Posted on 01/16/2009 6:31:14 PM PST by Delacon
Credit: Several key triumphs make Bush’s tenure merely a mitigated disaster. He first deserves praise for preventing another Islamofascist massacre on American soil. History will applaud the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Libya’s consequent de-nuclearization. Bush’s tax cuts buoyed the economy before it sailed into the twin icebergs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Justices John Roberts and Sam Alito will keep the Supreme Court constitutional. The D.C. voucher bill remains a school-choice milestone.
Carter: Otherwise, Bush is the Republican Jimmy Carter. This weak, ill-prepared bumbler let Washington eat him alive. Far worse, his apostasies bankrupted America and bombed the GOP into Dresden (often while an equally unprincipled, profligate Republican Congress navigated). The principled, fiscally responsible free-market/conservative movement is hobbled for its association with Bush, despite his serial violations of its tenets. The Right now must spend years scrubbing away Bush’s stain with brushes and Ajax.
Core: Alas, Bush has no philosophical core. He has a few sensible instincts: Tax cuts good. Terrorists bad. Abortion ugly. Most else is up for grabs.
In 2001, Bush initiated federal stem-cell research. By 2008, Bush nationalized private companies and steered the republic into $13.35 trillion in bailout commitments.
Bush’s instant socialism is the legacy of his Saran Wrap-deep faith in free markets. Under Bush, federal spending grew 32 percent (or 4.1 percent annually) — more quickly than inflation, Heritage Foundation analyst Brian Riedl calculates. Absent the Iraq and Afghan wars, Homeland Security, and Katrina relief, spending swelled 26 percent, or 3.3 percent annually, after inflation.
Since 1932, only FDR expanded Washington’s share of the economy more rapidly than Bush did. The Medicare drug entitlement, No Child Left Behind, two massive farm-welfare bills, and 69,341 un-vetoed earmarks are among the ghastly monuments of “compassionate conservatism.”
Bush kicked fresh gravel into his supporters’ eyes when he kept the Education Department open, increased its budget 58 percent ahead of inflation, and then, for no apparent purpose, christened its headquarters the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building.
“More than 60 education laws were part of the vast number of legislative measures that made up the Great Society,” crowed Lynda Johnson Robb when the structure was renamed in September 2007. “But Daddy wasn’t as interested in the number of laws he helped enact as he was in the number of lives those laws help enrich.”
By signing the 822-page Energy Independence Act on Dec. 19, 2007, Bush extinguished the incandescent light bulb. This keystone of Yankee ingenuity failed in some 10,000 experiments until a perseverant Thomas Edison perfected it in 1880. Now it will become illegal in 2014. If compact-fluorescent and halogen bulbs outsell Edison’s invention, so be it. But for this quintessentially American creation to be prohibited by federal law is precisely the sort of abomination the Republican party was invented to prevent.
Communications: Bush raised the failure to communicate to a governing principle. This goes far beyond his linguistic pratfalls—such as Tuesday’s reference to helicopter pilots as “chopper drivers.” Besides not explaining its policies, the administration handed its opponents fresh truncheons with which to pound it silly.
Bush and his minions refused to detail the multifarious ties between Saddam Hussein and Islamofascist terrorists. They even stayed quiet about Manhattan-based, Clinton-appointed U.S. District judge Harold Baer’s May 7, 2003 decision that Hussein provided “material support” to the 9/11 conspirators. In Smith v. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Judge Baer ruled that Hussein's Baathist government and the Taliban assisted Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Judge Baer — who President Clinton nominated in April 1994 — ordered Hussein, Iraq’s former government, and this case’s other losing parties to pay $104 million in civil damages to the families of George Eric Smith and Timothy Soulas, both murdered on September 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center. Judge Baer added: “Again, since the al-Qaeda defendants and Iraq are jointly and severally liable, they are all responsible for the payment of any judgment that may be entered.”
Rather than publicize this federal court decision, Bush & Co. instead echoed the Left’s claims that Saddam Hussein had no connection to al-Qaeda, much less September 11.
Bush covered this topic most thoroughly at Kansas State University on Jan. 23, 2006. Bush said:
[Hussein] was a state sponsor of terror. In other words, the government had declared, you are a state sponsor of terror. . . . There’s a reason why he was declared a state sponsor of terror — because he was sponsoring terror.
When the administration found 3,894 pounds of low-enriched uranium in Iraq, Bush did not call a news conference. Instead, the Energy Department issued an almost totally ignored press release on July 6, 2004. Ditto the 606.3 tons of yellowcake uranium that the administration moved from Iraq to Canada last July. Despite the Left’s relentless charges that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein’s fondness for yellowcake, this development passed in near silence.
