Posted on 04/18/2006 4:39:46 PM PDT by RWR8189
In every administration, there is always one journalist that the White House trusts above the others to represent its point of view. In this administration, it is Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard magazine.
Whenever you read one of Barnes' columns, you know that you are getting an inside perspective. You are, in effect, reading what the White House itself is thinking on any given day on any given subject.
This is an arrangement that suits everyone. Barnes is regularly able to scoop other reporters viewed as hostile to this administration, while the White House has a conduit through which it can get its message out in relatively undiluted form.
Now, Barnes has produced a book about George W. Bush, "Rebel-in-Chief," recently published by Crown Forum. Although not explicitly authorized by Bush, the book virtually carries his endorsement by virtue of his having given Barnes an interview just for this book and allowing senior White House staffers to speak to him on the record.
It is reasonable to assume that similar access would not have been granted to, say, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who is viewed as a first-class SOB by the White House. Therefore, we can reasonably say that Barnes' book pretty accurately represents its view on a variety of issues.
Since I have recently published a book that takes a rather dim view of Bush's policies from a conservative viewpoint, I was naturally curious to see if there is any evidence in Barnes' book that supports my thesis. I was not disappointed.
Early in the book, Barnes concedes that Bush lacks a "conservative governing temperament." Although insisting that Bush is indeed a conservative, Barnes admits that he is "no libertarian or small government conservative," even though he notes that virtually all Republicans are one or the other.
Bush "pays lip service" to limiting government, Barnes says. "More often than not," Barnes goes on to say, "he relies on a bigger federal government and billions of taxpayer dollars" to achieve his goals.
Barnes says that Bush has no sympathy for federalism, despite having been a state governor. "He's favorably disposed to federal power in education and health care," Barnes tells us.
In foreign policy, Barnes says Bush's policies are most like those of Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who said, "The world must be made safe for democracy," in his address to Congress asking for war against Germany on April 2, 1917.
In a revealing comment on Bush's consistency (or lack thereof), Barnes tries to make his frequent flip-flopping seem like a virtue -- as proof that he is not rigid. Says Barnes of Bush: "He proposed school vouchers, then gave up on them at the first sign of resistance. He changed his mind famously in 2002, when he switched from opposing a new Department of Homeland Security to proposing one. He flipped on the planned path to democracy in Iraq. ... He disliked campaign finance reform legislation, then signed it into law."
Barnes also admits that Bush's governing philosophy, taken on its own terms, is incoherent. "Proposing to reduce Social Security's unfunded liability, as Bush has, just after ballooning Medicare's with a prescription drug benefit is hardly coherent," Barnes writes. "Nor does it make sense to sign a lavish farm subsidy bill, which Bush did, while advocating fiscal restraint."
Although Bush is said to be famously loyal to his staff, Barnes cannot explain the firing of National Economic Council Director Larry Lindsey in 2002. He was fired "merely for show," Barnes tells us, "a demonstration of White House concern over a struggling economy."
This is just B.S., and Barnes knows it. It hardly makes sense to fire your chief economic adviser when your official position is that the policies devised by that adviser are working perfectly. Indeed, according to Barnes, Bush greeted Lindsey after the 2004 election and said, "You're the guy whose tax cuts won the election for me. ... We call it the Lindsey recovery around here."
I still don't know the real reason for Lindsey's firing, but Barnes only makes it all the more confusing. He says Bush was simply indulging in the ways of Washington, which hardly fits in with his idea that Bush is a rebel who cares nothing about such things.
Toward the end of the book, Barnes more clearly states the fact that Bush is no conservative. "George W. Bush isn't one of them," Barnes says. On the contrary, he appeals to the "liberal instincts" of his supporters.
In his conclusion, Barnes compares Bush to Ronald Reagan on a three-point scale, with Reagan getting a full point on taxes, foreign policy and social values. Barnes gives Bush a full point only on values, with just half a point each for taxes and foreign policy. That makes Bush two-thirds of a real conservative, which sounds about right to me.
He's 0/3 of a real Conservative.
He's 0/3 of a real Conservative.
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No argument there -- he had proven it. Over and over.
And who in your lifetime, besides Ronald Reagan, might be described as "a more conservative President than George W. Bush"?
Actually, the 2/3 formulation sounds about right.
"When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it."Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything.
"I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.'
"If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.
Bush has the formula backwards. He gives the 'Rats 80% of what they want.
President Bush needs to brush up on his math skills :-)
GW Bush is not 2/3 of a conservative. He is 3/3 of a compassionate conservative, which is exactly what he always said he was.
Y'all don't even know what a conservative is. In fact, you can't know because it is not an area of moral absolutism. Its definition changes.
Case in point, abortion. The conservative candidate of the year 1840 did not have abortion even on his radar screen. It was not a conservative issue.
Social Security and what to do about its funding issues in an environment of an aged baby boom is another issue that didn't even exist 100 yrs ago.
Conservatism is not static. It can't be.
