Mark, nice post. I can only recount my change in party affiliation as well. I was a democrat, raised in a democratic family in NJ. My father and mother were FDR democrats. I can recall my father cursing out Reagan every day and saying that Carter just had "bad luck". I was and am a Catholic, who back then thought that abortion was wrong but it was "just another issue". My first vote was for Mondale/Ferraro. I was also a nuclear freeze person. I became a conservative because it dawned on me that 4,000 babies were being killed every day by abortion and that that was not acceptable. I am pro life and could no longer vote for the democratic party who's platform was that it was okay to choose to kill a baby. The abortion issue closed the deal for me. In addition, I thought that affirmative action was wrong, that it was affirmative discrimination. Intellectually, I could no longer twist logic into a pretzal and accept something just because it was "feel good". Affirmative action was just giving a human being extra credit solely based upon the color of the skin, whether that color was black, white, yellow or green, it was wrong. However, with President George W. Bush, I made a special connection with the republican party. I saw a good, decent person who was motivated by trying to do the right thing and was fearless in tackling tough problems that no other president would touch. At best they would do the Washington shuffle with an issue. Immediately after 9/11, I saw a leader who inspired and who lifted this nation up like no man in recent history. Under the worst kind of shameful and baseless partison attacks ever heaped upon a president, President Bush has kept this dignity and shown grace and class, while the dems and media have receaded to the gutter of history. President Bush has fought the war that was inevitably going to come, against islamic fascism. He has done so with resolve and with a steel backbone. He continues to be motivated by trying to get hard things done, domestic and foreign, and to do the right thing. To me, President George W. Bush is the greatest president in american history. Because of President Bush, I will always consider myself a Bush conservative. My mother is also a conservative now as well.

I grew up in Northampton, Mass. Anyone who knows the area knows what that means.

I must have been a pretty stuborn kid to grow up conservative. Because there is not a whole lot of independent thinking on the left.

I grew up in Northampton, Mass. Anyone who knows the area knows what that means.

I must have been a pretty stuborn kid to grow up conservative. Because there is not a whole lot of independent thinking on the left.

Mark,

Your own Republican Intelligence Committee Chairman Arlen Spector said after the 9/11 committee concluded that

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"I don't believe any longer that it's a matter of connecting the dots. I think they had a veritable blueprint, and we want to know why they didn't act on it."


— Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican member of the joint intelligence committee that investigated 9/11."

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That one quote, from a REPUBLICAN, says it all and that was only a teeny, tiny investigation and only focused on how to prevent a future occurance rather than looking into government culpibility or incompetance. Even those called to testify were not under oath, which is virtually unheard of as it allows perjury with no concequences.

It is OBVIOUS to an overwhelming majority of Americans that there is MUCH more to 9/11 than has been let on, this is why the Bush administration has made every effort they could at blocking investigations into exactly what happened and why. No other major incident has gone uninvestigated like this in American history.

"I grew up in Northampton, Mass. Anyone who knows the area knows what that means. I must have been a pretty stuborn kid to grow up conservative."

Congrats, Kahn! I spent my formative years in "the happy valley" too, so I know what that means -- namely, you were probably ridiculed as a kid. Coincidentally, my oldest friend is someone I knew in Northampton who ended up serving in the Reagan administration and is still a conservative. So maybe Northampton was the thing that didn't kill us, but made us stronger!

Regardless, keep the (conservative) faith, bro.

Biden for president in 2008!

Jeb Bush for President in 2008!

Axis,

Yes, there was a blueprint...but the Clintonite wall between intell and law enforcement prevented any action on it.

Please don't try to trot out out-of-context quotes as proof...we here are just way to on to that, ok?

Condoleeza Rice for President in 2008!
:)

Sure there Mark, 9/11 happened 9 months into Bush's watch, yet its all clintons fault.

LOL You just aren't man enough to admit that Bush screwed up. Went on the longest holiday in Presidental history a month before when he learned about the pending terrorist threat in August until 9/11 happened, giving the neo-cons the "second pearl harbour" that they needed for achieve their PNAC objectives. PNAC just the other day announced they are closing down as they figure they have achieved their middle eastern goals.

Even some FBI whistleblowers have come forward to indicate that the Bush administration had purposely frustrated their investigation efforts before and after 9/11

This is why you are doomed to failure, you can never admit to a mistake, never change course when the previous does not work.

You burn your hand on the stove, you put it right back on to see if you get the same result, then you do it again and again and again. Incapable of learning from your mistakes, because you can never admit to them, instead blamethe liberals, blame clinton, blame the FBI, blame the CIA and on and on.

People aren't falling for your blame game anymore Mark and you are in for a serious wakeup call in November. And an every more serious one once the investigations begin and Democrats revealexactly how corrupt and dirty the Republican party is...

