The longer we are there, the more we are going to be targets for their actions and we're setting ourselves up for a rationalization for anarchy and for terrorism against American interests around the world.

Rumsfeld is "disdainful" of Congress and discourages questions even on important subjects like the war. 

Dealing with them is frustrating and getting information from them is like "pulling teeth".

10-24-03

10-12-03

9-2-03

The administration does not seem to have a coherent policy on Iraq.

(Translated: who's in charge?)

Sen. Chuck Hagel:
"...administration “did a miserable job of planning the post-Saddam Iraq"..."

Sen. John McCain:
"...[adminsitration has been giving] too rosy a scenario [in Iraq]..."

GOP Sen. Rich Lugar quoted by Dana Priest (Washington Post):
"..."The president has to be president," Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "That means the president over the vice president, and over these secretaries" of state and defense. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice "cannot carry that burden alone."
In the first week of the administration's public relations campaign to explain its Iraq policy and highlight its achievements, Lugar noted that Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Rice had given speeches whose tone "was distinctly different" and that senators were rightly concerned about "the strength, the coherence of our policies."..."

GOP Sen. John McCain quoted by Douglas Jehl and David Firestone (New York Times/IHT):
"..."I think that up until the [Rumsfeld] memo was leaked they were giving too rosy a scenario," Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said..."

Anonymous GOP folks/insiders quoted by David Ignatius (Washington Post):
"..."The interagency process is completely dysfunctional," says one Republican former Cabinet secretary with decades of foreign-policy expertise. "In my experience, I've never seen it played out this way."
Another Republican insider recalls that early on, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld admonished his deputies that he alone would speak for the Pentagon in interagency debates. Lower-level officials were not authorized to resolve disputes. That stance effectively gutted the traditional security council process..."

Claiming we had to attack Saddam because Al Qaeda attacked the US on 9/11 is nonsense

Claiming that U.N. sanctions did not work is false given we haven't found any WMDs

Claiming that the increasing number of guerilla/terrorist attacks in Iraq are a sign of progress is BS as well since this would mean we are not progressing well if there are fewer attacks

We're making a mockery of many of our promises to the Iraqi people by shoving the Turks down their throats. It's shameful and outrageous and unworthy of our country.

I've supported President Bush all through the war, the buildup and the aftermath, but I just find this despicable and foolish (direct quote).

The military in Iraq is stretched thin. Civilian efforts in Iraq remain spotty.

Unless the public is convinced that the government is learning from this war -- learning how to know what it does not know -- the war may have made the public less persuadable and the nation perhaps less safe [in the future].

Why were troops not sent to secure Saddam's conventional weapon sites immediately?

The immediate post-war was a disaster. Shouldn't someone take responsibility?

[CG note: Well, yes, someone should, but not as long as people like you act like this administration's toilet paper. Whoops, pardon my French! ]

Invading Iraq claiming it had something to do with the war on terror was B.S. for many reasons. 

"Before March 19, when the war began, Iraq offered little hospitality to anti-American terrorists and little threat to American security. Today, it's a vast arena for any fanatics who are willing to risk their lives to spill American blood". On top of this the administration is spinning this as a "good thing".

By sending an American army to occupy Baghdad, the seat of the caliphate for 500 years, we played into al-Qaida's hands. We are where they want us. We are where they can get at us. We are where they can kill us on their timetable, on their own turf.

Somewhere, Osama bin Laden is saying to himself, "Mission accomplished".

[CG note: Tut, tut, Ann Coulter is watching you.]

"At the end of the third inning we declared victory and said the game's over. It ain't over."

We can't put our men and women in harm's way "because some policy wonk back here has a brain fart of an idea of a strategy that isn't thought out"

 Is this Vietnam redux?

"Why the hell would the Department of Defense be the organization in our government that deals with the reconstruction of Iraq?"

ETC.

David Corn in The Nation:
"...Zinni continued: "When we put [our enlisted men and women] in harm's way, it had better count for something, It can't be because some policy wonk back here has a brain fart of an idea of a strategy that isn't thought out."...
he said, "should never be put on a battlefield without a strategic plan, not only for the fighting--our generals will take care of that--but for the aftermath and winning that war. Where are we, the American people, if we accept this, if we accept this level of sacrifice without that level of planning? Almost everyone in this room, of my contemporaries--our feelings and our sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and lies, and we saw the sacrifice. We swore never again would we do that. We swore never again would we allow it to happen. And I ask you, is it happening again? And you're going to have to answer that question, just like the American people are."..."

