I used to have the opinion that George W. Bush was actually interested in defending the country, even if only to allow the continuance of liberal ideas like “compassionate conservatism.” However, in light of all the information that keeps on coming out about the continued sale of military technology to China, the continued presence of Clinton un-dead in various important posts, the rewarding and promotion of government incompetants who allowed the 9-11-01 attack in the first place, plus the continued open borders policies, I am now convinced that President Bush has no more concern for the safety and security of the United States than his predecessor. I have to say that the whole Iraq adventure is leaving an increasingly bad taste in my mouth - I wonder what the real motive is.

Unfortunately most of us (if “us” means Americans) do not know about GW Bush’s unseemly Moslem links, any more than we know about GHW Bush’s unseemly Arab links. They are not extensively reported; curious lacunae from our generally Leftist media.

Bush’s crush on Moslems is of a piece with his irrational infatuation with Mexicans and other hispanics. Our president is an ivy league-indoctrinated guilty white liberal. He has fully absorbed the dogmas of diversity and multiculturalism. That this makes him politically suicidal in demographic terms seems not to bother him. He believes that the votes of non-whites (people very unlikely to vote for him or his party) are morally more worthy of pursuit than the votes of whites (people far more likely to vote for him and his party), so he has committed himself to the odd strategy of hunting where the ducks aren’t.

President Bush seems genuinely incapable of seeing what the true threats to the United States are. He persists in hobbling anti-terrorist law enforcement in the United States at the same time as he is oblivious to the demographic destruction of his own country through the uncontrolled mass immigration he favors. Even if he loses his re-election bid, even if the United States suffers further terrorist attacks, Bush would probably prefer to go down in history as a caring, compassionate, inclusive president who reached out to Mexicans, Moslems, etc. ad nauseam, than as a hard-headed Republican president who won re-election with an overwhelming share of the white vote because he secured our borders.

As President Bush continues to reveal his inner Clinton, it becomes more and more obvious that “compassionate conservativism” was always just a code word for liberalism. HRS

“the rewarding and promotion of government incompetants who allowed the 9-11-01 attack in the first place”
Yes, this is important to keep in mind. In their 1995 book “Shooting Blanks: War Making That Doesn’t Work” James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi describe the rate at which generals are sacked during real wars - up to 20 and 30% depending on the power surveyed. Large numbers of generals promoted during peacetime prove inadequate in wartime and they are fired in commensurate numbers.
Good reason to wonder how serious the current administration is.

Mr. Purdy asks how serious the current administration is. I think there are people within it who are deadly serious. Whether or not one approves of what the administration’s neocon members are trying to make of U.S. foreign policy (I don’t approve), they are men with a mission. At the higher levels, one begins to wonder.

People such as Cheney and Rumsfeld are Washington revolving-door types, shuttling between government and heavily regulated business. Where I have long perceived (perhaps wrongly, but I don’t think so) a basic unseriousness is among the Bushes themselves. What follows is necessarily subjective, but I’ll stand by it:

George H.W. Bush is a presentable senator’s son who entered politics almost as an afterthought and rose within the Republican Party as a man who could be trusted to do the right thing for the party. As he admits, he is not one for the vision thing, and has no particular philosophy of government. After a string of grand-sounding appointments (Ambassador to the U.N., Director of Central Intelligence) and the vice presidency, I always had the feeling that he went for the presidency more to get that last entry on his resume than because of any set of principles he meant to apply in office. As a result, he tacked and veered politically and, with a heave from Ross Perot, lost his job. He never seemed too sad about losing it.

As far as I can tell, George W. Bush only ran for Governor of Texas because he is GHWB’s son and electoral office has become a family due. I think the same is largely true of his presidential bid, with the result that we have another President Bush with no core convictions that govern how he exercises his office. There is about both men - as presidents - an air of frivolity. It is not the debasing casualness of Clinton, but a basic unseriousness about the job of being president that has made both Presidents Bush weathervanes politically.

The Bush dynasty has not (yet) been as harmful to the United States as the Kennedys, but overall the country has not benefitted from Bushes in the White House, nor in the governor’s mansions of Austin and Tallahassee. HRS

Howard’s comments remind me of a book on the 1976 Presidential election by Jules Witcover. At one point, Witcover mentions the reason GOP operatives preferred Nelson Rockefeller to be Ford’s VP instead of George H.W. Bush. Most of them considered Bush incompetent to be president. GHWB wasn’t considered a serious and capable man within the Republican party.

“an air of frivolity. It is not the debasing casualness of Clinton”
Posted by: Howard Sutherland on September 16, 2003 01:58 PM

they are indeed frivolous, but i prefer lukewarm with all that lukewarm entails.

seriously though, which of these two is more corrupting to the u.s.? yugoslavia was a vile war, but iraq is worse, and so it goes.

the road to corruption is paved by republicans, upon which the democrats skip with glee upon.

I agree with Mr. Sutherland’s comments one hundred percent. BUT …

Who’s worse — W or Hillary? With each passing week, “the saintly wronged wife” (I almost typed “the ps*cho-b*tch from h*ll” but caught myself just in time) makes more and more noises to the effect that she’ll join the race. I believe the smart money’s betting not only that she’ll run but that if she does, she has the potential to take the presidency in a cake-walk.

As bad as W is — and he’s plenty bad, don’t get me wrong — try imagining Bill pulling two-thirds of the strings behind the scenes in a Hillary White House, and an undead Herr Reno in charge of a “Federal Diversity Directorate” modeled on the Blairite London Metro Police affair but in a new, improved version with a mandate from Hillary to instill fear in all “right-wing opposition” nationwide — that and/or a resurrected Joycelyn Elders in some federal post mandating federally required masturbation-and-homosexual-awareness training for first-grade on up, or something.

I mean, one could go on describing the joys of a Hillary administration. So, maybe hold our noses in the polling place and … cast our ballots for … I don’t wanna say it, but … you know … (the letter that comes between V and X)?

“seriously though, which of these two is more corrupting to the u.s.? yugoslavia was a vile war, but iraq is worse, and so it goes.”

Abby has the right to disagree with the Iraq war, but to call it “vile” is not a way for anyone to speak. That’s an offense against our country, an offense against our magnificent armed forces, and an offense against the majority of Americans who supported that war as an indispensable act for our national safety. Also, whatever else we may think of Bush, it took a lot of courage for him to carry out that difficult and possibly very dangerous war in the face of the disapproval of most of the world.

reply to lawernce auster,

both wars were and are unjust. since the majority of americans are also in favor of abortion, at least in some form, does that make abortion anyless murder. and is my saying so also an offense? the offense is not on my part, (although no doubt those in the wrong who take offense at my pointing out the error), but on those who choose error.

no less an authority than the Holy Father and the world’s bishops have called the iraqi war unjust, and just war theory is the purview of the Church. the value of an argument from authority is according to the authority cited, and in this case, the authority is a very good one.

with that said, i’m a guest on this blog, and as a guest, i will refrain myself to your wish.

Why was the Yugoslavia war vile? I am mostly unfamiliar with it. Pushing Muslims out of Europe seemed a good idea, but murdering Muslims did not. In hindsight, we learned that murder was rare and was engaged in equally by the Muslims. I was suspicious of Clinton’s stated motives because I have no reason to believe anything Clinton says.

The Kosovo war was launched by U.S./NATO without a hint of legal justification. You had Serbs and Albanians contesting Kosovo. In the ’80s, the Albanians had been on top and kicked out the Serbs. Then Milosevic was elected and the Serbs began oppressing the Albanians. There was no reason to take one side or the other. In ‘99 a low level civil war was going on, with Serbia kiling some Albanians and kicking some out of the country, but it was on a small scale, a local war. Then Clinton/NATO issued the infamous Rambouillet Ultimatum (official name, the Rambouillet Accords) which basically demanded that Serbia allow NATO to take over Serbia or the bombs would start falling. Serbia naturally refused and NATO started bombing Serbia. At this point, just as he had threatened, Milosevic began a mass expulsion of the Albanian Kosovars. From his point of view this was a perfectly logical thing to do. We had launched a war on him; the issue was who was going to control Kosovo; so the way for him to win was to throw the Albanians out.

Thus our totally unjustified, illegal interference triggered this human catastrophe. But even though it was our bombing that had led to the expulsion, now that the expulsion had occurred, Clinton had no choice but to continue and increase the bombing in order to force Milosevic to let the Kosovars come home. While he was ultimately successful in that, the overall cost was the ruin of Kosovo, the expulsion of most of the remaining Serb minority, the permanent takeover of Kosovo by outside forces, and the strengthening of Muslims in southern Europe.

In my opinion, the war in Kosovo was one of the worst, most unjustified things this country has ever done. The underlying motiviation was to give NATO a raison d’etre, and to push the idea of multiculturalism. Wesley Clark, who as military head of NATO led the air bombing, said at the time: “There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That’s a 19th-century idea, and we’re trying to transition into the 21st century, and we’re going to do it with multi-ethnic states.”

It was extremely disheartening that the entire political establishment, including the Republicans and George W. Bush, supported this war.

Thanks to Mr. Auster for the explanation. While we are on the subject of pandering, I heard Dick Morris say that Bush needs all the black and Hispanic votes he can get because their voting power increases by 0.7% and 1.5% annually. He said it a few minutes ago on Sean Hannity’s TV show. Morris seems like a brilliant strategist. Therefore it looks pretty bleak for traditionalists of the white persuasion. Someone, and I think it was Hannity, trying to be witty replied that the Republicans are running out of white people (which is not a problem for Hannity, as I have learned from listening to him before). In summary, I feel very down. But as Napolean once said, “Don’t take counsel from your fears.”

