Responsibility President vs. Irresponsibility Era

David Brooks on 05/28/2001 - The Responsibility President

The distinctive thing about the Bush approach is that it tries to introduce a responsibility ethic into energy and environmental thinking. In the comments of the Bush administration figures, you can sense a tone of contempt for those who want to burn energy but are unwilling to face the tough choices involved in producing it -- for the people who want electric cars, but not electricity generators, clean skies but not nuclear power. As Paul Gigot recently reported, the Bushies present their plan as the anti-Gray Davis approach. The California governor has tried to blame everybody but Californians for the mess there. The Bush administration has taken responsibility for the national mess that was left to it.

Ed Kilgore on 07/17/2005 - The Irresponsibility Era

Recall George W. Bush's meta-message during the 2000 campaign: it was time for a "responsibility era" to rein in the excesses introduced by the out-of-control Baby Boomer Bill Clinton. The grown-ups, emblemized by Dick Cheney and other Bush 41 exiles, were ready to give America a mature and accountable government.

That has turned out to be the biggest Bush lie of them all. [..]

From the tax cuts to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bushies have consistently pursued their policies in the most completely thoughtless and dangerous manner available to them. And moreover, they have made it definitively clear that no one loyal to the White House can lose his or her job for incompetence, negligence, corruption, or any other sin.

George W. Bush has systematically ushered in an "irresponsiblity era" that is aimed to insulate his policies, his appointees, and his party from any significant oversight or control.

The responsibility president delivered the ear of irresponsibly. No one is accountable, no apologies for mistakes because they never admit to any, party loyalty above loyalty to Stars and Stripes, supporting treason and torture, campaigns of lies, smears, and attacks on anyone who dares to speak out against them, paid reporters to promote their propaganda, lobbyist written bills is now the standard operating procedure of the Republican party.