Posted on 07/11/2004 10:48:58 AM PDT by Military Chick
Some Key Conservatives Uneasy About Bush
SCOTT LINDLAW Associated Press
WASHINGTON - When an influential group of conservatives gathers in downtown Washington each week, they often get a political pep talk from a senior Bush administration official or campaign aide. They don't expect a fellow Republican to deliver a blistering critique of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war.
But nearly 150 conservatives listened in silence recently as a veteran of the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations ticked off a litany of missteps in Iraq by the Bush White House.
"This war is not going well," said Stefan Halper, a deputy assistant secretary of state under President Reagan.
"It's costing us a lot of money, isolating us from our allies and friends," said Halper, who gave $1,000 to George W. Bush's campaign and more than $83,000 to other GOP causes in 2000. "This is not the cakewalk the neoconservatives predicted. We were not greeted with flowers in the streets."
Conservatives, the backbone of Bush's political base, are increasingly uneasy about the Iraq conflict and the steady drumbeat of violence in postwar Iraq, Halper and some of his fellow Republicans say. The conservatives' anxiety was fueled by the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal and has not abated with the transfer of political power to the interim Iraqi government.
Some Republicans fear angry conservatives will stay home in November, undercutting Bush's re-election bid.
"I don't think there's any question that there is growing restiveness in the Republican base about this war," said Halper, the co-author of a new book, "America Alone: The Neoconservatives and the Global Order."
Some Republicans dismiss the rift as little more than an inside-the-Beltway spat among rival factions of the GOP intelligentsia. Indeed, conservatives nationwide are still firmly behind Bush. A Pew Research Center poll last month found that 97 percent of conservative Republicans favored Bush over Kerry.
But anger is simmering among some conservatives.
"I am bitterly disappointed in his actions with this war. It is a total travesty," said Tom Hutchinson, 69, a self-described conservative from Sturgeon, Mo., who posted yard signs and staffed campaign phone banks for the Republican in 2000. Hutchinson said he did not believe the administration's stated rationales for the war, in particular the argument that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Hutchinson, a retired businessman and former college professor, said his unease with Iraq may lead him to do something he has not done since 1956: avoid the voting booth in a presidential election.
Jack Walters, 59, a self-described "classical conservative" from Columbia, Mo., said he hadn't decided which candidate to vote for.
"Having been through Vietnam, I thought no, never again," Walters said. "But here comes the same thing again, and I'm old enough to recognize the lame reasons given for going into Iraq, and they made me ill."
The tension has been building in official Washington, where conservative members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees have pressed the administration for answers on combat operations; disagreed with the Pentagon on troop levels; and expressed frustration with an administration they feel has shown them disdain by withholding information.
Chief political adviser Karl Rove's formula for re-election is primarily to push Bush's conservative base to the polls.
Another administration official involved in Bush's re-election effort has voiced concern that angry conservatives will sit out the election.
But Matthew Dowd, the Bush-Cheney campaign's chief strategist, described the fear of losing conservative support as "just ludicrous."
Bush is "as strong among conservative Republicans as any Republican president has been" - higher than President Reagan's approval among conservatives during his re-election campaign of 1984, Dowd said.
Yet, Halper said his critical review on the administration's performance on Iraq last week was met with expressions of support in the conservatives' weekly meeting, which is closed to journalists.
The marquee speaker sent by the administration was Eric Ciliberti, who spent several weeks in Iraq this year and told the audience of broad progress being made there.
Ciliberti complained to the group that the news media was not reporting the positive developments out of Iraq. Ciliberti did not return several calls late in the past week from a reporter seeking his account.
Not in nearly the strength needed .Stay at homes and single issue prima donnas don't help this , either. If the Senators realized the strength, and sitting home pouting is not strength, then I believe they'd be more likely to take it seriously. After all, this is hugh and series.
You go out of your way to insult conservatives on this forum. You regularly attempt to drive a wedge between GOP members where there is no divide.
Maybe...but the fact is we have troops on the ground now. You want to pull them out like a bunch of lily-livered Spainards? We need to finish the job this time.
these idiots in the press are using conservative way to loose. in their world Arnold is one.
But when it can mean handing the Senate over to the Democrats, it's not a time to take chances.
Maybe I am just too dense to see the forest through the trees or something.
I thought I was the only one to notice. If her signup date had been today, the VK's would haved been out in full force. But she fooled them by being a three-week old poster.
Cats have small brains.
Show me one post, where I "insulted" anyone.
Unless you are redefining words, as Clinton and Kerry do.
I merely point out the very obvious consequence, of people actions, which, one would think they should be able to see themselves.
Do you disagree with my statement, that "Anyone who prefers Kerry to Bush is no real conservative"?
Whom do YOU prefer?
There is Bush or Kerry. NO other choices.
I agree....and there is also little said about the bastards
in the Senate who will cut him down every chance they get...
I think we all should be out ..daily..how mad we are that
they tried to cheat us out of the Florida vote..we won that
State by some 10,000..votes..but they threw away most of
the military and all in the Dem. counties...Also...
after the election and Supreme Court nominees come up...
how BIG IS THAT? cAN PRESIDENT Bush make a Supreme Court
appointment when the Senate is in recess? Who knows for
sure..if so..that will scare hell out of the Daschles/
Kennedy/Schumer/ Clinton crowd..ROTFLMAO. jAKE
In return, the State Department said it would be more reluctant to get involved in peace-keeping missions, since our troops could be accused of war crimes.
But we didn't do that did we?
Re: "CONSERVATES NEED TO SHUT THEIR YAP, and lay out the 100 yards of CRUSHED GLASS to CRAWL ON to vote for BUSH."
Knuckle dragger alert. Not gonna do it, got it. Each voter will make up his or her own mind. You crawl on the glass and beg us.
This kinda thing does not help your cause folks.
That would be a pretty dangerous precedent to set. Eventually, the democrats WILL get the presidency back. Then what?
Joe, you clearly were not elected president for a reason. The bomb the shit out of them, and it will all be better mentality, is so vacuous. Talk about firing up the Muslim world to hurl themselves at the US any way they can - you've found the perfect recipe for that.
Becausue they know the idiots, ,I mean the true and principled(just ask them) ,won't bother to think . Instead , they'll jump on it as so many here have already. Why bother to be rational when self righteous swill works so much better.
Using your logic, I guess we should have fought a more politically correct, humane war with Japan and Germany.
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