Where Bush Went Wrong
Posted on November 3rd, 2008
by Patrick J. Buchanan |
|
After losing control of the Senate and 30 House seats in 2006, the GOP is bracing for losses of six to nine in the Senate and two dozen to three dozen additional seats in the House.
If the party “were a dog food,” says Rep. Tom Davis, “they would take us off the shelf.”
Bush’s approval is 25 percent. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton left office with ratings more than twice as high.
But while John McCain and others have deplored the Bush failures, what, exactly, did he do wrong?
What were the policy blunders to which Republicans vehemently objected at the time?
That Bush is a Big Government Republican is undeniable. His two great social-spending initiatives, prescription-drug benefits for seniors under Medicare and No Child Left Behind, so testify. But how many Republicans opposed Bush on these initiatives? How many have called for the abolition of either program, or for raising payroll taxes to pay for prescription drugs?
McCain now supports the Bush judges and justices and the Bush tax cuts, as do almost all Republicans.
True, Bush sought amnesty for illegal aliens and backs the free-trade globalism that exported our manufacturing base and 3 million to 4 million jobs. But McCain is even more enthusiastic about both.
Does the party dissent on free trade and mass immigration?
Two-thirds of Americans now believe the Iraq war a mistake. Yet all but a few Republicans backed the war. At the time of “Mission Accomplished!” in May 2003, the nation gave Bush a 90 percent approval rating, as his father had after Desert Storm.
What turned America against the war was not the decision to invade, oust Saddam, destroy the weapons of mass destruction, and depart, but the long, bloody slog, the five-year war, with nearly 5,000 dead, that Iraq became. It was not the lightning war of Tommy Franks, with journalists riding tanks into Baghdad, that soured America, but the unanticipated duration and cost of the war.
Yet Republicans still believe that the war was not a mistake, only mishandled. And now that General Petraeus got it right in Iraq, they say, we should pursue the Petraeus policy in Afghanistan.
How many Republicans have repudiated the Bush Doctrine that got us into Iraq — the belief that only by making the world democratic can we keep America secure and free?
Americans no longer believe that, if ever they did. And history proves them right.
For Iraq has never been democratic, and America has always been free. Yet the Republican Party has never renounced the Bush Doctrine
Indeed, it is being applied today in Afghanistan.
That war, too, after we failed at Tora Bora to capture or kill bin Laden, has become a long slog to create a democratic Afghanistan, which, like a democratic Iraq, has never before existed.
In Afghanistan, we are entering the eighth year of war with victory further away than ever. The Taliban grows stronger. U.S. casualties are surging. Opium exports are breaking records. Our NATO allies grow weary. Even the Brits are talking of reconciliation with the Taliban, perhaps accepting a dictator.
These two wars helped to cripple the Bush presidency and end the GOP ascendancy. Yet at the highest levels of the party, one hears no serious questioning of the ideology that produced these wars. McCain has pledged to stay in Iraq until “victory” and send 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Nor have Republicans objected to the U.S. air strikes that have killed hundreds of Afghans, or the Predator strikes that have inflamed Pakistan or the helicopter raid into Syria that humiliated Damascus and enraged the population. If Republicans disagree with these policies and actions, their voices are muted.
Bush is for facing down Russia and bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. Does any Republican disagree? For McCain is more hawkish than Bush when it comes to Moscow.
The party says it is losing because the economy went south. But who caused that? Was it not because Republicans colluded with Democrats in pushing “affordable housing,” subprime mortgages, for folks who could not afford houses?
Is the GOP prepared to demand tough terms for home loans?
Was it not GOP presidents who appointed the Fed chairmen who pumped up the money supply and created the bubble? How many Republicans objected to the easy money when the going was good?
The country wishes to be rid of the Bush policies and the Bush presidency. But where does the Republican Party think Bush went wrong, other than to be asleep at the wheel during Katrina?
The GOP needs to confront the truth: The failure of the Bush presidency lies not in a failed execution of policy but in the policies themselves and the neoconservative ideology that informed them.
Yet, still, the party remains in denial, refusing to come to terms with the causes of its misfortune. One expects they will be given the time and opportunity for reflection soon.
“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.”
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Filed under: Conservatism, Politics
[...] The idea of an Obama landslide must torture the old guy for any number of reasons, but once in a while he still looks across the table at his erstwhile party and speaks truth to morons. [...]
