Remember 'compassionate conservatism'?
When history looks back at the disgrace of the Bush presidency, the one celebrated quote that will help capture much of what went wrong will be John DiIulio’s. It was DiIulio, the first director of the president’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who told Ron Suskind, “What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”
DiIulio was taken in by a bogus pitch in 2000. He notes today in the Philadelphia Inquirer that it was eight years ago this week that Bush delivered his first campaign speech, which DiIulio helped write, titled “The Duty of Hope.” Candidate Bush rejected as “destructive” the idea that “if only government would get out of the way, all our problems would be solved.” Rather, “from North Central Philadelphia to South Central Los Angeles,” government “must act in the common good, and that good is not common until it is shared by those in need.” There are “some things the government should be doing, like Medicaid for poor children.”
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s rather difficult not to laugh.
DiIulio pauses to take stock of what happened to “compassionate conservatism.” He's not impressed.
compassionate conservatism was drowned in Grover Norquist's bathtub
Compassionate conservatism means taking a big, sharp knife and sticking it in the backs of Americans. Not from in front, but in back.
theirs no such animal ! it died with reagan and the bastard thats carrying the coffins george w bush and his hunced back handler dork cheny!With the benefit of hindsight, it’s rather difficult not to laugh.
Or cry.
jr @ 1:
Somebody's been doing their homework.
You'd better stop it. This kind of thinking isn't allowed in a country whose education system was founded and is still based on the Prussian model.
We've been dumbed-down on purpose.
sorry it died when they installed a grade b actor prick named reagan!
Tax churches.
Bush would not veto a health care bill for children if it stipulated "republican god fearing children only".
President of the few...hated by the many.
The quote was a classic line (Mayberry Machiavellians), but few remember that Dilullo then publicly retracted it and went silent pretty much until now. I have always wondered what Karl Rove said to him to back him off-or was it a horsehead on a bed????
What a useful article. It helps to remind us that America wasn't quite as stupid as it now seems when it first almost elected George W Bush. Those who voted for him were taken in by a well-packaged brand name that promised to get our clothes even whiter.
They have no excuse for '04, hwoever.
oh, here is the apology letter from Dilulio
I keep hoping more "insiders" will grow a conscience and disclose what's been going on.
100% tax on all wealth NOW!!!
The best way to ensure equality for all and necessary services is a 100% tax on ALL income and ALL assets.
The only way to make America fair is to confiscate all wealth.
Rich people should NOT have greater rights than the rest of us.
Check out these nasty rich people making money HAND OVER FIST!
http://www.halliburton.com/
GREEDY PIGS!!!!!!!!
[Link fixed... :) -Sitemonitor]
Dilullo was the First to leave Bush Co in August 2001.
Guess he figured out quick things weren't quite going to work out to swell.
It's really amazing that Bush and his Neocon crew would turn their back on compassion and religion. You'd think they'd be all about loyalty.
No, wait, they're just doing what fascists do.
--WKW
Bush = Hypocrisy
GOP = Intellectual Dishonesty
Bush = GOP
Bush = Intellectual Dishonesty
Liberal AND Proud @ 16:
No one gets rich selling the Truth.
"Compassionate Conservatism" never existed, Bush has always operated as a "Passionate Conservative", which is a "kinder,gentler" indifference to the 98% WITHOUT sustainable wealth.
Only problem with that is that Bush is not a conservative. Not even close. Pat Buchanan is a conservative. Russel Kirk was a conservative. Bush is not. Course it makes it easier to group things into right=bad, left=good.
But that mode of thinking is as passe as it is wrong and injurious to true reform.
There is good and bad on both sides of an ideological debate and its going to take a true Populist to unite folks and accentuate their commonalities instead of their differences.
Jim Webb for Pres.
Radically Moderate @ 18:
What "Passionate Conservative" means is every man has the duty and right to pick themselves up by their own two bootstraps.
If they can't or fail then you feel sorry for the poor bastards but it's not your problem.
SnowCrash @ 19:
And then, our final step toward communalization (i.e. Marxism) will be taken.
Wanna understand USofA history? Read into Hegel and his influences on our society. I think you'll be stunned.
