It's Not Just the 'Socialist' Bush! - It's Condi Too!

Condoleezza Rice arrived in Foggy Bottom in January 2005 to a standing ovation.

With critics of the Iraq War still a marginal faction of the liberal left, the new secretary of state was an international star in an administration that had few. Supporters urged her to consider a 2008 run for president as chatter of “Condi vs. Hillary” filled the airwaves.

Three years and more than 60 global trips later, Rice’s profile has plummeted, even among the conservatives who once viewed her as their ideological savior and soulmate.

In light of her changing image, Newsmax decided to take a hard look at Rice’s performance and issue a report card on her efforts to date. Her results have been mixed at best, which is reflected in our overall grade of “C-.”

Gauging the clout of an official such as Rice, tasked with so many varied and subjective duties, isn’t easy. But consider these performance points:

- These days, Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps Rice waiting outside his Moscow office like a pesky salesman peddling office supplies.

- She's in a running battle with Vice President Dick Cheney and his neo-conservative allies over diplomatic efforts with Iran.

- In Iraq, Rice and her aides have yet to offer a real plan for political reconciliation.
Rice recently failed to keep Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf from rescinding his nation’s constitution – something he’d backed down from earlier this year. (as if she could! - Tiger)

“Look at the world. Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Russia. Venezuela. You have to search pretty hard to find some success,” says Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, who worked closely with Rice at the university and advised U.S. occupation authorities in Baghdad in 2004. “It’s a very intractable world she inherited in 2005. But, of course, it’s a product of the first term of an administration in which she served as national security adviser.

By its own admissions, Rice’s department is struggling in its stated effort to improve the way the United States is perceived around the world.

Capitulating to the Enemy - The Bush Doctrine

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
FrontPageMagazine.com

The first term of the George W. Bush presidency and what has come to be known as the “Bush Doctrine” were marked by a profound and forceful reaction to September 11, 2001. Determined to prevent further, murderous attacks on the United States, Mr. Bush and his national security team were determined to “drain the swamps” from whence terrorists received safe havens and other forms of support. Out went the sort of “stability” born of accommodations with totalitarians and favored by the foreign policy establishment’s so-called “realists.” In came a U.S. commitment to bringing down the “axis of evil,” in favor of a world ordered by liberty and democracy.

Today, we are seeing the emergence of what might be described as “Bush Doctrine 2.0.” It bears no similarity to the first edition. In fact, it pretty much repudiates everything Mr. Bush stood for during his first four years in office. Worse yet, it threatens to render his legacy not simply one of unrealized goals but of betrayed principles, abandoned friends and unscrupulous deals with tyrants sure to perpetuate their odious regimes.

Herewith a sampling of the unraveling of Mr. Bush’s policies:

Appeasing North Korea: Early in the first Bush administration, the President to his credit candidly revealed to Bob Woodward that he loathed Kim Jong Il’s brutally repressive police state. After the North Koreans acknowledged lying about their nuclear weapons program, he strove to intensify Kim’s isolation in the hope of neutralizing the threat thus posed and, with luck, to bring him down.

Mr. Bush was subsequently induced to believe that this goal could be advanced best by enlisting the North’s regional neighbors – including its enablers, China, Russia and South Korea – in so-called “six-party talks.” Even as it became ever more apparent that Pyongyang’s allies were using those negotiations to thwart the original Bush Doctrine, not advance it, the President clung to this approach and eschewed bilateral talks with, to say nothing of appeasement of, the North.
Now, however, the U.S. envoy to those talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has eviscerated the original Bush policy. In the name of obtaining still more vacuous promises of nuclear disarmament from Kim Jong-Il, Hill is not only negotiating directly and bilaterally with Pyongyang. He has promised to remove North Korea from the list of state-sponsors of terrorism, despite mounting evidence that the North is actively engaged in the ultimate support for terrorism: proliferating nuclear weapons technology to the likes of two others on that infamous list: Syria and Iran.

A Palestinian state, no matter what: In June 2002, Mr. Bush declared that he would be willing to work towards a homeland for the Palestinian people only if certain conditions were satisfied. These included their rejection of terrorism, the elimination of its infrastructure and the emergence of a new generation of leaders unsullied by ties to terror.

Now, Mr. Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is frantically pursuing the creation of a Palestinian state she hopes will be run by a man with lifelong ties to terror – Yasir Arafat’s crony and right-hand man, Mahmood Abbas. In the process, she is: whitewashing his record and current conduct; euchring Israel into surrendering more territory to its enemies; and ignoring the virtual certainty that any land thus yielded will become yet another safe-haven for terror (as with South Lebanon and Gaza before it).

Closing "Gitmo": For years, President Bush has recognized the need for a U.S.-controlled facility outside the United States capable of securely incarcerating international terrorists. He refused to capitulate to the often-hysterical calls, both at home and abroad, for the closure of the irreplaceable prison complex used for this purpose and located Guantanamo Bay.

Now, according to the New York Times, Mr. Bush’s administration is poised to shut down Gitmo, transfer its remaining occupants to U.S. territory and extend to them expanded rights to counsel and consideration of their cases in civilian courts. It is unlikely that this action will earn “W.” any kudos from his critics. It will, however, make it more difficult and vastly more expensive to keep such detainees off the actual or propaganda battlefields of this war.

Farewells to sovereignty: During his first term, Mr. Bush recognized the threat to U.S. sovereignty posed by unaccountable and generally hostile multinational organizations like the International Criminal Court. He went so far as to “unsign” the treaty that established that tribunal, rather than allow Americans to be subject to its prosecutions.

Now, President Bush is arguing in a case pending before the Supreme Court that the dictates of such tribunals must trump domestic law. He is also pressing the Senate to allow the U.S. to be subjected to a host of new tribunals authorized by yet another sovereignty-sapping multinational accord, the UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

With the notable exception of Iraq – where George W. Bush has largely held firm in the face of relentless criticism, with ever-more-promising results – virtually every aspect, principle and objective of his security policy is being eviscerated on his watch. The problem is not merely that those adulterating his original Bush Doctrine by supplanting it with a 2.0 version will obliterate the common-sense and courageous approach made necessary in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. He will bequeath to his successor and his people a world made vastly more dangerous, not more stable, for his administration’s embrace of appeasement dressed up as “realism.”

... without ANY doubt, G.W. Bush has matched Jimmy Carter for the record of most incompetent President !

Attention Floridians! - Charlie Crist Works Hard to Spread GOP Liberalism

John Rizzi - Human Events

Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting competition these days for being the most liberal Republican governor in the nation. When it comes to embracing global warming and retreating from cultural conservatism, the Republican chief executive in Florida, Charlie Crist, is mentioned almost as frequently as the famed “Governator” of California.

And unlike the Austrian-born Schwarzenegger, Crist -- who has been profiled recently in national media outlets from Time magazine to Fox News -- is eligible to be President. There has even been talk among some Sunshine State Republicans that the former state legislator and two-term attorney general might be a good vice presidential candidate on a ticket headed by Rudy Giuliani, who tops the field of presidential hopefuls in most surveys of Florida GOPers.

Although Florida’s 27 electoral votes would make any governor an attractive prospect for a national ticket, the growing media interest in the 51-year-old Crist seems less to do with geography than with ideology. Like New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960s and Massachusetts Gov. William Weld in the 90s, Crist stands out in the media because, in a Republican Party that has been moving to the right, the Floridian is increasingly non-conservative.

The inevitable contrasts are being made between Crist and his Republican predecessor in Tallahassee, Jeb Bush, who, unlike his father or brother, rarely had his conservative credentials doubted. As Governing magazine noted: “It’s true that Crist has started to roll back some of Bush’s privatization efforts and is unimpressed by Bush’s faith in standardized tests as the be-all of education policy. Crist rejected 283 of Bush’s late board and commission appointees and has not shied from putting some former Bush enemies in positions of power.”

Contrasting Crist’s regularly consulting Democratic legislators on policy matters with Bush’s passionate conservatism, state Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller told reporters: “I don’t recall our inviting Gov. Bush to any of our meetings. Since Gov. Crist has taken office, there really has been a new day in Tallahassee. For the first time, we feel like we are dealing in a partnership with the governor instead of having someone to dictate to us.”

... Left-Leaning Social Agenda

In terms of social issues, the governor has said he doesn’t want the state Republican Party to spend any more money on promotion of a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In his words, “I just think that their money can be better spent on other things that may be more pressing, like elections.” While running for governor last year, Crist endorsed and even signed a petition for the Florida Marriage Amendment Protection Act.

In addition to civil unions for gay couples, the governor’s social agenda also includes support for embryonic stem-cell research and restoration of voting rights to former felons.To be sure, Crist has promoted a property tax cut that is the largest in state history and actually vetoed more pork-barrel spending in his first year than Jeb Bush did in any single year.

