Conservative Talker Apologizes for Being A Bush Lover

[Tony]

http://www.kabc.com/mcintyre/listingsEntry.asp?ID=432586&PT=McIntyre+in+the+Morning ..full article

There’s nothing harder in public life than admitting you’re wrong. By the way, admitting you’re wrong can be even tougher in private life. If you don’t believe me, just ask Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen. But when you go out on the limb in public, it’s out there where everyone can see it, or in my case, hear it.

So, I’m saying today, I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. In historic terms, I believe George W. Bush is the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. I also believe a case can be made that he’s the worst President, period.

In 2000, I was a McCain guy. I wasn’t sure about the Texas Governor. He had name recognition and a lot of money behind him, but other than that? What? Still, I was sick of all the Clinton shenanigans and the thought of President Gore was… unthinkable. So, GWB became my guy.

For the first few months he was just flubbing along like most new Presidents, no great shakes, but no disasters either. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts.

Then September 11th happened. September 11th changed everything for me, like it did for so many of you. After September 11th, all the intramural idiocy of American politics stopped being funny. We had been attacked by a vicious and determined enemy and it was time for all of us to row in the same direction.

And we did for the blink of an eye. I believed the President when he said we were going to hunt down Bin Laden and all those responsible for the 9-11 murders. I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them.

I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan, after all, that’s where the Taliban was, that’s where al-Qaida trained the killers, that’s where Bin Laden was.

And I cheered when we quickly toppled the Taliban government, but winced when we let Bin Laden escape from Tora-Bora.

Then, the talk turned to Iraq and I winced again.
...

It's about time this lot starts seeing reality for what it is.

 

[Zbu]

That's utter crap.

This guy is putting Bush out to the dogs when the ideology that Bush fronts is the real problem. Of course Bush is a horrible president and a pretty awful human being. But this is just a stunt for some conservatives to throw him to the wolves while they boost their new guy for 2008 to continue the same flawed political stance. This 'neoconservative' movement just shows how flawed and dishonest the 'conservative' one is: a movement that basically panders to the very rich by making them get on the cross and whine and con everybody else.

First, he brings up the spector of Clinton and then mentions McCain yet doesn't address that it's the hatred of Clinton that really fueled the eight year death spiral America is in. They hated Clinton with such a fervor that they willingly put this country into the red and betrayed their own core principles. No, skip that: their claimed core principles. These monsters just want power and how have killed several thousand people in order to get this power they want. They spit on our freedoms, openly defy the laws, and have bullied everybody into line like a good old dictatorship which is what they want. Now I'm supposed to be impressed that one of the jerks that helped them keep power through a manipulative media is sorry? If there was any justice in the world, this horrid excuse for a human being would be doing the Mussolini jerk on the end of a long rope. There is no way to apologize for being a impotent little hatemonger who conned America and took advantage of a national tragedy to push laws to create a hegemony and then guilttripped people via religion to do so. There is no forgiveness for this.

Playing Monday Morning Quarterback by bringing up McCain and then trying to invoke the already raped corpse of 9/11 for sympathy isn't going anywhere. This person is guilty. Not as guilty as the jerks in Washington, but guilty nevertheless. I hope it haunts him, and it angers me that it won't. People like this don't have a conscience. They just deserve pain from now until they finally are put into the ground.

 

[Cylinder]

Whoop, whoop!

Deibold, Haliburton!!

Whoop, whoop!

 

[Cleon]

Deibold, Haliburton!!

*holds envelope to forehead*

"What are two words that appear nowhere in the article referenced in the OP?"

 

[peptoabysmal]

I've never heard of this guy before today.

Just glancing around the site, he kind of reminds of a "conservative" talk show host from my area. The similarity with the guy in my area is that his big issue is all about illegal aliens and he feels that Bush hasn't done anything to secure the borders and that is why he no longer supports Bush. (there a few of these type talk show hosts in California, understandably)

Most of the conservatives I know and listen to are intelligent and informed enough to know that 9/11 is much deeper than just Bin Laden or even al Queda, and that going after Bin Laden inside of Pakistan borders could lead to a war with Pakistan. It makes a convenient argument to say that we have forgotten Bin Laden, but it lacks any substance. If we had a shot at Bin Laden you can bet this administration would take that shot, unlike a certain previous administration that had Bin Laden in their sights several times and did nothing.

This talk show host's apology sounded like most of the arguments I've heard from liberals and leftists over the last few years. Has he taken a big drink of Kool-Aid or has he been like this all along?

Here's an excerpt from his apology:

I’ve talked so often about the border issue, I won’t bore you with a rehash. It’s enough to say this President has been a catastrophe for the wages of working people; he’s debased the work ethic itself. “Jobs Americans won’t do!” He doesn’t believe in the sovereign borders of the country he’s sworn to protect and defend. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security in a post 9-11 world. The President’s January 7th, 2004 speech on immigration, his first trial balloon on his guest worker scheme, was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t and didn’t vote for him in 2004. And I’m glad I didn’t.

He didn't vote for Bush in 2004, so this is not a new revelation for this talk show host, despite his effort to write his apology as if it were a recent change of heart.

 

[davefoc]

I've been semi-retired now so long that I didn't realize that KABC has a new morning talk show. (I am not out and about this early in my semi-retirement.)

A lot of what this guy said resonated with me. This in particular:

I thought the connection to 9-11 was sketchy at best. But Colin Powell impressed me at the UN, and Tony Blair was in, and after all, he was a Clinton guy, not a Bush guy, so I thought the case had to be strong.

That is exactly why I thought the Iraq war was probably the right thing to do. I thought Rumsfeld was a maniac and I couldn't tell what the deal with Bush was but if Powell and Blair thought it was necessary, then I thought it probably was. I have read quite a bit of Woodward's "Plan of Attack" and one of the things that impressed me about Blair was that he was willing to take huge political risks to back the Americans in this effort. Unfortunately, at least in my view, the preemptive Iraq war has turned out to have been a very bad idea. Although, if one hypothesizes a less corrupt, more competent Bush administration perhaps things might have gone significantly better.

I happened to be listening to Hugh Hewitt on TV the other day pushing his new book about how Republicans can increase their control of congress. One of things that struck me about this was that Hewitt in the face of the massive corruption and fiscal irresponsibility of the Republican party seemed to have not once asked himself whether his party being in power was good for the US. It seems to me the failure of most conservative pundits to ask themselves this question is responsible in part for the decline of the Republican party. All transgressions can be overlooked including a complete abandoment of anything resembling a conservative ideology and outright corruption as long as the transgressors are Republicans. It seems, that McIntyre is one conservative commentator that at least has enough intellectual honesty to consider the possibility that this band of Republicans has not been good for the country.

 

[Upchurch]

If we had a shot at Bin Laden you can bet this administration would take that shot, unlike a certain previous administration that had Bin Laden in their sights several times and did nothing.

I hope you're not referring to the Sudan thing, which the 9/11 commission found no reliable evidence for. (source, bottom of page 3)

These contacts with Sudan, which went on for years, have become a source of controversy. Former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim.

 

[nightwind]

Scary

What is really scary, is that Bush has about 3 more years. I think that this has shown how presidential power can get the nation into real and serious trouble.

The next three years are going to be tedious to say the least.

 

[BPSCG]

What is really scary, is that Bush has about 3 more years. I think that this has shown how presidential power can get the nation into real and serious trouble.

The next three years are going to be tedious to say the least.

Don't worry. When the Dems recapture congress in November, they'll begin impeachment proceedings.

 

[hgc]

Don't worry. When the Dems recapture congress in November, they'll begin impeachment proceedings.

Hardly comforting. Of course impeachment doesn't mean removal, and 2/3 of the Senate voting to convict is a whole 'nother ball of wax. Even if it where possible, removing Bush doesn't really change anything. This is and always was the Cheney presidency in disguise.

 

[BPSCG]

This is and always was the Cheney presidency in disguise.

Hate to get Clausian on you, but what is your evidence for that?

 

[hgc]

Hate to get Clausian on you, but what is your evidence for that?

Oh no! Don't do a Claus!

Fair question though. It's my opinion, not a factual assertion. Based on watching and listening Bush for the last 5 years, I don't think he's capable of leading a boy scout troop, much less a country.

