Bill Rentschler is a Republican - a very disillusioned Republican. How Republican? He ran the 1968 Nixon campaign in Illinois. In 1960 and 1970 he ran as a Republican for the U.S. Senate, chalking up strong campaigns.
As a columnist, he won the 1996 Ethics in Journalism Award by the Chicago Headline Club and has been nominated nine times for the Pulitzer Prize. He currently writes a column for the Journal News in Hamilton, Ohio.
He wrote a huge piece for the Washington Spectator (which is not available online, but George Loper posted it at his site) which displays Rentschler's disenchantment for this administration and his unwillingness to support it. Read it all here. Some highlights:
How can an administration led by a president who pipes the message of Christianity ignore or treat lightly God's overriding concern for the poor, downtrodden, sickly and unfortunate, the frail elderly and helpless children? How can the president sign a huge tax-cut bill that provides zero support for the poorest families-too poor to pay taxes?
Is it not callous and detached from reality for the president to be charging around the country raising multi-millions for his re-election campaign from well-heeled, black tie contributors, and touting our victory in Iraq while American youth are still dying in that sand-locked, oil-rich nation-and while some 10 million here are jobless and struggling desperately to support their families?
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If Bush wins a second term, he and his neocon allies will have four more years to perfect their far-reaching scheme without further re-election worries and political compromises. The path will be clear. A look backward at our history provides evidence that the first two years after George W. Bush's 2000 selection by a one-vote margin in the Supreme Court saw a greater departure from deepetched U.S. principles, policies and practices than in any prior time.
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You are gullible and naive if you believe the huge and misdirected tax cuts that the president has pressed so aggressively will rapidly stimulate the economy and produce a meaningful tide of new jobs.
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Don't expect the president or anyone close to him to confirm this grand scheme. The Bush administration's reputation for candor and 'the whole truth' is questionable. In a CBS 60 Minutes commentary last December, Andy Rooney branded this the 'most secretive administration in the history of this country, and it's a disgrace, I think.'
The grand scheme of the neocons, with the total and enthusiastic embrace of this president, envisions a very different America from what we have known and what its founders bequeathed to us. There is no way I can support or accept this grand scheme for remaking the America I know and love. How about you?
