OK. Edit to add though. Maybe this does bear on Bush's presidency. Please bear with me and it still off-topic, I will stop for sure, but this link was interesting.
The No-Child-Left-Behind act was an area where Bush adopted liberal policies and actually promoted the liberal democratic agenda of expanding federal involvement in education. The basic idea is to use the federal government to help people. At the time, many such as Farah, the chief editor of WorldNetDaily, severely criticized Bush even suggesting Bush's "communitarian" beliefs were not so different than communism at heart, and thus refused to endorse Bush because he didn't understand or accept the Constitutional limits placed on the federal government.
My tack on this thread is not to absolve Bush of ignoring the Constitution but to raise the larger issue that we cannot keep promoting ignoring Constitutional limits in one area and then decry a president or some other part of government taking away our rights in another. We need to develop a consistent framework for limiting government expansion in order to do that.
Imo, Bush has always been a centrist and never a conservative, except on a few issues, mostly social issues and ironically on his view that we should follow an originalist interpretation of the Constitution and appoint judges that take that stance.
So he is a mixed bag. I think his judicial appointments are more likely to curb government power over private individuals than would be the case if a more liberal president were in office, such as democrat.
I think though that Big Government guys, whether socialist, liberal, Republican or whatever, are not ever going to properly reign in the government so that the government respects limitations placed on it by the Constitution. So I see Bush's actions as part of a trend, and not significantly different than most other presidents.
I think the solution is to become and vote for real conservatives and libertarians that advocate placing severe limits on federal programs, government expansion, etc,....
I am not as upset over Bush's actions because I think he appointed men to the Supreme court that are more likely to curb the government's power in the long run, or hope so, and so his dalliance with creative interpretations of law designed to give his presidency a pass on things, though wrong, is of less concern that the opportunity to reverse the trend through his judicial appointments.
Edited by randman, : No reason given.
Edited by randman, : No reason given.