Where Have Conservatives Been All These Years?
Judging from the reaction on the right to the preview of what’s in former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer’s new book, they all have been terribly disappointed with Dubya for years now, and Latimer’s book is just a sad and sorry confirmation of what they have all known for such a long time.
Here is Byron York in the Washington Examiner:
How many times during the last eight years did you hear that George W. Bush was a dangerous right-wing extremist? Probably too many to count.
What you heard less often were expressions of the deep reservations some conservatives felt about Bush’s governing philosophy.
Maybe because those expressions of deep reservations weren’t expressed?
Conservatives greatly admired Bush for his steadfastness in the War on Terror — to use that outlawed phrase — and they were delighted by his choices of John Roberts and Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. But when it came to a fundamental conservative principle like fiscal discipline, many conservatives felt the president just wasn’t with them.
Okay, I understand the logic behind Roberts and Alito — that has nothing to do with spending. But how does York get to the place where he can declare that “conservatives greatly admired Bush for his steadfastness in the War on Terror” and in the next breath bemoan his betrayal of “a fundamental conservative principle like fiscal discipline”? Aside from the fact that that “fundamental conservative principle” has rarely if ever actually been practiced by conservatives, where precisely does York imagine Bush’s lack of “fiscal discipline” showed itself? Where does he think the deficit came from?
Over at The Corner, Steve Hayward writes, without a trace of irony:
So last week at the “death of conservatism” panel at AEI, Sam Tanenhaus closed by recommending that the conservative movement cease to think of itself as a movement. Turns out there is one right-leaning Republican who apparently agrees with Tanenhaus: George W. Bush! See Byron York’s column in today’s Washington Examiner, where Byron dilates the revelations of Matt Latimer’s forthcoming book, Speechless.
As Byron recounts Latimer’s tale, when reviewing a speech draft for an appearance at CPAC, Bush demanded that all references to the conservative “movement” be stricken because, among other reasons, “I whupped Gary Bauer’s a— in 2000. . . . There is no movement.” Now I know Bauer is diminutive in stature, but who’s the little man here? [Emphasis added.]
Where have you been, Steve? That kind of smallness in Bush’s character did not start day before yesterday. Perhaps even more to the point: What are conservatives like Hayward doing to address the smallness of character that still exists in the GOP, and appears to be getting worse?
I might have some sympathy for conservatives who feel disillusioned or disappointed in former Pres. Bush if I thought they had learned anything from it. If instead of demonizing Pres. Obama, calling him nasty names, and comparing him to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, conservatives in general showed a bit of humility — given that they put their complete and unquestionng trust and faith in a flim-flam man whose mess Obama now has to clean up — and a willingness to negotiate in good faith and be a loyal opposition rather than a wrecking crew, then I might have some sympathy.
As it is, though, I feel exactly like this:
… [W]ho could have predicted that the right, after earnestly supporting EVERYTHING Bush and the Republicans did the last eight years, would determine that the tattered wreckage left behind was not the fault of… conservatism? It is just priceless. Again, I ask, do you remember all the mass protests organized by Freedom Works and the fiscal conservative teabaggers when Bush and DeLay were jamming through the Prescription Drug bill? You remember 60-100,000 wingnuts descending on DC screaming “I want my country back?” while wailing about out of control spending? Me either.This isn’t about principle. This is about cynical partisan politics, with an assist from the media and the glibertarian excuse makers- only a complete fool would be blaming Obama for our current mess, and only a complete fool could look at the last few decades and think the solution to our nation’s woes is giving the Republicans another shot in 2010 and 2012. Only this time, they really will take us towards that elusive conservative Utopia that eluded them while they ran the house, the Senate, and the White House! I promise! The check is in the mail! I will respect you in the morning!
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65 Responses to “Where Have Conservatives Been All These Years?”
Here's my guess, the Dems will let the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy ride into the sunset in the next couple of years. Then they will drag their feet for a bit until 2011 at which point if the Repub candidate is as extreme as looks likely they will run on a platform of taxes forcing the Republican to compare tax policy types like we saw with the healthcare debate in the election. Since the Dems will then be trying to raise taxes to fix the deficit they will probably win but it will be due to the extremity of the Repub candidate and Obama will be able to say he kept his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class during the 4 years that he promised about. If the Repubs pick a moderate, and I really do not see any in the field right now that are viable, all bets will be off but I am guessing that my prediction will come close to true.
DLS-The problem is that they are following the Reagan playbook. They are privatizing and therefore paying more. They are cutting taxes while ballooning spending. They are creating Czars to do their bidding. And most of all they are sticking by Repubs and going after Dems at all costs and without any thought to the consequences. The problem is not to “be like Reagan” again. The problem is to convince these people that Reagan really did act this way so maybe they should find another great Republican hero to believe in, my suggestions Goldwater or Eisenhower but thats just me. I may have read your comment wrong but I thought I got the idea, let me know if I was wrong.
“The problem is that they are following the Reagan playbook”
I would consider Reagan better than subsequent Republicans as well as the Democrats, even though he did make concessions to the Dems that contributed to continued growth of government in the 1980s. The privatization was pursued more by Clinton than anyone else in modern times (albeit without the Blackwater or Halliburton scandals). Also bear in mind the growth of tax revenues in the 1980s versus the growth of spending, and how the Dems influenced the spending. The lib Dems are now the ones with the most power (this has disturbed most of the public as well as the Blue Dogs and the GOP).
