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-- The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush: Righteous Anger
The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush: Righteous Anger
Righteous Anger
The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush
By Doug Bandow
The American Conservative
Monday 01 December 2003
http://www.amconmag.com/12_1_03/cover.html
Some liberals admit that they hate President George W. Bush. Many conservatives say they are appalled at this phenomenon. Indeed, some of them believe any criticism of the president to be akin to treason. So much for the political tone in Washington.
American politics have never been for the faint-hearted. Even George Washington suffered some public abuse, and presidential campaigns involving revolutionary luminaries John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were vitriolic. After the Civil War, Republican candidates routinely waved the �bloody shirt�; one GOP stalwart denounced the Democrats as the party of �Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.�
The GOP did not treat Harry Truman with kid gloves, and Democrats never let fairness impede their attacks on Barry Goldwater in 1964. Richard Nixon was widely reviled on the Left. Some fringe partisans expressed sorrow that John Hinckley failed in his assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. And then there was Bill Clinton. Some Republicans saw him as a drug-dealing murderer whose wife killed family friend Vincent Foster.
Now Jonathan Chait of the New Republic says simply, �I hate President George W. Bush.� Not one to hold back, he explains, �You decide Bush is a dullard lacking any moral constraints in his pursuit of partisan gain, loyal to no principle save the comfort of the very rich, unburdened by any thoughtful consideration of the national interest, and a man who, on those occasions when he actually does make a correct decision, does so almost by accident.� More concisely, charges James Traub in the New York Times Magazine, �George Bush is a craven, lazy, hypocritical nitwit.�
Chait�s recent essay has triggered a spate of conservative responses. Bush is wonderful, liberals are irrational, and the whole thing is bad for America. These are rather hilarious arguments coming from conservatives. For instance, New York Times columnist David Brooks calls the phenomenon of the Bush haters a �core threat to democracy.� Yet, as Brooks acknowledges, the Clinton years were also well populated with haters. Brooks now regrets having not spoken out more clearly against the latter.
Better late than never, perhaps, but his conversion looks awfully convenient, as does that of other conservative Bush defenders. Hatred of Bill Clinton never made sense. In contrast, anger was fully justified.
I never understood why conservatives invested so much emotion in Clinton. He was a charming and bright but enormously flawed, highly ambitious man of few principles. That warranted criticism, not hatred. But I joined in early and often. During his first summer of discontent I urged Clinton�s critics to �pile on� as opposition mounted to his policies. Over the years there was a moral imperative to take aim in the target-rich environment: the attempted government takeover of the health-care system, the pork-barrel stimulus package, the use of jackboot tactics against critics of federal policies, the endless claims of victimization, the unjustified Kosovo war, the sale of administration access for campaign contributions, the special-interest Whitewater and cattle-futures pay-offs, the sustained efforts to cover up such abuses, and the presidential perjury in federal court proceedings.
Clinton was properly impeached. He should have been removed from office. The rule of law demanded no less.
Similarly, though George W. Bush is very different from Bill Clinton, hatred makes no sense. But anger is appropriate.
Much of the liberal case against President Bush is barely short of silly. His election was not illegitimate. Whether or not the candidate with the most votes should win, that�s not what the U.S. Constitution says. Blame the Founders, not George W. Bush.
Complaints about Bush�s fabled inarticulateness and privileged background are superficial. More worrisome are his partisan focus, demand for personal loyalty, and tendency to keep score, but these are hardly characteristics warranting hatred.
The charge that he�s a crazy right-winger is beyond silly. Other than tax cuts�which have benefited the rich only because the rich paid, and still pay, most of the taxes�virtually nothing of conservative substance has happened. Government is more expansive and expensive than ever before.
Jonathan Chait must have been smoking funny cigarettes when he wrote, �t�s not much of an exaggeration to say that Bush would like to roll back the federal government to something resembling its pre-New Deal state.� Sad to say, inaugurating limited private retirement accounts is not the same as eliminating Social Security, let alone dismantling the Leviathan that has grown up in Washington.
