Posted on 05/06/2006 3:26:58 PM PDT by RWR8189
PRESIDENT BUSH IS A CONSERVATIVE politician, not a conservative ideologue. This explains why Bush sometimes does things that aren't conservative. He does so to survive and, if all goes well, to prosper politically. Or he does so because he actually favors some nonconservative policy or position. Conservative politicians are never ideologically pure. "The president works at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, not 214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E.," a Bush administration official says. The Massachusetts Avenue location is the site of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank.
President Reagan, like Bush, was a politician first and an ideologue second. When Social Security was on the verge of insolvency in 1983, he had to act quickly. But he didn't call for benefit cuts or privatization, the conservative positions. That was not politically feasible. He agreed to a tax hike and a modest increase in the age of eligibility. And the issue went away, leaving him politically undamaged and able to pursue his conservative goals, like winning the Cold War.
Calling for a probe of oil companies for possible manipulation of gas prices is Bush's latest nonconservative position. With prices soaring, he was losing ground politically. The public and the politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, were attacking the oil companies--and Bush as well. His job approval rating dipped into the low 30s, the worst of his presidency.
He could have said, no, the free market is working properly. That, while basically true, would no doubt have further injured his political standing. Instead, he moved to take control of the issue and protect himself politically. Two days later, the president conceded he had "no evidence that there's any ripoff taking place." Of course he hadn't. That wasn't the point of his intervention.
His divergence from conservative orthodoxy was probably harmless. "I don't think there's any problem in looking into the possibility of price gouging," the administration official says. "If it doesn't exist--and the odds are quite strong it doesn't--nothing will be lost." In fact, the president gained politically. His approval rating in the Fox News poll rose from 33 percent to 38 percent.
Neither Bush nor White House officials have suggested, publicly at least, that there's a paradox involved in taking nonconservative positions on issues such as gas prices. But it's true that this may shore up the president's popularity and enhance his ability to pursue conservative issues like the war on terror, Iraq, and tax cuts.
Besides political expediency, conservative politicians sometimes stray because they've become enamored of a nonconservative position for policy or political reasons, or both. Reagan wanted to eliminate all nuclear weapons in the world, despite their deterrent value. He insisted on picking a woman, moderate Sandra Day O'Connor, as his first Supreme Court nominee. He met repeatedly with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Conservatives fumed.
Bush's chief apostasy is on the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the first new entitlement in decades. Rather than aiding only needy seniors--perhaps a quarter of the over-65 population--he championed a far more expensive universal benefit. Bush touted it in the 2000 campaign and pushed it aggressively in Congress. It was enacted in December 2003 and implemented this year.
Many conservatives, maybe most of them, opposed the drug benefit. So did Democrats and liberals. And it appeared that the new program might not become the political bonanza that the White House and Republicans had hoped it would be. Month after month, polls found it to be unpopular.
Not anymore. Now that 30 million of the country's 43 million eligible seniors have signed up, the drug benefit has become popular. Ninety percent in a poll by the Tarrance Group say they understand the plan and how to use it. While enrolling may have been difficult and time-consuming, 65 percent say it was worth it. Plus, the monthly fee and the cost of the entire program has turned out to be less expensive than had been projected.
"What ranks among the single best issues Bill Clinton used to club Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in the 1990s?" a Bush adviser says. "Medicare. That issue has essentially been taken off the table since the program was created [in 1965] and over time our proposal may well make Medicare a net plus for Republicans. At a minimum, though, Republicans have been pretty much inoculated against the charges by Democrats."
So in this fall's midterm election, the drug benefit will hardly be an albatross. Republicans will have a positive achievement to brag about. If it helps Republicans stave off a Democratic landslide, its political value will have been confirmed.
There are two points in all this. One, conservative presidents--indeed, conservative elected officials at all levels of government--will always wander from conservative tenets. The test is whether there's a flip side, a strengthening in the fight for conservative aims. And second, even the most sainted conservatives--Reagan, for instance--harbor nonconservative thoughts. If this is an insurmountable problem for conservatives, my advice is, get over it.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
More to Bush, I cringe to consider how a man of lesser conviction, moral compass and steely resolve could traverse these volatile times and minefields, and I believe Reagan would back Bush 100% (if Nancy didn't interject).
Has it ever occurred to you that you just wish Bush looked like this? 
WWRD after 9-11, in your mind?
IIRC .. the "true" conservatives were not on board with Reagan and slammed him at every opportunity
They wear their tin foil hat tighter then the libs do
I remember many things from the Reagan years
I remember many of the "true" conservatives who praise Reagan now .. slammed him then
He was trashed and slammed back then .. much like Bush is being now .. though I think Bush is getting worse now
Reagan didn't govern/lead for the moment ... he looked down the road and at the future ... much like Bush does
......He does so to survive and, if all goes well, to prosper politically.......
Pay attention. He is precisely on target like a laser guided bomb.
W does not have control of the Senate and must act accordingly.
Yep
Don't take no Karl Rove to 'figger it out either!
The New Republic occasionally had its moments. Michael Lind at least would make a good case for reducing mass immigration when everyone thought and still does that it's just grand.
Which is the major reason that approval ratings for Congress and the President are in the toilet.
"I'd bet my house that the ones that are trashing Bush would have trashed Reagan."
They sound just like the marxist homosexual pseudo journalists with AP or some left wing fish wrap re their hatred of GW while wrapping themselves in "I loved Reagan but hate GW blankets!"
We have done that, only to have the bar moved, again and again. The "reality based adult" also looks at the evidence right before their eyes and the historical behavior patterns of our entrenched oligarchy/political class. They then apply a little basic logic, connect the dots and form an opinion or hypothesis which conforms to the evidence at hand.
Those who are hopelessly mired in partisan denial, however, stubbornly insist on selectively acknowleging which "facts" they use to support their arguments. For example, you said:
"It has been explained numerous times on this board that a SUPER majority is needed to accomplish meaningful legislation because of the unremitting opposition from the RAT party. Sorry, but that is the grown up political reality."
This is an incomplete statement that "explains" nothing; it merely "asserts". You left out some critical facts, namely that the "unremitting opposition from the RAT party" only succeeds due to the complicity of the Repub majority through their refusal to exercise the Constitutional options at their disposal and change the rules.
The truth is, more and more "reality based adults" are connecting the dots and concluding that we are being "gamed" by our so-called leaders, of both parties. The facts of their words versus their actual deeds support this hypothesis far better than yours. The problem is that the implications of this are so frightening and such a threat to most people's world-view that they quite naturally seek refuge in denial and attacking the messengers.
Well, FGS, don't let some of the purists around here hear you say that! Have you lost your mind? :-)
Actually, we HAVE won the elections. To conform to the actual intentions of our politicians, here's how the statement should read:
You can't push ANY agenda if you CAN'T win the NEXT election.
Does Peretz still own it....his hawkishness on Israel was a bit of a lure for folks who became NeoCons.
neither Mort nor Fred are Jewish btw....in case an overly sensitive freeper sees that..lol
Marking.
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