Was Bush A Gift To The Left?
by Derek Broes
During the election the chants of “Hope” from Mr. Obama and his followers always seemed to be said with a smile. Today those smiles are gone and have been replaced by the stern condescending look of someone very frustrated that a socialist agenda is being met with resistance from the right and conservatives all around the country. Thankfully, conservatives have finally spoken up and we can only “hope it’s not too late to reverse course.
If you listen to the liberal media, you will hear something very interesting. On the cover of Newsweek magazine they declare, “We are all socialists now.” This is not viewed as a negative event but one met with cheer. The interesting part of this article is that it decries the Bush Administration as the source of all of our economic problems: “The U.S. government has already – under a conservative Republican administration - effectively nationalized the banking and mortgage industries.” Yes, that’s true, Bush did effectively start this mess with the TARP program among other welfare type programs. Maybe this is why Bush’s approval rating was so low. There had to be many unhappy conservatives in order produce such a low number.
So the left cries that Bush was terrible, yet he laid the groundwork for the Democrats to effectively walk into office and continue on the same path. So why is it that when Nancy Pelosi does it the left calls it brilliant but when Bush did it he was worst president ever? Do democrats think that doing the same thing the Bush administration did will help us climb out of this economic mess? No, they don’t, and in fact they might very well want this to fail so they can push for more government control.
So how did we get here? If you ask the left they will say Bush spent us into a recession. Forget about the likes of Barney Frank pushing for more low income housing loans and protecting his lover’s company from oversight before the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. I can only point to the greatest gift the left has had in 30 years. George W. Bush! Without Bush they would never have succeeded in winning the election with the most liberal President EVER, and they would have never been able to even utter the number $838 billion dollars in the largest spending bill to pass through the halls of Congress.
America of 2009 is on its way to becoming what Newsweek magazine called the Modern European State. Oh, and they said it with a smile.
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27 Comments
I once told a law school classmate of mine that if GW had a (D) behind his name, the left would LOVE him. The look of horror on her face still brings a smile to my face. Of course, she couldn't explain why I was wrong, she just KNEW I couldn't possibly be right.
Actually, I think I'd like Bush a lot more if he had a (D) behind his name, too. We might have won in Iraq a lot sooner, and we wouldn't have been put in the position to carry the water on his spending, socializing, etc. (not that we should have, but that's the reality).
Plus, then we might have a real Republican in the White House now, and no one could argue with a straight face that the last two years of the Bush Administration represented "Reaganomics."
Bush was painted as the ultimate Conservative by the Left. Why? They feel the true right wing conservatives. Like Ron Paul and Tom Coburn.
I’m hoping that’s the ticket in 2012. (sadly, Pia Varma is still too young)
Because when Pelosi does it, her “heart is in the right place.” She’s “on the side of the angels.”
That’s why.
slowly it starts to sink in.
although Bush 41 and Bush 43 are probably decent, well-meaning people, they both did much to take the air out of the Reagan & Gingrich Revolutions. if i never see another Bush in high federal office, it will be too soon. that’s probably a shame, since by all accounts, Jeb is the most conservative of the lot, but i will never pull the lever for another Bush. just my way of saying NO to the ruling elites.
This is one of the things I find most maddening when arguing with liberals.
BUSH WAS NOT A CONSERVATIVE!
They just don’t get it. Just because he was a hawk doesn’t mean he was a conservative, nor was the fact that he called for some minuscule tax cuts.
Bush was, at best, a moderate … at worst a “Neo-con”
We haven’t seen real “conservative” leadership from the White House since January 19th 1989 and there was a brief flurry of real conservatism on the hill in 1994.
Ha! As if McCain has room to talk.
Oh, Thomas, should I let Jeffers know it’s his turn to tag in for the Pia love? Just kiddin’, big dog, just kiddin’.
Yes.
Combine an unpopular war, that went on far longer than anyone expected with high levels of social spending, add a financial meltdown and you get the stage set for socialism in the second act. Consider that even Winston Churchill was turned out of office at the end of WW2. After a war, people want “Change”. That’s when “free” government medical care was implemented in Britain.
