The Vision Thing

By Mitchell

My friend Hadleyblogger Gary was complaining about George Bush yesterday. Now, this is nothing new for Gary. As I’ve commented before, Gary would only be completely satisfied belong to a political party named after himself.

What I think is worth mentioning about Gary, and the reason I bring this up, is that until a few years ago most people would have called Gary a staunch Republican type (he eschewed party affiliations himself, but it would have been one of those “if the shoe fits” cases), and he remains a staunch conservative. He supported George Bush in 2000 - he was truly convinced that the younger Bush was different, more conservative, than his father. Perhaps even the heir to Ronald Reagan.

This feeling had, for the most part, dissipated by 2004. I can’t remember if he voted for Bush then, but the ardor had clearly worn off. Today, it’s totally gone – replaced by a withering contempt. In his mind, and in the minds of many like Gary, George Bush has betrayed not only the principles of the Republican party, but those of conservatism as well – the growing federal bureaucracy, the runaway spending, the increasing intrusiveness of the government, the continual erosion of national sovereignty, the war.

Gary is by no means a lone voice in this. What makes it so difficult for many in the conservative movement is that George Bush’s presidency has created such a distorted image, a totally inaccurate picture of what conservatives stand for. Bush isn’t a conservative – at best, he’s a moderate Republican, a return to the party’s pre-Reagan country club roots – but many people, trained over time to link “Republican” and “conservative” are presented with a grossly unfair depiction of what many would think of a “conservative” presidency. The best one can do when discussing politics with others is to stress to them that George Bush isn’t a conservative at all, that he’s not representative of how many conservatives really feel. Don’t judge us by what you see in him, we plead. There is an intelligent, comprehensive, logical ideology out there called “conservatism.” Trust us. We aren’t that bad, we aren’t that stupid.

George Bush has done incalculable damage to the conservative movement, creating stress points, confusion, co-opting the Republican party in the process by forcing many conservative Republicans to choose between party loyalty and ideological belief. Perhaps the worst aspect of this is the seeming tin-ear with which Bush and his administration have gone about alienating the very people to whom they should be looking for support.

The latest fiasco, the immigration “compromise,” just adds fuel to the fire, and in fact it may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Many wonder if Bush really cares about this country at all, about its history, its heritage, its common culture – all of which have been diminished during the past 6+ years. David Frum, at NRO, makes the following prediction as to the battle:

As we have seen in both the Harriet Miers fight and the Dubai ports deal, this White House's first instinct when faced with dissent in the ranks is to insult and abuse its strongest supporters. "Sexist"; "elitist"; "registered bigots" were some of the terms cast during the previous fights. Brace yourselves for much, much worse. This is no way to win friends and influence people. And triggering an internecine party conflict on the eve of a difficult and dangerous election is no way to re-elect a damaged incumbent party.

When I spoke with Gary about this, he threatened to become unintelligible altogether, so choked with fury was he. Gary sees in this president a man who has sold out his party, conservative principles, and ultimately his country – and from here, it’s hard to say anything other than that Gary has 20/20 vision.

Why I'm a Conservative, Not a Republican: Reason #2,221

By Mitchell

In honor of Presidents' Day (actually, Washington's Birthday Observed), a look at this month's First Things and a very interesting discussion between Joseph Bottom and Michael Novak on "The Leadership of George W. Bush: Con & Pro," which, fortunately is also available online. (And which hopefully means we can finally be rid of that exceedingly tedious debate between Alyssa Lyra Pitstick and Edward Oakes.) Bottom takes the "con," and while his entire piece is valuable (both his and Novak's are well thought-out), the case couldn't be put much better than he does in the concluding four paragraphs of his brief, presented here without further elaboration.

And the fact we must face is this: We have already been defeated in Iraq. Perhaps not in literal truth; a better policy, better implemented, might yet bring about a stable, democratic country. And certainly not in historical terms; Iraq is only an early chapter in what must be a long struggle against global Jihadism. But, at the very least, the battle for perception of the Iraq War has gone entirely against the United States. In the eyes of both the American public and the Islamic world, we have lost-and lost badly.

The reason is President Bush. His administration has mishandled the logistics of the war and the politics of its perception in nearly equal measure, from Abu Ghraib to the execution of Saddam Hussein. Conservatives voted for George W. Bush in 2000 [editor's note: not this one] because they expected him to be the opposite of Bill Clinton-and so, unfortunately, he has proved. Where Clinton seemed a man of enormous political competence and no principle, Bush has been a man of principle and very little political competence. The security concerns after the attacks of September 11 and the general tide of American conservatism carried Republicans through the elections of 2002 and 2004. But by 2006 Bush had squandered his party’s advantages, until even the specter of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House was not enough to keep the Republicans in power.

To abandon Iraq now would be the height of irresponsibility. It would lock in place the perception of defeat, with all the predictable consequences, and it would abandon the Iraqis to whom we promised freedom and democracy. President Bush has clearly done the right thing in refusing retreat and pledging to stay the course in Iraq.

