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.
And they turned out to be right, Nixon was one of the worst presidents and one of the most liberal in this country's history.
Again, there is a fine line between disagreeing and dissention. Many of the loyal Bush supports have gone on record that they have disagreed with Bush on various things. Yet, they still support him. So, does that make all of us pushovers? No. It makes us realists.
The sun is finally out so I am going to transplant some trees. Have a Happy Easter!
My vote goes to McConnell.
ROFLMAO, yeah we are winning through compromise, yeah that's working, what saps guys like Richard Reed are who prefer losing by degrees. He can't name one thing that is a win, or that has turned back the tide of socialist/marxism that is on a rampage in this country, not one darned thing.
Yes, true conservatives are "impossible people" just like Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and other's that toss'ed the British out on their ear rather than compromise, we vote, we demand, we don't compromise with evil and socialism/liberalism/marxism/communism/globalism is evil. Given that most of the population of America doesn't even vote or know who Rumsfield is, and most cannot quote past the preamble of the Constitution, our votes are a weapon to send a message, nothing else is working so I'm willing to give something else a try.
So, what kind of trees are you planting??
Thanks for sharing. I'll respond to anybody who writes me without your glorious permision thank you.
That's the way it works, somebody attacks you you retaliate. Sort of like Israel retaliating with the Palis. Oh that's right Bush has now demanded Israel get out of the West Bank. roflmao...
Actually, he ran for the Senate. He failed miserably. He also paid himself a pretty hefty salary out of campaign funds which became a controversy at the time.
Beyond that, I completely agree with your post. The race/victim thing was too much for me to stomach, as well.
No, you'll just dream up yet another RIDICULOUS excuse to "move on" ... just like we would expect a democRAT to do.
We flat disagree about the press. Yeah, use pardongate as an example. That's perfect. Who got indicted? How many columns did you see in the mainstream press to actually investigate?
Again you use the behaviour of the mainstream press as your EXCUSE. IF you really are a republican, then you've already lost the war, and you don't even know it. Furthermore Bush and Ashcroft did NOT investigate pardongate PROPERLY. They turned the matter over to a Clinton holdover who was demonstrably covering up other Clinton administration matters and what did she do? Cover it up too. She hasn't even bothered to interview many of the key people. But FOX NEWS did make an issue of it, forcing the other networks to make an issue of it. Which was my point. And that was in a matter that could be SPUN. The three cases I suggest could not be spun. They are cut and dry and VERY serious.
It seems like every time the people in this country speak with ANY message that conservatives don't like, you act like Democrats and blame the people.
I'm not blaming the people. YOU ARE. I'm blaming Bush and Ashcroft for not EVEN investigating serious crimes. Unlike you, I'm willing to TRUST the good sense of the American people IF they are presented with the facts. Why do you fear that?
The voters get what they want, and that is what disturbs you.
Not if the voters are INFORMED, and that is obviously what YOU fear.
You can "lead" all you want, but if the public perceives that you aren't leading in the right direction, you are gone. Jimmy Carter "led." He had all sorts of stupid initiatives.
Oh ... perhaps you consider upholding the law to be a "stupid initiative"? Why don't you LIST the matters in which Carter led and see how they compare to "leading" in making sure that our election process isn't corrupt, that our leaders aren't blackmailed and insuring that a political party doesn't KILL when threatened.
I guess we agree that the Dems and the press will say there are no crimes committed.
No we don't agree. The "dems" and press can spin sex and pardons, they cannot spin KNOWINGLY taking money from the communist chinese (and that is what the Riady non-refund is all about) or KILLING a Secretary of Commerce. If they try to do that they will only help convince the undecided that democRAT are dangerous.
Now, here is a challenge for you. Think before you respond, and if you start posting about Riady or pardongate again I'll ignore you: name me ONE, ONE administration in American history (let alone any GREAT one) whose primary focus was investigating "crimes" of any other administration.
Sorry but you are just using a variation of the "they all do it" democRAT tactic to avoid dealing with facts you don't like and that is something that democRATS invariably do. If aren't a democRAT then you are not much different. Furthermore, are we to base all our decisions on what was done in the past? If so, then this country would not even exist. We would still be under British rule. Maybe it is past time that each administration makes sure that the last one OBEYED THE LAW. If they don't we will just see more like Clinton, even in the Republican Party. The bottom line is that you appear to want our leaders and their parties to be above the law ... and most people would call that TYRANNY.
And with cloning technology coming along like it is, who knows, maybe you can have the exact same trees to plant all over again!!!!!
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