Is Bush incompetent? - surprising answer

[hfojvt]

"Bush Is Not Incompetent
by George Lakoff, Marc Ettlinger, and Sam Ferguson"

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0626-28.htm

"Bush will not be running again, but other conservatives will. His governing philosophy is theirs as well. We should be putting the onus where it belongs, on all conservative office holders and candidates who would lead us off the same cliff."

***

"As should be painfully clear, the Bush administration has been overwhelmingly competent in advancing its conservative vision. It has been all too effective in achieving its goals by determinedly pursuing a conservative philosophy.

It’s not Bush the man who has been so harmful, it’s the conservative agenda.

The Conservative Agenda

Conservative philosophy has three fundamental tenets: individual initiative, that is, government’s positive role in people’s lives outside of the military and police should be minimized; the President is the moral authority; and free markets are enough to foster freedom and opportunity."

[robinlynne]

1. A Duer posted a link yesterday with the slogan: george bush republicans.

[rocktivity]

2. Bush IS incompetent--it's his puppetmasters that aren't.

Consider the following (incomplete) list of major initiatives the Bush administration, with a loyal conservative Congress, has accomplished:

# Centralizing power within the executive branch to an unprecedented degree
# Starting two major wars, one started with questionable intelligence and in a manner with which the military disagreed
# Placing on the Supreme Court two far-right justices, and stacking the lower federal courts with many more
# Cutting taxes during wartime, an unprecedented event
# Passing a number of controversial bills such as the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Medicare Drug bill, the Bankruptcy bill and a number of massive tax cuts
# Rolling back and refusing to enforce a host of basic regulatory protections
# Appointing industry officials to oversee regulatory agencies
# Establishing a greater role for religion through faith-based initiatives
# Passing Orwellian-titled legislation assaulting the environment — “The Healthy Forests Act” and the “Clear Skies Initiative” — to deforest public lands, and put more pollution in our skies
# Winning re-election and solidifying his party’s grip on Congress

These aren’t signs of incompetence. As should be painfully clear, the Bush administration has been overwhelmingly competent in advancing its conservative vision...

Which sort of defeats the very purpose of this article. Bush is competent only at being a figurehead--so competent that he really thinks he IS "the decider"!

:headbang:
rocknation

[ClassWarrior]

3. Doesn't matter. When we call him incompetent, we let him off the hook.

It's a winner for us, though, to trump the failure of the conservative philosophy, as Lakoff calls it. And it's really accurate too.

We can get our jollies laughing at the dumb guy. Or we can win. I'll take option (b).

NGU.

[hfojvt]

6. the purpose of the article

is that we need to focus on THE LOYAL CONSERVATIVE CONGRESS which is running for re-election this fall instead of talking so much about Bush, who is not.

[redqueen]

4. This is a great analysis.

It's been posted before, but this increases the chances of people seeing it.

So :kick:

[teryang]

5. Conservative agenda - fear and propaganda

...lies, secrecy, surveillance, war profits, belligerence, war crimes, corruption, burning the Constitution, violating human rights, breaching international agreements, and destroying the middle class.