About three weeks ago, I noted that the president’s biggest failures were that he and his team have not been aggressive enough in taking on the hostile media while he has shown an excessive loyalty to appointees. We have seen the latter failure in his treatment of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez who has done a terrible job defending the firing of the attorneys as being the president’s prerogative. “They serve at the pleasure of the president,” the Attorney General should have said, “and he did not think they were doing the job to which they had been appointed.”
As I reflect on the president’s actions not merely in the past few weeks, but, by and large, throughout his second term, it seems that he had failed on another score. And he has failed conservatives more than any other group in the sense that, unlike Ronald Reagan, he has not used the bully pulpit of the presidency to promote our ideas.
Maybe it’s just that he’s not a conservative.
His failure points to the biggest problems American conservatives have — one of image. All too many, particularly in the gay community, define us by our most extreme elements. They don’t seem to understand basic conservative ideas. For that matter, many of our elected representatives don’t seem to either.
Given the media bias against conservatives — and the failure to define us as we are — it’s unfortunate that we don’t have a high profile figure, with ready media access, standing up for the ideas of the Gipper. Perhaps that’s why so many on the right are hoping former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson enters the presidential race. So much did the GOP respect this man’s rhetorical skills that the party tapped him to deliver the Republican response to then-President Clinton’s State of the Union address, just months after Thompson was first elected to the Senate in 1994.
What the Bush administration is forgetting is a fundamental rule; people who hate you no matter what you do should have no bearing on your decisionmaking.
I mean, look at Pelosi; she’s so insanely hateful towards Bush that she’s flown to Syria, put on her hijab and head covering so as to show her submission to Islam, and started kissing the toes of one of the primary state supporters of terrorism in the world, claiming that these poor misunderstood folks only want “peace”, that’s why they keep funding terrorist attacks against Israel and others, and that she and her fellow Democrats are going to do everything they can to give Syria everything it wants. She’s spiting everything for which she allegedly stands so that she can be anti-Bush.
Someone pointed out that she only wore the scarf for a visit to a mosque where there was a shrine to John the Baptist. The rest of the time she went without. (And the scarf was tied like a good Catholic lady would tie it.)
Her going at *all* is an issue though. Big one.
#2:
Yeah, only Republick Congressmen are allowed to go to Syria to talk to Syrian leaders.
As for Dan’s
Whatever happened to St. Rudy? I thought he was the great new face of conservatism. Or maybe not:
Wow, government funding of abortion? Isn’t that the liberal position? But the idea that because something is a Constitutional right means government has to pay for it sounds like something from the really looney left.
When you say one of conservatives’ biggest problems is “image”, I assume you mean the problem of achieving, or being granted, an accurate public portrayal of substance (which is different from, say, “packaging” or “spin”)?
prez bush has not defended conservative actions for nearly eight years….
it is as if he intends on the dems to win in 2008………..
Gueyanna is gone…………..the right will not have him.
McCain is also gone……….
Tancredo………good guy will wait and see…….
Fred Thompson……….need more info on gun control, abortion, illegals…………….
once again I’m laughing to the point of tears. You just can’t come out and say what a disaster this guy is on his own; the commentary has to be laced with “look how those bad liberals/main stream media have done it to him”. Why don’t you just jump on the bandwagon with your conservative bethren (like Andrew Sullivan) and admit that Bush is, without a doubt, the biggest simpleton to ever sit in the White House?
Ian – most of us on the right aren’t all that thrilled with the three(?) Republican supplicants that went over to lick Assad’s boots.
But three no-name Republicans going over there aren’t near as significant as the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE.
Question for the Dems: if/when a Democrat becomes president, how will he/she deal with the 535 commanders in chief/secretaries of state in the Congress? They’ve set a precedent.
The rabid cynicism and derangement unleashed by the left over the last few years won’t magically disappear on Jan 20, 2009 when Hillary takes the oath. The Dems have birthed a monster that will consume them (and the rest of us, too).
