Rick and I got the rear speakers hooked up today - and got the front speakers hooked up CORRECTLY. Thus, the sound is AWESOME. Wait, one more time. AWESOME. The sound in this living room is nearly as good as it is in a movie theater. We haven't run the rear wires below the carpeting yet.
We cooked up enough food for twenty homosexuals, made another twenty jell-o shots, filled up the refrigerator with food. I got a bunch of little things done, to make the whole place more nested.
Mitch claims he's coming in the morning to pick up his bed, his clothing, his shoes, etc. That would be .. um, great! I just want him to leave his TV, but that's unlikely.
Enrique is going to help me with an exercise program that I've wanted and he has. YAY for Rick!
My Sunday off tomorrow. Strange, and not. Two Sundays speaking on anxiety and then we're off to E's birthday party, and another Sunday off.
Our reunion website is now LIVE LIVE LIVE! Next, I'll be flogging Tom to get my business website up and operating. WHOOP!.
DJHJD
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Thurs-day of reckoning
I started this post, and didn't finish it. The Time Warner cable connection was up, but the wireless wasn't working. Babs worked from home today. I worked on a bunch of stuff, and cleared off her desk for the most part. The reunion website is frustrating the snot out of me. It's taking forever, and the problem seems to be with the hosting company, not with us.
A big weekend coming up. Ruby's now acting like she's schizo - half of the time, the rear shocks aren't working, the rest of the time, they're working fine. Today, I had a meeting down in Clear Lake to check out the leased space for the church, and she rode great all the way down there. On the way back, she rode like a Big Wheel.
The leased space is fabulous - I have to prepare a revised lease proposal tomorrow and get it over to R&R for delivery to the landlord.
And, we move in five weeks. WOW.
Edgar now says that they'll probably come visit in the fall. By then, the house should be painted, the landscaping done, the upstairs bedrooms finished up.
A big weekend coming up. Ruby's now acting like she's schizo - half of the time, the rear shocks aren't working, the rest of the time, they're working fine. Today, I had a meeting down in Clear Lake to check out the leased space for the church, and she rode great all the way down there. On the way back, she rode like a Big Wheel.
The leased space is fabulous - I have to prepare a revised lease proposal tomorrow and get it over to R&R for delivery to the landlord.
And, we move in five weeks. WOW.
Edgar now says that they'll probably come visit in the fall. By then, the house should be painted, the landscaping done, the upstairs bedrooms finished up.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Tuesday that follows Monday
Tomorrow is when TWC comes out and I ditch AT&T, formerly known as SBC for good. YAY. I'm hoping it works out great.
N8 bought himself a new car. A black Escalade. Very zippy. E went to Paris today - so he's off the matrix for two weeks.
N8 bought himself a new car. A black Escalade. Very zippy. E went to Paris today - so he's off the matrix for two weeks.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Monday, Monday ver. 778.01
Watching "Good Night, and Good Luck." It's the damned same thing that we're experiencing right now! This is just insane! Nonsense and insane.
A nice, peaceful evening. I cleaned up the patio tonight, as much as I felt like. Moved the clay pots, to try to cover over a former flower bed that Barney is lying in regularly. I also spent some time thinking about colors for the house after July 1 when I get it secured in my name. The Behr website has some pretty cool selection tools, and offers suggestions based on current "fashion" and color combinations. In fiddling aruond with that, I picked out a nice color scheme. Belvedere Cream for the exterior walls, Toffee Crunch for the trim, Black Orchid for the doors and shutters, and Creamy White for whatever trim is left.
But, it must wait until later. I also picked out some new exterior lighting fixtures, which would, in combination with the paint, make this place look MUCH better.
I thought we would have some rain here today; Nicole called saying that they had lost power in their building. Just some sprinkles.
Did a property tax protest on this property today. Talked to two other people about tax protests for their properties - told 'em they were already undervalued.
Now, I'm watching Oz, Season one, episode one.
A nice, peaceful evening. I cleaned up the patio tonight, as much as I felt like. Moved the clay pots, to try to cover over a former flower bed that Barney is lying in regularly. I also spent some time thinking about colors for the house after July 1 when I get it secured in my name. The Behr website has some pretty cool selection tools, and offers suggestions based on current "fashion" and color combinations. In fiddling aruond with that, I picked out a nice color scheme. Belvedere Cream for the exterior walls, Toffee Crunch for the trim, Black Orchid for the doors and shutters, and Creamy White for whatever trim is left.
But, it must wait until later. I also picked out some new exterior lighting fixtures, which would, in combination with the paint, make this place look MUCH better.
I thought we would have some rain here today; Nicole called saying that they had lost power in their building. Just some sprinkles.
