Answering a critic

The first comment in this post rolls out a typical laundry list of attacks on President Bush. It looks like the writer is just trolling, but I decided that I would pretend it was intended as sincere criticism. For convenience's sake, here is the comment, followed by my reply:

I see nothing conservative about the current President. In fact he represents the worst of the Republican and Democratic Parties.

He has increased size and continues to do so in Federal Government. He has no clue with regards to fiscal policy. How can someone call this idiot a conservative? Bill Clinton was far more conservative in his policies when compared to W.

He manipulated the radical religous right to get re-elected, similar to how Public Enemy Number #1 Osama Bin Ladin utilized the Taliban to support his political agendas.

The closest party his policies could be associated with is that of the Nazi Party.

I will grant you this -- many of Bush's actions and policies have been very offensive to me, such as his support for a Medicare prescription drug benefit and his support for McCain-Feingold. His expansion of the federal government is a legitimate issue; constitutionalists and conservatives of good conscience should not give him a free pass on these things just because they like the other things he's doing.

However, these issues pale in significance when compared with the most significant issue of our generation -- the war on terror. The president has proven himself to be the right man at the right time -- he understands clearly what is at stake, he understands clearly what is to be done, and he has shown again and again his determination to stay the course despite unrelenting reactionary attacks from the likes of you.

As for Bill Clinton, anything that came out of his administration that appeared conservative was done for one of two reasons: (1) He was maneuvered into doing so by the GOP congress (and didn't want to pay the political price of opposing it)-- example: welfare reform; (2) He was unusually gifted at neutralizing the opposition by stealing their issues and remolding them to suit his own agenda. Bush, alas, has also used this strategy quite a few times (e.g. education 'reform').

However, you are naive if you think he (or Darth Rove) manipulated Christian conservatives into supporting him. While there is disagreement over how his faith should be acted out in the public square (e.g. whether the fedgov should be in the compassion business at all), there is no doubt that his faith is real, and that his faith is more in line with that of the Christian right than it is with the Christian (or otherwise religious) left.

Re: your final sentence, that's such a tired old throwaway line, not to mention an example of life imitating humor posts. Rather than try to rebut it, instead I'll ask you: Would you care to support your claim that Bush's policies are consistent with those of Germany's National Socialists?

Again, yours was most likely just a trolling post, but if you care to engage in a civil discussion of the issues, then let's have at it.