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.
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