Sky Father, if you want some heated criticism of Reagan's era by a libertarian who associated himself with paleo-cons (actual, real far Right) at the end of his life (the kind of site that still carries his writings), I would look here for some entertaining reading. (He has an entertaining, “caustic” style.)
http://mises.org/article.aspx?Id=1544
Also here, for example:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard49….
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard55….
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard57….
[the following appears to begin like a lefty's "Bush Years" post-mortem]
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard60….
Sadly on the conservative side I am a paleo-con, though I have never heard them referred to as the “far right.” That has to be the most emotionally traumatic thing I have ever read from you…
To me they are the sane right, the fundies/birchers and royalists are the ones I consider extreme (and keep me from sleeping more than I would like to admit). You are correct though, I had never looked at the world through that lens but it explains why in my view the Repubs have been taken over by the extreme right. The fundies birchers and royalists are the current mainstream of the movement, I guess because they are willing to buy into each others systems.
Paleo-cons and libertarian types do not buy into anyones crap, in fact they do not even buy fully into paleo-cons or libertarians themselves. For this reason I suppose it makes sense that they have been effectively “driven from the party.” Wow, that really hurt. Its hard to be a moderate if you look at one sides supporters as abominations to liberty and the ones in that group you once respected are now dis-respected. Lew Rockwell has some wonderful stuff, I just wish Buckley were around to throw a full blown tantrum but I think they would just call him a Rino at this point. I need a drink…
I don't believe the GOP has been taken over by the far Right. The paleo-cons (okay, call them “Old Right” as a synonym if you prefer) are truly conservative, but they have little or no clout in the party. There is more clout among the Religious Right, who themselves have far less than their enemies on the Left would have everyone believe. “Social conservatives” are a broader category and even then, though they are a staple constituency of the GOP and perhaps, arguably, characterize that party popularly right now, these people aren't the entire party — or rather, there are plenty of others who would ordinarily see the GOP as the lesser of two evils (which the lib Dems this year are illustrating once more, despite the current GOP dysfunctionality; the GOP simply doesn't count for anything right now), the libertarian and more fiscal “conservative” types (“neo-liberal economic” people outside the USA), who have not been pleased with GOP performance these past years.
“Its hard to be a moderate”
Or at least, hard to be mushy. Also, this site is a political forum, so mushiness shouldn't be expected, and there's a lot of nonsense and mischief right now behind the lib Dems and health care, and some of us are willing to push back extra hard.
One of the more interesting paleo-con publications (you can guess what they thought of the Clintons) is:
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/
[...] Where Have Conservatives Been All These Years? [...]
Meet the New Boss
Broadly speaking an assessment with which I am not in total disagreement…
If people on the right were to shut up for six month, they would see Obama get the shit beat out of him by the left.
Clinton was a moderate Dem (DLC) and he had discipline enforced by a strong GOP Congress. That combo is probably the best we'll get, although it still wasn't perfect (the dotcom bubble allowed it to work well- they didn't really have to cut overall spending, just rode the good economic times to cut deficit.)
So no, I'm certainly not 'becoming a Democrat' but I'll give credit where due. There's a lot more to the picture than who occupies the WH though, and I still think the GOP overall has a better chance of being reformed to fiscal conservative than the Dems do- particularly lately. You might have noticed that the Clinton DLC wing isn't exactly dominating todays Dem party?
I'd say that the Ron Paulites represent something of a resurgence of fiscal sanity on the GOP side. I can find a lot to agree with on core policy issues, but I couldn't support his candidacy because like Perot, I felt there was a quite a bit of weirdness there (Perot's oddities were more personality quirks though, and Paul's (and his supporters) ran toward conspiracy and almost paranoia.
That combo is probably the best we'll get, although it still wasn't perfect.
I'll say. One of the few things that can render a building of 535 CEOs even more dysfunctional is a congressional crusade against sexual indiscretion.
Yeah, there was that, wasn't there?
CS
” Clinton was a moderate Dem (DLC) and he had discipline enforced by a strong GOP Congress.”
Then by your logic, Reagan's success was due to the Democratic House. Reagan spent a ton more on defense, the Republicans special interest group, so I guess it still begs the question. If as the graph I cited shows, the Republicans actually outspent Democratic presidents, how can you believe fiscal conservatism is a characteristic of the Republicans?
Then by your logic, Reagan's success was due to the Democratic House. No, by my logic Reagan was not 'successful' in terms of budgetary constraint. I liked him for a lot of other reasons, but I criticize the spending.
defense, the Republicans special interest group,
I guess that's an easy narrative to latch onto except that a lot of Democrats benefit from that 'special interest group' as well. Defense seems to be one of those industries that gives more money to whichever party they believe will be in the majority (currently giving more to Dems, as seen here.)
And a lot of the resistance to cuts is due to reps who have bases and/or manufacturing companies in their districts- not to mention some of the corrupt connections like Murtha's (and I'm sure there are corresponding ones among the GOP.)
Philosophically though, it's true that the GOP advocates 'strong defense' and that makes it less likely that a president or Congress headed by GOP will exercise restraint on defense spending. On the basic philosophy of strong defense I don't disagree but I don't feel it's ever carried out well. We need to wind down commitments to being the world's policeman and let Europe start footing the bill for its own defense, and we need to find ways to address the very real problems of fraud, corruption, and waste in defense contracts.
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