But in terms of the environment, privatization and many cultural issues, there is a case to be made that Charlie Crist is more than just a “Republican In Name Only” (RINO), but, in fact, is what the American Spectator called a “RINO’s RINO.” Crist himself refers to his philosophy as “post-partisanship.”Whatever it is, it has certainly put the governor of the nation’s fourth-largest state in the national limelight and could even lead to a spot on a national ticket.

History Ignored: ON THIS DAY IN WND HISTORY…

Is Bush what he says he is?

Sept. 16, 1999: There may be some Republicans who wish they had read this WND story back in 1999.

Conservative activists in Texas were saying Gov. George W. Bush – the front-running candidate for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination – was masquerading as a leader for a smaller, more limited role for government in Americans' lives.

According to Texas Eagle Forum, Bush's state legislative priorities showed him to be anything but a political conservative.

The group blasted Bush for enlarging Texas government by "nearly 38 percent," increasing entitlements to public schools, supporting bilingual education, and federalizing education while calling it "local control."

He also had not spoken out against a small Texas border town's decision to adopt a "Spanish-only" policy for official government functions and instructed city officials not to talk to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

But a spokesman for Bush's presidential campaign told WorldNetDaily that the governor, should he become president, will "implement the core conservative principles of smaller government."

Bitter Mel "Fidel" Martinez

Washington Times Editorial

In a sign of serious Republican disarray, Sen. Mel Martinez, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, has just lambasted his party's two top presidential candidates over immigration positions which most Americans regard as reasonable. The junior senator from Florida is wrong on more than the substance. This is a case of Mr. Martinez putting his own personal views and his loyalty to President Bush above the serious responsibilities of his chairmanship. He has just driven a wedge between himself and the two men most likely at this point to contend for the Republican presidential nomination. To what end? He is at odds with his party. He sounds bitter. He isn't going to change minds. And he may have just undercut the man for whom Mr. Martinez's job requires a vigorous defense next year.

The irony here is that Mr. Martinez did this while purporting to lecture the hopefuls on "leadership." "Presidential contests are about leadership," he said in Florida this week. "It's about leading on the tough issues... It was easy to say, 'This wasn't good enough, this isn't right, I don't agree with Martinez'... But at the end of the day what is your answer? How would you solve this?" He later mentioned Messrs. Romney and Giuliani by name as two who had mischaracterized the failed immigration plan.

The gall. Mr. Martinez knows "the answer," and he knows the "leadership" behind it: Enforcement first. He may not agree, but neither can he pretend not to hear. Enforcement first was propounded time and again by conservatives. Messrs. Giuliani and Romney are two recent (and welcome) converts. The "leadership" card may play to the audience but in this instance is pure chicanery. It is Mr. Martinez whose conduct ill suits his office. Half a year from now, in a flurry of inevitable election-year attacks against the nominee, Mr. Martinez will be ruing this statement — provided he lasts that long. How much less credibility he will have for undercutting the contenders.

This is one of those cases where the substance, the party protocol and the partisan motives are all aligned in a single direction — letting the new blood speak. And yet Mr. Martinez has just injected the Bush line. Congress is finished debating; no need for it there. Oddest of all, the White House's enforcement announcement this week edges away from six years of open borders. At least Mr. Martinez still has Sen. Ted Kennedy and the Democrats.

The presidential contest is more than gesticulating about "leadership." It is about formulating new policy. Mr. Martinez represents the old policy. He has used his position of party influence to push that old line, and he is wrong to do so.

Vote For You Favorite RINO!

Will Bush Capitulate To Republican Pressure? - History Says He Will!

About the only issue where President Bush has stayed firm and resolute in his decision making is Iraq. Of course, he hasn't been effective in Iraq, he hasn't allowed our troops to be as effective as they can be, and he hasn't deployed nearly enough troops for the situation, etc - but all that is beside the point - because he may have decided to give in to Republican Senators about announcing a troop withdrawal date! Bill Kristol elaborates:

The New York Times leads today with David Sanger's story, "In White House, Debate Is Rising On Iraq Pullback; Political Considerations; Not Waiting For Sept. 15, Aides Seek to Forestall G.O.P. Defections." The piece is tendentious, as one would expect--but THE WEEKLY STANDARD has confirmed that there are real discussions going on at the White House, with advocates of what is being called "The Grand Bargain" pushing hard for the president to move soon to announce plans to pull back in Iraq. So this week will not only be a week of (mostly silly) debate on the Hill; it will also be an important moment of truth for the president, who will have to decide whether to give Gen. Petraeus and the soldiers a chance, or to accept the counsel of some of his advisers and begin to throw in the towel on Iraq.