Washington Post
"...There is no strategy or mechanism for putting the pieces together," said retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, and so, he said, "we're in danger of failing."...
Zinni's comments were especially striking because he endorsed President Bush in the 2000 campaign, shortly after retiring from active duty, and serves as an adviser to the State Department on anti-terror initiatives in Indonesia and the Philippines. He preceded Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks as chief of the U.S. Central Command, the headquarters for U.S. military operations in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
This was not the first time he has broken with the administration. He was publicly skeptical last winter of the decision to attack Iraq.
Underscoring how much his views have changed since 2000, he implied that the Bush administration is now damaging the U.S. military in the way that Bush and Vice President Cheney during that campaign charged that the Clinton administration had done. "We can't go on breaking our military and doing things like we're doing now," he said.
He also questioned the Bush administration's decision in January to have the Pentagon oversee postwar efforts in Iraq. "Why the hell would the Department of Defense be the organization in our government that deals with the reconstruction of Iraq?" he asked. "Doesn't make sense." 
In addition, he criticized the administration for not working earlier and harder to win a U.N. resolution that several nations have indicated is a prerequisite to their contributing peacekeeping troops to help in Iraq. "We certainly blew past the U.N.," he said. "Why, I don't know. Now we're going back hat in hand." 
Zinni's comments to the joint meeting in Arlington of the U.S. Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association, two professional groups for officers, were greeted warmly by his audience, with prolonged applause at the end. Some officers bought tapes and compact discs of the speech to give to others."

[CG note: All I can ask is -- why is Zinni not running for President?]

[CG note: C'mon Bill, why do you repeatedly aid the terrorists?...That's not me asking, its Rumsfeld.]

"...Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) elimination and exploitation planning efforts did not occur early enough in the process to allow CentCom to effectively execute the mission. The extent of the planning required was underestimated. Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission..."

Planning was poor because "WMD elimination/exploitation on a large scale was a new mission area. Division of responsibility for planning and execution was not clear. As a result planning occurred on an ad hoc basis and late in the process."

[CG note: Moral clarity at its best. Why? Well, the compassionate folks started planning an attack on Iraq months before 9/11. Which also fully explains why, when one person after another was warning them about Al Qaeda and terrorism, they were using up precious resources for war-gaming Iraq. Splendid.] 

Bush's Iraq policy threatens to turn what was a major military victory into a potential humanitarian, political and economic disaster.

Hard to believe WH is in control of events.

 They don't seem to grasp the absolutely vital necessity of success in Iraq.

Aircraft carrier landing was the dumbest political gesture of the last two years.

The Bush administration has failed to involve Iraqis as partners and unleash the positive effects of their hatred for Saddam.

The administration needs to do a lot more to improve security in Iraq and to really get rid of Saddam's "network".

• Crack down on Saddam supporters at large in the country...

• Conduct a security sweep through the towns where resistance is concentrated...

• Control Iraq's borders. Foreigners are entering Iraq at will with virtually no questions asked...

• Move quickly to establish an Iraqi security force that can take on the burden of many of these tasks...

• Engage friendly Iraqi forces such as the INC, the Kurdish parties and others much more closely in the hunt for Hussein and remaining senior regime officials..."

[CG note: So, dude, are you implying the U.S. in not doing its job well? Why do you hate America so?]

There is an insufficient sense of urgency in Washington, and needs on the ground in Iraq are going unmet.
Security remains a serious problem in Iraq partly because, contrary to administration assurances, our military force levels are obviously inadequate.

The number of civilian advisers in Iraq is astonishingly low.

We didn't manage to work closely with the Iraqis before the war.