James Traub contends, �Today�s Republican Party is arguably the most extreme�the furthest from the center�of any governing majority in the nation�s history.� This is the Republican Party that has embraced as its own every liberal initiative, from Lyndon Johnson�s Medicare to Jimmy Carter�s Department of Education to Bill Clinton�s AmeriCorps. This is the Republican Party preparing to enact a Medicare drug benefit that would represent the largest expansion of the welfare state in 40 years. This is the Republican Party that is increasing federal education spending as if doing so had something to do with the quality of local schools. This is the Republican Party that is increasing spending faster than during the Clinton years. Right-wing extremists? For the Left, liberal means centrist, and moderate conservative approaches fascist. Really conservative is off the spectrum.
But this president deserves to be criticized. Sharply. By anyone who believes in limited, constitutional government.
First, George W. Bush, despite laudable personal and family characteristics, is remarkably incurious and ill read. Gut instincts can carry even a gifted politician only so far. And a lack of knowledge leaves him vulnerable to simplistic remedies to complex problems, especially when it comes to turning America into the globe�s governess.
Second, despite occasional exceptions, the Bush administration, backed by the Republican-controlled Congress, has been promoting larger government at almost every turn. Its spending policies have been irresponsible, and its trade strategies have been destructive. The president has been quite willing to sell out the national interest for perceived political gain, whether the votes sought are from seniors or farmers. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 encouraged the administration to push into law civil-liberties restrictions that should worry anyone, whether they are wielded by a Bush or a Clinton administration.
The president and his aides have given imperiousness new meaning. Officials are apparently incapable of acknowledging that their pre-war assertions about Iraq�s WMD capabilities were incorrect; indeed, they resent that the president is being questioned about his administration�s claims before the war. They are unwilling to accept a role for Congress in deciding how much aid money to spend.
Some of Bush�s supporters have been even worse, charging critics with a lack of patriotism. Not to genuflect at the president�s every decision is treason. In two decades of criticizing liberal politicians and positions, I have rarely endured the vitriol that was routinely spewed by conservatives when I argued against war with Iraq over the last year. Conservative papers stopped running my column; conservative Web sites removed it from their archives. That was their right, of course, but they demonstrated that it was not just the Clintons who were fair-weather friends.
Third, President George W. Bush has made Woodrow Wilson the guiding spirit of Republican foreign policy. A candidate who criticized nation building is now pursuing global social engineering. The representative of a party that once criticized foreign aid is now pushing lavish U.S. social spending abroad, demanding that it be a gift rather than a loan.
And the administration has advanced a doctrine of pre-emption that encourages war for allegedly humanitarian ends. Attempting to justify the Iraqi war retrospectively by pointing to Saddam Hussein�s manifold crimes, the president apparently believes he may attack any nation to advance human rights. Ironically, the Bush administration has adopted as its policy the question posed by then UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright to then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell: what�s the use of having this fine military you keep talking about if we don�t use it?
The negative practical consequences of this policy are all too evident. Ugly foreign governments from Iran to North Korea have an incentive to arm themselves, quickly, with WMD to deter a U.S. preventive assault.
Iraq has become a magnet for terrorist attacks while becoming a long-term dependent under U.S. military occupation.
Anger towards�indeed, hatred of�Washington is likely to continue growing, even in once friendly nations. It will be difficult to maintain an imperial foreign policy with a volunteer military.
Liberals should identify with the Bush record. He is increasing the size and power of the U.S. government both at home and abroad. He has expanded social engineering from the American nation to the entire globe. He is lavish with dollars on both domestic and foreign programs. For this the Left hates him?
The tendency to hate, really hate, opposing politicians surely is not good for American democracy. It is not rational to hate George W. Bush, just as it was not rational to hate Bill Clinton. But after spending eight years hating Clinton, conservatives who complain about the Bush-haters appear to be hypocrites.