Let me be clear: The president ordered the "surge," which only recently came to full strength and whose major operation has been going on for less than a month. If he were not to give it a chance to work, he would properly be viewed as a feckless, irresolute president, incapable of seeing his own strategy through a couple of months of controversy before abandoning it. He will have asked our soldiers to go on the offensive, assuming greater risk of casualties--and then, even though the offensive is working better than expected, will have pulled the plug on their efforts.

Indeed, the White House is living in a fool's paradise if they imagine that "compromising" now and in this way buys them anything. Even the New York Times editorial page has abandoned the pretence that its preferred strategy will lead to anything other than catastrophe in Iraq, and in the very near term. If the president gives in now, he will not be credited with a statesmanlike compromise. He will be lambasted by the left for fighting a bad war, and by the right for fighting it badly, recommitting us to the fight, and then losing it. The remainder of his term will be mired in congressional investigations as the waters fill with blood and the sharks go in for the kill. The Democrats will be emboldened to press him on every front, especially since Iraq is virtually the only position he's actually been defending. Lame duck does not even begin to describe where President Bush will be if he does this.

What's more, the president will lose any ability to mitigate the effects of the withdrawal or control it. The pullout will become a wild hell-for-leather race for the exit, and the result will be a triumph for al Qaeda and Iran, and a moral and geopolitical disaster for the United States.

The best strategy for the president is to hold firm.

... more

President Bush has a history of accepting his advisors bad advice and totally ignoring the people and military leaders. If he capitulates now, it will doom his presidency completely in the eyes of history.

Republican, Democrat - No Difference

How Did Your Senator Vote? - Check here!

Report: Border Open for Terrorists!

Bush the Deceiver

The Justice, State and Homeland Security Departments have all made it clear they want to help other countries prevent terrorism. They're not nearly as clear about how they plan to do that.

Such lack of clarity leaves U.S. agencies unsure about their international responsibilities and may have compromised several counter-terrorism operations overseas, a new government report says.

The Government Accountability Office cited in its report several examples of U.S. agencies not cooperating, or even communicating, during overseas missions.

For example:

-When the State Department launched a program in 2002 to help monitor migration across a terrorist-rich border, planners never consulted U.S. border patrol or immigration officials who have expertise in the field. No terrorists have been prosecuted as part of the program.

-In another unidentified country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were assigned to track special-interest aliens while the FBI was in charge of identifying terrorists trying to enter the United States. Because of poor coordination and communication, both agencies moved in on the same person, possibly jeopardizing several investigations.

-Approval of three full-time U.S. border agents in a terrorist-rich country has been delayed. The ambassador there believes the agents should work alongside locals at airports and immigration offices, rather than at the embassy.

... story continues ...

We Have More Proof That Hispanic Immigrants Do Not Want To Assimilate

Hispanic Leaders Blast Schwarzenegger's Advice to Turn Off Spanish TV

Some Hispanic leaders lashed out Friday at California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's advice that immigrants should "turn off the Spanish television set" to better learn how to speak English.

Schwarzenegger, who immigrated to the U.S. from Austria, recently told a group of Hispanic journalists that immigrants should stay away from Spanish-language television, books and newspapers.

"You've got to turn off the Spanish television set," Schwarzenegger said Wednesday night at the annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in San Jose, Calif. "You're just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster."

... Ahnuld, Georgie! - YOU'RE BOTH IDIOTS! We're dealing with the historical Spanish Main here, the Balkanization of North America! These people don't want to learn the language and assimilate! They want possession of North America!

Garner - Washington Times

Bush the Elitist - The Rest of Us Can live In A Roach Motel

By Ann Coulter
FrontPageMagazine.com June 7, 2007

Republicans' defense of President Bush's immigration bill is more enraging than their defense of Harriet Miers. Back then, Bush's conservative base was accused of being sexist for opposing an unqualified woman's nomination to the highest court in the land. Now we're racists for not wanting to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.

I don't know why conservatives like Linda Chavez have to argue like liberals by smearing their opponents as racists. Oh wait, now I remember! Their arguments are as strong as liberals' arguments usually are.

Apart from abortion, no subject produces so much disingenuousness as America's immigration policy, both legal and illegal. For nearly 50 years, Americans have been intentionally lied to about our immigration laws.

... In Samuel P. Huntington's book Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity, he asks: "Would America be the America it is today if in the 17th and 18th centuries it had been settled not by British Protestants but by French, Spanish or Portuguese Catholics? The answer is no. It would not be America; it would be Quebec, Mexico, or Brazil."

