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.
I know Military Chick personally. She's my wife. She's posted on FR under other names in the past, in fact for several years. She decided to chose a new name to post under recently (you'll have to ask her why).
It is nice to have a man stand up for his wifes honor. Indeed I did post under my first initial and maiden name. When we married I decided to post under my married name. I chose this because franky I do not like posting on something that hides a person. At the time my husband was uncomfortable with using our name that I did change it.
Again why go off topic?
Life ain't easy for a boy named "sue."
bump to read later
Uh chick you can always state your old multiple screen names in the tag line, if you wish.
Don't let them get you down. You're getting a bum rap. All you did was post the freaking article. I think later you indicated that you did not agree with it. That was smart, because the article collapsed of its own weight, to the enjoyment of so many of us.
And her intial comment was "Voices that perhaps need to be heard?".
Sorry torie and MC, but if you all don't know by now that the AP gives voices that want to destroy this country the biggest megaphone in their commentary articles, then you will never learn.
Sheesh when posting an AP comentary article a requiste "barf alert" is mandatory, IMO.
Thanks.
Let me now correct a few typos that distorted my meaning in the post:
"This neo-isolationist totally distorted the real Reagan record of supporting freedom fighters world-wide and Reagan's pro-active anti-Communist work from supporting Polish unions to deploying intermediate missiles, and missed the *whole* point here: G W Bush is fighting the war on terror the way Reagan fought the Communists, To Win.
Isolationists like Pat B. *can't* see that. And Liberals and the French *can't* stand the idea of American victory. So they are apoplectic, as were the anti-antiCommunists in the 1980s over Reagan's boldness."
Thank you, thought about making up some stickers. But, really don't wanna muck up my vehicle with the liks of John, John!
All true.
But it is ALSO true that the Democrat Party each year slips further into the abyss of Socialist claptrap, treason, and advocating the destruction of our core values, beliefs and institutions (like the family, military etc).
Do we want to break up a party? Yes we do: The DEMOCRATS.
We are on an historical threshold. If the Republicans fall to the Democrats, it is all over: THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO RECREATE CANADA AND FRANCE HERE.
1. Fight Conservative fights in the GOP to win friends and influence people.
2. Unite the Right to get behind the GOP in November elections.
When you can do that without citing Michael Savage, or one of the clowder here, I might take your opinions more seriously.Presently,I find them bereft of intellectual honesty.
Key Conservatives, my ass! Is "KEY" a code name for RINO's?
Kookier
Every
Year
Yep! that's RINO's!
Go back and read my entire post you are quoting.
Taking this absurdity further, suppose Bush said, I hereby declare Roe v Wade null and void. Assuming he is not taken away in a strait jacket, then what? OK, so Idaho passes a law prohibiting abortion, and arrests somebody getting an abortion. The federal court issues a writ of habeas corpus. Bush somehow takes custody, and ignores that order. Splendid.
I think you are a bit of a nutter. You are, aren't you?
I did and it read like that you were giving the benefit of the doubt to Wiener(Savage) in your reply #147, thus my reply #179.
I am a key conservative and I support Bush/Cheney. Lots of us key conservative out here in fly over country. My vote counts as much as the self important Belt Way guys. How about that---
No, it was bombed when Germany was on its last legs, and was not bombed to take out factories no longer doing much, or relevant to anything. (If they really wanted to take out factories, they should have firebombed Essen.) It was bombed because Churchill wanted payback for the bombing of London.
What an asswipe. I knew he had to be a Richard Korb-type Reagan guy when he wrote "neoconservatives". A dead give-away we have a phony Republican lecturing us. Great find.
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