Is George Bush A Conservative?
That's the debate raging on the Right after conservative icon Bill Buckley came out questioning Dubya's ideological bona fides.
While I disagree with the founder of National Review on the Iraq War (I believe it was the right thing to do to invade Iraq, and that Iraq is a theater in the War on Terror), I agree that George W. Bush is not a conservative.
Personnel is policy, and I don't see conservative diehards in powerful positions in Bush's cabinet. Colin Powell was no conservative. Condi Rice doesn't appear to be one, either. He kept George Tenet on at CIA and Norm Mineta on at Transportation (even after 9/11 increased the importance of the post dramatically). Rumsfeld is a conservative, but he's seen fit to try to resign at least twice. The Treasury picks, usually very important in a Republican administration, have not been supply-siders. John Ashcroft was solidly conservative, but his replacement, Alberto Gonzalez, is not.
Reagan was cursed with some liberal staff; but the conservative bench was much thinner in 1980 after decades of being out of power than in 2000 and 2004, after a decade in power. Bush doesn't seem to know very many conservatives.
His judicial selections have largely been ciphers. While I hope Roberts and Alito turn out to be as rock solid as Thomas and Scalia, I don't expect they will. Perhaps slightly more reliable than Kennedy may be the best we can hope for in a Bush judicial pick. He has proven unwilling to take big swings in judicial picks, and his riskiest pick was hardly a diehard conservative (or else the conservative base wouldn't have mounted an insurrection).
While Bush has seemed solidly conservative on national defense (that is, he believes we should defend ourselves, unlike liberals), he seems to have no interest in fighting the War on Terror anywhere else but Afghanistan and Iraq, the former because that's where al Qaeda was headquartered when they attacked the U.S. and the latter because he seemingly wanted to finish what his father started (yes, they had WMDs. So do the Koreans, and the Iranians, and the Syrians.)
On social policy, let's get real. Dubya's reliably and admirably pro-life; on all other issues he seems only slightly to the right of hypothetically-unelectable Rudy Giuliani. On immigration, he's an unmitigated disaster.
On economics, Bush is a reliable tax-cutter. However, he also imposed steel tariffs, an absolutely inexplicable position for a conservative to take outside of a dire steel shortage in wartime. He has presided over an enormous expansion of the welfare state, and has shown no reluctance whatsoever to "solving" problems by throwing federal money at them.
You get the idea.
Politically, I think Dubya is slightly to the right of his father, but well to the left of Reagan. If his father was a Rockefeller Republican, Dubya would be a neocon, which probably explain why The Weekly Standard is his most reliable backer versus The American Spectator or National Review.
All of which is why I have less faith in the Bush Administration as a means to conservative ends than, say, Hugh Hewitt. I wish that that weren't the case, and I surely still much prefer a Bush presidency to a Kerrey or Gore presidency, but I'm still waiting for the next Reagan Republican to take up residence in the Oval Office.
Looking at the current crop of Republican leadership, I'll be waiting a long time.
While I disagree with the founder of National Review on the Iraq War (I believe it was the right thing to do to invade Iraq, and that Iraq is a theater in the War on Terror), I agree that George W. Bush is not a conservative.
Personnel is policy, and I don't see conservative diehards in powerful positions in Bush's cabinet. Colin Powell was no conservative. Condi Rice doesn't appear to be one, either. He kept George Tenet on at CIA and Norm Mineta on at Transportation (even after 9/11 increased the importance of the post dramatically). Rumsfeld is a conservative, but he's seen fit to try to resign at least twice. The Treasury picks, usually very important in a Republican administration, have not been supply-siders. John Ashcroft was solidly conservative, but his replacement, Alberto Gonzalez, is not.
Reagan was cursed with some liberal staff; but the conservative bench was much thinner in 1980 after decades of being out of power than in 2000 and 2004, after a decade in power. Bush doesn't seem to know very many conservatives.
His judicial selections have largely been ciphers. While I hope Roberts and Alito turn out to be as rock solid as Thomas and Scalia, I don't expect they will. Perhaps slightly more reliable than Kennedy may be the best we can hope for in a Bush judicial pick. He has proven unwilling to take big swings in judicial picks, and his riskiest pick was hardly a diehard conservative (or else the conservative base wouldn't have mounted an insurrection).
While Bush has seemed solidly conservative on national defense (that is, he believes we should defend ourselves, unlike liberals), he seems to have no interest in fighting the War on Terror anywhere else but Afghanistan and Iraq, the former because that's where al Qaeda was headquartered when they attacked the U.S. and the latter because he seemingly wanted to finish what his father started (yes, they had WMDs. So do the Koreans, and the Iranians, and the Syrians.)
On social policy, let's get real. Dubya's reliably and admirably pro-life; on all other issues he seems only slightly to the right of hypothetically-unelectable Rudy Giuliani. On immigration, he's an unmitigated disaster.
On economics, Bush is a reliable tax-cutter. However, he also imposed steel tariffs, an absolutely inexplicable position for a conservative to take outside of a dire steel shortage in wartime. He has presided over an enormous expansion of the welfare state, and has shown no reluctance whatsoever to "solving" problems by throwing federal money at them.
You get the idea.
Politically, I think Dubya is slightly to the right of his father, but well to the left of Reagan. If his father was a Rockefeller Republican, Dubya would be a neocon, which probably explain why The Weekly Standard is his most reliable backer versus The American Spectator or National Review.
All of which is why I have less faith in the Bush Administration as a means to conservative ends than, say, Hugh Hewitt. I wish that that weren't the case, and I surely still much prefer a Bush presidency to a Kerrey or Gore presidency, but I'm still waiting for the next Reagan Republican to take up residence in the Oval Office.
Looking at the current crop of Republican leadership, I'll be waiting a long time.
posted by Teflon at 5:53 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Nice post. I agree with most all of it (possible exception: I feel very comfortable with Roberts and Alito).
Bush is a disaster to me at this point. It started with CAFTA, then got worse after he nominated Harriet Myers. After the Dubai Ports deal, I was destitute. And then he explained his "comprehensive" immigration plan and he lost me completely. Yes, he's marginally better than John Kerry, but he's still a huge disappointment. He's a faux conservative and, dare I say it, remarkably incompetent.
From the likely candidates, I think I like George Allen the best in 2008, but he's a human yawn, so I'm not too jazzed about him either.
Thanks, ROPT.
Dubya just seems to have lost focus, a trait his predecessor had to an even greater degree.
Had he just kept driving home the war, I think he would have been far more successful. The failed Social Security reform, the pathetic immigration proposal, the Miers aborted nomination, and the Dubai deal are all indicative of a Republican administration lacking firm ideological principles.
It's helpful in politics to be a realist, but when you've got no core political principles, as Clinton did not, as Bush increasingly appears to lack on any issue but abortion, you can't get much done.
Splitting your base is stupid. Split your opponents' base. I'm afraid a nice long reign has made the GOP flabby and risk-averse, and that's not a recipe for leadership. The only saving grace is that the Democrats have absolutely imploded and haven't been able to come up with a coherent agenda to appeal to anybody not living in The Hamptons.
I think, if it were all to have been allowed to wash- Meirs would have been just the Conservative you would have approved of: minus the pedigree, of course.
If she was good enough for both GW and Laura- she was fine w/me. But, that's simplsitic, i know.
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