News Week Article about Bush 2nd Term/Family -- Suprise

[Tommy J]

Posted the below more for the Fundi's on their Web Site to respond too because I think their 'BOY' was being a hypocrite to get their vote, but thought everyone here might find it interesting as well -- Plus the questions I'm asking them.

More interested here if people think Bush was trying to hijack their votes while not really believing as strongly in the Marriage Amendment + Constitutional Ban on Abortion.

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I'm posting the entire enclosed article because it's an interesting look into President Bush's thinking process and second term.

However for the purpose of this discussion I'd like to focus on two quotes that are quite surprising to me as bolded in the article below.

1) While George Bush is strongly opposed to abortion neither his wife Laura or his two children are. It clearly states it would a a '3-1' vote in the Bush family on that topic.

2) While Bush proposed the Constitutional Amendment regarding marriage, the article clearly states it's NOT something that he's actively pursuing in his second term.

Here's the question to the Christians and Non Christians in this forum.

A. Are you surprised about his families view on abortion and/or concerned this his spouse at least anecdotaly isn't as opposed to abortion as he has.

B. Are you surprised that he's not going to in a vigiourous way lobby for the Amendment regarding marriage? At least it's not at the top of the list.

Here are my thoughts:

With regard to abortion, I'm not surprised at all that his younger daughters and ex-teacher wife have a more 'liberal' view on this topic than he does.

I'm some-what surprised with the marriage debate. However, I've always contended that he hijacked that issue to get re-elected while never fully believing it was necessary in the 1st place. Bush has always been historically a 'states-rights' advocate and when he came out of right-field and proposed it I was shocked.

I think he used the passion that many fundamental Christians have (like many here) on the Gay Marriage issue to create a division among more liberal thinking Conservatives to support him.

Don't get me wrong, I don't fault the man for the above -- it's called SMART POLITICS.


Time Magazine Jan. 24 issue - It was time to clean out his cabinet. The top jobs in his administration, President Bush decided last fall, had left people burned out and too beholden to the perks of high office. Besides, he was planning a big new agenda for his second term and wanted fresh legs to power it through. When asked how many cabinet officials he would fire, Bush told one close friend: "Basically everybody." The official story was that many of the cabinet officials were ready to move on; members would volunteer their own resignations. But as the election neared, several began to waver; it became clear they'd need to be shown the door. Other presidents might leave the tough stuff to subordinates, but Bush wanted to do the job himself. When it came time to say farewell, the exchanges in the Oval Office were surprisingly emotional. "They were shocked and really hurt, and that hurt him," says one confidant.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson was one of the walking wounded. A former governor like Bush, he'd toiled on the president's first White House campaign and considered himself a friend. Thompson talked openly of moving to the private sector after 40 years in public life. Yet behind the scenes he also floated the idea of staying around as head of Homeland Security. Early in the new year, three weeks after Bernard Kerik's nomination had fallen apart, Thompson traveled to the Oval Office for one final chat as a cabinet member. Thompson grew tearful, saying he'd always be there for Bush, and hinted one more time that he would jump at the chance to stay on. But Bush stuck to his plan, and said goodbye. "There are strong emotions from the president and strong emotions from the people who are leaving," says White House chief of staff Andrew Card. "But he's looking for a new term and changes. Agents of change frequently are new people."

As he starts his final four years in the White House, President Bush is by far the biggest agent of change in his own cabinet. Whether he's remaking his team or plotting his second-term policies, Bush's leadership style belies his caricature as a disengaged president who is blindly loyal, dislikes dissent and covets his own downtime. In fact, Bush's aides and friends describe the mirror image of a restless man who masters details and reads avidly, who chews over his mistakes and the failings of those around him, and who has grown ever more comfortable pulling the levers of power. Of course, those closest to Bush have a vested interest in singing his praises. But they also make a compelling case that the president is a more complex and engaged character than his popular image suggests. And that he—not Karl Rove, Dick Cheney or anyone else—bears the full weight of responsibility for the ultimate successes and failures of his reign.

Instead of scaling back his ambition like other second-termers in recent years, Bush has expanded it. From rewriting the entire tax code to remaking the 70-year-old safety net of Social Security, from securing Iraq to spreading democracy across the Muslim world, Bush is being driven by a self-confidence that was only boosted by his clear election victory. Bush likes to say he intends to spend the political capital he earned in November. Yet, faced with his approval numbers hovering around 50 percent and a restive Republican caucus on the Hill, it's unclear how much capital he's really got in the bank—and how much time he has left to spend it. With just two years before presidential candidates take to the stage for '08, Bush and his closest aides know they need to cash in before the clock runs out.


