Posted on 03/21/2005 1:42:58 PM PST by RWR8189
PRESIDENT BUSH DID NOT INITIATE the political realignment that made Republicans a majority party. But he has helped create the current moment of opportunity for Republicans to enact a far-reaching conservative agenda. Absent Bush, Republicans might not have 55 senators--which they also had in 1997, but otherwise their greatest number since 1930--which was enough to approve oil-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge last week and to enact bankruptcy reform the week before. Both measures had failed repeatedly in recent years.
Five factors have come together to give Republicans their best chance for major legislative and foreign policy achievements in nearly 80 years. And Bush has been crucial to each one.
The first factor is, obviously, the Republican ascendancy. Bush had only a little to do with the breakthrough election in 1994, when Republicans won the Senate, House, and a majority of governorships (including that of Texas, where Bush became governor). Nor did he aid Republicans much in 2000 when he won the presidency but not the popular vote.
But in the midterm election of 2002 and last year's presidential contest, Bush campaigned aggressively for Republican congressional candidates. And Republicans picked up seats. Many Republican challengers might have won anyway, but not all. Either his campaigning or his coattails were critical to Senate victories for Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, Mel Martinez in Florida, and David Vitter in Louisiana. The Bush landslide in Alaska helped Sen. Lisa Murkowski keep her seat. And, of course, Bush's own reelection was necessary for Republican rule.
Factor two: Democratic disarray. Nothing drives Democrats to distraction--and to demagoguery--the way Bush does. He brings out the worst in them. If Bush wants something, they're reflexively and often mindlessly against it. They chose the shrill Howard Dean as national chairman, and he insists Republicans in general and Bush in particular are "evil." Senate minority leader Harry Reid says the Bush gang seeks "absolute power." And so on.
Worse for Democrats, Bush makes them delusional. Sen. Edward Kennedy claims that while Democrats lost the 2004 election, they still represent "majority opinion." And he appears to believe it. Others, like Democratic representative Maurice Hinchey of New York, spin conspiracy theories, in public, about the Bush White House and Karl Rove, Bush's political adviser. The conspiracy? Rove slipped those fabricated memos to CBS News, which led to Dan Rather's downfall and Bush's reelection. Really.
The CBS scandal leads to factor three, the crackup of the mainstream media. The MSM--the big papers, TV networks, and newsmags--had been slipping for years. Their role as gatekeepers, deciding what was or wasn't news, was a thing of the past. In the 1990s, the arrival of talk radio and Fox News meant there was a popular alternative media. In 2004, bloggers emerged as a nation of fact-checkers whose chief target was the MSM.
Bloggers exposed the CBS story on Bush's Texas Air National Guard service as a fraud almost instantly. Just as important, they forced a reluctant mainstream media to take up the story of the Swift Boat Vets and their challenge of John Kerry's claim to have been a Vietnam war hero. Studies found that the national media were lopsidedly more favorable to Kerry than Bush in their coverage. But Bush won, which tells you something about Big Media's loss of influence.
Factor four: the decline of liberalism. No one has described liberalism's sad state better than Martin Peretz, editor in chief of the New Republic. Liberalism is no longer a serious set of ideas. Nor is it a coherent ideology used to guide political action. In 2005, it has become merely a complaint, Peretz suggested, a complaint about Bush and much of America.
And, finally, factor five: an ambitious, impatient president with an agenda. In a word, Bush. Presidents have a choice. They can lead or they can govern. President George H.W. Bush governed. His son leads. He does what he doesn't have to do. Or at least tries to. So Bush aims to reform Social Security, curb trial lawyers, make the federal courts more conservative, and implant democracy all over the world.
These five factors have produced a rare political moment for Republicans. It's a moment that won't last more than a year or two. The question is whether they'll do anything with it. Nothing is guaranteed. But a lot is expected.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
"Amen , finally a real republican around here speaks."
Please, after 30 years of being a registered republican I can proudly say that I am no longer a republican. I am now a conservative independent. My 2004 vote was not wasted on a leftest RINO by the name of Bush. No party punch for me.
"Then where is the success?"
It's not a finished work, but I'd say killing the Islamic extremists that are actively trying to kill all westerners has been very successful so far. We've got a long way to go but at least they're preoccupied in Iraq and haven't had any successful hits in the US since 9/11.