Did a property tax protest on this property today. Talked to two other people about tax protests for their properties - told 'em they were already undervalued.
Now, I'm watching Oz, Season one, episode one.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Salvation may be at hand
Washington Post article
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Salvation may be at hand
Washington Post article
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Bush's Base Betrayal
By Richard A. Viguerie
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01
As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush was a Rorschach test. Country Club Republicans saw him as another George H.W. Bush; some conservatives, thinking wishfully, saw him as another Ronald Reagan. He called himself a "compassionate conservative," which meant whatever one wanted it to mean. Experts from across the party's spectrum were flown to Austin to brief Bush and reported back: "He's one of us."
Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.
Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.
Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.
In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.
We're still waiting.
Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.
Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.
The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
For all of conservatives' patience, we've been rewarded with the botched Hurricane Katrina response, headed by an unqualified director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which proved that the government isn't ready for the next disaster. We've been rewarded with an amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. We've been rewarded with a war in Iraq that drags on because of the failure to provide adequate resources at the beginning, and with exactly the sort of "nation-building" that Candidate Bush said he opposed.
Republicans in Congress and at the White House seem oblivious to the rising threat of communist China and of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Despite the temporary appointment of conservative John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the current GOP leadership keeps shoveling money to the world body despite its refusal to change.
As for the Supreme Court, Bush's failed nomination of Miers, his personal lawyer, represented the breaking of what we took as an explicit promise to appoint more Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases, and it was an inexcusable act of cronyism.
Conservatives hope that John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito will turn out to be conservatives, as we were promised, but we are aware that six of nine previous Republican appointees to the Supreme Court turned out to be liberals or swing voters. And none of Bush's Supreme Court nominees had a significant paper trail as a conservative legal scholar. That sends a message to conservative lawyers and judges: If you want to be on the Supreme Court someday, hide your conservatism.
But conservatives don't blame the current mess just on Bush. They recognize the problem today is also at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
For years, congressional Republicans have sold themselves to conservatives as the continuation of the Reagan revolution. We were told that they would take on the Washington special interests -- that they would, in essence, tear down K Street and sow the earth with salt to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
But over time, most of them turned into the sort of unprincipled power brokers they had ousted in 1994. They lost interest in furthering conservative ideas, and they turned their attention to getting their share of the pork. Conservatives did not spend decades going door to door, staffing phone banks and compiling lists of like-minded voters so Republican congressmen could have highways named after them and so there could be an affirmative-action program for Republican lobbyists.
White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks.
In today's Washington, where are the serious efforts by Republicans to protect unborn children from abortion? Where is the campaign for a constitutional amendment to prevent liberal judges from allowing same-sex marriage?
Instead of conservative action on social issues, the Republican-controlled House has approved more taxpayers' money for an embryo-killing type of stem cell research. And it passed a "hate crimes" measure that could lead to the classification as "hate" of criticism of homosexual activity. And in the Senate, Republicans have let key judicial nominees languish, even when Bush has nominated conservatives for lower courts. Would a strong Senate leader such as LBJ have let his party's nominees fail for lack of a floor vote?
As long as Democrats controlled Congress or the White House, Republicans could tell conservatives they deserved support because of what they would do, someday. Now we know what they do when they have control. Their agenda comes from Big Business, not from grass-roots conservatives.
But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.
In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.
In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.
In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
The current record of Washington Republicans is so bad that, without a drastic change in direction, millions of conservatives will again stay home this November.
And maybe they should. Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there's a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We're like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it's unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it's unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
At the very least, conservatives must stop funding the Republican National Committee and other party groups. (Let Big Business take care of that!) Instead, conservatives should dedicate their money and volunteer efforts toward conservative groups and conservative candidates. They should redirect their anger into building a third force -- not a third party, but a movement independent of any party. They should lay the groundwork for a rebirth of the conservative movement and for the 2008 campaign, when, perhaps, a new generation of conservative leaders will step forward.
I've never seen conservatives so downright fed up as they are today. The current relationship between Washington Republicans and the nation's conservatives makes me think of a cheating husband whose wife catches him, and forgives him, time and time again. Then one day he comes home to discover that she has packed her bags and called a cab -- and a divorce lawyer.
As the philanderer learns: Hell hath no fury. . . .
Friday, May 19, 2006
Here's an example of trickle-down at work
source article
Air Force Chief of Staff Named in FBI Contract Probe
May 18, 2006 5:17 PM
Brian Ross and Len Tepper Report:
The Air Force's highest-ranking officer, General T. Michael Moseley, and his predecessor, Gen. John Jumper, are the subjects of an FBI investigation into the handling of a $49.9 million dollar contract for the Air Force Thunderbirds, the air demonstration squadron.
