ABOUT THIS SITE
This website was created as a pet project to better understand the workings of the Bush administration. It is a sister site to eRiposte. In this site, the remarkable rise of George W. Bush to the office of President of the United States, and his singular tenure as President are captured broadly. In keeping with the President's acclaimed interest in education, key aspects of his character and Presidency are examined and documented as hypothetical coursework at the University of Compassionate Conservatism¹. The Bush administration is one that I believe is likely to fascinate "revisionist historians" over time. It is also one whose political brilliance cannot be understated. By exploiting the environment subsequent to 9/11 - one in which the American media largely absconded from its true responsibility as the fourth estate for an extended period of time -  the administration has created an interesting trench in the ocean of American and world history².  

So what is this (hypothetical) University all about? Well, President Bush came to office setting certain expectations. For instance, he has indicated that a "compassionate conservative" is a "reformer with results." He has also stated that he had "real plans for real people". He spends a lot of time talking about values, family, character, and what not. So, naively I thought, it might be a good idea to illustrate how the talk translates into the walk, and how his "compassion" inundates us so often. In many respects, I have come to discover that what I have captured here constitutes merely the tip of his compassion iceberg. (For instance, serial compassion is not specifically examined - e.g., Mr. Bush's holding forth a certain position repeatedly in speeches). 

You may ask what value this site adds, given the numerous sites already existing on the Internet that focus on the Bush administration. Clearly, the value will be determined by the reader. My own goal with this site was to provide a means to collate information in a manner that makes it much easier for interested people to see what the administration is all about. I present the information in concise tabular form, with links to sources for people who want to read more details. I believe that my site, as it fills up, will be the most comprehensive information site on the Bush administration's "compassion", "moral clarity", "promises kept", and nominees/appointees. My hope is that my site will make it easier for students, everyday people, bloggers, information websites, and those in the media who actually care to understand what this administration is all about, to find what they are looking for and discover what they were unaware of. 

I started this project in earnest in the late April/early May 2003 timeframe and have been scouring the web armed with Google and a gaggle of web sites (see below) to extract useful/interesting information. I don't have Lexis/Nexis access (can't afford it) and I was not paid in any form or fashion to do this. I undertook this project because I thought it would be interesting (and it was/is). This is a non-profit site. 

DATA ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am an avid reader of internet newsmedia and blogs. I got virtually all my information from the websites I list below. Additional sources are listed as appropriate in the corresponding sections of my webpage. 

Newsmedia I got a significant part of my information from include the following. I read them: 
Read DAILY: New York Times, Washington Post, Salon.com, MSNBC, CNN
Read ONCE or TWICE A WEEK: The New Republic, USA Today, Time, Newsweek
In particular, I would like to acknowledge the Paul Krugman Archives website. 

Bloggers, e-zines, information sites, political sites and economics sites I got the most significant portions of my information, include:
Read DAILY: Atrios/Eschaton, Politics, Law and Autism, Calpundit, Buzzflash, Daily Howler, Thinking it Through
Read ONCE or TWICE a WEEK: Bushwatch, Talkingpointsmemo (TPM), Spinsanity, Media Whores Online, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Daily Kos, Altercation, Liberal Oasis

One of the other pieces that was forwarded to me by a reader - Carol Swinney - was also useful in my research. 

I apologize in advance if these sites are not explicitly cited against articles that they referred to - it just became very difficult for me to track not just the URLs for the articles, but also the URLs for the sites referring to those articles. I do it sometimes and I don't do it at other times and when I don't, the information was quite possibly cited by one of the sites mentioned above.

OBTAINING VALUE FROM THIS SITE AND SENDING ME FEEDBACK ³
First become a student! All the "course material" here will prepare you to become a Compassionate Conservative! 

When you complete these courses, you will be able to see clearly how justifiable you were in voting for this upholder of moral clarity back in 2000; if you did not vote for him, you will naturally feel the shame of having been an uncompassionate unconservative⁴. No matter. At least now you will begin to truly understand how Mr. Bush took the first steps towards restoring "respect", "honor", and "dignity" to the White House and therefore prepare to vote for him in Election 2004. You will receive a certain number of Compassion Con⁵ credits once you have assimilated each lesson in each of the courses - the total credits available for a course is simply the sum of all the individual lesson credits shown in the last column of the tables you will see. When you graduate, you will be able to use your credits wisely by referring to the guidelines in the final course offered - CC999 ("Using Compassion Con Credits"). The best way you can tell if you have graduated with flying colors⁶ is when you are able to convince the rest of the world that it is abjectly immoral, uncompassionate, unconservative and unpatriotic to question the teachings and the practice of President Bush's Compassionate Conservativism⁷. You increase the likelihood of graduating with Honors if you do that even as you simultaneously distribute the course material at your local place of worship.

