Even the right wingers are moving away from Bush and his lies!

GOP
Running as the UnBush
Bush's unpopularity means that GOP office seekers, including its 2008
presidential aspirants, may see themselves as better off by shunning
the party's incumbent in the White House
Vicki Haddock, Insight Staff Writer

Sunday, December 18, 2005


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Ask Americans if they'd prefer the next president to be similar to
George W. Bush -- or completely different -- and surveys show a
burgeoning market for the UnBush.

Just as the law of supply-and-demand dictates, we're now witnessing an
abundant supply of politicians challenging, critiquing, even
castigating the president. That would be typical of the Democrats, of
course, but it's now becoming the norm among Republicans -- including
some who aspire to the White House.

The latest Time magazine poll indicates that by a 60-to-36 percent
majority, people want somebody with different policies from Bush's.
Nearly a majority reported a "very negative" impact on their view of
Bush from the Iraq war and rising gas prices -- and more than a third
also threw in the deficit, hurricane-recovery efforts, the economy, and
the sorry fate of his much-heralded Social Security "reform"
initiative, which now languishes in a state of political rigor mortis.

After months of careening downhill, Bush's poll numbers have started to
creep up. Still, a Gallup Poll found that even among Republicans, 7 in
10 voters are predisposed toward a candidate who disagrees with Bush.

Little wonder the GOP's White House aspirants have exhibited a Bush
allergy. In last month's elections, even a Republican conservative such
as Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum avoided campaigning alongside Bush
(and party moderates such as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave
him a cold shoulder, too.)

The exception is the GOP's biggest innate UnBush, Arizona Sen. John
McCain, who appears at his side, but also makes a habit of publicly
second-guessing some of his moves. With McCain polling so high that
pundits joke he may become president by acclamation, Bush needs McCain
more than McCain needs him -- or so figures Bruce Reed, head of the
Democratic Leadership Council. As Reed wrote in the online magazine
Slate: "Vice President Cheney's public star has fallen even farther
than Bush's. Doing events with McCain is proof that Bush understands
you don't campaign with the vice president you have, you campaign with
the vice president you might wish or want to have."

Conservatives still may want to be tagged as "Reagan Republicans," but
that me-tooism does not embrace either President Bush I or II. The
House of the GOP Iconoclast is rising -- witness presidential wannabes
such as McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Chuck Hagel.

Of course, all this could change if George W. Bush can turn things
around. He's certainly trying, as last week's series of appearances --
justifying the war effort while admitting some mistakes -- showed.

Evidence mounts, though, that the Bush administration no longer holds
carte blanche.

The Republican-controlled Senate recently voted overwhelmingly to
demand the White House produce quarterly updates on conditions for
withdrawal in Iraq, and to allow some terrorists convicted by military
tribunals at U.S. detention camps to appeal in civilian courts. GOP
lawmakers also balked at Bush's move to approve oil drilling in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and refused his wishes on the 2006
budget bill.

It hasn't been that long ago that the president's surrogates could
paint GOP critics of Bush as kooky heretics. Case in point: Sen. Hagel,
who would like to emerge in 2008 as the leading UnBush in the GOP quest
to retain the White House.

His heresy used to be second-guessing U.S. policies toward Iraq -- long
before it became fashionable to do so. Audaciously self-righteous, he
announced six months ago: "The White House is completely disconnected
from reality. ... It's like they're just making it up as we go along.
The reality is that we're losing in Iraq." Under Bush, the Republican
Party had pulled "loose of its moorings."

At the time, he was a lone voice crying in the Republican wilderness,
and retribution from Bush loyalists was swift. Kenneth Tomlinson, who
as then-head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting calibrated PBS
guests on an ideological scale to prevent a leftist tilt, tallied Hagel
as a liberal. The conservative National Review magazine archly referred
to him as "Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-France."

Actually Hagel's home state -- Nebraska -- rarely is mistaken for the
native soil of Napoleon Bonaparte. A self-made millionaire, Hagel last
year earned a 100 rating from the Christian Coalition, a 94 percent
score of support for the president on roll-call votes, an "A" from the
National Rifle Association and an 87 percent score from the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce.

But he sports an UnBush view of foreign affairs, an UnBush disdain for
what he sees as U.S. overreach in the world, and a contrarian's
skepticism that indicates he hasn't quaffed the party Kool-Aid. He also
is a decorated Vietnam vet, which gives him credibility when he takes
on Bush over the war in Iraq.

The oldest in his family whose father died when he was a teenager,
Hagel volunteered for combat, was wounded twice including an explosion
that blew out his eardrums and left shrapnel in his chest, and was
awarded two Purple Hearts.

"One of the things that always strikes me about people who've had this
kind of searing experience is that there are some things that are
beyond politics," said Frank Partsch, recently retired editorial page
editor of the Omaha World Herald.

