Posted on 11/08/2004 9:37:29 AM PST by tpaine
The Antiwar Right Is Ready to Rumble
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/weekinreview/07kirk.html? ex=1100877650&ei=1&en=1003a79efbe25be2
November 7, 2004 The Antiwar Right Is Ready to Rumble By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
ROUND 8 p.m. Tuesday, a gloomy mood was settling over the dozen conservative stalwarts gathered with martinis and glasses of red wine in an office in Arlington, Va., to watch the returns. Early exit polls showed President Bush trailing, and Richard Viguerie, dean of conservative direct mail, thought he knew who was to blame: the neoconservatives, the group associated with making the case for the invasion of Iraq.
"If he loses, they are going to have a bull's-eye on their back," Mr. Viguerie said.
Ronald Godwin, a top aide to Dr. Jerry Falwell, agreed. "I see a real battle for the Republican Party starting about Nov. 3," he said.
The euphoria of Mr. Bush's victory postponed the battle, but not for long. Now that Mr. Bush has secured re-election, some conservatives who say they held their tongues through the campaign season are speaking out against the neoconservatives, against the war and in favor of a speedy exit.
They argue that the war is a political liability to the Republican Party, but also that it runs counter to traditional conservatives' disdain for altruist interventions to make far-off parts of the world safe for American-style democracy. Their growing outspokenness recalls the dynamics of American politics before Vietnam, when Democrats first became identified as doves and Republicans hawks, suggesting to some the complicated political pressures facing the foreign policy of the second Bush administration.
"Clearly, the war in Iraq was a drag on votes, and it is threatening to the Bush coalition," said Grover Norquist president of Americans for Tax Reform and a strategist close to the administration who had not spoken up about the war's political costs before. He contended that the war reduced Mr. Bush's majority by 6 percentage points to 51 percent of the vote. Mr. Bush now has two years to "solve Iraq" to protect Republican candidates at the midterm elections, he said. His suggestions: withdrawing United States troops to safe citadels within Iraq or by "handing Falluja over to the Iraqis and saying, 'It's your headache.' "
On Thursday, Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, issued a call to conservatives for a serious debate about the administration's foreign policy. "The consequences of the neocons' adventure in Iraq are now all too clear," he said. "America is stuck in a guerrilla war with no end in sight. Our military is stretched too thin to respond to other threats. And our real enemies, nonstate organizations such as Al Qaeda, are benefiting from the Arab and Islamic backlash against our occupation of an Islamic country."
Proponents of the war, however, argued that Mr. Bush would not have won re-election without it because Americans did not want to change the commander in chief. "Bush's foreign policy decisions seem to have been exactly why he won this huge victory that he did," said the neoconservative David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He argued that candidates who opposed the war - Gov. Howard Dean the most, and Senator John Kerry to a lesser extent - suffered the biggest losses. IF the Democrats have silenced some of their loudest complaints about the war, however, some on the right said they were turning up the volume on their own previously muted objections.
"A lot of the antiwar conservatives had to hold their tongue during the campaign because the No. 1 goal was to get Bush re-elected," said Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and an important conservative fund-raiser.
Even on the eve of the election, William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the National Review, was decorously edging closer to full-throated opposition to the war. "At War With What or Whom?'' was the headline of his column on Oct. 19.
A few months ago, Donald Devine, a vice chairman of the American Conservative Union, publicly apologized to Mr. Bush after it was reported that in disgust at the war he had failed to applaud a presidential speech. But in a column shortly before the election, Mr. Devine wrote that conservatives should vote for Mr. Bush precisely because he was likely to withdraw from Iraq sooner than Senator Kerry would.
Arguing that the president had dropped hints like a quickly retracted statement in a television interview about the impossibility of winning a war against terror, Mr. Devine argued that "the president's maddening repetition of slogans" about the war was the "only politically possible tactic for a candidate who has already made up his mind to leave at the earliest reasonable moment." He added: "The neoconservatives will be devastated."
But Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, dismissed those theories, pointing to the president's statement in his post-election news conference that troops would stay in Iraq as long as needed: "Our commanders will have that which they need to complete their missions," the president said.
The War on Terror is not a war of choice and, if we are to win, then the war must be fought in Iran, too. Or...we can declare victory, get out and let our children and grandchildren deal with it, possibly here.
Wow, Grover actually converted to Islam? I didn't know that! How bizarre.
From what I've read of your posts on this thread, I find nothing to disagree with, only support. You may find that support a little strange coming from me, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em. (And unless you're trying to come on to me, the name is Boot Hill or maybe even Boot, but never "Bootie".)
--Boot Hill
I will allow you the last word since it seems so very important to you. :o)
Don Simmons, BRAVO for your post.
I totally agree with you, and thank you for telling it like it is.
I am shocked. I have friends who work with Grover on different business projects. I will warn them. Thank you for the help; we truly did not know.
Thanks, I had no idea. Where have I been? And to think I once voted for Pat in the primaries.
If you want knee-jerk "Commie/leftie/Kerry supporter" reaction, go to an economics forum and state that FreeTrade is going to kill the industrial US.
Seems that intelligent discussion of GWB's policies (some of which are REALLY discuss-able) implies that one is a traitor.
Reducing the election results to "anti-war" or "pro-morals" is preposterous and beneath your usual intellectual capability.
In Wisconsin, a very conservative Republican challenger lost to a 100%-A1-lefty (US Senate.) There are other races around the country in which the pro-Bush candidate lost, even in States which went 'red.'
GWB was a weak candidate (although a good guy, not a typical pol.)
Kerry was worse than Bush, and it was the lies that sank him.
IN theory, your program is perfect.
In war, there's a small problem: the goblins don't wear signs.
However, we sure don't want to hang around too long in that stinking desert.
Agreed that this is a good plan--along with intensive patrolling of the petroleum infrastructure. IIRC, GWB told us that the oil revs would pay back the US taxpayer investment in that godforsaken country.
Glad you brought up the distinction between "building democracy" and wiping out terrorists--and I hope you understand the difference.
A "weak" candidate who got 61 million votes.
There is no question that paleos of every stripe got whacked on Nov. 2. The anti-war, anti-free-trade, isolationist fringe has been replaced by the socially, but foreign-policy-muscular, conservatives.
Moral values may have been important to those who voted for Bush, but support for his way of dealing with terrorism was given a massive stamp of approval.
Kerry was viewed as weak on terror, which is what sank him. I don't think any Democrat could have won this election.
Putting the NeoCons squarely in the same bed as was Big Brother in 1984.
Evidently you missed ALL of GWB's stump speeches.
Agreed, we took out a terrorist-supporter w/Hussein. Agreed, we are taking out a bunch of Islamofascists in Fallujah and other garden spots.
But GWB's rhetoric was all about 'freedom' for the Iraqi citizens.
Don't try to argue otherwise.
I think you mis-overestimate the "Wilsonianism" in the US.
Wilson was a blathering idiot--maybe you recall the League of Nations?
If you don't it's just as well. Like its Wilsonian successor, it's better off dead.
It could be argued that the 100% lefty wacko who won the Wisconsin Senate race won SOLELY because he voted against PNTR/China and against NAFTA.
All the other factors were equal--but the wacko got a hell of a lot of otherwise-(R) votes. I poll-watched in a very safe (R) precinct; the Sen candidate ran about 10% behind GWB.
So your thesis that "FreeTrade" is a boon to GWB is a crock.
I think that the issue (which is intertwined with GWB's flaccidity on the illegals) will continue to be significant, and although GWB may get the Latin American Free Trade agreement through, it will be a fight.
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.