Bush has always thought big, and always believed you earn political capital by expending it. Pondering a run for Texas governor in 1994, Bush was agitated by incumbent Ann Richards's struggle to deal with the state's school-financing crisis. "Richards was reduced to saying, 'I don't know what to do. If anybody has an idea, let me know'," recalls one senior aide. "Bush thought, 'You're the governor and your job is to lead, not wring your hands and say you've run out of ideas'." Once in office, he took a more ambitious tack than Richards—trying to overhaul the tax system to help salvage the schools. He lost the fight, winding up with a stripped-down, $1 billion tax cut. But he emerged confident that history looks kindly on those who swing for the fences. Legislators from both parties in Texas, still struggling with the schools crisis today, have told Bush in recent months that his was the better way. "It's confirmation that if you don't take advantage of the opportunity to change, things simply get worse, and your options get narrowed," says Karl Rove, the architect of Bush's election victories. "[The praise from the Texans] is a liberating experience for him because everybody said, 'Don't do this'."

In laying out his second-term agenda, Bush is building on the big ideas he launched in Austin. Bush wants to simplify the tax code, reform the tort system and overhaul Social Security—all things he tried, or dreamed of trying, in Texas. Back then, he had the luxury of his friendship with Democratic Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, who helped him reach out across the aisle and coax Democratic support. Bush's attempts to replicate that approach in Washington, however, have largely fallen flat—the victim of a political climate badly polarized after Election 2000. His early forays proved counter-productive even within his own party. "We didn't really know him, and the first thing he did was reject a measure on school choice, and then he got Ted Kennedy involved," says Jack Kingston, the vice chairman of the House Republican Conference. "We thought, 'This isn't really what we had expected after eight years of Bill Clinton'."

Since then, Bush has by and large let the Democrats dangle—and focused on marshaling his own troops. He's done so in a hands-on manner that runs counter to the notion that he's an aloof executive who can't be bothered to read the fine print. "When he wants to be, he's a real stickler for details," says one Republican senator. "When he calls you to talk about a bill, he knows the nitty-gritty. You don't get the sense he's been reading the Cliffs Notes guide to an issue." That command of detail proved critical as Bush worked the phones to win support in the House for his $400 billion expansion of Medicare to include prescription-drug benefits.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 22, 2003, Butch Otter, then a second-term Republican congressman from Idaho, was standing in a back hallway off the House chamber when his cell phone rang. The reception was a little scratchy, but the voice was unmistakable. It was the president calling, and he wanted Otter's yea vote. It was a little after 5 in the morning, and the bill had stalled in the House for nearly three hours, thanks to Otter and a group of about a dozen conservative Republicans. "He asked me what my problem was," Otter says. "I told him my problem was we didn't pay for it. I didn't want to vote for the bill." Otter had already resisted approaches from House leaders and a call from Vice President Dick Cheney. When those personal appeals didn't nudge Otter, Republican leaders called on Bush, who had returned just hours earlier from a state visit to London. "The president was working these votes very hard," Otter says. "I was persuaded that if this bill went down, we would end up with a bigger, more expensive alternative with much less reform." At 5:51 a.m., Otter switched his vote to yea.

Bush will need to do the full-court press far more often with the incoming Congress, whose expanded ranks of conservative Republicans are feeling newly assertive. Members of his own party have already tried to torpedo his intelligence-reform bill and taken potshots at his Social Security plans. House leaders now estimate there are between 15 and 20 conservatives who have already voiced their opposition to any major restructuring of Social Security. "It's going to be tough," says Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and deputy whip in the House. "The president runs the risk of this turning into the Clinton health-care plan, where Clinton had huge majorities and still couldn't get the program through. We can't afford to let that happen."Then there's the base of social conservatives that turned out in such large numbers on Election Day. They may be surprised to find that the social issues which figured so prominently in the 2004 campaign are absent from Bush's list of Big Things. In private, Bush rarely talks about abortion rights and gay marriage. "He doesn't even carry his family on abortion," says one family friend. "He'd probably lose a vote 3-to-1. And I bet he doesn't make one phone call on the constitutional [gay-marriage] amendment."

