After the free ride Dubya got from all aspects of the press during the election (past cocaine use, reversals on abortion, or being AWOL from military service, among others), I would think the “liberal media” myth would be dead by now.
(Right up there with “states’ rights,” “I’m a uniter,” and “your vote counts”…)
It’s possible he was actually sincere in his own mind about being a uniter. It would be consistent with the moralistic tone we’ve seen from the right wing lately, especially in the anti-Clinton crusade, best exemplified by Bob Bennett’s “Virtues” books. The underlying attitude seems to have been that anyone who doesn’t share their values must not have any real values. Being convinced that they know the path of true righteousness, they seem to think that any failure to share them must be evidence of ignorance, and therefore these people simply need to be enlightened. The obvious next step is to benevolently offer these missing values to those misguided liberals (you all know the laundry list).
From that point of view, doing so could be considered reaching out in a sincere attempt at uniting people, but there’s no implication of any readiness to compromise or any willingness to admit error, either.
didn’t that 50-50 vote with a lot abstaining tell you the country IS divided? there isn’t going to be a uniting.
where’s my ak-47? let’s see if i can hit a bible belt christian from 300 yards? how do you tell if somebody’s a bible belt christian from 300 yards?
the idiotic, Dal Timgar
Y’know what would’ve made GWB look really good? If there was an exceptionally divisive national issue that came up, say, right after the election. Something where both sides strongly disagreed; something where the issues were a mixture of deeply-held beliefs and partisan politics. If that had happened, then Bush could have really shone; he would’ve proved to you doubters how much of a statesman he is by crafting a position that would unite people, not divide them! And he would have worked tirelessly to refine that position, and hammer out agreements, until the entire nation was united once again! I know he would have done that, because that’s the kind of leader he is! A uniter, not a divider! Ah well, too bad there wasn’t any post-election issue he could have turned his people-uniting prowess on…
I think the fundamental problem is that Duby has an overly simplistic view of what’s required to be a “uniter.” From various accounts of the Texas Legislature, Bush’s past record on “uniting” tends to be
(1) Throw out an extreme position.
(2) Listen to everyone howl and resist.
(3) Slowly back down to something that’s acceptable by enough folks to pass.
Is that compromising? Yes, of a sort. Does that give folks a feeling that he’s being sincere about reaching compromise? Nope. Does Dubya care? Hell no.
This tactic might work in Texas, where the “liberals” are philosophically closer to “moderates” than anything else. But with Dubya’s nonexistent mandate and a Congress that’s just about 50-50, I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of unifying in the next few years.
Undeniable?!? Like hell it is. Check out the FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) website, http://www.fair.org for example…they have done studies looking at this. (It is true that reporters are personally left-of-center on social issues but not on economic ones…where they are right-of-center. They’ve also looked at the number of times people from various think-tanks are quoted. Why, just the other day, that bastion of liberalism NPR had a story on the California electrical crisis and was quoting a guy from the Cato Institute.)
Also, try subscribing to real leftist media like The Nation, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, … You’ll be interested to find out what you’re missing in the standard corporate-media view of the world!
I don’t understand the disagreement. He promised to be a uniter, and he’s doing just that: he’s uniting the right wing and the extreme right wing.
It would have been nice for him to find some centrist Democrat for a cabinet position, for instance. IIRC, Clinton did appoint at least one centrist Republican to some position, I recall the media hype but I don’t remember which position. The hypocrisy comes out when he says he is going to appoint a Democrat to a Cabinet position, but then only interviews Senators from states with a Republican governor: a clear ploy to replace a Democrat senator with a Republican.
Of course, anyone that believed any of his campaign promises, please contact me, I have bridge in Brooklyn that I’ll sell cheap. Not that Gore’s campaign promises were any more truthful, mind you, just that campaign promises are advertising gimmicks, pure and simple.
Perhaps you had not heard but Bush has appointed Democrat Norman Mineta as Transportation Secretary. He previously served in Clinton’s cabinet. This has not been a secret, I am suprised you had not heard.
“It would have been nice for him to find some centrist Democrat for a cabinet position,”
Umm, the new Secretary of Transportation is not only a Democrat, he was Clinton’s last (took over from Bill Daley) Secretary of Commerce.
“Clinton DID appoint center-left people to his cabinet. I expect a ‘uniter’ like Gov. Bush to do the same; appoint center-right people.”