Law enforcement officials tell ABC News the FBI is investigating allegations the two Air Force generals helped to steer the Thunderbird contract to a friend, retired Air Force Gen. Hal Hornburg.
Six months after leaving the military, Gen. Hornburg, whose command included the Thunderbirds,
became a partner in the company that won the contract.
"One of the highest ranking Air Force officers just creates his nest to land in when he leaves the military," said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight.
Investigators say Gen. Moseley and Gen. Jumper knew their friend was connected with the company when they awarded the contract.
The FBI investigation came about after complaints from Air Force insiders and from a rival company whose bid was for half the amount.
"We don't need it, it's a complete waste of money, and it is unethical the way it came about," said Sen. Tom Coburn of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The contract was cancelled earlier this year when the Air Force General Counsel questioned the "integrity of the process" and the involvement of four star generals.
The case was referred to the Inspector General for the Department of Defense, and the FBI later joined the investigation.
All three Generals have denied any wrongdoing.
Air Force Chief of Staff Named in FBI Contract Probe
May 18, 2006 5:17 PM
Brian Ross and Len Tepper Report:
The Air Force's highest-ranking officer, General T. Michael Moseley, and his predecessor, Gen. John Jumper, are the subjects of an FBI investigation into the handling of a $49.9 million dollar contract for the Air Force Thunderbirds, the air demonstration squadron.
Law enforcement officials tell ABC News the FBI is investigating allegations the two Air Force generals helped to steer the Thunderbird contract to a friend, retired Air Force Gen. Hal Hornburg.
Six months after leaving the military, Gen. Hornburg, whose command included the Thunderbirds,
became a partner in the company that won the contract.
"One of the highest ranking Air Force officers just creates his nest to land in when he leaves the military," said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight.
Investigators say Gen. Moseley and Gen. Jumper knew their friend was connected with the company when they awarded the contract.
The FBI investigation came about after complaints from Air Force insiders and from a rival company whose bid was for half the amount.
"We don't need it, it's a complete waste of money, and it is unethical the way it came about," said Sen. Tom Coburn of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The contract was cancelled earlier this year when the Air Force General Counsel questioned the "integrity of the process" and the involvement of four star generals.
The case was referred to the Inspector General for the Department of Defense, and the FBI later joined the investigation.
All three Generals have denied any wrongdoing.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Finally, one of the talking heads snaps back
http://www.kabc.com/mcintyre/listingsEntry.asp?ID=432586&PT=McIntyre+in+the+Morning
Doug's apology
AN APOLOGY FROM A BUSH VOTER
By Doug McIntyre
Host, McIntyre in the Morning
Talk Radio 790 KABC
There’s nothing harder in public life than admitting you’re wrong. By the way, admitting you’re wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you don’t believe me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in public, it’s out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.
So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period.
In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasn’t sure about the Texas Governor. He had name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What? Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President Gore was… unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.
For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents, no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.
Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.
And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11 murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them.
I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all, that’s where the Taliban was, that’s where al-Qaida trained the killers, that’s where Bin Laden was.
And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.
Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.
I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, “The Project for the New American Century.” It’s been around since ‘92, and it raised alarm bells because it was based on a theory, “Democratizing the Middle East” and I prefer pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a radical new basis, “pre-emptive war.” Any time we do something without historical precedent I get nervous.
But the President shifted the argument to WMDs and the urgent threat of Iraq getting atomic weapons. The debate turned to Saddam passing nukes on to terror groups. After 9-11, the risk was too great. As the President said, “The next smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud.” At least that’s what I thought at the time.
I grew up in New York and watched them build the World Trade Center. I worked with a guy, Frank O’Brien, who put the elevators in both towers. I lost a very close friend on September 11th. 103 floor, tower one, Cantor Fitzgerald. Tim Coughlin was his name. If we had to take out Iraq to make sure something like that, or worse, never happened again, so be it. I knew the consequences. We have a soldier in our house. None of this was theoretical in my house.
But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th.
I have watched the President say the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield decisions, and the war won’t be run from Washington. Yet, politics has consistently determined what the troops can and can’t do on the ground and any commander who did not go along with the administration was sacked, and in some cases, maligned.
I watched and tried to justify the looting in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. I watched and tried to justify the dismantling of the entire Iraqi army. I tired to explain the complexities of building a functional new Iraqi army. I urged patience when no WMDs were found. Then the Vice President told us we were in the “waning days of the insurgency.” And I started wincing again. The President says we have to stay the course but what if it’s the wrong course?
