Posted on 06/15/2002 4:12:45 PM PDT by Tom D.
People keep sending me e-mails hailing John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, as the new pin-up of the world's conservatives. So far, admittedly, 97.634% of these e-mailers are Australian, but their subtext is a universal one -- that George W. Bush, at least in non-warmongering mode, is losing friends all around the globe, particularly since he launched his Shameless Protectionism Of The Month series. Canada's mad about softwood lumber, the Aussies and the EU about steel, and even Britain's doughtiest Tories are agog at the $248.6-billion farm bill Bush signed the other day.
This shameless pork (and wheat, and cotton) spending prompted paroxysms of rage from The Daily Telegraph's Boris Johnson, who declared that the President "has taken the engorged hosepipe of federal spending, and squirted it at any state that may return a Republican in this autumn's mid-term elections." If it's any consolation to him, as far as I can tell no actual farmers -- that's to say, gnarled guys in overalls, plaid shirts and John Deere caps with straws in their teeth -- will benefit from the so-called farm bill. Almost three-quarters of the subsidies will go to 20,000 multi-millionaire play-farmers and blue-chip corporations with some canny land investments. Among the lucky "farmers" piling up the dollar bills under the mattress are CNN founder Ted Turner, ABC News bloviator Sam Donaldson, the oil company Chevron, and dirtpoor hardscrabble sharecropper David Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan Bank. Federal subsidies are aimed at the largest, most profitable farming operations, so, if you've got a small dairy operation in Vermont or New Hampshire, you'll be getting precisely nothing. But Ted and Sam and the Rockefellers will all be putting in new barns and buying new combines and remodeling the en suite bathrooms in the milking parlour. How ya gonna keep 'em down in Paree after they've seen the farm?
The legislation, as Johnson notes, is designed to help Republican fortunes in the "farm belt." Judging from this bill, the farm belt runs from Park Avenue, down Wall Street, out to the Hamptons and then by yacht to Martha's Vineyard -- or, as I like to think of it, Martha's Barnyard. These precincts will all be voting Democratic this November, as per usual: An extra three hundred grand here and there doesn't make any difference to these boys. But the political calculation is that out in the real farm belt the straw-suckers will watch Sam Donaldson discussing the new farm bill on ABC and draw the reasonable conclusion that Bush is "helping" farmers. Perception is everything: Just as Federal education bills do nothing for education, so it is not necessary for Federal farm bills to do anything for farms, just so long as they give the impression they do. By shoveling U.S. Department of Agriculture dollars at Ted Turner and David Rockefeller, President Bush hopes that enough folks in, say, rural South Dakota will be sufficiently grateful to vote against Democratic incumbent Tim Johnson on election day and return the Senate to Republican hands.
Mr. Bush is supposed to be a master of priority-setting, and, politically speaking, he's got just the one this November -- to take back the Senate Judiciary Chairmanship. Ever since Jim Jeffords, Vermont's dairy queen, flounced out of the Republican Party and turned the Senate over to the Democrats, this key committee has been controlled by Patrick Leahy, a master of naked political obstruction. A year ago, Bush sent him the names of his first 11 judicial nominees for the U.S. circuit courts of appeal. In the course of 12 months, Leahy's committee has managed to confirm just three, two of them Clinton Democrats Bush left on the list as a bipartisan gesture. In other words, Senator Leahy has taken a year to confirm one out of nine Republican nominees. The other eight aren't even scheduled for a hearing.
Judicial nominees are important to conservatives. These days, the left advances its causes more effectively through the courts than elections, for the fairly obvious reason that very few people are dumb enough to vote for this stuff. So, if a conservative President can't get conservative judges on to the bench, his long-term influence is greatly diminished. Bush knows this. Hence, the farm bill. Hence, his interest in that South Dakota Senate seat. Hence, his cunning plan to take back the Judiciary Committee by throwing money at David Rockefeller.
But isn't this kind of a roundabout way of doing things? Why didn't he jump on Leahy last fall when, post-9/11, he had 90% approval ratings? Why didn't he do to Leahy what Clinton would have done to Gingrich? Bush could have said, look, there's a war on and we need my good friend Pat to concentrate all his formidable skills on his critical role, all the more important in wartime, of Congressional oversight of the Justice Department, blah blah blah, so he needs to stop playing politics and confirm these nominees. Back then, even Leahy's hometown paper, Vermont's Burlington Free Press, no friend of Republicans, was critical of his unyielding obstructionism. But Bush sits on his political capital like a squirrel facing an eight-month winter. And so, at a time when he had the highest approval ratings of any President ever, he allowed himself to get kicked around by an obnoxious bruiser from a politically irrelevant state.
