Monday, April 02, 2007
"Bush-bashing is currently a growth industry ..."
In an interview published in yesterday's New York Times, Matthew Dowd, a former Bush campaign strategist, discusses how completely disappointed he is in the president's leadership. Due to the president's low poll numbers, Bush-bashing is currently a growth industry. Thus, I'm sure Mr. Dowd's anti-Bush moralizing will not be the last mea culpa issued by a former Bush Administration "insider."
Matthew Dowd makes several ridiculous claims during the course of his interview -- too many to list here without boring the piss out of my readers (not to mention making them very, very angry). I'll simply take issue with what I feel is his most ridiculous claim: that President Bush has failed "to reach across the political divide to build consensus."
President Bush has reached out to - and collaborated with - Democrats in Congress throughout his term in office: he signed McCain-Feingold, which was pet legislation for Democrats during the 2000 campaign; he allowed Ted Kennedy to remove vouchers from the No Child Left Behind Act; he's championed amnesty for illegal immigrants (another pet project for Democrats); he supported a prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients, which represents the largest expansion of a federal program since the Great Society; and during the run-up to the Iraq War, he agreed to the Democrats' demand that no military operations in Iraq could begin until Congress passed pro-war legislation, which it did.
What has President Bush gotten for his "build consensus" efforts? Firm kicks between the legs on an almost daily basis, that's what. Democrats convinced themselves that Bush's operatives "stole" the 2000 presidential election. They were further enraged when Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate 2002 and when President Bush was re-elected in 2004. To punish the president for getting their goat in 3 consecutive national elections, the Democrats arose - and continue to arise - in hyper-partisan opposition to practically everything the Bush Administration said or did.
President Bush has done his level best to "reach across the divide." The Democrats have done their level best to see that the president retrieves his hand with a few fingers missing whenever he reaches out. For Matthew Dowd - nay, for anyone - to assert that today's toxic political environment is a result of President Bush's failure to "try to build consensus" is indeed a tall tale of the first order.
Matthew Dowd makes several ridiculous claims during the course of his interview -- too many to list here without boring the piss out of my readers (not to mention making them very, very angry). I'll simply take issue with what I feel is his most ridiculous claim: that President Bush has failed "to reach across the political divide to build consensus."
President Bush has reached out to - and collaborated with - Democrats in Congress throughout his term in office: he signed McCain-Feingold, which was pet legislation for Democrats during the 2000 campaign; he allowed Ted Kennedy to remove vouchers from the No Child Left Behind Act; he's championed amnesty for illegal immigrants (another pet project for Democrats); he supported a prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients, which represents the largest expansion of a federal program since the Great Society; and during the run-up to the Iraq War, he agreed to the Democrats' demand that no military operations in Iraq could begin until Congress passed pro-war legislation, which it did.
What has President Bush gotten for his "build consensus" efforts? Firm kicks between the legs on an almost daily basis, that's what. Democrats convinced themselves that Bush's operatives "stole" the 2000 presidential election. They were further enraged when Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate 2002 and when President Bush was re-elected in 2004. To punish the president for getting their goat in 3 consecutive national elections, the Democrats arose - and continue to arise - in hyper-partisan opposition to practically everything the Bush Administration said or did.
President Bush has done his level best to "reach across the divide." The Democrats have done their level best to see that the president retrieves his hand with a few fingers missing whenever he reaches out. For Matthew Dowd - nay, for anyone - to assert that today's toxic political environment is a result of President Bush's failure to "try to build consensus" is indeed a tall tale of the first order.
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Monday, April 02, 2007 