“No, we don’t expect Gov. Bush to appoint liberals, we expect that someone who was telling the truth about wanting to unite the country to appoint moderate conservatives.”
“He promised to be a uniter, and he’s doing just that: he’s uniting the right wing and the extreme right wing.”
When you looked at the Cabinet to make these sweeping statements that there are NO moderates in the Cabinet, did you stop looking once you saw Ashcroft and decided that he was so bad you didn’t have to go any farther because they all must be that bad? Are you seriously contending that Colin Powell (who nobody even knew whether he was Dem or Rep until he announced his choice) is a extreme conservative?! Tommy Thompson?!
Hark, I hear knees jerking.
Actually, campaign promises are kept more often than not, at least according to the book Everything You Think You Know About Politics…and Why You’re Wrong by Kathleen Hall Jamieson. The book looks at popular conceptions about politics, in particular about campaign ads and promises. Nixon kept 60% of his campaign pledges, Reagan 63%, and even Clinton managed 69%.
If you want to look at it from a cynical perspective, then a candidate who wants to get reelected has to at least appear to be making an attempt at fulfilling the promises they made. That is, if they can presume they were elected because a majority of the people were in favor of the promises they were making. Of course, GW can’t presume that to be true.
As for Bush’s appointments so far, it seems the moderates he has appointed are being appointed to posts where their moderate views won’t have much affect. Powell, for example, is a moderate on social issues, but on military issues he is very closely aligned to Bush’s isolationist leanings. The extreme rightists he has appointed, on the other hand, are being appointed to positions where their extreme views are directly related to that position.
Much as I hate to agree with that, I have to ask my fellow liberals to please stop making demonstrably inaccurate statements about the whole of Bush’s cabinet nominations. Okay? Good.
Now, as to the OP, I agree wholeheartedly that at least the Ashcroft and Norton nominations are about as divisive as any picks Mr. Bush could’ve made. They seem to be transparently calculated to press anti-abortion and anti-environmental agendas that are not shared by most Americans, and that are sure to encounter major opposition in Congress.
Bush’s other public actions and statements of the past few days do not seem to be those of a uniter, but rather those of a man who believes he has a political mandate. This is not surprising, as Mr. Bush’s histories as governor and as a candidate clearly show his allegiances to big business and the religious right, and I think clearly illustrate his unwillingness to see larger issues behind his ideology.
When he said “I’m-a-uniter-not-a-divider,” Mr. Bush seems to have meant “I can usually get my opponents to like me; hey, I’m a charming guy!” IMHO, our new President has not exhibited the intellectual curiosity regarding other points of view required to truly build consensus; I can understand how he would come to see his ability to build personal relationships as an ability to unite political forces, but I don’t personally believe the two abilities are the same.
Tejota, attempting to further the point that Gale Norton is some sort of whacko, said:
I would recommend that, until you actually understand what you’re referring to, you try to avoid talking about it.
C’mon, Necros; I could understand if you asked Tejota for a cite, but to complain that s/he doesn’t actually understand what Norton’s stance is without providing either a citation or your own summary of that position isn’t very constructive. I find Tejota’s characterization pretty accurate, based on the quotes I’ve seen and heard attributed to Norton. Care to correct that impression (if indeed it is wrong) with some real facts?
Yeah, xenophon, you’re right; that was unfair.
All of this line of criticism come from Norton’s origination, and endorsement, of Colorado’s “Self Audit” law, which basically allows corporations to escape penalties for minor environmental infractions if the corporations report the misdeeds themselves. Usually, these violations are paperwork errors, or minor spills and leaks that, while detrimental to the environment, are, in perspective, not that big a deal, and one of those things that Colorado’s environmental regulators were getting bogged down pursuing, with very little payoff.
Shockingly, at least to environmentalists, the law actually seems to work. Corporations, not wanting to be prosecuted, and also desiring to be “good corporate citizens” have taken huge advantage of the law to report problems they’ve had. The good results are three-fold: The corporation doesn’t have to pay fines for what they’ve done; remediation efforts can be done earlier, more accurately, and more successfully; and environmental regulators are free to pursue the big violators with more resources and time.
Of, course, the EPA was against the law to begin with, fearing, just as Tejota does, that it would give corporations free rein to do as they pleased with environmentally damaging material, while remaining free from prosecution. But it’s hard to argue with results. So the EPA is now firmly behind the program. This is the Clinton EPA, too, mind you, the one that conservatives are always tarring with the “Socialist-Communist-takings-can’t-chop-down-your-own-tree” brush.
