So someone is very credible if they are extremely conservative and voice a statement you agree with. Perhaps a better measure of credibility is how much access a person had to situations in question rather than just one aspect of their personal beliefs that manages to match up with the subject of the story.
—The fact that Bushs real life policies are not as libertarian as your writer would idealistically like them to be simply doesn’t mean that Bush lacks a coherant policy.—
I think you missed entirely the point of the article, or perhaps read it from ten feet away with a telescope. The complaint is not about his policies per se: it’s about his refusal to defend what he does on the principle they were inspired by. It isn’t a matter of doing one thing or another: it’s the matter of linking them together into a policy that has a coherent whole in conservative ideology, as opposed to simply piecemealing out wins for favored interest groups.
—Bush is a conservative. Bush ran on a conservative platform. Conservatives generally favor tax cuts. Bush promised a tax cut. Bush delivered a tax cut. How does this indicate an absence of “policy?”—
Because most conservatives aren’t so stupid as to think that diddling with the tax rate changes anything about the amount of money the goverment will take from the public in the long run. Tax cuts are not a panacea: which is exactly what Bush’s admin has treated it as, and sold it as. It is part in parcel of reducing the size and waste of government: and both things have to be done at once. Simply lowering the tax rate is ineffectual.
—What I actually meant was the creation of the Homeland Security Council (not the Department) on October 8, 2000. Admittedly Bush didn’t have a policy anticipating the creation of this Council, no one anticipated the attack on the World Trade Center.—
It’s an impressive policy to form a council on Security when it’s obvious we have security problems? Just so you know, such a council existed as a joint project between the executive and legislative branches, across both parties, before Bush even took office, and it’s suggestion was the creation of a department of Homeland Security, or at least re-thinking the way our intelligence agencies work.
—Since when? Seriously. I haven’t followed this very closely, but I know Bush gave a speech as recently as July supporting vouchers.—
Believe me: it’s not on the agenda. The general feeling is that if they push it, it’ll be Bush’s version of Clinton’s Health Care debacle.
—Laws have been around for an awful long time and people haven’t stopped breaking them yet.—
That’s a laugh. No enforcement, and no laws covering the main new tactics that people are using to defraud people while avoiding the letter of the law.
—As for bills being “gutted”, you can’t blame that on the new Senate because they haven’t been seated yet.—
What did I say about the new Senate? Bush gutted them by executive order, and the existing Congress basically let the issue go (and I don’t see the new Congress picking it up again)
—The point is that during his campaign Bush espoused a policy of reforming the Social Security System and since his election (yeah, yeah, I know….stole the election) he has acted on that policy.
—prescription medicine for the elderly—
And one last time: Bush outlined a clear policy during the campaign……Bush has acted on that policy. Whether you like the policy or not, it is still policy.—
You’ll have to explain to me a) what you think he was actually advocating and b) what he has actually done c) what these acts actually do.
The debate is getting a little off track… Shodan called for clarification of my OP, and I think Kimstu did a fine job of that for me.
The debate isn’t do you agree with Bush’s policies or not. It’s do you think Bush is pushing a predetermined agenda by political means, allegedly without sufficient policy analysis. DeIulio makes a case that as an outside observer of this presidency makes a lot of sense. It does seem like the Bushies have chosen a stance that fits them ideologically while appeasing various constituencies, primarily the Christian Right and big business, and they are sticking to it. To say that Bush is overly dependent on the polls is a reversal of the point I was making. He doesn’t adjust to the polls, he gets his PR machine to make the polls come to him.
Nope, I read it from nine feet with binoculars this time and my criticism still stands. We pretty much agree on the gist of the article. The writer would like for Bush to be an ideological knight in shining conservative armor. Instead Bush is leading a real-world administration which does odious things like compromise (sell out), attempt to sell his agenda to the voters (act feckless) and make use of political patronage (out-Democrat the Democrats).
An example of my point is that your article actually criticizes Bush for citing a “National Emergency” when he instituted a pay freeze on federal workers instead of justifying the move on ideological grounds. But the fact is that the law doesn’t allow Bush to freeze their pay just because that’s what he wants to do. He can only do it if there is a “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare.” This is the sort of issue that sitting Presidents have to deal with and ideological libertarians can ignore.
