When I’m accused of being a racist May 31, 2007
Posted by daveintexas in Current Events, History.trackback
I suppose I can feel ok withdrawing my support for you.
geoff articulates it well here, and I’d say that’s pretty much where I am over George W. Bush. I wasn’t in love with the guy, and over the years have been at odds with his positions on restraining the growth of government, Harriet Myers, war miscalculations, and lately this complete “eff you” on immigration reform. I’ve defended him from unfair attacks, and been accused of being just another Bush-bot.
Regarding those I defended him against, I learned a long time ago it really doesn’t matter that you were critical of anything at all. Most leftys don’t care about the things I criticized, because they weren’t the ”right” things, i.e. the things they believed I should have hit him over. Whatever. I’m not trying to persuade them. This isn’t about them.
One criticism I resisted, and won’t anymore, is Bush’s tone deafness when it comes to certain issues. He’s been called stubborn and I’m starting to think “yeah, it’s one thing to turn off your opposition’s ire, it’s another thing entirely to turn off the ire of your supporters”. We saw some of it with the Harriet Miers thing, accusations of misogyny. Still I’m somewhat surprised.
I’ve been disappointed that he didn’t use the bully pulpit to persuade people to the rightness of his cause more often than he ever did. In some ways it reminded me of Jimmy “Rose Garden” Carter. Step off the lawn, close the doors behind you, who needs to campaign when you’re the President?
I’m slowly coming to believe either Bush can’t use it effectively or doesn’t believe he should have to. Either position could not be more wrong.
Well no more. If that’s your take, fine. I’m out. Good luck with whatever else you have to do for the next year and a half. You just kissed off most of those who would have supported you.
You know, it really doesn’t feel all that bad. Not at all.
UPDATE: Somebody in the White House leaked their immigration bill FAQs to Frank J.
*sigh* I knew right from the beginning that Bush would run into problems with his base when someone asked him in an interview early on in his presidency if he read political blogs, or magazines, and he said, no, not at all.
In other words, there he is, in the Washington bubble, totally disconnected from his base.
That’s why he’s so tone deaf, I think.
NiceDeb,
I remember that a little differently…(but you might be right), I remember the question,”What newspapers do you read?” and the answer, “I don’t read newspapers, I rely on my advisers to summorize the news for me.”
At the time I thought it was a good answer, and a shot across the bow of the NYT.
Now I think his advisors are retarded or actively working against the President like 85% of the rest of DC. Or, he actually DOES read the papers and belive that’s a snap-shot of the way American’s think.
Either way, the GOP is pretty much hosed. (alltogether now)
*SIGH*
I seem to remember a question specifically about political magazines, and such. Or maybe I only interpreted it that way.
At any rate, relying on advisers to do your reading for you, is lame.
*sigh*
But hey, check out Geoff’s post about Fred!’s feelings on that score.
well put
At any rate, relying on advisers to do your reading for you, is lame.
I don’t think that’s what he meant. He has little time for that sort of reading, and his advisers are giving him daily strategic summaries that are better informed than the news and normally at least a day ahead of the news. They are also given in presentation format to increase the speed and depth of comprehension.
But informed or not, and tone deaf or not, this has always been an issue where he’s had some pro-legalization bee in his bonnet.
D, thanks.
What’s your position on this immigration reform bill?
geoff, I took it like you did, that a) news, particularly MSM needs critical analysis and is often obfuscation and bias, and b) he shouldn’t spend his time being an analyst. Frankly I’d think it irresponsible NOT to delegate that work to trusted subordinates.
Yup. I’m there as well.
And it sucks.
You can add my *sigh* with the rest of them.
I always thought the the Harriet Miers deal was part of a bait-and-switch deal gone bad.
The Presidents’ schedule is unbelievably complex and full as a tick on a bloodhound. He has no time to surf. He must surround himself with trustable, competent people.
Washington SUCKS. I say we start over.
Do you think it’s tied to the SPP and his deal with Canada and Mexico to push for a North American Union?
How can you people act surprised when it was in his campaign platform in 2004.
Immigration does not bother me. Deal me out of this current “base” hissy fit.
Yep Dave. He’s over and it’s over.
“How can you people act surprised when it was in his campaign platform in 2004. ” – Stormy70
…and the other choice was…. Kerry!
