Part-Time Principles: The Morals of the Bush Administration

[Wayne_Zitkus]

An interesting piece I just came across on the Google news page:

[Part-Time Principles: The Morals of the Bush Administration

There is a lot that the President of the United States could do to prove he is a moral leader, one who believes in the sanctity of life. But, his record, not his rhetoric, shows otherwise.

By Walter Brasch

George W. Bush says he believes in up-or-down votes. He proclaimed it shortly after his first inaugural, and included that belief in his 2005 State of the Union address, when he demanded that “every judicial nominee deserves an up-or-down vote.”

A one-vote majority, says the President, should decide nominations and issues. He constantly talked about up-or-down votes in the Senate for the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N., for bills to ban gay marriages, to make it illegal to burn the flag, and almost every bill his administration proposed. His words were echoed by the Congressional leadership and by the evangelical fundamental Christian base.

He disagrees with Senate rules, which require 60 votes to override a filibuster. The reason President Bush believes in the “up-or-down” theory of governance is because for most of his Administration he has had a Republican Congress willing to do whatever it takes to advance a neoconservative political and social agenda.

Since President Bush believes in one-vote majorities, it shouldn’t have been a problem for him to accept a 238–194 vote in the House and a 63–37 vote in the Senate to allow medical researchers to use stem cells from embryos, with their donors’ consent, that would have been discarded by fertility clinics. About 400,000 frozen embryos are in clinics; a few will be “adopted” by mothers who have them implanted in their uteruses; most embryos will be thrown away.

Embryonic stem cells are the basic building blocks of life, cells that will develop into any cell in the body, and are the key to learning more about life itself. Stem cell research could lead to cures for Parkinson’s Disease, diabetes, numerous cancers, spinal cord injuries, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s. Nancy Reagan, whose husband’s last years were spent in the fog of Alzheimer’s, is a strong proponent of stem cell research.

Almost seven months after his first inauguration, President Bush declared that the federal government would fund research only on stem cell lines that had already been developed, and not for any new ones. He equated the medical use of stem cells with murder, and threatened to veto any new legislation to expand stem cell research. His veto threats had worked on 141 other bills over a five and a half year period, as the Republican-controlled Congress meekly revised bills or eliminated them.

This time, Congress—faced by the political reality that about 70 percent of Americans supported expanded stem cell research—didn’t buckle. Fifty House Republicans broke from the White House legislative controls; in the Senate, nineteen Republicans and all but one Democrat voted for the bill. The President renewed his veto threat.

<snip>

President Bush said in April 2002, “We have a moral imperative to protect the sanctity of life,” and continued to throw “sanctity of life” in almost every speech or comment about stem cell research. At the time he explained his veto, he declared the bill—approved by significantly more than an “up-or-down” vote—“crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect.”

If the President honestly believed in a “moral boundary” and the “sanctity of life,” he would not have exploited a couple of dozen “snowflake babies”—children born from implanted embryos—by using them as props in the East Room when he explained why he vetoed the bill.

He would not have lied about the non-existent ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda or the weapons of mass destruction he claimed were in Iraq in order to launch an invasion that has cost more than 2,500 American lives and caused injuries, many life-threatening, to another 18,000, in addition to 30,000–70,000 civilian deaths. He would not have decided that the Geneva Accords didn’t apply to thousands of prisoners that his Administration confined in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and other prisons. If he had any kind of a “moral compass,” he would have allowed prisoners to have due process, to be treated humanely, and not be subjected to “renditions” the transfer to secret prisons in countries that use torture.

If this former non-combatant National Guard officer had any concern for humanity, he would not have ordered severe cuts in combat pay and family benefits for active duty military, proposed a $1.3 billion cut in veterans’ benefits, and an increase in health care costs.

If he believed in a moral administration, he would not have allowed Halliburton, the financial empire once run by Dick Cheney, to continue to get several multi-million dollar no-bid contracts in New Orleans and Iraq after being exposed for price gouging and fraudulent business practices.

If George W. Bush understood the meaning of the “sanctity of life,” he would not have spent several minutes at a photo-op in Florida where he read “My Pet Goat” to children after being notified that the first plane had hit the Twin Towers. He would not have been embarrassingly slow and seemingly unconcerned to respond following the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake/tsunami in Southeast Asia, or after Hurricane Katrina hit America’s Gulf Coast.

He would not have disregarded the ubiquitous warnings from the scientific community about global warming and the multitudinous pleas to preserve and defend the environment. He would not have placed political cronies into senior administrative positions in the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and then cut that agency’s funding for disaster response. He would not have diverted funds for disaster relief, and cut back on health and welfare needs.

