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2008-11-12 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-11-12 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11138 views ] Top

#1 You will miss President Bush. You will.

Posted by newc">newc 2008-11-12 00:40|| 2008-11-12 00:40|| Front Page Top

#2 Leaving aside his criticism of Bush, who IMHO will be treated far kinder by history than most suspect, he has a very important and salient point: the question over most of the past century has not been, "Move left or more right?" but instead, "How quickly to move left?" Until and unless the right learns to act as decisively as the left has for a very long time now the eventual outcome will never be in doubt.

Posted by AzCat 2008-11-12 01:43|| 2008-11-12 01:43|| Front Page Top

#3 I don't think Bush was ever a real conservative. That said, I don't think he would have moved as far left as he has if there had not been an ongoing war. I think he realized, particularly after the second election, that things were not going to go his way for much longer and prioritization was going to be absolutely critical. His priority was supporting our troops and winning the war. Everything else came second. If giving in to the Dems' domestic agenda was what it took to keep them from pulling the rug out from under our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, so be it.

For me, the bottom line is this: every military man or woman I know admires and respects George W. Bush. They do so because they know he admires and respects THEM and did everything he could to help them win. Woulda, coulda, shoulda doesn't matter now. We won in Iraq and didn't let the left sell our troops out again, and the credit for that mostly belongs to President Bush. He did the best he could with the tools he had in the situation he faced. You can't ask for more than that.

I suspect it will be considerably more than his successor will do.

Posted by Jolutch Mussolini7800 2008-11-12 03:11|| 2008-11-12 03:11|| Front Page Top

#4 Bush's main failure was his refusal/unwillingness ( call it whatever you want ) to use the bully pulpit in pressing his agenda.

Posted by badanov 2008-11-12 05:00|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2008-11-12 05:00|| Front Page Top

#5 Not only HIS agenda, Badanov, but the greater agenda of America.

This was certainly W's greatest flaw, one he shared in no small part with his father, who also lacked the ability to communicate the ideas of the center and right in a way that connected with people. This is the reason that the left continually makes advances; even though their ideas have failed each time they've been tried, and always will, they are able to find individuals who present them in a way which seems to be inspiring, caring, even sexy, to the general public.

I believe it was Arnold Kling (SP?) who said that conservatism and libertarianism have an innate weakness when competing against leftism in the arena of ideas, because leftism has a more romantic narrative, and the center and right tend to be very cut and dried, and less inspiring, at least on the surface.

When someone comes along who can articulate ideas counter to the left in an inspired fashion, they connect and do well, Reagan being the most obvious example. I think W was basically a decent person who latched onto the Iraq venture as his defining event. Effective Presidents in the age of mass media cannot afford to do that. Job one will always have to be communication. It's unfortunate that we live in times when that is so, but it is true, nonetheless. The era of throwing out ideas and letting their inherent greatness speak for itself are long gone, folks. The unfortunate truth is that for the foreseeable future a good salesman is required as well. W was never that, regardless of how authentically conservative he is or isn't.

Posted by no mo uro 2008-11-12 06:07|| 2008-11-12 06:07|| Front Page Top

#6 Derby is mostly right. Bush is a "compassionate conservative", fiscal restrain was never one of his priorities.

Posted by Zebulon Spase1139 2008-11-12 06:40|| 2008-11-12 06:40|| Front Page Top

#7 Bush was an atrocious communicator and champion of ideas. He was right on lots of things and history will think better of him than the present, but he failed to meet too many of the the challenges he faced and left the way open to The Chosen One.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-11-12 06:56|| 2008-11-12 06:56|| Front Page Top

#8 Little more "W" or anyone else can do with the Failure Factory as Gertz calls it. Gov't bureaucrats and an uncooperative congress will frustrate any move for change, at least conservative change. We used to call them "B Co." bunch, (Be there when you get there. Be there when you leave) They just laugh at you. Quietly frustrate your every good effort, and await your departure.