Their estimates on troop requirements was wrong from the beginning and mobilization of National Guard and Reserve troops threatens retention and recruitment

In response to a cable answering a long list of questions from a Middle Eastern country regarding U.S. planning for the aftermath in Iraq...suggested that if this was as good as it got, some folks on the Pentagon's E-ring may be sitting beside Saddam Hussein in the war crimes tribunals

"Lies, Damned Lies, and Military Intelligence...
...It is now evident that Saddam Hussein's possession of vast quantities of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) is about as likely as Mars having canals, complete with gondolas and singing gondoliers. Remember, it wasn't just a couple of stink bombs we accused him of possessing. According to data compiled by columnist Nicholas Kristof, the governments of the United States and (once) Great Britain told the world that Saddam had 500 tons of mustard and nerve gas, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum, almost 30,000 banned munitions and the tornado that abducted Dorothy. So far, all we have found is two empty trailers. Presumably, American troops had sufficient time to paint over the "Allied Van Lines" logos. Since Saddam's WMD were one of the principal stated reasons for this strategically curious war, their absence is something more than a social faux pas. Were the American and British publics, as Pat Buchanan puts it, lied into war? If they were, it would not be the first time..."

The administration’s use of forged evidence opens Bush to unflattering comparisons that his enemies will not hesitate to make. They will point out that it was Hitler’s strategy to fabricate evidence in order to justify his invasion of a helpless country.

This is a contrived and fraudulently justified war with hidden objectives.

(He resigned his post as the Boone County (Missouri) GOP chairman, in protest)

It has nothing to do with a real threat from Iraq.

They want a war as a manifestation of U.S. power in the world and as a sign that the United States is capable of changing the balance of power and the political map of the Middle East.

The Bush administration lies when it says Saddam is not deterrable

Invasion and occupation will clearly increase risk of terrorism against US

Also see: Ted Galen Carpenter (Orange County Register), William Niskanen (Fox News), Gene Healy

Our pre-eminent security priority -- underscored repeatedly by the president -- is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counter terrorist campaign we have undertaken.

[The war with Iraq] could well destabilize Arab regimes in the region, ironically facilitating one of Saddam's strategic objectives. At a minimum, it would stifle any cooperation on terrorism, and could even swell the ranks of the terrorists.

The NSC irresponsibly fabricated, with malicious intent, a rumor about the documents that the Congressional delegation provided to North Korea

This seems to be the first time in recent history that a President has blocked travel of a bipartisan Congressional delegation to another country that the U.S. is not at war with

FAA's recent behavior was disturbing.

9-11 Commission Press Release 10-15-03:
"...On May 7, the Commission requested from the FAA all documents related to the FAA’s tracking of hijacked airliners on 9-11, including without limitation all communications with NORAD. As of early September, the Commission was assured that the FAA’s document production was complete, and therefore scheduled interviews in New York, Boston, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. Over the course of these interviews the Commission learned that various tapes, statements, interview reports, and agency self-assessments highly material to our inquiry inexplicably had not been included in the FAA’s production. Once this issue came to light—just in the past few days—the FAA provided the Commission with dozens of boxes and materials that its representatives now claim satisfy our request, and they pledged the FAA’s full cooperation. While the staff has not yet had the opportunity to digest these materials fully, it is clear that the FAA’s delay has significantly impeded the progress of our investigation and undermined our confidence in the completeness of the FAA’s production. 
This disturbing development at one agency has led the Commission to re-examine its general policy of relying on document requests rather than subpoenas. We have voted to issue a subpoena to the FAA for the documents we have already requested...
Finally, we want to express our growing concern about whether delays such as that we have encountered at the FAA will prevent the Commission from completing its work and issuing its report within the time frame set by statute..."

The lean "demonstrate[d] an underlying contempt for the intelligence community, the CIA in particular".

The US government has never before released the name of a clandestine officer - CIA agents have been betrayed.

He should restore honor and dignity to the White House by meeting with his handful of Senior Administration Officials and fire the ones who committed the act. 

He should also apologize to Mrs. Wilson (Valerie Plame) 

This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear, of an individual who had no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it because the entire intent was, correctly as Amb. Wilson noted, to intimidate

It sickens me to be a Republican to see this

Terrorism was a bogus rationale for Iraq war.

Terrorism is also a bogus rationale for most of the massive increases in defense spending by this administration. 

The Bush administration has yet to explain how an expanded military can defend US citizens against terrorist cells that use car bombs made out of fertiliser.

There are significant areas of concern within the Coast Guard budget. There are real questions over whether domestic law enforcement resources are up to the challenge of combating global terrorism and meeting all the other myriad responsibilities, particularly in the maritime domain. 

