The Anchoress

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial up entitled McCain’s Apostacies.

Think about that for a minute. His differences with his party are not differences, they’re “apostacies.” He is, for some, a heretic who has departed too sharply away from the dogmas and sacraments of The Church of Conservatism.

And he’s the pro-life guy!

I’ve been thinking for a while that the hyperpartisanship on both sides was beginning to resemble the Protestant/Catholic sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland. Hate and malice are being extended by both sides to those “others” over there. The “other side.”

Nothing else matters but that they don’t believe the same things “we” believe (whoever “we” are, Conservative or Liberal). Because they don’t believe the same things “we” believe, they are bad, undesirable people and we shun them and will not have them in our midst.

It’s downright unAmerican, if you ask me. And the tenacity with which both sides cling to their beliefs makes one wonder if the political extremes are not misplacing their faith - putting it not in God, but in “the party” and “the movement.”

I did something I almost never do, recently, and spent a little time exchanging ideas within the thread of another blog. Within that exchange, someone wrote:

I just don’t see what [George W]Bush has done for the movement or the party.

That stopped me in my tracks. All this time I thought the president - any president - was expected to serve the interests of the whole nation and all its citizenry. Apparently not; apparently the president is supposed to serve “the party” and “the movement” and if he does not do that - he is a poor and despised president.

That “movement or the party” remark recalled the histories of fascism and communism and their ugly progeny - totalitarianism; all of those “isms” began with the notion that “loyalty to the party” trumped everything else - new ideas, tactics, statesmanship, economics, social unrest - whatever the question, loyalty to the party - the growth and sustainment of “the movement” was the answer.

That’s all bad history. It is history we want to remember, but not repeat. But here we are, the mightiest and most democratic nation in the world, and the extremists within both ideologies have deemed fealty to the “ism” - whichever ism it is - to be the defining characteristic of a desirable candidate.

Someone else wrote:

Well here’s the thing - conservatives are conservatives because they believe conservatism is what’s best FOR AMERICA.

That’s quite true and un-objectionable. But of course, liberals are liberals because they believe liberalism is what’s best for America, and centrists are centrists for the same reason.

It just seems to me that within those little ideological spheres which are full of ideas, a president must be permitted to listen to ideas and debate them and perhaps even to choose portions of ideas from each position, left, right and center, in order to formulate policies which are best FOR AMERICA, and which address the concerns of all the country, not just “the party,” and which serve the whole citizenry, not just “the base.” The best recipes call for more than one ingredient. The best policies do, too.

If we are determined to shut out whole blocks of people because their thoughts are not ours, their ideas are not ours, their beliefs are not ours, then we’re doing democracy wrong - we’re turning it into something else. And I don’t think the “something else” is necessarily a good thing.

Thomas More, the patron saint of politicians, was a good and trusted adviser to King Henry VIII, but his faith and conscience took precedence over that fealty. When Rome refused Henry a divorce, Henry broke away and formed the Church of England. More could not go where Henry went, saying at his arrest, “I am the King’s good servant, but God’s first.”

I am by no means comparing President Bush to St. Thomas More, but it does seem to me that part of his problems within his own party stem from a similar attitude: He is the party’s good servant, but America’s first. And America’s good servant, but God’s even before that.

Those priorities seem like good ones to me, and perhaps in a healthy society, they would be appreciated. But we’re not healthy right now - I doubt anyone would truly suggest we are - and in this society, sadly, the precedence of “the parties” and “the movements” over everything else is disconcerting. People who six months ago declared they would “crawl over broken glass” to prevent a particular presidency now declare they’d prefer to see that presidency over the “impure” alternative, and that seems oddly disoriented.

How can an undesirable candidate suddenly become an acceptable, good faith alternative? I know there is a school of thought that says, “well, that will teach others and they’ll be more loyal to the party, next time.”

But that’s being too clever by half, isn’t it? One of President Bush’s errors was in thinking he could sign a campaign finance reform into law and count on the Supreme Court to find it unconstitutional. The Supreme Court did not meet his expectations.

Signing off on this election while counting on people to “do the right thing” in the next one seems to me equally hazardous and just as likely to disappoint. And it feels a little bit like putting one’s ideology before all else, and trusting in it, alone.

