Originally Posted by cat's meow

OK, an honest point of debate here.

...first...Clinton bashing gets pretty old too, but you and I could probably go round and round with that.

So what is the definition of a true conservative Rob?

IMHO a true cosnervative beleives that the Constitution says what it says and their is no wiggle room for interpation. The goverment keeps the country say by maintaining a standing military and enurses that intra state transportation is working.

Is it to protect the country after 9/11 and deal with the ensuing problems in the foreign policy?

Is it to keep control of government spending?

Is it to make sure citizenship to this country is held in high esteem and not given out like candy on Halloween night?

Goverment as a whole has cheapend citizenship in this country.

I guess I have a real hard time how someone can actually defend Bush when in many ways even Bill Clinton was more conservative with balancing the budget and reforming welfare (two political anvils for conservatives and Clinton was the one of the past four presidents that REALLY did do this; the three CONSERVATIVES did not do this---BJs or no BJs).

Clinton cut programs and borrowed money based on future taxs to balance the budget.

I will leave the other party out of it now...I only use Republicans...

I think if you really honest to God take the past two Republican presidents who conservatives really do basically like (Reagan or Bush I) then try to answer this question:

Would either of these guys reacted to 9/11 by launching the first pre-emptive military strike in the history of the United States on a leader and country that had highly questionable ties (if any) to the original 9/11 problem itself?

And anyone who wants to jump on this please look at page 66-68 of the government report on 9/11...that is the report itself and no leftie web blog. We debated that earlier and I posted it on another thread.