And Colorado also has a neat little way of making sure that the really big offenders don’t get away scot-free. They give pollutors exemption from state-levied fines when they turn themselves in, but the option remains to levy EPA fines if the incidents reported are egregious enough. So it’s not like someone can drive the Exxon Valdez into the middle of Cherry Creek and get away without consequences.
This is what Gale Norton is pushing. It may sound like a recipe for disaster, but it works great, and is, here in Colorado, pretty well accepted. To paint such a program in the light that Tejota did is to venture pretty far from mainstream, while accusing Norton of being extremist. To those in the know, it looks kinda goofy. 
dos centavos:
relax…relax…
It’s just to early to tell whether Dumbya’s Cabinet appointments indicate future policy or are just paying off right wing support from the election.
Quite a few Presidents - including open fly Bill - treat their Cabinets as historical relics. After all the bureaucracies tend to manage themselves - which is why administrations try to make all the top jobs as political appointments.
IIRC, former republican Senator William Cohen of Maine was tapped as Clinton’s Defense Secretary and did quite well. Billy, of course, had gotten into hot water before the Inauguration by calling for gays in the military. Cohen helped still those waters and left the “don’t ask - don’t tell” compromise. We’ll see whether Dumbya turns that around.
But don’t worry, Dumbya is by his nature a divider not a uniter. He is a child of the far right who believes that his father lost by not pushing the ideological differences enough. But hey, sometimes “uniting by dividing” works. When Reagan got a couple of Democrats to support one of his bills, he immediately declared the bill “bi-partisan” - and got even more Democratic support.
I suppose you mean tejota’s reference to the Clean Air Act, although as the potential Interior Secretary Norton has little to do with it (primarily EPA-enforced). The main objections to Norton I’m aware of concern the James Watt, Mountain State Legal, and Wise Use ties, which if you all in Colorado have also learned to all accept, then you might enlighten us.
BTW, self-policing works as well as you say ? Perhaps your water supply originates in Rocky Flats. It can work, with teeth (such as the Federal angle ensuring compliance with State law you refer to), but even then primarily only with small incidents.
Thanks for the description, Necros. I freely admit that any industry can audit its compliance with EPA standards far more efficiently than the government can, and that good faith efforts to do so should not be penalized. I only wish the “self audit” laws worked the way you describe; if they did there would probably be less opposition to them from organizations such as the Sierra Club.
What you may not know about Colorado’s (and several other states’) self audit law is that in addition to granting immunity from prosecution for the self-disclosed violations, it makes all information obtained by corporations during any self audit priveleged information. This means that not only is the public denied access to information about the pollutants introduced to the environment, those who may have been damaged by that pollution, even if they somehow obtain the information, cannot use it against the company in any lawsuit. (This is why the law is sometimes referred to as the “Right to Know Nothing” law.)
It is her support for such laws, stacked as they are in favor of polluters, and her disdain for any federal involvement in environmental issues that cause many liberals to view her as an extremist. Here is a Salon article (admittedly not an unbiased source) that pretty well sums up the liberal view of President Bush’s “unity” efforts.
xenophon41 said:
Huh. That’s interesting. That also doesn’t seem to be what the EPA says about it: http://es.epa.gov/oeca/ccsmd/file7.html
To excerpt:
Also, they don’t say that these companies are immune to prosecution, only that EPA will not recommend prosecution. But they are still criminally liable, and all evidence appears to be public. Can you clarify how this shields companies from judgments?
Necros, here is an “issue paper” on Colorado’s Environmental Audit Privilege and Voluntary Disclosure Act of 1994, from the Independence Institute, of which you may know that Gale Norton is a board member. While I strongly disagree with the paper’s conclusions, I’m linking to it because it describes the difference between the Colorado law and federal policy as regards to immunity and privelege. (Remember, this is a Colorado state legislative Act; it is not part of any federal code.)
Just to provide a counter opinion, here’s one from the Environmental Research Foundation.
Unfortunately, I can’t find a link to the Act itself, but I’ll keep trying.
xenophon, I looked, too, but couldn’t find anything online. I wish I had a copy of the CRS here…
Anyway, it looks like you’re right, but with some significant exceptions (from the II link):
The bolded section seems like a pretty big exception to immunity to me. It’s not even as if it requires a “significant danger.” Just any plain old danger will do. So, it’s not as if families getting cancer from hexavalent chromium, a la Erin Brockovich, would be unable to sue.