There are reasons why your article cites a “Goldwater administration” as the ideal. First, Goldwater ran what was probably the most ideological campaign in the last 50 years. And Goldwater got murdered. As a result, there never was a “Goldwater administration.” If there had been such an administration it is a pretty safe bet that Goldwater would have had to make the same kinds of compromises and play the same kinds of political games as every other President in US history.
And as I said, I’ve heard it all before with President after President. If “having a coherent policy” means being a martyr to ideology then we never have had, and almost certainly never will have, a President with a “coherent policy.”
JFK and Lincoln ring any bells?
No policy! What rot! The man simply bristles with stern policy objectives, recently and firmly enacted.
Cutting energy assistance funds, so that impoverished and elderly layabouts will get out there and chop down some trees. Show a little initiative, Granny! A little “can do” spirit instead of whining under your blanket and staring forlornly at the space heater!
As we have learned from Reagonomics, if the economy isn’t functioning well, its because the poor people are hoarding all the money!
Yes, here’s some Lincoln:
Hmmmm….he doesn’t seem to have lived up to that ideal very well. Here’s some more:
Looks to me like Lincoln is saying “To hell with my long-standing anti-slavery ideals. I’m planning to do what is expedient now!” Not exactly hard-headed ideology.
Now, why don’t you show me that Kennedy was an ideologue. You might start with his support for civil rights in the 1960 debates and how that ties in with his vote on the 1957 Civil Rights Act and his failure to get any civil rights legislation during his administration despite the fact that his party was in charge (in fact, because his party was in charge). Then you can discuss his support for the Diem regime right up to the time that he started supporting the overthrow of the Diem regime. And let’s not forget his debate pledge not to “unbalance the budget” followed a couple of years later by his request to lower taxes because even though it “will, of course, temporarily increase the deficit.”
Oh, there’re lots of things you can talk about with Kennedy.
Let me get this straight… Lincoln and JFK aren’t martyrs to their particular ideologies? Then why exactly do you think they were killed? Someone was fed up with the lack of “coherence” of their policies and decided to take matters into their own hands? :rolleyes:
Quote: …and now I think we can renew the criticism of his non-existent domestic policies.
Looks like Bush must have been listening to all of your complaining, eh cainxinth? It’s amazing what can happen when one posts to the GD…
http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,72341,00.html
Is that all you’re arguing? You’ve somehow descended from an OP concerning the presidents reliance on “policy” to puny taunts of “Oh Yeah? Well these guys got shot, huh!”? Forgive me for assuming that you were trying to argue something a little more….um……substantial than that. I’m sorry I wasted both of ours time.
But for the record, although JFK and Lincoln have both certainly been treated as martyrs, I seem to recall that it is traditional that martyrs choose death over conversion (see how that fits in with my initial statement?). I don’t recall either Booth or Oswald (or Czolgosz for that matter) having the decency to offer their victims any options in the matter.
And I might add that I believe that the causes of these assassinations had a lot more to do with the psychological make-up of the assassins (sad, pathetic little people obsessed with their own lack of importance) than with the ideological “purity” of the victims. Remember that two people shot at Gerald Ford. Was he twice as ideological as JFK or Lincoln? Somehow he doesn’t strike me as the type.
“Don’t blame me–I voted for Qodos!”
–Homer Simpson
zigaretten, there is no need to get heated, I wasn’t discussing my OP. I was addressing a hijack, a ridiculous one at that, which frankly has gone on long enough. If you want to continue the debate on whether JFK and Lincoln are martyrs you can start a new thread, I’ll be glad to post to it.
But as you recommend, I believe I will get back on topic. As o42cDeadBeef pointed out, another Bushie has deserted the cause. First DeIulio of the faith based initiative and now Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill due possibly to <gasp> ideological concerns. Obviously, he was less than confident with Bush’s lack of a stance on economy recovery (aka let the corporations police themselves despite rampant fraud).
Neither here nor there, but anyone else find it humorous that when Bush addresses the nation about the economy the stock market tanks, but when his head economic advisor resigns, “stocks rose in late-afternoon trading Friday as investors bet the shakeup will usher in fresh solutions for the slow-growing economy.” That’s just hilarious.