Conservatism is supposed to be the advocacy of slow, stodgy change. Liberalsim is supposed to be the advocacy of fast, reckless change. In neither case is zero change recommended.
John Roberts and Samuel Alito tell a different story.
You have to remember two things.
1. Sunbelt conservatives come from a region where Federal spending was a major growth engine from military bases to the TVA to agricultural subsidies to the interstate highway system.
2. Sunbelt conservatives were New Deal Democrats two generations ago. They were never Old Guard Republican thin lipped "the business of America is business" types.
You're absolutely correct. It's no secret that Barnes is called a "big government conservative". Talk about oxymorons! By the way, Barnes and his boss at the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol, are part of the amnesty lobby for the illegal aliens so business interests can get that cheap labor! Kristol has been campaigning for months to get rid of Rumsfeld. They love Bush because he's for amnesty, gave us the biggest entitlement since LBJ, loves to sign those pork-laden special interest bills, and hasn't seen a spending program he doesn't love. When he talks about a veto everyone has a bipartisan laugh! I saw Barnes on C-Span taken apart by an interviewer when he pointed out that Barnes hadn't a SINGLE source outside the purview of the White House executive branch crew. He really turned red!
For the War Against Terror, President Bush is the best I can think of, except possibly Secretary Rice. For that reason and because of Justices Roberts and Alito, the President will always have my gratitude and likely my support.
I hope he decided not to fight Congress tooth and nail on spending and on issues like McCain-Feingold because of concern that he needs support in the War. Of course, the fact that the President drives the left bonkers (not a very far drive, I must admit) is sufficient reason to support him.
Well, my personal history goes back to FDR. And I can assure you that George W. Bush is clearly the 2nd most conservative President in my lifetime. And I suppose Harry S Truman would have to be a distant 3rd.
Accordingly, while we can knock Dubya for not being conservative enough, let's also appreciate what he is.
Did you think that through before you wrote it? LBJ did not run for reelection because he could not successfully prosecute the Vietnam war. No comparison.
I think he was talking about the growth of the government.
In time of war, you have to decide on your priorities. Like Johnson, Bush is trying to fight a limited war, or a series of limited wars, and trying to have new entitlements and fully funded social programs, too. This is why spending is out of control.
I saw this happen back in the Sixties, and it appears that the Republicans are making the same mistakes the Democrats made 40 years ago.
In 1965, as the debate about spending on Vietnam versus new entitlements was gaining traction, I watched Lyndon Johnson go on television and say that America was big enough and prosperous enough to handle full scale spending on both guns and butter. We could handle a major expansion of the national debt. And we could do it all without major inflation.
Well, we all saw what happened. Johnson's decision played a key role in the double-digit inflation of the Seventies when Lyndon's vultures came home to roost.
The only way Bush can deal "a lethal blow" to the conservative movement is if conservatives choose to sit on their backsides and bitch rather than go to the polls in November!
And, I submit, if that's what happens, it won't be Bush's fault -- it will be our own. We'll have destroyed the movement that Barry Goldwater began all by ourselves.
And that is exactly what we will do from this point onward whenever the GOP offers up a RINO or faux conservative instead of one who actually believes in conservatism and intends to work at actually advancing a conservative agenda. By continuing to support RINOs and faux conservatives by placing party loyalty over principle, we simply validate the poor choice of a candidate. By refusing to vote for them, we will force them to actually start nominating the real thing instead of empty suits.
Do as you wish. But, personally, I'm prepared to go to the mat for any conservative candidate in the GOP primary. Then, I will give my full support to whoever wins the GOP nomination -- because the alternative is simply too awful to contemplate.
I cannot abide turning this country -- and my grandchildren's future -- over to the tender mercies of the left again.
The similarities are superficial. There are important differences. One could probably make the same analogies to the budgets under Reagan. However, if you want to gripe (and lots of us are getting really tired of non-stop griping) about budget deficits, you should also give credit where credit is due when they cut programs and pare the budget. That is a thankless task that Dems and press scream bloody murder about. Don't expect pols to do what you want, if you bitch no matter what.
You might be interested in the New York Times article, "Out of Spotlight, Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulations", archived at http://www.onwardoregon.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ffIOIRMEG&b=122912&ct=206599
...Bush may be a big spender, but in other area's he's acting like a small-government conservative. Praise where praise is due!
Yes, what many today call conservative has changed greatly in recent years (Reagan excepted). Ike had a Democratic congress thru most of his term but the budgets were balanced and the ONLY big federal expenditure ever was the national highway bill - which was very necessary. But in those days even most Democrats were more restrained in spending than they are today - and both parties at least went thru the civilities of bipartisanship.
"And that is exactly what we will do from this point onward whenever the GOP offers up a RINO or faux conservative instead of one who actually believes in conservatism and intends to work at actually advancing a conservative agenda."
Not me. I won't vote for a RINO, but I will vote. And it will be for a candidate who represents to the GOP that they haven't gone far enough in the right direction. If that means an LP or Constitution Party candidate, even a 'wasted' vote on a third-party candidate is better than a wasted vote on a RINO that will stab the conservatives in the back like Chaffee, Specter, Lugar, Hatch...ah, hell, I can hardly name a Senator that ain't gonna stab conservatives in the back. Sessions, maybe.
