Jonathan Chait: Conservatives regurgitate George W. Bush
n "The Man Who Would Be King," the late-nineteenth-century Rudyard Kipling story later turned into a movie, an English adventurer named Daniel Dravot becomes the regent of Kafiristan, a remote mountainous region north of India. Dravot leads the Kafiri people to a string of battlefield victories, and they receive him as a God, the son of Alexander the Great, and turn their treasure over to him. But then they see him bleed, and--discovering he is mortal after all--turn on him with unbridled rage. Mobs of tribesmen denounce him as a fraud, chase him out of the temple, and ultimately send him plummeting to his doom.
Something similar is happening now to George W. Bush. Not long ago, conservatives hailed him as a fearless leader in the war on terrorism, a great man of history, Reagan's son. Long after the patriotic upsurge following September 11 had crested, the conservative base held him in awe. "George W. Bush has been a resolute and even heroic president in a terrifying time," wrote David Frum. Bush is "not only a good and trusted war leader, but a cunning and bold political leader," editorialized The Washington Times.
Now his former acolytes are furiously denouncing him. The American Spectator recently published a special issue devoted mostly to detailing the litany of Bush sins. One recent book (Impostor, by conservative columnist Bruce Bartlett), a forthcoming book (Conservatives Betrayed, by right-wing activist Richard Viguerie), and innumerable op-eds (e.g., "how the gop lost its way," by Reagan biographer Craig Shirley) condemn the president as an ideological turncoat. ...
The banishment of politicians from the tribe is a recurring practice on the right. George H.W. Bush was the most famous victim, but Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, and many others have all faced the wrath of Washington conservatives. It is a highly stylized ritual, often conducted in terms baffling to those not deeply versed in the mores of the movement. It is also deeply cruel, as the victims are often faithful adherents who work assiduously to carry out the tribe's wishes--and they never see the mob coming for them until it's too late.
n the especially strange case of Bush, we can begin by examining the new conservative claim that Bush is, like his father, a moderate. National Review's Jonah Goldberg has called Bush a "liberal Republican." Other conservatives make the same point implicitly, by way of historical comparison. The conservative press in recent weeks has been flush with ideological comparisons between the current president and George H.W. Bush or Richard Nixon, both of whom occupy a central place in the right's demonology. In the conservative mind, Bush has now joined his father and Nixon as ideological apostates who expanded government and sold out the movement in order to ingratiate themselves with liberals.
It is, to say the least, a highly idiosyncratic analysis. Let us concede that the president has done violence to conservative principle with his tariffs, spending, and the like. Let us also concede, for the sake of argument, that Nixon and Bush père can be considered "liberal." (They certainly are by contemporary Republican standards.) The comparison is still preposterous. Nixon and George H.W. Bush expanded government in the pursuit of goals amenable to many liberals. These included tougher environmental regulation and progressive tax reform in Nixon's case, and the Americans with Disabilities Act and an anti-deficit measure including tax hikes in Bush's.
In sharp contrast, George W. Bush's expansions of government have, virtually without exception, come in the service of distinctly illiberal goals. Medicare, the energy bill, tariffs, crop supports--all these represented subsidies from the general public to business interests and attracted little or no support from liberals, with respectable Brookings centrist-liberals particularly aghast. Bush's right-wing corporatism may not reflect the kind of conservatism that most right-leaning activists prefer, but it is a kind of conservatism, and certainly not liberalism or moderation. ...
Read entire article at New Republic
Something similar is happening now to George W. Bush. Not long ago, conservatives hailed him as a fearless leader in the war on terrorism, a great man of history, Reagan's son. Long after the patriotic upsurge following September 11 had crested, the conservative base held him in awe. "George W. Bush has been a resolute and even heroic president in a terrifying time," wrote David Frum. Bush is "not only a good and trusted war leader, but a cunning and bold political leader," editorialized The Washington Times.
Now his former acolytes are furiously denouncing him. The American Spectator recently published a special issue devoted mostly to detailing the litany of Bush sins. One recent book (Impostor, by conservative columnist Bruce Bartlett), a forthcoming book (Conservatives Betrayed, by right-wing activist Richard Viguerie), and innumerable op-eds (e.g., "how the gop lost its way," by Reagan biographer Craig Shirley) condemn the president as an ideological turncoat. ...
The banishment of politicians from the tribe is a recurring practice on the right. George H.W. Bush was the most famous victim, but Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, and many others have all faced the wrath of Washington conservatives. It is a highly stylized ritual, often conducted in terms baffling to those not deeply versed in the mores of the movement. It is also deeply cruel, as the victims are often faithful adherents who work assiduously to carry out the tribe's wishes--and they never see the mob coming for them until it's too late.
n the especially strange case of Bush, we can begin by examining the new conservative claim that Bush is, like his father, a moderate. National Review's Jonah Goldberg has called Bush a "liberal Republican." Other conservatives make the same point implicitly, by way of historical comparison. The conservative press in recent weeks has been flush with ideological comparisons between the current president and George H.W. Bush or Richard Nixon, both of whom occupy a central place in the right's demonology. In the conservative mind, Bush has now joined his father and Nixon as ideological apostates who expanded government and sold out the movement in order to ingratiate themselves with liberals.
It is, to say the least, a highly idiosyncratic analysis. Let us concede that the president has done violence to conservative principle with his tariffs, spending, and the like. Let us also concede, for the sake of argument, that Nixon and Bush père can be considered "liberal." (They certainly are by contemporary Republican standards.) The comparison is still preposterous. Nixon and George H.W. Bush expanded government in the pursuit of goals amenable to many liberals. These included tougher environmental regulation and progressive tax reform in Nixon's case, and the Americans with Disabilities Act and an anti-deficit measure including tax hikes in Bush's.
In sharp contrast, George W. Bush's expansions of government have, virtually without exception, come in the service of distinctly illiberal goals. Medicare, the energy bill, tariffs, crop supports--all these represented subsidies from the general public to business interests and attracted little or no support from liberals, with respectable Brookings centrist-liberals particularly aghast. Bush's right-wing corporatism may not reflect the kind of conservatism that most right-leaning activists prefer, but it is a kind of conservatism, and certainly not liberalism or moderation. ...