Posted on 07/24/2004 4:32:41 PM PDT by MadIvan
If you are a conservative, whom should you be rooting for in the American elections? I am not being entirely facetious here. The conservative “movement” in the United States is still firmly behind the re- election of President George W Bush. He uses conservative rhetoric — taking the war to the enemy, upholding conservative social values, respecting religious faith, protecting the family and so on.
He is widely regarded as one of the most conservative presidents in recent history — rivalling Reagan, eclipsing his own father in right-wing bona fides. And yet if you decouple the notion of being a conservative from being a Republican, nobody can doubt that the Bush administration has been pursuing some highly unconservative policies.
Start with the war. Almost overnight after 9/11 Bush junked decades of American policy in the Middle East, abandoning attempts to manage Arab autocracies for the sake of the oil supply and instead forging a policy of radical democratisation. He invaded two countries and is trying to convert them to modern democracies.
Nothing so liberal has been attempted in a long time. In the 2000 campaign, Bush mocked the idea of “nation building” as liberal claptrap. Now it’s the centrepiece of his administration. The fact that anti-American lefties despise the attempt to democratise foreign countries should not disguise the fact that Bush is, in this respect, indisputably a foreign policy liberal. He has shown none of his father’s caution, no interest in old-style realpolitik.
At home Bush has been just as radical. He has junked decades of conservative attempts to restrain government and pushed federal spending to record levels, dismissing the idea that this will have damaging consequences. He has poured money into agricultural subsidies, he famously put tariffs on foreign steel, he has expanded the healthcare programme and increased the role of central government in education.
He has little or no concern for the separation of church and state, funnelling public money to religious charities, and he has appointed some of the most radical jurists to the federal bench. Just try finding a coherent theme in Bush Republicanism. It is in fact one of the most ramshackle distillations of political expediency ever tarted up as an “ism”.
There has also been, it’s safe to say, a remarkable recklessness in Bush’s approach. Was it really necessary to insist that the Geneva conventions do not apply to detainees in the war on terror?
When so many people warned that the hardest task in Iraq would be what happened after the fall of Baghdad, was it sensible to junk all the carefully written government reports for reconstruction and wing it? Was it wise to brag in the days after the first military victory in Iraq that it was “mission accomplished”? When the insurgency was growing, was it sensible to apply the methods of Guantanamo Bay to the hundreds of petty criminals and innocents hauled into Abu Ghraib?
At almost every juncture where prudence might have been called for, Bush opted for winging it. This approach can scarcely be called conservative.
So where is conservatism to be found? Maybe you should cast a glance at Boston, where this week the Democratic convention will anoint one John Forbes Kerry, a northeastern patrician who is fast becoming the eastern establishment’s favourite son.
Yes, Kerry’s record on spending, defence and social policy has been liberal. But that is not the theme of his campaign. Kerry says he is as dedicated to seeing through nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan as Bush. But where Bush has scrapped America’s long-standing military doctrine of attacking only when attacked, Kerry prefers the old, strictly defensive doctrine.
Where Bush has clearly placed American national interest above international concerns, Kerry demands that the old alliances — even with old Europe — need to be strengthened. Kerry insists that he is a fiscal conservative, aiming to reduce the deficit by tax increases. He has argued that stability in some parts of the world should take precedence over democracy or human rights.
He opposes amending the constitution and supports legal abortion, the status quo that Bush wants to reverse. He has spent decades in the Senate building an undistinguished but nuanced record. He is a war veteran who plays up his record of public service. He’s a church-going Catholic who finds discussion of religious faith unseemly in public. In the primaries he was the safe establishment bore compared with radicals such as Howard Dean and the populist charmer John Edwards.
His basic message: let’s return to “normalcy”. The radicalism of the past four years needs tempering. We need to consolidate nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan before any new adventures in, say, Iran. We need to return to the diplomatic obeisance to the United Nations. We should stop referring to a “war” on terror and return to pre-9/11 notions of terrorism, best dealt with by police work in co-ordination with our democratic allies.
At home we need to restrain the unruly religious right. We must balance the budget again. We need to redress some of the social and economic inequality that has so intensified during these past few years. Kerry’s biggest proposal — one sure to be modified by Congress — is a large increase in the number of people with health insurance. It’s far more modest than that proposed by Bill and Hillary Clinton a decade ago.
Does that make Kerry right and Bush wrong? On the most fundamental matter, ie the war, I think Bush has been basically right: right to see the danger posed by Saddam Hussein and the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and Islamist terror; right to realise that the French would never have acquiesced to ridding the world of Saddam; right to endorse the notion of pre-emption in a world of new and grave dangers.
Much of the hard work has now been done. Nobody seriously believes that Bush will start another war. And in some ways Kerry may be better suited to the difficult task of nation building than Bush.