As for the Democrats enabling the meltdown, yes they did. So why didn’t Bush stop it? If something is important enough, the President can twist arms and get er done. That didn’t happen, in spite of the rather weak attempts. So now Bush and the other members of the
TitanicRepublican party have the albatross hung around their necks with clear sailing for the big statists.Eric, check out Pia’s website, then you tell me.
It’s time for the more Libertarian minded Republicans to come to the forefront. By that I mean the more extreme Right Wing. That’s where the youth gravitates because Freedom is exciting.
Bipartisanship has neutered the Republican Party.
“America Must Pull out of NAFTA and WTO to SURVIVE”
I worked as an Industrial Engineer for 30 years for Rockwell International.
That is exactly what I did my whole life. I worked for 30 years evaluates labor cost for Rockwell International.
So trust me, I know when someone is getting screwed when it comes to labor cost.
This has been coming on since the very minute America joined NAFTA and the WTO. America has been losing money and jobs to the whole world. Every year and it has grown to a humongous amount in the last few years.
I have always said, things will just keep getting worse then at some point America will go into a total Collapse.
If you think you have money or a good job and will not be affected. I have news for you. Everyone will feel much pain before this is completely over.
Just imagine the Federal Government not having enough money to pay the Social security pensioners or their Medical Benefits or anything else.
My older bother who serviced in the Army in Europe during World War II, He said in Germany the money was so worthless that they had to take a bucket full of money to the store to purchase a loaf of bread.
America is in a cross roads either we Pull Out of NAFTA and the WTO and solve our jobs problem or America will just keep going down, down till America goes into a total collapse.
What the President and Congress are doing is total insanity. This will be the third or forth bailout by congress and I promise you there will be many, many more to come.
This is exactly how they will destroy America in the end.
Please tell me. Is there no end in sight?
America doesn’t need another bailout. America needs all those jobs that the Politicians have been sending off shore to Mexico, India and China for the last 15 years.
Then the American workers can pay their house payments and feed their family and things will start to improve over night.
This is a NO BRAINIER.
Pull out of NAFTA and the WTO. Here are the International Trade Balances for the year 2006.
YOU FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOURSELF.
If America just stopped exporting everything in 2006 we
would have lost $ 1,440 Billion Dollars in Jobs.
If America just stopped importing anything in 2006 we
would have gained $ 2,200 Billion Dollars in Jobs.
That would be a Net Total Increase of $ 760 Billion Dollars of new Jobs created every year in America.
This would cost America absolutely not one red penny.
That is assuming America did not export one penny worth of goods during 2006.
The best way to creating NEWS JOBS in AMERICA:
“STOP GIVING AMERICAN JOBS TO CHINA”.
They can print and throw all the money at this problem they want. Things will get a little better for a while and then we will slide back again into a recess or maybe a depression. Then we will need another bailout.
This is like: do you teach someone to fish or do you keep purchasing the fish for him, with borrowed bailout money from China?
Wait one minute. How did China get so much money and America get so poor?
a. America started giving China all the high paying manufacturing jobs when America joined the WTO.
b. China uses these manufacturing jobs to produce manufactured goods.
c. America then borrows money from China to buy all of these manufactured goods produced in China.
d. Then America starts into a Depression because all the high paying JOBS was send off to China and the Politicians tell us; “What we need now is more new JOBS” so they Borrow Trillions of more Dollars more from China to give $1,000 per household to spend to create more JOBS.
e. The only thing the American Politicians have created in the last 15 years is the largest NATIONAL DEBIT in History for our Children and Grand-Children to pay off by flipping hamburgers at McDonalds.
American Politicians can not keep sending all of those good paying jobs off shore to China and expect the American workers to work checkout at wal-mart or flip hamburgers at Macdonald’s for minimum wages.
The America Politicians have already given our entire Manufacturing Base to China.
Do you want know what they call a country that has no manufacturing base and has lost control of the national currency? That’s the definition of a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY!!!
The American Politicians are going to keep screwing the America workers until they lose everything and that’s exactly where we are headed. If that happens, I would not want to be a politician in either party.
Then at some point things may get damn nasty in Washington, D.C.