It was the wrong course. All of it was wrong. We are not on the road to victory. We’re about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear armed Iran in our wake. Bali was bombed. Madrid was bombed. London was bombed. And Bin Laden is still making tapes. It’s unspeakable. The liberal media didn’t create this reality, bad policy did.
Most historians believe it takes 30-50 years before we get a reasonably accurate take on a President’s place in history. So, maybe 50 years from now Iraq will be a peaceful member of the brotherhood of nations and George W. Bush will be celebrated as a visionary genius.
But we don’t live fifty years in the future. We live now. We have to make public policy decisions now. We have to live with the consequences of the votes we cast and the leaders we chose now.
After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I’ve reached the conclusion he’s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.
Presidential failures. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Warren Harding-— the competition is fierce for the worst of the worst. Still, the damage this President has done is enormous. It will take decades to undo, and that’s assuming we do everything right from now on. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.
And speaking of domestic embarrassments, let’s talk for a minute about President Bush’s domestic record. Yes, he cut taxes. But tax cuts combined with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the public’s money. We’re drunk at the mall with our great grandchildren’s credit cards. Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?
Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to his own party to get it passed. He lied to the country about its true cost. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It helps nobody except the multinationals that lobbied for it. So much for smaller government. In fact, virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, or environmental protection, and/or worker’s rights.
I’ve talked so often about the border issue, I won’t bore you with a rehash. It’s enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of working people; he’s debased the work ethic itself. “Jobs Americans won’t do!” He doesn’t believe in the sovereign borders of the country he’s sworn to protect and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The President’s January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t and didn’t vote for him in 2004. And I’m glad I didn’t.
Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, skyrocketing gas prices, shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open borders, contempt for the opinion of the American people, the war on science, media manipulation, faith based initives, a cavalier attitude toward fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any American’s lifetime.
You can make a case that Abraham Lincoln did what he had to do, the public be damned. If you roll the dice on your gut and you’re right, history remembers you well. But, when your gut led you from one business failure to another, when your gut told you to trade Sammy Sosa to the White Sox, and you use the same gut to send our sons and daughters to fight and die in a distraction from the real war on terror, then history will and should be unapologetic in its condemnation.
None of this, by the way, should be interpreted as an endorsement of the opposition party. The Democrats are equally bankrupt. This is the second crime of our age. Again, historically speaking, its times like these when America needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. It requires it. It doesn’t work without one. Like the high and low tides keep the oceans alive, a healthy, positive opposition offers a path back to the center where all healthy societies live.
Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything. In fairness, I don’t believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq. Unfortunately, I don’t know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. And that’s one of the many problems with the Democrats.
The two party system has always been clumsy and imperfect, but it has only collapsed once, in the 1850s, and the result was civil war.
I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the brink of a second collapse. It’s currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and pots and pots and pots of money.
We’re being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of media manipulation and fund raising. They’ve learned the lessons of Watergate and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain. They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.
This is painful to say, and I’m sure for many of you, painful to read. But it’s impossible to heal the country until we’re willing to acknowledge the truth no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies.
With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken, it’s almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask?
It may be decades before we have the full picture of how paranoid and contemptuous this administration has been. And I am open to the possibility that I’m all wet about everything I’ve just said. But I’m putting it out there, because I have to call it as I see it, and this is how I see it today. I don’t say any of this lightly. I’ve thought about this for months and months. But eventually, the weight of evidence takes on a gravitational force of its own.
I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don’t believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we’re on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and it’s rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.
So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesn’t generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldn’t be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point whose buying the act?
Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while he’s down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.
You were right, I was wrong.
Doug's apology
AN APOLOGY FROM A BUSH VOTER
By Doug McIntyre
Host, McIntyre in the Morning
Talk Radio 790 KABC
There’s nothing harder in public life than admitting you’re wrong. By the way, admitting you’re wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you don’t believe me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in public, it’s out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.
So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period.
In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasn’t sure about the Texas Governor. He had name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What? Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President Gore was… unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.
For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents, no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.
Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.
And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11 murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them.
I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all, that’s where the Taliban was, that’s where al-Qaida trained the killers, that’s where Bin Laden was.
And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.
Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.
I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong. I was worried though, because I had read the Wolfowitz paper, “The Project for the New American Century.” It’s been around since ‘92, and it raised alarm bells because it was based on a theory, “Democratizing the Middle East” and I prefer pragmatism over theory. I was worried because Iraq was being justified on a radical new basis, “pre-emptive war.” Any time we do something without historical precedent I get nervous.
But the President shifted the argument to WMDs and the urgent threat of Iraq getting atomic weapons. The debate turned to Saddam passing nukes on to terror groups. After 9-11, the risk was too great. As the President said, “The next smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud.” At least that’s what I thought at the time.
