Odd, 90% of the people I know who voted against Clinton thought he was the Antichrist. The GOP members of the Congress not only didn't want him to do well, but spent the entire 8 years he was in office trying to ensure that he would not succeed and that he would be run out of office in disgrace. And now, after the fact, my conservative friends still have trouble admitting that they each made more money in the last 8 years than any other period in their lives, and that Clinton may actually have had something to do with it.
I just hate hypocrisy, irrespective of where it comes from. I disliked the "we will be more ethical" BS from Clinton, and I equally despised the "Gore is a liar who will say anything to win" BS from Bush (when he was himself willing to say, and do, anything, no matter how reprehensible, to win here). And now, having gotten himself appointed President, he acts as if he was elected by a landslide, and is moving in strikingly ideological ways. But because he's a nice guy, we democrats are supposed to back off and leave him alone while he enacts a right wing agenda that a majority of the voting public clearly rejected in the last election?
Ashcroft was what the American people "elected" him to do?? I don't think so. What's worse, the man demonstrably lied in sworn testimony before the Senate, and yet, because he is a religious fanatic who "swore to his almighty god" that he would uphold laws he has spent his entire life fighting against with a zeal possessed by few, we are supposed to back off, and believe him, and give him the benefit of the doubt?
If there was anything that can be said about this election (aside from the fact that the post-election tactics and outcome in Florida had nothing to do justice), it is that the people preferred Gore's politics to Bush, but preferred Bush's personality to Gore, and that they (the people) were roughly divided, with population centers favoring Gore by a fairly wide margin, and the non-population centers favoring Bush by a fairly wide (but slightly smaller) margin. By a wide margin, the voting public indicated that they want a government that is more interested in getting things done to help people solve their problems than in promoting an ideological agenda. So what does Bush give us in the single MOST sensitive cabinet spot where ideology actually makes a difference?? The single most ideological right winger in the Senate during the 90's, someone who fills Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed with joy.
Sorry, that does not deserve my support or anybody else's and it just proves what many of us thought going in - that the second he became Prez, the "compassionate" preface would drop off, leaving only the conservative. And to me, what that means is he doesn't get a free ride, or the benefit of the doubt - he has earned neither. And the 8 year legacy of ideological tactical opposition from the GOP is one that should now be thrown right back in their faces unless they are prepared to move to the center. What goes around, comes around. If Dubya wants to govern from the center, I will be there to support him. But if he is going to govern from the right, he will never get my support. |