Now, some of you will undoubtedly feel this University is way too partisan - that I am too enamored by President Bush and his Compassionate Conservatism. If you do so, without interest in the facts, I would respect your compassion but would ask you to consider a certain columnist's comments here as a response. The point of this website is NOT to claim that President Bush is never uncompassionate. It is to assess how compassionate he can be as a person. 
If you believe some of the content in the coursework you are about to assimilate requires correcting, please do let me know (at compassion-at-compassiongate-dot-com) - I may have compiled the coursework (which by the way is updated regularly and by no means complete), but I do not intend for any compassion to show by accident. I have to let you know in advance that I cannot promise that I will respond to each and every mail I receive. I would certainly appreciate civility in discourse, so civility will increase the probability that I might respond. My responses will be at my sole discretion.
Others may feel that I am too unpartisan and Bush-friendly by refusing to acknowledge your belief that Bush lies and deceives, and that deception is a hallmark of his administration. Well, let me put it this way - he is a compassionate conservative. 

WEB TOOLS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
Text logo: Media Builder 3D Text Maker
Although at the time of this writing (7/25/03), I am unsure if I will use Javascripts on this site, I will mention The Javascript Source in my acknowledgements - if I do use any, it will be one of their free scripts. 

AN ASIDE ON THE CONTENT
Some of the content on this website may be password-protected (e.g., articles from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Salon.com etc.). I do provide links to what might be considered copyright material but I would like to emphasize that such material is only made available on this website in the form of URLs and relevant quotes. It is not my intent to distribute the material for profit or payment, since this is a personal opinion website that is non-profit. I provide these links from a research/educational/informational standpoint only. I believe this is in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107. Reference: <http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml>.

FOOTNOTES
1. Some comments are in order about terms/names:
(a) Some of you might actually wonder where this University is located - so, it is appropriate to make it clear right here that this is not a real University - it is only a hypothetical institute of "learning". 
(b) Some may wonder why this website is called Compassiongate. Well -- [.....]gate. (Probably a lot better than "CIA" - meaning, Compassion Information Awareness.)
(c) I have tried hard to come up with a defining characteristic of Compassionate Conservatism, as it is practiced. It is hard, but I think what best separates a Compassionate Conservative (from a true Conservative or Moderate) is the dearth (but not lack) of a conscience. (Sometimes I am tempted to think Compassionate Conservatives are probably closet atheists, but I don't mean to insult atheists by that speculation.)

2. I will readily acknowledge that trenches have hillocks on them too. 
But jokes aside, the period stretching from approximately the mid-1990s to 2004 (or 2008 if President Bush gets re-elected) is likely to be one of the most useful periods for Americans who actually care about America - for it is a period that has exposed the real "principles" and "family values" of ultra-right wing fruitcakes masquerading as Conservatives, and all their myriad supporters including many in the Compassionate Media. What has become readily apparent is that their judgments on "principles" and "family values" apply to everyone except their own families and those that they support. 
This period also represents a sad and unnecessary moral decay of the Republican Party (as opposed to its political rise), but has probably led to an ironical, unintentional, "reverse-McCarthyite" effect  - a  tremendous opportunity for historians to document the name of every fruitcake who has come out of the woodwork and participated in undemocratic and un-American excesses during this period. So, my advice is this: sharpen your pencils (so to speak) and make notes for the history books.
That said, I won't take away brownie points from the Bush administration or Republicans for their political brilliance, helped no doubt by the resounding political ineptness of the Democratic party since (at least the year) 2000. As the continued DLC attacks on Howard Dean show, the DLC is exhibiting its own sense of decay by showing that divisiveness, rather than unity, is the sign of the times. O tempora, o mores! 
(Political Disclosures: I do support Howard Dean, but I am more of a John Kerry supporter. I respect some of what George Bush, Sr. and John McCain have stood for - so I am not entirely in the Democratic camp).  

3. Sarcasm alert.

4. The word unconservative does not exist in the dictionary, but we believe it is uncompassionate to deride us for this - you liberal elite, you! 

5. I sometimes prefer to truncate the words Compassionate Conservative to Compassion Con. There is no intent here to imply anything significant by this (at least anything more than is commonly understood). I reserve all moral clarity rights to the use of this term.

6. Not to be confused with the American flag.

7. Note that Compassionate statements made by Mr. Bush's spokespersons, advisers or appointees - speaking clearly on behalf of Mr. Bush - are considered as being supported by Mr. Bush, absent a public statement to the contrary.