If he believed in “morals,” he would have cut all ties with his good buddy, “Kenny Boy” Lay, whose company cheated thousands of employees out of their pensions, while the executives were living in luxury.

If the President of the United States was concerned about “morals” and the “sanctity of life,” he would have condemned hunting and the gun lobby that was one of the primary contributors to his political campaigns. He would have condemned the spurious and vicious attacks upon Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2000 primary contest, and the Swift Boat attacks upon Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 general election.

There is a lot that the President of the United States could do to prove he is a moral leader, one who believes in the sanctity of life. But, his record, not his rhetoric, shows otherwise.

http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=540777

[Jack Skellington]

You really should spend more time out of the hyde park. We miss you in the lounge.

[Wayne_Zitkus]

Originally Posted by Jack Skellington

You really should spend more time out of the hyde park. We miss you in the lounge.

I go there, too - check out the Looney Tunes thread.

[Australian Lord]

Hyde park is where things get real, and sweety.

[Jack Skellington]

Originally Posted by Wayne_Zitkus

I go there, too - check out the Looney Tunes thread.

Pish posh! That's one thread. You rarely step outside of the hyde park anymore. I did add to the Looney thread BTW.

Originally Posted by Australian Lord

Hyde park is where things get real, and sweety.

I think you are a real sweety too!

I normally don't pick up on typos, I make so many myself, but it's hard to resist a good set up.

[Australian Lord]

True, a reminded that we must check posts for typos.

[Wayne_Zitkus]

Originally Posted by Jack Skellington

Pish posh! That's one thread. You rarely step outside of the hyde park anymore. I did add to the Looney thread BTW.



I think you are a real sweety too!

I normally don't pick up on typos, I make so many myself, but it's hard to resist a good set up.

I don't have time to post as often as I used to; Sandis and I are in the process of moving in to a new house, and I just started a new ob at a company where logging on to places like Dimensions from the company server is grounds for dismissal.

So that leaves little time to post. But at least I still come here; there are a few sited I used to go to daily that I haven't visited in almost a month...

[fatluvinguy]

wonderful article. good to see the presidents hypocrisy exposed. sadly the subject of the thread was quickly deflected, but i suspect bush supporters will not touch this one at any rate. good work.

[Wayne_Zitkus]

Originally Posted by fatluvinguy

wonderful article. good to see the presidents hypocrisy exposed. sadly the subject of the thread was quickly deflected, but i suspect bush supporters will not touch this one at any rate. good work.

Thanks.

I thought that article presented a pretty good summary of Bush's moral shortcomings.

[HappyFatChick]

I purposely stayed off this thread because it was so blatantly a joke.
The author is a liberal blogger. Since when are liberal blogs news sources?

And I kind of knew it would die a slow death. It was that obviously just an anti-Bush rant.

Quoting Mathaba/Brasch is like me quoting Michelle Malkin.

Nice job trying to pass it off as 'news' though...

[Ryan]

I would like to express my gratitude to George W. Bush for not condemning the people and organizations working to protect the individual right to keep and bear arms.

[Australian Lord]

Though somehow, I doubt that the right to keep military grade automatic assualt weapons is a fundamental right. It seems so odd.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Australian Lord

Though somehow, I doubt that the right to keep military grade automatic assualt weapons is a fundamental right. It seems so odd.

I don't see any problem with it, as long as the person who owns the gun hasn't demonstrated that he or she is a threat to the rights of others.

[Australian Lord]

Well, there are arguments on both sides of the debate.

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Australian Lord

Well, there are arguments on both sides of the debate.

There were also differences of opinion over the heliocentric theory. But we all know that the sun revolves around a flat Earth.

[Australian Lord]

Of course the earth is flat. If the Flat Earth Society are to be believed.

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djubl...rthsociety.htm

[Wayne_Zitkus]

Originally Posted by HappyFatChick

I purposely stayed off this thread because it was so blatantly a joke.
The author is a liberal blogger. Since when are liberal blogs news sources?

And I kind of knew it would die a slow death. It was that obviously just an anti-Bush rant.

Quoting Mathaba/Brasch is like me quoting Michelle Malkin.

Nice job trying to pass it off as 'news' though...

I did no such thing, HFC. I said it was "an interesting piece" I found on the Google News page - when you search there, you get news stories, blogs, and op/ed essays.

And liberal bloggers are no less reliable than any of your cybersewer "trusted news sources".

It's not an anti-Bush Rant, HFC - it a rather complete listing of Bush's shortcomings. And when it's all said and done, the only joke here is George W. Bush. I know you look up to him, but I don't.