Someone doesn't know what a conservative is, but that someone isn't us. One of the first principles is...absolute principles, not moral relativism. Statements like yours make us weep for the Republic.
I disagree. I believe that Eisenhower, rethought (read Jeffrey Hart's book about National Review), is more conservative. But, if you exclude him, there's only been one conservative in our lifetimes. The rest are statists, including W.
But I backed it up. There can't be absolute conservative principles when an issue doesn't even exist in the past. How can there be?
And I offered examples. Here are some more.
What was the conservative position on funding unmanned vs manned exploration of Mars in preparation for American colonization -- in 1850? Don't play games with whether or not you approve NASA. Answer the very specific question on the very specific funding quote. Which option gets funded?
What was the conservative position on whether or not to support the Cuban exile attempt to overthrow the Communist government in Cuba in the Bay of Pigs invasion -- in 1850?
In the year 2200, what will be the conservative position on whether or not to fund nationwide installation of Star Trek style transporter booths as a function of the FAA's oversight of transport safety -- that incidentally will eliminate the existence of passenger airlines, but which a number of religious figures claim will not successfully transport the soul?
In the year 2200, with all the aforementioned issues in play, what will be the conservative position on whether or not to forbid such technology in the US given that same claim from religious figures?
Come now, where is the perpetual absolutism of conservative principle on these issues?
"Well, my personal history goes back to FDR. And I can assure you that George W. Bush is clearly the 2nd most conservative President in my lifetime. And I suppose Harry S Truman would have to be a distant 3rd."
And you don't see all this as a problem? Something to be rectified by change?
If your measure of conservatism is relative to those in the post FDR era, essentially a new republic in America's history, I suggest you have a low standard.
Conservative is a relative term. But I hope that most of us can agree that in our context, it means bringing about the federal arrangement that existed PRIOR to FDR. Rollbacks, in other words. And to accomplish that requires candidates who are actually conservative, and not simply the most "conservative in my lifetime."
75+ years has been a good run for the FDR republic. Time for something new.
"If it was just three more years of Bush, I'd hold my nose and accept it. But he is in a position to deliver lasting damage to the conservative movement, if not a leathal blow. On domestic issues, he has sold out virtually every conservative principle."
This is the real problem. It is one thing that Bush doesn't advocate and carry out conservative policy. But he is where he is, spending conservative "political capital" due to the work of many grassroots activists in years past, and is squandering a legacy that was passed to him.
What does Bush leave for the next GOP presidential candidate? Or for congressment, senators and governors for that matter? He has defined Republican government downward, and has discredited "conservatism" by implementing big government programs in its name.
This makes it kinda hard to figure Bush out.
I've felt that in a gut way for a while, but hoped I was wrong. The painful similarities between Rumsfeld and McNamara have something to do with it.
Bush is one third or one half a conservative -- depending how you break it down. He's not a small government, low spending conservative, and he also doesn't look much like a traditional conservative on foreign policy, but in some real ways he is social/religious conservative. To that you could add his low-tax pro-growth, pro-business outlook, which probably qualifies as more conservative than liberal, though both budget cutters and free marketeers would disagree.
But across the board, up and down the line conservatives are a smaller a part of the population than many people think. It's also not clear just what the "real thing" would be. Politicians come up with a mix: they stand firm on the things they think are important, and avoid conflicts on other, less important matters. Bush's mix hasn't been as appealing as, say Ronald Reagan's, because he let go of some important concerns. For example, it wouldn't have hurt President Bush or the country any, if he used his veto power once in a while, or to stand up for our immigration laws, but on right to life issues, he's been quite solid.
The Bush years give the lie to one common idea about our politics: that elections pit the big government blue states against the small government red states. There's certainly some truth in that way of thinking: the blue states are larger, more urban, and more crowded, so they support all the big government programs that urban areas want. They're also the center of secular liberalism today. And the red states are smaller and more rural. They don't go in for the liberalism of the blue states.
But the blue states are more divided into competing and conflicting groups. It's hard to reach a consensus on things there, and they're often already financially overextended. By contrast, there's more community in the red states, more agreement about things, and more religiously-inspired social concern. So you'll find some red state leaders who aren't as opposed to big government as, say Robert Taft or Barry Goldwater was. They don't have any use for the ideological liberalism of the Democrat strongholds, but they accept large-scale government programs.
Conflicts between secular and religious, liberal and conservative are sharply defined on the national scene, but disputes over this or that program are a lot blurrier in local politics, so you do find politicians who are very strongly religious and and socially conservative, without following the Goldwater line on big government.
And you don't see a historical trend running in our favor?
I'm not cheering the slow rate of progress. But I'm failing to see any reason for self-flaggelation, either.
"Fuzzy" math?
"He's 0/3 of a real Conservative."
Amen!
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