Why can’t we as conservatives finally admit:
George W. Bush was one of the most important Demcratic Presidents in recent history?
Gotta call a spade a spade, folks.
George Bush is, in my estimation, one of the greatest wartime presidents of modern time. While everybody was saying that we should give up on Iraq (with Sen Reid amongst others declaring that it was over and that the terrorists had won) George Bush stood alone (along with our heroic military) in saying that we could and WOULD win this conflict.
Im getting so tired of conservatives apologizing for Bush when he singlehandedly eked out a hard fought victory against terrorists whilst simultaneously fighting cowardly liberal polticians were who were trying to secure military defeat (the same liberal politicians who voted to authorize the Iraq War in the first place and then bailed when things got difficult). Meanwhile George Bush courageously stayed the course despite the fact that it was political suicide
This article does make a good point thought. If George W. Bush is so stupid why is Obama’s administration going to such great lengths to copy him? If Bush’s foreign policy is so disastrous why did Obama keep Robert Gates on as Defense Secretary (the first time a former Def Sec has ever been retained by an incoming administration). If Bush’s foreign policy is so disastrous why is Obama deferring to Gen. Petraeus when it comes to military decisions? If Bush is so stupid why is Obama hiring Timothy Geinther (one of Henry Paulson’s cronies) to shore up the economy?
I’d take the Left’s criticisms alot more seriously if they weren’t copying his every move
So, Jason, I take it you are anti-big-spending-big-government?
Or are you just making another stupid "tu quoque" argument, lik "tehstupid"?
George W. Bush was a gift to no living thing. He was a nightmare.
The Left has struggled for years to bring America into line with the rest of Europe.
They have finally succeeded.
Everyone’s misremembering wrong. Unless, I suppose, you want to argue that 9/11 was a gift to the left. They’re still riffing on that too.
Everyone in the country is asking the same question…whatever happened to the old conservative value of taking personal responsibility for ones actions? Republicans ADORED GW Bush and enthusiastically backed him in TWO elections. Without that enthusiastic backing, he would have lost both elections. Yet here are the sanctimonious conservatives throwing GW under the bus and pretending that they didn’t march in total lockstep with him right up until the financial collapse.
If conservatives aren’t willing to own up to their blunders now, what makes you think America will ever trust you to run the country again in the future.
Man up. Grow a pair. Do the right thing and admit that CONSERVATIVES ARE THE REASON WE ARE IN THE SHAPE WE ARE RIGHT NOW.
Yes, I agree that GW was not the right wing conservative that many believed him to be. This was the criticism of him in Texas as governor where his “compassionate conservatism” resulted in huge increases in state spending, and he campaigned for president on exactly the same principles.
The thing that I do not hear being said in response to “Bush did it first” crowd is the REAL situation he had through most of this tenure as president; namely the lack of a conservative Republican congress. Granted that the Bush administration was often it’s own worst enemy by rejecting the conservatives in both the House and the Senate, and pushing moderate liberal positions and bills in the mistaken effort to “head off the left at the pass”, by co-opting their issues and implementing them in half measures. But Bush did not have the Senate during his first two years, and did not have either house during the last two years. The Republicans had razor thin majorities during the years they had control of both houses which severely limited Bush’s ability to implement anything.
The blame of the Bush administration for the financial mess is legitimate to a point, but the DELIBERATE OBSTRUCTION AND INACTION by the Democrat Congress from 2006 thru 2008 while pumping gas into the mortgage bubble to cause exactly the crisis we have now for POLITICAL ADVANTAGE, is the story that needs to be told.
Seems Vietnam is always used as an example of the ‘weak’ Americans…..maybe we should learn something from this.
Ever think of Bush as a gift FROM the left?
Really, I gave up on W. back in September 2001, when he said “Islam is a religion of peace”. They had just made it clear that it was anything but. His heart bleeds, whether red or blue.
However, one has to admit that he’s had better luck with his Supreme Court picks than the five Republican presidents before him. No Souter, Stevens, Kennedy or Warren among ‘em.
Sheldon: If you have good health and I hope you do, your family and friends are safe from harm and you have the freedom to share your thoughts in this great country of ours… YOU have George W. Bush to thank!
