Cry If You Want To: Presidents Not Wanted at the Party?

Damozel--

Are you saying the Republicans want to throw President Bush under the bus?

Are they afraid of the monster they created?

A party without its leader is like a chicken with its head cut off! Good luck to McCain trying to run with this albatross around his neck.

Is Cheney uninvited as well?

Are you saying the Republicans want to throw President Bush under the bus?

Yes just like the Democrats have already threw Clinton under the Bus.

Neocon--

Clinton wasn't thrown under the bus. She just lost the primary.

Unless you think Romney, Guiliani, Huckabee, and Thompson were also thrown under the bus?

oh Exucse me?

Bill Clinton...........But don’t feel alone, Mr. President.: according to the same article, Democrats are in a quandary about what to do about Bill Clinton.

Neocon--

The problem with Bill Clinton is that his wife just lost the primary. I imagine the Democrats would love a healing embrace and reconciliation between Obama and Clinton.

I don't think McCain wants to be too close to President Bush.

You're spending a lot of time in these threads complaining that the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans. Do you really think you can sell that?

Don't you have any affirmative case on behalf of the Republicans?

George,
For the last seven years I have only heard about the bad things the GOP do/are and hardly any about what good things the Dems will do.

It does swing both ways.

And this isn't uncommon most past presidents hated or loved, the parties want to show they aren't the same as the past president.

I think Bill Clinton got in trouble because, like he said himself, it's much harder to take the heat when you're acting on behalf of someone close to you , a wife,. than it is if you're out there for yourself. Of course, his name also draws attention more than usual, both in a good way and , unfortuantely, a bad way. He was under extraordinary pressure, and I don't think he realized what he was getting into.

Barbara Bush always got her punches in, even from the sidelines. Mrs. Edwards couldn't keep quiet, either.
When there's an emotional bond, things are harder to take with equanimity.

When we stop seeing people as living and breathing people, all analyses lose one touchstone of reality

I really empathized with Laura Bush when, in one interview, she was almost pleading: "He cares. He really does care."

He doesn't care. No politician cares. Barak Obama does not care.

He has already flip flopped on principals to reject public finanacing in order to out spend the GOP 3 to 1. He just pretends to care. He is a smooth talking preacher who is a born again chrisitan who is now moving to the center.

Perhaps not long after he takes office we will find out this smooth talking Senator also really doesn't have much sympathy for Abortion rights. Gay Marriage. I mean he is in favor of gun rights. The death penalty. He has claimed to be a Zionist.

Perhaps. AFter all he is very religious and we all know that ANYONE who is religious belongs to the Religious Right........is a neoconservative and wants to end the world by encouraging armageddon.

Be afrad. Be very afraid.

Don't forget the earlier question I raised (months ago) as to whether Bush would travel the nation to endorse the GOP nominee. Clinton was toxic to Gore in 2000, but arguably (not very, either), Bush is worse for McCain this year. (And McCain is not the strong presumptive election-ee that Gore was in 2000 before losing the debates to ... Bush! ... and self-destructing from there. Also, the GOP is unlikely to try to steal a lost election like the Democrats, at least.)

Meanwhile, Obama, the American Idol candidate this year, needs no assistance.

I believe Bush (and Cheney, too) should and likely will attend the convention. (It would be stupid and openly "capitulatory" to Obama and the Dems if they didn't.) The question about Bush and the convention is --

Will he be invited to *** SPEAK *** at the convention? And when, prime time or 2:30 PM?

"For the last seven years I have only heard about the bad things the GOP do/are and hardly any about what good things the Dems will do."

To correct some things Steve K. said and implied weeks ago, it's the Left that is negative and exhibits hatred (such as towardBush, or hyped Religious Right demons, etc., degeneracy we see here on this site on numerous occasions), and while customarily appealing to emotion rather than reason (the Left's modus operandi), is defining itself as "Not X" more obscessively than anything the Canadians (not the USA), the Quebecois (not the ROC, not English), or France (reflexively opposing the USA as a matter of routine no matter what the USA does) have done lately.

Feel-good New and Increased Entitlements For All doesn't appeal to many of us as the alternative to "Bush is evil, Bush is demonic, the GOP is evil" pathology.

It's not true that only negative things were said about the Republicans for eight years. I can even remember a time in the last few years when the war was very popular.

Certainly the Republicans were happy to attach themselves to President Bush when he was popular. Certainly the Republicans were happy to cut taxes during wartime. Certainly the Republicans were happy to cut taxes even as they created the largest entitlement program since Medicare.

It was Bush who made Democrats his enemies, when he branded everyone who didn't agree with his war policy as a traitor.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
Especially after 9/11, the country was united as it seldom is.

The Dems were thrown under Bush's war bus, and they didn't like it!
They don't like it when he (and the Repubs) continue to label every opposition to his policies and sanctioned bills as unpatriotic or unsupportive of the troops.

That's not the way to get kudos, even when deserved.
Bush drew the battle line, and now it's up to him to erase it. But he worn't, not even on visits to other countreis.

To correct some things Steve K. said and implied weeks ago, it's the Left that is negative and exhibits hatred...

For context, how about a link to my remark / implication and a coherent, non-emotional comment... "Mr. -101"

You can (and should) do better than that, Steve. It is you who are more emotional than I am, even if I don't pull punches sometimes where harsh criticism is due. Any bogus charges of incoherence make me wonder if the cause is ordinary dishonesty or projection of other kinds of problems.

You remarked once about my negativity and possibly pessimism and I didn't take the time then to set things straight but I did so here. Hatred of Bush needs no explanation (demands for such are just wasting others' time). Opposition (related to negativism and pessimism, in a broader sense) has been demonstrated numerous times by the Democrats and opponents-of-Bush-and-the-GOP-at-any-cost, such as the idiotic near-zero-IQ obstructionism without any alternative solution to Bush's plan for the future of Social Security. (The Dems did nothing themselves and lied about the state of the program and its future.)

* * *

"I can even remember a time in the last few years when the war was very popular."

At the time the war was launched and during the military campaign (the war, not the occupation), nearly everyone supported it. Nearly all the tiny opposition was doing so not out of right on its side but simply in opposition to Bush, and to the USA engaging in and winning a war. (The Usual Suspects...)

"Certainly the Republicans were happy to attach themselves to President Bush when he was popular."

Well, with the war, this was a somewhat positive thing but based on a negative state of affairs which has had Americans concerned. Namely, the Dems are seen as weak in the area of security, while the GOP is stronger, analogous to how the two parties are seen domestically when it comes to crime and responsibility for one's actions. (Note that even this didn't save the GOP in the 2006 elections. A large majority of Americans is tired of the problem-ridden occupation in Iraq and doesn't fear a terrorist attack tomorrow at home necessarily if we choose to vote Democratic.)

"Certainly the Republicans were happy to cut taxes during wartime. Certainly the Republicans were happy to cut taxes even as they created the largest entitlement program since Medicare."

There's nothing wrong with reducing taxes in and of itself, which too many would jump to "know" as well. Creating a new entitlement is the GOP acting as Dems. (They were criticized by Dem voters for not offering a large enough entitlement.) The worse thing the GOP has done has been to increase spending and in addition to reducing taxes, has done something worse in its place, assumed more federal debt.

Obama's wrong to leap to wanting to increase taxes, rather than reduce spending (can he not find something truly wasteful that can be ended, if not more targets in addition that simply are politically attractive to him and the Dems) -- I suspect he'd reduce spending in one area and increase spending even more in another. The spending, and the size and scope of the federal government in Washington and its nature, is the real problem here, as it has been for decades. Rather than be a government, it is a service agency and entitlement creater and dispensary (and vote-buying agent).

DLS,

Let me try again... Your "To correct some things Steve K. said and implied weeks ago..." says nothing!

What did "I say?" or what did "I imply" that has you so worked up that you bring it up in a thread that I'm not even involved in?

If you will provide a link to what I said / implied I will be happy to discuss any misunderstanding or disagreement we may have.

Any negative things that were said about Republicans were brought about by their own failures of leadership which have been well-documented. It is hard to imagine winning a war on terrorism by dividing the country into traitors (dems) and patriots (Reps), yet that is what Bush and the GOP attempted. For that reason, and for the lack of calls for national sacrifice, it became difficult for many to see the war as
anything but a craven attempt by Bush/Cheney to get greater access for multinationals to ME oil fields. As they lost credibility, they lost the support of the American people.

Bill Clinton's situation is entirely different. He has not reconciled himself to a new subsidiary role in the Democratic Party.As Obama's star rises- his is setting.