Bush Is Losing Friends and Influence

[varkam]

CBS News
Fred Barnes
February 27, 2006
Link

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Like few presidents before him, President Bush was poised for a consequential and potentially quite successful second term. It hasn't worked out that way (so far). Bush made one strategic error in 2005, guessing wrongly that the country was adult and serious enough to reform Social Security. Now he faces at least two immediate challenges: immigration and the Dubai ports flap.

Let's start with immigration, which the Senate is slated to take up in late March. On immigration, Bush is not a conventional conservative or any other kind of conservative. His instinct is to sympathize with immigrants. Bush believes that whether they come to the United States legally or illegally, they come for the right reasons, chiefly for economic opportunity and the chance to shape their own destiny in life.

This has put the president deeply at odds with most Republicans in Congress and the army of conservative talk radio hosts and their listeners around the country. They regard Bush as a slacker on immigration. Their primary aim is to tighten security along the border with Mexico. And the legislation that passed the House last December would do exactly that, partly by erecting a 700-mile wall.

Bush had little influence in the House debate, though he wound up endorsing the measure. His mistake was having proposed in 2004, as his first major immigration initiative, a program to allow illegal immigrants to work legally in this country. Most Republicans and conservatives want stepped-up border security to come first. They're skeptical, at best, about a "guest worker" program.

<snip>

[Flabbergasted]

1. What an asshole. So we're not adult enough to deal with getting ripped

off with SS. Fuck off.

[brokensymmetry]

3. Well said!

You have a way with words!

[buddysmellgood]

6. pins

[buddysmellgood]

4. Well said.

[unblock]

5. bush and america disagree, america must be wrong.

why does he hate america?

[buddysmellgood]

2. "guessing wrongly that the country was adult and serious enough to reform"

What kind of shit is that? This clown is a shill.

[Lerkfish]

7. so...katrina and the war in Iraq over lies was not a bad thing?

sheesh.

[rooboy]

8. Fred Barnes' descent into dementia will be a graceful transition. n/t

[yellowcanine]

9. No Freddy - That's "guessing wrongly that the country was stupid enough

to swallow the Bush voodoo economics one more time and gamble their SS away."