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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (42098)	5/4/2004 11:16:53 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793748

Good description of the buses. Michigan is first stop for president's campaign bus convoy Ohio is next on Bush's itinerary By Richard Benedetto and Judy Keen USA TODAY NILES, Mich. -- President Bush, on a campaign bus for the first time since October 2000, led a 25-vehicle convoy across this crucial state Monday in search of votes. His splashy retinue guaranteed attention. He rode in a customized 45-foot bus with a red-and-white swoosh across the blue body, ''Bush-Cheney '04'' and ''Yes, America Can'' on its sides. Behind him were seven more buses, Secret Service vehicles and Michigan State Police cruisers. Freeway ramps and side streets were closed briefly by troopers on motorcycles while the mega-motorcade rolled across the countryside. Bush's first full-fledged campaign swing of the year, which continues today in Ohio, included a question-and-answer session here, a speech in Kalamazoo and a rally in Sterling Heights. Bush made it clear at his first stop that he's ditching the formality of presidential appearances for the regular-guy approach politicians employ. ''You think it's all right if I take off my jacket?'' he asked. The crowd yelled its assent. ''We're not in Washington anymore,'' he said. Bush has two identical buses, with ''executive VIP'' interiors customized by Hemphill Brothers Coach Co. in Nashville. Hemphill spends $1 million each to outfit its buses, which have been used by music stars including Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Cher. The campaign is leasing the buses for $45,000 a week. Each has three passenger compartments, two bathrooms, a galley, flip-down TV screens with satellite programming and a leather recliner for Bush. Campaign officials wouldn't describe security modifications. Bush aides use the second VIP bus. Reporters ride in regular buses. The trip is meant to ensure that voters get the message that Bush is concerned about their problems. ''The best way to generate economic growth is to let people keep more of their money,'' Bush said. ''Michigan lags behind, and I understand that.'' The two states have lost more than a half-million jobs since Bush took office. Al Gore won here in 2000; Bush narrowly carried Ohio. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the likely Democratic nominee, took a bus tour of the same states last week. Bush also aimed criticism at Kerry. In Kalamazoo, where 4,000 supporters filled a hockey rink, he criticized Kerry for promising to create programs that Bush said can be financed only with tax increases. ''Raising taxes is the wrong policy at the wrong time,'' Bush said. He accused Kerry of waffling last week when asked whether he owned a sport-utility vehicle. Kerry first said he doesn't, then said, ''The family has it. I don't have it.'' ''What this country needs is a leader who speaks clearly, and when he says something, he means it,'' Bush said. Audience members in the Niles High School gym, who were given tickets by local Republicans, asked Bush gentle questions. Philip Hegg, who owns an executive recruiting company in St. Joseph, Mich., told Bush that he promised his daughter a trip to Disney World if she ''learned to use the potty correctly.'' Thanks to savings from Bush's tax cuts, Hegg said, the family took the vacation this year. ''That's great,'' Bush said. The Democratic National Committee organized a shadow tour with local Democrats holding news conferences to ''highlight what Bush has failed to do on the economy and homeland security,'' spokesman Jano Cabrera said.

To: LindyBill who wrote (42098)	5/4/2004 12:12:02 PM
From: Mary Cluney	Respond to of 793748

<<< Ron Chernow's magnificent new biography of Alexander Hamilton begins with these of his subject's words: "I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be." That is the core of conservatism. Traditional conservatism. Nothing "neo" about it. This administration needs a dose of conservatism without the prefix.>>> George F. Will (Syndicated Columnist) May 4, 2004 -- OH? Who? Appearing Friday in the Rose Garden with Canada's prime minister, President Bush was answering a reporter's question about Canada's role in Iraq when suddenly he swerved into this extraneous thought: "There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily - are a different color than white can self-govern." What does such careless talk say about the mind of this administration? Note that the clearly implied antecedent of the pronoun "ours" is "Americans." So the president seemed to be saying that white is, and brown is not, the color of Americans' skin. He doesn't mean that. But that is the sort of swamp one wanders into when trying to deflect doubts about policy by caricaturing and discrediting the doubters. Scott McClellan, the president's press secretary, later said the president only meant that "there are some in the world that think that some people . . . can't live in freedom." The president meant that "some Middle Eastern countries - that the people in those Middle Eastern countries cannot be free." Perhaps that, which is problematic enough, is what the president meant. But what he suggested was: Some persons - perhaps many persons; no names being named, the smear remained tantalizingly vague - doubt his nation-building project because they are racists. That is one way to respond to questions about the wisdom of thinking America can transform the entire Middle East by constructing a liberal democracy in Iraq. But if any Americans want to be governed by politicians who short-circuit complex discussions by recklessly imputing racism to those who differ with them, such Americans do not usually turn to the Republican choice in our two-party system. This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit." (Tony Blair) Speaking of culture, as neoconservative nation-builders would be well-advised to avoid doing, Pat Moynihan said: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." Here we reach the real issue about Iraq, as distinct from unpleasant musings about who believes what about skin color. The issue is the second half of Moynihan's formulation - our ability to wield political power to produce the requisite cultural change in a place like Iraq. Time was, this question would have separated conservatives from liberals. Nowadays it separates conservatives from neoconservatives. Condoleezza Rice, a political scientist, believes there is scholarly evidence that democratic institutions do not merely spring from a hospitable culture, they can also help create such a culture. She is correct; they can. They did so in the young American republic. But it would be reassuring to see more evidence that the administration is being empirical, believing that this can happen in some places, as opposed to ideological, believing that it must happen everywhere it is tried. Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice. In "On Liberty" (1859), John Stuart Mill said "it is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say" that the doctrine of limited, democratic government "is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties." One hundred forty-five years later it obviously is necessary to say that. People who think Mill was mistaken, or that it is a mistake to doubt Iraqi faculties today, should say why. Ron Chernow's magnificent new biography of Alexander Hamilton begins with these of his subject's words: "I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be." That is the core of conservatism. Traditional conservatism. Nothing "neo" about it. This administration needs a dose of conservatism without the prefix.