Garden State Patriot

Yesterday, the newly formed National Council for a New America (NCNA) held its first conference. The meeting consisted of numerous prominent Republicans including Mitt Romney, House Whip Eric Cantor and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Richard Ross reported here on CWA! last week regarding this effort aimed at ‘rebranding’ the party and ‘updating’ its message.

After the meeting, though, Jeb Bush had this to say:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Saturday that it’s time for the Republican Party to give up its “nostalgia” for the heyday of the Reagan era and look forward, even if it means stealing the winning strategy deployed by Democrats in the 2008 election.

“You can’t beat something with nothing, and the other side has something. I don’t like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that,” Mr. Bush said.

The former president’s brother, often mentioned as a potential candidate in 2012, said President Obama’s message of hope and change during the 2008 campaign clearly resonated with Americans.

“So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant. I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it’s great, but it doesn’t draw people toward your cause,” Mr. Bush said.

Now, I understand to some extent what Jeb is saying. The party can not rely on nostalgia alone to win elections. This is true. But the problem has not been that the party has done this. The problem is we are no longer the party of Reagan. We haven’t been the party of Reagan, arguably, since Bill Clinton used the government shutdown to kill very bit of momentum built up by the 1994 victories.

And the drift away from Reaganism started before 1994 with Jeb’s dad. The minute Bush #41 took over he left Reaganism behind by supporting tax increases and employing a softer tone - think “thousand points of light” and a “kindler, gentler America.”

The 1994 elections certainly signaled a step back towards Reaganism. For about 4 years we saw the kind of vision Reagan had for America being implemented by Republicans in Congress led by Newt Gingrich and the ‘Contract with America.’. Tax cuts, balanced budgets and returning power back to the states were several of the hallmarks of this movement.

When George W. Bush came onto the scene and announced his candidacy for the Presidency, you may remember many in the media saying that he was more conservative than his father. In retrospect, “W” was only slightly to the right of his father. As they say, the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. In fact, “W’s” use of the term “compassionate conservatism” drew the ire of conservatives even back in during the 2000 campaign. 

George W. Bush, of course, ultimately did not govern completely like Reagan. “W” was indeed a proponent of a strong, tough foreign policy in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but his domestic agenda was hardly Reagan-esque save tax cuts. “W” sanctioned excess spending and inexplicably signed into law the prescription drug benefit entitlement. He also promoted and signed into law No Child Left Behind which only increased intervention of the federal government in the area of education, rather than devolving that power to the states. On illegal immigration, “W” also was right there with the pro-amnesty crowd until conservatives put a stop to it (amnesty did occur under Reagan but he would later say that it was a mistake).

So, to some extent I do agree with Jeb. The party does need to update its message. But it should do so by taking the principles of Reaganism and applying them in a personal and relevant way to the problems the nation faces today.

The approach, though, that needs to be tossed in the trash and be forgotten is the “Bush” approach for it is the one that has crippled the Republican Party.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

OK, I know I’ve been tooting my own horn over my post on Dems wanting Bush to fail (if I don’t, who will? ). But you have to admit it’s amazing how one little blogger just futzing around on the Internet could cause a tremor that reached the biggest media outfits in the country.

Now, the latest ramification of my little post is this little ditty from Bill Sammon of Fox News:

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.”

Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.

“We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I’m wanting them to turn against him,” Greenberg admitted.

The pollster added with a chuckle of disbelief: “They don’t want him to fail. I mean, they think it matters if the president of the United States fails.”

“The most influential Republican in the United States today, Mr. Rush Limbaugh, said he did not want President Obama to succeed,” Carville railed on CNN recently. “He is the daddy of this Republican Congress.”

Rush responded today himself:

“The difference between Carville and his ilk and me is that I care about what happens to my country,” Limbaugh told Fox on Wednesday. “I am not saying what I say for political advantage. I oppose actions, such as Obama’s socialist agenda, that hurt my country.

“I deal in principles, not polls,” Limbaugh added. “Carville and people like him live and breathe political exploitation. This is all a game to them. It’s not a game to me. I am concerned about the well-being and survival of our nation. When has Carville ever advocated anything that would benefit the country at the expense of his party?”

Just classic. More liberal hypocrisy. I really think these people think we’re all stupid.