I am no “McCainiac.” At this point I have no idea who I will be voting for in November, particularly since there is ugliness in every campaign. I’m merely offering food for thought.
***

Eloquent Jonah Goldberg:

…this disaster talk leaves me cold. McCain wouldn’t be my first pick. Then again, none of the candidates were really my first pick. But I think the notion that, variously, conservatism, the country or the party are doomed if he’s the nominee or the president is pretty absurd.
[…]
I think both the GOP and the conservative movement could benefit from a slightly more adversarial relationship. George W. Bush moved the party leftward and/or damaged the image of the GOP in many respects precisely because he was given the benefit of the doubt by conservatives who saw him as “one of us.” It’s not obvious to me that having a more transactional relationship with a Republican president would be altogether bad for the country, the party or the conservative movement.

Sister Toldjah has more thoughts.

Palm Tree Pundit has a quote for you.

Jay Stephenson surveys the mood - and confusion - on the right.

Beth minces no words.

As I said in the comments section:

Once upon a time I might have agreed with the statement that the left is all about “feelings and emotions” while the right was about thinking and issues. I’m not entirely sure I would, anymore. Both left and right are doing their share of emoting.

Related: The Nation Needs a Time-Out

Still doing the fever/swollen glands thing, so blogging is light and emailing is not-happening at all just now.

Vanderleun has a fascinating post that compares and contrasts the pretensions of the “let’s pretend we’re all oppressed” social elites in America to the real oppression lived through by others, like the proprietor of The People’s Cube, Oleg Atbashian, from the Ukraine. Lots of keen observations from both gentlemen are included in the post, as well as this gem by composer John Cage:

“We no longer have time for the good, the beautiful, or whether or not something is true. We have only time for conversation.”

Cage could well have been speaking not only of art but of our current political climate, as well.

Bill Clinton says slow the economy to save the planet for our children. But…but I thought Al Gore and his crew said it was all going to be over in 30 years! Have they recalculated again? If America gives up her economy, but China, Indonesia and the rest keep on polluting, we can go on for 35? Damn! He’s smart! And no woman is illegal! :::UPDATE::: Seems Jake Tapper got the quote wrong, never mind!:::

Over at CBS, Dick Meyer says it is very legitimate of Americans to wonder about Bill Clinton as First Gentleman:

If you don’t like this kind of psycho-babble, well, tough. The Clintons have committed themselves now to campaigning as a couple and Bill Clinton has committed to making news. A potential Clinton II administration must be assessed with that in mind. And with couples, you have two psychos to babble it, not just one.

Yeah, you’ll want to read the whole thing. Also, Why Ted Kennedy Endorsed Obama.

There is actually a little light being shed on some of the questionable dealings Bill Clinton has been alllied with. Such scrutiny seems reasonable if your wife is going to be president and people have given you (or your charity) millions of dollars. These stories rarely seem to engage the public’s imagination, though, and neither do stories about sleazy fund-raisers.

Victor Davis Hanson says The Dems want to lose and the GOP doesn’t want to win.

How funny. I have had several emails (maybe 20 or so) from people saying that they’re disappointed in George W. Bush and disagree with him on this and that, but they’re so uninspired with the current crop of candidates (on both sides) that if they had the choice between any of them and W, they’d pick W, again. If the doldrums are that thick right now, it’s ripe-time for someone who has energy and can get people excited. He or she just has to have energy and an engaging persona. That would be Obama on the left…it’s nobody on the current GOP short-list. Sheesh.

Varifrank is endorsing McCain. So is Cobb.

Contrary to what some of you think, I am not. I’m still waiting to see who there will be to vote for. I’m a cock-eyed optimist.

AJ Strata writes America is moving center from both left and right.

Watchman has the 5 stages of GOP voting. Cute.

Annie Jacobsen has a piece up at Pajamas Media that also will probably not get much attention - but should.

That’s it for me. Throat hurts.

I gave this book - reviewed here to a few people at Christmastime and have heard back from several of them that they love it. Last weekend one of them, a woman who “struggles” with faith (who doesn’t, sometimes), caught up with me and said it was changing her whole outlook for the better. That’s nice to hear.