George W. Bush enjoys neither royal nor religious status that would place him beyond criticism. Whether or not he is a real conservative, he is no friend of limited, constitutional government. And for that the American people should be very, very angry.
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Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan.
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Interesting article.
Hey dave...please shrink the width of your text in your sig (or add a return in there or something)......it makes me have to sidescroll every line to read you posts.
Makes it hard to read them.
Thanks,
MrS
are you complaining again about your resolution??!
huh!
just maxamize the window like the rest of us
They (Conservatives) also hate that Bush likes the Chinese!
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| Originally posted by Yoepus are you complaining again about your resolution??! huh! just maxamize the window like the rest of us |
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| Originally posted by MrSquirrel I abhor using a full screen browser window, it keeps me from being able to see wha is going on in other applications that I strategically place their windows to the side of the browser. I also am of the belief that a "webpage" should be page shaped. Thus widening my browser window makes it less like a sheet of paper and that annoys me. Windows users don't understand this because they are too used to doing things the microsoft way Oh..and Yoepus...go harvest some mustard MrS |
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| Originally posted by Yoepus hey! go jump off a tree or something, you no good "I don't use microsoft and I need a webpage to be page size because it has the word 'page' in it" for nothing chipmunk let the flame wars begin |
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| Originally posted by MrSquirrel Hey dave...please shrink the width of your text in your sig (or add a return in there or something)......it makes me have to sidescroll every line to read you posts. Makes it hard to read them. Thanks, MrS |
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| Originally posted by MrSquirrel You need to work on your sentence structure Yoepus....I had trouble following your post hehe. MrS |
President Bush Is Less Conservative Than Clinton
http://www.prisonplanet.com/120803lessconservative.html
By Alex Jones
Orange County Register
I am writing this column to one particular sort of reader. I want as many people as possible to read my column, of course, but this week's essay is geared toward those who insist that President George W. Bush - a man I supported and voted for - is advancing the cause of freedom.
Don't be influenced in your thinking about the president by the odd gyrations of America's leftists, who are consumed by Bush-spite. They despise him and embrace kooky ideas about him. It's almost enough to make one rally to the president's defense, but we shouldn't.
The enemy of our enemies is not necessarily our friend. Especially when the president, even though I believe him to be a decent man, is busy expanding government power at a pace that would have been unthinkable even under Bill Clinton's horrible administration.
We need to be hardheaded and evaluate this president in the same way we evaluated Clinton, Jimmy Carter and other presidents. I remain a Republican, because over my lifetime, Republicans have been the only party with a winning chance that has come close to advocating, however inadequately, principles of limited government.
Watching the Republican Party at the national level over the past three years is causing rethinking on my part. I want other Americans of right-leaning persuasion to hold the president and the Republican-majority Congress accountable for their deeds, rather than their occasional fine-sounding words.
The U.S. Constitution means what it says. It does not live and breathe, which is a liberal euphemism for stretching the Constitution to say whatever it is liberals want it to mean at any particular time, usually in service to some modern, government-expanding idea.
Government must be limited. Growth in government is not good, because government is based on coercion. Individuals do a better job spending their own hard- earned money than government, which lavishes its ill-gotten gains on special interest groups and constituencies that whine the loudest. Government should protect the national defense and do some basic, clearly delineated tasks, but defense means defense, not offense. American civil liberties must not be endangered by never-ending wars with constantly shifting endposts.
Compared to this ideal, President Bush is a disaster. Even compared to other modern conservative politicians, he has been a huge disappointment. In fairness, the president has been good on tax cuts, has appointed some decent people to judicial posts and has resisted some of the worst proposals from the left, such as the Kyoto global warming treaty.
But mostly it has been one sellout after another.
