A picture would be my 1000 words on this one. (Cut to tear running down my cheek)

One interesting part of the recent conservative conference was watching the same water-carrying suck-ups who supported Bush for 8 years, turn on him.
Sorry, but it doesn't work like that. It's all still a part of your life and theoretically your conscience.
We can probably all list the standard talking points that Butch and company used on this site to try and prop up the worst screw-up in recorded history. The standard comment, now that conservatives have turned against W, would be, "They're just blinded by their hatred of Bush." How many times did we all hear that one? But now they're talking about themselves. Priceless.

Maybe that's why Rush appears to weigh 400 pounds again: He's his own target and thus, he's ingesting his own BS.
Of course now they're trying to rewrite history as if Bush was their enemy. It's typical and predictable but still a little shocking when you realize the shameless depths to which these lowlifes will sink. Arch Neo-Con Richard Perle is even trying to deny the Neo-Con movement ever happened. Spectacular.

The headliners at the conference included Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. Be proud, be very proud. One of my real motivations for trying to save this country, is that we can't let these scumb*gs go down in history as the people who destroyed America - no matter how hard they tried.

I'll finish with an original example of their BS: They love saying government is the problem. They also love talking about the Constitution. Well, wasn't the group of men who met to come up with the Constitution an excellent example of good government?

Let's stop beating the dead horse and focus on something relevant. What do you think about our new Attorney General and his "Holder Memorandum"?

Oh the confusion. Or whatever it is.
Here we go.

I still don't know anyone who lost any civil right. I suppose you are suggesting someone along the way did through the act of monitoring phone calls. But I find it hard to make the leap to some Bush sweeping away of Americans's civil liberty.

Bill,
I see you as forever pushing things beyond the edge of the imaginary.
Who were water-carrying suck-ups who have only now "turned" on him?

Many conservatives had been criticizing Bush for a number of things all along.
But they neither sucked up or hated him. That's just your spin.
So you'll off base there.

But apparently you were to busy noting the talking points to hear the complaints?

However, your dislike of Bush is not a conservative talking point.

Now you're attributing that affliction to conservatives?
eeeeek.
So far you haven't provided anything but the usual inaccurate portraying tripe against conservatives.

Then Rush is fat?
Special.
And his speech was all BS and you didn't watch it. Shocking.

Perhaps you could provide at least ONE example of someone "trying to rewrite history as if Bush was their enemy".

Who and how's that?

"shameless depths to which these lowlifes will sink"?

How is it that you imagine a scenario where commentators Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh would have gone down in history as the people who destroyed America? That's like suggesting Lars Larson could go down in history as destroying Portland.

Yes conservatives say government is a problem. But you don't seem to understand what we are talking about.
The other problem is you liberals can't tell the difference between the excellent government once spawned by the group of men who met to come up with the Constitution and the nanny state behemoth we have today. They are one in the same?

The new government we are about to get with President Obama and the Liberal Congress is a massive expansion of the government.

What I don't get is how you can find reality when talking about local government malpractice and completely miss the same national movement that will also trigger even more local madness.

We sure are living in two different worlds.
BUT nothing demonstrates the gargantuan gap between your perspective and mine that the insanity of the global warming crusade.
As the madness trying to reduce CO2 unfolds it will prove to be government at it's worst and the country will suffer beyond even your imagination while no benefit at all will be gained.

No, don't change the subject. Those clip-clop hoof beats you hear pulling the lifestyle cart you're riding in over the cliff ... is your "dead horse."

How many horror movies is it gonna take for you to get it? that bloodmoney-sucking Bush/Cheney/neo-con vampires ain't dead until you stab a stake through them

Abolish the CIA. Cut the Pentagon to one side -- our side: States' local Nat'l Guard units to provide for the Common defense.

Help yourself to 'free' better Education, Health care, and HomeEnergy, (like all other countries have), AND get a 80% cut in your federal taxes when we get the military monkey off our back.

See -- one thing the US can't hide, is when it's crippled inside. Those cripples of us: Are you one?