An announced restructuring of the FBI offers a case in point. Combating terrorism is now the bureau's primary mission, but even after the proposed reorganization more than two-thirds of its agents will remain focused on investigating traditional crimes, and the agency's top ten priorities are equally split between homeland security and other tasks.

Even with additional funding, current programs may not be adequate to protect maritime infrastructure from a new class of emerging threat. Little attention has been paid to the fact that civilian targets are vulnerable to precision weapons.

A serious concern for the future, however, is whether state and local responder assets will be sufficiently robust to deal with such attacks.

In several areas, it is unclear whether the budget is adequate - e.g. intelligence, recapitalization of the Coast Guard, maritime critical infrastructure protection, and funding for emergency responders.

[CG note: Eagleburger was Secretary of State under Bush I]

• According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there is no evidence that Iraq "lied in its declaration on the nuclear issue." But North Korea -- another country named as part of the "axis of evil" by President Bush -- has admitted to an ongoing secret nuclear weapons program and is in violation of its 1994 agreement with the United States to freeze its nuclear weapons development.

• There is no evidence that Iraq possesses any nuclear weapons and likely does not have the capability to produce any. On the other hand, North Korea is believed to possess at least one or two weapons and is currently extracting weapons grade plutonium from a previously shut-down reactor that could be used to build several more weapons within a matter of months. 

• Iraq -- per U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 -- has allowed weapons inspectors back into the country, granted them unfettered access, and is largely cooperating with the inspection teams. Meanwhile, North Korea has removed U.N. monitoring equipment from a nuclear reactor in Yongbyon and has expelled U.N. weapons inspectors.

U.S. still remains dangerously unprepared for terrorist attacks.

  Conventional political wisdom is that Republicans are better than Democrats when it comes to defense and national security. Such thinking could be dead wrong. 

Bush administration's rush to engage in regime change in Iraq knowingly puts the public at grave and unnecessary risk to terrorism.

• 650,000 local and state police officials continue to operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum, without access to terrorist watch lists provided by the U.S. Department of  State to immigration and consular officials.

• While 50,000 federal screeners are being hired at the nation’s airports to check passengers, only the tiniest percentage of containers, ships, trucks, and trains that enter the United States each day are subject to examination—and a weapon of mass destruction could well be hidden among this cargo...

• First responders—police, fire, emergency medical technician personnel—are not prepared for a chemical or biological attack. Their radios cannot communicate with one another, and they lack the training and protective gear to protect themselves and the public in an emergency. The consequence of this could be the unnecessary loss of thousands of American lives.

• America’s own ill-prepared response could hurt its people to a much greater extent than any single attack by a terrorist...

• An adversary intent on disrupting America’s reliance on energy need not target oil fields in the Middle East. The homeland infrastructure for refining and distributing energy to support the daily lives of Americans remains largely unprotected to sabotage.

• While the overwhelming majority of the nation’s critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, significant legal barriers remain to forging effective private-public partnerships on homeland security issues..."

Warren Rudman (interview to Dallas Morning News)
"..."I'm at a loss to understand the complacency," said Rudman, who served in the Senate as a New Hampshire Republican from 1980 to 1992. "What does it take? What more do we need? This is not a question of if. It's a question of when."
"Look what's happened to us collectively during last 23 days with this sniper. Everyone's virtually paralyzed out in the D.C. suburbs," Rudman said. "Can you imagine what the result would be in this country if something really bad happens?"...
Hart and Rudman chaired an earlier report on homeland security in March of 2001 warning thousands of Americans would be killed in terrorist strikes within the United States unless the federal government made homeland security a priority..."

"...problems that have arisen so far with the Department of Defense are becoming particularly serious." 

Pentagon had not responded to a series of requests for evidence from several Defense Department agencies, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which is responsible for guarding American airspace from terrorist attack.

It is intimidation to have somebody (from the administration) sitting behind those testifying.

Pakistan joined the American-led coalition only after enormous U.S. diplomatic and military pressure and in exchange for increasing American aid. After Sept. 11, Pakistani military and intelligence services were assisting the losing Taliban fighters and evacuating thousands of them into Pakistan.

Pakistan is led by an unreliable military clique that is assisting radical Islamic terrorist groups in Kashmir, pressing for a war with India, and presiding over a corrupt and mismanaged economy.