But hasn’t that always been the problem? Again and again, he has done the right thing in the wrong way, until, at last, his wrongness has overwhelmed his rightness. How can conservatives continue to support this man in much of anything he tries to do? Iraq is not America’s failure, and it is not conservatism’s failure. We are where we are because of George W. Bush’s failure. All the 2008 Republican presidential candidates should understand the task they face over the next two years. George Bush’s ideals have gotten him elected president twice, and his incompetence has finally delivered the Congress to his domestic opponents and empowered his nation’s enemies abroad. Iraq needs an American president who embraces Bush’s principles-and rejects his policies. The United States needs much the same thing.

Why Bush Should Resign

By Mitchell

Bet that headline got your attention, right? (Either that, or the shock of me posting twice in two weeks.) Of course it’s an attention-grabber as well as being something utterly unlikely to happen, but as an academic exercise it provides a little fun. And while I’m deliberately being provocative, I want to make some serious points as well.

First of all, in the interests of full disclosure I should mention that I've never considered myself a Bush supporter. I didn't vote for him in 2000 (don't worry, I didn't vote for Gore either), and only voted for him in 2004 with reservations. And I do consider myself a former Republican, as well as a former politico. I’m one of those conservatives who feels deserted by the Republicans over the last few years, and I’ve also come to see the folly of depending on politics to answer life’s burning questions (at least politics unsupported by faith). But having said that…

Throughout the Bush administration, but most especially in the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, we have seen the party hierarchy acting as an adjunct of the administration itself. When the RNC campaigned in behalf of Miers (or, more precisely, Bush’s nomination of Miers) it was saying, in effect, that what was good for Bush was good for the party. Not just good, but essential. Taken in conjunction with the typical party line – Republican policies are better for the country than those of the Democrats – one can assume the logical continuation of this thought, which is that Bush’s agenda is good for the country.

Looking at Bush not only as president but as leader of his party it is (to me) an inescapable fact that he is no longer capable of providing leadership on the issues most important to the party’s national agenda. In state after state we saw many incumbents losing because of their relationship to Bush, i.e. being in the same party with him. Not withstanding the loss of the abortion law in South Dakota and the ESCR amendment in Missouri , many of the referenda up for votes last night – same-sex marriage in several states, the MCRI in Michigan , the popular vote on the death penalty in Wisconsin – provide confirmation of Republican core issues. Issues that many Republican candidates failed to connect with, at least until it was too late.

This is not to mention the several cases where the national party organization viciously opposed conservative Republicans involved in primary contests with liberal Republican incumbents (Rhode Island this year, Pennsylvania two years ago). Nor can we neglect the abuse that conservative Republicans have taken from the party organization when they opposed Bush’s policies – on immigration, for example. (Rumors swirled last night and this morning that he would try to work out a deal with House Democrats for a more liberal policy on immigration.)

One wonders where the party goes from here. Are Bush’s policies still the gold standard for the Republicans, or is it every man for himself? If Bush can no longer function as leader of the Republican party, the party that is now committed to providing the loyal opposition, what happens to the Republican agenda?

If we equate the president in his role as party leader with that of national leader, and if we conclude that Bush can no longer credibly lead the party (remember, this is only an academic discussion – a man with nothing to lose may yet surprise us in his final two years), it then follows that Bush can no longer adequately function as president. He cannot manage his party’s agenda, whether through Congress or to the American people, and if that’s a significant part of his role as president then he is failing the test.

Logically then, he should resign.

There are a number of reasons why this won’t happen. We’re not a parliamentary government after all, where the leaders are periodically subject to votes of no confidence. (You have to wonder how many presidents we would have gone through in the last fifteen years or so if that option had been available). Furthermore, on a more purely practical political level, if Bush resigns we get Cheney. In addressing Bush’s shortcomings, would we really be any better off? Cheney is at least as closely identified with the Iraq fiasco as is Bush; to the extent that Iraq cripples the administration, Cheney is at best a push. And while Cheney may well lean more to the right on other issues than Bush, it’s doubtful that he’d have the popular support to get a more conservative agenda through. Besides, he’s not a candidate for president in 2008; allowing him to run as an incumbent through resignation (as Clinton should have done with Gore during Bill’s impeachment) isn’t a factor.

So what then? Bush and Cheney ran as a team; do they step down as one? Leaving the president pro-tempore as the new chief executive? And who is it, anyway? What’s that? Ted Stevens? Uh, never mind. Don’t even suggest the next in line, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. And as a reasonable Democratic friend mentioned to me, there’s no telling what kind of havoc this kind of turmoil would wreak on the economy.

Given the circumstances, this is a scenario that just ain’t gonna happen, except in political potboilers. And yet, my suggestion is only slightly on the facetious side. The president has been a disaster – his foreign policy, while well-intentioned, has lacked vision and failed to correctly anticipate what would come next. One can hardly doubt that Bush recognizes the importance of the war on terror – he knows this perhaps as well as anyone and certainly better than most in the Democratic party. But he no longer has the credibility to carry this fight to our enemies. Domestically, Bush has betrayed the fundamental principles of the conservative, i.e. Reagan, revolution. Certainly in this he has had company, for much of the Republican Congressional leadership has joined him in jumping over the edge. But were they simply playing follow the leader? Was the makeup of Republican leadership inevitable given the disposition of the man at the top of the ticket?

The bottom line is this: the president should either lead, follow, or get out of the way. Bush has demonstrated that he cannot lead, and as president he certainly should not follow the lead of the Democrats. That leaves only one option.