Bush Says He’ll Press

Ahead With Broad Political Agenda – New York Times
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
Published: October 5, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4

– President Bush said Tuesday that he still had “plenty” of political capital and that he intended to spend it on

battles over government spending, energy policy, Social Security and other issues that have so far proven difficult for him. …

“I’m still a conservative, proudly so, proudly so,” Mr. Bush said in response to a question about whether he could

still claim that identity after presiding over a rapid increase in the size and cost of the government.

The

Right’s Dissed Intellectuals By Harold Meyerson

You could cut the disappointment with a knife. “This is the moment for which

the conservative legal movement has been waiting for two decades,” David Frum, the right-wing activist and former Bush speechwriter,

wrote on his blog a few moments after the president dashed conservative hopes by nominating Harriet Miers to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor

on the Supreme Court. …

In one fell swoop, Bush flouted both his supporters’ ideology and their sense of

meritocracy.

Worse, he bypassed the opportunity to demonstrate their intellectual seriousness — conservatism’s

intellectual seriousness. …

But the conservative intellectuals have misread their president and misread their country. Four and

a half years into the presidency of George W. Bush, how could they still entertain the idea that the president takes merit, much

less intellectual seriousness, seriously? The one in-house White House intellectual, John DiIulio, ran screaming from the

premises after a few months on the job. Bush has long since banished all those, such as Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who

accurately predicted the price of taking over Iraq. Yet Donald Rumsfeld — with Bush, the author of the Iraqi disaster — remains, as do

scores of lesser lights whose sole virtue has been a dogged loyalty to Bush and his blunders. Loyalty

and familiarity count for more with this president than brilliance (or even competence) and conviction.

Cynical

Conservatism By Robert J. Samuelson

George W. Bush entered the White House preaching “compassionate conservatism,” but he may

leave known for cynical conservatism. … In practice, Bush has taken the most self-serving aspect of modern liberalism

(its instinct to buy public support with massive government handouts) and fused it with the most self-serving aspect of modern

conservatism (its instinct to buy support with massive tax cuts). …

Spend more, tax less. That’s a brazen political strategy,

not a serious governing philosophy. …

The outlook is for tokenism. Just what conservative values Bush’s approach embodies is

unclear. He has not tried to purge government of ineffective or unneeded programs. He has not laid a foundation for permanent tax

reductions. He has not been straightforward with the public. He has not shown a true regard for the future. He has mostly been expedient

or, more pointedly, cynical.

CNN.com – Bush military bird flu role slammed – Oct 5,

2005

A call by President George W. Bush for Congress to give him the power to use the military in law enforcement roles in the

event of a bird flu pandemic has been criticized as akin to introducing martial law….

Gene Healy, a senior

editor at the conservative Cato Institute, said Bush would risk undermining “a fundamental principle of American law” by

tinkering with the act, which does not hinder the military’s ability to respond to a crisis. …

Bush began discussing the

possibility of changing the law banning the military from participating in police-type activity last month, in the aftermath of the

government’s sluggish response to civil unrest following Hurricane Katrina.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bush ally stung

by new charge and questions on favours for lobbyist

The new charge came as it became clear that Mr DeLay was being

investigated in a separate scandal, in which politicians are under scrutiny for doing legislative favours for a powerful lobbyist, Jack

Abramoff, in return for expensive gifts such as golfing trips to Scotland – a possible violation of federal anti-bribery laws.

Lady Thatcher’s office confirmed that it had been contacted by police to “clarify” details of a meeting the former prime minister held

with Mr DeLay in May 2000. Mr DeLay went golfing at St Andrews during the same visit, but has said he was unaware Mr Abramoff paid for

the trip, and that it was made for professional reasons, such as the meeting with the retired leader. Lady Thatcher had described the

meeting as a “courtesy call”. …

If the bribery inquiry into Mr Abramoff also reaches Mr DeLay, who once numbered the lobbyist

among his “closest and dearest friends”, the consequences for the Republicans could be even more serious.

Mr DeLay has said he

thought his British trip was paid for by a thinktank, the National Centre for Public Policy Research, of which Mr Abramoff was a board

member. But there is evidence the lobbyist reimbursed the centre for some expenses and paid others directly.