George W. Bush somehow becomes sole voice of reason in Republican Party

[argonaut]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/george-w-bush-nativist_n_817996.html


Former U.S. President George W. Bush said recently that he was concerned that the country was headed down a slippery slope toward adopting a "nativist" national mindset, harkening back to a period of xenophobia that he said was prominent in the America of the 1920s.


I'm kidding to some degree, of course, but even a broken clock etc, etc.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. I felt like he did (to a certain extent) "walk the walk"

when it came to preaching tolerance for muslims post 9/11 and supporting immigration reform when he was POTUS. That is about the nicest thing that I can probably say about him.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

2. But ignore the Nationalist (not Patriotic) fervor.. he and his cronies..

... started in the wake of 9/11.

If you start the ball rolling, do you really have the 'authority' to say it shouldn't be rolling?

[Kolesar]

3. Bush wanted an immigration reform law, but the white supremacists stopped him

Death threats to republican congressmen

I started a thread on it when Gabby Giffords was almost killed.

[Bad Thoughts]

10. Credit where credit is due

Yes, Bush was out front on the immigration issue. However, he also dismantled DOJ's programs that supported civil rights.

[NewJeffCT]

4. For a Republican, he was not bad on immigration and on some diversity issues

Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Alberto Gonzales, Elaine Chao... he was able to find corrupt and/or incompetent people of any race.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

17. Lol, ain't that the truth.

[DrToast]

5. Could have spoken up during that Ground Zero Mosque nonsense last year.*

*

[emulatorloo]

8. Agreed. Very disappointing

My ass-sumption is that Rove told him to stay in hiding during 2010 election season. And like a good boy he did.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. You know things have gone to hell in the proverbial handbasket

when that guy says anything that even halfway makes sense.

[phleshdef]

7. Lets face it, the Palin/Bachman Republican party makes Bush look like king of the moderates.

Its really that bad.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

9. Being that he benefited greatly from this I don't ge this point. nt

[Badfish]

11. I mentioned this swing to my wife.

Reagan was worse than Nixon , Bush I was worse than Reagan , Bush II was worse than #1 , what does the next GOP President look like ?

Now we have extremists like Bachman and Demint , and yet another level exposes itself ...Rand Paul says .."he wants to make Demint look like a moderate"

[bigwillq]

18. Hello.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[NewJeffCT]

19. That's part of their strategy

They throw Ann Coulter & Michelle Malkin out there, and any GOP that was slightly to the left of them is considered "moderate" and/or a voice of reason. For example: John McCain is generally very conservative overall, but because he did take a few moderate positions, he was considered a RINO, a moderate, a voice of reason, etc when a lot of his positions were to the right of Barry Goldwater, who was unelectable in 1964 because he was so radically conservative.

Nowadays, they throw Glenn Beck, Allen West, Sharron Angle and Rand Paul out there and Coulter, Malkin and DeMint seem moderate by comparison, even though they are way to the right of the Republican Party of the mid 90s.

Why do you think they (Republicans in politics & the media) worked so hard to discredit the hippies and other left-wing groups in the 60s and 70s? (And, remember the uproar when two people submitted ads to MoveOn.org that compared Bush to Hitler? They don't want groups like that becoming the new 60s movement) Because, those left-wing groups in the 60s and 70s allowed Democratic politicians to seem more moderate in comparison. Without those groups, any Democrat in Congress that takes a strong liberal position can be singled out much more easily without groups even further left making a lot of noise.

[tanyev]

12. Oh, please. Who made the slope so slippery in the first place?

Those may be his personal beliefs, but he knows the crowd he was playing to on the campaign trail. He lit a match, tossed it over his shoulder as he walked away, and now wants to claim he has no idea how that fire started.

[Arkana]

14. To be fair to Dubya (I know, I know)

I don't really think his administration contributed much to the 08 campaign. He couldn't say anything against Palin's Two Minutes Hate rallies because he didn't want to be seen as sandbagging his own party's nominee, but I honestly have to wonder how much of the crap Dubya himself actually believed.

I still don't think he's the cunning sociopath everyone else thinks. I think he was a spoiled rich kid who grew up never hearing the word "no" and could really have given a shit about politics.

When he was President, the people SURROUNDING him were the remorseless sociopaths, and because he liked the perks of the job he enabled them. Kinda like Reagan without the Alzheimer's.

[tanyev]

15. I was referring to the 2000 and 2004 campaigns.

That's where the hate first started to stir. And he definitely enabled it. You probably can't find the same kind of juicy quotes from him that we get from Palin, but he did enjoy riding that wave of emotion all the way into the White House.

[Arkana]

13. That's the advantage of withdrawing yourself from politics.

It lets you tell the truth again.

[Leithan]

16. :0

:rofl: