John Podhoretz ("Bush Country") will be on live at 1 p.m. ET as Wash. Post

http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/04/sp_politics_podhoretz031504.htm

Politics: Bush Country
John Podhoretz
Author
Monday, March 15, 2004; 1:00 p.m ET

In his newest book "Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane" New York Post columnist and author John Podhoretz defends the actions and presidency of George W. Bush from what he sees as unfair and intense criticism.

Should Bush be placed in the pantheon of great American Presidents as Podhoretz states?

Podhoretz discusses his book, the Bush administration and the president's detractors Monday, March 15 at 1 p.m. ET.

Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.

In addition to his editorial work at the New York Post, Podhoretz is the cofounder of the Weekly Standard, a political commentator for the Fox News Channel and a consultant on NBC's The West Wing. He worked as a speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and is the author of "Hell of a Ride: Backstage at the White House Follies 1989-1993."

I saw him on the Daily Show, Stewart subtly mocked his fat ass...

:)

I only caught a few minutes, but the audience seemed packed with Bushbots. Very depressing.

I was watching the four brilliant writers (Alterman, Green, Corn and Conason) that were on before him. I listed to maybe a couple of minutes and could already feel my dinner ready to reappear. What were the hecklers saying?

Washington, D.C.: In Slate, William Saletan recently wrote:
From foreign to economic to social policy, Bush's record is a lesson in the limits and perils of conviction. He's too confident to consult a map. He's too strong to heed warnings and too steady to turn the wheel when the road bends. He's too certain to admit error, even after plowing through ditches and telephone poles. He's too preoccupied with principle to understand that principle isn't enough. Watching the stars instead of the road, he has wrecked the budget and the war on terror. Now he's heading for the Constitution. It's time to pull him over and take away the keys.

In the Presidency of Good and Evil, Peter Singer writes that the president might well be stuck at what the developmental psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg called the level of conventional morality, characteristic of teenagers, in which simple moral rules constitute one's moral outlook, and the idea that such rules might conflict hasn't sunk in.

So basically he's a naif and an idiot -- but maybe an idiot savant, right? (Sort of like Reagan, particularly late, Alzheimer's-afflicted Reagan?)

Everything you say can be true, and this as well, yes?

John Podhoretz: Peter Singer is a disgusting monster who believes it is acceptable to euthenize children with birth defects. So that's all I have to say to you.

now

Lynbrook, N.Y.: Sir, would you call Mr. Bush an intellectually curious person?

John Podhoretz: I think he has shown unexpected intellectual heft in his -- and it is his -- conception of the path to follow in the war on terror, the connection between victory in the war on terror and the need for expanding freedom and democratic institutions in the Middle East.

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