American SDMB Conservatives: Go Reclaim Your Party!

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Impeaching Bush is not extreme; it is simply bad tactics. Ever since the Republicans turned impeachment into a purely political weapon, any attempt to use it as intended in the Constitution now has to originate among the Republicans or they will whine forever that it is being used politically for revenge.
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Oh, Arbiter of All Things Extreme & Moderate, thanks for weighing in. Glad that’s settled. Oh wait, that’s just your opinion. Never mind.

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
I’d actually like to see an ethical Republican introduce an impeachment motion.
(And, no, I would not ever stop that sentence after the eighth word.)
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I commend you on the grace you display in victory.

42

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Oh, Arbiter of All Things Extreme & Moderate, thanks for weighing in. Glad that’s settled. Oh wait, that’s just your opinion. Never mind.
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But, of course that is my opinion. I am, after all, the Arbiter of All Things Extreme & Moderate.

Pay attention and you, too, may some day learn to discern which is which.
Given the silliness over which Clinton was impeached, a case could be made to impeach GWB that would be stronger than either Clinton’s or Johnson’s. I do not necessarily believe that it could be successfully prosecuted in the Senate, but it is hardly an “extreme” position–particularly if one’s only excuse for throwing the label “extreme” at a congresscritter was that single opinion.

43

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Given the silliness over which Clinton was impeached, a case could be made to impeach GWB that would be stronger than either Clinton’s or Johnson’s.
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Both Clinton and Johnson clearlyl broke a law. In Johnson’s case, it was an incredibly stupid law. In Clinton’s, he broke an important law over an incredibly stupid thing.

Although I know that many liberals think that Bush routinely breaks a number of laws, there is really no clear cut case of Bush breaking a law like either Johnson or Clinton. If the coming investigations by Waxman, et. al., prove that there is, then perhaps we can talk.

44

I don’t think the American voting public would particularly appreciate 24 months of impeachment proceedings. They didn’t applaud much when the Republicans went after Clinton, that’s for sure.

45

I believe the best thing conservatives can do is rid themselves of the neoconservative agenda and their PNAC once and for all. It has only provided benefits for the wealthiest Americans and otherwise been the root of policies and and strategies that brought about this strong dismissal. It is a blind ideology that is unworkable in the real world.

Also, it would be wise for them to keep in mind the reason moderate conservatives took such a beating is that hard right candidates would not be able to hold seats in many of the states that they came from. The Republican congress looks more conservative because their strongholds survived this round of elections. They may go bluer over time, especially considering Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy that has put real Democratic organizing power in states where there had been none for many election cycles. That influence will continue to grow and provide more options for voters in the next few years.

Regarding the Democratic party being more conservative today: true, however many ‘wild-eyed’ liberals like Howard Dean have plenty of conservative props such as his AA NRA rating and a conservative style of governing Vermont although he managed to balance the budget and provide health care there. In fact, the ‘center’ of American politics has swung so far to the right that in a couple short years we will see that center look much more liberal than it has been for the last dozen years or more. Greens and socialists populate the far left in this country; Democrats have been far more centrist than they’ve been than given credit for. We’ve gotten away from the mainstream of American politics. It’s now starting to swing back. There was a time when Goldwater Republicanism was too rightist for us, and now Goldwater would have been one of those moderate Republicans in today’s climate.

46

[QUOTE=Renob]

I think moderates deserve a lot of blame. They refused to support appropriations bills that did not contain enough spending (forcing the appropriators to increase spending in these bills) and they opposed even small efforts to reform Medicaid and Social Security.
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By reform you misspelled kill. Small effort to reform Social Security? Yeah, right. Anyhow, that died because the poll numbers were heavily against it, most people seeing the “reform” as a sellout.
Now, maybe we can really fix it. There were lots of good suggestions ignored because of the private accounts. If we do as well as we did during the Reagan years, we’ll be in good shape.

I don’t recall any real proposals on Medicaid, with is the bigger problem.

47

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Matthews is very much a right wing spinmeister.
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Okaaaaay… Is he also part of the vast right wing conspiracy? Fill me in, won’t you?

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
I much prefer something a bit more objective, along the lines of Captain Amazing’s post.
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Well, now you’ve got that, too. Happy? That puts him in about the 15th percentile of his own party. That’s an extremist in my book. Is he the most extreme? Of course not. But no one said that.