The real deal:
Republicans failed because they abandoned their principles. The emphasis should be on time-tested conservative principles, not on party affiliation. The GOP has taken the conservative vote for granted, the Democrats have dismissed the conservative vote altogether. But the responsibility rests in the hands of the voters. Our politicians have slouched because we have allowed it. We have to be more active, more organized. We have to be ready for BIG fights. Not just this election or next election. Not just local elections or national elections. We have to fight in every election from now on. We have to fight for every vote in every legislature. We can do it, but we will have to work hard and invest lots of time (and some money too). And we can’t get lazy (when we inevitably have great successes). Complacency is what got us into this mess. This is a great and powerful nation and we enjoy incredible freedom and wealth and security. But we will lose it all if we stay lazy. I think our nation is “circling the drain” politically, and that is SCARY. But as a nation, we have overcome much greater obstacles with our traditional values and we can do it again if only we set our minds to it.
*Final Note: Obama is ahead in the polls. Sitting out the election is a vote for Obama. You don’t even have to get out of your chair to help Obama win!
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
‘The party says it is losing because the economy went south. But who caused that? Was it not because Republicans colluded with Democrats in pushing “affordable housing,” subprime mortgages, for folks who could not afford houses?’
No it wasn’t.
‘Was it not GOP presidents who appointed the Fed chairmen who pumped up the money supply and created the bubble?’
Getting warmer.
‘The GOP needs to confront the truth: The failure of the Bush presidency lies not in a failed execution of policy but in the policies themselves and the neoconservative ideology that informed them.’
Ding!
Also you can’t run around screaching about free markets and how they solve everything if left to themselves then beg for a bailout when things go bad and expect us not to see the hypocracy. We’re dumb but not that dumb. Do that about ten or twenty times and we’ll start to catch on that ‘free market’ seems to mean regulated in the wealthy’s favor.
What is needed is for the Repblicans to completely renounce the neo-cons and go back to being traditional conservatives. Plus, they need to attract a new constituency. Now, the Democratic party is composed of minority groups, unions, lawyers, and environmentalists. Which of these is the Republican party most likely to be able to draw in? I think it is the environmentalists. The environmental movement today is based around two main tenets: sustainability, and localization. But, as discussed in recent issues of The American Conservative, both of these principles are conservative principles at heart and these voters could become the “crunchy cons” that can rebuild the Republican party. Budget deficits are unsustainable, widespread military deployments are unsustainable, population growth from immigration is unsustainable, fossil fuel use is unsustainable, environmental destruction is unsustainable.
As far as sustainability goes, unfortunately under the neo-cons, the Republican party is as far from being the party of sustainability as can be. They’re now the party of debt, economic growth, fossil fuels, environmental destruction, military intervention, centralized power, and big business. Despite this, I actually think there is more hope for the Republicans to be the party of sustainability. The old school Republicans were as wary of big business as they were of big government, they were the ones who were for local businesses, were in favor of environmental protections, were for localizing political power, were noninterventionists, and were fiscal conservatives. I see nothing of the sort possible with the Democrats, who are far from the sustainability party as well. Despite being more open to passing laws protecting the environment, Democrats are the party of unchecked, unsustainable population growth, economic growth, widespread military deployments, and government spending. But more importantly, the Democratic party is the party of centralized political power, not localization.
Here’s a 5 point plan for upon which to rebuild the GOP:
1. Sustainability: Sustainability should be the guiding principle of the party.
2. Localization: political power and decision making should be as localized in communities as possible, not centralized like the Democrats want.
3. Protectionism: The government should do more to protect American jobs and businesses and forget about the free trade at all costs mantra that both the Democrats and Republicans recite that is destroying us.
4. Non-interventionism: we should not intervene militarily unless we are directly attacked.
5. Integration: Democrats have abandoned integration and embraced multiculturalism which will lead to inevitable Balkanization. We need a renewed emphasis on cultural integration.
Conservatism left the building after 9-11. In its place a changeling appeared. Nation-building, not even lip service regarding a balanced budget, wild deficit spending, embracing the Welfare State balanced off by Immigration Reform/Amnesty, use of Fear and the religion opiate as tools of governance, Imperialism, faux-patriotism as a shield, and the complete abandonment of Limited (federal) Government as a concept. It is a movement. Neoconservatism. “Viewed in this way, one can say that the historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be this: to convert the Republican party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy” - founding father of neoconservatism Irving Kristol.
I wake up pretty angry this morning, but not at Obama, or even necessarily at McCain. I am angry at Bush, and what he has wrought, mainly because his administration has completely wrecked what it means to be ‘conservative.’