I grew up in New York and watched them build the World Trade Center. I worked with a guy, Frank O’Brien, who put the elevators in both towers. I lost a very close friend on September 11th. 103 floor, tower one, Cantor Fitzgerald. Tim Coughlin was his name. If we had to take out Iraq to make sure something like that, or worse, never happened again, so be it. I knew the consequences. We have a soldier in our house. None of this was theoretical in my house.
But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th.
I have watched the President say the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield decisions, and the war won’t be run from Washington. Yet, politics has consistently determined what the troops can and can’t do on the ground and any commander who did not go along with the administration was sacked, and in some cases, maligned.
I watched and tried to justify the looting in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. I watched and tried to justify the dismantling of the entire Iraqi army. I tired to explain the complexities of building a functional new Iraqi army. I urged patience when no WMDs were found. Then the Vice President told us we were in the “waning days of the insurgency.” And I started wincing again. The President says we have to stay the course but what if it’s the wrong course?
It was the wrong course. All of it was wrong. We are not on the road to victory. We’re about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear armed Iran in our wake. Bali was bombed. Madrid was bombed. London was bombed. And Bin Laden is still making tapes. It’s unspeakable. The liberal media didn’t create this reality, bad policy did.
Most historians believe it takes 30-50 years before we get a reasonably accurate take on a President’s place in history. So, maybe 50 years from now Iraq will be a peaceful member of the brotherhood of nations and George W. Bush will be celebrated as a visionary genius.
But we don’t live fifty years in the future. We live now. We have to make public policy decisions now. We have to live with the consequences of the votes we cast and the leaders we chose now.
After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I’ve reached the conclusion he’s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.
Presidential failures. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Warren Harding-— the competition is fierce for the worst of the worst. Still, the damage this President has done is enormous. It will take decades to undo, and that’s assuming we do everything right from now on. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.
And speaking of domestic embarrassments, let’s talk for a minute about President Bush’s domestic record. Yes, he cut taxes. But tax cuts combined with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the public’s money. We’re drunk at the mall with our great grandchildren’s credit cards. Whatever happened to the party of fiscal responsibility?
Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to his own party to get it passed. He lied to the country about its true cost. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It helps nobody except the multinationals that lobbied for it. So much for smaller government. In fact, virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, or environmental protection, and/or worker’s rights.
I’ve talked so often about the border issue, I won’t bore you with a rehash. It’s enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of working people; he’s debased the work ethic itself. “Jobs Americans won’t do!” He doesn’t believe in the sovereign borders of the country he’s sworn to protect and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The President’s January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t and didn’t vote for him in 2004. And I’m glad I didn’t.
Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, skyrocketing gas prices, shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open borders, contempt for the opinion of the American people, the war on science, media manipulation, faith based initives, a cavalier attitude toward fundamental freedoms-- this President has run the most arrogant and out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any American’s lifetime.
You can make a case that Abraham Lincoln did what he had to do, the public be damned. If you roll the dice on your gut and you’re right, history remembers you well. But, when your gut led you from one business failure to another, when your gut told you to trade Sammy Sosa to the White Sox, and you use the same gut to send our sons and daughters to fight and die in a distraction from the real war on terror, then history will and should be unapologetic in its condemnation.
None of this, by the way, should be interpreted as an endorsement of the opposition party. The Democrats are equally bankrupt. This is the second crime of our age. Again, historically speaking, its times like these when America needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. It requires it. It doesn’t work without one. Like the high and low tides keep the oceans alive, a healthy, positive opposition offers a path back to the center where all healthy societies live.
Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything. In fairness, I don’t believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq. Unfortunately, I don’t know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. And that’s one of the many problems with the Democrats.
The two party system has always been clumsy and imperfect, but it has only collapsed once, in the 1850s, and the result was civil war.
I believe, as I have said countless times, the two party system is on the brink of a second collapse. It’s currently running on spin, anger, revenge, and pots and pots and pots of money.
We’re being governed by paper-mache patriots; brightly painted red, white and blue, but hollow to the core. Both parties have mastered the cynical arts of media manipulation and fund raising. They’ve learned the lessons of Watergate and burn the tapes. They have learned to divide the nation for their own gain. They have demonstrated the willingness to exploit any tragedy for personal advantage. The contempt they have for the American people is without parallel.
This is painful to say, and I’m sure for many of you, painful to read. But it’s impossible to heal the country until we’re willing to acknowledge the truth no matter how painful. We have to wean ourselves off sugar coated partisan lies.
