Subject: Commentary on Bush

The following opinion piece by conservative columnist, Charley Reese is worth reading but it raises a few questions. Reese is a columnist for the King Features Syndicate. He turns out three columns a week and is known as a staunchly committed conservative. This column is causing a stir. He apparently took a good hard look at the Bush record and came to some inevitable conclusions.  Not trying to stir anything up, but hoping there is room for honest disagreement.  Personally, I can't figure out who to vote for and think about it every day.  (Like my vote will really make the difference...!)


VOTE FOR A MAN, NOT A PUPPET
by Charley Reese

Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's
reelection, they are really voting for the architects of war: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers.

I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a frontman, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.

It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press conference recently.

John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evil doers. It's unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.

But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he
observed that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be.


People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush.

Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but he won't fool me twice.

It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian.

It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that either you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an
enemy combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?

This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush
administration. Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.

I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us along with it. Go to Kerry's Web site and read some of the magazine profiles on him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.

Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey, windsurfs, ride motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and speaks French. It would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man and dispels all illusions about war.

PUSSIES...

BS

Reads like a very informed leftist playing the role of a conservative.  The give away is the attack on W's intelligence.  So leftist.  Conservatives who are made at W's free spending ways are mad about that.  They see him as too loose with tax dollars and too much into entitlements.

Oh, and Kerry is more conservative? what idiots .....

I too call BULLSHIT!!!

That asswipe ain't no conservative, and I don't give a damn what column he writes.

Read like typical liberal,kommie doubelspeak to me.

Charley Reese sounds more like a butt-breathed liberal than a conservative. I don't like Bush, but I'm not voting for commie kerry either.

Charley Reese, while I like his views on gun control, has NEVER EVER EVER been a conservative.  He's a self-desribed Libertarian (with a big L) and has always been one.

Dupe:  www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=253645.

Anybody who votes votes based upon whether the candidate windsurfs and writes poetry is an idiot.

It's kind of funny how ANYONE who dares to question GWB, immediately becomes branded leftist, unpatriotic, idiot, pussy, etc...

Latest news headline: Bush declares that the war on terror cannot be won, but blah blah blah blah

So why are we fighting another Vietnam then?

Quoted: It's kind of funny how ANYONE who dares to question GWB, immediately becomes branded leftist, unpatriotic, idiot, pussy, etc...

It's kind of funny that whenever there's a thread that involves ANYONE bashing President Bush, you're there to join in on the bashing.

So don't read it or respond then.

Nobody makes you click on the topic.

Bush is no conservative. If I could figure out a way to ensure gridlock, I'd vote for it. The less the gubment can do, the better..... Republican or Democrat.

Quoted: So don't read it or respond then. Nobody makes you click on the topic.

And nobody makes you respond to my response, hypocrite.

"It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian."

Sounds like the stuff I see posted at Assault Web by the militia types all the time.

Quoted: Bush is no conservative.

Yes, he is.  He isn't AS conservative as I'd like, but he is still a conservative.  

Oh boy... here we go...

Before we get started on a fine Monday morning again...

"Good morning RikWriter! How was your weekend?"

Quoted: Quoted: It's kind of funny how ANYONE who dares to question GWB, immediately becomes branded leftist, unpatriotic, idiot, pussy, etc... "Question"?  If someone "questions" GWB, there is no problem.

The problem is that most of the people who "question" the president don't really want an answer.

Quoted: Oh boy... here we go...

It seems to be the only way you know how to go.

My weekend was fine. Real nice as a matter of fact. Did you do anything fun?

I went to see George Bush on Saturday. I didn't even cause a stir.

Quoted: Isn't it amazing how they both graduated from the same college...

I dont know Kerry or Bush, So i'm offering no commentary on their intelligence. But to imply that becuase they attended the same school, they are mental equals, doesn seem very well thought out to me.

I've noticed a lot of liberals don't identify themselves as democrats.  They are either independents(even if really registered democrat) or libertarians.  But, they always vote democrat, and believe anything that party says.  They also like to say that they've voted republican in the past, but if that issue is pushed and they answer truthfully, they will state how they voted for some liberal republican once for assistant trash man or something.

I also don't believe the always stated idea that the country is 40% dem, 40% rep, and 20% ind or "swing voters."  I believe "swing voters" are at most 1%, and that elections are won by turnout.  People either go vote for their man, or against the other, but only if the feel strongly enough to get off their ass.

Then there are the "fiscal conservative" "socal liberal" democrats.  Usually they are not really "fiscally conservative" if you probe with questions, and just spout the usual democrat lines.

The issues he raises are of concern to "old guard" conservatives.  I've been listening to the discussion for about a year now.  It's not about the war.  It started before 9/11.  

They almost choked but they swallowed the "compassionate conservatism" line during the first campaign but Bush's Fiscal policy is driving them wild.  He supports a couple of their "hot button" issues but there is some serious concern about the rest of his policies and where he is going.  He is looking like more of a Democrat to them than a "real" Republican.

I'm not taking sides, I'm just reporting what I've been hearing.  If the hard-core, "old guard" (fiscal responsibility/government out of our lives -- not the social issue) Republicans feel that neither candidate will advance their program, they might just stay at home on election day.

Quoted: My weekend was fine. Real nice as a matter of fact. Did you do anything fun? I went to see George Bush on Saturday. I didn't even cause a stir.

No surprise.  Assuming you're telling the truth.

He was in Troy, Ohio... about 20 minutes away from me.

More blah blah blah blah blah vote for me blah blah blah blah war on terror blah blah blah.

I met a bunch of Libertarians posing as Republicans in the crowd. Good time.

Quoted: I met a bunch of Libertarians posing as Republicans in the crowd.

Birds of a feather.

