Actually, its interesting that conservatives have the same view of Bush as liberals have of Obama. This holds true for the far left/far right and the medium left and medium right. Take that for what its worth.

Lowry’s not writing for us. He’s establishing this week’s party line for the faithful, and this is this week’s “pithy” one-liner for conservatives whose “liberal” friends ask them why Bush was such a complete failure.

Of course Richie forgets about the full throttle support for WH statements that the ‘fundamentals are sound’ as the economy crashed.

Well, the fundamentals of rampant neoliberalism and neoconservatism were working outlandishly well so he was right about that.

We finally got that “Compassionate Conservative”. His name is Obama.

Bush wanted to signal to general-election voters that they needn’t fear him.

They don’t. He’s a liar.

Interesting… Lulzsec suspect arrested in joint Scotland Yard and FBI investigation

Oopsies…

Update: Lulzsec have tweeted in response to the arrest, saying “seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested, it’s all over now… wait… we’re all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down?” The suspect has been named by the press as Ryan Cleary, and is thought to be an ex-member of notorious hacking organisation, Anonymous.

What a BSer!

Bush sometimes seemed to forget that economic self-interest trumps all else.

Well *some* of my Tea Party relatives actually DID claim to me – while W was still in office – that they felt W was “too liberal.” Needless to say that my jaw dropped at that one. They had some very specious reason for why they felt this way, but at this point, I can’t remember why.

I don’t know if that was the beginning of the campaign – enacted by the rightwing PTB – to distance the conservative movement from W bc it was clear that the policies W enacted were such a craptacular FAIL on so many levels. Hence: let’s direct the dittoheads (my relatives included) that W is “too liberal” and that’s why W’s “policies” failed… NOT bc the policies are conservative trickle down crap that are *bound* to fail. No, simply bc W was “too liberal.”

Seems to me that Lowry’s saying the same bull crap now that was probably being burped out by Rush in the way-back machine.

Whatever Lowry is selling… I ain’t buying it.

The only difference between Bush and Obama has been how they’ve sold/sell the corporatist-driven agenda.

Bush told his base x, y and z, and sold the corporatist-driven agenda.

Obama told his base a, b and c, and sells the corporatist-driven agenda.

In fairness to Obama, it was a bit easier for Bush to sell the corporatist-driven agenda.

Well *some* of my Tea Party relatives actually DID claim to me – while W was still in office – that they felt W was “too liberal.”

Sure, and that’s an easy thing to say. But did they withhold their vote? Did they mount a primary challenge?

Actions speak louder that words.

Of course, this is totally ridiculous from Lowry, who spent 8 years on his knees worshipping Chimpy.

BT-

I was with your timeline until 2006. I think by that time most of Bush’s base had lost its enthusiasm for him.

A Big Government neocon served the interests of Big Business then, just like a Big Government neoliberal serves the interests of Big Business now.

Do you dispute the Gallup poll in Dec. 2008? I’m sure the ones in ’07 and ’06 are even higher.

Uh, excuse me — Republicans don’t have to hide their corporatist agenda to their base. Their base loves corporations and corporatism.

Are you not following the 2012 Republican presidential primary? It’s practically a “who can do the most for Walmart” contest.

I’m basing my view on the 2006 lack of enthusiasm in the GOP base on the poll that was the Nov 2006 election, which saw Congress go from the Republicans wolves to back to the Democrats wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Liberals are into directing psycho-sexual torture for their jollies ?

That’s news to me.

That’s why I wrote:

In fairness to Obama, it was a bit easier for Bush to sell the corporatist-driven agenda.

It was during W’s second term, so they didn’t have a vote to “withhold” in terms of W. Neat trick, that one.

But I’ve mentioned these relatives here before, and they are the ones who are BFF with Santorum (not kidding). So you do the math. Also, too, as well they are slavering minions of the Grifter. And were also out at some of the very very first “Tea Party” demos within days of Obama being elected. Too, also were *addicted* (no other terminology suffices) to Glenn Beck and attended his Tel-evanglist rally with Bible Spice.

So you get the picture. They will never ever vote for anyone except Tea Party and/or Republicans. Would they have withheld their vote for W?? Hard to say. Doubt it, though. Talk’s cheap – eh????

But they didn’t lose in 2006 because they lost their base. They lost because they lost independents.

Check the approval numbers for the Commander Guy among conservatives in his second term. Through the roof.

Here’s Rich “Starbursts” Lowry, hilariously claiming that George W. Bush was really a big liberal (HAHAHAHAHA!) who conservatives and Republicans never really embraced (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!):

A Corporate GOPer who loved to cut spending on the poor but gave tax cuts to the rich not a Corporate GOPer?
A Fundy GOPer who banned Stem Cell research for religious reasons, who gave Government money to church programs, who gave up drinking and gave Cred to God not a Fundy GOPer.
Bush was a Corporate Wing and Fundy Wing of the GOP GOPer Rich has no leg to stand on. The Racist Wing of the GOP overlaps the Fundy and Corporate wings of the GOP. I am sure we have people here who can provide better examples of Bush Racism, Anti Gay, Anti Woman positions and policies.

Good point. Independents had had enough of the Republicans’ bullshit rhetoric and voted for the Democrats’ bullshit rhetoric, instead.

Then we all got some “change.” What changed, again?

Anyway, I get your point about the hardcore base on the right.

Couldn’t agree more. Apparently–apologies to Abe–you can fool about 80% of any self-identifying group all the time. 80% of “conservatives” loved W., start to finish, and 80% of “liberals” will continue to worship Obama no matter what. Meanwhile, 20% of each group seems to care more about the actual policies (though from different perspectives) and those folks haven’t been happy with either Bush or Obama. I count myself among the liberal 20% (funny, I was considered a conservative Democrat back when Nixon was in office). Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Actually, I think Obama’s going to have a harder time keeping that much of his base…

Only his rhetoric is compassionate.

Eh? Not sure. I know far too many very complacent and very uninformed trad-Dem voters, who are thrilled to bits (no exaggeration) when Obama barfs out one of his “American exceptionalism” speechifyings… and they will *blissfully* line up to GOTV for Obama in 2012. I have to tred very very carefully in what I say to them. They are Obamabots in much the same way as dittoheads on the right.

With Obama, it is the 20% or less who are questioning him, and then there are Independents… a growing crowd I believe. Indies are looking for something “better” but not seeing much out there on the horizon, sad to say.

Rich is trying to protect the GOP from expected Dem attacks to link GOPers to Bush and blame Bush for the economy. Why bother doing that when O is doing nothing?
Unless another bank bailout is coming soon such an event would get voters thinking about Bush again. Remember we are all wondering just why Social Security and Medicare needs to be cut. Doing so is very politically unpopular sure the Ryan budget gives another tax cut for the rich but maybe thats a smokes screen.
Maybe the GOP and O both need those programs cut so they can do another bank bailout.
Guys like Rich prepare the way ahead of time with propaganda. Why else would any GOPer in their right mind mention Bush now and remind voters that he caused this economy unless something is expected to happen to remind voters about Bush like another bank bailout?
I am open to other bad events happening that could remind voters of Bush but another Bank Bailout is all I can think of right now.

I heard from a far right coworker recently that George Bush was never a “true” Republican or a conservative. (Of course, he also thinks Obama is a Socialist.) After I stopped laughing I started pressing him to identify who really represents the GOP ideal, and the only person he could come up with is Rush. I agreed with him that Rush is the true leader of the GOP. But he didn’t know why I couldn’t stop laughing when I said it.

Agree. Obama is no more “compassionate” than W Bush. I see no difference between the 2, other than that Obama *may* well be LESS compassionate that the Shrub. Certainly has an outsized ego with the sociopathic personality to go with it, Obama does.

heh… your co-worker sounds pretty much like my relatives. They all stopped making sense a loooooong time ago and decided to take up residence in el-Lushbo’s cloud-cuckoo land. And my relatives, one & all, are very bright, talented, highly educated folks. So we’re not talking stupid here… just stupid choices.