Bush’s Nov. 5, 2003 signing of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban (a good thing) featured Bush onstage at Washington’s Constitution Hall. Behind him stood GOP lawmakers Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert, Orrin Hatch, Rick Santorum, James Sensenbrenner, and others — all male. The White House press and advance teams arranged this much-needed curtailment of abortion rights and yet could not place even one woman beside the president. Why were no female senators nor congresswomen near Bush? Better yet, why not surround him with pro-life moms and their infants, perhaps some who were saved through crisis-pregnancy counseling? This public-relations malpractice let the National Organization for Women use a photo of Bush and the boys as an Internet recruitment and fundraising tool.
Cheek: Bush turned the other cheek until both were bloodied beyond recognition. Too nice by half, his “new tone in Washington” unilaterally disarmed Team Bush against critics who devoured them like piranhas.
This problem began with reports that outgoing Clinton staffers had trashed the White House. Had Bush brought in news cameras to document the destruction then only verbally described in the media, Bill and Hillary would have been terminally discredited. But Bush & Co. covered up for the Clintons, perhaps thinking this would buy peace with the Left. Yeah, right.
When then-senator James Jeffords (R., Vt.) became an independent in June 2001, the Senate switched from Republican to Democratic control. The day before the hand-off, Bush included Jeffords in a Cabinet Room photo opportunity. Message: “Go ahead. Ruin Bush’s day; get a bear hug.”
Bush took heat for skipping the NAACP’s 2004 convention. He and his publicists could have detailed the repugnant “old tone” comments by NAACP leaders, such as its then-executive director Kweisi Mfume. He said Bush is “prepared to take us back to the days of Jim Crow segregation and dominance.” Instead, these noxious words went unrepeated, and the notion that Bush is anti-black went unrefuted.
Bush’s lackadaisical response to Hurricane Katrina generated outrageous genocide accusations.
“George Bush is our Bull Connor,” Rep. Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.) said on Sept. 22, 2005. “If you’re black in this country, and you’re poor in this country, it’s not an inconvenience. It’s a death sentence.”
Rather than loudly rebuff such sludge with facts (e.g., the Coast Guard rescued 33,544 Katrina survivors as soon as wind speeds allowed; between 2000 and 2003, federal anti-poverty spending grew in Orleans Parish, La., by 73.3 percent per recipient under Bush), the White House rolled over and played dead, silently confirming for many the despicable lie that Bush let blacks drown in New Orleans attics just for kicks.
Crawford: His ranch in Crawford, Texas, is the perfect place for G. W. Bush to disappear and never be heard from again.
— Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Two mistakes right out of the box:
1. Getting into bed with Teddy Kennedy. If there’s no difference in the philosophy of governing between Republicans and Democrats, I can just as well sit out elections. Bi-partisanship is utter nonsense.
2. Talking about “compassionate conservatism.” I always resented this. Like I have something to apologize for when I say that it’s not the role of government to wipe everyone’s ?ss. I’d match my compassion for the poor and the sick any day with that of a liberal. Bush simply signalled that he wasn’t sure about how he should govern and the Dems picked up on this and have been whittling away at his ability to govern since he said this. It sounded too much like his dumb father’s “Thousand Points of Light” or dumb Jerry Ford’s “Whip Inflation Now.” It’s funny how the moderate Republicans keep on uttering this bull; it’s obvious they have no clear governing style.
I liked George Bush as a campaigner. He was a lousy president and I have been a loyal Republican for 40 years.
Indeed, you are correct.. Memories don’t stand a chance in the internet age.
It was the Gulf of Sidra crap and the German nightclub bombing that prompted the tent hit.... not, Pan Am 103.
Thanks for the “compassionate correction”. Many on these boards would not have been so kind. :-)
Absolutely correct. But, Reagan is dead. W was the guy elected. Sure he disappointed both of us but Gore would have been worse. That is fact. Now we have the Messiah. McCain is not my guy but elections have consequences. Conserv opposition simply has failed. It will not stop the security over freedom that we believe in Socialism will be rampant. When 4 million disappointed conservs did not, did not vote for John, that ended any, any Pub conserv chance for perhaps 4 terms to turn this around. The WSJ wrote last week, if SCHIP is passed, and it will be, then federal health care is in the cards for sure and the Pubs cannot stop it. That is fact. So of course W could have been , should have been, but he wasn’t. We got a faded look at a guy who protected the nation but failed to implement conserv ideals. This election past, simply eliminated those views for a generation. That too is fact since just where do you see opposition forming and groups talking a return to free enterprise democratic capitalism and a democratic-republican form of historical American government. I do not see it anywhere.