You can draw your own conclusions.

 

[Tony]

I've never heard of this guy before today.

Just glancing around the site, he kind of reminds of a "conservative" talk show host from my area. The similarity with the guy in my area is that his big issue is all about illegal aliens and he feels that Bush hasn't done anything to secure the borders and that is why he no longer supports Bush. (there a few of these type talk show hosts in California, understandably)

Most of the conservatives I know and listen to are intelligent and informed enough to know that 9/11 is much deeper than just Bin Laden or even al Queda, and that going after Bin Laden inside of Pakistan borders could lead to a war with Pakistan. It makes a convenient argument to say that we have forgotten Bin Laden, but it lacks any substance. If we had a shot at Bin Laden you can bet this administration would take that shot, unlike a certain previous administration that had Bin Laden in their sights several times and did nothing.

This talk show host's apology sounded like most of the arguments I've heard from liberals and leftists over the last few years. Has he taken a big drink of Kool-Aid or has he been like this all along?

Here's an excerpt from his apology:


He didn't vote for Bush in 2004, so this is not a new revelation for this talk show host, despite his effort to write his apology as if it were a recent change of heart.

I nominate this for the "Person With Head Deepest in Sand Award".

Also, the administration disagrees with you on one very fundamental point.

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

Most of the conservatives I know and listen to are intelligent and informed enough to know that 9/11 is much deeper than just Bin Laden or even al Queda.

Translation: Most of the conservatives I know agree with me and my paranoia.

 

[BPSCG]

Fair question though. It's my opinion, not a factual assertion.

Okay. Just wanted to hear you say it.

 

[davefoc]

This is and always was the Cheney presidency in disguise.

Hate to get Clausian on you, but what is your evidence for that?

This is one of the questions that I was curious about as I was reading "Plan of Attack". I came away thinking the question is more complicated than I realized.

There is no question that Cheney was a major proponent of the war. It also seems to me that Cheney set up a little bureacracy made up of committed ideologs that saw it as their job to promote the case for the war, often without any attempt at honest analysis. As wrong as what was promoted publically about the case for war has turned ouit to be, the Cheney crew was actually constrained by Powell and the department of state from putting out even more completely bogus crap.

But as driven as Cheney was to promote this war, in the end it was Bush's analysis and decision making that led to the war.

I didn't come away with much of a feel for how involved Bush was in the WMD non-sense or the Al-qaida connection non-sense. I think in the end Bush understood the evidence was weak but that it didn't preclude the possibility that Husseain had WMD or that there was a connection between 9-11 and Hussein. So given that plus what I think were Bush's main drivers, Bush opted for war.

Those drivers were:
1. The difficult postion that the UK and the US were in with regard to the no fly zones. The Kurds and the Shiites had supported the alliance in the first gulf war and the US had allowed Hussein to massacre them. Eventually this was judged not to be so cool and the US and the UK had come up with the idea of the no-fly zones as a means of preventing the Hussein from massacreing people that had supported us. This was a very risky game and could not go on forever. Eventually Hussein was going to get lucky with one of his cheap anti-aircraft guns and shoot down a multi-million dollar jet and probably capture the pilot. There was a great deal of planning about how to deal with this but it clearly was not a happy prospect for Bush or presumably Blair.

2. The view that once the sanctions were lifted as they probably would be once no WMD were found, Hussein would use the massive influx of cash to rebuild his WMD arsenals.

3. The practical problems with enforcing the UN inspections. Hussein seemed to need the threat of a real invasion before he was willing to allow them and it was hugely costly for the US to mount a credible threat of an invasion, only to go away when Hussein relented on the inspections.

So, it seems to me, that Bush was not a puppet manipulated into the decision for war, rather he saw difficult problems that needed to be dealt with and war seemed like it was the best way to him. On the other hand, part of the decision to go to war had to take into account the difficulties of a post war Iraq. If Cheney manipulated Bush in any area, it might be this one. Cheney's band of pro-war zealots seemed to have completely misunderstood the realities of a post war Iraq and it seems it was their views that Bush, at least partially, based his decision to go to war on.