With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken, it’s almost inevitable it pukes up the Al Gores and George W. Bushes. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Where are the men and women of vision and accomplishment? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask?
It may be decades before we have the full picture of how paranoid and contemptuous this administration has been. And I am open to the possibility that I’m all wet about everything I’ve just said. But I’m putting it out there, because I have to call it as I see it, and this is how I see it today. I don’t say any of this lightly. I’ve thought about this for months and months. But eventually, the weight of evidence takes on a gravitational force of its own.
I believe that George W. Bush has taken us down a terrible road. I don’t believe the Democrats are offering an alternative. That means we’re on our own to save this magnificent country. The United States of America is a gift to the world, but it has been badly abused and it’s rightful owners, We the People, had better step up to the plate and reclaim it before the damage becomes irreparable.
So, accept my apology for allowing partisanship to blind me to an obvious truth; our President is incapable of the tasks he is charged with. I almost feel sorry for him. He is clearly in over his head. Yet, he doesn’t generate the sympathy Warren Harding earned. Harding, a spectacular mediocrity, had the self-knowledge to tell any and all he shouldn’t be President. George W. Bush continues to act the part, but at this point whose buying the act?
Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? Maybe, although I prefer to call it realism. And, for those of you who never supported Bush, its also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while he’s down. After all, you were kicking him while he was up.
You were right, I was wrong.
Prac'd
Just finished the Practitioner exam. 74 minutes, start to finish. We have three hours. It just seemed so much less involved than what we were prepared for. I’m writing a blog entry rather than make everyone nervous by getting up and printing my exam, signaling that I’m done.
When I was in college and in law school, I always finished the exam section a significant time before the allotted, and signaling that I was done always rattled those around me, which is a positive in a competitive environment such as that. In this environment, the intent is that everyone passes.
The traffic up here today was the worst EVER. I left the house at 5:05, and didn’t arrive here until 6:35. I was a bit tense when I arrived. I got over it. Mostly. One woman, driving a Jeep Grand as if she were a 15 year old male with a learner’s permit cut me off THREE times in less than a quarter mile, and then acted surprised when my “peace and tranquility” was busted into small pieces.
Today, I handed no man his hat. I did get Mitch the Twitch paying attention to me when I said that I wanted to stay in the house, but would not engage in a discussion based on what I could afford. I had to re-send him the several emails that I had sent outlining my position and non-specific offer, and I’m sure he has deleted those without reading them as well.
He’s such a nudge.
My new printer/fax/scanner/copier (thanks Donna!) is OUTSTANDING, and is suddenly not printing. Blarg. I need more help getting it working with one of the print server or the network hub. SOMETHING needs to work.
Tomorrow is another day. I have some accounting work to catch up on, but I rather think that the day will be spent working on mortgage classes – where to offer them, designing the flyers, where to send the flyers, completing the course books, that sort of thing. In the late afternoon, I am picking up Nicole, who is taking me out for my birthday present, even though we’re more than half way to the next birthday. We’ll have fun.
Chuck is going to BearSnatch all weekend in Galveston, so I’m flying solo – well, at least on Sunday. That boy has more dates than an Arab market.
It’s kind of strange that this is my last prac class. I haven’t breathed a word to a soul, but I’m thinking of volunteering to co-teach prac one next year with Jesse.
I wrote up a book outline for my ghostly experience with Judy (the murdered woman whom I saw at her house a few years ago) and sent it to Donna. She loved it! I have to put the outline into a format that the industry will recognize, and write the first chapter or so. She encouraged me to go to OGG (that’s airline speak for Maui) in August to attend a writer’s conference – I wonder how that would fit with my class reunion and my dad’s 80th birthday that month.
Oh, part of me just wants to be honest, get up and print the silly exam. This low plastic chair is hurting my knees and my lower back.
What if Neitzche was wrong? What if that which doesn’t kill you just makes you bitter?
The weather has just been gorgeous. If it were like this all the time, that would be just fine with me.
I was loading the car tonight (laptop, man bag, ink jet printer, CD-ROM external drive, cables, etc.) and noticed that Barney is looking .. well, like crap! He looks like an old guy in a nursing home right before they have to put him into diapers and feed him with a straw. I wonder if scrubbing him up on Saturday will help. It seems he hasn’t been chewing on himself since his Big Vacation, but of course, he has no front teeth left.
I’m just immersed in this crapola feeling that has underlain everything I’ve ever done or felt in my entire life. It’s all I’m present to (how Landmark was THAT?) Of course, this can be a good thing, because when one (me) gets REALLY clear about a feeling that they’re ready to release – it becomes easy to let ‘er go. And this one, I’d love to let go.