Faith-based programs are conservative? Let’s see how you like them when they aren’t run by a ‘born-again Evangelical.’
Government-sponsored pharmaceutical drug coverage is conservative? In what universe?
War is conservative? Yeah, sure it is…and Wilson, FDR, Truman and Lyndon Johnson are also conservatives, right?
Domestic surveillance?
Bailouts of our largest financial institutions?
Forced governmental ownership of private firms (i.e. the TARP)?
Trillion dollar deficits?
None of these things are conservative by my definition. Yet many of them will be identified as such for years to come, and will surely be a cross to bear for anyone who calls themselves a conservative. Conservatism will be branded a failed ideology, when in fact, it was barely tried. This, of course, will lead to nonsense from people like David Frum, who will inform us that the best way for it to succeed is to abandon the Constitution, abandon the free market, and be soft core liberals. Truly, we will succeed when we rediscover what conservatism truly meant.
Peace be with you.
Americans resoundingly rejected the neocon-driven policies of the Bush administration - policies pushed forth by Cheney and his gaggle of neocons. A McCain administration would likely have sought to further these policies -or so it would seem. Obama took 9 states that Bush had in ‘04. I say this as a Republican (who again voted for Nader - this time, because Paul didn’t make it).
It’s time to get this nation back in order. And that starts by getting our house in order, and sidelining those who don’t have the interests of America at the fore-and who would seek to expend more American blood and treasure fighting wars on behalf of a nation other than this one.
The drunk-driving C student in the Oval Office went wrong by doing what the senile sociopath Ronald Reagan (”the cruel man with the kindly smile”) promised to do.
Every policy enacted by the drunk-driving C student in the Oval Office was a policy promised but reneged on by Reagan. Give the Christian fundamentalists veto power over government policy? Reagan hinted at it and appointed a fringe kook fundamentalist to the Dept. of the Interior, but never really delivered. By contrast, the crackpots now in the White House invivted weekly delegations of fundamentalist crazies and listened raptly to their tales of The Rapture…then made government policy on the basis of that crazy advice.
Make the world safe for theocratic Christian democracy? Reagan promised to do it but waffled when faced with the reality of Soviet nuclear weapons. The kooks now in the White House really took that project seriously, though, even to the point of waging what they thought was a final war in the middle east that would bring about the Second Coming and the Rapture.
Destroy civil rights and turn America into a militarized police state? Reagan tried to do it, but Ollie North didn’t erase the computer records properly. But the sociopaths now in the White House really did it.
Rewrite the laws of nature according to religious dictates and make superstition the basis of government policy as political hacks edited scientific reports? Reagan tried manfully to replace rationality with superstition by scheduling his appointments according to the dictates of an astrologer, but the current crew in the White House really went all the way. They gave us the fully monty: global warming denial, denial of generally accepted accounting procedures, denial of reality on the ground in Iraq, denial of reality about the economy… Reagan tried to drift off into la-la land with “Morning In America,” but the nut cases now in the White House really did it. They completely broke free from the “reality-based” community.
Worst of all, the kooks now in the White House destroyed the Republican party by committing the most heinous of all sins…they put conservative beliefs into practice.
Conservatives believe in massive uncontrolled military spending — the kooks now in the White House gave that, and more, until the Pentagon collapsed in corruption and turned into GOSPLAN.
Conservatives believe in deregulation, and the kooks in the White House deregulated Wall Street until it destroyed the entire American financial system.
Conservatives believe in obedience and respect for authority, and the kooks now in the White House destroyed the Bill of Rights and erase habeas corpus and gave Americans so much authoritarianism you could hear the clicks of goose-stepping boots from the TSA goons yanking piercings out of girls’ nipples in airports to CIA torturers kidnapping American citizens and flying them into top secret prisons in lear jets.
Conservatives believe in party discipline, and the Republican party got so disciplined it followed it lunatic leaders over a cliff like a herd of lemmings.
Conservatives in rugged individualism, and they stymied universal single-payer health care and crushed people in debt with a savagely punitive 2005 bankruptcy bill and ground poor people into hamburger by eliminating the usury caps on interest rates…until now, in 2008, all the ordinary citizens going bankrupt and defaulting on their mortgages and defaulting on their 35% credit card debt are making our entire financial system melt down.
The people in the White House destroyed conservatism by doing precisely and exactly what conservatives have been clamoring for, lo, these last 50 years.
Be careful what you pray for. Because you might get it.