Mark Shields: George W. Bush, giant 'pander-bear'

[phillybri]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/10/column.shields.opinion.bush/index.html

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"...there are a couple of things this president says repeatedly that truly drive me bananas. For example, because the president's one-size-fits-all remedy for every social ill from joblessness to double-parking is more tax-cuts, the president must have told me three or four dozen times by now that "it's your money."

Not only that, but opponents of Bush's tax cuts, according to the president, just "want more money in Washington" and "don't want to let the people keep their own money." President Bush and his administration, you should know, "trust the American people more than we trust the government."

George W. Bush is a Giant "Pander-Bear." With such talk, he asks me -- at a time of war when my fellow Americans are dying -- for no sacrifice. He essentially absolves me of civic responsibility to my fellow citizens and to my national community. He flatters my vanity. He indulges my selfishness."