Far be it from me to try to hijack your thread. I believe that I’ve been trying to keep it on track by concentrating on questions like “what does it really mean to be policy oriented” and “how policy oriented is any president” rather than irrelevancies about whether one approves or disapproves of specific policies. That was my earlier point. I thought you were trying to claim that JFK and Lincoln were somehow more “ideologically consistent” than other presidents and so I responded with examples which I believe indicate that they were just as much the slaves of circumstance as Bush, Clinton, et. al. But maybe I’m somehow missing the whole point of the OP.
Anyway, look at your last points about Paul O’Neill. How does O’Neills resignation indicate a lack of policy? If, as you say, the resignation was due to ideological concerns doesn’t that actually reinforce the argument that Bush does have some sort of ideological stance? Else what would there be for O’Neill to disagree with? Unless you really mean that “Bushs lack of a stance” really means some sort of total vacuum. The trouble is that you yourself then define that “lack of a stance” as a policy to let corporations police themselves. Now we can debate whether or not that is a fair assessment of Bushs policy and we can debate whether or not that is a good policy, but one thing is certain: it is a policy.
Surely we can agree that, at the very least, Bush has a policy of “I want a good economy.” I don’t know of any president who actually didn’t care about the state of the economy. If you’ll grant me that much, then I’ll illustrate why I believe these sorts charges, that this president or that president doesn’t have a policy, are so meaningless.
There seem to be two arguments concerning the reason for O’Neills resignation. One is that he’s gone because he didn’t do a very good job. The other is that he resigned to placate a “public view that the shaky economy was not in skilled hands.” How do you tell the difference? Is there any difference? One of the strengths of our political system is that “doing what’s best for the country” so often coincides with “doing what improves ones standing with the public.”
So when we argue about whether a president is enforcing policy or pandering to the polls what we’re really asking is did Bush get out of bed this morning saying to himself “gee, I’ve really gotta do something about my popularity” or did he get up saying “hmmmm, I think I’ll take action on the sluggish economy today”? And isn’t it just possible that Bush, and presidents in general, are sophisticated enough to realize that they can, hopefully, implement good policies which improve the wellbeing of the nation and thus ensure their popularity at the same time?
(And I didn’t intend to seem heated, though I am running a temp these days, darned infections)
O’Neill didn’t really resign. He “resigned at the request of the White House.” That is, he and Lindsay were fired.
The stock market reacted positively, anticipating that they would be happier with the people Bush chooses to replace them.
Well, Bush hasn’t been in a hurry to replace Harvey Pitt. Lets see how quickly he gets around to putting together a new economic team.
December I think you’re a touch off base on this one.
Without question O’Neil was a subpar Treasury Secretary (what do you expect he was a Bush appointee…just joshing). But, what got him fired was three things: One, Bush’s supporters in congress wanted it and appeasing them will further ease the passage of new legislation he wants. Two, O’Neil was an outspoken critic of the Bush economic policy or lack thereof (see cites below). Third, if he spins it right Bush can scapegoat the rising unemployment, weak dollar, and generally sluggish economy on a firebrand like O’Neil. Plus, after the Harvey Pitt embarrassment, Bush probably wanted to preempt the next resignation.
Well the list of deserters is growing. To recap: John DeIulio head of the faith based initiative, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, and White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey.
One last note. I think this Kansas City Star column, Perception, not policy, is the reason behind resignations is quite good 
All I said was that they hadn’t left voluntarily, which my cite confirmed.
I heard Ari Fleisher on TV carefully give no information at all about the resignations and answer no questions, so Bush’s motivatons are anybody’s guess. Your guess is as good as mine, and our guesses are just as good as the guesses of the columnists you cited.
The only one of these people who left voluntarily (“deserted”, if you like) was DiIulio. And, I read somewhere that he never intended to stay long. However, his comments make it clear that he was disenchanted. OTOH various media reports have indicated that the other three would have liked to stay on.
Didn’t I hear this from the Clinton administration detractors as well? Especially after 1995 when the Republicans took Congress?
I mean all he did was politics and spin. If there was any policy, I didn’t see it.
Same charge now, different president.
Well december I guess it all boils down to who do you trust. I trust various pundits at the NYtimes and other respected liberal sources and you trust the official state propaganda right from chief spinmeister Fleischer’s lips.