I heard from a far right coworker recently that George Bush was never a “true” Republican or a conservative.

Conservatism Can Never Fail. It Is Only Failed.

But did they withhold their vote? Did they mount a primary challenge?

There’s been a lot of O bashing around here. Let’s see if your actions speak louder than your words.

Another thing Rich’s propaganda indicates is no GOPer can get the Nod from the GOP powers that be if they are not to the Right of Bush.

Well, there has always been a strain of conservative “thought” that says all their theories would work if only this country had the BALLS to really let people starve in the street. I guess that’s the one standard by which Bush can be considered “liberal.”

There’s still the sky-high approval ratings, though …

That’s exactly what I said to him. He stared back at me blankly.

Here’s what Jane wrote yesterday regarding events at Netroots Nation:

If you had told me a year ago that a panel entitled “What to do when the President’s just not that into you” would be a love fest, and White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer would be greeted by booing and hissing, I would have said it was time to put down the crack pipe. But that is pretty much what happened.

Among liberals in my conservative corner of the country, I don’t hear to much happiness with Obama anymore.

I heard from a far right coworker recently that George Bush was never a “true” Republican or a conservative.

Isn’t that the point of jettisoning the whole right/left thing?

Bush said he’s to the right. Obama says he’s to the left.

They’re both full of shit.

Thanks for that, and I am ever-happy to be *corrected* on this score. But I report from my own anecdotal experiences with friends and co-workers. They, at least, are still Obamabots with some exceptions.

This guy is an engineer with decades of experience. And listens to Rush every day and swears by him. I can only conclude that either some people’s brains are missing crucial connections through the frontal lobes that permit self-critical evaluations of one’s own thinking or perhaps undiagnosed delusional thinking is widespread. Could be both!

I mean, I understand coming from a different perspective, having different priorities and values. But I don’t understand embracing a worldview that forces one not only to exclude inconvenient truths but to actively engage in removing them from consideration. Of course I guess what I’m really saying is where the hell did all the honest Republicans go?

Yeah, well, there’s nowhere for them to go, and then with Rush NOT directing them on the answer to give, that’s why get the blank stare. They gave up their critical thinking capacities some time ago in order to blindly agree with whatever dictat Rush is ramming down their throats today.

I get similar blank stares periodically from my relatives, who, again, I note are NOT stupid… but they simply no longer *think* for themselves anymore. Sad, that, and then so easily manipulated.

Not sure where you live, but I can tell you that in my conservative corner of Tennessee (where liberals have been surrounded by Bushies for a long time) there’s disappointment with Obama. Maybe liberals’ expectations and/or hopes for Obama “change” in conservative areas were higher. I don’t know.

He gave you guys everything you wanted: big tax breaks for rich people, invasions and bombs for brown people, less regulations for corporations, John Roberts, Sam Alito, the gutting of environmental laws, torture, lots of Federalist Society wingnuts appointed to the bench, the promise of a Constitutional amendment banning teh gey, lots of very manly tough talk, etc. etc.

BT, Molly would be proud of you. Great post.

Of course I guess what I’m really saying is where the hell did all the honest Republicans go?

There are some out there, but like the 20% of liberals who are actively disenchanted with Obama, you don’t hear from or about them much. The corp. media doesn’t discuss that.

I have one relative who is more or less a trad. Republican, and that rel. makes sense often. We are both often more in agreement with one another than disagreement. But he “makes sense.” And I have a feeling that he doesn’t subject himself to Rush, etc, 24/7/365…. and therefore, has not *abdicated* his responsibility to actually *think* and consider issues.

Sad to say, though, most US citizens have abdicated their DUTY to *think* and willfully go along with the nonsense du jour. That’s my take.