Examples of compassionate conservatism:
Giving an inmate 15mg of valium just before he's executed
Giving an prisoner a shower cap just before you waterboard him
Giving an inmate a one-pound sack of extra-salty peanut the day before you strap him in the electric chair
Peace! GWB - WPE
Mark
The sad thing is Bush has said he will go down in history as the compassionate president because he passed faith-based initiatives. The lid on his thermos hasn't loosened in seven years.
In other GOP/hypocrite/infomercial news, "Another anti-stem-cell Republican suddenly believes in science when it comes to HIS health (not OURS)"...well, the headline doesn't exactly say that, but......... (see Tony Snow's cancer, for other related articles)
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Cheney_to_get_defibrillator_battery_replac...
L.A. Confidential @ 20:
I also subscribe to the picking yourself up by your bootstaps philosophy, however "Passionate Conservatism" is far more cynical than that. Passionate Conservatism means exploiting everyone you can, and that shadenfreude feeling you get from it at the end of the day.
The next Bush rhetorical anniversary? The "What is Right" Standard:
"So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.
"In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal but what is right. Not just what the lawyers allow, but what the public deserves."
...I thought the "conservatives" would just have faith and sit around and pray for Cheney, not have his deffibulator battery replaced!
(see Bush's colonoscopy/brain surgery for other OTHER related articles)
SCIENCE IS "GOOD" (when it comes to US...)
...so is abortion...
compassionate conservatives = Kompassionate Konservative Kristians
Anybody else wondering if #13 is on O'Reilly's payroll, or is that just me?
cshuber @ 32:
Yeah I caught that immediately. Which is why I didn't even give him the time of day with a reply.
It's those Limo Libs fault. You know?
Well I better get back to the "real world" for a while.
Have fun.
Compasionate Conservatism is a marketing term, nothing more. Dilulio simple fell for it, more so than a lot of other republicans.
He's still arguing for faith-based initiatives and the giving of money to religious groups, and it's still unconstitutional. That's a big part of the reason for its lack of success, which in turn seems to be the main reason for Dilulio's unhappiness with Bush.
cshuber @ 32:
My thoughts too.
Gotta' come up for a name for these types. Troll doesn't seem to cut it.
How about loofa brigadier?
First time we heard bush mutter "compassionate conservative" back in oh, '99 who DIDN'T
experience the visceral involuntary impulse to vomit and cry at the same time.
do i remember "compassionate conservartism"? hell yeah, i do.
that was the show on after ALF, right? it had to be, b/c the notion of "compassionate conservatism" is pure fiction--and, truly, could only follow the adventures of the cat-hungry ALF.
#13 sounds like a grandmother trying to suck an egg.
Yellow Elephant Safari @ 36:
Or perhaps saboteur
Compassionate Conservativism=This'll hurt me more than it hurts you.
"besides, treating health insurance for needy children as a political bargaining chip would be wrong"
*cough*
Compassionate conservatism is an oxymoron.
"I'm a uniter, not a divider". - GWB
Headline from HuffPo;
Michael Moore receives Supaena from Bush adm.
Radically@40,
How about "Zombies" instead of Trolls.
They are Dead, Relentless, and like red bitches that cling to just one thing.
Oh of course goes without saying, hungry for the brains of the living to make up for what they'll never have.
Radically Moderate @ 45:
Of course! Now if HE ignores the subpoena and doesn't appear, you all KNOW what will happen to MM.
A Conservative is only as compassionate as any parasite can be.
crazylove @ 46:
I like it, and it's easier to type!!
Here's an example of compassionate conservatism.
Dr. Acula @ 47:
Michael Moore will make them CHOKE on their subpoenas! Love it! The Repug Party now actively fucking themselves in their own asses! HA! HA! HA! HA!
crazylove @ 46:
How about O'Zombies?
Yellow Elephant Safari @ 52:
If you read the Inky's story, there's this at the bottom:
Doesn't look like he's learned a thing, does it?
Mayberry Machiavelli:
A term that insults both:
1) The gentle, idiosyncratic people of the Andy Griffith Show;
2) The amoral but politically and humanly saavy Niccolo Machiavelli.
I think this administration is building whole new imageries, metaphors, similes and terminologies for their incompetence, corruption and stupidity.
I've always thought that "compassionate conservatism" and Bush Senior's "kinder, gentler nation" were what we have had in Canada for the past 20 years or so (under both Liberal and Conservative governments, but they have both had pretty much the same economic, tax and social policies).
