe-in.

Further, against Kerry, the big issues were the war and gun control, which is why we saw Kerry and Edwards staging those phony duck hunts. Amnesty was completely overlooked, and never even became a discussion at all. On top of which, just like last year, both sides agreed on the issue, so it stayed under the radar.

BTW, the gun issue was a biggie against both Gore and Kerry, and IMO is why the Dems don't want to touch it at all at this point. They know they get crucufied over it.

Again, as we look at the original point -- his legacy -- I do think it'll be one of the things he's judged by and saddled with, and it will work against him like so many other issues do. But it was his efforts at scamnesty in 2006 and 2007 that really tell the tale there. That's when the issue took prominence.


On TV, we get regular broadcasts of prime time starting at 8PM local. But as I get satellite, I could actually watch it starting at 5PM if I wanted to, by tuning in the network (as opposed to local channel) broadcast feed.

and while Bush was adept at, as you point out, it seems to me that this issue is hardly limited to him. Avoiding decisions, or more precisely the responsibility associated with doing so, seems to be the main past-time of politicians of all stripes. Just look at how many times Dems have stated the need for Reps to support various bits of legislation. They don't need them for their votes anymore, just to provide political cover.

Here's the million (or should that be billion, or trillion, nowadays?) question for politicians of our time: the buck stops where, exactly?

Here's how Bush lied to us:

1. Islam is definitely NOT a peaceful religion. If you have read the Koran you would understand that you are targeted by the religion to be either converted or dead. The Koran is the "Mein Kampf of the religion. check it out. Nor will I subscribe to the idea of the Old Testament being the same as the Koran. Christains live by the New Testament, nor do I believe you will find one Jewish sect that lives by the Old Testament verbatum. Islam is more than a religion. Islam is an Army of aggression. The Armyof Islam has one mission, that is spreading the religion worldwide. conversion or death lies in wait for all non muslims in the path of the conquering army. All muslims are soldiers in the Army of Islam.The "terrorists" are merely the special forces of the army. Immigrants into the country are spies, disbursing clerks and supply officers for the army. They continually test the atmosphere to see how far they can push without armed confrontation. But the day will come when armed confrontation will be OUR only alternative to conversion. We are at war. We are at war with the Army of Islam. and that army is One Billion strong.

Bush depicted the illegals as , "..decent, honest people who come here for jobs no American will do.."

Well, these "Decent, honest folk" STOLE two jobs from me. 1. Drywalling and 2. Concrete fininshing.
They come here and the ones that work live 8-10 to an apartment, lie on their job apps about number on dependents and end upmaking more than did I. They pay NO insurance hence you get hit by an illegal in a peecup, t.s., ol buddy. They do not have health insurance, car insurance or home mortgage or homeowner's insurance. There are 12-20 Million illegals here, depending on who you are listening to. But I will tell you this: 99% of them the first thing they purchase is a firearm. Weapon of choice is a Llama 9mm. Now you say "So what?"... But 12 Million armed illegals is no longer immigrants, they are an invasion!

Just what jobs are there Americans won't do?

I know it isn't chopping cotton. My father did that.
I know it isn't cleaning toilets. I did that.
And I have a good friend that was a migrant farm worker. Every day he had to compete with illegals and almost everyday he had to fight for his job.

Just what jobs was Bush talking about???

Yeah, the old "jobs no American will do.."

What a crock. That SHOULD read "jobs no American will do... at the same lousy pay an illegal will do it at".

THAT'S really the bottom line on that sorry issue.

The Dems want future voters in their camp through government dependancy, and the GOP wants cheap labor. Pathetic.

NEITHER is worried about our national integrity as a nation and a culture and a political entity.

And neither party is worried about 12-20 Million Illegal Immigrants in this country THAT ARE ARMED!

This is not Illegal Immigration.

This is Armed Invasion!

Brian: You stole my thunder, dude! I was just explaining to my 13 year old son that there is no job that an American won't do; there ARE jobs that Americans won't do at the pay illegals will take. Heck, I remember working in the tobacco fields priming the stalks (that's harvesting to you agribusiness folks) and getting paid very well for it. That was summer employment for a lot of teenagers and adults, and the better you were the more you could get paid. I remember one summer working for a farmer who paid us $10/hr to work his fields, five and a half days per week during our summer vacations. The fields were full of people (black and white) priming tobacco; now all you see are the illegal migrants because the farmers can pay them $4-5/hr. And I wouldn't go back into anyone's field doing that work for less than minimum wage.

