Make the Bush Record the Issue

You're entitled to your obtuse opionion, but not your misunderstood facts.

When the stock market peaked in January 2000, the Fed stepped in and began lowering the funds rate to prevent deflation; they ultimately kept them at 1% for far too long and enable unschooled borrowers to think their homes were ATMs as Bush encouraged everyone to go shopping after 9/11.

The Bush administration regulators (that's an oxymoron, if ever there was one) then relaxed rules for lenders allowing them to lend money to anyone who had a pulse and thus generate huge loan fees and bonuses for the lenders and Wall Street debt-to-asset magicians while condemning the financial illiterates to certain subsequent forclosure when the speculative musical chairs would ultimately end, which it is now doing.

Why do you think the Republican congress passed the stringent bankruptcy legislation that will continue to enrich their banking cronies? The banking lobbyists certainly knew what was coming.

You could get a clue by borrowing some books from the library and reading some cogent recent economic history. But I suppose in your case it would only reinforce the wisdom of the following: Do you know what we learn from studying history? We don't learn from studying history.

Step right up ladies and gentleman. We have for your observation and consternation a rare but caged example of a neo-paleo wingnutus twentypercentus. Careful! Careful! Not too close now! It's angry and may bite or scratch.

Marriage is both a religious and civil ceremony. As far as the religious homosexuals are concerned, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." So what verb don't you agree with, "make" or "prohibiting." We've already got laws on the books that prohibit discrimination against any racial or religious creed. Stop with the outrageous and unseemly hostility toward those who understand that ethics and morals were well defined by a Jewish rabble rouser in a eastern Mediterranean Roman colony a couple thousand years ago: "don't judge others, you're not qualified to do it." Let freedom continue and as Ben Franklin wisely admonished, "Mind your own business."

The Bush administration's invasion of Iraq is unlikely to gain any new friends in the Middle East. Nations in the region, who also suffered the effects of terrorism, generally supported military action in Afghanistan. Invading Iraq may have created counterproductive fears of "are we next? Incidentally, the Gulf War resulted in establshing a significant U.S. military presence in the area, including bases in Kuwait, Qatar, etc. As an Independent, it is interesting to observe the build-up to what could possibly be the second implosion of American conservatism. As you will recall, the Federalist Party handed its strongest tenets to the Jeffersonian Democrats, then marginalized itself into nonexistence, much as the modern Republican Party has migrated completely from its ideals of small government, protection of the rights of individual citizens, and land conservation.

Actually, Clinton left the nation in great economic shape (at least, compared to the declining economy handed to him by his predecessor, and especially compared to the dog???s breakfast GW Bush has made of it) , and had actually rebuilt our military from the force reductions overseen by his predecessor's Defense Secretary, Richard Cheney.

For example:

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Cheney said, "If you're going to have a smaller air force, you don't need as many F-16s...The F-16D we basically continue to buy and close it out because we're not going to have as big a force structure and we won't need as many F-16s." According to the Boston Globe, Bush's 1991 defense budget "kill[ed] 81 programs for potential savings of $ 11.9 billion...Major weapons killed include[d]....the Air Force's F-16 airplane." [Cheney testimony, House Armed Services Committee, 2/7/91; Boston Globe, 2/5/91]

The Boston Globe reported on the impact of Cheney's cuts to armored tanks: "The Army's cupboard is left particularly bare. Coming in the wake of last year's killing of the M-1 tank and the Apache helicopter, the death of the M-2 means the Army will soon have virtually no major weapons in production." [Cheney testimony, Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee, 6/12/90; Boston Globe, 2/5/91]

The 1990 Cheney budget proposal called for the deactivation of two Army divisions. Long range, the Pentagon planned to reduce its work force by 300,000, including about 200,000 military personnel and 100,000 civilians. In 1991, he called for reduction of 200,000 active and reserve military personnel over two years. In 1992, Cheney called for cutting 500,000 active-duty people, 200,000 reservists, and 200,000 civilians over five years. [Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 2/2/92; Chicago Tribune, 2/20/91; 1990 CQ Almanac, p. 672; Washington Post, 1/13/90; Boston Globe, 1/30/90]

The LA Times reported in November 1991 that the number of active-duty military personnel had decreased by over 106,000, or 5 percent of the total forces. The National Guard and Reserves had been cut by nearly 38,000, instead of the 105,000 the Bush Administration sought. [LA Times, 11/2/91]

The reason our military looks inadequate now is that it has been abused by the Commander in Chief, who violated the Powell Doctrine (which prohibited the sort of idiotic long-term occupation in which our military is now engaged) around which the military had been structured.

The reason the Army can barely meet its lowered recruitment goals, despite lowering the bar significantly and signing up more convicted criminals than ever, is the same reason that so many career officers are retiring, decimating the officer corps: people don't trust this Commander-In-Chief to keep them out of wars of conquest that serve only to prop him up politically and to enrich his real constituents in military industries and on Wall Street.

If Conservatives "are for less government", why is it that every time a self-proclaimed conservative obtains political power (as was the case with both Reagan and GW Bush) he grabs more power for himself and his cronies, disenfranchising the common man? Why is it that self-proclaimed "conservatives" always run up government debt to record levels (as Reagan-Bush I did), leaving it to "liberals" like Bill Clinton to balance the budget and try to clean up the conservatives' fiscal mess?

Admiral Rickover used to talk about the politician's "say-do" syndrome -- if a politician says that he supports something, he considers it to be done, even though all he has offered are words. When it comes to small, non-intrusive government and fiscal responsibility, self-proclaimed "conservatives" talk a good game -- but judged on their actions when given power to act, self-proclaimed "conservatives" usually, with very few exceptions, turn out to be simple lying, power-hungry hypocrites.

Rather than writing broad-brush slanders, how about identifying (and counter-arguing) at least one specific "lie" Moulitsas included in his column? It looked pretty factual to me.