Judging from the posts since Bush's intransigent support for the immigration amnesty bill, Bush, wittingly or not, has severed himself from his conservative base. His speech is probably one of the most inept ever made by a modern American president, it rivals Jimmy Carter's malaise speech for sheer artlessness. It might even prove more self-destructive.
This this is an odd position for a President in the midst of an unpopular war, who is treading water with a 30% approval rating. Nonetheless, Bush must govern and, more critically, he must wage war for the balance of his term. How can he do so now that he has finally, I say irretrievably, cut his base legs out from under his administration? why would any president so isolate himself, especially as he and his wife and Barney, and what's left of his base, are the only ones who support the war in Iraq?
I have long been posting that Bush is no conservative but rather a Christian. I think that is half the answer. Here are some of my comments made before the 2006 election:
The problem with George Bush is that he is not primarily a conservative, he is primarily a Christian, and he does not have a calculus that is congruent with yours or mine, even though both of us might be Christians.
George Bush sees partisan politics as petty and ultimately meaningless. We see partisanship as the indispensable stuff of freedom. At election time the Bushes will hold their nose and dip into partisanship. But it is not in their essential nature to wage war for tactical political advantage.
George Bush wants what Bill Clinton wanted: To fashion a legacy. He does not want to be remembered as the man who cut a few percentage points from an appropriation bill but as the man who reshaped Social Security. I've come to the conclusion that the Bushes see politics as squirmy, fetid. It must be indulged in if one is to practice statesmanship but it is statesmanship alone that that is worthy as a calling.
They are honest, they are loyal, they are patrician. There would've been admired and respected if had lived among the founding fathers. But it is Laura Bush and Momma Bush who really and truly speak for the family and who tell us what they are thinking and who they are. There's not a Bush woman who does not believe in abortion. They believe in family, they live in loyalty, they believe in the tribe, but they do not believe in partisan politics.
I believe it is time for us to decide no longer to be used by the Bush family as useful idiots and instead to begin to use the Bushes as our useful idiots . I say this with the utmost admiration and respect for everything the Bushes stand for. Who would not be proud beyond description to have a father or an uncle who was among the first and youngest of naval aviators to fight in the Pacific and to be twice shot down. Not a stain or blemish of corruption or personal peccadillo has touched the family(except for the brother whom I believe was cleared of bank charges). They are the living embodiment of all that is good and noble in the American tradition.
But they are not conservative.
I think that constitutes half the answer but what is the other half? At the time of the Harriet Myers nomination I posted this:
As a result of the policies of the Bush administration, Republicans have forfeited their formerly kryptonite hundred year claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility. Contrary to what Rush Limbaugh says, the Democrats do have an affirmative program, it is to be the party of fiscal responsibility by raising taxes and cutting spending. They will point out that the Republicans are the party of fiscal irresponsibility because they have cut taxes and increased spending. Because Bush and the Congressional Republicans have sought to buy votes with federal spending rather than cut spending in all areas apart from national defense, it is now the Democrats who can plausibly say that it is they who are fiscally responsible.
Their argument will not convince us but it will be persuasive enough, especially when supported by a full-court press from the whole of the mainstream media, to blur the fundamental distinction between the parties and perhaps gain the next election by confusing a fair portion of the electorate.
Thus we have wantonly kicked away one of the legs of our stool. Another leg of the stool was comprised of our ability to go to the electorate, as George Bush did successfully in the last two elections, and persuasively argue that we were the party of judicial integrity. That we were the party which manned the threshold to the Constitution like the Patriots at Thermopylae to check the ravening horde of liberals who would sack the Constitution like a city which had succumbed to a siege.
The Harriet Meir nomination in a stroke has needlessly compromised our ability plausibly to appeal to the electorate as of the party which stands on constitutional principle and eschews judicial opportunism.
We are now left with only one issue which separates us from the Democrats, national security. Like it or not, ever since there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, we've been on the run on this issue. Yes I know we won the last election on this issue but the tide has clearly turned. Watch Hillary contrive to present herself as a plausible candidate who is strong on defense.
Why did we saw off two of our three legs? On the issue of spending some would say it is because Bush was never a conservative. Others would say that it was the war that did it but that would not be the whole truth, at least that would not be the whole explanation. Others would say that it is simply the nature of a politician to buy votes with other people's money and the temptation, even to Republicans, is irresistible.
My own view is that our present dilemma is the product of a little bit of each of the above. For years now I've been posting my view the George Bush is not essentially a movement conservative but a committed Christian. Here's what I've been saying recently:
The truth is straightforward, as usual. Bush is first a committed Christian, then a devoted family man who values personal loyalty to an extreme, and third, a conservative when that philosophy does not conflict with the first two. In this appointment, Bush believes he has satisfied all three legs of the stool. This is what I posted yesterday:
On the limited evidence available, I do positively believe Bush appointed her because she has been reborn. I mean that quite respectfully. I mean that he is counting on her being a new person. Most of the time it means she will vote conservative. But I honestly do not think Bush appointed her to vote conservative. I think he appointed he to vote in the SPIRIT.
The sad thing for us conservatives is to contemplate just how unnecessary the debacle over Harriet Meir really was. One can understand the fear in the legislative heart of retribution from constituents as their snouts are pulled away from the trough. One can even understand Bush's, or perhaps more accurately Rove's, trepidations in dealing with immigration arising out of fear that they will be called racists and out of the desire to pander to portions of the business community. But the whole nomination fiasco is almost uniquely unrelated to identifiable political or policy considerations. In the absence of such temporal explanations, I am left with the conclusion that Bush has a selected her because she's Christian.
I have quoted these previous post extensively to demonstrate that I have not come lately or opportunistically to this point of view. I've been saying this about George Bush for years now.
It remains now only to say what I tried to articulate in my "about" page: that Tip O'Neil had it wrong, all politics is not local, but racial. That is to say that the modern American political landscape is dominated by race and especially the abhorrence of any politician to be stripped of power like Trent Lott or to be stripped in Orwellian fashion of his very personhood like Don Imus.
The last refuge for scoundrels of the left is to play the race card.
I believe the George Bush's Christian faith sincerely compels him toward an abhorrence of racism, or sexism, or religious bigotry. Hence, he extols the Muslim religion as having a faith on equal value with Christianity. He appoints Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court. He joins in the Inquisition of Trent Lott. He squanders billions in Africa to fight AIDS. He cannot see the immigration issue as anything except No- Nothing Nativists seeking to work their prejudices against brown people.
Because this is more than a philosophical but rather a religious conviction with George Bush, his position on immigration (as well as on Iraq) will prove to be utterly intractable. He is immune to blandishments, threat,, or argument because it is a matter of faith.
We conservatives have better decide what we are going to do with the our movement. My preliminary conclusion: the sooner we conservatives divorce George Bush, the better for America.
