We've been trashed-Dems are fizzling

[jillan]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050801/1barone.htm?track=rss



8/1/05
By Michael Barone
Bush Bashing Fizzles

This summer, one big story is replaced by another--the London bombings July 7, the speculation that Karl Rove illegally named a covert CIA agent, the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, more London bombings last week. But beneath the hubbub, we can see the playing out of another, less reported story: the collapse of the attempts by liberal Democrats and their sympathizers in the mainstream media--the New York Times, etc., etc.--to delegitimize yet another Republican administration.

More...

You think they'd learn. But for the past five years, the same folks have been trying to undermine the presidency of George W. Bush. The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore was denounced as an outrage, and Democrats noted, accurately, that Bush did not win a plurality of the popular vote in 2000. The nation rallied to his support after September 11, but Democrats held up his judicial and other nominations even if they had to violate Senate tradition to do so. Coverage of Bush during the 2004 campaign was heavily negative; for months the mainstream media mostly ignored the swift boat vets' charges against John Kerry and broadcast accusations against Bush based on forged documents eight weeks before the election. News of economic recovery in 2003 and 2004 was pitched far more negatively than it had been when Bill Clinton was president in 1995 and 1996.

and more:

Now the unsupported charges that "Bush lied" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been rekindled via criticism of Karl Rove. A key witness for the Democrats and mainstream media was former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Unfortunately for his advocates, he turned out to be a liar. A year after his famous article appeared in the New York Times in July 2003 accusing Bush of "twisting" intelligence, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report, concluded that Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his dispatch to Niger and Chairman Pat Roberts said that his report bolstered rather than refuted the case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa. So despite the continuing credulousness of much of the press, it appears inconceivable at this point that Karl Rove will be charged with violating the law prohibiting disclosure of the names of undercover agents. The case against Rove--ballyhooed by recent Time and Newsweek cover stories that paid little heed to the discrediting of Wilson--seems likely to end not with a bang but a whimper.

click link to read about us v Roberts

[Avalux]

1. Michael Barone?

THE Michael Barone of Fox News fame? :spray: :rofl:

[jillan]

4. that's where he is from???

No wonder he's a trasher.

[bluestateguy]

6. He is from the Detroit Area

He grew up in the Detroit suburbs as a liberal Democrat. I believe he is a Catholic and that he has a law degree. He has said that the Detroit riots of 1967 were a formative experience for him in pushing him away from liberalism. He is the author of the Almanac of American Politics, which has come out every 2 years since 1971. In the older editions you can notice a difference in the narrative, though there is still an elitist tone to the book: he just goes from liberal elitism in the 1970's to conservative elitism in the 1980's.

Barone's core philosophy could be basically described this way: free markets are the answer to everything, absolutely everything that is wrong with America and the world; the rest of the world should try and be more like America; to his credit he does not buy into Michael Savage type of immigrant baiting, but he also believes that immigrants should adopt American cultural values and customs.

I don't have a link. You're just going to have to take my word for it.

[Demeter]

12. That's Funny. Wasn't Anything Liberal About Detroit Before Riots

I ought to know--I lived there. The National Guard patrolled outside my house. Summer school was cancelled for 2 weeks.

[bemildred]

2. Barone Morone. nt

[Cocoa]

3. the polls are turning against Bush

slowly but steadily...

[bluestateguy]

5. Then why does he have a 44% approval rating?

Some polls have him at 42%, some as high as 47%. That is hardly indicative of the "failure of Bush bashing". Admittedly, the Left has done a lot of things wrong over the last few years, but that's more often than not because Democrats were far too conciliatory with the White House, not the other way around.

After 9/11 Democrats bent over back wards for Bush, giving him everything he wanted for authority to attack Afghanistan and the Patriot Act. Then there was the Iraq War resolution, the bankruptcy bill, the No Child Left Behind Law, all Cabinet nominations (save John Ashcroft) and all ambassadorships (save John Bolton). Democrats either supported outright or refused to filibuster the judicial nominations of over 200 Bush appointees. They only held up about 10.

Every time this Administration has asked Congress for more money for the Iraq War, Democrats in Congress have rolled right over to give him every dime he has asked for, even knowing that the money will be pissed down a rathole.

Barone owes the Democrats thanks, not criticisms, for if it weren't for Democrats in Congress acting like a bunch of castrated pussies then Bush would have no legislative victories at all.

[Inland]

9. Could it be that Bush is being judged on results most of all?

Note how carefully this dude avoids any discussion of whether criticism is valid to proclaim it ineffective to slow the Bushie juggernaut, as Bush's polls show him to be the least popular president ever. It isn't bashing that does it, truly. As you said, Bush got just about everything he wanted, and it's blown up in his face time and time again as reality intrudes.

Fact is, "bush bashing" is just people noticing the obvious, saying the emperor has no clothes. And they hate that. They really think that the US would be better off if nobody notices that Bush succeeds only on the level of at getting his way and fails at the level of doing right by America.

[smoogatz]

7. The usual radical rightwing claptrap.

Yawn.

[RoyGBiv]

8. Take notice ...

I'd like to suggest people read this article carefully and note the rhetoric. I'd then like people to realize its source. And, finally, I'd like to ask people to take care in the words they themselves choose when criticizing what the Democrats are actually doing.

IOW, it is sometimes really hard to distinguish between legitimate criticism and this hogwash because the rhetoric used is far too similar. When we do this, we are letting "them" frame the debate, and that does nothing but make us weaker.

[Jack Rabbit]

10. Oh, Mr. Barone, is this you?

Image from NASA

[gtar100]

11. What a strange, fish-eye view he has of the world

I wonder if it hurts his head to think this stuff up. His statements are like swiss cheese -

• the swift boat vets? Ignore all the evidence to the contrary and believe a bunch of hacks who were paid by republicans to trash Kerry.
  
  
• unsupported charges that "Bush lied" about wmd? Ignore all the reasons why the left makes this assertion...like, THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND!! He'll just quietly overlook that.
  
  
• violate Senate tradition and hold up SC nominees? Besides a lack of knowledge in history, he's also failing to ascertain why the Dem's have "held up" judicial nominees (like the fact that the nominees have horrible records, even in judicial circles). But that would be too much for this jerk to comprehend. He's got an agenda to work on after all; can't get bogged down in facts and critical thinking.
  

But hey, this article wasn't meant for us. It was meant for ditto heads, to help prop up their ire and gleeful ignorance. It wasn't meant to be insightful.

[Uncle Joe]

13. Of course he does not mention

The Downing Street Memos as a big story, I guess there must be too many dots to connect between "fixing the intelligence around the policy" and outing one of our own CIA agents because she is married to one of Bush's prime critics regarding the bogus intelligence used to go to war in the first place. Whether Wilson lied or as I believe told the truth, is irrelevant as to whether the White House broke any laws bordering on treason by outing one of our own CIA agents not to mention the perjury and obstruction of justice charges. The mere fact that the Republican controlled Congress would not push for investigations or impeachment against Bush unless he was filmed shooting a small child on the White House lawn and only then if the child was a Republican only speaks to their own moral bankruptcy. And if anybody out there still believes that the Corporate Owned Media Monopoly is liberal, I know of a nice vacation resort for you Iraq where you can enjoy the blessings of unfettered democracy.