White House projections bear no resemblance to reality. The CBO is forced by law to make extremely implausible assumptions both about taxes and spending. The White House does so because it suits Mr Bush's political purposes. No fiscal expert believes either of them

Contrary to the Bush team's rhetoric, America does not have a small, temporary fiscal problem. It has a large and growing one.
The economic consequences are indisputably negative. 

Grim as it is, the medium term appears rosy compared with America's long-term fiscal outlook

Long after Dubya is back on his ranch, Americans will be trying to recover from the mess he created

Contrary to the administration's spin, the real truth is that national defense is far from being responsible for all of the spending increases.

Bush administration has consistently sacrificed sound policy to the god of political expediency.

2-9-03

Andrew Sullivan (andrewsullivan.com)
"...I've been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but his latest budget removes any [CG note: Oh, poor you! I can only try and understand the pain!]. He's the most fiscally profligate president since Nixon. He's worse than Reagan, since he's ratcheting up discretionary spending like Ted Kennedy and shows no signs whatever of adjusting to meet the hole he and the Republican Congress are putting in the national debt..."

Middle-class benefits from Bush 2003 tax cut proposal are wholly illusory.

There is something unconservative about this.

[I]n terms of economic equity it is a catastrophe in the making.

Over the long run, taxpayers may pay dearly for it.

The runaway federal budget, which is up nearly $300 billion in just the last two years, and the parallel hike in taxes and debt needed to finance this spending binge, is America's single most ominous domestic economic danger sign.

If the Farm Bill wasn't the most fiscally rancid legislation I have seen, it's certainly in the top three.

Republicans are suffering from a politically lethal identity crisis.

In order to give steel producers a tiny profit, many other industries were forced to sacrifice far more than steel producers made.

The bill strengthens the Soviet-style cartels.

(Because of this handout) the inflated prices of farm products  at the checkout stand, is the worst tax of all because it is hidden.

If you think the idea behind this increase is to keep the poor family farmer off welfare, forget it. This is not about helping the poor. 

The largest and most profitable farms receive the lion's share of the dough. The top 10 percent of recipients receive 73 percent of the subsidies.

Other budget busting giveaways are around the corner.

President Bush should move forward with his free trade agenda by vetoing this bill [CG note: which he did not]. Anything less will only hurt American exports and America as a whole.

The rule change has an Orwellian definition of "routine maintenance" using which plants can extend their lives indefinitely and increase harmful emissions without installing modern pollution control equipment

[CG note: Russell Train (a member of Republicans for Environmental Protection) served as EPA administration during the Nixon and Ford administrations and as Chairman of the Board of the World Wildlife Fund - as REP America notes.]

• Protect America’s national treasures from energy development, particularly the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – which was created by President Eisenhower and a Republican Congress. Other wild areas should also be preserved. 

• Raise fuel economy standards for cars and sport utility vehicles to 40 miles per gallon over the next decade. 

• Support mass transit. 

• Achieve energy efficiency for homes, offices and factories through tax credits and upgraded efficiency standards. 

• Encourage a boom in the production of solar, wind and hydrogen fuel cell energy sources through tax incentives paid for by redirecting fossil fuel subsidies. 

• Cap carbon dioxide emissions, as promised in the presidential campaign, and responsibly utilize natural gas as a "bridge" to our energy future.

Shortly thereafter, Senate Bill 1766 and House Bill HR 4 were introduced in Congress. Then the lobbyists went to work on both bills. The Senate bill was originally 530 pages long, but amendments were added by way of 976 additional pages, consisting mostly of tax credits, tax breaks, and new spending.
In many ways, the energy bill is now the tax reduction bill. In fact the two bills contain $20.6 billion in tax incentives and tax breaks over the next six years.
The Senate bill reduces taxes and revenues by a total of more than $36.5 billion. Production incentives for the gas and oil industry total $3.5 billion in the Senate and $9 billion in the House. Conservation incentives and tax breaks for the auto industry come to $12.8 billion in the Senate and $8.6 billion in the House.
They include large credits for power windows, brakes and numerous other features already standard on most automobiles. The lobbyists did a real job on the legislation. It now includes credits for right-of-way trees, ginseng, legumes, sugar, garbage, grain, corn, wheat and most, if not all, agricultural products that could possibly be used for energy production.
The items in the fossil fuel industry grab bag are far too numerous to list since they cover page after page of legislation.
Frankly, it makes one dizzy just to read it.
It includes everything from green buses to boutique fuels to small-business work-force advocacy to ultradeep water exploration. The list is unending. It is the ultimate in "swine-ish" opulence...
Twice in the past century, rude shocks jolted America into taking on bold enterprises that strengthened our nation.
Out of Pearl Harbor came America's entry into World War II and the Manhattan Project. The launch of Sputnik I propelled America into the space age and Project Apollo.
The attacks of September 11 were a similar shock that exposed the dangers we face securing the reliable energy we must have to support our way of life.
We must meet the challenge with an energy independence campaign that matches the ambition and scope of the Manhattan and Apollo projects. Through greater efficiency and clean energy technologies, we can improve security as well as protect the environment and stimulate investment in new industries.
America has the scientific brainpower, technical resources, and business acumen to succeed.
So far, however, President Bush and the Congress have not risen to the challenge. The president's energy policy would perpetuate our dependence on oil, which can only mean greater dependence on foreign oil..."