Thanks for the perspectives on the author - sounds like he was on a mission when he wrote that piece anyway - I will pass on to the guy that sent me that that he is a libertarian.  

I don't consider him to be uneducated. Far from it. Just because he's not necessarily an eloquent speaker, doesn't mean that he's stupid.

Quoted: I've noticed a lot of liberals don't identify themselves as democrats.  They are either independents(even if really registered democrat) or libertarians.

Liberals and Libertarians (big L or little l) don't mix. No libertarian could bring themselves to pull the D lever.

But they keep growing in numbers by leaps and bounds.

Why do you suppose that is?

Quoted: I don't consider him to be uneducated. Far from it. Just because he's not necessarily an eloquent speaker, doesn't mean that he's stupid.

I love it when y'all defend Texans.  We haven't always had this kind of support.  I'm looking forward to another four years.

Quoted: But they keep growing in numbers by leaps and bounds. Why do you suppose that is?

It isn't.  The Libertarian Party is and always will be marginalized.

I'm a Libertarian and I'll admit that I have a problem with free trade and immigration. I have many more problems with Republicans and Democrats. Getting back to original question, IMHO real conservatives have a problem with Bush because he is not a conservatine. He says he is, but his actions prove otherwise. A conservative wouldn't have pissed away 100 billion in Iraq. I'll be voting for Badnarik.

Quoted: Quoted: Bush is no conservative. Yes, he is.  He isn't AS conservative as I'd like, but he is still a conservative.

Bingo!  And he has to be a centrist or he would be nowhere near the White house. Clinton was a centrist as well. Kerry's radical lieberalism is what will hopefully cost him the election. Swing votes dont show in polls.

Ben......

There is nothing similar between Vietnam and Iraq. While Vietnam started at Republicans sending in advisors to teach them how to fish, 8 yrs of demonrats feeding them made them welfare dependant, to where they woudlnt even fight for themselves. It also, like Carter, demonstarates how bad the lefts Kumbaya is at foreign diplomacy.

As for Iraq, if you dont know by now, you either have your head in the sand or........




Ben man, wtf happened to you????? Did somebody steal the real Bens account????

Quoted: I'm a Libertarian and I'll admit that I have a problem with free trade and immigration. I have many more problems with Republicans and Democrats. Getting back to original question, IMHO real conservatives have a problem with Bush because he is not a conservatine. He says he is, but his actions prove otherwise. A conservative wouldn't have pissed away 100 billion in Iraq. I'll be voting for Badnarik.

Now you can brag to your kids that you've voted for a raving lunatic AND helped a socialist get elected in the bargain.  

Quoted: VOTE FOR A MAN, NOT A PUPPET by Charley Reese Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's reelection, they are really voting for the architects of war: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers.

well that's straight from the DU mantra (to be chanted at every opportunity)

I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a frontman, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.

Short memory ace, remember Carter?

It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press conference recently. John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evil doers. It's unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.

Who is this asshat Reese? What are his credentials? (that enable him to so definitively judge others) Did he go to Harvard & Yale?

But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be.

Jefferson said a lot of things very well. Putting them in your column doesn't make you any brighter, Mr. Reese.

People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush.

So anyone who disagrees with Reese is stupid? What an ass.

Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but he won't fool me twice. It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian. It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that either you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an enemy combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration? This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration. Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.

A SCIENTIFIC POLL OF EUROPEANS? Good God man, get off the heroin!


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us along with it. Go to Kerry's Web site and read some of the magazine profiles on him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.

How much did Moveon.org pay for this ad, Mr. Reese? You're a shill, and a pathetic one at that.

Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey, windsurfs, ride motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and speaks French. It would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man and dispels all illusions about war.

Kerry never killed a man face to face, he shot a fleeing VC kid in the back.

Game, set & match.

I'm a conservative.

Reese is a tinfoil nutcase (who happens to be right occasionally - even a blind squirrel occasionally finds an acorn)

I just did a quick Google on "Charley Reese" and it looks like Mr. Reese has quite the hard-on for the President, his articles appearing in commondreams.org & antiwar.com often...

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0704-08.htm

http://www.antiwar.com/reese/

by not giving the UN weapons inspectors time to finish their job, the Bush administration lost the support of France, Germany, Russia and most of the rest of the world.

THEY ONLY HAD OVER A DECADE TO COMPLY, ASSHAT!

sheesh, Reese really does come off as a bitter raving relic, who (like fading pop artists) has latched on to Bush-bashing in a pathetic attempt to salvage the remnants of an unremarkable career.

Reese is no conservative, and never has been one...

Anyone who thinks GWB is stupid, should think again.

GWB believes he is on a Mission for God. He will not be swayed from what HE percieves as being God's will for this nation..........

Quoted: Reese is no conservative, and never has been one... Anyone who thinks GWB is stupid, should think again. GWB believes he is on a Mission for God. He will not be swayed from what HE percieves as being God's will for this nation..........

Do you believe in God?  Do you believe God has a purpose in your life?  If you were elected to office, do you think you would lay aside your belief in God and begin acting as if you didn't believe in God?

Quoted: Bush is no conservative. If I could figure out a way to ensure gridlock, I'd vote for it. The less the gubment can do, the better..... Republican or Democrat.

+1

Quoted: BS Reads like a very informed leftist playing the role of a conservative.  The give away is the attack on W's intelligence.  So leftist.  Conservatives who are made at W's free spending ways are mad about that.  They see him as too loose with tax dollars and too much into entitlements.

+1

This is a completely accurate post! I have several issues with President Bush's actions, but not his intellegence. Bush has tried much too hard to extend a hand to the left, in hopes of reconciling America after the 2000 election. All he has gotten in return has been insults and jeers from the internal enemies of America.

This is a poorly veiled attempt by a leftist to pose as a conservative. They must think we are ALL stupid!