Posted on 08/17/2006 4:30:32 PM PDT by NapkinUser
The Democrats are determined to make the election of 2006 a referendum on Bush and the war in Iraq. And, as of now, that is how history will likely record it.
But beneath the surface of the national election, a different plebiscite is being held, within the conservative movement, on the ideology George Bush imposed on Ronald Reagan's party.
What are the elements of Bushite neoconservatism?
First, an interventionist foreign policy, using U.S. power to impose democracy and "end tyranny on this earth." Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon are the laboratories and proving ground.
Second, "Big Government Conservatism," as seen in the deficits, the dearth of vetoes, soaring social spending in wartime, the bulking up of the Department of Education and "faith-based initiatives" -- LBJ-style cash grants to pastors and parsons for Social Gospel work, to reap a harvest of gratitude from the pulpits in elections to come.
Third, a La Raza immigration policy, featuring amnesty and a "path to citizenship" for 12 million illegal aliens, pardons for all businesses that hired illegals, and outsourcing of immigration policy to Corporate America to go abroad and hire workers for jobs here Americans cannot take at the wages offered.
Fourth, a trade policy rooted in the belief that it does not matter where goods are produced or whether Americans produce them. What matters is unimpeded global commerce, where the consumer is king and gets all the goods he wants at the cheapest possible price.
On these four mega-questions, Republicans are as divided as they were in the days of Rockefeller and Goldwater. Where the Right unites -- on tax cuts, John Roberts and Sam Alito -- the president has the nation behind him.
Wherever "conservatives" stand -- whether Old Right or neocon, supply-sider or deficit hawk, America First or global democrat, Big Government or small government -- the returns of Bush's policies are largely in and the outcome unlikely to change. And this is why Bush and the GOP are in trouble, and neoconservatism is in the dock.
The altarpiece of the Bush foreign policy is Iraq. American dead are at 2,600, the wounded at 18,000. Three hundred billion dollars has been plunged into the war. Yet, Iraq is a bloodier, more dangerous place than it has been since the fall of Baghdad. One hundred are being killed every day, half of them in the capital. IED attacks on U.S. troops are at record levels -- three-and-a-half years after Baghdad fell.
The Bush democracy campaign brought stunning electoral gains for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq. Our ally Hamid Kharzai is today little more than mayor of Kabul, as the Taliban roam the southeast and coalition casualties reach the highest levels since liberation, five years ago.
North Korea and Iran remain defiant on their nuclear programs. Vladimir Putin is befriending every regime at odds with Bush, from Tehran to Damascus to Caracas. Neocon meddling in The Bear's backyard has gotten us bit.
Unless we grade foreign policy on the nobility of the intent, which is how the liberals used to defend disasters like Yalta, it is not credible to call Bush's foreign policy a success. The Lebanon debacle, once U.S. complicity is exposed, is unlikely to win anyone a Nobel.
Bush's trade policy has left us with annual deficits of $800 billion with the world and $200 billion with Beijing. Once the greatest creditor nation in history, we are now the greatest debtor. U.S. manufacturing has been hollowed out with thousands of plants closed and 3 million industrial jobs vanishing since Bush took office.
As for Bush immigration policy, the nation is in virtual rebellion. Six million aliens have been caught at the Mexican border since he took office. One in 12 had a criminal record. In April-May, millions of Hispanics marched through U.S. cities demanding amnesty and all rights of citizenship for aliens who are breaking the law by even being here. Bush and the Senate are in paralysis, appeasing the lawbreakers by offering amnesties and by opposing House demands that the president seal the border before the invasion brings an end to the America we once knew.
While the economy has been running well since 2003, creating jobs, and the markets are performing well, the real wages of working Americans have not kept pace with the portfolios of the clients of Lawrence Kudlow. Industrial states, like Ohio, could be killing fields of the GOP in November.
To the neocon guru Irving Kristol, "The historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be ... 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."
With some of us, the tutoring never took, but the neocons surely did convert George W. How's your boy doing, Irving?
I'm old enough to remember a time when Buchanan's writings showed some insight with at least a glimmer of thought behind them, but those days are long gone...