[CG: Martha even I coulda told you William McKinley is his role model!]

Conservation is Conservative

We've seen a very calculated, 18-month, orchestrated, incredibly cynical campaign of lies to justify a war.

No other President of the United States has ever lied so baldly and so often and so demonstrably ... The presumption now has to be that he's lying any time that he's saying anything

[CG note: Another one of those rare uncompassionate conservatives, it appears...]

Bush's policies on Iraq and the economy are not right.

[CG note: One of those rare uncompassionate conservatives, it appears...]

Big tax cuts, big leap in discretionary spending, huge hikes in farm subsidies, no reform of corporate welfare, a huge new entitlement for prescription drugs, big jumps in the number of people employed indirectly by Uncle Sam, and on and on. 

The GOP has to be punished for this. They run the Congress; and they're now officially worse than Democrats at keeping government solvent or small. Clinton was way, way better. 

 Andrew Sullivan (Andrewsullivan.com)
"...More evidence of the runaway federal government under Bush. The sheer profligacy of this administration continues to astound. If you're a fiscal conservative, Howard Dean is beginning to look attractive..."

[CG note: Poor Sully. When a Compassionate Conservative like him is reduced to making Clinton appear better than Bush, and thinking that Howard Dean is an attractive candidate for President, he probably is on his medication after all.] 

9-3-03

We asked Ed Gillespie three times why President Bush and the Republican Congress have increased discretionary non-defense spending at such an alarming rate, and why the party has embraced the expansion of the federal government’s roles in education, agriculture and Great Society-era entitlement programs. “Those questions have been decided,” was his response.

Manchester Union Leader EDITORIAL(?) (via Spoons Experience)
"...RUSH LIMBAUGH read from one of our editorials yesterday, and a lot of people have asked if what he said was true. It is.
The editorial was titled GOP, MIA and it was printed in last weekend’s New Hampshire Sunday News. Because of all the interest, we have reposted it on the Web site.
We wanted to take this opportunity to assure Rush and everyone else that the editorial was and is 100 percent true. Over the course of an hour-long meeting with Ed Gillespie, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, we took great care to give him every opportunity to explain himself fully so that nothing could be misunderstood. The result was a surprisingly frank admission that the Republican Party defines “fiscal responsibility” as increasing the federal budget at “a slower rate of growth” than the Democrats (his words).
We asked him three times to explain why President Bush and the Republican Congress have increased discretionary non-defense spending at such an alarming rate, and why the party has embraced the expansion of the federal government’s roles in education, agriculture and Great Society-era entitlement programs.
“Those questions have been decided,” was his response. The public wants an expanded federal role in those areas, and the Republican Party at the highest levels has decided to give the public what it wants.
We were fully aware that publishing those comments — all made on the record — would mean we would never be invited to any $1,000-a-plate Republican dinners in Washington. But the rank-and-file Republicans, the men and women who vote GOP because they believe in federalism and limited government, deserved to know what we knew. Now they do. And they can use the information as they see fit..."

A radical conservatism runs through Bush's policies, whether it's tax cuts or affirmative action or the environment or education or dismantling The Great Society.

