Republicans in Revolt Now I'm not one to go around quoting Bob Novak, but this one seems pretty interesting. Republicans in Congress are upset at the Bush administration's focus on fundraising and trying, usually without success, to log political points at the expense of policy. There are some feeling that it would be better to sacrifice the White House in 2004 than the congress in 2006.

Here's the lead, click above to see the whole story.

Bush, GOP Congress not on the same page
March 4, 2004
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
At 1 p.m. on Feb. 25, some 15 prominent Republicans invited to be surrogates in the coming presidential campaign gathered at Bush-Cheney headquarters in suburban Northern Virginia for a private briefing. Less than two hours earlier that day, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan detonated a political bombshell. To judge from the bland and uninformative briefing, nobody on the president's campaign team heard the explosion.

Former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, a Washington lawyer-lobbyist who last year resigned as figurehead chairman of the Republican National Committee to become figurehead chairman of Bush-Cheney '04, led the precisely orchestrated, one-hour briefing. He did not mention that Greenspan had just testified to Congress advocating reduced Social Security benefits. Racicot might be excused for being silent and unaware of the central banker's latest political mischief, since it also escaped the attention that morning of key Bush policymakers.  ¶ 10:37 AM

  Mebbe I'm Wrong, But I Don't Think Cutting Social Security Benefits Will Play Well in Akron Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who has a history of operating the Fed as an arm of the Republican party, has now done an about face and stabbed George W. Herbert Hoover Bush in the back, just when Bush least needed it. Greenspan, who has endorsed every tax break Bush has run out, is now suggesting that we may need to cut back on Social Security in order to keep the rich happy and fat.

Somehow I don't think this will go over to well at the plant. (Er, the plants that are still open that is.)

Here's the lead from the Washington Post. The headline, as usual, links to the entire article.

Fed Chief Urges Cut In Social Security
Future Benefits Must Be Curtailed, Greenspan Warns
By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 26, 2004; Page A01

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress yesterday that the federal government has promised more retirement benefits than it can pay for and must consider scaling back those commitments soon to avoid damaging the economy in the future.

"I am just basically saying that we are overcommitted at this stage," Greenspan told members of the House Budget Committee as they discussed the future costs of the Social Security and Medicare systems.

Greenspan, who supported President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, again endorsed Bush's proposal to make the cuts permanent. However, he said in response to questions that raising taxes would inevitably be part of any successful effort to reduce the growing federal budget deficit. He stressed that he prefers cutting government spending as much as possible before increasing taxes.

"You don't have the resources to do it all," Greenspan said.  ¶ 9:15 AM

  Constitution Party: "Bush Slaps Face of Believers, Conservatives The Constitution Party, America's third largest, in terms of number of registered members, has issued a strong rebuke to George W. Bush over his appointment of Bill Pryor to the Federal Bench. While Pryor is anti-choice, anti-equal rights, heck, anti just about everything you and I believe in, he was also instrumental in removing Judge Roy Moore from the bench in Alabama in the flap over the public display of the 10 Commandments.

Yes, the Constitution Party doesn't seem to care much for that part of THE Constitution that speaks to the separation of church and state. And Judge Roy Moore may very well be their candidate for president. There are some who think that Bush's proposal of the Homophobe Amendment to the Constitution was a bone to these people, but apparently that didn't work. This statement was issued two days after Bush's big boo-boo.

Here's the lead. The link above takes you to the whole story:

02/25/2004
Constitution Party: "Bush Slaps Face of Believers, Conservatives
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lancaster, PA - President George W. Bush has slapped the face of conservatives and those who believe in God with his recess appointment of former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th District, Constitution Party National Chairman Jim Clymer said today.

"Of all the people waiting to be confirmed for federal judgeships, it is stunning that Bill Pryor would be the president's choice for this extraordinary move," said Clymer.  ¶ 5:15 AM

  Bush: Soft on abortion, homophobia, sodomy "G.W. Bush is pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, he’s anti-gun, and he’s the biggest spender in American history.  American conservatives have taken the bait at the expense of their cause and God’s glory."