"... you don't seem to understand what we are talking about. ... What I don't get is how you can find reality ...."

I think I hear one of voices that cripple America now.

"We sure are living in two different worlds. " Not "world," you mean 'zone.' You're in a handicapped zone. Since you self-amputated your information organ.

Bill, I was a frequent defender of President Bush. And here's what I (and probably most people of my political persuasion) think about him.

The good: There were no successful terrorist attack in the US after 9/11. Since he was in charge, we'll give him credit for that. The Bush tax cuts supported steady economic growth throughout his presidency, preventing what could have been a very severe recession after 2001. Government policy tended to be relatively less distructive to innovation and entrepreneurship than it sometimes has been. The US military successfully replaced the Taliban in Afganistan and Saddam in Iraq, and there is relative peace and freedom now in Iraq. There was relatively little financial corruption among the senior members of the administration. Roberts and Alito were good Supreme Court nominees (though Myers definitely was not). Bush was personally a stand-up guy guided for the most part by free-market instincts (though he didn't always follow them).

The bad: The government (which of course was not just Bush, but Congress) never controlled discretionary or military spending. Low interest rates, governmental policy in a number of areas, and a lack of regulation in certain areas contributed to the housing bubble and a serious financial crisis. In the last few months, Bush turned the keys to working the financial crisis to Brennake and Paulson, resulting in the TARP, which may have been necessary, but certainly is an enormous intrusion by the government that, unfortunately, has opened the door to even more intrusion. Bush supported a very bad very expensive prescription drug entitlement and a bad immigration bill. Bush was an abysmal speaker and seemed unable to articulate a vision that the country could get behind. He probably more than anyone is responsible for Democratic majorities in Congress and Obama.

So, like all human beings, from our perspective, he had strengths and weaknesses. Now, if you're interested (which I strongly suspect you are not), I'd be happy to tell you what I think of the current administration and Congress, who seem to be working overtime to cram down America's throat a New New Deal, which I believe will have very serious adverse consequences for our country.

The Original BobW

Ben,
You wrote: Perhaps you could provide at least ONE example of someone "trying to rewrite history as if Bush was their enemy".

Okay, let's take Newt Gingrich. Incidentally when President Bush tried to sell the War on Terror as "World War 3", Newt Gingrich was right there agreeing with him. That's the water-carrying suck-up part despite the overwhelming craziness of what Bush was saying. It didn't fly - it was a case of trying to BS too hard. The American People figured that if World War 3 started, they'd know it.

But now Bush is gone. Time to go back on attack - this time against President Obama. And as you sit in the wreckage of your horrific results, it's time to throw W under the bus. So at the recent CPAC, Newt Gingrich discussed the "Bush-Obama continuity in economic policy, which is frankly a disaster for this country and cannot work."

Notice how he linked Bush with our current President? There's your proof of the new plan: Hating W. Because you damn sure hate President Obama. Right wing radio regularly calls him a terrorist-appeasing communist. So you're now linking your beloved W to that? Sounds like a breakup in the land of teenage puppy love.

Look, my problem isn't with conservative ideals necessarily. A lot of them make sense. It's just that when you had your chance to implement them you proceeded with some of the worst governing in the history of civilization. And now Rush and the gang want to distance themselves from themselves.
Why not own up to what you did, and stop pretending the last 8 years didn't happen? Why not at least help try and dig us out of the gigantic hole you put us in, instead of copping an attitude about how great the conservative movement is, while you sit around wishing that President Obama will fail?
Don't you care about this country or was that just another talking point Karl Rove fired out his rear so the drone zombies of the right would have something to think that day?

"I still don't know anyone who lost any civil right."

No one did, because those rights are inherent to each of us individually.

However, the Federal Government under the Bush administration apparently suspended recognition of some of those rights, or decided that if push came to shove our rights were to be secondary to their plans.

The end result is basically the same, however.

(I'm not here to argue about it, though. While an administration was actively pursuing that sort of policy it was worth arguing about as a citizen, but now it's a matter for historians and maybe prosecutors.)

Bill, relax....have a latte. The Statute of Limitations for blaming all of the World's woes on Bush is going to run pretty soon. And pretty soon you're going to realize that many of the things you hated about Bush aren't going to drastically change with the Obama Administration now that the reality of holding office has hit. Extraordinary Renditions? Check. 'State secrets' policy for withholding release of info regarding such renditions? Check. Withhold constitutional rights from Afghan battlefield detainees? Check. Gitmo? Now that his Admin has miraculously declared it does conform to the Geneva Conventions, check. Permanent troop presence in Iraq? Check. The list will go on.

Bill,

Come on,,how many ways must it be said?

We have NOT had conservative government at work over any stretch of time in recent menory, period.

Yet that is exactly your pitch.
That we have been traveling this conservative path that led us to doom.

Even whilke you admit we "had your chance to implement them" but failed.

You call the result "some of the worst governing in the history of civilization." I would agree to the extent that government under Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and then Bush 2 has become unmanageable.

And not because it has been too conservative.

You seem to linger around the edges without focusing.

Do you honestly think our troubles are due to too much conservative government?
Say what you want about Bush and the war etc. but a conservative government he did not lead.

Bush swayed far from conservsative prinicpals and governance and Reagan's effort was truncated by Congress and uncontrolable governement itself.

Rush knows this and isn't distancing himself from himself at all.
Nothing in his speech indicates that at all.

Your whole Newt and Bush/Obama link case is not a display of anything but politics and peripheral insignificance.

Proof of a new plan? Come on Bill.

The country is like a huge messed up Portland with a mountian of boondoggles and missteps. Bush has been no more than a temporary cheif while the whole mess worsens.

Wht can't you own up to what Congress and the the last few administrations have done.
Who's pretending the last 8 years didn't happen?

When you ask why not at least help try and dig us out of the gigantic hole you're failing to notice the massive diggin deeper this $5 or 6 trillion in spending is doing.
What exactly is it you want from conservsatives?

To applaud this outrageous acceleration of lunatic spending?
What?

There is no conservative movement. So no conservative I know is copping an attitude about how great it is.

Where do you get this stuff.

I too, like Rush and other conservatives, hope that President Obama will fail.

Try and get this,,,,,,the fail part is not the country failing but his massive expansion of government that will ruin the country.

This isn't Karl Rove or Zombies.

Its no different than your own oppostion if Mayor Crepy and company were on the verge of greatly expanding Urban Renewal debt to fund every imaginable thing they have dreamed of.
Would your oppostion simply be wanting the city to fail? Would Sam be asking you Don't you care about the city?

As for Newt, I threw him under the bus when he sat on that Global Warming couch with Pelosi.

Butch,
I'll tell you what reality is hitting. Now that you people sold out the Constitution in exchange for Uncle Cheney tucking you in at night and telling you you're safe, you now realize that those lost rights aren't as much fun when it's not your guy in charge. Suddenly, you want those rights back which is why Rush spoke glowingly of the Constitution after supporting 8 years of W trashing it.
I didn't watch his whole speech - it was 90 minutes - but I loved when he misquoted the Constitution while he was accusing President Obama of ignoring it.
Butch, you've got to understand: I love what Rush did for this country. He led a giant group of idiots out of power and for once, I feel like he should get a medal or something.
One other fun point: Hundreds of times in the last 8 years, we were lectured to about how conservatives are happy and liberals are gripers. Well, now Rush is "livid" about the way things are going.
Welcome to the club.
Butch, you should take a little stroll through your past comments - especially the glowing economic stuff - and instead of continuing with an ever-weakening game, you should apologize for what you and your people have done to America in the name of feeling safe.
Especially now that Uncle Dicky has gone home.

We learn that the separation of powers and rule of law became superfluous under the Bush admin. The CIA lied about the existence of interrogation recordings claiming there were 2 and one audio tape. Now they admit there were 92 - oops- all of which they destroyed. We learn the Justice dept. memoranda imbued the executive with unitary powers to eavesdrop absent judicial or congressional oversight. We learn that at the eleventh hour of his tenure, Bush voluntarily ceded this authority, not because it was wrong, but instead to withhold such authority from the incoming administration. Now tell me again why this dictatorship was justified? "Because we did not suffer further acts of terrorism? Our founders would have seen the Bushies and all their shenanigans as a form of internal terrorism. Apologists have you no shame?

"I still don't know anyone who lost any civil right."

Ever heard of Brandon Mayfield?

There were no successful terrorist attack in the US after 9/11.

What, did you miss the anthrax attacks?

And quite frankly, given that the Bush administration has called people supporters of terrorism anyone who may have given money to charities or institutions that the government claims (with or without proof) supported Islamic extremists, I think a pretty decent case could be made that the Bush administration itself fostered major economic terrorism in the US with their fiscal policies that has done and will do far more damage than the 9/11 attacks.

Why try and destroy America when the GOP was doing such a good job of it?

The only thing the terrorists regret about President Bush is that he couldn't serve another term.

Genop, your opinions as to what the founders would think of Bush on "terror" issues are, I think, pretty far off the mark. During the Revolution, George Washington hung a number of individuals who were working for the British but were not in uniform. (The historical record is unclear as to the interrogation techniques used prior to the hangings.) He also had all mail from his soldiers opened, to ensure no disclosure of important information. John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts into law for heaven's sakes. Our founders, like Bush (and Obama for that matter) were just human beings trying to accomplish goals they felt were in the country's best interests. I'm with you in your expressed concern for our civil liberties (the less power the government has over me, the happier I am), but to say that Bush was the bogeyman, and now he's gone that everything will be fine, is pretty naive. Does anyone want to debate about what Obama and Congress are up to?

Screw Brandon Mayfield; He ought to stuffed in a wood chipper.

Nobody is saying, "Now that President Obama is in charge everything will be fine." That's one of the most annoying parts of this: The "I told you so" moment is shot because we are in such dire straits that we still could lose the country.

What I'm hearing from the right is that Obama is this giant communist/socialist who came into office intent on spending trillions of dollars making government bigger.

It's the next great GOP talking point and like all the others it is total BS. The reason we are floundering around as a country trying desperate moves on every front is because the last 8 years were such a disaster. We have capsized economically. The banking system is toast. Yet, the GOP is arguing that Obama is implementing some sort of spending agenda and that's the problem.

I'll sum up the GOP position: Make a giant mess, get thrown out, then blame the next guy for having a giant mess on his hands.
Where's the reality grip from you people? Did George have you so dumbed down that you don't even understand that you screwed up?

"While an administration was actively pursuing that sort of policy it was worth arguing about as a citizen, but now it's a matter for historians and maybe prosecutors."

Wrong,

Obama is making the same arguments about warrantless wire-tapping, detainee rights and the unitary executive as Bush.

This is natural: Why would Obama or any president work to reverse his predecessor's enlargement of his power?

Liberals need to get over their giddiness about Obama's election and see that in may ways, the new boss is the same as the old boss.

"Liberals need to get over their giddiness about Obama's election".
The last time I saw liberals this giddy was leading up to the "grilling" of Oliver North.

There were no successful terrorist attack in the US after 9/11.

4,255 Americans killed

31,710 Americans injured

Makes 9/11 look like grade school.

1,033,000 violent deaths of Iraq's, which of course why should we care about that right?

Bush is a war criminal, started this war based on lies and threw out the Geneva conventions to fight it.

Sam: I was referring to the Bush administration's actions. If the Obama administration goes the same way, I'll bitch about that too.

However, I think it's too soon to judge the new guys on civil liberties. In several ways it seems to me they are simply coasting, supporting the previous administration's policies in advance of setting their own. In other ways - such as releasing these documents and pledging to close gitmo - they are making steps in the right direction. And they do not appear to be making things actually worse as yet. The upshot is that I'm willing to give the new administration some time - a year or so - to change course (or not) before I decide whether or not to start bitching about them too.

Critical thinking depends upon knowing what our government is doing. Skepticism is important in the sense it results in constructive dissent. The past policies are only now being unearthed to the extent the evidence has not been destroyed. Conservative pundits may now simply "log on" to learn the latest policy positions from this administration. If you must adhere to a failure mentality, at least applaud the light of truth shining now on our transparent attempts to solve these difficult problems. Better yet, along with the constant criticism, how about some constructive solutions? I hear the rhetoric (Jindal, et.al.) but see very little in constructive push back.

Bob wrote: The good: There were no successful terrorist attack in the US after 9/11. Since he was in charge, we'll give him credit for that.

I don't give him credit for that. There were no attacks in the decades preceding 9/11 either. The fact that no attacks occurred do not mean that the people in charge can claim credit.

Just because a tiger has not rampaged through my neighborhood and eaten all the children doesn't mean that I should credit Sam Adams with protecting us from such a scenario.

In fact, 9/11 occurred ON Mr. Bush's watch.

There might still be a role for torture: something is needed to force disclosure of the names of those AIG counterparties on credit default swaps, with a few tens of billions coming due each quarter. It would be nice to know whose losses the rest of us are covering, and maybe even why.

Reading these recently released memos is like reading something from a banana dictatorship. Total power was given to the President because it was wartime - The Global War on Terror, that conveniently "will last for our lifetimes."

America needed the Conservative Movement to stand up to these criminal clowns while they were in power. Instead, they carried water for them and basically ran a PR service supporting their wretched viewpoint.

And now that it's over they claim the President and Cheney never really were Conservatives. How convenient. Was it because Bush wasn't invited to CPAC this year? Well, he was there all the other years. I'm sure Cheney would be pretty surprised to find out he wasn't a Conservative.

If the Conservatives felt this way, why didn't they speak out then? Why didn't Rush run to the microphone to talk about the assault on the Constitution then? Conservatives do well on talk radio because they're all talk, but this time they didn't even talk a good game. And this was when America needed them most.

I'd have to ask them if they were ever really patriots or was that just another talking point in this low-rent, banana dictatorship, coup d'etat too?

Read those memos and tell me that you're proud to have been a Bush supporter.

I dare you.

Y'know, really, BushCo is criminal beyond treason. Crimes against humanity, war crimes, and planning and conducting -- that's premeditated -- the mass murders of Nine-Eleven Op.

It isn't going away, there's not going to be some Move On get-over-it placating the public. The number who are aiming for a vigorous Nine-Eleven Op investigation and/or who suspect BushCo in some part guilty of an 'inside job' is about (66%) a 2-to-1 majority, and increasing. That's the most telling of the truth: The common sense among most common folks. The court of public opinion.

More people are joining the consensus that Nine-Eleven Op was rigged. All the kneejerk numbskulls' put-down's, pishaw's and name-calling dismissals of 'tinfoil hats' and 'conspirac-isteria' has not only been unconvincing -- like saying "O.J. didn't do it" -- it has been buried under a growing landslide moving for 9/11 Truth. (Just last week I saw a new group joining up as Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth.) The deniers and detractors are ducking down, quieting down, and shrinking.

Of course, you don't hear a peep about Nine-Eleven Op out of the mass media 'celebrities' and their deathly silence only increases their complicity and more people's suspicion of them.

Until ultimately, and soon, the media stonewall is going to be breached by a legitimate news item reporting the popular 'BushCo did it' view of Nine-Eleven Op, as the subject in a best-selling book or an Award-winning movie or a platinum-selling CD ... as in this music video, in German, with English subtitles

"Thank heaven these atrocities are over now."

Well, yeah, but the evil-doers are still at-large and, until arrested, able to do Scene Two.

"May they never return."

I'm very worried about March 22nd, or 23rd. Yeah, like in two weeks. The planet pattern is ominous, rife with evil agitation -- seeing it this way by looking in Poppy Bush's horoscope, the MasterMind of Nine-Eleven Op, (as I've said before; and announcing March 22 here first, exclusive, at least 48 hours before I put it anywhere else).