Depending on who pays the pundit analyzing lastnight’s debate you are listening to, their guy won. As a conservative, I will admit it probably was a draw. Obama once again proved he can talk his way out of quicksand. He stumbled, played fast and loose with some facts, and mislead Americans on a few non-liberal issues. taxes, health care, and abortion to name a few. But he ’sounded good’ and sometimes sounding good while being dead wrong is enough. 

McCain, while missing a few hanging curves, had his best debate yet. He did help define the stark differences between him and Obama. Obama did not deny that he is a socialist. He doubled down and reiterated that he does want to redistribute wealth. 

One of the best comebacks by McCain was how he said that the last time a President put forth protectionist policies and raised taxes during a recession, like Obama promises to do, was Hoover and it threw us into the Great Depression. 

McCain also accomplished another key thing. He finally called out Obama on the Bush meme, by saying he should have run last time if he hated him so much. My opinion is that Bush’s approval rating being so low is a manufactured media mission. Bush came to Washington with his misguided, but honest “new tone”. He tried to work across the isle. He tried to work with Democrats and compromise to get things done. 

Democrats used Bush’s willingness to compromise to drag him left, but they never gave him credit and instead attacked. The media, as is their first instinct, took what Democrats said and repeat it as scripture. And then Americans dislike Bush and Republicans, when we aren’t getting our own satisfaction.

Bush was a moderate President in whole. Yes, he was conservative on many issues, but he was liberal on many  others. Conservatives and Republicans are unhappy with the Bush administration for his work on the left side of the spectrum, liberals and Democrats are upset over his time working on the right side. In the end, the media should have put aside its bias, and done its job to explain this.

Think of it this way. Everyone disapproves of Congress, but the average Joe’s love their own member of Congress.  

Bush was a big government, big spending, tax cutting, strong on defense President – which translates to a moderate legacy in my opinion. If the hyper partisan media wasn’t so determined to right, what they feel was, the stolen 2000 election, the public would understand the Bush Presidency. But instead, they pour fuel on the fire. 

Democrats like Obama should be grateful for the Bush Presidency. No seriously, he gave ground on some core conservative issues. Ground that would never have been up for grabs had Bush been the conservative he is accused of being. Bush, by working on these issues, gave them credibility and some of them will be nearly impossible to undo. 

I think Democrats are so disingenuous and dangerous. They will say and do anything to get power. 

Now Republicans who would rather have had the Bush Presidency done a little differently have done a terrible job helping to correct the media disinformation. Congressional Republicans went along with Bush too long. Now, don’t misquote me here, it wasn’t that they should have surrendered and joined the Democrats in undercutting the President. To the contrary, they should have fought Bush on spending, entittlements, and the growth of Government. 

At the end of the day, those are the things most people care about. We have had 8 years of debate over how mush is enough, we haven’t communicated the argument to the people that maybe, if Government didn’t consume so much on its own, there would be enough for the people to take care of themselves. 

With the Democrats increasingly being taken over by the fringe left socialists, there was a wide open opportunity to reign in Government. 

McCain is not Bush, far from it. in fact he was a thorn in the side of Bush on many things. Now he wasn’t someone fighting from the right, but he was not a rubberstamp. 

I’m so sick and tired of hearing the whole ‘voted with Bush ninety-some percent of the time‘ deal. I’ve been looking around trying to find a recent rating of that for members of Congress, but am coming up empty. The reason I want to see it, is to see if there is merit to Obama and Democrats saying that they have opposed everything Bush has done. 

If most Republicans are in the 80-90’s, I would imagine every Democrat, especially Obama, would be in the single digits for his votes with the Bush administration, based on the campaign rhetoric. But I don’t think that is the case. If the public knew that Democrats didn’t oppose Bush ninety-some-percent of the time, and instead it was probably only around 40-50% of the time, we’d be seeing a completely different election right now. 

Now sure, Bush has made some mistakes. Every President makes mistakes. The Domestic ones, in my opinion, were because he worked against conservative principles and for Democratic ones in order to bridge the partisan divide. It was a massive failure. Democrats don’t want to work together for a better America. They want total control. 

 

If anyone out there can send me the link to a Voted with Bush rating, I would greatly appreciate it. I’ve found party affiliation ones, but not with Bush ones.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 8:26 am and is filed under 2008, It's The Spending Stupid, Know Thy Enemy, National, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.