In my very first post on this thread I said Bush is a good man and wartime leader but that he wasn’t a conservative. I should have said that he was awful at helping the conservative movement. I read your homepage also and I agree that many of the items you posted were conservative successes. Hey he is a republican with majority control in both houses of congress for most of his 8 years, go figure. There are crudely 4 kinds of cons. Social cons, traditional cons, fiscal cons and small government cons. He satisfied the social cons to some degree but failed to articulate a cogent policy on gay marriage and abortion. He failed the other 3 groups. As for the WOT, his one shining legacy, well nation building and pre-emptive war aren’t exactly what you call conservative goals, in fact historically they’ve been liberal positions. He convinced me on that front and I mark it as his one success as a leader to change the minds of conservatives. He failed us in not privatizing social security. He failed us on McCain Fiengold. He failed us on the prescription drug benefit. He failed us on NCLB(hell Ted Kennedy helped him on that one). He failed us on immigration and he failed us on GLOBAL WARMING(the single biggest avenue for socialists to get us to sign on to one world government) by folding on this issue last year. This ain’t nitpicking. These issues are massive, broad, and lasting in scope. He failed by turns because he either didn’t, wouldn’t fight, or thought he shouldn’t fight. He often failed because he couldn’t articulate, wouldn’t articulate, or thought he shouldn’t articulate conservative issues. He didn’t get a lot of things done and many of the things he did get done were down right liberal. He was a bad leader.
You are exactly dramatically right.
Until bushies are willing to admit just how horribly we have failed with GWB as the scion of the GOP ... the conservative movement will not even start to revive. Right now its stone cold dead as far as any national power is concerned.
As you probably can see, I have been fighting this battle on multiple fronts for a long time. I actually am more confident than ever that President Bush has exercised superb leadership. My confidence has increased as I read literally dozens of critics try to explain why they disagree. I rarely encounter evidence associated with claims of Bush critics. They have heard something repeated so it is true.
Reagan is a good counter example since many Bush critics pretend that he represents an ideal and fair standard. Reagan meets known of the criteria for success. Reagan could have much more easily chose to end illegal immigration at a time that it was still manageable. He signed Simpson Mazolli and actively created the legal term now shouted in internent conversations as an epithet for Bush Amnesty!
Amnesty was literally invented by Reagan.
NCLB is fascinating study in pathology. Bush campaigned on NCLB. It is not something liberals foisted upon him. It was an important conservative principal which attracted conservatives to vote for him in 2000. He enacted his promise into law. Since the inception of the bill, Kennedy and other liberals have complained that the law lacks sufficient funding. It lacks sufficient funding because President Bush has adhered to conservative funding principals. In the previous system, the federal funding increased without strings attached. Now schoool must report their scores and a host of other information for parents. Most importantly, it has improved educational outcomes nationally since being enacted. The idea that it is not conservative is absurd.
here again Reagan is useful. Did education spending increase under Reagan— yes, by a huge amount. Did Reagan abolish the cabined post of education just created recently by Carter— No. Its absolutely absurd. There really are no standards for people who criticize Bush as not conservative.
If there is a standard it is simply this— Bush should abolish the Federal govenrment. Having not done that then he would be respected as a conservative.
Global Warming makes me wonder if you even read any news. Bush rejected the Kyoto protocol explicitly and repeatedly even after Clinton signed and executive order agreeing to it. McCain ran his campaign on this fact which makes it bizarre that you pretend Bush agreed to capitulate to GW. Again it does not matter what practical facts I point out, because you have some ideal in mind [perhaps the assasination of Al Gore— I don’t know] having fallen short of that ideal— Bush supports Global warming policies.
Nonetheless, in the arena of comparative alternatives— which actually is what politics is. Bush is a very strong conservative leader with credentials that surpass almost any leader we could list.
Again, the best refutation is to point to Clinton’s reduction of spending— which is entirely rooted in cutting the military. Is that what Conservatives think Bush should do? Clearly and surely this cannot be the case. The nation really is truely at war and we are actually getting it for a bargain compared to any war we have fought.
“He was bad leader.” Yes that is exactly right except he was a great leader. Otherwise you have interpreted the matter perfectly well.