Posted on 03/29/2002 3:08:59 PM PST by TLBSHOW
WASHINGTON --
It looks as if President Bush 's honeymoon is over. He's fine with the American people -- his personal approval rating is still in the 80 percent range -- but his own natives, Republican movement conservatives, are already restless.
Like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan before him, Bush is already being branded as an appeaser of liberals and a sellout on a range of issues dear to the right-side hearts of many of his party's faithful. These are, it must be mentioned, impossible people who, more often than not, prefer to lose on principle than win through compromise.
They hate Washington and all it stands for, which is compromise and government of all the people. Unfortunately for them, presidents, even their own, have to work in this town -- and that means compromising, however reluctantly, with the opposition in Congress and the vast bureaucracies of governance and liberal constituencies.
Like baseball, it happens every spring. This year, even with overwhelming conservative (and liberal, too) support of the president in our officially undeclared war on terrorism, there are the right's gripes of the moment:
The president from Texas, lusting for Hispanic votes in his own state and in California, is too friendly with Mexico, pushing amnesty for illegal immigrants from south of the Rio Grande and San Diego.
He has sold out free-traders by imposing old-fashioned tariffs on the import of foreign steel -- or he is just chasing Democratic voters in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
He may have been holding his nose when he did it, but he signed the campaign-finance reform bill pushed by Democratic senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and apostate Republican senator John McCain of Arizona.
As part of the war effort, he is advocating a 50 percent increase in the United States' minuscule foreign aid program. This one rebukes conservatives who were determined to set in stone the idea that there is no connection between poverty in the poor regions of the world and hatred and terrorism directed at the richest of nations, the United States.
He is pushing Israel to compromise in its endless war against the Palestinians in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank.
He is pushing education policy and legislation that would increase federal influence in states, counties and towns across the country -- a big no-no to movement conservatives.
He is not pushing tax cuts the way he did during the campaign, partly because war and educational reform cost huge amounts of taxpayer revenues. Most of this was bound to happen, and any ideological president, Republican or Democrat, is eventually forced to betray campaign promises and core constituencies. The only difference this time is that because of continuing public support for military action (and its high costs), Bush is beginning to take more flak from his own kind than from the loyal opposition.
In the conservatives' favorite newspaper, The Washington Times, political columnist Donald Lambro began a news analysis last week by saying: "President Bush's about-face on trade tariffs, stricter campaign-finance regulations and other deviations from Republican doctrine is beginning to anger his conservative foot soldiers but does not seem to be cutting into his overall popularity -- yet."
John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union, puts it this way: "We're very disappointed about these new tariffs on steel and lumber. That's two new tax hikes on the American people. ... There's a concern among our members that in his effort to build and keep this coalition for the war, which is certainly needed, he's given Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and the forces of big government a free pass."
Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum, added: "He's been getting a pass from us until now, but the amnesty bill is what tipped it over for us. I agree with Sen. Robert Byrd (a Democrat). This is 'sheer lunacy.' ... A lot of people thought Bush's education bill was terrible. But we didn't rant and rave about it because we wanted to support him on the war. That's changed. The amnesty bill is the hot issue out here. It's out of sync with what grassroots Americans want."
Finally, Stephen Moore, president of the conservative Club for Growth, said: "The danger for us is that Bush may begin to take the conservatives for granted, and you are seeing some signs of that happening with the steel tariff decision, foreign aid and other spending increases in the budget."
So it goes. There is nothing new about this. In the 1970s, William F. Buckley and other movement conservative leaders publicly "suspended" their support of President Richard Nixon because of what they considered his liberal moves toward welfare reform, tariffs and other issues considered part of the liberal domestic agenda -- to say nothing of his reaching out to communist China.
But in the end, Nixon kept them in line by pushing the war in Vietnam beyond reasonable limits. George Bush could accomplish the same political goal of uniting conservative support by continuing to push the war on terrorism into far nooks and crannies of the whole world.
I don't find that surprising.
If honorable servants are elected to congress you can put Chuckles the Clown in as POTUS and maintain Constitutional order. I will not support the GOP in general until it cleans it's house literally inside and out. Trent Lott's firing is a good place to begin. Why is this failure still being rewarded with a leadership position in the senate? Nobody has the right to say how terrible the DEM's are when they tolorate ones no better in the GOP for the sake of the party.
Party line voting is not the answer unless one party offers a very significant difference and a true Constitutional approach to resolve our current crisis.
If a president determines to veto a bill, it would be the rare instance indeed when he states that his veto is based on, ultimately, HIS unbinding, unauthoritative, extra-constitutional opinion that the statutory scheme is "unconstitutional." If the bill is a bad idea for other reasons, that's one thing, but the executive branch can't pretend it knows what the judicial branch will do. And would we really want that result?
This is all a long way of trying to illuminate the fact that, however much people are bothered about CFR, and however much people feel there were strong justifications for a CFR veto, the claim that GWB "abandoned" the Constitution is simply over the top.
I don't care anymore what the Rats do, Bush signed CFR and its just not worth fighting anymore. I give up. Let the Rats take full control.
What's the difference anyways ? If we cannot have a real president that we can look up to, one that is willing to commit political suicide, what's the point ?
Lets sign a blank check right now made payable to Daschle and the rest of the Rats and just go home, the party is over.
Explain icy rhetoric?
OK, then use facts to make it.
I don't care if you use the broader context that you wish, I still challenge you to find one Federal gun control law that has been recinded or weakened. The Emerson case might do so, but it is under appeal and being vigourously prosecuted by...you guessed it...the Bush administration. Gun control is a favorite of both parties when it suits them.
As for gaining ground, I find no such thing. That Bush may be slowing the rate of increase of Big Govt. is not gaining ground in my book. Until I hear the word REPEAL from the Republicans in power, not one more cent from me. Nor another vote.
The White House has no trouble nominating loosers. Take Lamar Alexander for example. If Keyes was so bad why did your namesake trust him as an Ambasador? Phillips among conservatives is a work horse. The difference between Reagan and Bush is this. Reagan unified and worked with the conservative base. Bush used the Conservative base and refuses to be seen in public with anyone remotely associated as such. He want our votes not our ideas. He unfortunately listens to the wisdom??? of Gerald Ford on the matter of Conservatives. "Where else can they go" Well Jerry in 1976 they stayed home didn't they! Is 2004 to be the Ford type GOP's third defeat while in office?
The 'Bush 2004' bumper sticker that I scraped off the back of my pickup said 'Morality. Integrity. [something else...I forgot].'
SOMEONE should have stopped this lunacy before it became law. We could argue all day about whether it is the Supreme Court's 'duty' to decide the Constitutionality of laws. I would argue that that wasn't the framer's intention, and FDR corrupted that, but that's another story.
We Americans love to nail people who break promises or show sanctimony -- it makes us feel like we're not so bad. For that reason alone I think Bush will take some heat on this one. The FIRST Amendment is one of the things people die for. I don't think my characterization is over the top at all.
Thanks for the kind words, too.
I'm going to keep voting my conscience and hope I die before the real bad stuff comes. Sorry.
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