>Chris,
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>>He appointed a pro-choice person (Powell) as his Sec. of State and a woman (Rice) as National Security Advisor. Met with some members of Congress today and appears ready to compromise. Wow, what kind of Republican is this? < g >
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>Stealth Republican. He's acting deferential to the Congressional Leaders, calling Trent Lott "sir", saying he'll be in Washington to mostly listen and maybe once in a while do some talking, etc. It's all part of an elaborate (risky) leadership scheme to disarm the enemy by befriending him.
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>Or maybe he's just a Wise Republican, who really does believe that people can work together to accomplish something good for the country.
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>Or maybe he's a Dumb Republican, who doesn't know that he's supposed to fight the liberals.
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I think he's going to have to fight more than just the liberals. I just watched a press conference (took the day off!) with J. Chretien of Canada and J. Chirac of France (on behalf of the European Union). About 10% of the subject discussed regarded Star Wars (or the anti-ballistic missile defense initiative). V. Putin of Russia was through Ottawa a couple of days ago and expressed serious concerns about it, and the discussion carried on with Chirac - he said they have very serious concerns as well, but they realize the project still has real technical obstacles. Chirac and Chretien both said that they have they have to wait to see what more the Bush administration has to say about it before mediating these concerns or organizing opposition to the project. I don't have a problem with a lot of Bush's platform, but the Star Wars thing to me is a gift-wrapped hand-out to the US defense industry that's already raising the hackles of much of the rest of the world. Good for the US defense industry, too bad for them?