{"id":6800,"date":"2006-03-08T10:29:44","date_gmt":"2006-03-08T15:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6800"},"modified":"2006-03-08T10:29:44","modified_gmt":"2006-03-08T15:29:44","slug":"bushs-angry-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bushs-angry-critics\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush’s ‘angry’ critics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The White House has latched onto a meme that Republicans seem particularly fond of: the president’s critics are “angry.” Bush is the optimistic visionary, the argument goes, while his political opponents are wild-eyed cynics, fueled by hate, who use over-the-top rhetoric.<\/p>\n

The notion that Bush’s detractors are bitter is not without merit. And, sure, the rhetoric can get a little heated. Just yesterday, for example, a couple of the president’s critics appeared at an event in DC and blasted Bush “unconscionable,” “irresponsible,” “vindictive,” and “inept.” Another described the White House as “pathetic” and said Bush “is not a responsible human being; he is a phenomenally reckless human being.”<\/p>\n

When the RNC’s Ken Mehlman blasts liberals for their heated denunciations, this is exactly the kind of thing he’s talking about. Of course, these comments didn’t come from liberals — they came from conservatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If the ancient political wisdom is correct that a charge unanswered is a charge agreed to, the Bush White House pleaded guilty yesterday at the Cato Institute to some extraordinary allegations.<\/p>\n

“We did ask a few members of the Bush economic team to come,” explained David Boaz, the think tank’s executive vice president, as he moderated a discussion between two prominent conservatives about President Bush. “We didn’t get that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why didn’t anyone from the Bush gang accept the invitation? Because the two speakers were conservative opponents of the president: former Reagan aide Bruce Bartlett and conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan, the latter of which accused Bush of betraying “almost every principle conservatism has ever stood for.”<\/p>\n

It’s entertaining, of course, to hear two conservatives use surprisingly strong language to condemn Bush and practically everything about his presidency, but it’s worth noting that Bartlett and Sullivan are not exactly switching sides here. They’re blasting the White House for not being conservative enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Still, Cato had a standing-room-only crowd listen to these two rebuke Bush. And there was nary a voice of opposition to the conclusions Bartlett and Sullivan drew. There was one gem that should cause some heartburn in Karl Rove’s office.<\/p>\n

“If Bush were running today against Bill Clinton, I’d vote for Clinton,” Bartlett served.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think it’s safe to say Bush has a problem with the small-government crowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The White House has latched onto a meme that Republicans seem particularly fond of: the president’s critics are “angry.” Bush is the optimistic visionary, the argument goes, while his political opponents are wild-eyed cynics, fueled by hate, who use over-the-top rhetoric. The notion that Bush’s detractors are bitter is not without merit. And, sure, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}