Is wanting clean air and water and uncontaminated food supplies and secure infrastructure a “conservative” or a “liberal” position? To my mind it should be both – and yet it seems our elected representatives regardless of what they call themselves fight against such things because some corporate entity somewhere might have to provide slightly less profit to a small handful of people if we tried to do them.

You’re right, it’s not really about the label or brand.

I live in California, so go figure. I spend time in both Northern & Southern CA, and I see the same thing in either end of the state, which, as you know, trends liberal. I have no explanation for it.

Jane’s post yesterday also makes the case that outspoken liberals/progressives and activist groups aren’t going to work as hard for him as they did in 2008, and might even opppose him. The LGBT community seems to have largely had it with him, as have many environmentalists.

I have conservative friends and relatives who know voice their “opinion” that infrastructure is “socialism,” and that THEY should NOT have “their money” re-distributed to support it.

No, that makes NO sense, but that’s not the point. That’s what they say. Do they have a “solution” for how to maintain the infrastructure, you ask? Shorter answer: NO.

Frankly, I gave up a loooooooong time ago expecting dittoheads to make any sense. Mostly it seems to me that they’ve been trained like Pavlov’s dogs to be as selfish and self-absorbed and it’s-all-about-MEEEEE as possible. Someone must’ve figured out that extreme selfishness makes people very easily manipulated or something, along with making you not give one iota of a sh*t about *anyone* (and I mean: *anyone* including your kids or your spouse or your elders) other than MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I actually have no dispute with this guy on a number of goals, but vehemently disagree about the way to achieve them. He actually doesn’t care about any of the social issue distraction because as he said he’s not a fundie wackadoo, but he is firmly entrenched in the “poor black people late on their mortgages crashed the global economy, climate change is a conspiracy, no problem can’t be fixed by larger and larger tax cuts for richer and richer people” school of thought. When I try pointing out the empirical evidence that does not support such positions, that’s where some part of his brain goes offline. Which for some reason always reminds me of trying to reason with a fundie….

The man crush for GW was there from beginning to end; it was simply a tad more hormonal when he appeared in his make-believe flight suit on the deck of an aircraft carrier whose returning-from-war sailors he kept at sea just off San Diego so he could make his dramatic entrance, like a Roman emperor claiming his triumph.

Calling Shrub a “liberal” is, of course, wildly off the mark. It’s just another sleight of hand, useful in moving the goalpost farther right.

I think they called him a liberal because he made the government bigger.

I’m more than happy to hear that and welcome it. I’ll be working along side of everyone else to dump Obama. I would love to see it happen.

Also need to focus on Congress and dumping as many so-called “Democratic” pols, esp Blue Dogs, as possible.

I know rightwingers of both the fundie & non-fundie ilk. The non-fundies, as you experience, don’t really care (in fact mostly support) about gay marriage or a woman’s right to choose. Mostly they are adamantly opposed to ANY and all taxes under any circumstances, but even then, they usually stop making any sense when pushed to elaborate about it.

In the main, most of the non-fundie conservatives I know tend to be highly educated and make a little more money than average. They are *firmly* entrenched in their Rush-created belief system that all “poorz” but minorities esp are somehow getting away with “something.” And that they, the beter off Republican, is being visciously “ripped off” by these poor people.

Plus they are NOT connecting the dots that increasing the tax levels mostly would not have a huge negative impact on them. I think often these types of conservatives somehow *believe* that they, too, will some day ascend to the mega-obscenely wealthy, and then THEY, too, will NOT wish to “share” one thin dime with all those scofflaw slacker nasty debased poor minorities…. or something along those lines.

It is not rational at all, nor is any logic involved. Trying to provide FACTS simply results in total denial and the fall-back position of: as a liberal, you are just a socialist trying to “re-distribute” MY money that I worked “so hard” for. The prior sentence is a direct quote from *several* conservatives I know.

Now you are making sense and being Fact-y. Maybe.

Too bad that there apparently can’t be serious primary challenges to Obama within the Democratic Party.