During one of Hagel's memorable appearances on the Sunday morning talk
show circuit -- this one on July 3 -- he was asked whether his
criticism wasn't undermining his president and the war effort. He
answered by making an analogy to Vietnam:

"I watched 58,000 Americans get chewed up over a process (from) 1961 to
1975 ... when, in fact, we had a policy that was losing. And the
members of Congress were interestingly silent and absent in asking
tough questions. As long as I'm a United States senator, I will do
everything I can to ensure that we have a policy worthy of these brave
young men and women. ... And when I don't say anything, I fail those I
served with, I fail those 58,000 ... and I fail the families of those
who already lost their lives in Iraq and been maimed."

Hagel, who is sometimes nicknamed McCain Lite, deflects queries about
his ambitions by quoting McCain's observation that any politician who
isn't in detox is rumored to be running. But he also acknowledges the
White House holds a unique allure, which might explain his recent
forays into Iowa and New Hampshire .

"He's taken a lot of heat from Republicans, but I'll give you the other
side of it -- it's very clever," said John Hibbing, professor of
political science at the University of Nebraska. He noted Hagel's
opposition to abortion and gay rights appeals to the religious right,
and his scolding about profligate spending appeals to fiscal
conservatives. "So you're left with this one issue, this one
increasingly unpopular issue, where he was there first saying we just
screwed this up entirely.

"If Iraq continues to be an albatross for the Republican Party, let's
just say Chuck Hagel might not look bad at all in 2008."

Hagel got there first, but now more Republicans are slipping out of the
bunker to express misgivings. Cynics see it as a craven move to save
their own political fortunes; others say their change of mind about
Iraq is no different from that of the electorate as a whole.

Only 13 Republicans voted against the measure to require Iraqi war
progress reports. Its author is GOP Sen. John Warner of Virginia, a
veteran of World War II and the Korean War who chairs the Senate Armed
Services Committee.

Among those supporting the bill was another GOP presidential hopeful,
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, a physician who is
auditioning for the 2008 role of "compassionate conservative" by
distancing himself from Bush's ban on most stem cell research.

Increasingly, Bush and Cheney have clung to the qualified support of
men like McCain and Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, who
maintain the invasion of Iraq was a noble cause.

Yet just last Sunday, Graham told NBC that at "every turn, we've
underestimated how hard it would be. We've paid a price in the past for
our missteps." He also has begun to castigate Bush and fellow GOP
legislators for overspending. "If we really want to do well in 2006, we
need to have fiscal discipline like Republicans campaigned on," he
said. "We have lost our way as a party. Our base is deflated, and
taxpayers don't see any difference between us and the Democrats."

McCain is at the vanguard of the challenge to the Bush administration
on the question of torture. When Cheney made a trip to Capitol Hill to
fight for wiggle room -- to craft an exception permitting the CIA to
torture captives in certain circumstances -- McCain trumped him by
citing his experience as a prisoner of war during Vietnam: "Many of my
comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading
treatment, a few of them even unto death. But every one of us -- every
single one of us -- knew and took great strength from the belief that
we were different from our enemies."

The McCain provision prevailed with 90 Senate votes, and on Wednesday
the House joined the de facto rebuke, forcing Bush to accept a
provision he had threatened to veto.

It has been more than a half-century since a presidential election in
which neither the sitting president nor vice president was on the
ballot. Presidents are bound by pride to champion their own records,
and vice presidents are bound by loyalty, and smart politics, to do so,
even while delicately stressing their differences. But, the 2008
campaign will be another story -- and it looks like there will be
nothing delicate about it

wrote in message
ups.com...
Even the right wingers are moving away from Bush and his lies!

GOP

See ya' Kevin. *ploink*

JimH wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
Even the right wingers are moving away from Bush and his lies!

GOP

See ya' Kevin. *ploink*

It's about time. Now, I take it, seeing that you don't want to see any
of my posts, that you will also refrain from commenting to me?

JimH wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
Even the right wingers are moving away from Bush and his lies!

GOP

See ya' Kevin. *ploink*

Good work, JimH.

It only takes a few adults to break the cycle.

If more people would recognize that an uncivil response (even to a
blatant troll) demeaned the responder ever more than the troller there
would be a lot fewer 200-post threads consisting primarily of
"neener-neener" in the group. Basskisser always manages to make you
upset, so avoid Basskisser and avoid getting upset. Better to be
thought of as a guy who has the strength and discipline to ignore the
bait than as a guy who gets suckered in every time.

While there may be a few political cut 'n pasters who think they're on
a mission from one version of God or another here- most of the time the
practice is engaged primarily to get other people angry and fan the
flames. None of us can control how or what somebody else is going to
post, but we can all influence the tone of the group by concentrating
on what we post or how we respond. If some of the cut 'n pasters (those
who don't think they're on a mission from God) stop getting the
response they're looking for some of them will stop the two-a-day
political trolls in the NG.

"The conservatives do it too!" or "The liberals started it!" doesn't
make political cut 'n pasting right, productive, useful, or politically
effective. People who post primarily political cut 'n paste are sending
us all a signal that they're out to destroy the NG. If we respond the
way they hope we will, (and we too often do), they win. Why let them?

(I'll be passing by the post office today, and I'll check once again
for the book).