I like this interview with the book’s editor, Raymond Arroyo - his impersonations of the old nun are hilarious - because her story is a fascinating one that is never told outside of “church” circles. When the secular press periodically names “Amazing women,” they never think to mention this cloistered nun who - outfitted with childlike, boundless faith, $200 and a garage - began a global Catholic television and radio network (EWTN) that has become an enormous resource for both Catholics and non-Catholic Christians that presents takes an unblinking look at the modern church, the historical church and the day-to-day life of faith. Love her or not, she has been a force for change, and her story is downright remarkable.

Loreena McKennitt, (Canadian singer, composer)
Lyrics, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Scene 1, PROSPERO’S EPILOGUE

And now my charms are all o’erthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own;
Which is most faint; now t’is true,
I must be here confined by you
[…]
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from your crimes would pardon’d be,
Let your indulgence set me free.’

Peace.

EJG puts together great videos.

I’m feeling a bit punk - feverish and swollen glands - so I’m just going to throw this question out and invite answers from readers and from other bloggers:

In 100 words or less: What’s Wrong With the World?

About 100 years ago, a British paper invited many writers to answer the same question, What’s Wrong With the World? They extended the invitation to G. K. Chesterton who wrote back,

Dear Sirs;

I am.

Sincerely,
G.K. Chesterton

I will take his answer for my own. Have at it.

I - and this site - am emphatically not responsible for the opinions of others expressed below!

UPDATE I: Dr. Helen turns the question on its head! Good thinking! It puts me in mind of The Psalm of the Common Man

UPDATE II - Over at Snarky Bastards, Hubbard has an amazing response: We are all Bernard Shaws, now. Go read!

What is it about Florida? Every time the people in Florida vote, the whole nation seems to lose its mind.

Hillary’s largely illusory Florida victory has Chris Matthews near tears, probably because he fears grovelling to President Hillary (who will make him pay for his past heresy) so that’s a little understandable, but there is a lot of hot-headed angst going on out there. My email is full of fulminating folks on the right who are either furious about McCain or disgusted with Rush or the Romney crew. Or they’re mad at Giuliani (hint - he’s out of the race, dudes, lay it down) for his ill-advised strategy. Some folks are still crying about Fred Thompson and there is huffing and puffing about “the split of the GOP.”

Ya’ll need to calm down. Stop huffing because the “split” is exactly what many of you want, deep down, and you know it. It is what Rush Limbaugh seems to have been pursuing for some months, now, even before the veep-scheming FDT dropped out of the race.

This is all just starting to get interesting, so save yer breath for yer porridge and think about a few things:

***McCain is older and he has some health concerns. He is a true war-hero, and I do think he can pick up Independent voters, but he is - within his own party - already facing the sort of venom from the right that it took Dubya several years to cultivate and achieve. I doubt that will go away soon, or easily.

***Romney excites “the base,” (which is remarkable for his flip-flopping) but only because there is currently no one else. His support is a mile wide and an inch thick and his blandness (I find him bland, anyway, and so does Roger L. Simon) doesn’t inspire. Should a magically pristine “true” conservative (perhaps from the private sector or the military) suddenly appear from on high (or from behind Kingmaker Rush) and begin to woo the right and right-leaning moderates, they will desert Romney in an instant.

I will be VERY surprised if either of these two men - McCain or Romney - is at the top of the ticket when you go to vote in November. :::CLARIFICATION::: Or maybe what I more properly mean to say is that they may or may not top the ticket, but there may be a third party candidate. Bottom line: I’m saying everything is still fluid.:::END

Rush Limbaugh is a very smart fellow and Oraculations linked to him having a clever bit of fun today. Rush is maneuvering, just like everyone else who is deeply involved in this process.

A game is afoot - and masters are playing it. Right now everything bears watching; observation, not hyperventilation. Don’t let yourself get sucked into a news cycle and a strategy; you’ll be worn out by summer.

Contrary to most, I’m not believing that anything is settled, or even means much, just now.

Remember:

It is true that there are many illusions in the world. And on the world stage there stride some masters of the sleight-of-hand and the misdirection - you can recognize them because they are all of a mind, and of a piece, and they are all working different parts of the same trick. But if you can recognize a trick for what it is, you can prevail against it.