I agree with some of the points made by Buchanan here and disagree with others.The trade deficit for instance has been going on for a lot longer then GW's been in office,and the situation in Lebanon and Taliban in Afganistan preclude the Bush Admin.However the nation building in Iraq and the blind eye to illegal immigration are open to debate as far as I'm concerned !!!
We'll see whether or not Pat knows what he's talking about soon enough. The referendum will be in Nov. My gut feeling is the Neo Cons are going to be repudiated at the polls.
Sure does and I wish he would've mentioned the PNAC boys writing a few years ago about their need for a "Pearl Harbor" type event to help their cause.
"Interesting that Pat Buchanan spits out the word 'neocon' as an epithet in exactly the same manner as America's Islamofascist enemies and America's fifth-column leftists do"
This makes complete sense in view of the fact that all of these people see "neocon" and "Jew" as synnonyms...
Sorry, should have said "all of these people see 'neocon' and 'Jew' or 'pro-Jew Christian' as synnonyms..."
Hopefully the Demonrats will do a little bit worse at the polls than Pat usually does. I used to vote for him on moral issues before he lost his mind on foreign policy.
The hooves are mine!
Well, I'd like to know what little birdie has been whispering in Pat's ear???
What the only difference between Mel Gibson's drunk rant and Pat's typical article? Pat's sober.
That is an accurate assessment of things happening as I view them.
Pat is a pretty smart guy, but he is somehow quite dysfunctional.
His reasoning has almost always seemed to me to be convoluted and inconsistent.
Certainly his "solutions" would not be in the best interests for posterity.
His still not so small voice, "crying in the wilderness," is certainly corrupted.
When I saw the title - I just *knew* it was Paleo Pat!
"This will be fun to watch--bookmark."
Um, not really ... Here's how it ends: The Liberals Win.
Pat B's been running this play ever since he bashed the elder Bush in New Hampshire in 1992, enough to sour the conservative movement in 1992 on re-elcting Bush.
So a man who won a stunning victory and was in the process of leading us out of a recession, and who had put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, was defeated by Clinton.
Pat B's continued Jihad against Bush the younger will have the same effect. After his internicene warfare and low-road against the GOP establishment, the losses (like a conservative like Santorum) that occur he will chalk up as his brilliant prediction. Never mind that everything he whines about will get worse as a result of his actions and words.
Rebuttals:
1. We 'imposed' democracy in Lebanon. Amazing, considering that we have no troops there.
2. "While the economy has been running well since 2003, creating jobs, and the markets are performing well, the real wages of working Americans have not kept pace with the portfolios of the clients of Lawrence Kudlow."
That contrafactual wealth-bashing, American-military-bashing and immigration-bashing is a Tancredo meets Kucinich mind-meld ... spoken like a true national socialist, Pat!
"The Democrats are determined to make the election of 2006 a referendum on Bush and the war in Iraq."
Huh? what?.........
oh, yeah right, uh that was the same thing the 2004 election was supposed to be about, yeah. Bush won that.
zzzzzzzzzzzzz
"Fourth, a trade policy rooted in the belief that it does not matter where goods are produced or whether Americans produce them. What matters is unimpeded global commerce, where the consumer is king and gets all the goods he wants at the cheapest possible price."
Can someone explain to me why this isn't better than all the alternatives of socialism and protectionism etc.?
Protectionism may "save" a few jobs at home, at the expense of an overall lower standard of living for all of us; socialism is the #1 cause of poverty in the world.
Why NOT have a free trade system, which make us compete better and more, but is most economically efficient overall?
The issue is the judges and keeping the economy strong and the tax cuts pemanent. The GOP should do ok if they stick to those issues.
"Pat correctly, and succinctly, identifies four centrifugal issues for the Republican base. Where he goes off the rails is in his analysis of their relative political importance, and in his implied prescriptions for a remedy."
Right. His uninteresting analysis is that GOP will lose in November because they aren't doing what PatB wants them to.
The more interesting question is HOW CAN WE RALLY THE BASE AND GET OUT SELVES BACK ON TRACK ON THESE ISSUES WITH THE VOTERS?
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