Oh my Gawd! Pundit O'Reilly Now Skeptical About Bush

If the Right is turning against Bush......
If the Right is turning against Bush, that means he can be beaten and Hillary Clinton will have to rethink her plans to run for president in 2008. Do you think she has Plan B for getting into the race for 2004?

BBB

Hillary be damned. I was surprised to have read about this today, but i am willing to give credit where it is due. O'Reilly has admitted he was wrong, something which i would not have credited him for. What was more surprising to me was his admission to what most honest Americans already recognize, that the country is deeply divided. I am reminded of the ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.

Yeah, Set, I love that Chinese curse! It's kind of scary like when the EPA says you're in the 'chain of custody'.

Actually 'O' has been pretty critical of Bush for a good while and definitely on the WMD issue.

Other Righties falling away from Bush
Doubts about Bush emerge on the right
Jim Rutenberg/NYT
February 10, 2004 NY Hearld Tribune

Republican base looks less unified

WASHINGTON For most of his presidency, George W. Bush has counted on a chorus of conservative newspaper columnists, radio hosts and television commentators to give powerful punctuation to his initiatives, proposals and defenses.

But in recent days, there has been an uptick in criticism of Bush from those quarters, underscoring strains between him and the Republican base that has so faithfully defended him in the past.

As an example, Peggy Noonan, the former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, had this to say on Sunday in OpinionJournal.com, added phrase: the Wall Street Journal's online editorial pages, about Bush's ?'?'Meet the Press'' interview: ?'?'The president seemed tired, unsure and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive, and when he tried to clarify them he tended to make them worse.''

George Will, the conservative columnist, wrote in his syndicated column on Sunday, ?'?'It is surreal for a Republican president to submit a budget to a Republican-controlled Congress and have Republican legislators vow to remove the ?'waste' that he has included and that they have hitherto funded.''

While most conservatives remain squarely behind Bush, the united front has not been quite as united.

Columnists like Robert Novak, conservative television hosts like Joe Scarborough of MSNBC and others on local radio and the Internet have raised questions about Bush.

?'?'It's a critical departure,'' said J. David Hoeveler, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, who said last week he believed that his local conservative radio host, Charlie Sykes, had begun sounding less exuberant about Bush. ?'?'Generally it's been wholeheartedly Republican,'' Hoeveler said of the tenor of the conservative media. ?'?'It would suggest that those who would call themselves Republicans are quite possibly breaking ranks.''

Bush campaign officials say the frustration stems from an eagerness among his supporters to aggressively take on the Democrats, which they say he will begin to do relatively soon. And some of the columnists and commentators who have voiced criticism of the president insisted on Monday that they were not breaking ranks ?- and that the president remained their standard-bearer.

Still, several conservative columnists and commentators said their pronouncements of disappointment resulted from growing frustration with what they saw as unbridled federal spending, Bush's mixed signals on gay marriage and his caution in meeting the fierce critiques from the newly emboldened opposition.

Those from his party who gave him poor grades for his performance on ?'?'Meet the Press,'' for instance, said they were concerned that he was not in fighting form at a time when the man who many say will be his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, was.

Many of the critiques go far beyond politics.

For instance, Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, was as energetic a booster of Bush as anyone until recently. He said he had begun speaking out against Bush's fiscal policy about two months ago, as he grew alarmed by the growing deficit and what he said were needlessly expensive proposals, like a manned expedition to Mars and an increase in financing for the National Endowment of the Arts.

?'?'When I first started doing it, I had Republicans calling me up and saying ?'Hey, why are you knocking a guy who's from your party?''' he said. ?'?'Two months later, everybody seems to be saying it: There's been no fiscal restraint and that's hurting the party and it's hurting the conservative cause.''

In one column last week, Novak criticized Bush for giving ?'?'the most inef fective State of the Union address in recent years.'' And, he wrote, the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq and the admission that the president's plan to expand Medicare would cost more than initially estimated were ?'?'a double blow to his credibility.''

Novak pointed out in an interview that despite his their? the criticism, most Republicans are not likely to vote for the Democratic nominee. But, he said: ?'?'The problem is not whether they vote for Kerry. The problem is whether they stay at home.''

Terry Holt, the president's campaign spokesman, said he expected it all to quiet down as soon as Bush went up directly against Kerry, should the senator capture the nomination. ?'?'When the campaign enters a new period where Kerry will stand in direct comparison to the president, there will be a more intense focus on Kerry's record,'' he said, ?'?'And I think what we're seeing from these folks is a sense that they are ready for that period to begin.'' The New York Times

This is true? Not, like, from the Onion?

Wow!

There's hope!

It's true and it looks to me like this is Bush's Achilles heal which he seems to wear with pride considering his attitude on the Tim Russert interview on Sunday. Bush doesn't explain anything he just cops an attitude and if he said "I don't want to sound like a broken record" one more time he would indeed "sound like a broken record." The recording? "Is That All There Is?"

Are you sure this is not the republicans downgrading Bush so that they can build him back up again? They have always lowered the expectations and its been a useful strategy so far.

'O' isn't a republican.

So he claims, despite the evidence that he registered as a Republican. He now claims someone changed the record . . .

O'reilly couldn't trell the truth if you placed a loaded and cocked homosexual to his head.

Are you serious? Got any info on it, I would like to read it. Thanks.

In Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them, Al Franken printed O'Reilly's registration card. Republican box???? Checked....

O'Reilly's also the guy who claimed to have won a couple of Peabody Awards........... uh, no.

He's a windbag...... a rich windbag who can tommorrow go back to whooping it up for the GOP leaving his WMD apology in the dust......

It's all marketing for these people.

Joe

A liar and Egomaniac
O'Really? WTF cares?

This came as a HUGE surprise to me!

Bill has been a Bush worshipper for sooooooo long I thought he would never think anything other than what the administrative line is on anything, especially regarding Iraq.

The little devil on my shoulder is telling me the only reason he's really saying this is because people have that soundbyte of him talking about how we're going to find the weapons and if we don't he'll apologize (man, did THAT ever come back and bite him in the ass!).

Regardless, he's finally earned a little respect on my part. He was man enough to address the issue, and he deserves credit for it. Good job, Bill. (And thats a massive compliment from someone who likes you less than shower mold!)

LW

A great song! And appropriate. Perhaps the theme song for the Bush household, post election. I see Laura, comforting George, his head held softly in her lap. His lush soprano voice begins...

"Let's break out the booze
and have a ball
if that's all
there is"

I am deeply cynical about this latest development by O'Reilly. I think he is finally realizing how many people dislike Bush and is trying to increase his own base. I think he'll play it both ways. He's in it for himself.

Hard to know for sure, but he doesn't inspire confidence. I'd think it likely that the spotlight Franken has put on Bill has him rather more careful than previously...which is why I love Franken.

Me too.