Posted on 06/22/2002 9:46:05 AM PDT by quidnunc
This summer will mark the 47th year since I took my first Republican job: as public relations director for the party in Minnesota. Since then I have rarely strayed from politics, or my party. I served as a staffer to two GOP congressmen, to a GOP governor, as a federal appointee to Richard Nixon and as a corporate executive who supported in Washington and Springfield much, if not all, of the Republican agenda.
You can describe me as a conservative. Thus I am qualified to say that although I dearly love conservatives, they tend to be querulous, disagreeable and threaten revolt when Republican office-holders don't please them. So it is now with George W. Bush. Here is a president who has surprised us all with the firmness and resolve he showed after 9/11. I must tell you I voted for him with less enthusiasm than I had for many of his predecessors. But his administration has pleased me often — most notably on two issues: defense of America and social policy.
Yet, Bush has to get re-elected in a country that is evenly divided on philosophy. Thus he must occasionally — on matters that sometimes offend conservatives — dip into the other side's ideology for support. He has done so on three notable occasions: on the issue of steel protectionism, where he departed his free-market proclamations; on the signing of a campaign finance bill tailored by his enemies, and allowing his attorney general (in the words of Libertarian Nat Hentoff in the Washington Times) "to send disguised agents into religious institutions, libraries and meetings of citizens critical of government policy without a previous complaint, or reason to believe that a crime has been committed."
In a perfect political world, where conservatives are in the majority, these things would be sufficient to encourage a boycott of the polls. Either that or a protest vote for the Democratic opposition. But we are not in a perfect world. We conservatives have a president who didn't receive a majority of the votes, and has one house of Congress against him. He must make compromises to get re-elected. Conservatives who do not understand the nature of politics ought to stay in their air-conditioned ivory towers and refrain from political activity altogether. If they cannot adjudge the stakes in this election and the difference between Bush and an Al Gore or a John Kerry (D-Mass.) or a Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), they are foolish indeed.
-snip-
To read the remainder of this op/ed open the article via the link provided in the thread's header.
Yet, Bush has to get re-elected in a country that is evenly divided on philosophy. Thus he must occasionally — on matters that sometimes offend conservatives — dip into the other side's ideology for support. He has done so on three notable occasions: on the issue of steel protectionism, where he departed his free-market proclamations; on the signing of a campaign finance bill tailored by his enemies, and allowing his attorney general (in the words of Libertarian Nat Hentoff in the Washington Times) "to send disguised agents into religious institutions, libraries and meetings of citizens critical of government policy without a previous complaint, or reason to believe that a crime has been committed."I wasn't a Bush backer in the primaries (actually I liked neither of them much) and my support for him in the general election was mostly anti-Gorism. But he's done a much better job than I expected...particularly in matters of foreign policy. In that area, he's stood up to segments of the "right" as well....if one can call Moslem-haters and the Israel-right-or-wrong lobby that.
Perhaps ironically, I support two of the three actions Roeser mentions above. Steel mills cannot be mothballed and re-started like, for example, an electronics plant can. The new rules regarding agents at places of worship actually mean they are allowed to attend public meetings, something else which is rather benign.
My main complaint about Bush is he's been too accomodating to the JBTs, particularly regarding so-called "airport security". He probably didn't have much of a choice overall, they clearly had their program ready for an excuse to implement it and they played the demagogue card well. But he didn't have to appoint one of the worst of them to run the whole thing.
-Eric
They are good at it by golly, an ignore button is hardly needed.
You are foolish in deed. Bet you support candidates that have a greater chance of being hit by lightning than winning an election.
I guess you could begin by stating what you would do as President in these conditions we have in D.C. right now.
What would you do, Tabitha?
You're quite correct, of course. I know this and usually do but they need to be challenged here once in awhile lest they become even more shrill and self-important than they already are, were that possible, which is quite doubtful.
Thanks for the input, it's appreciated.
I love it !!
GWB Is The Man !!
Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!
Molon Labe !!
"Well that is one convenient memory
I beleive the writer was confining his comments to just the last week.
Putting words into someone's mouth! LOL I love it.
Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!
Molon Labe !!
So you didn't like Ronald Reagan, then, either?
The difference between Bush and Clinton is that Bush doesn't cheat on his wife. Their politics are nearly identical.
Soren is right on this.
One of the FIRST acts of the so-called conservative Bush was to appoint an official liason to the Aids/Gay Community. Very Xlintoonesque, don't you think?
Check out an article called "Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dee" @ TheNewAmerican.com OR you may even find it still here at FR. Documents this neat little tactic to give the appearance of CHANGE but NOTHING CHANGES.
CATO
Well you gotta scratch your head when equally retarded graphics are posted, and one graphic stays, and one gets deleted. Guess which one gets deleted. Hmmmm...
The disaffected dogmatists on this forum would have shrieked just as shrilly during the Reagan administration.You've got that right for sure.
Reagan was a practical politician with a knack for knowing how far he could push his adversaries. That meant sometimes he'd get 50% of what he wanted, sometimes 90%. Rarely did he hold out for 100% and get nothing. So the purists would have complained.
Generating even more complaints would be the fact that Reagan was by no means a "cultural conservative". Indeed, when Buchanan and the other demagogues refer to a 'crisis of the culture" or some such, they are referring to a lasting Reagan legacy. The biggest factor in the "naughtification" of the American culture during the 80s was the gutting of the FCCs role as nanny-censor. This was done by Reagan's FCC appointees, whom he knew believed in the power of the individual armed with the on/off switch. In this respect he was being consistent with his anti-government beliefs, but you'd never convince some of that....
-Eric
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