Bush Can Count On the Right

Last week, the Democratic National Committee began distributing several pages of quotes from conservatives critical of President Bush on a variety of fronts and suggesting to the media that the fact that we don't agree with the man on everything all of the time is evidence of real weakness in his base. Some in the media took the bait, and many of us got calls from reporters wondering if the president can really rely on the strong support he's going to need from his conservative base to win in November.

Now, the summer silly season is fast approaching, so perhaps one has to cut these folks a little slack, but their reasoning defies logic and represents little more than a hopeful fantasy among those who go to bed at night hoping the conservative Republican coalition will somehow fracture. It isn't going to happen … at least not this time around.

While the Democrats were circulating their theory, the president himself was addressing the 40th anniversary banquet of the American Conservative Union here in Washington. To say that he was well received by the audience of more than 700 activist conservative leaders would be a gross understatement. Indeed, we welcomed him as one of our own. Those attending agreed, I think, with my observation in introducing him that they, like millions of conservatives around the country, are prepared to do their part to see to it that he is re-elected this fall.

Does this enthusiastic support mean that we agree with his every act as president? Of course not. But he knew when he accepted our invitation and when he took the microphone that he was speaking to friends who believe he's done a remarkable job given the challenges he's faced since taking office in January 2001. He knew, too, that we all consider ourselves part of the same team and that he can count on us both to work for his re-election and to prod him to govern as we hope he will.

Frankly, those hoping for a collapse of the president's base don't seem to be able to grasp the simple fact that conservatives can differ with their friends on matters of policy but rally behind them if they are doing a good job overall, and are quite capable of recognizing the difference between friends, allies and those, like John Kerry, who oppose everything they want. In fact, it is not all that hard to tell when we are really mad enough at those who need our support to take a walk.

When many of us concluded prior to the 1972 elections that President Nixon had forfeited his claim to conservative support, conservatives ran a protest candidate against him in New Hampshire. When his successor did everything he could to infuriate us, we almost denied him his party's nomination in 1976. In 1992, conservatives flocked to Pat Buchanan because they were upset and offended by the current president's father's abandonment of the promises he'd made during his 1988 campaign.

None of those protests succeeded, but each reflected deep discontent within the GOP base. In none of those cases did it take a Democrat with a divining rod and a bunch of handouts to find out we were upset.

There was no talk of a primary protest against the current president this year for the simple reason that, while we might oppose such things as his Medicare prescription drug program and believe he could do far more to cut government spending, few believe he's abandoned us or the principles we like to believe we represent. No president is perfect, but most conservatives believe that this is one who deserves another term.

This doesn't mean that conservatives will agree with everything the president says or does in the future. We'll agree with him when he's right, urge him to change course when we believe he's wrong and work as hard as we have to to make sure he's there to listen to us for another four years.

Moreover, even those few with lingering doubts about whether he will be able to deliver as much as they'd like in his second term know that Kerry is not the answer to anyone's prayers. Ideologically, stylistically and in every other way, the Democratic nominee is just the guy to get conservative juices flowing.

So the president's political coalition is in pretty good shape, and certainly in far better shape than that on which his opponent will have to depend. Ralph Nader, the spoiler out there, is not a conservative but a nutty liberal who thinks the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate should be rejected by Democrats as not liberal enough.

Perhaps someone should be distributing a few pages of what Nader thinks about Kerry.

PhiKap

If a President Clinton, Gore or Kerry had acted, done or proposed many of the same things that President Bush has, you would have been among the first to use those actions as an example of "Liberalism Gone Wild". Now that is not to say President Bush has not done some good things for our country.

I heard Rush this week spending a lot of time explaining to a caller that what appears to many as another cave in (regarding judicial appointments) that President Bush has a certain "respect for the office and he wants to take politics out of the office". After providing that extensive and elaborate cover, he then quickly said he disagreed or was disapointed at President Bush for those actions.

Well in a divided congress, what else does the President have other than the Bully Pulpit to advance his agenda for the country? The Bully Pulpit is about politics. Getting his/her way. Using the (perceived) power of the office.

Look, I'm one of those mushy moderates. And you know what, I've been surprised and disappointed in some of the Presidents less than converative moves. I've been disappointed in who he's been looking and listening to for answers in Iraq. That effort is caving in around him. Yes it's media driven to a point. But if this was the dem listed above who was in office and the same problems, abuses and setbacks had occurred in Iraq and it wasn't discussed on the news, we as right leaning folks would have been complaining about the coverup of these problems. I've come to the conclusion it's not about the news, but rather who the news hurts. That's sad.

I mentioned the caller who was disappointed on the perceived Bush cave in. Notice how much time he spends on giving the President cover, then he goes on to say (albiet briefly) he disagrees.

RUSH: You do more for me than you know, too, so I appreciate your call and I'm glad you brought this up. This is two calls in a row here angry at President Bush, one for lack of boldness in dealing with the war on terror, and now apparently in her mind caving on judges. Now, here's the story if you haven't heard it, it's the Washington Post today, it's a Helen Dewar story: President, Senate Reach Pact on Judicial Nominations. “The White House pledged yesterday that President Bush will not bypass the Senate in appointing federal judges (meaning no recess appointments) for the next eight months as part of a bipartisan deal to break a seven-week impasse over votes on Bush's judicial nominees.”