Half of what you are seeing is illusory. The other half is in flux and will not matter tomorrow, and illusions are bi-partisan. Do not be enthralled by the zeitgeist, by the raging spirit of this age - one of manufactured discord, real hate, mistrust, anger, labeling and endless “isms” - because it is meant to keep us distractedly paddling the surfaces, chasing our egos and our echos. It is all meant to keep us from pondering the depths.

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” - G.K. Chesterton

It is easy to go with the flow - even a dead thing, or a dead movement, can do that - much more difficult to stand against a current and look about. If you’re riding the slipstream, consider side-stepping it for a little while, and see what it does to your perspective.

Pull back from the noise. Particularly in times of excessive noise and chatter and emotionalism and manipulation, like now. Turn off the radios; unplug the television. Click off the computer screen (yes, me too!) and spend some time being quiet, removing yourself from the reach of the illusionists (who are legion) and affixing yourself to what is real and true and NOW in your own life, and then spend some time in prayer - not the “O Lord destroy him; he maketh a blight” sort of prayer, but the generous one that first says “thank you” and then asks for guidance and wisdom, and then simply falls silent and listens.

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

This ride is only beginning. Pace yourself. Clear your eyes and your mind and just watch. Detach from the tumult of it all, strap in and prepare for a hell of a ride. Pay no attention to the men and women behind the curtains. Save today’s headlines in your hard-drive and look at them again in November. You’ll see.

Clarification: By “Time Out” I mean “a breather,” not a punishment.

Related: McCain vs Limbaugh
What will Rush/Hugh say if McCain wins?

WELCOME: Instapundit readers. While you’re here, please take a look around. I am asking everyone to answer this question in 100 words or less: What’s Wrong With the World?. We’re also looking back a bit and remembering U2’s stunning halftime show after 9/11) and the time Bush rescued his own Secret Service agent.

My Li’l Bro Thom sent this video writing:

I was in tears. A stunning and brilliant idea…the way the names keep going and going and going…and then it drops. Like I said: tears.

I watched it and had the same reaction - the moment when the screen listing the names of our 9/11 dead collapses is reminiscent of the towers going down, and it’s like a punch to the gut. Terrible and beautiful and I wondered, “how could I have forgotten this?” It’s quite a moment.

I was trying to sketch a feeling. I often feel very claustrophobic in a city, a feeling of wanting to break out of that city and a feeling of wanting to go somewhere where the values of the city and the values of our society don’t hold you down.

An interesting story that someone told me once is that in Belfast, by what street someone lives on you can tell not only their religion but tell how much money they’re making - literally by which side of the road they live on, because the further up the hill the more expensive the houses become.
That said something to me, and so I started writing about a place “where the streets have no name.”- Bono from Propaganda 5, 1987

Impressions quickly because I’m busy doing paying work:

1)Sad that Rudy conked out - and I should have listened to my gut and held off on the donation.

2)McCain has McMentum but I ain’t excited. Can’t say Mitt excites me either, so I am still officially undecided and unexcited. For now, it’s stretching and belly-scratching time. What’s on the old movie channel?

3)Unless Super Tuesday swings dramatically to Obama, Hillary is the Dem nominee; she’s got the super-delegates, and I have no doubt she’ll finagle the Michigan delegates into their seats.

4)That would not be a bad thing, especially as her campaign tries to contain Bill and keep him in the background. President Clinton needs attention; he absolutely requires it because attention “feels like love” to him. If he can’t get attention by being good, he’ll be bad. Either way, unless they put him into sick bay he’s gonna make Hillary’s campaign difficult for her - fun for the rest of us. The press may not enjoy it much; they’ve invested 16 years of credibility-building into Clinton, but for the rest of us…get the popcorn.

