Bush has been a Moderate all Along (and He always campaigned as such )

SAN DIEGO -- Now that the neocons seem to be growing disenchanted with President Bush for not being conservative enough to suit them, I can't help but be amused.

That's what I like about Bush -- the fact that he doesn't fit neatly into an ideological box.

I also can't help but think of the story of the woman who complains that her husband won't change -- won't take out the trash, do the dishes, or stop watching football on Sunday afternoons. The husband doesn't understand why his wife is upset. After all, he has always been this way. He was this way when she met him, and she married him anyway. So why is she angry now?

It's the same thing here. I wonder why so many hard-right conservatives are suddenly furious at Bush when they supported him in two presidential elections. Some point to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court as evidence that the president takes lightly the need to have on the court an ideological warrior. Others go further and suggest the president is straying from conservative principles. Yet this assumes that Bush ever adhered to those principles to begin with. And that's not so.

About a year ago, I wrote a column in which I described Bush as a moderate, and a lot of Democrats wrote back and suggested it was a joke. Now there aren't many Republicans who are laughing.

Bush is the same person he has been since he ran for Texas governor in 1994. What you see is what you get. He doesn't spend a lot of time reinventing or repackaging himself. In fact, he prides himself on not changing his ways. What was it that he promised Republican senators about Miers? That she won't change. You see, for Bush, that's high praise.

Speaking of Miers, her nomination is the big reason that Bush is taking fire from the right. But it isn't the only reason. Many hard-line conservatives have never felt confident that Bush was one of them. Because of his positions on a host of issues -- from increasing government spending to making diversity a priority in Cabinet appointments to promising amnesty to illegal immigrants to increasing funding for public housing to urging that the Supreme Court preserve the ability of the University of Michigan to take the race of applicants into account even while opposing quotas and outright racial preferences -- many Republicans have long been suspicious of the man they have chosen to lead them.

Now failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork writes in an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal that ``this George Bush, like his father, is showing himself to be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to conservative values.''

But why is that a surprise to Bork? Over all these years, where Bush stood wasn't exactly a secret. He was in the middle of the road.

While governor of Texas, he shooed away folks who were proposing a ballot initiative -- modeled after California's Proposition 187 -- that would have denied benefits to illegal immigrants. He displayed a detectable lack of enthusiasm for school vouchers. He avoided making an issue out of abortion. And he declared that bilingual education programs that worked were worth keeping. He also partnered with Democrats in the Texas Legislature, and shared credit for legislative victories with members of the opposing party.

Now conservatives worry that Bush isn't a real conservative, or at least someone who is driven by conservative principles.

Here's the real story. Despite his record in Texas and the record he later accumulated during the first term as president, Republicans kept Bush as the leader of their party.

They did so for the same reason that former California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown supported a Democratic governor from Arkansas in 1992, despite concerns that the candidate was too conservative. For Brown, it was all about being practical. ``I'm tired of losing,'' he said at the time. ``I just want to win.'' Bill Clinton was seen as a winner, and so Brown backed him.

For conservatives, the seeds of their discontent were planted in the Republican primaries of the 2000 election. Back then, with much of the GOP establishment lined up behind him, Bush looked like a winner. And so many Republicans threw their support to him. Whether or not he was conservative enough didn't seem to matter at the time, nor did it matter in 2004 when he ran for re-election. All that mattered was that he could win.

Conservatives might not like where they've arrived, but they should at least accept the fact that getting here was no accident.

I wonder why so many hard-right conservatives are suddenly furious at Bush when they supported him in two presidential elections.

That would be because you apparently haven't been paying attention, Ruben. Conservatives gave Bush a pass on his Roosevelt-like big spending, his apparent self-subjugation to Vicente Fox, and his foreign policy debacles for one reason and one reason alone: Supreme Court nominations. When Bush appointed a crony with no record, no discernable judicial philosophy, and strong indications that she is a judicial moderate, at best, it wasn't that they "suddenly" were furious. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The fact that this has to be repeated over and over again is telling in and of itself.

Correction: Pulled/posted the wrong information.

Bombing of Marine Barracks, Beirut, October 23, 1983: Simultaneous suicide truck-bomb attacks were made on American and French compounds in Beirut, Lebanon. A 12,000-pound bomb destroyed the U.S. compound, killing 242 Americans, while 58 French troops were killed when a 400-pound device destroyed a French base. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Working, as I've done for forty years now, to nominate and elect at least a marginally more conservative Republican...

That doesn't seem to be working out for you very well, does it? In that entire 40 years, we've elected exactly one conservative to the White House. And a reasonable question for you would be, did you ever join in the group-think of the time that said Reagan was unelectable? And since Reagan, the trend hasn't been good at all. Maybe you should try something different. Just a thought.

I was involved in HUGE groups who KNEW that Reagan WAS electable, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

There were two groups in the R party then, as now: we called them the "Rockefeller Republicans". They still exist. If President Bush had not been nominated, one of them would be president now, or algore would be.

You think it impossible to do worse than Bush?

You just wait: if Pataki, Guliani, or another northeast "republican" should ever get nominated, they WOULD be elected. You'll then realize, belatedly, why it is important to nominate the most conservative ELECTABLE R possible. You would see an expansion of the government that would make your head spin.

No matter President Bush's faults to the "conservatives" (who were also in the forefront of criticizing President Reagan's "art of compromise), his faults pale in comparison to the person who would be holding that office were it not him.

Progress has been, and is continuing to be made, by conservatives. It would be better to work to continue that progress, rather than working to eliminate those who have been responsible for any of the progress that has been made.

There were two groups in the R party then, as now: we called them the "Rockefeller Republicans".

I know. I was around then, and active. They were also known as the Country Club Republicans and they are still around.

If President Bush had not been nominated, one of them would be president now...

Bush is a Rockefeller Republican, so I have no idea how you could say that.

You think it impossible to do worse than Bush?

Absolutely not and I never implied it.

You would see an expansion of the government that would make your head spin.

Dream on. Bush has surpassed LBJ and Roosevelt. Short of becoming a totalitarian state it would be difficult to see a bigger expansion of government in that short a period of time.

...his faults pale in comparison to the person who would be holding that office were it not him.

Content-free argument. And not universally true. A much better President could be holding the office now. Actually, any number of much better Presidents could hold the office.

Progress has been, and is continuing to be made, by conservatives.

Maybe, maybe not. However, since 2000, progress in the conservative movement has slowed to a crawl. Regardless of how hard the bushbots and White House Kool-aid drinkers spin, Bush is a big-government liberal in the mold of Richard Nixon. Sure, he seems to be mostly conservative on social issues, but without the limited government basis in political philosophy, those merits are largely wasted. The title of the thread is partially accurate. Bush is a overall a moderate, even though he was sold as a conservative. No amount of party whitewash will change that.

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

Who is this compete loser?? Gee SORRY you cannot elect a 100%er. And before the whine all the time chorus thows up the name Regan, look at the record of 1986. a Tax hike, an illegal alien amnesty and negotiating with the commies. In 1986 all the 100ers were whining about Reagan the same way they whine today about Bush. So let's try to deal with reality children. NOTHING in life is perfect. NO ONE is going to agree with you 100%. Learn to live with it or go third party cause those of use who make the party work are sick of carrying you.

By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

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