You need to seed some more facts about the state of the world. The very reason those terrorists were acceptable in their countries was die to the lack of responsive governments; Bush is changing that.
You need to stop taking the Dem talking points as Bible and talk to people who've actually been there, and read a variety of materials.
And your own moaning sounds like the dem talking points.
What have you been posting if not Democrat talking points with zero backing? You're making assertions with nothing behind them--aka Talking Points.
"The War in Afghanistan handled the terrorist and sent the proper warning without upsetting the balance of power in the world. The war in Iraq has sent us down a slippery slope."
You want talking points? How about "balance of power" and "slippery slope"?
You seem to think that just rapping the Taliban on the knuckles in Afghanistan would solve everything without upsetting the "balance of power" (WHOSE balance of power? Which nations are involved?).
Yet Al Qaeda has been active throughout the world--you know this. I guess if we merely knocked out the Taliban in Afghanistan, there would have been no more attacks in, say, Spain, or on hotels with Australians? On what do you base this?
Enough with the talking points, let's see your facts.
What makes you think that taking care of business in Afghanistan was all that needed to be done, when AQ receives financing and support from throughout the world?
You sure sound like a DUMBOCRAP to me.
You and I share Reagan as hero. Reagan put a global arms race into overdrive during his two terms. It did wonders for the world.
China and Russia have weak economies to match us.
Why don't you develop some Reagan optimism?
Take a good hard look in the mirror. The following statements, made by you in post #18 , are nothing but old, old Democratic Party talking points.
Dude, Teddy Roosevely hasn't been president in nearly 100 years. Your position is laughable--why would we station people in Afghanistan when we could get THEM to do the fighting and we don't have to station 40,000 people there to be a big stick when we've already SOLVED the problem?
As for the "biggest arms race since the Cold War," you've still not provided an ounce of information that the Russians just suddenly up and started this new arms race. And if we had a "big stick" in Afghanistan, are you saying THAT wouldn't have started an arms race? Oh, our enemies would simply NOT arm themselves?
BTW, if AQ is no threat, why would we need a big stick? And when would we use this big stick, when our ships have been bombed? I guess in that case we should do nothing if that happens--oh, wait, we DID that with the Cole--yeah, ignoring that sure prevented any terror attacks.
No--we should only attack in case the WTC was bombed--hmm, seems we did that, and that sure didn't prevent 9-11, now did it?
I guess we should have asked some in the region to hand over UBL--oh, wait, they OFFERED that three times, and boy Clinton refused him, so that didn't quote work out.
We've had a "big stick" in the Middle East and Asia for decades--didn't you know that? Just HAVING it didn't stop 9-11, now did it?
Is that all you've got?
Appeasement doesn't work. You'd think our CAPLOCKED friend would get that, but he doesn't. I guess blowing something up whenever another 9-11 happened is more to his liking. THAT, of course, wouldn't get our enemies mad at us--they'd see the balance of power...or something...and the Big Stick...or whatever...and they'd say "Hey, it's OK with us, guys, we won't buy weapons because...well, because."
This "Russia is arming our enemies" thing is bizarre, as is the AQ not being a threat. I don't know where he's getting his talking points from, but they're way out of date.
I don't know about the others, but Saxby won because Max Cleland finally outed himself as a leftist creep. Bush may have helped to a degree, but that race was Saxby's to lose.
Dream on.
Agreed. Republican success can be summed up simply .... Republican success emerged when the Democrat Party became stupider than the stupid party.
Christendom died first, it took a little longer for the proud constitutional republic.
What a tragic day for the republic when Reagan acquiesced to the country club, Wall Street wing of the party.
You are right. 100% right and all the idiots on the left willbe proven to have been less than George W. Bush. They are JEALOUS, JEALOUS, JEALOUS of this man's success. Plain and simple...they rear the ugly green monster at every turn and they are too stupid to realize it for what it is.
I dont need a perfect conservative but i would at least like to have a conservative. I see Bush as a liberal. Who but a liberal would spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer money on international welfare? So what if Bush is "socially conservative." Im more of a social libertarian (more of not completely) i just want my taxes to be as little as possible and spent properly.
Then stick to your pie in the sky and don't vote and sit happy that your inaction has resulted in HRC becoming president, who cares? No one, that's who. Enjoy yourself.
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