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.
Yes of course.
I think Bush is also the one who could have seen to it that a true conservative got critical mass early on here. But I think he’s gone ‘native’ in DC and doesn’t back the limited-government that was the basis of the Reagan coalition to start with.
So rather than back someone he did or didn’t believe in, he left it wide open and now there’s a risk of McCain getting the nod with less than a third of the open-primary voters backing him to date.
1996 Republican Governor’s
31 Republican
to
17 Dem’s.
2006
28 Republican Governor’s
22 Dems.
House seats 1996
222 R
209 Dem
2006 House seats
196 R
229 Dem.
At this rate of winning we can be the minority in every elected office in the USA it a few more years.
Bush is the guy who could have made large gains for the GOP but just collapse under the pressure.I would make a list of stupped moves he has made but I’m sure some one else can do that.
The left was badly on the ropes but Jorge the Mexican pulled them back up again.
Bush on the other hand ordered our troops to not cross into Pakistan in pursuit of OBL...DURING A TIME OF WAR, AND AFTER 9/11. HE ORDERED OUR BOYS TO LET OBL GO. What Clinton did was criminal negligence, what Bush did was active, intentional aiding of our enemy in a time of war.
Most people are so blinded but the "party loyalty" kool-aid, they won't realize what Bush has done until after OBL strikes again.
Peggy Noonan is wrong on this. President Bush is not the underlying problem; he’s simply an expression of it. That’s the bad news. If the President were the problem, we could look forward to things improving for conservatives after January 2009.
The GOP has been lurching to the left since the mid 80’s. The GOP remains and probably always will be the political party for merchants. In my view, it never truly was a “conservative” political party. It simply adopted the mantle of conservatism for a time in order to achieve political power. We should not be surprised when the GOP acts to support it’s core merchant constituency over the interests of conservatives, be it through relaxed enforcement of immigration policies or corporate welfare.
For years conservatives have done the heavy lifting for the GOP. And a brief look at what the GOP has done in the last 10 years while conservatism was on the rise gives a pretty good idea of what the GOP plans for the future.
Conservatives are now in a tragic situation from the point of view of partisan politics. It’s obvious to even the most casual observer that the GOP is not interested in conservatism. The country has shifted somewhat to the left and conservatism is no longer as attractive as it once was to the public at large. From the GOP’s perspective, conservatives have exhausted their usefulness.
Conservatives have long been the battered wives of partisan politics. They’re becoming orphans to boot. The question that conservatives started asking the GOP just a little too late is “so what have you done for me lately”? Well, the problem is the GOP seems to have come to the conclusion that even mouthing a conservative line is more trouble than it’s worth. Conservatism doesn’t seem to be selling. Since there isn’t a viable third party at this point, conservatives don’t have much of a place to go.
THe GOP began as the Party of Abolition and Union.
It morphed into the party of the northern Main Street Businessman and the homeowners and professionals who supported his business with their trade and investment. As such, it ran the country somewhat successfully for many years.
It morphed into the party of Wall Street Industrialists, who gave up the country to Roosevelt and 40 years of Democrat Rule. During that period, they formed a coalition with the Democrats to reduce corporate taxes and increase individual taxes. The GOP became the loyal opposition which didn't know how to rule when it occasionally took power.
It morphed into the party of international corporations "Globalists." And it gave us George Bush.
Birth. Life. Death. It's natural. And it is really scary, because there is no political force in opposition to the Democratic Party. Yeah. We need a new party. Or two. How do you do that?
Bush would make a great candidate for the New World Order party, if there was one.
I was an avid Bush supporter in 2000 and volunteered for the campaign. I think the GOP was so anxious to win the White House, we overlooked what he was saying about illegals (”family vaues don’t stop at the border”), prescription drugs, education, etc. He did not disappoint.
I think his arrogance during the amnesty bill telling those who opposed it that, “I will see you at the signing,” was the last straw. It was for me. I now can not wait for him to be gone.
Yes.
No.
Maybe.
Yes, he did. W wanted to be the next FDR with his new tone in Washington. He also corrupted the GOP in Congress.
Bush spit in our eyes everyday. He is very arrogant.
You forgot the constant Second Amendment attacks, i.e. support for the AWB and the amicus brief seeking to uphold the D.C. handgun ban.
May the Republcant Party and their bipartisan globalist deals sink into the abyss never to rise again so a more Constitutional anchored party can replace it. I’m tired of having Two Socialist Parties in this country. The GW Bush Legacy is he is another LBJ and nothing more. Thank goodness he is term limited and Chaney is not running either.
Bush is a Republican. He helped the Republican party by being elected twice and being basically a run of the mill Republican, in spending, taxes, foreign and domestic policy. In doing so, he helped destroy the CONSERVATIVE party.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.