At this point, the “Democratic” party is a waste of time and not worth the bother. I prefer a serious contender from a third party. Not interested in anything to do with the established “Democratic” party. That party is a joke, but I’m not laughing bc the damage they’ve done to this nation is not at all funny.

No, for my money, I want a viable third party, and I think it’s worth striving for that. JMHO, of course.

“George W. Bush was really a big liberal.”

Actually, there IS something to that argument. It hit me when I was at a party at a big Texas computer software zillionaire’s house a couple of weeks ago. Many guests had had a lot to drink, and unfortunately, the subject turned to politics. “I’ll bet you’re one of those Obama supporters,” the host said to me. “He’s a SOCIALIST!”

Not wanting to offend my host, I thought for a moment, then responded, “Well, from your perspective, he probably IS a socialist.”

Hilarity ensued as the guy literally came unglued. My point is, many people are so far off the scale to the right these days, that to them, even George W Bush seems like a liberal.

Agreed. At least a serious challenge from the left from within the Democratic Party – which Obama richly deserves – would help set a narrative.

Right now, I’m leaning toward Stewart Alexander in the general. He should be the Socialist candidate and may well be leading the Green ticket as well. I’d like to hear more from him, but that’s where I’m leaning right now.

But, yeah, the Democrats are a complete waste of time. The difference between the parties is that, with Democrats, seniors might be eating 9-Lives while, with Rethugs, they’ll be eating generic cat food.

My point is, many people are so far off the scale to the right these days, that to them, even George W Bush seems like a liberal.

Agreed, and a prior comment indicated that what Lowry is doing is trying to move the goal posts to the right or push the Overton window.

So, yes: that is part of the aspect of what Lowry is doing.

And what you describe at the party you attended is familiar from similar experiences of mine.

The bottom line is that the “conversation” has become so skewed bc, anymore, most citizens (of whatever ilk) are truly clueless about the words they are tossing about. It’s essentially meaningless, but it’s been quite a successful manuever in the ongoing CLASS WARFARE.

Labeling your perceived “opponent” as a dreaded dirty SOCIALIST therefore means that you can just completely *ignore* what your “opponent” says or thinks, as well as *ignoring* whatever true facts they bring to the table. They are SOCIALISTS, so, therefore, anything they say is a hoax or a lie or stupid or whatever…

And so: on it goes…. true conversation halted and objective achieved.

Thanks for the tip re Stewart Alexander; I’ll be very interested to see what he has to say. I have voted for numerous Green Party candidates over the years at the local, state and fed level.

Maybe not so compassionate – it appears Obama likes the emergency financial mangers of Michigan and their union busting abilities enough to send his representative to support them. http://michiganmessenger.com/50103/does-obama-approve-of-snyder%e2%80%99s-emergency-managers

We have always been at war with Eastasia. Or is it Eurasia? I keep forgetting…

I was born in Dallas and have lived in Austin for the last 12 years. Everyone I’m related to by blood is a life-long Republican. And I can say with 100% honesty that I have never heard a substantive complaint about George W. Bush come from the lips of a Republican. Ever. Perry? All the time. Hutchison, even more. But if they ever complained about “W,” it was whispered amongst themselves behind closed doors. Never in public and certainly not in front of me. Authoritarians never question Dear Leader.

Oh, and I highly recommend perusing the comments section for Lowry’s original post at NRO. Trust me when I say that you have never read more ridiculous piffle in your lives.

I’ve heard plenty of complaints about GWB on the conservative equivalent of this site. How hes a RINO and the reason he failed was because he didn’t adhere to true conservatism. The same argument that Obama is a DINO and the reason he’s failing is because he’s not liberal enough. If I talk to liberals in real life, they’ll always be praising obama.

“the conservative equivalent of this site.”

That’s funny.

The interesting thing is how the country club Republicans managed to convince the great unwashed fundamentalist masses to screw themselves and the entire country economically in return for a bit of gay-bashing and threats to outlaw abortion, sometimes with a dash of creationism thrown in.