"It’s time that Christians make the same vow: never again will we use our influence or our vote or a single red cent to encourage one drop of innocent bloodshed.  We will draw a line in the sand far enough to the right that no pro-abortion fanatics, homosexual activistss, or God-haters can win our allegiance.  Like Gideon’s Army, the Lord may dwindle us down to a zealous few before the victorious battle, but it will be a few out of whom God can get some glory. 

As for me and my house, we will support and vote for a Presidential candidate that is pro-life without exceptions, who will not capitulate to the militant homosexuals, and who will constrain themselves to the Constitution upon which our nation was founded."

That's just a couple of snippets from an article titled "Why Christians should not Vote for George W. Bush," on intellectualconservative.com by a Dr. Patrick Johnston. He's an MD from Ohio who supports the Constitution Party, which has the third highest number of registered members behind the Dems and Reps. They'll be fielding a candidate likely to draw more votes than Ralph Nader. And, perhaps, many more votes than Nader if Roy Moore gets involved.  ¶ 5:01 AM

  The Gay Vote Deserts the President Noted gay Republican, Andrew Sullivan, has finally deserted the President of the United States. And he's received thousands of email from other gay Republicans who are also leaving the sinking ship of Shrub. According to one article I read yesterday, 4,000,000 gays and lesbians voted in 2000; 25% or 1,000,000 of them voted for Bush. Considering that these people have friends, families, and other sympasizers who don't see spreading hate as a positive campaign tactic, it appears that Bush has just thrown hundreds of thousands of votes in the Democratic hopper. Votes, I might add, that he can't afford to lose.

Here's the first paragraph from Sullivan, the headline above links to the whole story. By the way, if you scroll up that page a bit, you'll find an email from a Jewish Republican, a 58 year old man who has voted for every Republican since Nixon, who can no longer stand the hate being spewed out of the White House.

From Sullivan:

WAR IS DECLARED: The president launched a war today against the civil rights of gay citizens and their families. And just as importantly, he launched a war to defile the most sacred document in the land. Rather than allow the contentious and difficult issue of equal marriage rights to be fought over in the states, rather than let politics and the law take their course, rather than keep the Constitution out of the culture wars, this president wants to drag the very founding document into his re-election campaign. He is proposing to remove civil rights from one group of American citizens - and do so in the Constitution itself. The message could not be plainer: these citizens do not fully belong in America. Their relationships must be stigmatized in the very Constitution itself. The document that should be uniting the country will now be used to divide it, to single out a group of people for discrimination itself, and to do so for narrow electoral purposes. Not since the horrifying legacy of Constitutional racial discrimination in this country has such a goal been even thought of, let alone pursued. Those of us who supported this president in 2000, who have backed him whole-heartedly during the war, who have endured scorn from our peers as a result, who trusted that this president was indeed a uniter rather than a divider, now know the truth.   ¶ 9:22 AM

  Bush Lowers Bar In his press briefing yesterday, Presidential flunky Scott McClellan gave the Commander in Chief tremendous credit for presiding over the creation of 366,000 new jobs over the last five months. When you consider that approximately 150,000 new jobs are needed each month to cover the increase in the workforce, that leaves us some 390,000 short for this time period. Wouldn't you say that Scott is damning the boss with faint praise.

Here's a snippit from the briefing with an increasingly restive press:

Q Scott, does the White House stand behind its report issued just nine days ago, the Economic Report, there will be 2.6 million new jobs created this year?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think we went through a little bit of this earlier today. I think that people can debate the numbers all they want; the President is focused on acting on policies to create as robust an environment for job creation as possible so that we can help those who are hurting because they are looking for work and cannot find a job.

The President is encouraged by the direction the economy is moving. It is growing strong -- or growing stronger, I should say -- it is strong and growing stronger. There have been more than 366,000 new jobs created in the last five months. The unemployment rate continues to decline. It is now the lowest point -- at the lowest point it has been in two years, and it is below the average of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Certainly, productivity continues to be high, and people's disposable incomes are up. There are a lot of good indications about the direction the economy is moving.