Unadorned, I am concerned. I disagree with the idea of voting for the lesser of two similar evils. Both major parties, just for starters according to the thinkers at this site, are willing to and actively seeking to displace the white race, to give up American culture, and to give up the American government to foreign rulers. I don’t see the benefit of carrying the burdens of such parties even though one side appears to be dropping the biggest crumbs. If the choice were between Hitler and Bush, yes voting for Bush would be sound. The choice here is not so clear.

It seems more helpful to work hard toward building one’s own party or taking over one of the existing parties. Standing for something is attractive to people. Standing up usually means making sacrifices. And the sacrifices are better spent for one’s side, not for the other side. The idea is to retreat (a sacrifice of sorts), to regroup, and to gain allies.

I am not trying to convince anyone of these ideas, and I hope I am not coming across as a patronizer.

Remember: The Democrats will take us over the cliff at 80 miles an hour. The Republicans will stay within the speed limit, but they’ll still take us over the cliff.

adding on to the article posted by: Lawrence Auster on September 16, 2003 08:20 PM

The Caspian Connection: Pipeline Politics and the Balkan War
Carl Limbacher and Caron Grich
June 9, 1999

What has America accomplished in the Balkans after 70-plus days of NATO bombardment?

http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/6/9/103249

and hunt tooley puts it all into perspective.
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1329

The Kosovo intervention was not in America’s best interest. The Iraq invasion is not in America’s best interest. Attempting to break up nation-states (including the American one) is not in America’s best interest. All enjoy the full support of the Republican and Democratic establishment. That said, this thread is drifting a bit from how it started.

Unadorned conjures the nightmare scenario of President Hillary Clinton and suggests, for tactical reasons, that conservatives vote for President Bush to prevent it. I find the Rodham scenario plausible. If it happens, it could be just as bad as Unadorned imagines. Is that grim prospect enough to justify traditionalist conservatives in voting for George W. Bush?

Mr. Bush is building a record as president. It is that of a big-government consolidator at home, unconcerned about the size and cost of the federal government and its unconstitutional intrusions into the states’ affairs and Americans’ lives. It is that of an updated Woodrow Wilson abroad, naively asserting the federal government’s right to intervene in other countries’ affairs and presuming that our interventions can only be for the good of those on whom we intrude. It is that of a panderer to the race-baiting, feminist, homosexualist Left: supporting racial discrimination against white Americans throughout society while endorsing the continuing invasion of the country by hordes of non-white foreigners - both to the detriment of the Americans who actually voted for him; evading the abortion controversy for fear of alienating women - even though many of the women who actually voted for him would welcome pro-life leadership from him; tacitly accepting the faux-constitutionalizing of homosexuality in the Lawrence decision.

As I commented earlier, Bush’s record is that of a president who concentrates on things that do not matter to America, such as which set of Arab oligarchs misrule Iraq, while ignoring things that do, such as our undefended borders, Mexico’s open subversion of U.S. immigration laws, and the Fed’s destruction of the U.S. dollar. President Bush is a not-very-intelligent liberal who has betrayed those who voted for him because he posed as a conservative. I cannot possibly vote for him again.

There may be a silver lining to a Hillary Clinton presidency, although the price would be high. The ethnic transformation of America makes it harder and harder to undo liberal idiocies - but that is just as true when the idiot liberal is named Bush as when named Clinton. When Republicans act in ways that destroy the social fabric of the United States, most Americans who think of themselves as conservatives tend not to notice, or they swallow the acid thinking that the Democrats would be doing something worse (which may be true). When the Clinton administration pandered to the Communist Chinese, it was cause for outrage among conservatives, as it should have been. When President Bush continues to coddle the terror-supporting Saudi oligarchy, even though most of the September 11th murderers were Saudis, conservatives consider it business as usual.

If Senator Clinton is elected president, so-called conservatives will notice her outrages and might even mobilize against them. Perhaps having such a Leftist lightning rod in the White House will be what it takes to awaken conservatively inclined Americans to the fact that they have no effective representation in the federal government. If so scandal-plagued a woman can be elected president, if Republicans cannot offer a successful alternative to her nationally, as they failed to offer one in New York, what more evidence should we need of their uselessness? A Rodham-Clinton administration might give birth to a conservative party with real power, either a new party or a reformed Republican Party. If it is not enough of a shock to do that, then Americans really are a busted flush.

To paraphrase what Mr. Auster said above: Sen. Clinton would take us over the cliff at 100; President Bush is taking us over at 55. No matter which of them is at the wheel, we will still die if we hit the bottom. HRS