When will we be able to link fromthe FR image site server again? (or did this work?)
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.
Washington slammed farmers and instituted a harmful tax, which he sent the army (under Hamilton) to collect. Jefferson endorsed Gallatin's plan for a "public works" program that was double (!) the size of the entire federal budget at that time; Monroe took it as a badge of honor that he was a "compromiser." Henry Clay, viewed as the greatest man never to win the presidency, made a career out of compromise. Coolidge, whom I greatly respect, signed a farm subsidy bill and ordered the court martial of Billy Mitchell.
People are complex, and the thing that bugs me the most here is that radicals of all sorts tend to think that if you don't agree with them you are flat wrong, unconstitutional, and illegal. I've got news for them: there are millions of people (and no small number of constitutional lawyers) who would say there is NOTHING unconstitutional about CFR, any more than the "fire in the theater" clause is "unconstitutional." I don't agree, but to dismiss them is not very sensible and certainly not good politics.
Second, as for the LEGISLATIVE agenda, funny how usually those guys with R's behind their names tend to vote for "R" things. I noticed not one single "D" (Democrat) crossed the line to vote for conviction of Clinton, and only two did so on CFR. Note however, that those same two guys---Miller and Breaux---despite the "D" after their names, have not voted WITH the Republicans to organize the Senate with a GOP majority, which they could do. In other words, party loyalty counts for a great deal in organizing the Senate, which goes straight to your argument.
But if you find me a pro-gun, pro-life, low-tax Democrat who will vote to confirm Bush's judges, I'll vote for him.
The proof (or, "pwoof" if you are Lanny Davis) is in the pudding. Americans get what they want, and so far there are no politicians who apparently see a gold mine in this phantom 70% vote.
Now, I happen to think CFR is unconstitutional (those are my principles). BUT, you can find 10 constitutional lawyers who will tell you it isn't. Bottom line: in a Democratic Republic, principles are what the people say they are, through a process of both voting and the courts. Therefore, federal $ to education is completely constitutional, not because I want it to be so, but because neither the representatives nor the judges have deemed it otherwise. This is a reality you need to grasp, and when you do so, it will make politics much easier to deal with. My job is to get as many people as possible to agree with my principles, but I'm not dumb enough to think that because they don't, they don't "have any principles."
When will we be able to link fromthe FR image site server again? (or did this work?)
For ex., to end slavery, was Lincoln right to suspend habeus corpus? Some here say no. To win WW II, was Churchill right to allow Coventry to be utterly destroyed, even though he had prior information that would have saved it?
How about this? You have two candidates. One is pro-life, but anti-gun. The other is pro-gun, but pro-choice. Who do you vote for? See, it isn't that easy, because now you must PRIORITIZE "best" choices, and everyone is different.
Here's the reality: right now, MOST Americans (96% of the GOP by the last Gallup survey) say that Bush has prioritized things right by focusing on the war on terror regardless of CFR. If they had to choose, they would vote him in, quite simply, because he has dealt with first things first. Given that, are you going to put in, let's say, an anti-CFR Dem who is anti-military and will ensure another 9/11? I think not.
I realize that an unelected candidate can't pass anything, but when it comes to gun control, Bush can't/won't either. For me, it's not just this one issue. Bush is playing fast and loose with my freedoms, and relying on a Supreme Court that has, in the past not been reliable when it comes to Constitutionality. It's especially galling when Bush admits that he knows there are Constitutional problems when he signed it. That means, to me, that he has no core principles. At least none that we as citizens can rely on.
Bush has demonstrated that he is a political animal of the same stripe as his predecessor, and that is not what he campaigned on, and it's not what conservatives voted for when they helped him into office.
How many times do you have to be hit upside the head before you gain some principles of your own?
You notice incorrectly. The ladies may express themselves more ardently, however, it would be a mistake to presume that we who are male are without intensity about this presidency.
I think the ladies also have a higher appreciation of a man of character after 8 years of Clinton.
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