[CG Note: Gergen's bio on his website suggests to me he is a Republican: "Commentator, editor, teacher, public servant, best-selling author and adviser to presidents – for 30 years, David Gergen has been an active participant in American national life. He served as director of communications for President Reagan and held positions in the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford. In 1993, he put his country before politics when he agreed to first serve as counselor to President Clinton on both foreign policy and domestic affairs, then as special international adviser to the president and to Secretary of State Warren Christopher..."]

There is a virtual absence as yet of any policy accomplishments that might, to a fair-minded non-partisan, count as the flesh on the bones of so-called compassionate conservatism.

Politics dominates this WH; policy in the real sense is almost missing.

WH has a lot of Mayberry Machiavellis .

John DiIulio (Philadelphia Inquirer):
"...neither before Sept. 11 nor since has his noble, compassionate conservative vision been matched by equally compassionate domestic policies and social welfare initiatives. The President's compassion agenda was never really launched. Early on, pressures from conservative religious leaders and inside-the-beltway libertarians confounded the administration's domestic policy deliberations, often preempting consideration of social welfare measures that might woo centrist voters, win bipartisan support in Congress, and produce measurable results...
For several reasons, the domestic politics-to-policy ratio in the White House today is arguably the highest in recent history..."

CG note: DiIulio issued a weird apology for his above criticisms, but the depth of his commentary shows his criticism was real. See eRiposte for more comments.

"...our opposition on these questions, wants to tag everybody here as enemies of security. Don't let that happen..."

Holding American citizens without charging them and denying them the right to counsel is an outrage

These tactics are no less despicable than that used by totalitarian regimes in the past, and may be more so because they are occurring in a country with a rule of law

How do we now lecture other countries for their courts' due-process abuses?

 "We the People" must turn to Congress to protect us from this out-of-control Justice Department, since the president has yet to keep it within the bounds of the Constitution and its principles. Clearly, they can't be trusted to solely interpret the Constitution, which doesn't give them the power anyway.

See more on this by Nat Hentoff: here, here, here, here, here, and here

The fact that mainstream conservatives are going along with [Poindexter's so-called TIA program - Total Information Awareness] and with TIPS indicates that these principles are no longer resonant in the movement.

It is antithetical to everything we stand for and is un-American and conservatives would have fought all this had it been Clinton imposing these changes.

Lisa Dean - Free Congress Foundation (Newsmax quoting Salon.com article)
"...Dean, she reports, warns that the administration's expansion of domestic surveillance programs is "antithetical to everything we stand for.
"I never thought I'd see conservatives running to the government to solve problems like they do now. That's just not conservatism to me," she says. "People look at Homeland Security, the USA PATRIOT Act, national I.D. cards and say, if that protects us, we'll go ahead. I never would have thought I'd hear conservatives say that," she says.
Had Clinton been president, Dean told Goldberg, conservatives would have "pulled together and fought" these initiatives, even after 9/11. Dean explained that many conservatives accept Bush's incursions on civil liberties as a matter of personality, not principle.
"Conservatives trust Bush," she said. "They think he wouldn't do anything to harm them, that everything he's doing is for a noble cause," she says. This personal affinity for Bush, she says, blinds her fellow conservatives to the massive structural changes taking place in government.
"The groundwork we're laying now, we're laying for the next administration and one after that and one after that. At the same time, we're raising a generation of citizens on the belief that it's OK to give up all of our liberties in exchange for security. That's un-American."..."

First, government must offer compelling evidence that its new and intrusive programs will make us safer. Second, government must convince us that there is no less invasive means of attaining the same ends. In too many instances, those dual burdens have not been met. 

The president and the attorney general have concentrated too much unchecked authority in the hands of the executive branch - compromising the doctrine of separation of powers, which has been a cornerstone of our Constitution for more than two centuries.

Individual Examples

Total Information Awareness (subsequently Terrorism Information Awareness) may compromise liberties of 200 million people while allowing terrorists to escape

 Patriot Act concentrates power at the Executive level, with no checks and balances

FISA court's authority expanded in a way that it can even be used for routine criminal cases

Secret INS trials and large scale detentions without charges and legal representation troublesome