Writes the Cato Institute's Doug Bandow in a cover story in the American Conservative magazine: "Despite occasional exceptions, the Bush administration, backed by the Republican-controlled Congress, has been promoting larger government at almost every turn. Its spending policies have been irresponsible, and its trade strategies have been destructive. The president has been quite willing to sell out the national interest for perceived political gain, whether the votes sought are from seniors or farmers. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 encouraged the administration to push into law civil-liberties restrictions that should worry anyone, whether they are wielded by a Bush or a Clinton administration."
It's hard to argue with this.
This president has not vetoed a single bill, which means he has signed into law every big-spending project that has come down the pike. Federal spending, even on non-military matters, has soared. His nation-building experiments are downright Wilsonian, a far cry from the "humbler" foreign policy he promised when he ran for office.
These are criticisms from the right, so save the "you stinking Democrat-loving pinko" e-mails for someone else. I argued for libertarians to vote for Bush in a column before the election, believing that his calls for limited government and restrained foreign policy were far superior to Al Gore's quasi-socialism, nutty environmentalism and love of Clinton-style nation- building. (Note: The Register doesn't endorse candidates, but one week we featured columns by each editorial writer explaining our personal choices for president.)
But look at what we've got, with the largest entitlement increase in decades pushed forward by the president (prescription drugs), and it's hard for me to know what to say. The right words are coming to mind: "I'm sorry." I'm sorry to my readers for suggesting such a choice. I'm sorry to my libertarian colleagues, who warned me there wouldn't be any noticeable difference between a Bush and Gore administration.
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, writing last week for LewRockwell.com, agrees: "The unfortunate truth is that the Bush administration, aided by a Republican Congress, has increased spending more in three years than the previous administration did in eight. Federal spending has grown by more than 25 percent since President Bush took office." As Paul explains, the president no longer even uses conservative rhetoric. He doesn't just act like a social democrat, but he talks like one.
Yet so many conservatives continue to celebrate this president as a conservative champion. At least under the Clinton administration - and I did and still do resent the former president's liberal policies and deceptions - the Republican Congress fought back. Now pure partisanship pushes the GOP to endorse policies it opposed under Clinton.
Cato Institute Executive Vice President David Boaz explains in a recent Washington Post column that under President Ronald Reagan, non-defense discretionary spending fell by 13.5 percent but increased by nearly 21 percent under Bush II. How is that for a contrast?
Pointing to vast federal expansions in education, medical care and other areas under Bush and the Republican Congress, conservative columnist Cal Thomas wrote on Nov. 30: "We are moving rapidly, under Republican 'leadership,' past the nanny state and the welfare state to what might be called the state as family. ... Is it time for another revolution yet? Who's got the tea?"
Tough stuff. But if you still refuse to listen to these conservative and libertarian leaders, then pay attention to one of Republicanism's great modern heroes, former President Reagan.
Here are words from his famous 1964 speech supporting Barry Goldwater's presidential run:
"I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this. ...
"It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the founding fathers. ...
"Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? ... We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation."
America's enemy has changed, but the principles are still the same. It's time for those who had supported the president to make their criticisms heard. If it puts us in league with some scary left-wing loonies, don't worry. Our arguments make sense, and theirs are crazy.
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Yeah, I know Alex Jones is a little nuts, so don't bother pointing that out. I'll find that article by Cal Thomas really quick.
The real question is, why do so many people still think Bush is a conservative?
Damn, that was prolly one of the fastest thread-hijacking I've seen in a while hehe.
Interesting article though. Thanks for posting it.
I tried to read that last night, and there was no way I could.
Good article. I dislike Bush
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| Originally posted by anuneventrade I tried to read that last night, and there was no way I could. Good article. I dislike Bush |
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| Originally posted by occrider But you like Cheney right? |
I think after that misleading attack on Clark, it's pretty obvious the Drudge Report site is a right-wing smear site, but sometimes it does have interesting stories:
http://www.washtimes.com/national/2...12447-9758r.htm
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Conservative groups break with Republican leadership By Ralph Z. Hallow THE WASHINGTON TIMES National leaders of six conservative organizations yesterday broke with the Republican majorities in the House and Senate, accusing them of spending like "drunken sailors," and had some strong words for President Bush as well. "The Republican Congress is spending at twice the rate as under Bill Clinton, and President Bush has yet to issue a single veto," Paul M. Weyrich, national chairman of Coalitions for America, said at a news briefing with the other five leaders. "I complained about profligate spending during the Clinton years but never thought I'd have to do so with a Republican in the White House and Republicans controlling the Congress." Warning of adverse consequences in the November elections, the leaders said the Senate must reject the latest House-passed omnibus spending bill or Mr. Bush should veto the measure. "The whole purpose of having a Republican president is to lead the Republican Congress," said Paul Beckner, president of Citizens for a Sound Economy, whose co-chairman is former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas. "The Constitution gives the president the power to veto legislation, and if Congress won't act in a fiscally responsible way, the president has to step in � but he hasn't done that." "If the president doesn't take a stand on this, there's a real chance the Republicans' voter base will not be enthusiastic about turning out in November, no matter who the Democrats nominate," Mr. Beckner said. Mr. Weyrich warned that if the Senate passes the omnibus bill and the president fails to veto it, "in all probability the party's conservative-activist core voters aren't going to work to help win the election for Bush and the Republicans, and they may well not even vote." The Heritage Foundation has projected that passage of the bill would "mark the third consecutive year of massive discretionary spending growth" following increases of 13 percent and 12 percent in the previous two years. "Congress' continued fiscal irresponsibility is clearly exhibited in the thousands of pork projects contained in the bill," the Heritage report noted. The Heritage report says the omnibus bill will set the stage for discretionary spending to increase by 9 percent in 2004 to $900 billion, not the 3 percent claimed by Congress. Asked for comment, Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for Republican National Chairman Ed Gillespie, said that while the last Clinton budget "proposed a 15 percent increase for spending unrelated to national defense, homeland security, entitlement programs and interest on the national debt," the first Bush budget "proposed lowering this increase to 6 percent, the second budget to below 5 percent and the latest to 2 percent for next year." But conservative critics said that Congress opted to spend far more, and Mr. Bush didn't move to stop it. Mr. Bush and the Republican lawmakers are expected to face another barrage of criticism next week, this time from some 4,000 activists at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, where Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican congressional leaders are slated to speak. "A lot of Senate Republicans will be speaking at CPAC, and the grass-roots conservatives attending won't be shy about their displeasure," said Richard Lessner, executive director of the American Conservative Union. Citizens Against Government Waste, the Club for Growth and National Taxpayers Union also joined yesterday's conservative protest of excessive spending. For more than a year, a rebellion in Republican ranks has been brewing over the spending issue. Conservatives, including some House Republicans, finally revolted openly over the $400 billion prescription-drug benefit passed by Congress and signed by Mr. Bush last year � which would expand the government with the largest new entitlement in a generation. |
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| Originally posted by Vesa When I was a little kid, I considered the US to be the leader of the free world against the Soviet Union. As an adult, I've lost that admiration. Yesterday I discovered a US Conservative who suddenly reminded me why I had had so much faith in the US: http://ashby2004.com/issues_ns.htm Guys like him usually have a dark side behind the near-perfect facade, but I'm not sure if it's a liability or a recommendation However, a sensible Conservative he seems to be.On the other hand, many of Bush's Neo-"Conservative" advisers are not real Conservatives, but instead ex-Democrats, who look to me like embodiments of the bad sides of both Conservatives and Liberals: faith-based moralism, even racism, police state, making free trade into a big company circus, irresponsible budgeting for no-end government projects, uncontrolled immigration, building a worldwide Globocop Empire with US military and NATO, manipulating elections in foreign countries to spread Neocon ideology. PS. American Conservative is the magazine of Pat Buchanan. His ideas would make for an internationally respectable US foreign policy, and the same can be said of the Realpolitik Camp of US Conservatives. |
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