This man, true conservative or not has kept this country safe for seven years. Nobody, and I mean nobody on 9/12/01 thought that that would ever be possible.
and just for the record…
The Republicans did not control the Senate the first two or last two years of W’s Presidency nor the house the last two years, that is a whole lot of Democrat love filling the void of “mean” conservative financial overseeing. So when you are pointing fingers at who is to blame for this financial mess you don’t need to go too far past Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, Nancy “The botax in my face doesn’t let me smile” Palosi and oh yeah some guy named Obama, all received nice fat campaign donations from “Fannie” & “Freddy”. All of them including Clinton in 1999 were complicit in forcing banks to lower lending standards to reach a larger pool of constituents… I mean voters… I mean citizens who don’t pay taxes. Obama wasn’t in congress yet but was heavily involved with “Fannie” & “Freddy” already at this time. This was the foundation with all of it’s air pockets that our financial system was now being pushed to stand on. Guess what? It crumbled!
Bush inherited the Clinton recession after the dot-com bubble burst. If it weren’t for the Bush tax cuts we would have probably had the financial collapse hit in 2003 or 2004.
Let’s be honest… The housing bubble was started by liberals trying to buy voters with their line about “everyone deserves a slice of the American dream”. It was accelerated by Greenspan lowering interest rates too low instead of letting the marketplace determine the natural rate. Then when the bubble burst as a result of the main street media poking at anything they could poke at to try and force a crisis to assist the democrats, Iraq had turned around and they couldn’t use that anymore, so they went after consumer confidence and the economy.
The blame that rests Republicans was that they left their fiscal conservative common sense behind in an effort to try and beat the democrats at their own game. But it is a losing game, the Republicans in congress rather than combat the spending, joined in.
You are right about Bush not being a fiscal conservative, but a social conservative even his own moniker of a “Compassionate” Conservative he absolutely was…
- The freedom from brutal tyranny of 35 million plus people in Iraq and Afghanistan
- The most money ever given to help combat Aides in Africa
- This one you may be able to argue with “No child left behind”
Bonuses:
- Iran stopping it’s nuclear program in the summer of 2003 until the Democrats gave them cover by declaring defeat in Iraq which signaled Iran to resume their program
- Libya to dismantle their nuclear program
- North Korea Marginalized for past 6 years
Now conservatives want to distance themselves from bush. I remember a time when they gushed over him the way democrats now gush over obama. I guess you guys do pay attention to those silly polls.
I am ambivalent towards Mr. Bush. One the one side, he had to dismantle the thinking of the left on how to combat Islamic terrorism. Which Obama is rebuilding (things like treating them like common criminals subject to all of a citizen’s constitutional protections) Or not letting the CIA and FBI talk to each other about what they know.
On the other hand, his level of spending was something most liberals would only dream of. How can he call himself a “conservative” when he added the national debt by trillions? (that’s 1,000 billion to a trillion, folks).
And he didn’t veto anything in bloated spending that a Republican Congress gave him. Even started yet another entitlement, Medicare Part B.
What gets me is that Ronald Reagan paved the way for a conservative dynasty when he left in 1988. Both Bush Sr and Jr squandered that legacy. So I hear you, Red State Gun Owner…
But people still remembered and loved Reagan. How many Presidents that die 20 years after leaving office attract millions to the funeral?
I am getting tired or politicians who say they are “conservative” and then govern the opposite.
And you liberals thought we on the right don't question Bush. Please for the sake of the country, question Obama as much as we question Bush here.
Bush was a gift to the left like an exposive device tossed in the window is a gift to the homeowner. Yes, you eventually get the insurance money, but family members and pets are dead, and heirlooms like habeas corpus are ashes. No, Republicans, even though Bush has probably guaranteed 8 years of Democratic dominance in the executive and legislative bodies, and maybe 20 years of progressivism in the Supreme Court, it wasn't worth destabilizing the Middle East, destroying the U.S. reputation for morality and causing a depression.
[...] Derek Broes: Democrats should totally thank Republicans for putting a douchebag like Bush in office. [...]
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