I’m clear that this feeling has colored (would poisoned be a better word? Probably) EVERYTHING I’ve attempted. Only when I can rise about this feeling do I have fully satisfying results. Jayne tells me that I need to reach back and focus on one of those feelings and bring that forward. Uh, hm. Tough gig. Working on it though.
Seeing Tom tonight after class. We have a ton of talking to do about the websites (six gazillion of ‘em) that I have tossed into his lap. Yesterday, we signed up with my registrar for monthly hosting for up to five URLs. Well, hell, that’s going to be soaked up by June, if I have any say over it. I’m going to see what it’s going to take to light a fire under his (very round) butt to get these websites deployed ASAP.
Pappa wants a new car, after all. And he doesn’t want to have to reach down and pay for it.
Nothing produces verbiage like a bunch of time with nothing else to do but think, create words and plunk down the keys.
Not a peep today from either of the gentlemen who had their hats handed to them yesterday; the guy from the Buick dealer, nor Secret Agent man.
Mikey’s coming over on Saturday morning to work on getting ready for the big party on Memorial Day. He’s prepared to start making jell-o shots ALREADY, which will require that we a.) make space in the freezer, which is full, b.) buy some really cheap vodka, and c.) buy shot cups. He’s a nut, but he’s popped up ready to ROLL with this party, and I’m very grateful. He single handedly made WoB #3’s Memorial Day weenie roast last year. All Curt did was hand over some cabbage and pick up some (crappy) chips and queso. Note to file: Mikey, I have a fabulous fondue pot that Sondra gave me. We can keep the queso HOT all afternoon.
Found a massage guy online who claims that he’s studied and can fix TMJ. As in the TMJ that causes me great discomfort EVERY day, wakes me up at night, and which I studiously ignore. He was emailing back and forth with me today about it – asking questions “if you hold your nose and blow, is either ear blocked?” etc., etc. He says he thinks I have a pinched nerve in my neck which is causing the jaw/neck/shoulder tension. I think he’s coming over Sunday for a few hours to fix it. FIX it. He was describing how these pinched nerves NEVER go back to normal, the body just adapts. Well, hell – when I was nineteen, I was in a pretty severe car wreck – and my neck hasn’t been right since. Now that he mentions it, it just gets worse every. Single. Year.
So, what will it be like to NOT have my shoulders up hanging off my earlobes? To not have all this pain? Wow. I don’t know. It’s like what you can do with all the negative thoughts that you finally rid yourself of.
Okay, people are moving around, so I’m going to close down, and hook up my printer.
Now that’s done. Jayne’s done too. To be worried or not? Kyle’s done, and he’s printing his paper. Once he’s done that, I’ll print mine out.
Debby gave me a copy of 365 SOM! How fabulous! I just love her.
When I was in college and in law school, I always finished the exam section a significant time before the allotted, and signaling that I was done always rattled those around me, which is a positive in a competitive environment such as that. In this environment, the intent is that everyone passes.
The traffic up here today was the worst EVER. I left the house at 5:05, and didn’t arrive here until 6:35. I was a bit tense when I arrived. I got over it. Mostly. One woman, driving a Jeep Grand as if she were a 15 year old male with a learner’s permit cut me off THREE times in less than a quarter mile, and then acted surprised when my “peace and tranquility” was busted into small pieces.
Today, I handed no man his hat. I did get Mitch the Twitch paying attention to me when I said that I wanted to stay in the house, but would not engage in a discussion based on what I could afford. I had to re-send him the several emails that I had sent outlining my position and non-specific offer, and I’m sure he has deleted those without reading them as well.
He’s such a nudge.
My new printer/fax/scanner/copier (thanks Donna!) is OUTSTANDING, and is suddenly not printing. Blarg. I need more help getting it working with one of the print server or the network hub. SOMETHING needs to work.
Tomorrow is another day. I have some accounting work to catch up on, but I rather think that the day will be spent working on mortgage classes – where to offer them, designing the flyers, where to send the flyers, completing the course books, that sort of thing. In the late afternoon, I am picking up Nicole, who is taking me out for my birthday present, even though we’re more than half way to the next birthday. We’ll have fun.
Chuck is going to BearSnatch all weekend in Galveston, so I’m flying solo – well, at least on Sunday. That boy has more dates than an Arab market.
It’s kind of strange that this is my last prac class. I haven’t breathed a word to a soul, but I’m thinking of volunteering to co-teach prac one next year with Jesse.
I wrote up a book outline for my ghostly experience with Judy (the murdered woman whom I saw at her house a few years ago) and sent it to Donna. She loved it! I have to put the outline into a format that the industry will recognize, and write the first chapter or so. She encouraged me to go to OGG (that’s airline speak for Maui) in August to attend a writer’s conference – I wonder how that would fit with my class reunion and my dad’s 80th birthday that month.