Tribunals should be decreed by Executive branch

TIPS a bad idea

Of course, advocates of expanded executive power remind civil libertarians that President Bush is an honorable man who understands that the Constitution is made of more than tissue paper. That argument is simply not persuasive - even to those who fervently share its underlying premise. The policies that are put in place by this administration are precedent-setting. Bush supporters need to reflect on the same powers in the hands of his predecessor or his successors.
Here's the guiding principle: In the post-9/11 environment, no rational person believes that civil liberties are inviolable. After all, government's primary obligation is to secure the lives of American citizens. But when government begins to chip away at our liberties, we must insist that it jump through a couple of hoops. First, government must offer compelling evidence that its new and intrusive programs will make us safer. Second, government must convince us that there is no less invasive means of attaining the same ends. In too many instances, those dual burdens have not been met. If administration critics have a single overriding concern about policies adopted in the wake of 9/11, it is this: The president and the attorney general have concentrated too much unchecked authority in the hands of the executive branch - compromising the doctrine of separation of powers, which has been a cornerstone of our Constitution for more than two centuries.
Those persons who would unhesitatingly trade off civil liberties in return for national security proclaim that concentrated power is necessary for Americans to remain free. Yet there's an obvious corollary that's too often missed: Unless Americans remain free, they will never be secure."

Also see: Robert Levy on TIPS, Tribunals

Administration secrecy on Patriot Act implementation is troubling

Bob Barr (Comments to The New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen)
"...Representative Bob Barr of Georgia, the former Clinton impeachment manager who was recently defeated in the Republican primary, is equally distressed. "What has been especially troubling in the wake of the enactment of the Patriot Act," he told me, "is that the administration has been resisting any effort to provide information to the judiciary committee detailing how its work is being implemented."...[CG note: Which so explains why Clinton was right to be impeached!]"

It is very misleading to frame our post-9/11 dilemma as a matter of "liberty vs. security." There are many things that our policymakers can do to enhance our security without sacrificing our liberty and privacy.

The problem with those assertions is that every one is false.

To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists—for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.

The problem with those assertions—made not in response to senatorial questions, let me note, but as part of Mr. Ashcroft's prepared remarks—is that every one is false.
Start not with the assertions but with the categories of people the attorney general purports to be addressing—his critics, presumably. We who have criticized certain of the administration's responses to the horrific attacks of September 11 are said to be pitting Americans against immigrants and citizens against non-citizens and scaring peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty. If I'm not mistaken, it is the administration, in its executive order establishing military tribunals, that has pitted citizens against non-citizens by providing separate tribunals for the two classes of people, thereby ignoring the plain language of the Constitution that guarantees due process to all "persons." If that is what the Constitution in fact says, then one can hardly speak of "phantoms" of lost liberty. Immigrants legally in this country have in fact lost liberty.
But how does pointing to that fact aid terrorists? By eroding our national unity, Mr. Ashcroft says, and diminishing our resolve. I see no evidence that honest criticisms have eroded our national unity or diminished our resolve in the war against terrorism, and Mr. Ashcroft has produced no such evidence. He has simply asserted what is patently false. Let us remember that the motto on America's Great Seal—E pluribus unum, from many, one—speaks not simply to the many peoples who constitute America but to the many ideas as well. Paradoxically, it is in that great diversity that we find unity—and strength. It is a dangerous mind that confuses conformity with unity.
As for giving ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends, I dare say that it is those who would compromise our principles who do that. Indeed, it is not our power alone, or even primarily, that marks us as a great nation but our principles, from which our power flows. Compromise those principles and we play into the hands of our enemies while giving pause to our friends, as we have already seen. 
Mr. Ashcroft's charge, finally, that his critics are encouraging people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil is simply inscrutable. Nothing any serious critic has said can be so construed, even remotely. I, for one, take a back seat to no one in my wish to see the evil we are now fighting eradicated. But we must fight that evil in a manner consistent with our principles so that when this war is over those principles will still be standing, to nourish us and the world thereafter."

Mismatches between equity and ownership–always in Dubya’s favor–are a hallmark of our President’s financial rise.

The "small government" Republican Party has been slamming the corrupt conduct of, say, trial lawyers who just suck money out of the economy and put it in their pockets in the name of the ideal of "representing the little guy."...But, Jesus, this is what they have to offer in its place?...

Arbusto/Harken had Saudi connections, even with bin Laden's brother.

Bush appointee Michael Powell's explanations, as showed by John Roberts, are blatantly disingenuous, if not dishonest.

FCC is abusing its privilege. 

FCC proposal is unconservative.

The concentration of power - political, corporate, media, cultural - should be anathema to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy