Posted on 01/25/2008 7:58:07 AM PST by jdm
Peggy Noonan aims her considerable cannon at George Bush this morning in the Wall Street Journal in the middle of her analysis of the primaries. She fingers him as the main culprit in the destruction of the Republican Party, discounting other and perhaps better causes and engaging in just a little hyperbole:
On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.
Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.
And this needs saying, because if you don't know what broke the elephant you can't put it together again. The party cannot re-find itself if it can't trace back the moment at which it became lost. It cannot heal an illness whose origin is kept obscure.
I love Peggy Noonan's commentary, but this is a little over the top. The party has lost exactly one national cycle in the last four. I don't consider them dead after a single setback, and anyone who does appears more interested in garnering attention than in providing trenchant analysis.
It doesn't mean we don't have trouble, but Noonan's wrong to lay the whole thing on Bush. While it's true that he hasn't provided much in the way of fiscal discipline, he didn't run for office as a Steve Forbes conservative, either. He spoke of compassionate conservatism, a code for big-government approaches for center-right policies, and he delivered. Bush talked about working on bipartisan solutions to national issues, and he pretty much did that before the Iraq war turned sour. Republicans elected Bush knowing what they were going to get, and Noonan can't seriously claim shock over the result.
The seeds of Republican discontent took root in Congress, not the executive. It was the succession of Republican Congresses that refused to cut spending, and instead blew wads of cash on non-defense discretionary spending. Bush led in some of these efforts, but he didn't multiply pork exponentially; that came from House and Senate Republicans. He didn't climb into bed with K Street, either -- that project started before Bush ever arrived at the White House with Tom DeLay and others.
It may be fashionable for Republicans to cast all blame on the President, but that falsely absolves those who created the problems that plague us at the moment. It may also sound rhetorically spectacular to declare the party "destroyed" by having its constituent coalitions debate about its direction, but it's both inaccurate and hyperbolic. It's not unusual for parties to have these debates -- and maybe if we'd had it in 2000, we would have elevated leaders more supportive of traditional Republican fiscal discipline rather than just blindly supported the people who threw that legacy in the wastebin.
Oh wait, that's the dominant rap here, right? It's all good to have China as the manufacturing giant of the planet. We'll just build houses that go up in price forever without bound.
Oops, guess that's kinda over with too.
Over-the-top is Ms. Noonan’s middle name, but I think she is precisely on with this.
W, like Carter was or I think Huckabee would be, was detrimental to the office because he saw it as the platform through which he would demonstrate his (Christian) goodness. And the genius of our republic is that is fairly well defends against leaders trying to do this at, of course, the expense of the people’s liberty and treasure.
Romney, I think, is dangerous in a related but different way: his eagerness to please (and show his own perfection) leads him to a pandering, big-government, technocrat’s approach to actual governing.
That’s why it is so frustrating when either politicians or voters clamor for so-called ‘personal attacks’, which is often simply evidence of the candidates’ character, to somehow be off limits. Along with philosophy and platform, character is a critical criterion for assessing prospective presidents.
I mean don’t sell them short for their share of criticism.
I concur.
Correct. She didn’t like the overt religious aspects of the second inaugural speech. I think she travels in liberal circles which has skewed her world view.
Altogether, I think W has done a good job during rough times.
It was inevitable that the Republicans nomination process would divide the Reagan coalition. There’s nothing to stop it from reforming in face of the Clinton specter.
****I still haven’t figured out if Peggy’s just menopausal, or she’s ticked because she didn’t get a job in the administration. You know what they say about “a woman scorned.”****
And she’s just a writer - we didn’t get Billy’s testosterone checked but it’s not too late to get Hellery’s estrogen & progesterone levels checked;(
From day one of his first term, Bush was faced with Democrats who denied the very legitimacy of his election. Given the situation, I think he has done well.
Futhermore, conservatives have never managed to elect a president in modern times without the help of moderate Republicans and independents. The Goldwater bid failed miserably. Reagan got to Washington because of his appeal to “Reagan Democrats,” among others. Rather than accept reality, too many conservatives spend their time whining about Rinos and trying to alienate people who want to be their political allies. You can’t blame Bush for that.
If he likes Jorge Bush, Rush should love Johnny McLame.
How does he even tell them apart?
For me, it's not about winning or losing.
W has damaged the Republican Party by dragging it to the left. By implying that there was something not "compassionate" about conservatism.
Bush did a lot of damage, but the assortment of RINO clowns running to replace him guarantee the final demise of the GOP.
I certainly would not call 2004 a victory. The fact that a left-wing Neo-Bolshevik Senator from Massachusetts was defeated by a hair slim margin in a national Presidential election indicates the Republican Party is in shambles.
And he's not done yet. Expect the most liberal year yet from the Prez, depressing the base even further and paving the way for the Dem nominee.
While it's true that he hasn't provided much in the way of fiscal discipline, he didn't run for office as a Steve Forbes conservative, either. He spoke of compassionate conservatism, a code for big-government approaches for center-right policies, and he delivered. Republicans elected Bush knowing what they were going to get...
Pathetically, most had no idea. ...blinded by all the religious talk into thinking they were getting a real conservative, despite the fact the Bush didn't mention reducing the size and scope of gov't even once during the campaign.
As a child from the rear seat once said on a long drive, "Are we there yet?"
He turned a House majority into a minority by acting like a Democrat, spending more taxpayers' money every year, promoting pork barrel spending and using strong arm tactics to pass things like the Medicare prescription drug boondoggle. He got in bed with Jack Abramoff and sold the party's soul to sleazebag lobbyists.
In 1994, the day after the Republicans won control of the House, Newt Gingrich said, "if all we do with this majority is become a Republican machine just like the Democratic machine that we just defeated, we will lose this majority and we will deserve to." Newt was right.
It is going to take a looong time to rebuild the Republican brand with the voters.
he sure didn’t help us
especially on la migra
Republican Party Established 1854. google is your friend
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