The Internet is an amazing thing. With all of the hullabaloo over Rush Limbaugh’s comments I started wondering if I could find evidence of Democrats wanting Bush to fail. Lo and behold Fox News did a poll in 2006 and asked that very question. An article on the poll appeared in the NY Post by Craig Charney, a former Clinton pollster (I found the text of the article at sistertoldjah.com). Check this out.

A recent Fox News poll gets at the disturbing truth: A majority of Democrats say they want to see the president fail. Such deep hatred is bad news for the country at a time when America needs to bridge the partisan divide. It’s also bad news for the Democrats, who risk repeating the Republicans’ mistakes of a decade ago, driving away the centrists they need to regain power or going too far if they do manage to win.

Fox’s question was revealing: “Regardless of how you voted in the presidential election, would you say you want President Bush to succeed or not?” Democrats said “not,” 51 percent to 40 percent – where the public at large wanted success by almost two to one. [See page 4 of this document for the poll in question.--ST]

In other words, the rage extends way beyond the lip-pierced Deaniacs, aging hippies and other fringes of the Democratic Party. Lots of otherwise sensible people – suburban moms, hospital orderlies, schoolteachers, big-hatted church ladies – detest George W. Bush.

When these Democrats say they want Bush to fail, might this mean that they simply reject what they see as his far-right religious and corporate agenda? If so, it’s hard to see why independents – hardly right-wing zealots – hope he succeeds by 63 percent to 34 percent. Sadly, much of the Democratic Party wants to see this president crash and burn.

In fact, the fury against to Bush has reached unprecedented levels, even compared to the animosity among Republicans to his predecessor. Not long ago, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that “strong disapproval” of Bush was 10 points higher than that recorded for Bill Clinton at any point during his presidency, including his impeachment. (That wasn’t during a war, either.)

[CORRECTION] Following quote from Betsy Newmark’s blog post.

Remember, for better or for worse, George W. Bush will be our president for more than two years. Hoping that he’ll fail is really hoping that America will fail. These people detest Bush so much that they don’t mind America getting a setback across the globe if it will weaken Bush.

Of course, there’s a key difference between then and now. Wishing Bush would fail meant wishing the country lost in Iraq. Wishing Obama fails means rooting against socialistic policies that threaten everything the country was founded on and our future prosperity.

Do you think the MSM, considering their whining about Limbaugh’s comments, would think to look something like this up now and then report on it? Nope, that would actually mean really reporting on something and adding some context. That would mean they couldn’t marginalize and demonize him.

Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!

[UPDATED 3/9/09]

Quite a day! I had no idea this would ever happen. I actually e-mailed the story to Rush last week, but it wasn’t until Gateway Pundit and Little Green Footballs picked up on it that it got out there.

Amazingly, even Fox News picked up on this and ran a story flashing back to the poll.

Again, I didn’t do anything special here. A little light bulb went off and said let me check around and see what I can find. Any reporter for any media outfit could have done the same. The fact that they didn’t says alot about the mainstream media and their agenda.

Here’s the transcript from Rush’s show.

Bret Baier – Political Grapevine!

O’Reilly’s Talking Points!

Here’s Sean Hannity running with it!

Here is my latest post from Conservatives with Attitude!

I’m sure I speak for many conservatives in saying that Barack Obama’s approach to national security and the War on Terror have us, at the least, very uneasy if not altogether scared to death.

In his first week, Obama has issued an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Almost simultaneously we learned of what could happen – and likely will happen much more frequently - if we change our current policy toward these terrorists and illegal enemy combatants. If they go free, they will continue their jihadist ways against America.

Interestingly, it wasn’t long ago that liberals chided George W. Bush for starting the Iraq war ‘without a plan to win the peace.’ Obama’s executive order likewise is an action without a plan. The move might pacify his pacifist base, but Americans deserve answers as to what will happen with these detainees. And those answers most assuredly won’t come easy, nor will they make those of us who are rightfully worried feel as if our nation we will subsequently be safer. As succinctly put by the Ediors of National Review:

We’d love to close Guantanamo, but we can’t right now; we’d love to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo, but other countries don’t want them; we’d love to give every detainee a civilian trial, but we don’t have enough evidence; we’d love to release the detainees we can’t charge with crimes, but our intelligence tells us they’re dangerous, so doing so would be irresponsible; and we’d love to stick to the highly civilized, detainee-friendly interrogation practices approved by the Army Field Manual, but every now and then there may be an emergency when something more severe is warranted.

