conservatives betrayed

* kathleen reardon:

"Why would Rice take an anti-negotiation stance? Is she incapable? Her track record before working in the Bush administration suggests otherwise. The simple answer is that she works with and for people who prefer bullying and war. Negotiation for them is something one pretends to do or leaves to other countries. When it fails, as it inevitably must when so little is done to facilitate success, the only option is to walk away or attack."

(kathleen is a negotiation expert (and taught me everything i know)

* patriot daily (h/t Noise):

"The key to evaluating Bush's true motive for his NSA program is that testing of ThinThread showed it was far better in finding potential threats and protecting privacy than the current NSA program that Bush chose in its stead. "For example, its ability to sort through massive amounts of data to find threat-related communications far surpassed the existing system, sources said. It also was able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy." But, Gen. Hayden of NSA decided not to use these two tools or the monitoring feature to prevent abuse of the records. The problem is that not using the ThinThread program has "undermined the agency's ability to zero in on potential threats." Moreover, "ThinThread could have provided a simple solution to privacy concerns."

there's more at the source - but i cant work it out

* richard vigurie has a piece in WaPo:

"Sixty-five months into Bush's presidency, conservatives feel betrayed. After the "Bridge to Nowhere" transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us. Indeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found last week that Republican disapproval of Bush's presidency had increased from 16 percent to 30 percent in one month. It is largely the defection of conservatives that is driving the president's poll numbers to new lows.

Emboldened and interconnected as never before by alternative media, such as talk radio and Internet blogs, many conservatives have concluded that the benefits of unwavering support for the GOP simply do not, and will not, outweigh the costs.

The main cause of conservatives' anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative.
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But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party... Hell hath no fury. . . ."

hysterical. he also has a new book/ website - conservativesbetrayed.com