The moonbat-right of the Clinton years were real slackers compared to the left.
GPW I think you’re right. In politics if you aren’t on the offensive you are on the defensive. One reason the Clintons invented the “war room” is too immediately respond to any attack. Political, personal or about policy. When you are constantly retreating, and retrenching you end up within your own 20 yard line. And any coach or general will tell you it is tought to excell from that position. The Democrats the past 6 years especially with the help of the old media, constantly attack. While Republicans defend and are trying to get out facts, the Dems move on to another “scandal”. My faves so far are Romney and possibly Fred Thompson. Each with money to compete. Mitt is smooth and young and conservative enough for me. Fred is more a true conservative and very smooth and articulate as well. Both compare favorably to the screeching Hilary.
Wonder what the liberal feminists think of Queen Nancy wearing a burka in Syria?
#6:
You mean this one, Robert? If you’re talking about setting precedents, then what Hastert did seems to fit the bill, not what Pelosi is doing now. And don’t you worry, HRC will not be sworn in as President in 2009; she’ll not survive the primary.
#8: It was not a burka, it was a scarf, not unlike what Laura Bush and Condi Rice have worn in similar situations. BTW, have you ever tried to get into St. Peter’s in Rome in shorts?
Incidentally, concerning abortion… military hospitals can not perform abortions (public funding), yet they do. And have. I know a sailor who had two pregnancies terminated in military hospitals. Why? Because they were tubal-whatsits. She badly wanted to become pregnant and have children but you can’t carry to term with the baby in your fallopian tube. Although military hospitals are forbidden from performing abortions they could end her pregnancies because there were legitimate medical reasons to do so.
So, if you asked me, I’d answer that public funds should be used for abortions in some circumstances. The quote has Giuliani saying it’s a “right” but it also says that he said “some” abortions should be paid for. Which ones? We all know already that he’s pro-choice. So what about this is news?
Unfortunately, Ian, Hastert’s actions were AGAINST terrorists and insurgents, who were operating more freely since their puppet Leahy and the other Democrats in Congress were blocking aid to the Columbian government to fight them.
Again, Pelosi followed the Democrat model, and assured Assad, Hizbollah, and Hamas that she and the Democrat Party would do everything in their power to help them subdue Israel, kill Jews, and carry out their plans.
Like I said, Ian, aren’t you glad that your party’s leadership supports terrorists who want to wipe Jews off the face of the earth?
Yeah, only Republick Congressmen are allowed to go to Syria to talk to Syrian leaders.
Love that typical, gutless liberal excuse.
“But, but, but the Republicans did it!! WAAAAAHHHHH!!!!”
Obviously, we shouldn’t expect better from the liberals (but that goes without saying).
TGC: That’s what Robert said, above: The Dems set a precendent so the Republicans will do it (i.e. “But, but, but the Democrats did it!!”). I believe he is correct. There is no moral high-ground in politics (not just now, but ever) – both parties are (have been, will be) filled with scoundrels.
I don’t know it for a fact, but it would not surprise me in the least if there were Congress-critters going to Germany before war was declared (and we are not at war with Syria, although it is arguable that we should be).
>Fred Thompson……….need more info on gun control, abortion, illegals…………….
Fred Thompson’s communication ‘style’ is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Steve Forbes, articulate and full of good ideas, couldn’t win the office of Dog Catcher and he’s still more interesting than Thompson. If Thompson is being promoted as the Great Hope, then the GOP has an image problem far greater than I suspected.