Lest we forget what this is all about, these prisoners are not at Guantanamo Bay unjustly or without cause. They are there because they have waged war on America. They are there as part of our effort to make sure that another 9/11 or worse does not occur on American soil ever again. And so that people like Michael Burke have some measure of justice.

Mr. Burke is lost his brother William, an FDNY fire fighter, on 9/11. And in an op-ed piece he had this to say about Obama’s decision regarding Guantanamo Bay. I couldn’t have said it better:

With his shameful order to close Guantanamo Bay, President Obama has perfectly filled the stereotype of the classic clueless ultra-Liberal – the one who can generate great passion for the rights of the guilty defendant and none for the innocent victim.

With a single stroke of the pen, Obama has delayed justice for the victims of 9/11, and in essence granted a reprieve for Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11.

America does not honor our “rule of law and the rights of man” as he put in his inauguration speech by such an action. Instead, this nation abdicated its duty to justice.

It seems the new President is too far removed from the victims of 9/11. Victims like 11-year-old Bernard Curtis Brown, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. Everyone onboard was killed, as well as 66 people in the Pentagon. Curtis was on a trip with several of his classmates to California sponsored by National Geographic.

Obama and the Democrats have had a blind spot for 9/11 and have yet to show they have an ounce of understanding what happened that day.

Here is why we were attacked: Muslim extremists hate Americans and want us dead. Our policies in no way influenced the vitriol perpetuated on innocent Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.

It is asinine to believe that Guantanamo Bay, even with its scandalously biased coverage, has in any way inspired a single terrorist.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has offered unapologetic confessions for 9/11 and also brags that he was the assassin of journalist Daniel Pearl (”with this blessed right hand I beheaded the Jew”) sits in an air-conditioned cell, innocent until proven guilty, receiving three square meals a day, specially prepared to satisfy his religious prescriptions, free medical and dental (already meeting Obama’s specifications of health care as a constitutional right) and the free services of an army of court-appointed lawyers.

Welcome to the American way of life.

Obama could grant these men full constitutional rights in an American court. And when they are exonerated, we, the U.S. taxpayers, supply a luxury cruise ship trip back home. And they will still hate us and want us dead.

The only thing Obama has accomplished is convincing these mass murderers that we are too narcissistic, too foolish and too weak to protect and defend ourselves. Just as the terrorists believed prior to 9/11.

And we do not enhance our Constitution by applying it to those it was never meant to serve. Rather, the move diminishes and threatens the foundation on which our laws are built.

It is impossible to fight the war on terrorism, like every war, under the Constitution. Consequently, we cannot convict our enemies under it. They will get off. Once free, they will, despite having enjoyed the benevolence of our constitutional rights, strike us again. The Constitution then becomes a means of our destruction. If it cannot protect us, then what is to stop somebody from trying to replace it? Obama would lead us down the road to dictatorship.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were unprecedented. Everything we did in response was made up along the way. Despite that, and contrary to the echo chamber of criticism, America has managed, by pummeling Al Qaeda and liberating the peoples of two nations, to make the world a freer and safer place. We have successfully defended ourselves against any further attacks. And we have done it with a proper respect for the “rule of law and the rights of man.”

Justice delayed is justice denied. That goes for the American victims of foreign attacks, also.

With this order to close Guantanamo, the countdown to the next attack has begun.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. –Barack Obama, from his Inaugural Address 

Unfortunately, Obama’s supporters failed to exemplify these words today. During today’s ceremonies Obama’s supporters displayed the very childishness and vitriol that they have shown towards George W. Bush for the past 8 years. There were boos and choruses of Steam’s famous song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.”

Despite one’s feelings about Bush as a President, the man did nothing in his 8 years to deserve the hate and disrespect that so many on the Left hurl his way. George W. Bush, and the Office of the Presidency, deserve more respect than what these citizens have shown.

If these Obama supporters really believe in change, maybe they can start by acting with more dignity and class than they have displayed today and during W’s terms in office.