5)Limbaugh will continue to be almost unlistenable. I ‘ve been listening in more than usual, lately, and all Rush talks about is himself or John McCain and he’s almost shrill about how he is going to “preserve conservatism.” That’s fine, but it’s making for some very boring and repetitive programing. While I am not a “dittohead” I have listened and found Rush to be funny, articulate and smart - I thought his payback to Harry Reid re the Senator’s letter to his network was brilliant. What I have heard lately has been bombastic and rather a lot about himself…which leads me to believe…

6)A brokered GOP Convention is already in the works and should surprise no one. The hard-right conservatives will try to get their own candidate onto the top of the ticket. Don’t know who they’ve got in mind for it, but these folks are not going to stand for McCain and Limbaugh is curiously silent on Romney (he all but ignored Giuliani).

7)Won’t mind that. Will be interesting to watch. I’m convinced this election is going to be pivotal for the nation - a very important one. Lives will hinge on it.

‘8)I have no idea where I’ll end up, but after Tuesday, I go back to being a registered Indy. It’s pretty clear to me I’m politically homeless. And that’s okay, too.

9) I’ve always been a lone wolf.

10) I talk about myself almost as much as Limbaugh. He profits a lot more from it, though!

Now, I’m back to work! Talk amongst yourselves.

Related:SOTU Impressions ‘08.

Belmont links w/ another story of character about Obama.

A few days ago I reviewed this book and highly recommended it. Julie at Happy Catholic did, too, and you know you can trust her!

I wrote:

Do yourself a favor, particularly if - in this bleak mid-winter full of election noise and bloviation - you feel the need to be refreshed and uplifted, and pick up this book. It will have something to say to you.

The author, Elizabeth Ficocelli will talk about the book with Father Benedict Groeschel’s on his program, “Sunday Night Live” on EWTN, and I’m sure it will be a very interesting show. I would love to hear her expound on what she saw and learned at Lourdes, and particularly about the extremely inspiring people she met there.

Sadly, we do not get EWTN in this neck of the woods until after midnight, and the show is on at 7PM, so I won’t get to watch - but if you can, you might enjoy it a lot.

The book is marvelous.

A little trip down memory lane on this election day:

Watch him - in a foreign and hostile land - go rescue the Secret Service agent who was being detained and kept from protecting him. See him shoot his cuffs, afterwards, and greet his host.

I don’t care what anyone says - Bush is one cool customer; This guy is due some serious appreciation, even if you feel “betrayed” by him. Name the president who got it all right, all the time. This is a repost from May 22, 2006:

THE ESSENTIAL PRESIDENT BUSH

A much-esteemed, long-neglected friend sent an email this morning, which was delightful to recieve. At one point he mentioned this post from yesterday and wrote:

I think (President Bush) has lost his bearings. but then, so did Moses from time to time, it’s quite understandable.

That made me wonder a little - has President Bush lost his bearings, or have we? Is it President Bush who has broken faith with “his base” or have they?

When I read my friend’s line, I thought of a line from Pride and Prejudice, in which Elizabeth Bennett says in new appreciation of Mr. Darcy,

“In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was.”

Perhaps I am a dim bulb, but President Bush has never surprised me, and that is probably why I have never felt let down or “betrayed” by him. He is, in essentials, precisely who he has ever been. He did not surprise me when he managed, in August of 2001, to find a morally workable solution in the matter of Embryonic Stem Cells. He did not surprise me when, a month later, he stood on a pile of rubble and lifted a broken city from its knees. When my FDNY friends told me of the enormous consolation and strength he brought to his meetings with grieving families, I was not surprised. When the World Series opened in New York City and the President was invited to throw the first pitch, there was no surprise in his throwing (while wearing body armor) a perfect strike.

He did not surprise me when he spoke eloquently from the National Cathedral, or again before the Joint Houses of Congress, when he laid out the Bush Doctrine. He did not surprise me when he did it again at West Point, or when he went visionary at Whitehall (Lauri points out the video can be found at this link. It’s worth watching!)

There were no surprises in President Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan to battle AlQaeda. There were no surprises when he went after an Iraq which everyone - even Bill Clinton - believed had WMD, an Iraq that had tried to assassinate an American President, an Iraq whose NYC consul did not lower its flag to half-mast after 9/11.

Actually, there was one surprise. He did surprise me by going back to the UN, and back to the UN, in that mythical “rush to war” we heard so much about. But then again, the effort in Iraq was never as “unilateral” as it had been painted.