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
You’ve tried to move the goalposts from labeling him “an extremist” to suggesting that I think everyone is in the center.
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I was using what the pundits were saying (liberal onea) and the fact that he has vowed to try to impeach Bush and the speeches I’ve heard him make on both the House floor and on the talk shows. And I don’t recall any Crowley at all having anything to do with any of it. Except that you tried to pooh-pooh what I had heard by (incorrectly) attributing it to a right winger. When it was pointed out to you that your assumption was wrong, you then attempt to label Matthews (only one of whom made the point last night) as a right wing spinmeister.

So am I to gather that any democrat—which he is— who is fair and reasonable is a right wing spin meister, or is it just him specifically? Please enlighten me as to your way of thinking.

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
I’m perfectly happy to call Conyers a liberal Democrat.
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He is. I’m glad you’re happy with reality, here. But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t an extremist. And as the the post you referred to shows, he is. Will you admit that now that you have the empirical evidence?

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
I also contend that there is no need or interest for Nancy Pelosi to ostracize him, and to the contrary I fully expect that he’ll resume the chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee, and will carry on doing a fine job there.
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I don’t expect her to ostracize him (you didn’t mean to imply that is what I said, is it? Because I didn’t), I do expect her, as she herself has stated, to set the Dems on a moderate course, which apparently, she believes to include NOT holding impeachment hearings. You don’t think she was lying when she said that, do you? If she was being truthful, she will slap down his extremism whenever it shows up and keep him in line. If all goes well, he will leave his extremism at the door and maybe the House will get somethig done for a change.

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
This meme that the Democrats won by running a bunch of Republicans will die an ugly death, but it will die. Rove just doesn’t have the power or the touch anymore, and Ken Mehlmann is no Karl Rove.
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Touchy, touchy. First of all, that is not anything I said. Nor do I believe it to be the case. Democrats won. Not some screwy hybrid. But, according to the pundits, who follow all the elections much more closely than I, and I hope, you, they saw a message of moderation in democratic victories. Pelosi’s comments tend to support that view, don’t you think?

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Now, if you really want to take the rest of your vitriol to the pit, I’ll be quite happy to meet you there and tell you what I really think.
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Do whatever the fuck you want.

48

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
The loss of moderates should not be greeted with cheers by Republicans, or by any voter who’d like to see thoughtful opposition to Democratic programs based on traditional conservative principles (without the fundamentalist-appeasing, anti-libertarian bent of people like Bill Frist).

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The moderates lost because they got associated with the extremist conservatives, a killer in their districts. I suspect that lots of them voted for immoderate measures due to party discipline. There seems to be a message that if you are a moderate these days, you’d do better as a Democrat.

I don’t know if this was accidental or planned, but it almost always a good idea to run just slightly closer to the center than your opponent. As Republicans got more extreme, the conservative Democrats, like Webb, seemed to do this very well. (Win or lose he did better than expected.) If Rove convinced himself that the center had moved somewhere to the right of Frist, no wonder they got into trouble.

49

[QUOTE=Voyager]
I don’t recall any real proposals on Medicaid, with is the bigger problem.
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There were proposals by Bush, but the moderate Republicans put up such a stink about very, very modest Medicaid reforms that no one was going to risk political capital fighting for larger reforms.

50

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
I don’t think the American voting public would particularly appreciate 24 months of impeachment proceedings. They didn’t applaud much when the Republicans went after Clinton, that’s for sure.
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I think we need investigations into war profiteering, NSA and suchlike warrantless spying, and the attempts to eliminate habeas corpus and condoning of torture. We also need to finish the second part of the 9/11 commissions investigation into how the White House used the faulty intelligence it was given regarding the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

Once these rocks have been overturned, let’s see what comes of it. You may find that it piques the public’s interest quite a bit if some real scandal is found. Americans don’t like it if it turns out they’ve been played for fools.

In any case, if the Dems stand for accountability backing down from doing the right thing because it may be unpopular does not bring about accountability. This sort of nervousness has been the heart of their failure of conviction for many a year.

51

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Given the silliness over which Clinton was impeached, a case could be made to impeach GWB that would be stronger than either Clinton’s or Johnson’s. I do not necessarily believe that it could be successfully prosecuted in the Senate, but it is hardly an “extreme” position–particularly if one’s only excuse for throwing the label “extreme” at a congresscritter was that single opinion.
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If a CEO lies under oath during an investigation looking into accustations of sexual harrassment by him, thereby seeking to deny his victim justice, is that silliness in your book?

