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.
Thank you, but this is not STRICTLY the truth, at absolutely every occasion, as you may remember, LOL!. It seems to me that this particular discussion is between those living in their own world, and those living in the world that exists externally. The former is more fun, the second is more useful.
Oh, yeah, I remember now: you were nasty to me! :-)
Ya, that about sums it up. Folks make their choice for president who are swing voters on criteria that have almost no traction at FR among the dissatisfied.
Yes because right to life is the premises or foundation of our nation
And by not signing it, would not he be keeping all of us from finding out for a fact whether or not the law was constitutional?
DUH the USSC is rather lacking in virtue on that matter is it not? How sad a day in the United States of America when the preservation of innocent life is just another piece of Leglislation to be debated. There should be no question it's common sense and Biblical principle on which both were part of this nations founding documents.
And by not signing it because he thought it was unconstitutional, would he not be taking upon himself the authority that only the judicial branch has?
Again nothing in the Constitution sanctions the taking of innocent life and our laws are established to actually preserve such.
And by not signing it because he thought it was unconstitutional, would he not be thwarting the will of the people, expressed by their legislators, insofar as he denied them their day in court to argue that the law was constitutional?
Let's see a few gents in the late 1700's thwarted the will of the majority to seek a better future for themselves and us to follow. Actually most Leglislators are very far removed these days from the will of the people and the Constitution they swore to protect and defend. That's why we're in the mess we're in now. They count on several things. Loyal party line voters who will support them no matter how big a tyrannt they really are, short memories of the Sheeple, and apathy of voters to their wrongs to remain in office.
Well I can match your 100 people and raise you another 100 people ...
There is a reason for the 80% approval
yeah:
1)the war
2)the war
3)liberals love him , wonder why?
"I never voted for Bush and By G_D I won't again". It is posted over and over and over and over. the strategy is not quality but quantity. I actually saw one crow that because there was a 1500 post thread bashing Bush it was proof that FR was now firmly anti-Bush. They failed to mention that the anti-Bush crowd comprised about 75 people yelling at each other claiming "I WILL NOT VOTE FOR BUSH MORE THAN YOU!".
Have you had your TV on? The only people on the face of the earth talking about CFR are the 20 of us on these threads on FR.
The only people talking about it other than us are the talking heads on TV, but the only thing they are saying about it is that Bush snubbed McCain!
there's no use me piling on you now.
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