Ideas are important, but only if you can get elected to act upon them or are in a position to influence those who are. Bush isn’t a good President, but he was able to beat weak Democratic challengers. (The same is true for Reagan. It is simplistic not to recognize that part of Reagan’s effectiveness was due to a demoralized Democratic Party.) This time (2008), the GOP nominee’s competition will be much tougher and I still think Rudy is the best of a wide and varied field. But then I’m not a conservative.
it’s a joke that you “conservatives” are finally realizing what a charlatan this administration is. oh so conservativly fiscal…so much so that he’s spent more than any administration since lbj. oh, and what a social conservative he is…whipping up a frenzy that gay people don’t deserve equal rights, fully knowing a federal marriage ammendment is about as likely as federal help to katrina victims. this man is a filthy liar, stating rhetoric simply to shore up his base. guess it’s not working as self-identified republicans have fell from 50% o 37% under his reign.
oh, and if you think the media is liberal-leaning, then you’re only showing more of your ignorance. since 9/11 there were way too few questions asked by the media. they completely caved in the run-up to the iraq debacle, now at a $300 billion price tag and thousands of lost lives. had the press done its job as serving the interests of the people, we might not be in this mess. hell, even that bastion of liberal news outlets, the new york times, sat on the nsa domestic spying story for over a year – a year in which bushco was reelected. had the times released that story prior to the election, perhaps 59,000 ohioans would have changed their minds and voted for the better choice.
sorry, but you had your chance to jump ship. if you still support this disgusting administration, you’re going to drown too in your own ineptness and inability to think rationally.
Dan, at the risk of irritating more of your readers, I’d like to respectfully dissent from your characterization that the problem for conservatives is either a) people just don’t understand or b) Bush43 ain’t doing a good enuff job being true enuff to the pure enuff conservative mime.
The problem is that conservatives have become more concerned about spinning their image than they are about advancing the cause… and when you write that conservatives don’t have a major media-savvy guru to ascend the bully-pulpit for them, you are dismissing all those radio pundits, TV pundits, weekly news pundits, MSM organs of the Right, the public advocacy organs of the conservative movement like Weekly Standard, American Spectator, et al that barrage America every single stinkin’ day with banter, outrage, rants and hissey fits.
I dare say that the problem isn’t spinning an image… it’s what lays below the image… it is the extreme nature of the image. As extreme as some on the farLeft. Crying out loud, the problem is that conservatives get so extreme because extreme sells to conservatives –it’s the nature of the beast. And conspiracy theories… and suspicion of all things govt… and purity tests… etc.
Just like on the farLeft… the problem isn’t image, it’s what the movement stands for. The problem isn’t that Bush43 hasn’t been a good spokesman for the conservative cause –on many conservative issues, he’s carried the water like GayLeftBorgTypes carry the water for Democrats. The problem is the movement and what the leaders of the movement have done to it.
It’s that the cause has been laid bare and bleeding by your own conservatives in Congress who allowed political expediency (keep majority at all costs) to retain page-perverting and corrupt members, tossed out silly impractical bills to appease the farRight fringe, exercised power like drunken sailors on shore leave, and forgot that political power is a privilege, not a right of the Right.
The problem isn’t GeoBush43. The problem is that conservatives have painted themselves into the corner… and it’s an ugly, ugly spot of discordant colors. Don’t use Bush to try to excuse the excesses of conservatives, Dan. This is about the conservatives over-reaching, abusing power, and the political temper of average Americans changing.
Frankly, the answer isn’t in recruiting a wanna-be RR part deux in Fred Thompson. The GOP isn’t doing a remake of the RR story in 2008. The answer begins when conservatives take responsibility for losing the House and Senate… and taking America on a literal joy ride in their Daddy’s convertible on policy issue after policy issue. Shortly after the electoral victory in 2006, you tried desperately to spin the elections as a vindication of conservatives… sort of “look, even the Dems in the Senate are conservative now”. Pure spin. What needed to be said is that conservatives, drunk with power, had lost their bully pulpit because they turned their back on virtues espoused for others, but not applied to them. And a whole lot more; a whole lot more.
Conservatives don’t need a spokesperson guru to manage their image. They need to return to their virtues/principles and begin to accept their own role that contributed to their overthrow last fall. I dare say, even RR or BarryGoldwater couldn’t have saved conservatives from themselves.
“President’s Failure to Promote Conservative Ideas”? Right, more spin. The problem is that conservatives in Congress defined what it means to be a conservative in America and American voters weren’t buying it anymore. And I hope for the sake of the GOP, the GOP doesn’t, either.
