William Safire (a conservative) doesn't believe Bush.

This was on Meet the Press yesterday.  William Safire is a renowned conservative, who was describing his Nixon years.  Any of this sound familiar?

*I was writing a speech on welfare reform, and the president looks at it and says, OK, I'll go with it, but this is not going to get covered. Leak it as far an wide as you can beforehand. Maybe we'll get something in the paper. And so I go back to my office and I get a call from a reporter, and he wants to know about foreign affairs or something, and I said, Hey, you want a leak? I'll tell you what the president will say tomorrow about welfare reform. And he took it down and wrote a little story about it. But the FBI was illegally tapping his phone at the time, and so they hear a White House speechwriter say, Hey, you want a leak? And so they tapped my phone, and for six months, every home phone call I got was tapped. I didn't like that. And when it finally broke--it did me a lot of good at the time, frankly, because then I was on the right side--but it told me how easy it was to just take somebody who is not really suspected of anything for any good reason and listen to every conversation in his home--you know, my wife talking to her doctor, my--everything.*

George W. Bush says he is only illegally wiretapping terrorists. William Safire isn't buying it.

• William Safire (a conservative) doesn't believe Bush. - PK

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chose from on the list of people who were less likely to be fillerbustered. 

Contrarily, on Hannity and Coombs last night it was reported that he was very involved and enthusiastic about this case, and I think that he was justified in doing so given the magnitude of the injustices against gays.  It's commendable. 

about terrorists.  If he did, he'd START by securing our borders to help keep them out.  Instead, governors are forced to declare states of emergencies because BUSH DOESN'T CARE.

Instead, we are now dealing with terrorists who are much better at their "trade" now, gratis Bush, who has enabled them to hone their skills in Iraq.  I personally think Bin Laden should send Bush a thank you note.  Iraq was NOT a terrorist's haven before it was invaded by America.  Bush did that.

We are DEFINITELY less safe, and we're losing the respect of the entire world a little more every day, especially with the likes of Pat Robertson and those of his ilk publicly advocating the assassination of a president of another country.

I want our borders sealed so these animals can't get in here.  And when they do get in because our president couldn't care less if Americans die, I want them KILLED.  I have no sympathy for terrorists, and the fact that some people on this board think if someone is liberal and against this unethical war, they love terrorists.  That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and these people apparently believe it.  Nobody can debate or reason with skewed thinking like that.

The best we can do on this board is to continue to politely, intelligently debate with and inform each other of issues, ignore the ones who want to do nothing but start trouble, and maybe the respect and intelligence and civility will bore them to tears and they'll go back to ripping wings off of baby birds or whatever fun stuff they do to pass the time.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_carlson&sid=ajuZsQQbuwl4#

With Miers, Bush Gets Fifth Vote Against Roe: Margaret Carlson

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- What if former President Bill Clinton had nominated his White House counsel, Bernie Nussbaum, to the Supreme Court? I can hear Bill Frist now. What does Slick Willy think he's doing -- filling a job at FEMA?

At first glance, there seems to be no other reason for Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court other than that she is President George W. Bush's Bernie Nussbaum. The notion that a careerist corporate lawyer would have risen to the top of Bush's list if she weren't down the hall is preposterous.

Unlike famous self-selector Dick Cheney, no one suspects the modest Miers looked in the mirror and saw the best replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor staring back at her. Only Bush could see the ``heart'' and ``character'' in Miers that made her the perfect selection. She's been his consigliore, fixer and confidante for more than two decades, and she thinks the way he does.

The fact that Miers is a woman helps enormously. It looks as if Bush listened to wife Laura, who publicly suggested he should replace a woman with a woman. It's far more likely that Laura publicly suggested it because he already had decided to do so. The choice prompts automatic praise from some liberals, excites Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and placates Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Bush's Wants

And notice how tongue-tied a potential critic, Senator Edward Kennedy, was two days ago trying to criticize her.

Miers satisfies a number of Bush's proclivities: his inability to distinguish an insider job from an outside one (White House counsel is the most partisan legal job in government), his desire to reward loyalty and his love of surprise.

Ambitious Republicans should be on notice that the best way to get ahead in the Bush years is to work anonymously inside. It was only because the White House floated Miers's name that she was on anyone's list.

This is not to say that Miers isn't a decent, competent (she may be a crony, but she's no Michael Brown) and respected person. She's devoted to her mother and brothers, a regular churchgoer, an early riser, an avid celebrator of birthdays.

Up the Ladder

In Dallas, she broke the glass ceiling for female lawyers (although she lived the life of a nun to get there). After meeting Bush in 1989, she represented him in matters ranging from his purchase of a fishing cottage in East Texas to questions about his National Guard service.

At the same time, she climbed a steep corporate ladder, becoming co-manager of a huge Dallas firm and chairwoman of the Texas Bar Association, specializing in commercial transactions for large corporations.

She served on the Dallas City Council and headed the Texas Lottery, where, some say, she cleaned up Powerball. She moved with the president to the White House, where the only complaint against her was that she lingered over paperwork too long.

She became counsel to the president when Alberto Gonzales was promoted to attorney general. Gonzales is another loyalist who proved himself to Governor Bush by speed-reading through death row appeals in Texas and redefining torture in the White House for purposes of allowing more of it in Iraq. With her nomination, Miers has gotten an even bigger promotion than her predecessor.