I would have voted for my dog over John F’n Kerry.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the Republican party. Eight years of Hillary will help the Republicans find their “conservative” values.
Stormy, please. I’ve lived here most of my life. I voted for him twice before 2000. It’s not like I never heard of the guy.
If you choose to insult me rather than persuade me to your line of thinking, I’m thinking you ain’t got much of an argument, Mr. President.
And if I sound surprised, you might give me the benefit of the doubt, as I mentioned upward it isn’t the first time I expressed a concern about this. The NEW factors are things like a smells-like-shit bill crafted in the middle of the night with La Raza at the table, hurry up and get it done before anybody can figure out what the hell it is, and if they don’t like it, call them a fucking racist.
Those weren’t part of the 04 campaign message.
[...] like my fellow bloggers, am done. For 6 years I’ve defended the President, voted for him, defended [...]
When I say read some magazines or whatever, I don’t mean “on the job strategic reading”. I just mean relaxing before you go to bed kind of reading. Even the President has some down time. It worried me when I heard that he doesn’t do any sort of reading of that kind at all.
Well, I found the interview. It was an exclusive from Fox News, Monday, September 22, 2003, President Bush and Brit Hume. Full Text Here
I don’t know where he was going with the “beautiful face” thing. Hitting on Brit?
Dave, I found the “I don’t read the news” interview, but I believe it ended up in your spam bucket.
No great loss.
*sigh*
[...] 31st, 2007 · No Comments Here, here, here, here, and [...]
It worried me when I heard that he doesn’t do any sort of reading of that kind at all.
I think it was reported that he reads history books in his down time.
History books are fine and dandy, but I was talking about current events/politics!
As a legal Immigrant from Germany, I am biased.
I had to fork over a lot of money to get where I am today, but I moved here for love and not to improve my life because frankly, life in germany had a lot of perks that i gave up to come here.
I think little will or can be done to successfully stop illegal immigration because truthfully, everywhere you see hard-working people, chances are you see a hand-full of immigrants, legal or illegal, I don’t give a flying flip, as long as they keep living their hard-working life and don’t rape my kids or commit other crimes, I do my thing, they do theirs. In Europe as in the US, the people of industrialized nations take a lot for granted and have gotten lazy or feel they’re “too good” for certain types of jobs. I caught myself thinking this way during a time when I did some industrial cleaning for a pretty penny but then quit due to back aches. i had the luxury to simply quit this job, others don’t. We’re spoiled, too many Americans refuse to do certain types of jobs and complain about immigrants when without these hard-working people, the US would not function as well as it does. Many companies profit from cheap labor, sometimes even illegal labor in order to gain huge profits. Why don’t we all scream “no to outsourcing” which is nothing but modern-day slavery?
We don’t because it keeps a lot of things nice and cheap. And that’s how we like it here! Do we exploit poor people, hell yeah.
How to we nip this in the butt? You tell me.
That just may be the interview I was thinking about, Pupster.
And I found it disturbing that he wasn’t interested in peoples opinions. Especially, the opinions of fellow Republicans.
But if he was speaking strictly about newspapers, (and that’s not entirely clear), what it sounds like he may have been doing is making a sly little dig at the endemic liberal bias found in most major newspapers.
But let’s face it, the man is not interested in our opinions.
[...] When I’m accused of being a racist I suppose I can feel ok withdrawing my support for you. geoff articulates it well here, and I’d say that’s […] [...]
Thanks D. I understand your point of view now.
Accused of being a racist, you say.
Sigh. Right now I feel totally let down, and it takes a lot for me to have that happen.
Am I a racist if I ask people to please knock on the front door and not climb through the back window?
SIGH!!
If I didn’t make it clear over on Ace’s blog, I’m done with the man too. So, what’s the latest with Fred?
Dude! You made WordPress’ front page for hot posts! (Apologies if that’s pointed out somewhere in this thread already. I’ve had an asshole of a day and I’m running to catch up with my blog reading).
Me? Oh, yeah. Me too. Wasn’t a fan at first, got defensive about him in the middle, thoroughly cheezed off now.
Pretty sure it was an ace-o-lanche. Which is always welcome.
thanks for the link pupster…