Posted by Besoeker 2008-11-12 08:17|| 2008-11-12 08:17|| Front Page Top

#9 Bush started his term doing what he said he would do in his first campaign - restoring the dignity of the office and reaching across the aisle (No Child Left Behind, etc.) Of course it was for nothing, because he was an 'illegitimate' president, having 'stolen' the election.
A few months later he was 'tested' by the Chinese (spy plane downing), and probably played it as well as it could have been.
Then came 9-11 and everything changed. To him, as to me, it was akin to Pearl Harbor. Sadly, to many Americans (in name only) it was more like Gulf of Tonkin. While he could certainly have been a more effective communicator I don't think HE was the problem; Winston Churchill could not have persuaded the blind fools and the media (but I repeat myself) that they were wrong.
Considering the whole situation (poorly configured military for this war, economic weakness, entrenched & infighting bureaucracies, ill-informed & naive populace) I am amazed that the war has gone as well as it has, that the economy chugged right along (until someone kicked it over recently), and that no other terrorist attacks hit us.
Yeah, I don't like the refusal to veto the Incumbant Protection Act (McCain-Feingold), the lip-service (at best) treatment of illegal immigration, his tolerance for unacceptable treatment of veterans, and the ridiculous escalation of spending - but you have to choose your battles, and he fought the important ones.
One thing that continuously impressed me throughout his tenure was how genuinely 'decent' he was - never used people for personal photo ops (truly 'felt their pain' but off-camera - only public when the other party chose to make it so.) The 'elite' ridicule him for his religious convictions, but I am convinced that was what sustained him in what was the most challenging presidency since FDR, if not Lincoln. Sadly, history will not write kindly of him, for he did not 'win' and he will not write it.

Posted by Glenmore 2008-11-12 08:20|| 2008-11-12 08:20|| Front Page Top

#10 IMHO Bush was TOOO nice to his enemies. He should have fired EVERYONE that weas connected to the Clintons or the DNC. He should have pushed more for his Judges to be confirmed. He shoul have not brought Prisoners here for prosecution but allowed the countries in which they were caught to try them. He was too nice for the job but I am sure I will miss him in about three months. P.S. Conservatives are too nice in general. Look at the Minn Senate race and the one in Washington where votes "magically" appear in Donks precincts. Why are ther not loud condemnations for this?

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2008-11-12 09:01|| 2008-11-12 09:01|| Front Page Top

#11 Bush...will be treated far kinder by history than most suspect

I think we're already seeing the beginnings of that. The echo chamber of television news were lock step in lauding Bush's "graciousness" this past week.

Posted by Grenter, Protector of the Geats 2008-11-12 09:04|| 2008-11-12 09:04|| Front Page Top

#12 Y'know, earlier this century, the Republicans spent a much longer time in the political wilderness until they got a decent shot at the presidency, when the Truman presidency more or less collapsed because of nothing he could control...

Who did they pick?

They found a polymath genius who could sit down at a desk and simultaneously translate something into greek with one hand and into latin in the other, and whose record included managing a half million man amphibious operation in World War 2.

---------------------------------------------

That's who the Republicans picked when they got the Perfect Storm and half a chance to get back out of the wilderness.

-----------------------------------

The Dems are in a similar situation.

Their pick has voted 'present' a lot.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2008-11-12 10:05|| 2008-11-12 10:05|| Front Page Top

#13 Bush is not a fool but he certainly isnt a leader. He was elected as a Compassionate Conservative A misnomer if there ever was one. Bush ran his domestic agenda as the Country Club Pub that he is. With that saidI dont care what anybody saysthe world is much safer today without Saddam Hussein and his two sociopathic sons in power. Not to mentionthe smack-down of the entire Sunni Syndicate was long over due.

Posted by DepotGuy 2008-11-12 10:20|| 2008-11-12 10:20|| Front Page Top

#14 I think Bush leaned conservative, but did not have any strong desire to move the country in a convservative direction.

I also don't think he had any overarching theme or objectives for his presidency. He seemed to address problems as they arose, but not anticipate them. He did a good job on some of them, not so good on others.

Posted by DoDo 2008-11-12 11:49|| 2008-11-12 11:49|| Front Page Top

#15 I quit reading Derbyshire about two years ago, when he seemed to become infected with dementia and went on rampage after rampage.

The last eight years have been spent building an infrastructure and system for countering radical Islamism. Just about everything else was considered by the administration as being secondary, and not important. Some of the failures being heaped upon George Bush are deserved, but the majority of them are just sour grapes, or being misdirected at the President when the true guilty parties are members of Congress (think Ted Stevens & the bridge to nowhere, Larry Craig, et. cetera). Both the Rethuglycons and the Dummycrats need leadership, but all they have is a bunch of greedy, self-centered morons who have no desire to do anything that might spoil their cushy lifestyle.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2008-11-12 12:27|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2008-11-12 12:27|| Front Page Top

#16 "all they have is a bunch of greedy, self-centered morons who have no desire to do anything that might spoil their cushy lifestyle"

Like Gov. LePetomaine, they've got to protect their phoney-baloney jobs.

