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.
If there is a connection, then foreign aid
is blackmail payments in a white glove.
And so are welfare payments in the US.
... people who, more often than not, prefer to lose on principle than win through compromise.
Heh. Any of those around here?
These concealed carry laws were a result of individual state legislatures.
Name for me one, just one Federal gun law that has been recinded or relaxed. In addition, Bush has already anounced his intention to re-authorize the "assault weapons ban".
Bush has indeed done some things for conservatives, but relaxing gun control ain't one of 'em.
this is all about Clinton.
Now, we just had a post that the Starr/Ray investigations cost $70 million. Do you really think that that is going to fly with the public? To spend another $30 million hunting down people who are going to be defended by all the Dems as "persecuted because of their association with Clinton?"
This is why it is kookburger stuff. It really is. I don't care what grand laws you think were broken (remember, you will get an equal number of Dems and media types to say no laws were broken), the public rightly or wrongly is fed up. In a democratic republic, the people get what they want, and believe me, they want to drop this stuff. You would not find one iota of support (I doubt less than 1% of the voting population) who would support going after Riady. Most people would view this as a complete waste of money, and a diversion from our rather important job now of seeing that 9/11 doesn't recur.
I vote "war on terror" is the single most important thing we do, much more so than CFR. I vote "tax cuts" are far superior to expenditures for the Ed bill. So give me my tax cuts, and use the remaining money on Ed, if you must.
It is a false premise to juxtapose "principles" and "compromise." In fact, compromise is always about WHICH principles will triumph, because ALL cannot.
My point is, contrary to the naysayers, in fact we are gaining great ground in many areas.
Listen I don't have an OX to gourge here. In fact I am rather enjoying watching people who claim to be the principled party gorge each other on which principle is ok to ignore for political capital.
I don't have a problem with anyone here. We are all entitled to and free to express our opinions. And you know, your opinion is just as important as mine. It is interesting though, don't you think, that moderate Republicans, only wanting what is best for the party, seem to enjoy casting conservatives in the role of villan? I will admit, in the heat of debate on FreeRepublic the value of having the last word often takes the debate beyond the issue and folks just end up bashing each other, forgetting about what the topic du jour was anyway.
There is something magical about seeing ones ideas in print, I guess. When we run out of them (ideas), we can make up some new ones.
BTW, you were right about some gafs in St. Reagan's adminstration when it came to conserving the Constitution. According to Biblical history there was only one perfect fellow and look what happened to him. Don't ask me what the point of that comment was cause I just enjoy seeing my words on the screen.
Cheers.
The profiles in courage we elected to office don't have the testicular fortitude to do the right thing, just because it may cause them their jobs.
Have you ever been faced such a decision -- where doing the RIGHT thing is going to cost you something that's important to you? If so, what decision did you make? I've had to make decisions like that all my life. I screwed up the first couple, but they got easier. I paid a price for doing what was right, but the price later on would have been much greater.
No matter how difficult it is it's still the right thing.
Who gave them the talking points, hmm?
The criminal always thinks the problem is that he got caught, not that he committed a crime.
I went to the dictionary to paste in the definition of principle, and lo and behold, guess what I found?
The collectivity of moral or ethical standards or judgments: a decision based on principle rather than expediency.
The idea of a principle is that it is not compromised. In fact, it's the baseline by which you are supposed to make other judgements...the standard if you will.
Yea the Bush 2nd Ammendment stands were ignored or down right made up even in this forum. I kept reading how Bush was so pro 2nd ammendment. But when I took a few minutes to read what was actually saying I knew it was not true that he was pro-second ammendment. Add to the list as well no handgun possession before age 21. possession means just that possession. No teaching your child proper hand gun saftey. Limits on clips is another and background checks also tops his pro-list.
I am a hardliner on the second ammendment. It means just what it says. Government should not pass laws infringing upon the right to keep and bear arms. That includes any form of regrestration or IBC's. I can imagine the response of let's say Alexander Hamilton to register his gun and submit to a back ground check for ownership.
I would argue that anyone who thinks they have to compromise their principles to achieve success will never be successful. At the very least they won't be real happy.
You are absolutely right, but you won't be able to talk any sense into these wackos so don't waste your time trying.
Aren't you the one who wants to roll back government regulations to pre-Roosevelt (Franklin and Theodore) levels?
Oops...forgot about the Alternative Minimum Tax. This little doozie disallows my deduction for state taxes, so now I have to PAY an additional $10,000.
Thank God I don't get all the government I pay for.
P.S. = Since it isn't indexed for inflation, Forbes says the AMT will hit 79% of people making $75K - $100K by 2005.
Hey Lobsterback, it's the rats that are playing Bush for the fool and thus Bush to you.
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.