Buck: Like I said before (I think), I don't consider Bush calling Islam "the religion of peace" as his lying to America. I see it as a situation where he spoke in a way to assure Muslims that America was not at war with their religion, but with those within it who were at war with us. And even it were a "lie', what damage did it do to America? If he honestly believes that Islam is a peaceful religion, then that's not a lie, just a difference of opinions.

As is so often the case, "great minds think alike"!

Yeah, I remember folding pizza boxes for the next day's deliveries at a Shakey's when I was in college, and busing tables there. I was happy to have the work, too!

Wow....I think we agree. I could definitely add more to the Bush failure list, but I won't do that now. That's too much typing for any day.

Just one question tho: Did you have these qualms when you voted for him 2x? and in retrospect, would you at least give us liberal credit for pointing out the man's flaws and standing up to him, while your party were on their knees for almost his entire 2 terms!!!!

I have no regrets about voting for Bush, because in my opinion the alternatives were worse. I was never going to vote for Al Gore and John F. Kerry, because they were not my cup of tea.

As for giving liberals credit, what credit do you deserve for doing what liberals always do? No matter what policies Bush put forth the Democrats were going to oppose him, just like they opposed his father, and Reagan before him. Opposing W. was simply par for the course.

As for the GOP supporting their own president, why the gall of them! We all know that a Democrat would never support his party's president even if they sometimes disagreed with his decisions! Look, it is possible to oppose your party's president on some issues and support him on others; supporting your party's president and agenda does not constitute being "on your knees"...it constitutes political reality.

It still perplexes me that after the fact and all the damge done, you somehow believe that Kerry or Gore would have done more damage/f@cked up the country more than did your President. I just can’t see how anyone can think that way. It’s sort of a twisted take on the Stockholm syndrome.

While I don’t expect you to be singing the praises for us liberals or joining the ACLU tomorrow, I would expect a little intellectual honesty as well as humility. That is all Liberals opposing Bush or Reagan or Daddy Bush wasn’t just for the fun of it. It was a principled stance against policies that they (correctly) believe would be to the detriment of the overall country.

While I’m sure the GOP takes a principled stance against the spending on philosophical grounds, I find it almost hypocritical. These are the same people who gave Bush a blank check and said nothing during his spending binge. All they did was nod there heads and pass his pork through Congress. Where was the outrage then? Where were the principled stances? Where were the teabaggers?

I am being intellectually honest when I say that I would not have voted for Gore or Kerry. And since they were not elected it would be folly to sit here and say what they would have done, should have done, or could have done. So I refuse to stand around maiing wild guesses or pretending to have regrets about any votes I may have cast.

Besides, from your perspective, it seems that you cannot accept any criticism or objection to what the Democrats are doing as principled, while Democrats never railed against the Bush administration in order to gain political points. Hell, the Democrats were so opposed to Bush that Obama ran against him in the general election as much as against McCain...and managed to win doing it. This depite the fact that McCain had spent the previous 7 years serving as the official thorn in Bush's side.

As for the "teabaggers" (a vulgar term that I really didn't expect to hear from you), during the Bush years no one was proposing the spending of trillions of dollars the government doesn't have to finance projects the people don't want. And when Bush and his band of merry spenders were throwing money away, we were getting in touch with our representatives to express our anger and frustration. The tea parties came apart in large part because the current Congress and administration does not listen to anyone that expresses any criticism or doubt about the spending policies that are going on. When your representatives ignore you in private, you have to take your concerns public.

Besides, according to your liberal allies for 8 years "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Does that not apply now that Democrats are in the driver's seat?

“I am being intellectually honest when I say that I would not have voted for Gore or Kerry. And since they were not elected it would be folly to sit here and say what they would have done, should have done, or could have done. So I refuse to stand around maiing wild guesses or pretending to have regrets about any votes I may have cast.”

That’s fine. All I will say is that I truly believe that neither Gore or Kerry would have been done a worse job that GWB.