Another popular mis perception: that Bush doesn't read. Aides describe numerous debates inside the Oval Office, where the president digs deep into his briefing books. "I've seen it time and time again," says Rove. "We all get the briefing papers the night before, we've all read them, and he'll inevitably have thought about three steps ahead of anyone in the room." And he's not just poring over white papers. Friends and aides speak of his passion for novels, including Mark Mills's "Amagansett" (a murder mystery set in postwar Long Island), and Tom Wolfe's racy college tale "I Am Charlotte Simmons." Bush has also adopted Natan Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy" as his own manifesto in the Middle East—a tome he recommends to all comers in the Oval Office.

Judging from the press coverage of his new cabinet, you'd think Bush's guiding principle was to put yes men in positions of power. But Bush draws a sharp line between people who can get things done, and those who simply agree with anything he says. His style in policy briefings is to narrow the debate with a series of questions, crystallizing the competing opinions and exploring the disagreements between his staff. Those debates also require a rare quality in Washington—the self-discipline of his staff to keep their disputes behind closed doors. With the notable exception of his foreign-policy team, Bush has succeeded in staunching the leaks that plagued his predecessors—leaving the impression that there are no arguments within the White House walls. "People seem to be fascinated by this administration in that people don't walk out the door after losing an argument and complain about it," says Nick Calio, Bush's former congressional liaison. "Just because nobody complains publicly about losing an argument doesn't mean they haven't disagreed with him." (That discipline will be harder to maintain as Bush steams toward lame-duck status.)

To hear his friends tell it, Bush hates toadies, and loves to mock sycophantic remarks with his trademark reply: "My, Mr. President, that's a nice-looking tie you're wearing today." "If anyone is too much of a suck-up, the president is the first one to call them on it," says Card. "That's not a label you want to have in a meeting, because then he discounts everything you're saying." Flying back to Washington after his second TV debate against John Kerry, Bush asked his strategist Matt Dowd for an honest assessment of the first showdown. "It wasn't your finest hour," said Dowd. "What do you mean?" Bush shot back. "You got your a-- kicked," Dowd explained. Bush frog-marched his aide through Air Force One, repeating Dowd's assessment. "He said I got my a-- kicked," Bush told his staff. "And you all said I won."

One of the more memorable moments of those debates was Bush's stubborn refusal to admit he'd made any mistakes in his first term. That defiant stance enraged Democrats—even as it cemented his image as a resolute war leader who won't let self-doubt get in his way. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Bush doesn't worry about the consequences of his decisions, especially in Iraq. Behind the scenes he was intimately involved in the details of the Fallujah offensive last year, keeping close tabs on strategic decisions and getting regular updates on the troops' progress. "He thinks long and hard about it, particularly where American lives are at risk," says one confidant, "including the postwar plan, the role of the former Baathists and the number of troops." While he's been publicly supportive of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—the highest-profile holdover from the first cabinet—friends say Bush is "constantly looking" at his job performance. Once the Iraqi elections are over, they wouldn't be surprised if Rumsfeld gets a call to make that long, uncomfortable journey to the Oval Office.

[Crown]

Well for what it's worth, Ms Bush was a strong advocate of the Supreme Court ruling on abortion (Jade vs Woe ?????), especially during the time pre-whitehouse.

[Cairber]

Mrs Bush does not believe roe v wade should be overturned, but she is also for developing new ways to limit abortions. She has always been a person strongly in favor of stare decisis. There are a lot of people who are anti abortion but realize the logistics behind the supreme court and the necessity of stare decisis. In addition, she believes in educating people in order to limit abortions. Google any article about her and abortion and inevitably she will repeat time and time again: we need to educate our children...educateeducateeducate.

As for the marriage amendment...HURRAY! and AMEN! LoL, that one needed to be put to rest.

[Tommy J]

Mrs Bush does not believe roe v wade should be overturned, but she is also for developing new ways to limit abortions. She has always been a person strongly in favor of stare decisis. There are a lot of people who are anti abortion but realize the logistics behind the supreme court and the necessity of stare decisis. In addition, she believes in educating people in order to limit abortions. Google any article about her and abortion and inevitably she will repeat time and time again: we need to educate our children...educateeducateeducate.

As for the marriage amendment...HURRAY! and AMEN! LoL, that one needed to be put to rest.

That's very interesting and a NOT VERY WELL KNOWN opinion among the Fundi's. I bet if you asked any of them they'd be absolutely convinced that she was as strongly against it as they are.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I don't see why the family is relevant. Laura is not a consultant on issues for Jorge like that dominatrix bitch Hillary was for Billy Boy.