Bush's Third Term

[Bianca]

                                                           Bush's Third Term





The Wall Street Journal
July 2, 2008

We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of "George Bush's third term." Maybe he's worried that someone will notice that he's the candidate who's running for it.

Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely "running to the center." He's fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?

Take the surveillance of foreign terrorists. Last October, while running with the Democratic pack, the Illinois Senator vowed to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies" that assisted in such eavesdropping after 9/11. As recently as February, still running as the liberal favorite against Hillary Clinton, he was one of 29 Democrats who voted against allowing a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee reform of surveillance rules even to come to the floor.

Two weeks ago, however, the House passed a bill that is essentially the same as that Senate version, and Mr. Obama now says he supports it. Apparently legal immunity for the telcos is vital for U.S. national security, just as Mr. Bush has claimed. Apparently, too, the legislation isn't an attempt by Dick Cheney to gut the Constitution. Perhaps it is dawning on Mr. Obama that, if he does become President, he'll be responsible for preventing any new terrorist attack. So now he's happy to throw the New York Times under the bus.

Next up for Mr. Obama's political blessing will be Mr. Bush's Iraq policy. Only weeks ago, the Democrat was calling for an immediate and rapid U.S. withdrawal. When General David Petraeus first testified about the surge in September 2007, Mr. Obama was dismissive and skeptical. But with the surge having worked wonders in Iraq, this week Mr. Obama went out of his way to defend General Petraeus against MoveOn.org's attacks in 2007 that he was "General Betray Us." Perhaps he had a late epiphany.

Look for Mr. Obama to use his forthcoming visit to Iraq as an excuse to drop those withdrawal plans faster than he can say Jeremiah Wright "was not the person that I met 20 years ago." The Senator will learn – as John McCain has been saying – that withdrawal would squander the gains from the surge, set back Iraqi political progress, and weaken America's strategic position against Iran. Our guess is that he'll spin this switcheroo as some kind of conditional commitment, saying he'll stay in Iraq as long as Iraqis are making progress on political reconciliation, and so on. As things improve in Iraq, this would be Mr. Bush's policy too.

Mr. Obama has also made ostentatious leaps toward Mr. Bush on domestic issues. While he once bid for labor support by pledging a unilateral rewrite of Nafta, the Democrat now says he favors free trade as long as it works for "everybody." His economic aide, Austan Goolsbee, has been liberated from the five-month purdah he endured for telling Canadians that Mr. Obama's protectionism was merely campaign rhetoric. Now that Mr. Obama is in a general election, he can't scare the business community too much.

Back in the day, the first-term Senator also voted against the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. But last week he agreed with their majority opinion in the Heller gun rights case, and with their dissent against the liberal majority's ruling to ban the death penalty for ****. Mr. Obama seems to appreciate that getting pegged as a cultural lefty is deadly for national Democrats – at least until November.

This week the great Democratic hope even endorsed spending more money on faith-based charities. Apparently, this core plank of Mr. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is not the assault on church-state separation that the ACLU and liberals have long claimed. And yesterday, Mr. Obama's campaign unveiled an ad asserting his support for welfare reform that "slashed the rolls by 80 percent." Never mind that Mr. Obama has declared multiple times that he opposed the landmark 1996 welfare reform.

* * *
All of which prompts a couple of thoughts. The first is that Mr. Obama doesn't seem to think American political sentiment has moved as far left as most of the media claim. Another is that the next President, whether Democrat or Republican, is going to embrace much of Mr. Bush's foreign and antiterror policy whether he admits it or not. Think Eisenhower endorsing Truman's Cold War architecture.

Most important is the matter of Mr. Obama's political character – and how honest he is being about what he truly believes. His voting record in the Senate and in Illinois, as well as his primary positions, would make him the most liberal Presidential candidate since George McGovern in 1972. But he clearly doesn't want voters to believe that in November. He's still the Obama Americans don't know.

[Byron]

Ever since Rupert Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal, the quality of the writing has been sinking like a stone. The article is really sloppily written. You can't say that Obama is running for Bush's third term and also call him the Senate's most liberal Senator in the same article, for instance. Make up your mind! Either the guy is a warmongering attacker of people''s civil liberties or he's a tree-hugging, pacifist liberal.  He can't be both.

Then, there's this:

His voting record in the Senate and in Illinois, as well as his primary positions, would make him the most liberal Presidential candidate since George McGovern in 1972.

That comes from the National Journal, who has a habit of ranking whoever the Democratic nominee is, "the most liberal Senator."  The same magazine ranked Obama 16th in 2005 and 10th in 2006.  The difference?  In 2007, he was running for President!    

Kerry won the same award in 2004 and Edwards was runner-up, I believe.

If it looked like Hillary was going to be the nominee, I can guarantee you they would have ahd a recount and she would have been most liberal Senator.

More on their methodology:

Is Obama the most liberal senator?
Posted: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:20 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: 2008, Obama
From NBC's Mark Murray
National Journal magazine is reporting that Obama was the most liberal senator of 2007, according to the vote ratings it does every year for members of Congress. Clinton, meanwhile, ranks as the 16th most-liberal senator.

But a bit of context here: National Journal used 99 Senate votes in 2007 as the basis for its rankings, and because he was on the presidential campaign trail, Obama missed a third of those votes. (According to the magazine, Obama voted the liberal way 65 out of 66 votes. Clinton, meanwhile, voted the liberal way in 77 out of her 82 votes).

National Journal's vote ratings became an issue in the 2004 general election, when Republicans used the magazine's ranking of John Kerry as the most liberal senator of 2003 to label the then-Democratic nominee as the "most liberal senator" -- even though that was his rating for just that one year, when (like Obama did) he missed quite a few Senate votes due to being on the presidential campaign trail.