Deleted - Slanderous

"I know what that means -- namely, you were probably ridiculed as a kid"

Tell me about it. Just yesterday my 10 year old got into a brawl on the school bus over Social Security reform.

Axis...

How about filling us all in on the wonderful job Clinton did for eight years to stop terrorism... How many times were we attacked before 9/11?

Crawl back into your hole and spout your Leftist crap to the other snakes and backstabbers in it. You must be one of those idiots who believe Bush had something to do with 9/11... Stupid a**..

Axis,

Just be sure to be here the day after the elections...so far, every lefty who has come here predicting leftwing victory has failed to show up after the votes are taken...

Mike,

I seem to recall Clinton catching every single one of the ones that bombed the WTC and also caught those that bombed Oklahoma City right away.

Bush let Osama get away and then forgot all about him 6 months later. What about the Anthrax killer? He got away and is long forgotten too. Abu Al Zarqawi? We find out now that Bush could have had him THREE times before he became the mass murderer he did, but Bush let him go everytime because he needed a boogyman to bolster up support for the war.

Bush has failed to secure the homeland, FEMA is a disaster as seen by Katrina, Nuclear materials are getting snuck right through your borders as was revealed in a recent congressional test. Explosive materials are getting right through your airport checkpoints as was seen in another recent congressional test.

No terrorist were in Iraq before you invaded, now its a hot bed full of them. You cut and ran from Afganistan and now the Taliban are back and stronger than ever and warlords control the rest of the country.

Mogadishu has been taken over by Islamic militias trained by al qaeda, Bush had been secretly backing warlords there and so also failed there as well.

Bush's track record against Terror is a failure. One after another after another

Mark,

I will be here, I suggest you think of a good way to put a positive spin on your defeat in November...

James, your story is much like mine. I am a little older, was a hippie chick who demonstrated against Nixon and the Viet Nam war and attended the SDS Convention in the Peoples' Republic of Boulder. Yet I was, as you described, fairly apolitical. It was not a contradiction in terms to be apolitical and a Liberal, as we were not encouraged to actually KNOW anything but simply to react to feelings and to follow charismatic leaders and regurgitate what we were told and to feel superior to everyone else because Liberalism placed us firmly on the Moral High Ground without us having to actually DO anything.

I was what I now refer to as an "unexamined Liberal"---because I did not examine my views to see how well grounded they were in reality.

Bill Clinton made me a conservative. I had liked so many aspects of the woman's movement, and seeing it turn itself inside out to not only defend a man of Clinton's appetites and history but to attack, so viciously, the women who accused him, distressed me deeply. It was the first time I had my eyes opened to the hypocrisy that is the basis of Liberalism.

Then I started to listen to a talk radio show in Denver, Mike Rosen. It was not Mike who converted me TO conservatism---it was the lame, emotion-driven, incoherent Lefties who called his show and had nothing, absolutely nothing, to back up their wild assertions, who drove me AWAY from Liberalism. They had footwork that would have made Ali jealous, as they tap-danced around Mike's questions, refusing to give straight answers, answering questions with questions, making bizarre claims that they never got around to backing up with references or facts.

I'd always been apalled by abortion, and came to the same conclusion you did about affirmative action. I started to see the truth about the welfare society, and how it drained dignity and eventually humanity from those who were dependent on it. I started to understand the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

I am now very intolerant of the drooling incoherent Liberals who come on this blog, partly because I was so much like them once and partly because they are so deeply and profoundly insincere. Sincerity would demand an acknowledgment of fact when it is proven: insincerity doesn't care about facts, but just about how good it feels to attack those who have the facts on their side.

And while being "offended" is pretty much a Liberal position, I am offended by the vile, virulent, loathing that drives these people. At the height of my Liberalsim, I never hated the 'other side'. For lack of a more elegant word, it is simply creepy to see the spittle-spattered hate-filled diatribes, filled with wild and insane accusations. The gleeful gloating over every setback this country has, the efforts to undermine its every success, turn my stomach. I simply cannot imagine being CAPABLE of that degree of hatred, much less wallowing in it the way they do.

I didn't like Clinton, but I wanted the country to be secure, I wanted to feel safe, I wanted a good economy. I could not, and can not, comprehend a mindset that is willing---eager---to have bad things happen to America and Americans, just to have something to use against its President.

And I, too, have the deepest repsect and regard for George W. Bush. I do not always agree with him. I think he is desperately wrong on immigration. But I think he is an honorable man, and a man of deep courage and conviction. I agree that he has tackled things that other presidents have avoided, and I think it because he IS. He does not need the trapping of the Presidency to define him. He does not need a "legend" to validate him. He is who he is, he is comfortable in his own skin, he has a clearly developed sense of right and wrong, and he does things because he believes in them. I am so grateful he was here to lead us during this time, and I think history will recognize him as one of the greatest presidents we have ever had.