Letters to the Editor
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It was EXACTLY what I was thinking
I've been describing Bush (and the Republicans) as liberal for years. They preach small government, fiscal responsibility and strong defense, all while creating Big Brother, spending money like drunken sailors and spreading our military so thin that they can't even help out after a tornado.
Yet you will still hear people say that we can't elect Democrats because they will "spend us into bankruptcy." The people that vote Republican aren't voting for the current party; they're voting for the 1970 version of it as though it still existed.
Barry Goldwater wouldn't recognize this party. They're irresponsible, big-spending, Government-knows-all liberals.
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Not the real problem....
Cohen doesn't say the "real problem" with Bush is that he's too liberal. In fact, if you could read any addressing of the "real problem" with Bush into his article it's incompetence.
It is a good point, but one made over and over, that Bush is not a true conservative.
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Once More Through the Looking Glass...!
Oy...!
That's all I can say after reading yet another steaming pile of WaPo Op-Ed.
Bush is liberal. And up is down, and red is green, and Britney Spears is a good mother.
As soon as this tool stated the ridiculous meme that the Iraq Debacle was launched to get that Bad Man Saddam Hussein out of power and bring Democracy and Freedom (tm) to the Iraqi people, I knew we were once more dancing into the WaPo's Bizarro World.
And the self-documented self-destruction of the MSM continues. Why these fools aren't leaving the profession out of abject shame over their participation in the dismantling of the US Government is beyond me.
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Two countries divided by the same language
The writer's confusion stems from the fact that what we call "conservative" in this country, the English (and really, most of the rest of the world) call "liberal". At least as far as fiscal policy, and to some degree foreign policy. So what we call neoconservative, they call neoliberal. And always have. And do to this day.
Does the Washington Post have anyone editing these folks?
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The Liberal and Conservative labels are meaningless
I'm not a political historian, so I don't know if my same gripe has been uttered through the ages. But when Liberals are the ones advocating fiscal responsibility (albeit with taxation as part of the books-balancing scheme) and Conservatives are falling over themselves to expand Federal government's reach, the old labels have lost their meaning.
Anybody got better suggestions? Oh, and labels beginning with "neo-" are just as meaningless.
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Labels
Anybody got better suggestions? Oh, and labels beginning with "neo-" are just as meaningless.
I'm sure there are better labels out there, but instead of liberals and conservatives, wimps and asses are what I see...
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I've got an idea for F-T-S's challenge
...And it comes from inside the Bush White House:
1) Reality-Based People
2) Liars and Bufoons
Almost everyone on television - elected officials included - would fall into the second category. But you could have corporate theives in the Reality-Based world; they would just have to say: "we believe might (or capital) makes right - survival of the fittest" instead of "concentration of capital is a necessary byproduct of the healthy free market Americans demand." Or, "fuck the planent, I have a right to take," instead of "coal mining and co2 doesn't really hurt anyone."
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Labeling Bush with a neo-liberal
moniker can only be understood if the definition of neo is to mean: Near Earth Object. Shrub is soaring high above the clouds seeing them "from both sides now" and will continue to believe it is his destiny to be seen by future citizens as the Middle Eastern version of the Great Emancipator. That death, destruction, and hate are the realistic and likely outcomes of his hubris, perhaps the "Great Eliminator" better suits his laurel...
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Cindy Sheehan Tim, look up from your keyboard for a minute
She's quit.
And in one of the most eloquent and frustrated farewells I've ever read, she articulated many people's thoughts, including mine.
It's time to walk away and let the Republicans and the war-mongering corporations who control nearly every aspect of our lives do what ever the hell it is that they are going to do.
Short of advocating and taking action to overthrow the government (which I will not do and I really don't recommend anyone try), Cindy Sheehan is absolutely right: If the majority of the American people don't have enough courage to do what it takes to stop this insane war then no group of protesters can do it.
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Augusto Pinochet, Francisco Franco - Neo-Liberals
He isn't a liberal anything - he's a Right-Wing Authoritarian.
Mr. Cohen is being intentionally obtuse. It's like calling Chile's Pinochet a Liberal because he expanded government power. If expanding the size of government is Liberal then how about Francisco Franco? That old lefty? How about all of those Right-wing Central American dictators? Were they Neo-Liberal too?
Filling government jobs with cronies and loyalists isn't any kind of Liberal diversity; it's patronage with shades of Covering Your Ass.
We'll see more and more Republicans pushing the "George W. Bush is not a true Conservative" line but I don't buy it. He gave them everything they asked for but nothing turned out they way the GOP said it would.
Rather than face a failure of today's Republican ideology the GOP will just blame Bush's implementation and promise the voters that they'll get it right next time.
I really hope they don't get the chance.
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Looks like somebody doesn't get NCLB
No Child Left Behind is nothing more than a clever ploy to bring about the Conservative dream of the privatization of education. Anyone who thinks it is a Liberal-minded program to boost the Public Education System has not looked at it reasonably.
In essence, it says: "If you do not succeed with the resources we give you, then we will take the resources away until you do better."
The fact that the bill was underfunded to begin with is just another way to try and speed up the system's downfall. Schools will inevitably underperform. They then have their funding reduced, at which point they continue to fail, then the vouchers (a key transitional phase for the dismantling of the public education system) start flowing as parents can now enroll their children in private (often parochial) institutions.
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New terms
Instead of Liberal and Conservative (or Democrat and Republican), how about Triangulators and Autocrats. One group can't make a decision on their own, and the other can't do anything but.