Shocked Conservatives

Some conservatives are loudly shocked that Bush ignored the long list of known quantities among conservative jurists in the mold of his favorites, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. It depressed Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol. Rush Limbaugh was so agitated Cheney gave him an interview to calm his listeners.

What those conservatives are missing is what Dr. James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, and Jay Sekulow, chief counsel to the American Center for Law & Justice, see in Miers: a fifth vote for overturning Roe v. Wade. Bush even got Dobson's approval beforehand.

Like Bush, Miers had a late-in-life born-again moment, joining a conservative evangelical church in Dallas where she taught Sunday School.

In an interview in yesterday's Dallas Morning News, Miers's former campaign manager, Lorlee Bartos, said Miers told her when running for city council in 1989 that she had been ``pro-choice in her youth.'' Then, according to Bartos, Miers said she underwent ``a born-again, profound experience'' that caused her to change her mind and oppose abortion.

Keeping the Promise

That conversion fits with her $150 contribution to Texans United for Life in 1989 and her successful effort to get the American Bar Association to move from support for abortion rights to neutral in 1991. After the ABA switched back to a pro- abortion-rights position, Miers in 1993 failed in a bid to have the endorsement put to a vote of the full membership.

At his press conference yesterday, Bush claimed that in all the years he's known Miers he never learned her view on abortion. Dobson and Sekulow will have their hands full reassuring the base about that comment. It's one thing for Chuck Schumer to be left in the dark, quite another for Bush to say he purposely kept himself there.

Didn't he promise the base he'd turn the light on and give them a selection sure to reverse Roe?

I think he has. This time he's tricking Harry Reid.

I used to think the younger Bush was like his dad on abortion -- pro-life for purposes of getting elected, pro-choice otherwise. But I now see him as a victim of Stockholm syndrome, adopting as his own view that of his right-wing captors. My money is on Dobson knowing what Bush claims not to. Assuming Miers is confirmed, it won't be long before we all know.

To contact the writer of this column:

Margaret Carlson at  mcarlson3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 5, 2005 00:16 EDT

You'd have to hear it yourself to get the correct context.  The caller was not even talking about reducing the crime rate, Bennett brought this up out of the blue, and he says I do know... before he made the comment, NOT making a reference to Freakonomics but his own opinion.

From the September 28 broadcast of Salem Radio Network's Bill Bennett's Morning in America:

CALLER: I noticed the national media, you know, they talk a lot about the loss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security, and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that the abortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade, the lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fund Social Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't -- never touches this at all.

BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens?

CALLER: Assuming that they are. Even if only a portion of them were, it would be an enormous amount of revenue.

BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. I think as -- abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No.

CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

In a story that appeared in the Times on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Ayers told a reporter while promoting his memoir "Fugitive Days": "I don't regret setting bombs...I feel we didn't do enough."

than an "anything goes" liberal. Yeah, we make mistakes sometimes, and we're not perfect, but at least we have a goal we're striving for. And for every conservative you ridicule, I could name 5 liberals that did the same thing but the media doesn't make a big thing about it. Of course, if it's a conservative, it's broadcast 24/7 - like Sanford - but the Edwards affair was actually covered up by the mainstream media and got no attention until the National Enquirer forced it into the open. Selective outrage, anyone?

I try not to visit the bog of eternal stench. Funny though...sm

or else you'd have mastered the art of "twisting" and wouldn't have such high regard for the truth.

Lesson 1:  Visit the Conservative Board and study closely.

(Lesson 2 will follow as soon as you have successfully completed Lesson 1.)

You apparently have issues that are not going to be solved by endless bashing on a liberal board.

Although I may not like the rules on this board I am mature and courteous enough to at least try to follow them. 

icon, declares McCain temprament unfit for presidency.  You don't get any more conservative than George Will.  Meanwhile, Sara P has pictures taken with foreign leaders but absolutely no questions allowed.  Photo op.

"Smaller government and lower taxes" is one of those slogans that our side slings around but doesn't have any real meaning that allows us to defend it.

You can't just say such things without defining your terms.  How small should government be?  How low should taxes be?  Government - at every level - DOES have a critical role to play in the life of this nation.  We could never defend ourselves from foreign enemies, create a nationwide system of roads, or even coordinate interstate commerce among the states if not for federal government.  You'd be paying tariffs on everything produced in other states, for instance.

We need law enforcement agencies that operate at every level of government.  We need coordinated programs to help deal with problems like unemployment.  We need to know that our food and our drugs are safe. 

A better slogan would be "Only as much government as needed to do the relatively few things that government does well, and only the taxes needed to support it." 

where we are free to talk about the extreme hatefulness coming from this board.  However, when some people wish the president dead...well that's bordering on a THREAT to the president.  I actually be afraid to post things like that.  You might receive a friendly knock on the door from the FBI.

Again, There were trolls on the liberal board (no consistent moniker that's the first thing that gives trolls away) posting VERY NASTY replies anytime a conservative posted anything on THEIR OWN BOARD.  It takes a lot nerve to argue with the administrator of this board who can delete you and ban you for any reason. It is a private board BTW no public doman.   Many of you have been stalking on the conservative board for weeks.  You have been posting near threats on the president....what do you expect the administrator to do!?  Start talking about real subjects and quit having a hate fest over here and you might find the administrator a little more sympathetic to your plight....