Now, the problem with this is, as you read the story, anyway, now this has happened to me before, I've read stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, and they have not been really -- let's just say I've gotten phone calls from people in the administration saying, that story was not accurate. It wasn't right and it turned out to be true. So I'm just going to tell you what the story says, because they portray this as some big deal having been struck, but as you read it, it looks like the only people that caved are the administration.

“Under the agreement, Bush will not use his constitutional power to give temporary appointments to judicial nominees during congressional recesses for the rest of his current term -- In return, Democrats, who had been holding up action on all of Bush's judicial choices since March to protest the recess appointments, agreed to allow votes on 25 mostly non-controversial nominations to district and appeals court posts over the next several weeks.”

So the Democrats were going to allow votes on the non-controversial, meaning they have litmus tests. No conservatives, no pro-lifers, nobody that actually believes the Constitution, and we're going to have our people in there or nobody gets in there at all, and Bush just apparently agreed with this. Because they were holding up after his recess appointments they were refusing action on any judges, this was a Daschle technique.

Now, on the surface this does appear to be a huge cave, but it's too soon. I don't know what 25 they are talking about. The use of the word "non-controversial" in here is something I need further definition on, since it is not a quote from any Democrats, but, rather, just put in there by the reporterette and info babe. But I can answer the question that she asked and all of you, why even do this? Podhoretz is right today in the New York Post, boldness, boldness, why not be bold? And I mentioned this in a long, drawn-out monolog some -- I guess in the last ten days. Let me just give you an abbreviated version of what I think is happening here -- and not just in this case, but in almost every other area where partisanship is involved -- the White House appears to cave, do they not?

All right, now, there's a reason for it, I believe. I think that the president himself, the president personally has this exalted view of the presidency as a constitutional office, and I think he actually considers it to be above all of this petty partisanship that is being exhibited by the Democrats today. And so he's going to take action that will demonstrate he's above partisanship, and he does not want the office of the president. I don't think this is synonymous with Clinton's triangulation. This is an exalted view of the executive branch in which the self-image is, it is nonpolitical. The business of the country is too important for there to be politics involved. And so when really revved-up, partisan fights erupt, I think the tendency of this White House is to abandon them not because they want to cave, although it appears that that's what they're doing, but because they think the office is better than this. They think the office ought not be sullied by politics, particularly in historical legacies. I think this is really at the root of the new tone, to tell you the truth, now that I've thought about it, and I think that in addition to this, that the president believes that you will notice this and appreciate it and credit him for seriousness and judiciousness and reward him for the reverence with which he holds the office and his occupancy of it at this time.

I actually think -- and I even read -- there was a beneficiary, the recipient of an inter-office e-mail between two journalists, one on our side, one on the other side. They were discussing this and both of them were aghast. I mean the liberal journalist was happy that this kind of action was going on; it was not about this story, it was about something else. The conservative-oriented journalist was just fit to be tied, pulling his hair out, didn't understand why, but had this line. Said, "On Tuesday, the Bush's looked like the biggest buffoons in Washington. On Friday, they've won the issue." And he was not talking about any specific issue, he was talking about the historical three years and reciting his approval numbers and his personal popularity and this sort of thing.

By the way, Rassmussen poll is out, Bush's approval number, 52. And he's leading Kerry 45-43, despite all this that's going on. And I think Rassmussen is accurate, and I think one of the reasons for that is that more and more people are starting to see the total absurdity of what's going on. I've got a story, Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post today, he's got a piece on how Kerry -- there was an earlier piece that we shared with you about how the great recovery and economy can't get noticed, as though it's a person, the economy can't get noticed because of the Iraq scandal, the prison coverage and so forth. Well, guess who else isn't getting noticed? And that's Kerry. Howard Kurtz and some people did a study on how many minutes he's getting on the nightly news. Zero. He can't even get noticed. Which I suspect is on purpose because the more he's noticed, the worse he does. But, anyway, I really think that's what this is, folks.

By the way, don't misunderstand me when I say to you here that I am endorsing this, because I'm like you. I mean, if it's political, the White House is a political office, the presidency is a political office, you run for it on political issues. Politics is how we organize our lives and there are competing elements and interests in politics, and it is our desire to beat our enemies in the arena of ideas. I think the White House has a bully pulpit. The presidency is a bully pulpit to advance those ideas -- that's I couldn't run, in my mind, is to advance the ideas that you have -- and of course you want to maintain the respect and the reverence and the historical significance of the office of the presidency. But I really do think that some of these things the Democrats are the minority in the Senate. And they're running it. And that's how it appears. So I'm like a lot of you. While I think I understand what's happening here, I'm also of the mind here that it's time for a little assertiveness and boldness, particularly on the balancing field and in our foreign policy. It's time to put things back in perspective here, and if you want to grovel for a week over the prison business, do it, but then it's over, we're investigating, fini, done, let's move on, instead of having this effect that we tie our hands, which is what it's doing. That, and all other kinds of political correctness that seem to be seeping in to how we are conducting ourselves here.

All these investigations, investigating ourselves in the middle of what we're doing? I mean, it's like getting married on Monday and going to the marriage counselor every day thereafter to examine how the marriage is going, you spend all the time analyzing, never live it. The time to do all that is certainly not in the middle of the effort here. I don't mean to compare marriage to war, ladies, please.

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