Harumph!

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2008-11-12 13:33|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2008-11-12 13:33|| Front Page Top

#17 When the Trunks were running Congress, they did exactly what the Donks do when they run Congress: build and maintain personal power, feed at the public trough, go along to get along. Thing is, with the press firmly in the Dem camp, they have a lot less room for error than the Dems. (Example: Larry Craig deservedly got the bum's rush for cruising the bathrooms, but Barney Frank suffered no consequences for his boyfriend running a gay brothel out of his townhouse!)

As for Derbyshire, he lost me when he started shilling for Michael Schiavo. In the last eelction cycle, he was a Ron Paul supporter. 'Nuff said.

Posted by Mike 2008-11-12 13:53|| 2008-11-12 13:53|| Front Page Top

#18 How to judge Bush: base it on the state of the wives of Egyptian Cabinet Ministers. Pre 2001, a photo was taken of same, revealing all garbed in Western outfits and wearing makeup and hair perms. After 5 years of Bush' moves to include Islamofascist animals within pseudo democratic processes, in the name of a fool's concept of "freedom," another photo shows the ladies in Islamic shawls.

I won't define "unintended consequences" here, because there are barriers of comprehension. Its takes depthless depravity to defend plain and obvious subsidization of Islamofascism, manifest in the indulgence of Wahabi genocide advocacy in Saud' mosques on US soil, facilitation of an Iraqi parliament composed of those of the same mentality as the 9-11 pigs, infantile triumphalism whenever a single jihadi is killed (as if there are not millions behind those wastes of flesh and blood), see no evil approach to the hundreds of millions that Taliban/al-Qaeda gets from Afghanistan's pre-napalmed Heroin industry, perverse indifference to the loss of NATO life from the Bush Heroin sanction, etc ad nauseum.

Stop celebrating failure, and start supporting initiatives to do to Islamofascism what we did to Nazism. (Soviet and Chinese Communism succumbed to different pressure; Bush did ZERO to avenge the 9-11 atrocity, and his foreign and military policy has given aid and comfort to those animals)

Posted by Bob Chetch7999 2008-11-12 17:58|| 2008-11-12 17:58|| Front Page Top

#19 Derb is at his best when he talks about China, especially the old days when he lived in China. Everywhere less he's hit and miss.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-11-12 18:15|| 2008-11-12 18:15|| Front Page Top

#20 As before, RADICAL ISLAMISTS + "SAVING THE JIHAD" > iff there is any ISLAMIST HIDDEN-IMMAM/MAHDI, He can't have any better or opportune LOCAL-GLOBAL/GEOPOL CONDITIONS TO MAKE HIS [DIVINE] APPEARANCE.

EVEN MORESO GIVEN POTUS OBAMA > as "JOHN KENNEDY 2", ala KRUSCHEVIAN-CASTRO-STYLE "NEW GUY" + ANTI-AMER CRITICISM + GEOPOL CONFRONTATIONISM [Vienna, Berlin, Cuba]; + "JIMMY CARTER II" = EFFEC EXPANSION + PROLIFERAT OF GLOBAL ANTI-AMERICANISM [US Policy naivete vee SE Asia, Lower Americas, Afghanistan]; + not to mention US HOLLYWEIRD'S HISTORICAL CINEMATIC RACIAL STEREOTYPES.

D *** NG IT, MORIARITY, WHOM SAYS THERE IS NO GOD, ANDOR GUAM TAOTAMONAS!

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-11-12 18:52|| 2008-11-12 18:52|| Front Page Top

#21 Bob Chetch says" GWB did absolutely nothing to avenge 9/11.Of the ones involved we got them all starting with Khalid Sheik Mohammed who was the mastermind behind 9/11 and the COO of the whole op.OBin Laden was the financier and hes been lying under a pile of bricks n Tora Bora for seven years.The Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan and a democratic regime installed.In record time.No new attacks in seven years on US soil or interests. Saddam deposed and executed.Khadaffi scared a pale shade of white.The nuclear expert of the Arab world in jail n Pakistan.Really the list is a lot longer but this should be enough.Do try to pay attention.

Posted by john Morrissey">john Morrissey 2008-11-12 22:29|| 2008-11-12 22:29|| Front Page Top

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