“Besides, from your perspective, it seems that you cannot accept any criticism or objection to what the Democrats are doing as principled,”

No. Never said that. I just find it ironic that now these GOPers are objecting to huge govt spending. They were quiet as a church mouse during the Bush years. While their criticism may be principled, it is also politically motivated. But hey, I aint hatin.

“Hell, the Democrats were so opposed to Bush that Obama ran against him in the general election as much as against McCain...and managed to win doing it.”

Well Flag. It wasn’t just Democrats. Your own party distanced themselves from the disastrous cloud that was the Bush years. I mean, I have never heard of a political party avoid mentioning their own party’s incumbent president’s name or not allowing him or any administration official to appear live in the actual convention hall. Sorry, but a live feed from the White House during non prime time viewing hours doesn’t count.

“This despite the fact that McCain had spent the previous 7 years serving as the official thorn in Bush's side.”

Wait….but over 8 years, McCain voted with the Bush Admin over 90% of the time. Wow, what a pain in the booty!! Lol

“As for the "teabaggers" (a vulgar term that I really didn't expect to hear from you), during the Bush years no one was proposing the spending of trillions of dollars the government doesn't have to finance projects the people don't want.”

Really? What about the Occupation of Iraq????

BTW, many of the protestors referred to themselves as “teabaggers”.

“The tea parties came apart in large part because the current Congress and administration does not listen to anyone that expresses any criticism or doubt about the spending policies that are going on.”

True. But come on Flag. Was every protest really focused solely on govt spending & taxes (which Obama is lowering on 95% of Americans)? Also, wasn’t this a NewsCorp Fox News hyped production?

“When your representatives ignore you in private, you have to take your concerns public.”

I agree.

“Besides, according to your liberal allies for 8 years "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." Does that not apply now that Democrats are in the driver's seat?”

It does. Look, I respect the cons right to protest and criticize the President and the Democrats. Quite frankly, I expect it and welcome it. My only gripe is that the cons are dead set on opposing every measure of Obama without even reading the piece of legislation. Instead of then proposing new solutions, they recycle the same Reaganomics that led us to record deficits back in the day and more Bush style tax cuts for the wealthy as well as an emphasis on the free market. Sorry, but we have had 8 years of that. It just doesn’t work. Also, instead of engaging in constructive debate, many cons would rather resort to demagogue Dems as socialists, commies, Marxists, terrorists, anti-American, baby killers, etc. Btw, I criticized those in my party who called Bush a racist, Hitler, Mussolini, etc.

We all can do better. Because in the grand scheme Flag, we all want what’s best for this country and for each other. Hell, I’ll even pay a few extra taxes so you can have great health care and so your kids can get grants (not loans) to go to college. Indeed, we are all in this world together.

It is nice to agree on the big picture issues, but we are not going to see eye to eye on the policies that we think will work to get us there.

As for an incumbent not being intimately involved in an election, your boy Gore distanced himself from Bill Clinton during the 2000 election. He didn't want to be tainted by the Lewinsky mess as he ran for office, so he didn't have Clinton doing a whole lot of stumping for him. As for Bush-McCain, that relationship was never really repaired after the 2000 primaries, so it is not a big surprise that McCain didn't want Bush helping him out. And when your incumbent has such low favorability ratings, the only thing he can do drag you down with him.

As for the tea parties, I wasn't at every tea party, but I can tell you that the people in Winston-Salem were protesting a bevy of issues. Some were protesting the tax situation, some were upset about government bailouts of the auto industry and banks, others were upset about the spending in the stimulus package, while others were angry about the rising deficit spending being done by the administration. The media wanted to play it as a tax protest because of the date, but the organizers scheduled it for tax day because they knew that the media would cover it then, but not on April 22nd. And Fox did heavily promote the tea parties and they shouldn't have done it. But at least their news coverage was neither fawning as many liberals (who probably didn't watch the coverage) think, nor hostile the way CNN covered it. The commenatry shows, especially Hannity, were all for the tea parties; but they are commenatry shows and they get to be advocates.

Finally, I didn't hear anyone that participated in the tea parties calling themselves 'tea-baggers'. The first I heard of that term was from MSNBC (surprise, surprise), and then it spread to CNN, NBC, and the rest of the MSM.