As National Journal's editor wrote back then, "

• ur magazine -- or, more precisely, our annual congressional vote ratings edition -- has become a Republican talking point in the 2004 presidential campaign. And that's been a fascinating, and disconcerting, experience. Fascinating because we're more used to being cited in congressional hearings than on the Today show. Disconcerting because the shorthand used to describe our ratings of Kerry and Edwards is sometimes misleading -- or just plain wrong."

Indeed, while Obama ranks as the magazine's most liberal senator of 2007, his ranking was 16th in 2005 and 10th in 2006.

Another question that might come up is why the magazine released its voting ratings now -- just days before Super Tuesday. In fact, the magazine says it full congressional ratings won't come out until March. But, according to the editor in a Q&A published in the magazine: "Back in December, we decided that we would publish the ratings of the presidential candidates as soon as they became available, rather than wait until our annual Vote Ratings issue on March 8. We thought it would be irresponsible to keep those scores under wraps during the height of the presidential primary season."

As for McCain, the magazine says that he didn't vote frequently enough in 2007 to get an overall rating. Per National Journal, "He missed more than half of the votes in both the economic and foreign-policy categories. On social issues, which include immigration, McCain received a conservative score of 59."

And like with Obama's overall liberal score, rivals and critics could possibly seize on McCain's social rating....

Full disclosure: This reporter worked and wrote for National Journal from 1997 to 2003.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/31/625886.aspx

[Byron]

I look forward to the day when the word "liberal" won't be seen as a slam on someone like it is now.

By the way, I wonder how many pictures there are out there of Obama with Bush?  I think there are a heck of a lot more of Hillary with him.  I like Hillary one heck of a lot more than you like Obama, Bianca, but check her out in this one.  Who's that handsome guy she's with here?

[Byron]

Check this one out, Bianca, my, how the Clintons have changed! 

[Volitzer]

Check this one out, Bianca, my, how the Clintons have changed! 

Groovy man, far out !!!   

[Byron]

To be fair, here's Obama meeting Bush.  Hey, at least Obama is taller!  

[Byron]

But we all know who Bush's heart is with, no matter how thew WSJ tries to spin it!   

[Byron]

Check this one out, Bianca, my, how the Clintons have changed! 

Groovy man, far out !!!   

Yeah., I thought that Hillary's high school photo looked a lot better.  She liked it, too!

[Byron]

Hillary's first year at Wellesley:

[Volitzer]

Any of the globalist candidates will be a Bushoid 3rd term.

[Tom Hebert]

But we all know who Bush's heart is with, no matter how thew WSJ tries to spin it!   

A picture is worth a thousand words!  This one says it all!

[Bianca]

Yup, for THAT time, they were pretty groovy.

But at least their hair did NOT cover  their eyes.

Got something to hide, Byron?







You know how inane your statement  sounds?  Styles and trends are forever changing. 
You wouldn't believe the outfits I personally have worn and the hair styles I have had,
being a very fashion-aware person and a "clothes-horse" to boot.....

Twenty years from now - or sooner - get ready to be ridiculed yourself when people look at
your present pictures..........

[Bianca]

QUOTE:



"By the way, I wonder how many pictures there are out there of Obama with Bush?  I think there are a heck of a lot more of Hillary with him." 




OF COURSE THERE ARE - WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?


I should hope so, she's been a Senator as long as Bush has been in office, in case you didn't
notice.....

She is also the former First Lady of  the ONLY Democratic President who VERY successfully

served TWO terms, since FDR.


Are you new to politics, Byron?




BTW, it's common knowledge the Mr. Obama was asked to a PRIVATE breakfast at the White

House as soon as he got to the Senate, attended by:



George Bush

Dick Cheney and......hold on to your hat.....


                                                        KARL ROVE!!!




THE BELLS THAT STARTED RINGING IN MY HEAD WHEN I FIRST SAW OBAMA AND HEARD

HIM SPEAK STARTED CLANGING EVEN LOUDER WHEN I READ ABOUT THAT.......

[Volitzer]

QUOTE:



"By the way, I wonder how many pictures there are out there of Obama with Bush?  I think there are a heck of a lot more of Hillary with him." 




OF COURSE THERE ARE - WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?


I should hope so, she's been a Senator as long as Bush has been in office, in case you didn't
notice.....

She is also the former First Lady of  the ONLY Democratic President who VERY successfully

served TWO terms, since FDR.


Are you new to politics, Byron?




BTW, it's common knowledge the Mr. Obama was asked to a PRIVATE breakfast at the White

House as soon as he got to the Senate, attended by:



George Bush

Dick Cheney and......hold on to your hat.....


                                                        KARL ROVE!!!




THE BELLS THAT STARTED RINGING IN MY HEAD WHEN I FIRST SAW OBAMA AND HEARD

HIM SPEAK STARTED CLANGING EVEN LOUDER WHEN I READ ABOUT THAT.......

Bianca will you make the Bilderberg connection already good God we are debating differences in Republicans and Democrats like we would differences between Satan and Beelzebub.

Clue in already.

Besides why not support a fellow Floridian ??

[Bianca]

QUOTE:



"Bianca will you make the Bilderberg connection already good God we are debating differences in Republicans and Democrats like we would differences between Satan and Beelzebub.

Clue in already."



Ahem.......

Vol, I have been meaning to say this to you for a loooooooong time:



Forget Bilderberg,


IT'S A LOOOOOOOT WOOOOOORSE  THAN THAT!!!!


Dig a little deeper, Vol!!!!