Bush back from surprise Iraq trip BBC NEWS

The BBC’s David Bamford, in Washington, says that politically speaking, this was a spectacularly well-planned event, one year ahead of presidential elections.

In America the visit is being hailed as a public-relations coup that was a central topic of conversation around the nation’s Thanksgiving dinner tables.

The Washington Post described it as the third key image of the Bush presidency – alongside Mr Bush with a loudhailer atop the rubble at Ground Zero, and the president declaring the war on Iraq a “mission accomplished” on board the USS Abraham Lincoln in May.

But it adds that “it is too soon to know whether the image of Bush in his Army jacket… will become a symbol of strong leadership or a symbol of unwarranted bravado”.

a pathetic betrayal By Cal Thomas, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

The time when the Republican Party stood for something worth standing for is over. The ”G” in GOP might as well stand for government. Smaller, less intrusive government with less spending and lower taxes is the stuff of history books and fond memories for a party that once had a purpose.

But Republicans, having tasted power, are now drunk with it. …

It is a pathetic betrayal of the faith many had put in the Republican Party to reduce the size and role of government in our lives.

This very harsh upbraiding of the Republican Party is particularly noteworthy because it comes from calcified Cal Thomas; it’s hard to find someone more conservative than Cal. Not only does he say some important things here, he also gives us the joy of seeing the Radical Right eat their own. Happy Thanksgiving! mjh

This Republican Congress, in addition to increasing spending on entitlements and expanding big government – like the Democrats they once criticized – also dished out $95 billion in tax breaks and pork-barrel projects.

[M]andatory government spending will reach 11.1 percent of GDP this year, a record high, and non-defense discretionary spending in 2003 will amount to 3.9 percent of GDP for the first time since 1985. [T]axes will inevitably have to be raised to pay for it all. …

Smaller government and less spending? That’s a joke. …

Now that Republicans are doing precisely what Democrats did when they were in the majority, what shall we call these overspending Republicans? Hypocrites? Liars?

The Wall Street Journal editorialized on Monday: “The Republican Congress is turning into something of an embarassment, if not a crackup.” Who is going to pay for all this stuff? …

We are moving rapidly, under Republican “leadership”, past the nanny state and the welfare state to what might be called the state as family. The government will be our keeper….

G.O.P. Worries Face From Past Will Haunt Florida Senate Race By ABBY GOODNOUGH, NYTimes

It would seem that the last thing President Bush needs as he seeks re-election next year is anything that reopens the profound wounds from the Florida presidential recount of 2000.

So it is little wonder that when Representative Katherine Harris, who became the globally known face of the recount as Florida’s secretary of state, expressed interest in running for the Senate in 2004, Mr. Bush’s advisers shuddered, Republicans say.

[Imagine] the image of Ms. Harris campaigning alongside Mr. Bush in Florida next fall, stirring up partisan memories and potentially driving Florida Democrats to the polls in record numbers….

Bush pays tribute to fallen soldiers at hard-hit Army base – The Olympian

”What makes me mad the most is past presidents have gone to funerals and he hasn’t gone to any,” Lori Hartman, whose husband, Spc. Corey Hartman, is heading for Iraq in February. ”It’s like he wants to turn his back and not realize what’s really going on.”

Seeking to contradict such impressions, Bush spent more of his time on the base interacting personally with soldiers and family members than delivering his public address.

I searched news.google.com for that quote. To my surprise, I found many versions of the original AP story that did NOT include that quote (17), but did include the following quote (111). So much for the “liberal” media. mjh

“If President Bush were go to every family, it would take too much of his time, and if he sees one, he has to see them all,” said Stan Cooper of Thornton, Colo.

mjh’s weBlog: Flag wrapped vs draped

As a fellow Republican, I would also offer Karl Rove some friendly political advice. … With an election approaching, presenting the picture of a president who has time for fundraisers but not for military funerals would be an egregious mistake.

Apparently, Rove took John Robert’s advice. mjh

Op-Ed Columnist: The Uncivil War By PAUL KRUGMAN, NYTimes

[I]t was predictable that the administration and its allies, no longer very successful at claiming that questioning the president is unpatriotic, would use appeals to good manners as a way to silence critics. …

Smart conservatives admit that their own side was a bit rude during the Clinton years. But now, they say, they’ve learned better, and it’s those angry liberals who have a problem. The reality, however, is that they can only convince themselves that liberals have an anger problem by applying a double standard. …

More important, the Bush administration — which likes to portray itself as the inheritor of Reagan-like optimism — actually has a Nixonian habit of demonizing its opponents. …

All this fuss about civility, then, is an attempt to bully critics into unilaterally disarming — into being demure and respectful of the president, even while his campaign chairman declares that the 2004 election will be a choice “between victory in Iraq and insecurity in America.”

The Bubble of American Supremacy by George Soros, The Atlantic, December 2003

September 11 could not have changed the course of history to the extent that it has if President Bush had not responded to it the way he did. He declared war on terrorism, and under that guise implemented a radical foreign-policy agenda whose underlying principles predated the tragedy. Those principles can be summed up as follows: International relations are relations of power, not law; power prevails and law legitimizes what prevails. …

This foreign policy is part of a comprehensive ideology customarily referred to as neoconservatism, though I prefer to describe it as a crude form of social Darwinism. I call it crude because it ignores the role of cooperation in the survival of the fittest, and puts all the emphasis on competition. …

Before September 11 the ideologues were hindered in implementing their strategy by two considerations: George W. Bush did not have a clear mandate (he became President by virtue of a single vote in the Supreme Court), and America did not have a clearly defined enemy that would have justified a dramatic increase in military spending.

September 11 removed both obstacles. President Bush declared war on terrorism, and the nation lined up behind its President. Then the Bush Administration proceeded to exploit the terrorist attack for its own purposes. It fostered the fear that has gripped the country in order to keep the nation united behind the President, and it used the war on terrorism to execute an agenda of American supremacy. That is how September 11 changed the course of history. …

The supremacist ideology of the Bush Administration stands in opposition to the principles of an open society, which recognize that people have different views and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. The supremacist ideology postulates that just because we are stronger than others, we know better and have right on our side. …

It is ironic that the government of the most successful open society in the world should have fallen into the hands of people who ignore the first principles of open society. …

September 11 introduced a discontinuity into American foreign policy. Violations of American standards of behavior that would have been considered objectionable in ordinary times became accepted as appropriate to the circumstances. The abnormal, the radical, and the extreme have been redefined as normal. The advocates of continuity have been pursuing a rearguard action ever since. …

[B]y allowing terrorism to become our principal preoccupation, we are playing into the terrorists’ hands. They are setting our priorities.

Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush By Laura Blumenfeld, Washington Post Staff Writer

George Soros, one of the world’s richest men, has given away nearly $5 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa and Asia. Now he has a new project: defeating President Bush.

”It is the central focus of my life,” Soros said, his blue eyes settled on an unseen target. The 2004 presidential race, he said in an interview, is ”a matter of life and death.” …

“America, under Bush, is a danger to the world,” Soros said. Then he smiled: “And I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”

Soros believes that a “supremacist ideology” guides this White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary. “When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans.” It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls….

Soros has grown alarmed at the influence of neoconservatives, whom he calls “a bunch of extremists guided by a crude form of social Darwinism.”

Neoconservatives, Soros said, are exploiting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a preexisting agenda of preemptive war and world dominion. “Bush feels that on September 11th he was anointed by God,” Soros said. “He’s leading the U.S. and the world toward a vicious circle of escalating violence.”

See also:
mjh’s Weblog Entry – 09/15/2003: “NOW: Transcript: George Soros interview PBS”

“The Republican Party has been captured by a bunch of extremists.”