President Bush did not surprise me when, faced with the scorn of “the world community” and those ever-ready A.N.S.W.E.R. marches which sprang up condemning him and Tony Blair, he stood firm. A lesser man, a mere politician, would have folded under such enormous pressure. I was not surprised when Bush did not. (Aside - it’s funny how they just can’t get a good-sized crowd together for those protests these days, innit? Everything about Iraq was “wrong” and everything about Iraq is “failure and quagmire” and yet, somehow, we all breathe a sigh of relief that the job is done, that Saddam is out of power and that Iraq, save a very small piece of troubled land, is - in remarkably short order (and despite the wild pronouncements of John Murtha) - tasting its first morsels of democracy and liberty, and showing promise.)

It never surprised me that Yassar Arafat, formerly the “most welcomed” foreign “Head of State” in the Clinton White House was not welcomed - ever - to the Bush White House.

I wasn’t surprised by the, not one, but two tax cuts he got passed through congress, or the roaring economy - and jobs - those tax cuts created. I wasn’t surprised when he killed the unending farce that is the Kyoto treaty (remember, the thing Al Gore and the Senate unanimously voted down under Clinton?), or when he killed U.S. involvement in the International Criminal Court, or when he told the UN they risked becoming irrelevent, or when he told the Congress and the world, “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.” Not surprising.

I wasn’t surprised at all to watch him - in a foreign and hostile land - go rescue the Secret Service agent who was being detained and kept from protecting him. Or to see him shoot his cuffs, afterwards, and greet his host with a smile.

I was never surprised that he tried to “change the tone” or tried reaching across the aisle to invite onesuch as Ted Kennedy to help draft education reform, something none of his predecessors dared touch. Just as they never dared to try to reform social security or our energy policies. The feckless ones in Congress wouldn’t get the jobs done, unfortunately, but he is a president who at least tried to get something going on those “dangerous” issues. His senior prescription plan was unsurprising and it is helping lots of people.

I was not at all to surprised to see President Bush forego the “trembling lip photo-op” moment in which most world-leaders indulged after the Christmas Tsunami of 2004 in order to get real work done, to bring immediate help to that area by co-ordinating our own military (particularly our Naval support) with Australia and Japan. Stupid, stingy American.

I was surprised, actually, to see him dance with free Georgians. I didn’t think he danced.

Let me tell you what has surprised me about George W. Bush. I have been surprised by his ability to keep from attacking-in-kind the “public servants” in Washington who - for five years - have not been able to speak of the American President with the respect he is due, by virtue of both his office and his humanity, because they are entralled with hate and owned by opportunism. I have been surprised that he has kept his committment to “changing the tone” even when it has long been clear that the only way the tone in Washington will ever change is if everyone named Bush or Clinton or Kennedy is cleared out and “career politicians” are shown the door and - it must be said - every university “School of Journalism” is converted to a daisy garden, maaaan. We are stardust. We are golden.

I wasn’t surprised when President Bush thought that New Orleans had dodged a bullet after Hurricane Katrina, and therefore let down his guard. After all, we all thought NOLA had done so. I wasn’t surprised that he had - similarly to his actions the year before, re Hurricane Charlie - asked the Democrat Governor of Louisiana (and the Mayor) to order evacuations and suggested to her that she put the issue under Fed control to speed up processes (she did not, btw for a long while). But I was surprised that, when the press “picked and choosed” their stories while launching an unprecedented, emotion-charged, often completely inaccurate (10,000 bodies!) attack on the President - the rising waters were all his fault and he was suddenly “the uncaring racist attempting genocide by indifference” - the President did not fight back against the sea of made-up news and boilerplate, fantastic charges against him.

I was surprised, and what surprised me was the sense I had that Bush’s heart was broken. That he had done everything he could to keep faith with the nation, and that he could not believe that in a time of such terrible need, all some people could think of was, “how do we use this politically, how do we break Bush with this?” It can’t have helped that some of the hysteria was coming from the right as well as the left. Things changed after that, didn’t they? The press and the left doubled up their attacks, the far-right went very smug, and President Bush never has seemed to have regrouped his spirit.

