I don’t buy it. Considering how cozy the conservative establishment has stayed with their own loony wackos, such as Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham, I seriously doubt that the main factor restraining conservative criticism of Bush is their dislike of crazy extremism.
Instead, IMO, conservatives have been successfully maintaining a “circle the wagons” approach in which they try to protect Bush from criticism because they think he’ll accomplish the goals that are important to them. Religious right-wingers hope that he’ll stump for “moral values” and install a more godly judiciary; neocons are rooting for the success of his bellicose foreign policy; business interests support his anti-regulation, pro-immigrant-labor initiatives; economic libertarians and the wealthy like his no-holds-barred approach to cutting taxes and benefits.
I don’t think these people are being “turned off” from criticizing the President’s errors by the inevitable minority of leftist wackos who vilify him indiscriminately. I think they’re just standing by their man because they care less about his screwups than about what they hope he’ll do for them if he manages to retain an effective amount of political capital.
You might have missed where most conservative, Baptist, and evangelical leaders disavowed Pat Robertson’s statement about Chavez. If you did, I’ll gladly provide cites to this effect.
That is a good bit different than the treatment Cindy Sheehan has received, for her controversial statements.
I’ll provide another example, one I’ve talked about in the past. Al Sharpton is a liar and a fraud. He has ruined reputations and has incited riots that have left people dead. Yet he was provided a speaking slot in prime time at the Democratic National Convention.
I do agree that you’ll be judged by the company you keep. But this knife cuts the Democrats as well, and they’re bleeding worse from it, IMHO.
Oh, all the time the right spends telling it’s wackos to fuck off! Goodness, all the time you must spend on the freep boards telling people to cool it, or criticizing Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest.
They certainly must have a lot to keep up with. Have they condemed the recent spate of “New Orleans was cleansed by God”? Have Republicans in Virginia turned back his donations, or cancelled all the pork projects they steer his way, given that he is still one of the largest and most influential players and kingmakers in the state’s Republican political scene? Nope. That horse is a well-ridden one, even if an occasional smirking rebuke is the price to pay.
I hate Al Sharpton too. Unfortunately, the relevant company Democrats are running with are African Americans, who by and large don’t share that hate and demand his prescence. But somehow, Sharpton loses his bids for office big time, which hardly puts him at the forefront of the party.
You really want to get into a war of what dipshits get invited to speak at whose conventions?
Exactly. I’m not claiming that Democrats/liberals don’t have any loony-fringe problem of their own. I’m just highly skeptical of the assertion that what’s holding Republicans/conservatives back from criticizing Bush is their principled rejection of fringe loonies.
To strain at a Sheehan or a Sharpton, and swallow a Limbaugh or a Franklin Graham, is hardly a consistent approach to extremist viewpoints.
Mr. Moto, I’ll spot you Sharpton and even Jesse Jackson, and raise you Pat Buchanan and all of his delegate votes and primary wins, m’kay? Sharpton has about as much following as David Duke. You don’t want to go where you’re going, trust me. Re Sheehan’s demonstration, has it not yet occurred to you that the appropriate topic of conversation is Bush’s conduct, not hers? Ya know, the President, not some Jane Doe?
But there is no buck at all with this Administration, much less a stopping place for it. Pity that the people who most need to understand that still feel the urge to yell “Bush hater!” at any criticism at all. You, for instance.
Moto, the only way that “fringe loonies” are harmful to the left is the skill of Rove and company to distract people from the real issues. I blame you for this, and by you I mean yourself and people like you. Rather than real concerns, you get worked up about whether John Kerry threw medals or ribbons, or whether San Francisco accepts or rejects a WWII battleship. Yet you show a stunning and disproportionate lack of concern over major issues of our time regarding the use of the military, the justifications for war, the use of torture and the “few bad apples excuses” and the failures of this administration to use or describe intelligence accurately.
People like you spend time distracting others with concerns about whether Sean Penn should be going out in a boat trying to find people.
That is, people like you lick up the nonsense and turn your eyes from the important issues. Then you turn around and blame the fringe loonies. You bemoan my failure to excoriate loonies within my party, but you are silent in your condemnation for the most eggregious example of incompetence and dereliction of duty within yours (and of course by that I mean George W. Bush). Why should I spend time dealing with my consternation over Al Sharpton to please you, who cannot seem to express one iota of outrage over a far more relevant and far more destructive figure in current politics?
In short, you are a model automaton for the right. I just wish you would at some point grow up and think for yourself. I wish you would show some ability to evaluate the merits of a person, situation, or policy independent of party affiliation. I wish you would shut the fuck up trying to blame the failings of yourself and your party on fringe loonies of the left. Grow a pair, man.
He’s picked up more *votes * than Sharpton, hasn’t he? Including a La. House seat and the GOP nomination for La. Governor, ya know. Sharpton has won about as many votes as I have.
Jeane Kirkpatrick’s *keynote * “They always blame America first” speech, smearing all Democrats as traitors at the 1984 GOP convention, is simply indefensible - but somehow there are those who would try, aren’t there?
As an addendum to my post above, Moto: The Republican party of recent years took pride in assigning itself the title of party of personal accountability. Yet, from where I sit, all I really see are efforts to blame everyone else (including here the “fringe loonies.”)
What does personal accountability mean to you? Is it an important attribute? Can you give me any examples of Bush demonstrating this attribute during his four years as president?
Well, I think he does hold that he is personally responsible for how wealthy he, personally, is.
Also weeding the back forty in Crawford. That’s HIS responsibility, and he by-god carries it out, even if he has to use his vasation days to get to it.
That’s not an accurate description of my position.
I have long believed that another war with the Hussein regeime was inevitable, given his irresponsibility, his hostility to the U.S., and his sponsorship of terrorism in the Mideast. My experiences in the military during the Clinton administration, during which time we engaged Iraq militarily more than once, only cemented this viewpoint.
I would have felt a war was necessary here whether WMD’s were present or not, and I felt the cassus belli was present for some time.
So to say I’m unconcerned about it isn’t true at all. I just felt that a war was needed anyway, so dithering over some specifics when we had a laundry list of grievances with Iraq seems to me very much missing the forest, so to speak.
I think the problem is that the Bush administration is always political. Lee Atwater and James Carville got sent home after election night; Karl Rove moved into the White House. Past Presidents have said, “I won! Now I get to run the country!” But the Bush White House seems to be permanently locked into running for office. Problems aren’t addressed - they’re spun.
I bet last week there were two meetings going on in the White House. At one meeting, they were talking about how to deal with the disaster and making plans for rescues and repairs. At the other meeting, they were talking about what effect this would have on the administration’s image and making plans to take credit and pass blame. And all the deputies were at the first meeting and all the senior people were at the second.