I don't want to live in Mexico, Quebec, or Brazil. But now I guess I have no choice, since "open borders" means I can never leave.

Poor Laura! George Suffering From Dysfunction!

Newt Gingrich described the Bush administration as dysfunctional and its unpopularity as hazardous to those in the Republican Party.
"The government is not functioning. It's not getting the job done," said the former House speaker, who is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination. "Republicans need to confront this reality."
Gingrich said in a broadcast interview he believes Bush "means very, very well" but falls short when it comes to putting his goals in place and running the government.

"All you have to do is look at the examples I've given you today where the government simply fails," said Gingrich, citing the administration's handling of the war in Iraq, its immigration policies and response to Hurricane Katrina.

"We have to have very relentless, dramatic change in American government," he said.

... go get 'em, Newt!

Remember Terri Schiavo? - 'Living Corpse' Wakes After 19-Year Coma

WARSAW, Poland — A Polish railway worker who woke up after 19 years in a coma is learning to live again and to understand a politically altered Poland, his wife said Sunday.
"For 19 years he did not move or say anything," Gertruda Grzebska told The Associated Press by phone. "He tried to say things but it couldn't be understood. Sometimes we pretended we understood."

Grzebska, 63, said that for years she fed her husband, Jan, carefully with a spoon and moved his body to prevent bed sores.

"Now he spends his days sitting in a wheelchair and last weekend we took him out for a walk in his wheelchair," she said.

"He was so amazed to see the colorful streets, the goods," she said. "He says the world is prettier now" than it was 19 years ago, when Poland was still under communist rule.

"I could not talk or do anything, now it's much better," Jan Grzebski, 65, said in a weak but clear voice on TVN24 Television, lying in bed at his home in the northern city of Dzialdowo.

... Hey JEB! Shove it up your LIBERAL EFFING ASS!

Meanwhile, Key Bush backers rally to Fred Thompson

Guess Who's Linked To The NAFTA Superhighway?

Questions are being raised over Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's policy on terrorism, after a report revealed he has strong ties to two foreign investment consortia working to own or lease U.S. toll roads, including the Trans-Texas Corridor 35, which is identified as part of the I-35 "NAFTA Superhighway."

Although he opposed NAFTA in 1993, Giuliani recently declined to call for building a fence on the United States border with Mexico, and he has supported a guest-worker program.

Columnist Michelle Malkin also has documented that while mayor of New York City, Giuliani kept the municipality a sanctuary city for illegal aliens, adhering to a policy first established by Mayor Ed Koch in 1989.

Now comes a new report about Giuliani's involvement with public-private-partnership projects that include NAFTA Superhighway funding and his open borders record on immigration questions, all of which could undermine his otherwise tough policy on terrorism that has resulted from the 9/11 role Giuliani played in managing New York City's response to the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Giuliani Opposed Welfare Reform in Order to Protect Illegals

Rudy Giuliani’s record as a pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage New York City mayor is well known, but his willingness to shelter illegal aliens from federal immigration laws in the Big Apple should also give conservatives pause.

Under his control, the New York City Corp. lost a lawsuit against the federal government over Republican-crafted welfare reform legislation that required state and local authorities to report illegal aliens to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The law stipulated that only citizens and certain legal immigrants were to receive food stamps and imposed financial penalties on states that did not verify the legal status of those applying for the stamps.

Giuliani said the final welfare reform bill, signed by President Clinton in 1996, was “anti-immigrant” and, “although I do think the bill does some good, in the end I believe it does more harm than good.”

... a Liberal by any other name is still ...

Principle Trumps Giuliani - Or, Why He Will Not Get My Vote

HOUSTON -- Republican presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani forcefully reaffirmed his pro-choice stance yesterday and argued that his divergence from conservatives on the issue should not disqualify him from being the eventual GOP nominee.

"This is a matter of deep and profound judgment," he said in a speech at Houston Baptist University. "It's a matter of morals. It's a matter of your interpretation of how laws should operate, your interpretation of how respect for the rights of others should operate.

"But in a country like ours ... I believe you have to respect their viewpoint and give them a level of choice. I would grant women the right to make that choice."

... Mr. "G" is wrong on several counts; Murder is Not a Choice, Abortion is NOT a Right, his Divergence from Conservatives on issues Does Disqualify him, and Bad Laws should be Stricken or Changed. You're running as a candidate for the wrong party, "G". Then again, perhaps you're not!