Late to the Party
It’s all fine and dandy that the American Freedom Agenda, “a growing group of disaffected conservatives who are demanding that the Republican Party return to its traditional mistrust of concentrated government power” — co-founded by ideologists of the hardcore right Richard Viguerie, Bruce Fein, and David Keene, along with born-again libertarian Bob Barr — is pushing “all candidates in both parties” to pledge not to wiretap illegally, make signing statements, prosecute journalists, and deny habeas corpus rights to the accused, but, well, count me among the cynical.
These conservatives are doing what so many other conservatives are doing, which is denying that Bush is or ever was a true conservative — for what else is this but a pledge not to do what Bush has done? — but where were they (Barr aside) when this, and so much else besides, was going on before? 9/11 didn’t happen yesterday, after all. The Patriot Act has been around for a long time. And Bush has been trampling all over the Constitution pretty much throughout his entire presidency. Was it alright back then but not now? If so, why? If not, why come out only now? Could it have anything to do with a) the fact that Bush is wildly unpopular, prompting disillusioned conservatives to seek to purify their movement, and/or b) the strong possibility that a Democrat will win the White House next year?
Otherwise, so what? Should we applaud their courage, their principled commitment to civil liberties — however disingenuous, however belated, however self-serving? Hardly. Liberals, Democrats, and other critics of Bush and his authoritarianism, myself included, have been writing against these various abuses for many, many years now. I could go back and find post after outraged post — and I’m no Glenn Greenwald.
I have two words to describe what the AFA is up to: Convenient conservatism.
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14 Responses to “Late to the Party”
Agreed.
So what if they’re late to the party? At last some of these conservatives have come to their senses and have realized that the kind of government imposed on us the Bush administration has nothing to do with traditional conservative principles. Why not reach out to them and look for other common ground that might move the country away from the politics of divsiveness? If later they prove to be fair-weather friends, you can attack their motives then.
Ticketsplitter has a great point. If no one ever gains anything by changing their approach, no one will ever have an incentive to change their approach.
But why did it take 7 years to speak out? That’s ridiculously long to wait.
Ticketsplitter beat me to it
kimrit, it could be isolation, pride, a feeling that they could do more good ‘on the inside’ so to speak. I’m sure it’s also different for different people. It might have been too long, but dwelling on the past won’t move us forward.
Also, there is a supper simple way to gauge their sincerity. Just ask them to back the candidate who fulfills their pledge the best, and explain why that candidate succeeds in their view. An honest attempt to answer that might lead them to back a Dem, and that would truely be a sign of honest reflection and ‘waking up’.
Richard Viguerie support a Dem? That will be the day! Of course its better late than never, but they sat silent way too long, enabling Bush and Cheney.
Don’t forget fear. going against W and crew was not exactly an easy choice to make even relativly recently. Not saying that cowardness is a good thing, but lets be real. People have lives, families, and so on and really don’t want to see them messed with by the lossing of patisan attack dogs.
I remember back close to 9/11, a student got himself in trouble with homeland security and almost no one would help him once they found out who was ‘after’ him. I did, but can’t say I did not wonder what might happen.
Um, its called putting one’s country ahead of one’s party, remember? And what do any of these four conservatives have to fear from Bush? They aren’t running for office.
The only thing that has enabled him to do all this in the first place is unquestioning support from people like this.
“Why not reach out to them ”
Yes, reaching out is always good.
There was a precedent set on this site for reaching out. It concerned progressives working to create a positve agenda. The precedent consisted of pointing out what has been wrong with progessives up to now. The reaching out did not happen wihout an exacted price of criticism.
Think of this as the first step, then. The reaching out will come later.
Once again, I’m well ahead of the mainstream media on this story. I wrote an article about the American Freedom Agenda over at my blog three months ago.
It would be a mistake to argue that the American Freedom Agenda has waited “7 years to speak out” given that several of its members have been speaking out against the Bush administration’s policies since Bush’s first term in office. Former Republican Congressman Bob Barr (who has subsequently left the Republican Party and joined the Libertarian Party) has been on cable news channels denouncing the Patriot Act and warrantless electronic surveillance since 2005, and Republican Congressman (and current presidential hopeful) Ron Paul has been criticizing the Bush Administration’s record on civil liberties from the beginning.
Just because the mainstream media refuses to acknowledge conservative critics of the Bush Administration doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. It seems to me that civil libertarians of all stripes (liberals, moderates, conservatives, and libertarians) should be working together rather than bickering over which group was the first to criticize Bush.
nick-After I read your comment, I remembered that I did see the four conservatives on one of the cable channels, criticizing Bush for the problems at the Justice Dept. You are right that they didn’t wait.
But, you are also right that only administration critics on the left seem to get any attention in the media. This has been really harmful because it sets up these issues as partisan, instead of as important safeguards of our democracy, which all Americans need to be aware of.
My criticism of some conservatives who still support Bush remains, but we should give credit to those who have been speaking out all along, while getting little media coverage.
Top US congressional Democrats bluntly told President George W. Bush Wednesday that his Iraq troop “surge” policy was a failure.
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday.
The Democrats buried the Immigration bill because it was taking up the steam of the antiwar to continually pound over and over and over and over again what a failure the war on terror is.
Bush’s failure. He gave up trying to convince anyone of its right or wrongness. He simply let the antiwar/Democrats/left define the argument.
So Reid buries the most important legislation in a generation so he can get back to bashing the war/bush and anything republican.
Its no wonder conservatives are jumping off the burning ship. They forgot where the fire extinguishers are and how to use them.
KR – RV is a frequent guest on Ed Schultz, and they actually carry on a civil talk/debate.