George W. Bush and (or?) Conservatism

A reader writes:

Thanks for the link to Reed's column and site — boy, he sums up what I have experienced and intuited — what the conservative minority of the country has known for some time and fumes over on the web and talk radio.

Makes me wonder about Bush and his "compassionate conservatism" — isn't he a holdover from his parents' WASPish values — noblesse oblige and all that? I kept wondering why he didn't set Ashcroft after the Clintons for their many legal violations while in office. I fear that he and they agree on too many essentials, except for personal, sexual morality and the real defense of our country. The latter are very important differences, but I don't see Bush using his "bully pulpit" to try to advance the conservative agenda — smaller federal government, personal responsibility for getting educated, working, saving for your old age, marrying before having children. He only speaks out about the war. He hasn't even done an evening public address to support his judicial appointees and his reasons for choosing them. It could be entitled, "The Crisis in Our Federal Courts." Maybe with that title and the preemption of the airwaves, he could make his case and generate concern from the muddled middle.

Reagan did an admirable job of changing public opinion as did Margaret Thatcher in spite of the range of societal pressure groups against both of them. Without strong, passionate, and positive leadership, our cause is doomed to being portrayed as held by a cranky minority.

I will vote for Bush because of his defense position, but I no longer have the regard for him that I once did. You and our children and grandchildren are going to have a higher tax burden laid on your shoulders because of the silly prescription drug bill that was not needed. Most states have plans to help the really poor get the drugs they need. Bush is trying to curry favor with the Left and it never works, they continue to hate him and lie about him and his positions anyway. Didn't he learn with the Education Act that he let Kennedy write?

Colin McNickle, editorial page editor at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, writes today about how un-conservative George W. Bush is (quoted ellipses in original):

.... Monday last, Bobby Eberle, GOPUSA's president and CEO, filed a commentary with the headline, "Bush-bashing conservatives should focus on the big picture." It was in response to the many conservatives who think the president has lost his way and are rethinking what to do with their franchise on Nov. 2.

The over-riding theme of Mr. Eberle's position: "It's time for conservatives across the country to ... realize that a Bush loss is far worse than a Bush victory."

I certainly don't disagree. The thought of any of the current crop of Democrat presidential candidates actually being elected should give dry heaves and itchy hives to any reasonable person with even an elementary education.

But rationalizing Mr. Bush's shortcomings will serve not only to give conservatives and their cause a bad name but weaken both....

Indeed, I fully understand, as Jerry Z. Muller wrote in the introduction to his 1997 anthology, "Conservatism," that "conservatives have, at one time and place or another, defended royal power, constitutional monarchy, aristocratic prerogative, representative democracy, and presidential dictatorship; high tariffs and free trade; nationalism and internationalism; centralism and federalism; a society of inherited estates, a capitalist, market society, and one or another version of the welfare state."

That is to say (and after that indictment, not without irony), as great political philosopher Russell Kirk did in his seminal 1953 work, "The Conservative Mind,'" that conservatism "is not a fixed and immutable body of dogma."

But, I would add, neither is it the open-borders, spendaholic, prescription-drug-entitlement mutation that George Bush has created....

So, what is a "conservative?" And, what is "conservatism"? Russell Kirk's "Six Canons of Conservative Thought" say it best:

"Belief in transcendent order, or body of natural law."

"Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems ... "

"Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a 'classless society.'"

"Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from private possessions, and Leviathan becomes master of all."

"Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters, calculators and economists' who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs. Custom, convention, and old prescription are checks both upon man's anarchic impulse and upon the innovator's lust for power."

"Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress. Society must alter, for prudent change is the means of social preservation; but a statesman must take Providence into his calculations, a statesman's chief virtue ... is prudence."

These canons represents much of what George Bush is not, and much of what many conservatives claim to embrace but do not know....

By prescription is meant, I take it, something akin to tradition.

Also, John Fund writes at OpinionJournal, Jan. 26:

For 30 years, the foot soldiers of the conservative movement have gathered here for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. It is the only major conclave in which all elements of the conservative movement — from home-schoolers to antitax crusaders to missile-defense advocates — are represented.

What should worry President Bush is that at the CPAC meeting that ended Saturday there was a clear undercurrent of discontent with his administration. "The people here will vote for Bush, but their friends could be dispirited and stay home just as [White House adviser] Karl Rove said some did in 2000," says Don Devine, who served as President Reagan's director of federal personnel. "We all know how close that election turned out."

That's one reason President Bush is scrambling to quell a conservative revolt. In his State of the Union Address, Mr. Bush called for fighting wasteful spending and also tried to placate his base by announcing support on several issues important to his core constituency. The president gave tacit support for a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage and backed modest Social Security reform as well as expanding individual retirement accounts. To address the spending issue more directly, as CPAC was meeting the president announced he'd hold the line on spending in the budget he'll submit to Congress early next month. Mr. Bush promises to ask for an overall increase in discretionary spending of less than 4%. For spending not related to defense and homeland security, he says he'll hold the increase to 1%.

That didn't quiet the grumbling at CPAC. What nearly everyone seemed concerned about is the 36% increase in nonentitlement spending since Mr. Bush took office. From the farm bill to the new Medicare entitlement, spending lobbies have never had it so good since the heyday of the Great Society....

Finally, former congressman John Kasich writes at the New York Times today:

.... Since 2001 government spending has grown almost 20 percent, from $1.96 trillion then to the more than $2.3 trillion contained in the budget that President Bush is expected to release to Congress tomorrow. The Congressional Budget Office predicted last week that the deficit would hit a record $477 billion, and yet the spending spree goes on with no apparent end in sight. The surpluses that could have been used to save Social Security are gone, and Medicare continues its move toward bankruptcy.

Some blame President Bush's tax cuts, some blame the war on terrorism, but it all comes down to one simple reason: a lack of political will to curtail the rise and growth of government spending. An example of this is the bloated budget bill. It provides money for a birthday party for Hawaii and the study of fruit flies in France. Who is to blame? Everyone who has participated in the process, which means both Republicans and Democrats.

So I have a few things I would like to say to both sides. To my Republican friends: please don't argue that deficit spending and big government don't matter. They are a claim on future income either through higher taxes, or inflation and higher interest rates. And to my Democratic friends: deficits are not caused by taxes being too low, but by spending being too high. Your solution of raising taxes will lead only to slower economic growth and even more spending in the future....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 02/01/04 07:17:52 PM
Categorized as Political.