The Fading Administration
Bleary eyed this morning from lack of sleep because our cats yelled at us all night or abandoning them for a week, I was struck as I scanned the morning news blogs by two critiques of the Bush Administration. One is from the moderate left by Josh Marshall and is distinguished from what you might expect from such a source only by its cogency.
The other, however, is from the far right of the stipendiary punditry - Robert Novak. When this guy has so negative a take on the Bush administration it begins to look like the political antibodies of American democracy are beginning to reject the Bush project.
As I've said before, if I were a genuine conservative, a Republican operative, or a supporter of the Iraq invasion, I would be mad as hell at this gang. I doubt if the Demos have what it takes to win the White House in '08, but whoever the Republican is will be the UnBush candidate. You can already see this.
Labels: Bush admin, politics, presidential campaign
posted by Clemens @ 1:13 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Here's where I reveal my 2000 sympathies.
The real tragedy, to say nothing of a source of incomprehensible bafflement, is that the majority of writers at National Review, who endorsed Bush over McCain in 2000, are still fighting that war. Some of them still think Bush is the sweetest, greatest president we've ever had, that we're lucky to have him and we won't have another one like him in a long time.
Their only serious beef with McCain has ever been campaign finance reform, and they're still not over that—despite the fact that it was Bush who signed it into law. Meanwhile, Bush has governed as anything but a conservative (huge deficits, new entitlements, nation-building) while McCain stuck to his principles of 2000. McCain has remained more of a conservative than Bush ever was, and they still gnash their teeth at the sound of his name.
I don't mean everyone over at NRO, of course, but a sizable number. Nordlinger comes to mind as the most outstanding example of this, using every opportunity available to take a potshot at McCain, including places where it's more or less irrelevant, and he just wants a swing at the guy.
One has to wonder what has become of the conservative movement, when its flagship periodical thinks that a big-spending politician who nominates his pals to positions of importance and vetoes all of one bill passed by Congress is more valuable than an actual conservative.
I think I agree, though I am probably differnt from you in never voting for Bush and always having doubts about his admin. I still like to read the NRO crowd, but they seem desperate and shrill, and partly for the reasons you mention (and a whole lot more) less interesting intellectually - with a few exceptions, like Hanson.
I've noticed that they seem to despise McCain, and one or two, like Kay Lo, are in love with Romney. I can't actually tell who the front runner will be. For reasons I've alluded to elsewhere, I don't see how Romney has a chance, McCain still seem to be anathama for the kool-aid drinkers over at NRO, and Dobson has just rejected Fred Thompson because he is not a "Christian."
That phrase was later explained to mean he is not an 'Evangelical.' Which leaves me out too!
Any opinions on the field? Its way too early to tell, but I am completely lost. And I don't care much for the Demos at this point either.
My Republican favorite is still McCain. His tone of honor and American greatness, and most importantly the need to act decently in accordance with that greatness (e.g. torture) appeal to me. I like to fancy that his anti-pork crusade is real I was impressed by his opposition to Bush's tax cuts in 2001. The folks at NRO sneer at him for renouncing it now, but I agree that it is irresponsible to pass tax cuts that place a crushing burden on our children.
But I don't think McCain'll get far. His opposition to those tax cuts will likely play badly in TV commercials, and the Republican party appears to have become the party of "no taxes" rather than the party of limited government (if it ever was). The conservative media follows NRO, and few of them seem endorse McCain. Ponnuru did, and maybe Goldberg will again, but that's about it?
In any case, there's the age factor, and it's possible that too many South Carolinians still associate McCain with that slander about having an illegitimate child. (Never mind that the actual slander was worse. I can't imagine why South Carolinians should have minded if McCain actually did have an illegitimate interracial daughter, what with Strom Thurmond being their senator and all, but still.)
I don't want to write anything else about other candidates in the field, because I don't know much about them yet. More to the point, I wish I didn't know anything about them until January 2008 or so. Except that I didn't much like Edwards even when he was my senator, and I like him even less since he decided to start talking about eliminating poverty (because I don't think it's possible, and especially because I don't appreciate his implications that the government hasn't tried). I have no great love for Gilmore (who's been talking about a run). Gilmore is part of that crowd who are responsible for Bush (the club of Republican governors of 1999-2000).
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