But there is more to do. And the President is focused on acting to create as robust an environment as possible. That means acting on his six-point plan for strengthening our economy even more. We live in a changing economy right now, John, and the President has put forward a plan that will help create as robust an environment for job creation as possible. It will help retrain workers who have lost their jobs to meet the jobs of the 21st century -- these jobs that are high-paid, high-skill jobs. And so that's where the President's focus is on.  ¶ 9:51 AM

  Bush Disses His Own Economic Advisors So Bush's Council of Economic Advisors last week issued a report claiming that the booming US economy would create 2.6 million new jobs in 2004. None of us bought it and, apparently, Bush hisself isn't buying it either.

Here's the lead from Dana Milbank's report in the Washington Post. The headline above will take you to the rest of the story.

Bush Backs Off Job Forecast
Economic Advisers Project 2.6 Million More Positions This Year
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 19, 2004; Page A05

President Bush distanced himself yesterday from a forecast made by his economic advisers predicting that the U.S. economy will add 2.6 million jobs this year.

A Feb. 9 report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers predicted that payrolls would grow to an average of 132.7 million in 2004 from 130.1 million in 2003, an exceptionally rapid employment gain for an economy that has shed 2.3 million jobs during Bush's tenure. Facing the prospect that Democrats would make a campaign issue of Bush's failure to meet his own projections, Bush and top administration officials declined to endorse the 2.6 million jobs forecast.  ¶ 9:46 AM

  The Eyes, or the Media, Deceive You probably saw the apparent love fest that transpired this past Sunday at Daytona between the NASCAR crowd and the speed-loving GW Bush. According to one report, what CNN presented was not quite how it really went down. This article from The American Prospect details the unpleasant reception given Shrub by many in the crowd. Here's the lead, the headline above will take you to the whole story.

Shifting Gears
When it comes to presidential elections, there may be more to the NASCAR set than meets the eye.
By Matt Thompson
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- President Bush flew to the Daytona 500 on Sunday in Air Force One, and, by all accounts, the people sitting in the grandstands loved him. He "was greeted … by a largely adoring crowd that sees in him the values it holds dear," according to The Washington Post.

Many of the race's fans -- including Howard Dean's famously sought-after constituent, the guy with the Confederate flag slapped on the back of his pickup -- shared a distaste for Democrats. For Bob Hargett, who's 57, the Stars and Bars aren't just silk-screened across the back window of his brand-new silver Dodge; they're also tattooed on his left forearm, flanked by the words "Southern Pride." What does he think of Dean?

"I can't stand him," he says. "He's a nutcase."

Here, even a Wesley Clark endorses Bush. Clark, 22, a physical-education major at Gordon College, in Barnesville, Ga. plans to vote along family lines. "My cousin Corey's serving over there in Iraq," Clark says, "and he has support, and I guess I have support for him. So I'm going to vote for George Bush."

A recent ABC News analysis of the exit polls from the 2000 election concluded that the "NASCAR dads" aren't swing voters at all, but, rather, a small and solid part of Bush's core constituency. It may not be worth it for Democrats to pursue these fans, some experts say.

Apparently they weren't in Daytona.

Just before the race began, people were becoming impatient to get to their seats, and the increased security prompted by Bush's visit was slowing things down. To my left, I heard someone ask, "Who's voting for Bush?" Someone else instantly responded, "Not me." I turned back to see who'd spoken, but I was no match for the hundreds of people behind me pressing onward.

Then, suddenly, we stopped.  ¶ 9:26 AM

  Gore: Bush Betrayed Us; Buchanan: Gore's Right Noted Pinko Pat Buchanan thinks the Neocons have doomed Bush. I couldn't agree more.

Here's the lead:

Have the neocons killed a presidency?

George W. Bush "betrayed us," howled Al Gore.

"He played on our fear. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure, dangerous to our troops, an adventure that was preordained and planned before 9-11 ever happened."

Hearing it, Gore's rant seemed slanderous and demagogic. For though U.S. policy since Clinton had called for regime change in Iraq, there is no evidence, none, that Bush planned to invade prior to 9-11.

Yet, the president has a grave problem, and it is this: Burrowed inside his foreign-policy team are men guilty of exactly what Gore accuses Bush of, men who did exploit our fears to stampede us into a war they had plotted for years.  ¶ 9:38 AM