Capitalism with public health care, a reasonable social safety net, and a egalitarian tax regime. It actually works pretty well.
YES@52,
O'Zombies yeah. A specific breed of Zombie with a protruding tongue
that possess the loud bark of a Great Dane that makes your ears ring afterwards.
Yellow Elephant Safari @ 36:
Loofa pirate? Falafel fellator? Loofa loser? Ooompa Loofa? Loofaviator?
Liberal AND Proud @ 58:
ZOMBIE!
YES, details, details...zombies are known for their taste for brains (gelatinous tho it is),
and like the Party of the Repugs, have about 79 B-movie works of fiction to prove it.
Radically Moderate @ 59:
T's & Z's (trolls&zomies)
OOPS! there is a B in Zombie.
The point exactly: a noncompassionate conservative would use a dull knife which would hurt a lot more.
Radically Moderate @ 62:
Hope the zombie doesn't get stung.
Is it a B-Girl?
crazylove @ 51:
Well we can't say the Repigs aren't flexible.
soothsayer @ 43:
Sort of like military intelligence.
"...Sort of like military intelligence."
Or... Congressional Oversight?
Compassionate conservatism??? Yea, I remember hearing aobut that... I also remember hearing about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth fairy once upon a time as well.... That was all bullshit too....JD
I would laugh, but in my current position I see kids without health insurance, parents without health insurance, single moms making minimum wage in debt until they are 75 years old because their child needed braces or a wheelchair (and I dont mean braces because their teeth look stupid, i mean braces because their teeth are too crooked to chew food with).
I get your point, i just can't laugh at that kind of stuff anymore. Kids are dying because of these assholes.
If Bush would stop giving our tax money to faith based inititives there would be money for all our kids to have health insurance. I'm tired of my tax money going to these groups when they are already tax exempt and only represent their own little groups.
There is no way in hell that Bush and company are compassionate conservatives.
As a Texan, I remember when the phrase "compassionate conservative" was hyped as the new advertising blurb for Republicans, near the end of Bush's second term as Texas governor when he was preparing his run for the presidency. Given his disastrous record as governor, it was obvious to inquiring minds that it was just an advertising slogan that didn't reflect content. His governorship was anything but compassionate, and Republicans knew it. Republicans are all about punishment and making life hard for people while increasing death as much as possible. I also recall that few things got my right-wing Republican oil executive father angrier than injecting the word, compassion, into sociocultural discussions; he knew his views consisted of none so he couldn't respond. It's annoying that the press and much of the public treated what was essentially a Madison Avenue phrase of deception as a serious signal of intent.
'Cumpassionate Conservatism' was BushSpeak for 'It's OK to have sex with your fellow republicans, but no miscegenation (sex with democrats and females), and no condoms'.
The republican Congress folks sure got that message, why didn't the democrats understand?
Compassionate Conservative is an oxymoron...
And the REAL moron is in the White House.
compassionate conservatism or nazis, same damn thing. Uber conservatives hiding behind people-friendly labels in order to push their fucked up, predatory agendas. To Hell with the whole lot of them.
[...] Clark Contact the Webmaster Link to Article george w bush Remember ‘compassionate conservatism’? » Posted at Crooks and [...]
The credulity of anyone born and raised in this country who claims to have been taken in by the oxymoron "compassionate conservatism" would be amusing were it not tragic.
It always astonished me that anybody could be taken in by the term "compassionate conservatism". What passed for conservatism then, and even more so now, and compassion are mutually exclusive concepts. It is impossible for one to exist in the presence of the other. Placing the two words together was an Orwellian masterstroke, an act of supreme cynacism which should have told the observant everything they needed to know about how things would actually play out.
Orwelle's illegitimate Son @21,
?Wanna understand USofA history? Read into Hegel and his influences on our society. I think you’ll be stunned."
True dat.
Some day you can attempt to define conservative "Family Values".
Like Romney's or Guliani's family values in contrast to yours or my own.
They are not the same, As my family would not put the family dog on the roof of the car to go to canada.
Nor like Guliani with his family marring inbred culture.
Compasionate conservatism needs to stay hung aroung the neck of all republicans that decieved people with its false promises..............................
Sen David Vitter, Mark Foley, Tom delay, and Newt come to mind as upstanding family values compassionate conservatives. Just for starters..
Yea and I am sick as hell of it
Comments are closed on this entry