The problem is that conservatives, the ultimate in anally retentive political purists rearranging deck chairs on the Titantic, overplayed their hands while serving in Congress… they porked up the budget, porked up the pages, porked over the voters. Conservatives need a few years in the wilderness to wander and find themselves. It isn’t about image or spin. The political center is shifting back to moderation and reality… I hope the Republic and Party can survive til then.
I guess Nancy Pelosi’s state craft isn’t going so well. Now Israel’s Olmert is accusing her of lying.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173879247562&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Nancy lied but it’s only Jews that will die so…
LOL….well, well, the coward rightiswrong shows his face again after cutting and running when asked to explain his praising Democrat homophobia.
Meanwhile, as far as your whining and crying about government spending, rightiswrong, keep in mind that, if Democrats like yourself had gotten your way, domestic spending on two bills in particular — the Medicare prescription drug benefit and No Child Left Behind — would have been twice as high, half the protections and restrictions, and double the fraud.
NDT the great thing about the post ’06 election is that most leftist Democrats are being themselves. The Mondale wing of the party is no longer a wing it’s the whole damn thing. The ’08 argument will be fought against the back ground of whether the country is that socialist.
rotf, you guys are history not to mention a bunch of phuckups. your days of whining are coming to and end. have a listen to chapins new album. there, the gut of america is expesed. good luck losers.
i find it so revealing that you all are just now figuring out what critically thinking peeps have known for six years. rotf,the paper bag wins again….. “Maybe it’s just that he’s not a conservative.” well no sh!t sherlock, he’s a neocon fascist.
I’m still leaning towards Newt for President, he both has the ideas and the skill to communicate them; but I could see Fred Thompson as VP and enforcer.
I had great hopes that GW Bush, once in office, would be able to deliver on his promise to craft a “compassionate conservative”-path between the right-wingers and the business-progressives. He certainly was an improvement over Gore; and we only had the choice of Bush or Gore. And after each disappointment in his execution of the policy, I still demure that Gore or Kerry would have screwed things up even more….but there’s no ideological nor philosophical framework; just policies poorly-communicated and defensive in nature.
markie of the lower case clan, do tell us… without using the DailyKos talking points, what exactly makes Bush43 a “neocon fascist”? By the way, markie, “neocon” means New Conservative and it refers to a group of former liberal (Democrats) who switched Parties and joined the GOP at the beginning of the post-Watergate era… folks like DanielPatrickMoynihan, JeanneKirkpatrick, BenWattenberg, PaulWolfowitz, DickPerle, etc
Maybe you meant paleo-cons? Again, try to put down the DailyKos talking points, think for yourself, construct an answer based on information, not taunts.
I bet you can do it… heck, even keogh and sean have done it in the past.
“I bet you can do it… heck, even keogh and sean have done it in the past.”
Boy, M-Matt, talking about setting the bar so low to the floor…
Regards,
Peter H.
you don’t know history matt. lol dumb downstate troll. and btw i don’t do the dailykos, i first read wonkette though. maybe you should too. and it’s fascist as in waving the flag and caring the cross. bush is a disgrace. and you can’t change that.
Markie – please define “fascist”.
This isn’t for the ones who blindly follow
Jingoistic bumper stickers telling you
To love it or leave it, and you’d better love Jesus
And get out of the way of the red, white and blue
This isn’t for the ones who buy their six packs
At the 7-Eleven where the clerk makes change
Whose accent makes clear he sure ain’t from here
They call him a camel jockey instead of his name
No this is for the ones who stand their ground
When the lines in the sand get deeper
When the whole world seems to be upside down
And the shots being taken get cheaper
This isn’t for the ones who would gladly swallow
Everything their leader would have them know
Bowing and kissing, while the truth goes missing
Bring it on the crows, putting on his big show
This isn’t for the man who can’t count the bodies
Can’t comfort the families, can’t say when he’s wrong
Claiming I’m the decider, like some sort of messiah
While another day passes and a hundred souls gone
This is for the ones that I see above me
Three little stars in a great big sky
Light for the world and hope for the weary
They try
This isn’t for the ones with their radio signal
Calling for bonfires and boycotts they rave
Exhorting their listeners to spit on the sinners
While counting the bucks of advertising they’ll save
This isn’t for you and you know who you are
So do what you want ‘cuz I know that you can
But I’ve got to be true to myself and to you
So on with the song, I don’t give a damn
He defined plagiarist at least.