At home Bush has done much to destroy the coherence of a conservative philosophy of American government and he has been almost criminally reckless in his conduct of the war. He and America will never live down the intelligence debacle of the missing WMDs. He and America will be hard put to regain the moral high ground after Abu Ghraib.
The argument that Kerry must make is that he can continue the war but without Bush’s polarising recklessness. And at home he must reassure Americans that he is the centrist candidate, controlled neither by the foaming Michael Moore left nor by the vitriolic religious right.
Put all that together and I may not find myself the only conservative moving slowly and reluctantly towards the notion that Kerry may be the right man — and the conservative choice — for a difficult and perilous time.
Baddabing baddaboom--Ivan shoots it between the eyes.
Bush has the protofascist neoreligious snake-handling obstinant refusal to cast the sacrament of marriage into the bathhouse gutter.
How insightful can the political commentary be of one who insists on keeping his head up his backside?
Spit it out there, Andy--Bush won't let you marry Bruce--that's the sum and substance of your purseswing hissy-fit vapors.
We could see this one coming, couldn't we?
oposition to homosexuality is not based on religion for many people.
As for the DNC Moore-ish talking point of being "offended" by GWBushes religion, that is a red hering.
It is far more offensive to have a president and his entourage saying "no controling legal authority" as opposed to a president who says "I must do the right thing regardless of re-election."
It is best summed up as with "it is freedom OF religion not freedom FROM religion." Atheism is just as much a religion which is required seperated from state.
( a federal judge has already ruled environmentalism is a religion.)
The ACLU types want to make a court order mandating the world pretend religion does not exist. IOW imposed atheism.
Homosexual Agenda Ping - As if Andrew Sullivan would say anything else. Note the "Barf til you Die" Alert on the top.
Disclaimer - I didn't read most of the above article. I'll try now. It's so hot, I really don't want to barf.
What I wonder is why anyone who isn't a flaming liberal pays any attention to Sullivan anyway.
let me know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.
God help us if Kerry is elected!
[sigh]
There has also been, it’s safe to say, a remarkable recklessness in Bush’s approach. Was it really necessary to insist that the Geneva conventions do not apply to detainees in the war on terror?
This also sounds like something out of the New York Times. Yes, it was necessary to insist that the Geneva Conventions DO NOT apply to unlawful combatants, because the Conventions say just that themsleves.
Andy is a queer boy!? No soup for Andy today!
Give me room, folks. (Taking a deep breath...)
Excuse me? Mr. Sullivan, were you too busy cruising TrickClick.com to notice that both the U.S. Senate and the U.K.'s Parliament cleared both Bush and Blair of blame in the (supposed) errors of both nations' intelligence apparatuses? Only an idiot would argue that Saddam Hussein wasn't acting as if he was hiding something -- it would have been irresponsible to treat him with the benefit of the doubt. If Kerry had been President when this intelligence surfaced, he either would have waged war based on what we knew to be true, or he would have pulled a Clinton and done next to nothing while talking tough. If Bush won't 'live it down,' it's because people like you are doing your best to unjustly tattoo it on him.
He and America will be hard put to regain the moral high ground after Abu Ghraib.
(Resisting the urge to swear...)
Oh, yes indeed, Mr. Sullivan, 'America lost the moral high ground' when in the interest of policing its own, it conducted an investigation into abuse of prisoners of war. 'America lost the moral high ground' when it allowed photographs of misconduct to be splashed across the world, rather than suppressing them and punishing those who revealed the truth. 'America lost the moral high ground' when it resisted destroying Iraqi "holy cities" where mosques served as the home bases of remote control bombers and ambushers with RPG's. 'America lost the moral high ground' when it refused to install a puppet ruler in Iraq to replace the regime of Saddam Hussein. 'America lost the moral high ground' when it restored fresh water, electric power, and schools to Iraqis who had been denied them by Saddam. Yep, Andy, one naked dogpile the likes of which we have never seen (well, maybe YOU have), and that ruined all that good work.
Why don't you just be honest, and admit that you are a one-issue voter this year? While the rest of us consider national security, foreign policy, and economic issues as of the utmost importance, you are distracted by not being able to call someone your husband, and you created this column as a fig leaf as you sell out to a duplicitous, unprincipled, indecisive empty suit whose greatest claim to fame is joining radical leftists in driving a wedge into the country by stereotyping Vietnam soldiers as bloodthirsty savages.
Mr. Sullivan, I might normally suggest that you hang your head down in shame, but it occurred to me that you are already staring downward quite often. That's your problem.
Buh Bye Andrew!
Hear the Donkey Bray
(RealPlayer)
[Expletive deleted] !!!
My opinion remains unchanged. There are too many suckers in the world. People can and do PRETEND to align themselves with an organization only to change or destroy it. Go read the goals of the Log Cabin Republicans. They want to CHANGE the Republicans. That's why they exist. But then, no one knows these tactics better than you , Torie.
You're absolutely right. He obviously places his priorities on him and no one else.
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