Oh, part of me just wants to be honest, get up and print the silly exam. This low plastic chair is hurting my knees and my lower back.
What if Neitzche was wrong? What if that which doesn’t kill you just makes you bitter?
The weather has just been gorgeous. If it were like this all the time, that would be just fine with me.
I was loading the car tonight (laptop, man bag, ink jet printer, CD-ROM external drive, cables, etc.) and noticed that Barney is looking .. well, like crap! He looks like an old guy in a nursing home right before they have to put him into diapers and feed him with a straw. I wonder if scrubbing him up on Saturday will help. It seems he hasn’t been chewing on himself since his Big Vacation, but of course, he has no front teeth left.
I’m just immersed in this crapola feeling that has underlain everything I’ve ever done or felt in my entire life. It’s all I’m present to (how Landmark was THAT?) Of course, this can be a good thing, because when one (me) gets REALLY clear about a feeling that they’re ready to release – it becomes easy to let ‘er go. And this one, I’d love to let go.
I’m clear that this feeling has colored (would poisoned be a better word? Probably) EVERYTHING I’ve attempted. Only when I can rise about this feeling do I have fully satisfying results. Jayne tells me that I need to reach back and focus on one of those feelings and bring that forward. Uh, hm. Tough gig. Working on it though.
Seeing Tom tonight after class. We have a ton of talking to do about the websites (six gazillion of ‘em) that I have tossed into his lap. Yesterday, we signed up with my registrar for monthly hosting for up to five URLs. Well, hell, that’s going to be soaked up by June, if I have any say over it. I’m going to see what it’s going to take to light a fire under his (very round) butt to get these websites deployed ASAP.
Pappa wants a new car, after all. And he doesn’t want to have to reach down and pay for it.
Nothing produces verbiage like a bunch of time with nothing else to do but think, create words and plunk down the keys.
Not a peep today from either of the gentlemen who had their hats handed to them yesterday; the guy from the Buick dealer, nor Secret Agent man.
Mikey’s coming over on Saturday morning to work on getting ready for the big party on Memorial Day. He’s prepared to start making jell-o shots ALREADY, which will require that we a.) make space in the freezer, which is full, b.) buy some really cheap vodka, and c.) buy shot cups. He’s a nut, but he’s popped up ready to ROLL with this party, and I’m very grateful. He single handedly made WoB #3’s Memorial Day weenie roast last year. All Curt did was hand over some cabbage and pick up some (crappy) chips and queso. Note to file: Mikey, I have a fabulous fondue pot that Sondra gave me. We can keep the queso HOT all afternoon.
Found a massage guy online who claims that he’s studied and can fix TMJ. As in the TMJ that causes me great discomfort EVERY day, wakes me up at night, and which I studiously ignore. He was emailing back and forth with me today about it – asking questions “if you hold your nose and blow, is either ear blocked?” etc., etc. He says he thinks I have a pinched nerve in my neck which is causing the jaw/neck/shoulder tension. I think he’s coming over Sunday for a few hours to fix it. FIX it. He was describing how these pinched nerves NEVER go back to normal, the body just adapts. Well, hell – when I was nineteen, I was in a pretty severe car wreck – and my neck hasn’t been right since. Now that he mentions it, it just gets worse every. Single. Year.
So, what will it be like to NOT have my shoulders up hanging off my earlobes? To not have all this pain? Wow. I don’t know. It’s like what you can do with all the negative thoughts that you finally rid yourself of.
Okay, people are moving around, so I’m going to close down, and hook up my printer.
Now that’s done. Jayne’s done too. To be worried or not? Kyle’s done, and he’s printing his paper. Once he’s done that, I’ll print mine out.
Debby gave me a copy of 365 SOM! How fabulous! I just love her.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
I think that
the universe was NOT wanting me to post what I had posted earlier, because after typing a bunch of text into this box - it all vanished when I tried to open up a movie file that someone sent me.
This day was rewarding in some regards, and utterly unrewarding in others. Perhaps I should focus on the rewarding parts. HAH.
This evening, I did get the tool kit and other detritus organized into the laundry room closet, which was a big step forward. That was a good feeling.
Which is something I'm digging for. A good feeling that isn't overlaying a bad feeling.
This day was rewarding in some regards, and utterly unrewarding in others. Perhaps I should focus on the rewarding parts. HAH.
This evening, I did get the tool kit and other detritus organized into the laundry room closet, which was a big step forward. That was a good feeling.
Which is something I'm digging for. A good feeling that isn't overlaying a bad feeling.
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