Now I don’t think impeaching Bush would necessarily be a bad thing. If it were for the right reason, I’d be all for it.

52

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Now I don’t think impeaching Bush would necessarily be a bad thing. If it were for the right reason, I’d be all for it.
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Really?

How about, initiating a war of aggression against a neutral sovereign state, using lies to rationalize the support for it, in violation of a treaty to which we are a signatory, (the UN Charter that we actually wrote).

I’m sure that does not rise to the level of lying in a deposition called during a fishing expedition that you hold so highly, but it rises to the level of High Crimes that the Constitution so vaguely bestowed upon us.

Now, I am sure that we can find sufficient people who will claim that the “intelligence [that was hand-picked by Bush’s hand-picked OSP while contradicting the actual intelligence from the Congressionally established intelligence agencies] was faulty” or that the UN Charter does not have “sufficient” weight in Law, which is why I acknowledge that it would probably not make it through the Senate, but those actions look a lot like High Crimes to me. YMWOCV

53

The blow job question was irrelevant to Paula Jones’ sexual harrassment case. The question had nothing to do with her allegations.

54

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The blow job question was irrelevant to Paula Jones’ sexual harrassment case. The question had nothing to do with her allegations.
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Then I guess he shouldn’t have lied about it then, huh?

55

[QUOTE=Renob]
Then I guess he shouldn’t have lied about it then, huh?
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Absolutely true. Nor should he have engaged in the disputed behavior to begin with. However, neither of those bad actions justified the millions of dollars spent in the purely political effort to get him out of office.

56

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Absolutely true. Nor should he have engaged in the disputed behavior to begin with. However, neither of those bad actions justified the millions of dollars spent in the purely political effort to get him out of office.
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Maybe or maybe not. But it is clear that Clinton broke the law, and a pretty important law, too. The impeachment was because Clinton broke a law, not because of his political policies. Did some people want him impeached because of his politics? Sure, and undoubtedly some people voted for impeachment not because he broke the law but because they didn’t like "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell/HillaryCare/the tax hike, etc. However, the impeachment was not about policy issues, it was about the law that Clinton broke.

Your desire to impeach Bush over Iraq is not of the same calibre. That would be impeachment over a policy issue. Bush invaded Iraq with the authorization of Congress. The war went bad and now it’s unpopular. That is not the basis for impeachment. We don’t impeach Presidents because we don’t like their policies. We have elections to repudiate policies we dislike. We impeach Presidents because they break the law. Bush has not done that.

57

I heartily endorse the sentiments of the OP. We need an honest conservative wing, the same way a car needs brakes. We of the left are prone to experiment, that is our strength, and it is our weakness. We need sober and prudent conservatives to criticize our programs and point out error. The unholy alliance between the theocons and the neocons has brought our nation to the brink of catastrophe. We can defeat them, but we cannot eliminate them, only the Pubbies can do that, only they can show the courage to accept lesser power in the name of greater democracy, it would be (and, hopefully, will be) an act of the highest patriotism, and I stand ready to cheer, applaud, and stomp my feet with approval.

58

[QUOTE=Renob]
The impeachment was because Clinton broke a law, not because of his political policies.
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Ri-i-i-i-ight.

He lied on one deposition. And how many actions were in the Articles of Impeachment?

Clinton was impeached because so many newbies got into Congress in 1994, with no sense of the protocols of power, that when they did not immediately get their way, they were willing to subvert the Constitution to eliminate the man.

Iraq is not merely policy. General hostility to a regime (carried out through lawful actions) is a policy. A preemptive invasion of a sovereign nation that was not even threatening this country (and was, indeed, cooperating, however reluctantly, with the UN mandated inspections), is an act of war–rather more than a “policy.”

59

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Really? […blah, blah, blah]
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You didn’t answer the question. Care to try again?

60

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Ri-i-i-i-ight.

He lied on one deposition. And how many actions were in the Articles of Impeachment?
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The articles of impeachment that were passed were for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Say what you will, but impeachment was about the laws that Clinton broke. He was not impeached based on his policy differences with Republicans.

And Congress authorized the use of force. No laws were broken. And the voters had a chance to repudiate this policy in 2004 and they refused to do so.

There is no case for impeachment except among liberals who want to criminalize policy differences or punish the President for a now-unpopular war.