So here he is six months later jettisoning principles all over the swing states. I object to the farm bill, and the steel tariffs, and the softwood lumber duties, all of which impose costs on American consumers. And the more Republican sophists explain the logic behind them, the less sense they make. The steel tariffs, a wily GOP insider told me, aren't just about boosting Bush's chances in Pennsylvania and the like, but rather about getting union support for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Er, OK, if you say so. But why complicate matters? Instead of abandoning core principles, wouldn't it be easier to, say, give some speeches? If you can't sell the country on the need for additional domestic oil resources when you're at war with a bunch of Islamofascists from the Middle East, when can you? Wouldn't it be more efficient to fly to Alaska and do a walkabout with all the locals who are itching for the drilling to start? And, while you're at it, give a speech out on the ugly barren wasteland the eco-loonies have declared inviolable while getting pecked to pieces by the world's biggest mosquito herd, whose needs apparently outrank those of the American people.
Ever since September 11th, Bush defenders have said he feels that, with the country at war, he needs to take the high road. But sticking it to your opponents once in a while is the high road compared to selling out every basic conservative principle for the tenuous possibility of some barely related political advantage. John Howard, a man who publicly told Rupert Murdoch to "F--- off," might like to remind Bush of that.
Right. A wonderful example of that is Medicare, which also allows us to view the long term [I wanna be like Common Tator, so I used a little bold ;^)] effects.
Back when Medicare was getting done in the 60s, rather than say 'no, it is a bad idea and an improper area for government' the AMA conceded (with their Republican allies) the notion that the government had a role and offered a 'Medicare lite' called eldercare. The ballgame was over then
We see what we have now....a huge program that costs more than ten times what it was estimated it would cost at this time, proposals for more programs, increased regulations, paperwork, and more difficult access to care.
To this day you can't find very many people who knew what was in it. The Congress was won because Clinton moved too far left.
I think Newt knew this was going to happen, and he issued the Contract so that he could claim a mandate on those issues and get them voted on. It was very smart, and I am glad he did it, but I don't think it is why we won.
In every election we have lost (Bush 41 seems to be the one I remember so I will talk about that) the democrats have moved the center to the left by portraying Republicans as uncaring and out of touch. This is what they did to Bush 41. Remember how they went on and on about the economy, until you would have thought he was Simn LeGree? Remember how they portrayed him as out of touch with regular Americans?
The thing the right has to realize is that a lot of people are afraid of us. I have a family that is all over the political spectrum. Several of them are actually worried about Republicans being in control. We have allowed the left to demonize us.
Tator is right. You have to move the center over to our side. There is NO other way to win. If our ideas stood by themselves and could convert people, why wasn't Barry Goldwater elected? Why did Reagan have such a hard time with Congress?
In a perfect world, people would be convinced by the power of our ideas. We do not live in a perfect world.
I will answer that when the dems are in control of all 3 branches.
Face it, the guy's a Rockefeller Republican. He believes in government and, while he doesn't want to say so, knows taxes will eventually have to go up to pay for it all. If the Democrats are smart enough to nominate someone who can successfully pretend he's a moderate, Bush could easliy wind up back in Texas in '04.
Really? I have lived in Texas for 30 years and he sure as hell didn't "expand" government in 6 of those 30 years. Do you have any examples?
The Democratic left tried but failed to demonize the GOP during the Gipper's run when he laughed at and treated their distortions and lies as lies. Then he beat Carter, and hammered Mondale into submission. THAT is something the GOP has refused to do since.
Steyn is right -- Dubya ought to slam his 80% approval rating and bully pulpit and bludgeon the Rats on a number of conservative issues WITH THE TRUTH. I think it'll work with most Americans...
Quite frankly, if George Bush can't convince Americans with truth and principles, insead of smoke and nirrors, the Republic is already well on its way to hell in a hand basket.
The alternative was AlBore. I knew for a fact he would just be a mouthpiece for Klintoon. I also knew for a fact that AlBore would make me unhappy 365 days of the year.
It ain't rocket science.
I have found that not many people are aware of this very important fact.
President Bush has a very closely contested election, and a media and democrat party that has been Clintonized. Should he attempt to bludgeon the democrats from the bully pulpit, it is likely it would never get air time.
What he is doing is going to all these local appearances, where he gets local coverage in places like Des Moines and Little Rock. The local press covers him, and the Beltway Press pays no attention.
Do I wish that President Bush could make a national speech laying out all that's wrong with the Rats? Sure. But I am also realistic enough to know that this would be pointless and could possible open the President up to a full-scale attack. This would not be productive, plus the networks probably wouldn't carry it.
So you feel that Dubya's 80% approval rating is tenuous and fragile at best and that he should hold on and wait until there is a chance the Senate once again is in GOP's hands perhaps?
As for the media ignoring Dubya should he opportune at launching some political capital from the bully pulpit, that is a point that is arguable. IMO, there are now many more media outlets that would give Dubya and our side a fairer shake than in the past. I think it has something to do with ratings ;-)
No, but he had 53+ GOP in the Senate for almost all of his 8 years.
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