Phil, thanks for the reply and you make such valid points that this post may read like War and Peace. Reagan is truly dead and I don’t join with other cons in thinking we need to duplicate his policies(just his beliefs). And yes W got elected, in fact I voted for him in 00 and 04. Thing is, I knew he wasn’t a solid con back then but I also knew that his message of compassionate conservatism was the only thing that was going to beat Gore. Bush Sr rode in on the popularity of a two term president by beating Dukakis over the head with his liberalism compared to the success of Reagan’s conservatism. We cons were looking at the same thing with Bush Jr v Gore. Gore was going to try to beat any republican over the head with their conservatism with the popularity of Clinton’s liberalism. Now with compassionate conservatism, I thought Bush found an end run around this problem especially with regards to faith based initiatives. Think about it. It was Bush saying that he would take our tax money and turn it around and give it back to the states and the people to spend as they saw fit(with some caveates). On top of that he promised a tax cut at a time when the federal gov’t touting a surplus. A tax cut should have kept the next pres from spending that surplus and have sent it back to us. Now we cons all have our inclinations and I am a fiscal con first, small government cons second, a traditional con third and a social con last. But I have the highest regard for social cons and the positive influence they have on governance. The church based charities operate on a shoestring and yeild the best returns on their efforts. In short, I bought into Bush’s compassionate conservatism early on and it didn’t pan out. He kept his compassion right there in DC with his increased spending and his willingness to use the federal government to get his way. Let me back up. There are 3 groups to blame for why conservatives and the republican party that relies on them to get elected are on the ropes right now. Numero Uno is President Bush because if he had just articulated that conservatism has compassion as one of its key ends and that compassionate conservatism isn’t just some subset of the conservative movement we’d be ok right now. “Hi, I’m one of those compassionate conservatives and not one of those mean conservatives”. Give me a break. 2ndly the republican party got happily and quickly into bed with the beltway and business almost as soon as they rode into Washington on a reform movement back in 94 with the contract with America. And this leads me to our third culprit which is us conservative voters. We let this happen. We wanted our party to win at all costs(that “it could have been worse” theme). Every con became a con second and a republican first. Every republican pol was free to do whatever they could to get re-elected including embracing leftist policies, becoming corrupt, getting hot and heavy with K Street and playing dirty politics. So there ya go. For fiscal cons it should be about balancing the budget and reducing the deficit. For small government cons it should be about limiting the size of the federal government while proving that local government is almost always better at handling problems than the fed is. Traditional cons should be fighting for the return of our institutions and our culture to their previous roles as arbiters of stability not venues of social reform. Finally social cons should keep reminding us all that there is a higher purpose and that what we do here now for ourselves is nothing compared to what we need to do to honor God. Me, I am not so pessimistic. Not since the depression has it been so obvious that government sucks, that they are not good at governing. The republicans need a reformer in the truest since of the word. Obama didnt promise that, he only promised “change”. You can change a diaper. It still fills up with crap in a few hours. The next republican has to be a conservative reformer not a cafeteria style conservative like Bush was. Or an insider/elitist like McCain. The people are SO pissed off at the federal government and Obama has given no beliefs that he will set things right. Reagan gave us a theme which was that government is not the answer and that indivigual initiative is. Four years of an Obama presidency screwing things up may just give conservatives the opening we need. Hello camel, meet straw.
So what did you think of the Lowrey prayer, and the poet’s poetry? LOL Note, only whites had to do right.
Moron? lol...You seem angry...Too much coffee this morning Missy?
You Bush-hating retards are really working overtime. I know you can't show any class, but you should, at least, attempt to make sense.
Oh, I see, 13 years in politics is not a career according to Deb on Free Republic.
Right Deb.
Thanks for finally admitting your error.
What a surprise huh Debbie?
I regret wasting so much time on you. You’re obviously mentally unstable...and could use a change of underwear.
LOL! Cheer up Debbie..
Whom do you propose be the one to make that selection? Hell the Cons can't even agree on a single leader much less coalesce behind one prior to having a ‘duke out’ during the primaries. JMO
But for Bush, Islamic terrorism would have been this century's version of Nazism, with all the implications and dangers of that movement .... that's all Bush needed to be, to be a success.
Miss Murdock needs to extend his historical vision farther ahead than the paycheck for his next column.
RE:
“I’ll say this about GWB:
1. He was right on the most important issue of our time — the War on Terror. He has won that war — to date.
2. I disagree with virtually everything he’s done the past two years. And much of what he did before.
3. Still, he’s a good man. I’ve no doubt that, at every juncture, he did what he thought best for the USA.
I’ve voted for Presidents from 1964 forward. Where would Bush rank in that group of eight Presidents? Realistically, a solid #2.
Think about it...”
**************
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I agree with almost all of your post and say I really really see GWB as an overall good leader and great defender of this country!
To jump onto that bandwagon ... today's "conservatives" can't agree on a single leader, because we can't even agree on what "conservatism" means, much less how it should be implemented.
As the last ugly primary season demonstrated, "conservatism" has tended to mean "what I think, and anybody who disagrees with me is a RINO bastard."
And in the fantasy world of modern Republican politics, the name "Reagan" is used like a magic word -- candidates seek to identify themselves with Reagan. Not that their ideas actually match what Reagans were, but because Reagan was the last Republican giant. His ideas are irrelevant to the candidates, just so long as they can foster an impression of being "Reaganesque."
To be blunt, modern conservatism has lost its intellectual bearings. We're a "movement" only in the Brownian sense of the word: randomly adopting positions under the influence of what seems to offer political advantage at the moment.
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