The Burning Bush is Showing Evidence of Consumption

Posted by johnhouk on May 19, 2007
John R. Houk
© May 19, 2007

The Bush Administration is becoming more and more isolated in its political clout as 2008 nears. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the Republican loss of control in the Senate and House in 2006.

Now that the Democrats have vested political power via legislation, their money donations or money donated to anti-Bush organizations is increasing by volumes. This affords the Democrats (in Party and Leftist organizations) a propaganda machine that is mighty and difficult to correct.

Worse for President Bush is that the one time centralized Conservative pundits, politicians and blogs have become fractured with a few still supporting the President but many abandoning him over their own pet peeve agendas.

As the Politico puts it “the Bush White House Juggernaut” has been broken. With the huge Conservative dissent on the White House/Senate proposed legislation about illegal aliens, I am convinced the President is feeling very squeezed.

I myself stand by President Bush’s decisions to confront terrorism at home and abroad; however there is a huge appearance that the execution of planning was deficient.

Afghanistan and Iraq should have been invaded. The former for its obvious support of al-Qaeda and its Islamofascist homicidal suicide attack on American soil; the later is justified because of Saddam’s support for global terrorism and the genocide of his own nation’s citizens that were a source of challenge to his Sunni/tribal power base.

Bush’s Iraq mistake was not using the proper documented reasoning for the invasion; rather the Administration used the WMD card. I still believe that card is viable unfortunately lack of planning allowed Saddam or Russia or Syria to extricate the smoking gun of the existence of WMD. I don’t know if Bush was prepared to take a political hit by allowing the Russians to cover-up their complicity in aiding Saddam or if the American leadership was inept and allowed the WMD to be withdrawn from Iraq. We may never know or if historians are lucky, fifty years down the road some nations archives are opened to allow the truth to come out. (Some what like the Soviet murders the Czar’s family and Communist infiltration into American government.)

The President obviously had his own tools to counter anti-war Leftist and Democratic Party propaganda but failed to use them. NOW the President is forced to make unsavory deals with the devil to get anything moving politically for the rest of his term of Office. If the Left becomes too fringe, the only weapon President Bush has now is the VETO.

Let us pray President Bush makes good decisions the rest of his term AND let us pray Conservatives can once again unite behind someone to take down the Democrats. (My favorite has not even announced a candidacy as yet: Fred Thompson)

JRH
*******************************

Anti-War coalition winning fight

By: Jeanne Cummings
May 15, 2007 05:37 PM EST
The Politico

An influential group of former military leaders who have lost faith in President Bush's war leadership launched their second round of television advertisements this week targeting House and Senate Republicans whose 2008 reelections could hinge on the public's view of Iraq.

To fight back, a pro-war group plans to post an Internet ad on Thursday accusing Democratic leaders of abandoning the war on terrorism. If they can raise enough money on the Internet, the ad could air on television later.

The striking imbalance of power between the competing Iraq advocacy teams offers a stark illustration of how isolated President Bush and his White House team have become on the signature issue of his administration.

Bush's weakened position explains why Congress has been willing to repeatedly challenge the White House on paying for the war.

In previous showdowns with Democrats, the White House could count on a united Republican caucus to rally around its position, deep-pocketed allies to finance attacks against critics and closely coordinated grass-roots lobbying efforts with friendly outside organizations.

Now divisions over future Iraq policy and distraction caused by the early start of the 2008 presidential campaign appear to have broken what once was the Bush White House juggernaut.

The president is on defense, trying to avoid making major concessions to an undaunted Democratic Congress. The White House's most effective communicator on Capitol Hill hails from the Pentagon, not the West Wing.

The formidable network of talk show hosts and conservative grass-roots organizations that once could bully opponents into silence are now either no-shows or not effective. And the party's congressional campaign committees charged with protecting House and Senate incumbents are either too badly in debt or too pressed to save campaign cash to put up a defense.

The upshot is an extraordinarily uneven competition for public opinion that has put Republican members of Congress on the run and boosted Democratic hopes of broadening their majorities in the House and Senate and capturing the White House in 2008.

According to a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll, 64 percent of Americans disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war while just 33 percent approve of it. The president's overall job approval rating, meanwhile, hovers around 35 percent in a variety of polls.

"We are creating a toxic environment for Republicans and the war. They can choose between ending the war and political extinction," said Tom Matzzie, Washington director for the liberal online group MoveOn.org, who is now helping to coordinate the anti-war coalition's tactical efforts.

Certainly, the president is not without his own weapons -- most notably the veto pen. And despite growing misgivings among Republicans on Capitol Hill, the majority of the party's base remains supportive of the war effort.

But a close look at the tactics each side is using to press their case on the supplemental spending bill highlights the lopsided nature of the Iraq lobbying campaign that would define the debate for the 2008 elections.

In the White House's corner is Move America Forward, a California-based organization formed in 2004 by Republican political consultant Sal Russo and former Republican state Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, both of whom were key players in the 2003 recall of former Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat.

According to Robert Dixon, the organization's executive director, Move America has an e-mail list of slightly fewer than a million people and counts "a few hundred thousand" small donors. Internal Revenue Service records show that the organization raised $647,000 in 2006.

The group fought against the distribution of Michael Moore's anti-war film "Fahrenheit 9/11" and launched the "You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy!" campaign countering the war protests of Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq.


Recently, Move America Forward sponsored a pro-war, cross-country caravan that ended with a modest rally in Washington. On Thursday, it plans to launch its second Internet ad, which criticizes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for holding up funding for the war.

It's also calling on members to send white feathers to the Democratic leaders and for protesters carrying white flags to gather outside their offices in California and Nevada, respectively.

Dixon said the West Coast organization is developing its projects without guidance from the White House. For its first round of advertising, the group managed to collect enough money to put a commercial on cable stations.

"It's very rare when we hear from anybody in the White House," he said. "They've been largely silent." As for his adversaries, he concedes: "They are a tightly knit group that seems to have their act together."

In addition to Move America Forward, established veterans' organizations and several groups founded by military families are also trying to rally support for the president's war policies.

But those groups are tiny and have mostly a symbolic impact. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio recently touted receipt of a petition from a new group called Appeal for Courage that was signed by about 3,000 pro-Bush soldiers, most serving in Iraq; MoveOn.org needed just a week to gather 167,000 signatures on a petition opposing the president.

About 14 anti-war groups have organized as Americans Against Escalation in Iraq and raised $7 million toward their budget of $12 million. Combined, they represent millions of activists, including the 3.3 million members of MoveOn.org, nearly 2 million labor union members and thousands of clergy, veterans, students and even musicians who have joined the movement.

They've held hundreds of rallies and candlelight vigils protesting the war at virtually every stage. Since the November elections, in which anti-war candidates scored surprising upsets over incumbent Republicans, they've sharpened their attacks to target specific Republicans.

VoteVets.org, a group of retired military leaders who oppose the war, aired its first ad a week ago in the home states of Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Norm Coleman of Minnesota.

The commercial, fueled with a half-million dollars' worth of ad time, also was broadcast in the districts of House Reps. Jim Walsh of New York, Mary Bono of California, Mike Castle of Delaware, Phil English of Pennsylvania and many others. VoteVets' second commercial began airing this week. It accuses the president of refusing to listen to his military commanders and urges Congress to stand tough.

The anti-war coalition is also running national ads. MoveOn paid for the cable news airing of one produced by Oliver Stone.

It also has tapped labor's vast telephone banking resources, calling tens of thousands of constituents in targeted districts and informing them of how their representative voted on war issues. When they reach a receptive listener, they can patch the local voter straight through to the member's office to register a complaint.

The tactics have rattled the entire GOP caucus and help explain why about a dozen House moderates recently told Bush that his Iraq policy was damaging the Republican Party and threatening any possible comeback in 2008. Among the early-warning crew in the White House meeting were four targets of the VoteVets ad campaigns.


The Burning Bush is Showing Evidence of Consumption
John R. Houk
© May 19, 2007
_______________________________

Anti-War coalition winning fight
TM & © THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton Communications Company

Hat tip to MoveAmericaForward.org.