Mr. Bush accuses Senator Kerry of flip-flopping when he voted against the funding bill for the war that he voted to authorize. Sure, but how about Bush’s nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq, having campaigned against nation-building? Or praising the report of the 9/11 commission, whose formation he opposed? Or negotiating with North Korea, which he promised not to do? [mjh: Or supporting the Department of Homeland Security after he opposed it.]
Let’s face it: Every politician at one time or another will have to change his announced position to meet a changed situation. …
The answer to the flip-flop accusation: Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Show me a politician who has stuck to his position through thick and thin, and I will show you a politician who cannot be trusted to represent our interests in a changing world.
The incomes of most workers, adjusted for inflation, are sinking.
The evidence for this assertion is piling up. The Census Bureau weighed in last week with the latest update on family and household incomes. Both declined through the first three years of the Bush administration. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes a similar story for individual workers. Whether the measure is median weekly pay or average weekly pay, the increases have been too small since last summer to keep up with a measly climb of 1 percentage point in the inflation rate.
Make yourself a billboard of one Winning this election will take all of us — each convincing one undecided voter at a time (even if we can’t understand how anyone could still be undecided).
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said yesterday the country will face ”abrupt and painful” choices unless Congress acts quickly to trim Social Security and Medicare benefits for the baby boom generation. He said the government has promised more than it can deliver.
Returning to a politically explosive issue just before the Republican National Convention, Greenspan said the country must face up to ”some tough policy choices.”
Government resources even under the most optimistic economic assumptions on growth and productivity will be inadequate to provide baby boomers with the level of benefits their parents got, he said.
Starve the beast — that’s the fundamental philosophy of the Radical Right. They say we need to cut benefits people have been paying for for years because the resources aren’t there. Would that be the resources that were poured into the pockets of the Rich or dumped in the sewer of Iraq? These people think you are incredibly stupid. mjh
[T]he vitriol and adoration that Mr Bush inspires both stem in part from the policies he has chosen. It is not just a matter of waging the most controversial war since Vietnam and dramatically increasing the size of government. Name your subject, from education and health care to missile defence, AIDS policy, gay marriage, stem cells and civil rights, and this presidency has sought radical change.
Radicalism can be good—but Mr Bush’s brand has turned a compassionate conservative into a contradictory one. What is conservative about allowing government to grow faster than under Mr Clinton? What is humble about announcing that you are trying to introduce democracy to the Middle East? Where is the compassion in his support for a federal ban on gay marriage, the limitations on stem-cell research or his other moves to accommodate the zealots of the Christian right? …
The American conservative movement has always been a marriage between “western” anti-governmentalism and “southern” moralism. Four years ago, Mr Bush made no secret of his own religious beliefs, but he gave the impression he would hold the often intolerant religious right in check. Instead, he has given it a big role in his administration on a host of issues. No doubt Mr Bush’s convictions are sincere; but they were not to the fore in 2000 and they are not shared by many of those who supported him then….
The new Census report — issued Thursday but not mentioned by Bush in his speeches in Las Cruces, Farmington and Albuquerque — showed the number of Americans living in poverty increased by more than 1.3 million last year while the number of Americans without health insurance rose 1.4 million.
It was the third straight year of increases for both categories. …
In a speech in Las Cruces Thursday morning, Bush touted improvements in the U.S. economy….
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams
