The Huffington Post | Nick Wing Posted: 11-11-10 08:37 AM
Twitter is just as good a place as any to criticize your former president, as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) proved on Wednesday. The GOP congressman wrote a tweet saying that George W. Bush was not a "class act" and had, in fact, "destroyed" his party. Rohrbacher;s Twitter read:
@MarkRMatthews Bush not class act, destroyed GOP, jailed Ramos & Compean, left us bailouts, gave more power to fed gov & China," Rohrabacher's tweet read.
A further look at the digital dialogue shows that Mark R. Matthews, a "very conservative" law professor, had earlier commended Bush as a "class act" for his decision not to criticize President Obama during his pre-book release interview with Oprah, or at all during his media tour.
Rohrabacher alluded to the jailing of two Border Patrol agents -- Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean -- whose sentences Bush commuted in his last day in office. The pair had been convicted of shooting a Mexican drug dealer, and conservatives had championed their release.
The 11-term legislator also expressed his disapproval of Bush's Troubled Asset Relief Program, commonly known as the Wall Street or bank bailout, a frequently disparaged program that has haunted many of the lawmakers who have supported it.
Bush had many problems. First, his mastery of English was the worst for any modern president. He was the Great Mis-Communicator. But he had a GOP House and Senate for six years, an option the electorate has not given Obama. It would be more accurate to say that the Republican Party destroyed the Republican Party.
Bush just did what Reagan did: he cut the income tax and capital gains tax for the most affluent Americans and started a war without raising taxes. Bush did suspend the 1915 Estate Tax that only effected the top 5,000 American families.
He admitted during one of his inauguration balls that his base was the "have mores." Well, at least he was honest about it.
Bush followed the standard GOP prescription for a president: cutting taxes for the affluent, starting a $ trillion dollar war and looking the other way when there is a labor or environmental violations.
There is ample evidence that the GOP was planning to invade Iraq before the 2000 elections. Republicans simply needed to get a Republican elected president to get the job done.
Because of the laissez faire philosophy of the GOP, Bush did not know how to handle a domestic issue like Hurricane Katrina and had, in fact, replaced the FEMA managers and workers with GOP partisans. This bit him in the ass when a real unexpected emergency occurred.
The GOP has never been a party the country has trusted in an emergency. In world War 1 and 2 and the Great Depression, a Democratic president was in charge. After the dust cleared, Republicans are elected during periods of stability. Because of the GOP ideology, they cannot think outside of the conservative box and thus are poorly equipped to handle the country during periods of great transition.
Pragmatism has never been the strong suit of the GOP. it is the party of 'my way or the highway. ' Even as a minority party that control one branch o government, it is unwilling to compromise with the Obama administration. This hardline approach may haunt the GOP when it retakes the US presidency.
What can the Democrats do? One is concentrate on US foreign, policy, writing executive orders and modifying federal regulations. Obama can also sic the Justice Department on any wayward GOP senators or congressman. He can also use the Justice Department, Treasury Department and the IRS to uncover shady campaign contributions.
Obama can use his veto power when necessary and has already advised the GOP he will do just that in the case of health care. Without Democratic assistance, the GOP has little chance of overturning an Obama veto. This is even less likely now more than ever since 30+ blue Dogs were not reelected.
What can the Democrat do to regain momentum in 2012? First, hope that Sarah Palin is the GOP nominee. Numerous polls have shown that the public does not believe she is qualified to be president. You can be sure Republicans will support Palin and Democrats might want to register as Republicans to help her along.
The Democrats need to paint the new GOP folks in Washington as 'out of touch' extremists. With the new batch of GOP extremist right wing congress persons that will be showing up in Washington, Democrats should pounce on their inexperience and portray them as ineffective ideologues.
The Democrats should continue to court the middle calls, veterans, women and families. They need to establish a dialogue with center-left churches such as the Episcopal, Unitarian, and Reform Jewish temples. The Democrats also need to improve the dialogue with black churches and Muslim mosques. They need to scour the universities for campaign workers.
The next session of the 211th congress will Obama's last chance to put the hammer down. We hope it is productive and the president abandons any illusions of bi-partisanship, which will simply squander time.
Rightardia predicts that 2012 will be easy pickin's for Democrats once the public gets a whiff of the Tea Baggers. The Baggers won't smell like tea, they will smell like rancid pee by 2012.
