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.
Doubt if it's syphilitic.
Yes MadIvan, sounds like somebody peed, in the gay boy's Wheaties.
Poor little Andy, who gives a whit of what he thinks about W.
Sullivan's lifestyle mocks God. At his peril.
In which case he should definitely vote for Bush.
Bush has done more to fight AIDS worldwide than ANY other world leader in history.
It's my opinion that Andrew has been a one issue "man" all along. He can flip and flop all over the place but one thing remains constant. He is devoted to butt sex. That's it. Understand that and you know what drives him.
Coprophilia can be deadly. This guy has sepsis of the brain.
I slammed Sullivan, but characterizing him as some sex crazed hormone driven unthinking animal, is really over the top. I refer you to, and extend my remarks, made above.
Selling out for sodomy.
Years ago homosexuals were aware (because churches and society told them) that they were sexually confused and maladapted due to some early childhood sexual abuse. So they kept their behavior to themselves.
Not these days. Once the American Psychiatric Association lifted its admonition against homosexuality, gays were encouraged to declare their gayness as "normal" and "healthy."
It's neither.
I have no animosity toward gays who admit their error. We are all sinners in need of God's grace.
But gays who teach our children that homosexuality is good and productive are evil. They are perpetuating the sexual abuse of children which they've suffered themselves.
It has to stop somewhere.
sullivam only cares about homosexual sex.
he is irrelevant
Regrettably, that seems to be a failing that Andrew shares with a past President.
That Sullivan can't see that Middle East "nation building" is inextricably linked to national security represents a triumph of libido over good sense.
And that he can't comprehend that what Kerry might say, while campaigning, has no particular relationship to what he might do, if elected also tells me that his prism is monochromatic pink.
How unfortunate. I just lost a lot of respect for Sullivan...
I must say that we have seen in the last few years a lot of talking about one's personal failings as a way to gain approval. It isn't only homosexuals who are doing this. Adulterers, gluttons, spendthrifts, misogynists, racists, and selfish people all have written articles and gone to the airways to tell us that their thinking is really mainstream.
This is destructive to society and also to the people who do so. Sullivan, by airing his failings, has forced himself to take a position that sacrifices his common sense on the altar of sexual gratification.
My personal opinion is that people's personal lives are theirs; when they drag it into the public arena they invite comment on their lives, and it isn't always going to be approving.
I am not the world's best housekeeper. That is my failing. However, I do not ask HGTV to come into my home so that I can ask everyone to approve my sloppiness. And should I do so, I would not be surprised to see critics surface who keep neater homes and think that I should correct myself.
No, homosexuals care more about gay marriage than AIDS in Africa.
What a completely moronic article. Conservatives (includes conservative Christians )Should vote for Kerry so we can be retrained? Sullivan is a one issue voter (gay marriage), he can't understand that the right to marry is only important if you are alive...not dead from some vicious terrorist attack.
Eight years of Clinton (typical Democrat national security policy) lead directly to 9-11. This is the first attack on American soil since Parl Harbor. Since 9-11, the Democrats have committed treason in order to be elected. They have stolen secret documents, lied, given aid and comfort to the enemy and tried to block President Bush's national security efforts constantly.
Democratic activist plan to tie up the police with their nonsense (visiting gun ranges etc so they set off alarms at security checkpoints) thus helping terrorists who want to kill us. The Democrats as a party (I used to one) have lost their minds and are a complete disgrace. Wake up and smell the coffee Andrew, Democrats are a national disgrace, and no thinking, responsible person would consider voting for any Democrat for any elected office-not even dog catcher. Dogs deserve better.... and so does America.
This is a new low for Andrew. He's pushing a socialist and he knows it.
Nothing matters as much to a queer as buggery. The whole world can go to hell, as long as he can satisfy his addiction. That's one thing that makes them different from normal people.
"I think we can do without some of the other comments I am reading here, don't you?"
Well, no. Sullivan is a single-issue voter who is pretending that that is not the case, which is dishonest. I might wish that the comments were more diplomatically phrased, but the substance they convey is an accurate evaluation of reality.
That was an obnoxious and unfair comment. My brother is gay, and he's voting for Bush. He's also very involved in his corporate work.
I don't think that gay-bashing is a very constructive activity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.