Posted on 11/18/2006 9:46:14 PM PST by beckett
Ideology Has Consequences
Bush rejects the politics of prudence.
by Jeffrey Hart
Many Republicans must feel like that legendary man at the bar on the Titanic. Watching the iceberg slide by outside a porthole, he remarked, “I asked for ice. But this is too much.” Republicans voted for a Republican and got George W. Bush, but his Republican Party is unrecognizable as the party we have known.
Recall the Eisenhower Republican Party. Eisenhower, a thoroughgoing realist, was one of the most successful presidents of the 20th century. So was the prudential Reagan, wary of using military force. Nixon would have been a good secretary of state, but emotionally wounded and suspicious, he was not suited to the presidency. Yet he, too, with Henry Kissinger, was a realist. George W. Bush represents a huge swing away from such traditional conservative Republicanism.
But the conservative movement in America has followed him, evacuating prudence and realism for ideology and folly. Left behind has been the experienced realism of James Burnham. Also vacated, the Burkean realism of Willmoore Kendall, who aspired, as he told Leo Strauss, to be the “American Burke.” That Burkeanism entailed a sense of the complexity of society and the resistance of cultures to change. Gone, too, has been the individualism of Frank Meyer and the commonsense Western libertarianism of Barry Goldwater.
The post-2000 conservative movement has abandoned all that to back Bush and has followed him over the cliff into our calamity in Iraq. On top of all that, the Bush presidency has been fueled by the moral authoritarianism of the current third evangelical awakening.
(Excerpt) Read more at amconmag.com ...
I also was astounded to read the Cheney quote from 1991. Just remarkable.
"When all the evidence is in, I think historians will agree with Princeton’s Sean Wilentz, who wrote a carefully argued article judging Bush to have been the worst president in American history."
Unfortunately, this line came at the end of the article - otherwise it would have saved me the trouble of reading this garbage. Bush is not close to being the worst president even out of the last two...
I am so sick of defeatists.
I agree entirely. Carter is easily the worst.
My sentiments as well.
I was about halfway through this tedium, eyes glazing over when I decided to scroll to the bottom to see if there was anything of value in closing.
Certainly a lot of words to say very little other than Bush is a lousey President.
Pseudo-intellectual crap.
Does this writer work for the Nation magazine? MSDNC?
"to back Bush and has followed him over the cliff into our calamity in Iraq."
===
Sure, a very "conservative" position -- being against the War on Terror. (/sarc) It looks like the writer is just left of Pelosi and Murtha.
I am really growing weary of people throwing around "ideology" as a buzzword that is instantly intended to conjure up the worst impression of the Bush administration. It's right up there with "culture of corruption." Having debated my share of hardcore Leftists over the span of the last few years, I know it to be one of their very favorite catch-all terms of derision. At which point I feel compelled to instruct them that any system of beliefs (which Conservativism and Liberalism BOTH are, incidentally) constitutes an "ideology." Nobody ever said every move GW has made was perfect. Lockstep is something you see in Democratic circles, and to say that "Conservatives" on the whole have abandoned "real" Conservativism is another of the baseless, unsubstantiated claims the Left loves to throw out as another patented indictment of George Bush and the idiots who support him, as though such support were unquestioned and without exception.
If Mr. beckett fancies himself a Conservative, he should know he is borrowing his talking points from the Left. In which case one has to wonder who is actually abandoning "real" Conservativism.
Screw him. I never got to the end of the article, I was getting to pi**ed off. Now I'm glad I skipped the rest, as the closing sentence says it all. Anyone too stupid to see that Carter was the worst, is too stupid to be read.
Excellent.
Once you get to Baghdad, it’s not clear what you do with it. It’s not clear what kind of government you put in place of the one that’s currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime, a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that going to have if it’s set up by the American military there? How long does the United States military have to stay there to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens once we leave? --Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, 1991
Conservatism is ideology.
It is the ideology that preserves what may be called the Founding Principles of America, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the works of the founders, and their mentors such as Algernon Sidney and John Locke.
Are you saying you're too stupid to read, since the author said that's how historians will judge President Bush. The writer isn't saying that's his assessment--but that he does understand why he will rank so low.
While I don't think Bush is the worst, I agree that historians might very well judge him that way. He certainly is not a conservative and has damaged conservatism and this nation far more than we would have hoped ...though anyone paying attention should have realized the game he has played.
When all the evidence is in, I think historians will agree with Princeton’s Sean Wilentz, who wrote a carefully argued article judging Bush to have been the worst president in American history.
No Gondring, it is weasel words. He is using historians to project his own opinion because he hasn't the balls to say it for himself.
Bush OTOH, did not build up the military, and even know is cutting parts to increase numbers in other parts.
To "Walk softly but carry a Big Stick" you must first have a Big Stick. Bush doesn't, thanks to first the efforts of Billy Jeff (who greatly expanded the fairly modest cuts begun under Bush 41 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a collapse brought about in no small part by Reagan's military buildup), but also in large part due to his own failure to recognize that too much had been cut, both before and after 9-11. It shouldn't overtax the resources of a superpower to deal with some third world Turdistans, but it has.
"Wii someone rid me of this meddlesome Scribe?"
Again, so many words with so little to say. Just an egghead's way of saying it's all GWB's fault. I too am tired of all this wordy crap.
No, the remark supposedly was, "I know I asked for ice, but this is ridiculous."
If you can't even get the first line in your polemic right, it's time to hang it up.
More paleo-con 'I hate Bush' rhetoric from Pat Buchanan's site. This needed a *barf alert*. It is amazing to watch 'alleged' conservatives carry the water for the democrats.
I can't understand how you can get that from the Wilentz article that Mr. Hart cites. It's all about the historians' views, including liberal biases, etc.
Or perhaps you're thinking of the wrong article.
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