Powell leads the right in a Bush-whack

The Sunday Times(UK) ^ | Septemebr 17, 2006 | Andrew Sullivan

[Dane]

Powell leads the right in a Bush-whack Andrew Sullivan In my first year in America, as a budding young conservative, my old friend, the writer John O’Sullivan, invited me out to dinner. The dinner, it turned out, was with none other than William F Buckley, a man who remains the undisputed titan of American conservatism.

Buckley became famous in America in the 1950s and 1960s for being a conservative intellectual when such a thing was regarded as axiomatically oxymoronic. He founded the National Review, the indispensable magazine for the burgeoning American conservative movement.

He was one of the inspirations for Barry Goldwater’s emergence as a conservative Republican nominee in 1964, and instrumental in Ronald Reagan’s long, steady intellectual march to power. I wasn’t having dinner with just anyone that night — but with a man for whom the phrase eminence grise seemed to have been invented.

I recall this because if Buckley has decided George W Bush is not a conservative, it cannot be easily dismissed. Some of us were so appalled by Bush’s profligate spending, abuse of power and recklessness in warfare that we reluctantly backed John Kerry in 2004 as the more authentically conservative candidate. Many Republicans scoffed. Now fewer do.

“I think Mr Bush faces a singular problem, best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology,” Buckley recently explained. “[The president] ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress. And in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge . . . There will be no legacy for Mr Bush. I don’t believe his successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious. So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable.”

His legacy, I’d argue, is actually quite decipherable. It includes two bungled wars, a doubling of the national debt, a ruination of America’s moral high ground in the war against Islamist terror, the worst US intelligence fiasco since the Bay of Pigs, and the emergence of Iran as a regional and potentially nuclear power with control of the West’s energy supplies.

But the damage to America itself — to its cultural balance and constitutional order — is just as profound. In a recent CNN story on Southern women and the Republicans, one voter explained: “There are some people, and I’m one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord. I don’t care how he governs, I will support him. I’m a Republican through and through.”

American conservatism has gone from being a political philosophy rooted in scepticism of power, empirical judgment and limited government into an ideology based in born-again religious faith, immune to empirical reality and dedicated to the relentless expansion of presidential clout. It sanctions wiretapping without court warrants, indefinite detention without trial and the use of torture.

Last week saw perhaps the tipping point in the reawakening of the traditional conservative perspective. In the Senate, the president’s bid to legalise torture and ad hoc military tribunals was stopped not by the Democrats but by four key Republican senators: John McCain of Arizona, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2008, John Warner of Virginia, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine.

They were supported by the former secretary of state, Colin Powell, who penned a public letter to McCain opposing Bush’s detention policies. “The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,” Powell observed. “To redefine common article 3 [of the Geneva convention] would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.”

It is hard to dismiss McCain and Powell as men who do not know a thing about war or torture. One was tortured by the Vietcong; another actually won a war in Iraq. The contrast with the current White House is almost painful to observe.

Two weeks ago, word leaked that the president’s political guru, Karl Rove, was hoping to use the issue of who was tough enough on military prisoners against the Democrats in the November congressional elections. He was going to tar them as wimps again for not waterboarding terror suspects. But that strategy was stopped in its tracks by Senator Graham.

“This is not about November 2006. It is not about your election,” Graham declared with passion. “It is about those who take risks to defend America.”

Graham is also a former military lawyer and, along with the entire legal leadership in the US military, opposes Bush’s military kangaroo courts. “It would be unacceptable legally in my opinion to give someone the death penalty in a trial where they never heard the evidence against them,” he said of the White House proposal. “‘Trust us, you’re guilty, we’re going to execute you, but we can’t tell you why’? That’s not going to pass muster; that’s not necessary.” It’s also, well, not American.

To add to the revolt, last week six leading conservative writers penned separate essays on why the Republicans deserve to lose the November congressional elections. Here’s a stunning quote from one of them: “The United States has seen political swings and produced its share of extremists, but its political character, whether liberals or conservatives have been in charge, has always remained fundamentally Burkean. The constitution itself is a Burkean document, one that slows down decisions to allow for ‘deliberate sense’ and checks and balances.

“President Bush has nearly upended that tradition, abandoning traditional realism in favour of a warped and incoherent brand of idealism. At this dangerous point in history, we must depend on the decisions of an astonishingly feckless chief executive: an empty vessel filled with equal parts Rove and Rousseau.”

That passage was written by Jeffrey Hart, a speechwriter for Nixon and Reagan and another pillar of the conservative movement. It’s a sign of a brewing conservative revolt against Bush’s policies that may crest at November’s elections.

Bush has allies in the House of Representatives — but what appears to be a unified and stalwart resistance in the Republican-controlled Senate. It turns out that the US does have a functioning opposition party after all. It’s called the authentically conservative wing of the Republicans.

[Crim]

BINGO!

[Leo Carpathian]

“The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,” Powell observed.

Yea, just open the borders, let them in our flight schools, give them boxcutters, and point out the targets. After they take over we will have moral victory, why fight! Maroon!

[Leo Carpathian]

What? You just flew from Mars and stumbled on wrong bunch. Air Amerika is dead, try the new bitchy nutwork of Hanoi Jane and Fat Dum Rosie.

[NutCrackerBoy]

The administration won't face up to reality and most of those who call themselves conservatives are not demanding accountability from this administration.

It is easy to point to the consequences of events not going the way we would like. But it is difficult to ascertain that, given how things will unfold over the long run, there was a slam dunk better way to proceed from the beginning. If it all comes down to the notion that we should have been more risk averse and kept Iraq on status quo basis, I cannot accept that that is what I wanted my President to do, seeing that Saddam and his sons were smack dab in the way of any possibility of long-term change in the Middle East.

It's just damn hard, and it will take a long time. Note that this discussion devolves into a strategic discussion, NOT a Buchanan-esque dismissal of the Iraq War as "foreign entanglements." It is not about conservative values.

[leprechaun9]

The Dems are just waiting to remind the electorate of General Powell's command decisions in the My Lai episode!

[M-cubed]

By these guys' definition, ALL US courts are Kangaroo Courts! <<
Hmmm...Im starting to wonder about that myself..Freepers....Tell me what U think >> http://www.apfn.org/apfn/flag.htm

[Veronica Mars]

Can you at least try to respond in a civil manner? I'm a pro-life, pro-gun, fiscally responsible, small government conservative. I have never once listened to Air America, can't stand Fonda or Rosie.

Try having a reasoned debate and leave the name-calling at home.

[Southack]

"I just think it is fair to question whether or not the current policies of the administration embody conservative values. For these reasons, I again state that I agree with Sullivan."

Sullivan claims that Senator Kerry is more conservative than President Bush. Anyone who believes that nonsense is either uneducated or a liar.

President Bush signed the ban on partial birth abortion. That's conservative. Senator Kerry voted *against* that ban; that's left-wing.

President Bush cut our income taxes. That's conservative. Senator Kerry voted *against* those income tax cuts; that's liberal.

President Bush jailed Saddam Hussein, dethroned Liberia's Taylor, kicked the Syrian army out of Lebanon, knocked the Taliban out of power and into remote Afghan caves, as well as deployed our national missile defenses.

Senator Kerry voted *against* deploying our national missile defenses.

Sullivan is wacked. Anyone who buys what Sullivan is selling is in for a surprise.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

' In the Senate, the president’s bid to legalise torture ..."

Whaaaat ????!!!!
President Bush has been virtually begging the Senate to clarify Article 3, section c.

c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

In European countries, not affording POWs their own private toilet is considered humilating and degrading-a violation of section c.
McCain and Powell and Lindsey are so adamant that Al Queda be allowed
to retain their personal dignity after beheadings and plotting to bring down airliners and embassies and 110 story towers,
that you have to wonder-
who are they more concerned about protecting ?
American citizens and US soldiers or the egos of Al Queda ?

[Rosemont]

If W supported Gay Mariage, Andrew Sullivan would be his greatest supporter. Bush doesn't, so Sullivan despises him.

[Veronica Mars]

I agree with your point about looking back, but my point was not that we shouldn't have gone to war. To the contrary, we are better off for taking out Hussein.

I just wish the adminstration would have had a better plan for the rebuilding process. The adminstration should level with the public and say they dropped the ball on the recovery and the way they are going to fix it is (insert policy here). One way to get their credibility back is to hold some of the planners responsible, and that probably means some top officials in the Defense Dept.

[A Citizen Reporter]

"The administration won't face up to reality and most of those who call themselves conservatives are not demanding accountability from this administration."

You sound to me like Eleanor Clift trying to pass as a conservative. I'm not buying.

And Andrew is a posseur, not a conservative.

[CWOJackson]

Sullivan must be dinning regularly with buchanan these days. They both seem to be suffering the same symptoms of gaseous expulsions.

[RobbyS]

If you want to know what the law IS, never ask a lawyer. He only knows what he would like it to be as applied to this case. If he can persuade the jury as to the facts and get the judge to agree with him onb the law, he wins. But going in, his opinion of the law is just that--opinion.

[John Lenin]

Powell couldn't hold this guys jockstrap with two hands.

[Veronica Mars]

Oh phew, that settles it then. You are the one that issues conservative credentials. Who was I to ask for accountability from our elected leaders? What was I thinking?

[A Citizen Reporter]

Simply an observation. You don't have to get testy about it.

[RobbyS]

Lincoln and F.D. Roosevelt, two of a great war-time leaders never went to war. In Lincoln's case, we have the example of McClellan. Now we have in Bush's case, General Powell, a brave soldier who never commanded an army himself, but as ambitious as Lucifer.

[Veronica Mars]

You said I sounded like Eleanor Clift, you bet your butt I'm going to get testy about that. That's an insult and you know it.

[A Citizen Reporter]

" In Lincoln's case, we have the example of McClellan."

An excellent historical comparision to Powell.