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu
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The Republican approach to Washington politics
Twitter is just as good a place as any to criticize your former president, as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) proved on Wednesday. The GOP congressman wrote a tweet saying that George W. Bush was not a "class act" and had, in fact, "destroyed" his party. Rohrbacher;s Twitter read:
@MarkRMatthews Bush not class act, destroyed GOP, jailed Ramos & Compean, left us bailouts, gave more power to fed gov & China," Rohrabacher's tweet read.
A further look at the digital dialogue shows that Mark R. Matthews, a "very conservative" law professor, had earlier commended Bush as a "class act" for his decision not to criticize President Obama during his pre-book release interview with Oprah, or at all during his media tour.
Rohrabacher alluded to the jailing of two Border Patrol agents -- Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean -- whose sentences Bush commuted in his last day in office. The pair had been convicted of shooting a Mexican drug dealer, and conservatives had championed their release.
The 11-term legislator also expressed his disapproval of Bush's Troubled Asset Relief Program, commonly known as the Wall Street or bank bailout, a frequently disparaged program that has haunted many of the lawmakers who have supported it.
Bush had many problems. First, his mastery of English was the worst for any modern president. He was the Great Mis-Communicator. But he had a GOP House and Senate for six years, an option the electorate has not given Obama. It would be more accurate to say that the Republican Party destroyed the Republican Party.
Bush just did what Reagan did: he cut the income tax and capital gains tax for the most affluent Americans and started a war without raising taxes. Bush did suspend the 1915 Estate Tax that only effected the top 5,000 American families.
He admitted during one of his inauguration balls that his base was the "have mores." Well, at least he was honest about it.
Bush followed the standard GOP prescription for a president: cutting taxes for the affluent, starting a $ trillion dollar war and looking the other way when there is a labor or environmental violations.
There is ample evidence that the GOP was planning to invade Iraq before the 2000 elections. Republicans simply needed to get a Republican elected president to get the job done.
Because of the laissez faire philosophy of the GOP, Bush did not know how to handle a domestic issue like Hurricane Katrina and had, in fact, replaced the FEMA managers and workers with GOP partisans. This bit him in the ass when a real unexpected emergency occurred.
The GOP has never been a party the country has trusted in an emergency. In world War 1 and 2 and the Great Depression, a Democratic president was in charge. After the dust cleared, Republicans are elected during periods of stability. Because of the GOP ideology, they cannot think outside of the conservative box and thus are poorly equipped to handle the country during periods of great transition.
Pragmatism has never been the strong suit of the GOP. it is the party of 'my way or the highway. ' Even as a minority party that control one branch o government, it is unwilling to compromise with the Obama administration. This hardline approach may haunt the GOP when it retakes the US presidency.
What can the Democrats do? One is concentrate on US foreign, policy, writing executive orders and modifying federal regulations. Obama can also sic the Justice Department on any wayward GOP senators or congressman. He can also use the Justice Department, Treasury Department and the IRS to uncover shady campaign contributions.
Obama can use his veto power when necessary and has already advised the GOP he will do just that in the case of health care. Without Democratic assistance, the GOP has little chance of overturning an Obama veto. This is even less likely now more than ever since 30+ blue Dogs were not reelected.
What can the Democrat do to regain momentum in 2012? First, hope that Sarah Palin is the GOP nominee. Numerous polls have shown that the public does not believe she is qualified to be president. You can be sure Republicans will support Palin and Democrats might want to register as Republicans to help her along.
The Democrats need to paint the new GOP folks in Washington as 'out of touch' extremists. With the new batch of GOP extremist right wing congress persons that will be showing up in Washington, Democrats should pounce on their inexperience and portray them as ineffective ideologues.
The Democrats should continue to court the middle calls, veterans, women and families. They need to establish a dialogue with center-left churches such as the Episcopal, Unitarian, and Reform Jewish temples. The Democrats also need to improve the dialogue with black churches and Muslim mosques. They need to scour the universities for campaign workers.
The next session of the 211th congress will Obama's last chance to put the hammer down. We hope it is productive and the president abandons any illusions of bi-partisanship, which will simply squander time.
Rightardia predicts that 2012 will be easy pickin's for Democrats once the public gets a whiff of the Tea Baggers. The Baggers won't smell like tea, they will smell like rancid pee by 2012.
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu
