Like all good Republicans, he has principles*.

*sometimes

(specifically, principles can be dropped in times when they don't help him and his cronies---see rule of law ...

Yeah, kinda like Nancy Pelosi talking about cleaning up Washington while working in an exception to a labor/minimum wage law for a meat-packing company in her district.

Or kinda like that Dem congressman caught with buckets 'o cash that just somehow found its way into his freezer.

Kinda like Dem senator Harry Reid doing favors for Jack Abramoff.

Kinda like ...

Geez, what's the point.

Plugging in the term "William Jefferson" in the Salon search engine produces 301 hits on Salon alone, including "Jefferson Must Go" from late May 2006, and this one most recently (Monday 6/4/07):

Feds Reportedly Seeking Jefferson Indictment Today

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/06/04/jefferson/index.html?source=rss

So, hope that makes you happy - the score is now Republicans 257 or so, Democrats 1.

Perhaps you could actually, ummm, you know, look something up before you make an asinine accusation like that next time?

No? I didn't think so...it's always easier to just fire off an unsubstantiated accusation, isn't it?

This is funny. How many in this group have had anything, anything at all, positive to say about Bush, conservatives, or Republicans? None, I would venture.

I have nice things to say about some folks who call themselves conservatives, and I have plenty of nice things to say about the brand of conservatism that cares for the Constitution and the freedom this country has been working towards since the beginning.

I got nothing nice to say about Bush because he thinks killing and torturing and grabbing power are good things, and I've got nothing nice to say about Republicans because they haven't snapped out of it and quit agreeing with him yet.

Damn, what a lefty moonbat I am! If only my brain wasn't poisoned at University by those pinko Marxist professors!

Hell, even liberal folks like Bucky get blasted for not following the party line sufficiently. There is no independence here, just different hues of leftist orthodoxy.

Is that why I'm here, coz I'm such a big leftist? I'm not afraid of people disagreeing with me, it doesn't make me bitter or scared like it apparently does you. "Oh boo hoo, da libruls maded me feel bad."

I'll debate anyone, because I am arguing from my best efforts to understand the world as it is and not what I want it to be. Why won't you? Do you know deep down how far from reason you've strayed?

Chavez would be proud of this group.

Yeah, nobody cares about Chavez except you reichnuts. He doesn't really affect any of our lives here directly. He's only an issue because the TV told you he was. (Oh, I'm way more interested in America than France, too, before you get ahead of yourself.)

@Anonymous: don't you wonder how many of the very same people who argue that Libby should be pardoned lobbied vociferously for Clinton's impeachment?

I'm going to guess: all of them.

And, since their hypocrisy knows no bounds, I'm going to guess that most, if not all, of them at the time insisted that it "wasn't the sex, it was the lying"...

What's my problem? I spew forth the false conservative talking points I heard on Rush's radio program and Fox news like a dutiful drone. I never deviate from the script or admit that conservatives might not have the best interest of this country at heart while pointing to liberals for acting the same. I just like to come on this blog to illicit a reaction with moronic statements while hiding in my bomb shelter from the terrorists that are over here. Thankfully there are not a lot of brown skinned people where I live so we can spot them easily. I'll pray for your souls you misguided liberals. Maybe the Wizard will give me a brain?

Beautiful. Beautifully put. From your mouth to the ears of whatever Deity you choose. Or not.

This is funny. How many in this group have had anything, anything at all, positive to say about Bush, conservatives, or Republicans? None, I would venture. Hell, even liberal folks like Bucky get blasted for not following the party line sufficiently. There is no independence here, just different hues of leftist orthodoxy. Chavez would be proud of this group.

Actually, shooter242, most people use conservative with a small-c to mean actual-conservative. With a big-C or in quotes "Conservative" they are referring to the lying individuals who call themselves "Conservatives" while advancing a radical right-wing agenda that includes rolling back the New Deal (now some 75 years old), the 4th Amendment, Habeas Corpus, fiscal solvency, etc. etc. You and the Bushies dont get to call yourself a small-c conservative -- and by the way, now that Chavez is shutting down TV stations etc. don't you think he is showing just a little bit of a Bushy radical side?

@El Cid 11:23.

There are two different sorts of Conservatives who are willing to break with Bush. There are those who have objected all along to his big-spending and military adventurism and they have lots of writing under their belt available not only at American Conservative but also at Antiwar.com and LewRockwell.com.

This is problematic. The term "conservativism" is problematic. You might as well just admit that the term is defined by what it stands in opposition to, liberalism in all it's forms generally and the Democratic party in particular.

It's just a catch all rubric for reactionaries, radicals and extremists.

Rockwellites are anti-statist and pro-secession loons, and that's a view you will find among libertarians at Cato. Their only association with whatever is termed conservative is cultural conservatism. If Ron Paul is a conservative, you might wonder why WFB, Jr. purged the John Bircher's from the conservative movement all those years ago. Both the JBS and Rockwellians think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Modern American conservatism is a movement that has purged itself out of existence.

I join those who derive some satisfaction from the clear empirical demonstration that the "conservative" movement in this country is ideologically, and indeed morally, corrupt. But I don't delude myself that this will win many "conservatives" over to the progressive camp. Conservatism is ideologically corrupt, and perhaps morally so, at its core.

The basic platform of conservatism in this or any society is the preservation of the status quo, i.e., those who've got privilege and power get to keep them, and those who don't can always look forward to better things in the next life.

In complaining that Bush is not a "real" (or "true") conservative, the supposition is that he has gone beyond the preservation of the status quo in an attempt to create something new and radical. There is much to be said for this view as applied to his domestic policies. True conservatives don't attack the rule of law, as he has done, because they see the law as a crucial bulwark in the preservation of their privileges.

But Bush's foreign policy is conservatism as true as it gets, because it is built around the application of national power to advance the interests of the tiny power elite for whose benefit the Republican party, and much of the Democratic party, really operates.

These silent aristocrats are the real conservatives. All the true believers (whether in Jesus or a flat tax) are their suckers and stalking horses. But none of them -- members of the elite, or true believers -- possess a coherent ideology, or ever have. Their positions are reflections either of pure self-interest (in the case of the elite) or phobia and prejudice (in the case of the TBs).