Ah, first they come for the poets.
Gene, poets 1st? Please no; I want them to take the lawyers first.
markie, we’re still waiting for you to define the “neocon” phrase you toss around like a DailyKos slur-festival goer. Come on markie, you can do it. I know you can: neocon… define it for me.
(ed.: This feels like trying to get an apology out of GrampaGryph for wild-assed, flat out lies.)
Neocon -juuuuuuuuuuuus
Facist- anyone I disagree with, regardless of politics, ideology, or anything else.
Hah, it’s the new markie to reality dictionary.
The_Livewire :
That’s why I coined the termed “Useless Idiot” for him… he’s so predictable even Lenin wouldn’t be able to get any benefit from him.
rotf, american, i am the only true american . so full of yourself. rotf. learn to critically think.
markie, it’s been a few days… still having trouble thinking of a rational way out of your silly claim that the neocons are responsible for everything bad in society?
Geez, you haven’t even defined the term yet. I’m sure you can do it if you’ll just put down the kool-aid, take off the foil hat and think on your own for a tad. Come on, markie, you can do it.
Define neocon for us.
“rotf, american, i am the only true american.”
Really, marxist? From which tribe do you hail? Cherokee? Delaware? Apache?
Swatting you down is so easy, it’s pathetic.
Try again.
Regards,
Peter H.
whoa, that is your point of view not mine pencildick.
oh, poor downstate troll. you’d think that a god-deluded, brown-shirted social darwinist like yourself would do better than wrapping yourself in a cloak of desrved guilt. how else could you come up with the statement:”the neocons are responsible for everything bad in society?”
markie: you ignorant slut. why do come here?
I think marxist is really Arianna Huffington in disguise. Know how I can tell? Both of them type in broken English and have different ways of saying “The Jews are our misfortune.”
Regards,
Peter H.
markie, a little more dodge than spin there that time but you still have failed to define what YOU meant by the term neocon… even though it’s clear from your earlier use of the term you don’t know what it means beyond the nominal DailyKos slur.
Come on markie, six attempts now to define it and you’re still missing the target by a mile or more.
Tell us what you think “neocon” means… at least the way you use it.
You can do it, markie… you’re a couple of wrenches shy of a toolbox, but try to complete the task.
Peter, good one! Funny that.
jews??? i love jews. if it wasn’t for jews, i’d never get to eat at tapawingo. now there are those jews who defend their existence in israel with the delusional god whine of “he promised it to us”, “he said it was to be our home”, “it’s right there in the talmud so it has to be the truth”, who are to be lumped in the same fruitcake heap as pat robertson. now huffington, well how does one say it without coming right out and using a string of expletives that end in the c word??? i swear, if you put huffington and gore in the same room the level of the whine would result in mass suicide.
“good one” indeed. rotf. must be that brown shirt vinnie and grade school gene both got their GEDs at regents.
markie, cunning banter doesn’t get you to the finish line. Follow the lead of your twice-elected CIC George W Bush and complete your own little mission: define neocon for us, markie… beyond the DailyKos slur.
been there. done that. learn to read. ps, i don’t read the kos.
Of course he’s not a Kozby Kid. Poor thing can barely spell, let alone read.
Regards,
Peter H.
markie, nice try at dissuasion but you didn’t define neocon… just tossed it out like a slur. Try it this way, markie: “Neocon, to me, means….” and then just fill in the blank.