From the line-up of speakers at the Republican National Convention, you'd think Condoleezza Rice ran the country single-handedly from 2000 to 2008. I'm glad to know it's not just me who is amazed that only one major player from the George W. Bush maladministration spoke at the convention. What is it? Is the present company ashamed of the previous Republican maladministration? Were the major players really not invited?
Photo and caption from Republican Family Values.
Like this enough to have re-posted it on facebook. Spot on.
ReplyDeleteTo be precise, the GOP has been trying to run away from Bush for the last four years. Not because they're ashamed of all the mistakes and downright crimes committed during his presidency, but because of that darn "compassionate conservatism". Of course, it's the compassionate part they're bothered about. But it's highly embarrassing to them that a GOP president enacted enormous government expansions (Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, the exploding deficit, expansion of government home loan programs) and tried to do immigration amnesty. Much better to pretend those were really Democratic ideas and therefore really bad. (As opposed to simply admitting they were bad ideas that came from a Republican president.) You'll notice that since they approve of killing and maiming foreigners of a darker skin tone and pretending civil liberties don't really exist, they were glad to see Ms. Rice on stage.
ReplyDelete(Just to be clear, I think a bunch of Bush's compassionate conservatism programs were bad ideas mostly because of their implementation--Medicare Part D has always seem to me simply an excuse to shovel large amounts of federal money at Big Pharma and the insurance industry without actually making medicines more affordable, for instance. Just like I think Obamacare will do for medicine in general.)
kishenvi, you may be right that Bush is too compassionate for the present crew of Republicans. In totaling up expenditures, don't forget the cost of two off-budget wars.
ReplyDeleteBilly Tauzin was still in the House when the Medicare Part D bill was drawn up. I've heard from a good source that Pharma actually wrote the bill that eventually was signed into law. And when Tauzin left the House, he went to work for Pharma. Despite the worst expectations, the plan is actually working pretty well from the vantage point of those who use the service, and costs to the government have been lower than predicted, possibly because of competition.
The Republican conventioneers were very white, weren't they?
My mother's bills were lower, but as far as I could tell, the drug store and presumably the pharmaceutical companies received their full price. So apparently federal money was simply shoveled their way to make ups the difference. She was on Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida for both Medigap and Medicare part D. I do have to say that BCBS sent out the premium refund for what I had sent in for September much faster than I expected--less than a week to get to me in the mail.
DeleteAs for the conventions, I'm not watching a single minute. I wasn't interested in the first place, and the Jewish rules/customs of mourning say you shouldn't watch TV or listen to radio or music, even if I was interested. I just kept up on the Internet news reports. One good thing at least--the strong arm tactics aimed at Ron Paul's supporters probably got a lot of people angry at the GOP who might otherwise have chosen to vote for Romney and now won't do so.
I watched part of the convention. I'm pretty jaded about political convention speeches, but I thought Michelle Obama knocked hers out of the ballpark. What I said on Facebook:
DeleteIs it just me? Did anyone else think the crowd at the convention tonight looked - how shall I put it? - a tad more interesting than the GOP crowd? Surely less pale, wouldn't you say?