A month later, I wasn’t surprised (although some - mostly the hard-right “I’m a Conservative before I’m anything and he’d better serve me” types - clearly were) when he nominated Harriett Miers to the SCOTUS. In fact, I’d predicted it. Up until that moment, every person President Bush had nominated to pretty much any position had won accolades from the beamish far-right, but Miers did not. She wasn’t one of their guys or gals. She wasn’t Luttig, she wasn’t Rogers-Brown. Harriet Miers? Damn that Bush! The denouncements came fast and furious and suddenly “the base” with which George W. Bush had not broken faith…broke faith with him. Suddenly they were as willing to call him a moron and an idiot as any KozKid.

Imagine that. Imagine being the guy who has given his base one splendid nominee after another, in all manner of posts, make a nomination he thinks appropriate only to find that “base” coming out with both guns, defaming his nominee and directing all manner of insult at himself. President Bush is nothing if not loyal; his loyalty is often his downfall. When he asked for a little trust (which he had surely earned) a little loyalty and a little faith, from “the base,” he got kicked in the groin, over and over again, for daring to think differently, for falling out of lockstep with his policy-wonk “betters.”

That had to be bitter, for him. At that point Bush, unchanged in essentials, might have wondered if his conservative “base” had become a bit over-confident and loose-hipped, so cock-sure of their majority (not that congress used it) so certain of their own brilliance that they were beginning to believe they didn’t need him; that he wasn’t conservative enough, after all, and that the next president was going to be the solid, “uncompassionate” conservative they’d really wanted all along.

The president who had delivered one gift after another to his base asked them to trust him, and his base sneered.

Then of course, the DPW debacle was launched and once again the far-right, his “base” went beserk, again, for very dubious reasons. Buster was the one who pointed out to me, then, that in this matter President Bush was being entirely consistent with who he had always been and that his defense of the sale was not unsound, nor unprecedented. The right didn’t care! They stomped their feet and went DU again. Even Rush Limbaugh couldn’t control them. The left, on the other hand, which should have supported the president - they would have had he been anyone else - simply exploited what they could of it.

And now, the Great Big Immigration Imbroglio of ‘06 has turned “the base” quite vicious. President Bush is no longer simply a moron or an idiot to his base, he is a bad man. He is a bad American. He is a bad president. Everything he does now, is wrong. As yesterday’s WSJ pointed out, Bush is closer to the deified Ronald Reagan on this issue than anyone on the right wants to admit. And they’d never do to Reagan what they are doing to Bush. Let’s look at a few Reagan quotes on the nature of those “far-right” conservatives, mmkay?

‘When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn’t like it.

‘Compromise was a dirty word to them and they wouldn’t face the fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it all, some said, don’t take anything.

‘I’d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’

‘If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that’s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.’

Mr. Reagan, I salute you. I did not vote for you. Twice. I came too late to appreciation of you. But sir, some of us have been saying the same thing to “the base” for a few weeks now. They’re still not listening. They won’t, I imagine, until they absolutely must. And perhaps it will take a staggering defeat for that to happen.

President Bush’s immigration policies have not changed materially since he was Governor of Texas. You folks knew that when you elected him, twice. He has not changed, cannot change, because his policies arise not from his poll numbers but from his convictions and his conscience. You used to love that about him. Can everything, everything that needs to be done BE done, and all as you would have it done, in the real world, a world of bitter partisanship and a corrupted press?

Some say that the GOP should consider “losing in ‘06 to win in ‘08.” Some conservatives say that they’re going to not vote - to sit out an election or vote for a third party candidate to “teach the GOP a lesson.”

The far-right gwwwwarks like a cracker-obsessed parrot: Bush has abandoned the base, he’s abandoned the base, he’s abandoned the base.

Ever stop to think maybe the president feels his base has abandoned him, that uncontent with 75%, they’ve simply moved beyond reason? Ever stop to think that while you’re calling the president every despicable name in the book and demanding his fealty or you’ll “teach him a lesson,” that perhaps there is a lesson you need to learn? That a good man, disinterested in merely laughing or crying for the camera for 8 years and looking to do a difficult job in the face of unprecedented hate, unprecedent speed of communication, unprecedented global instability, unprecedented backstabbing from within his own CIA, deserves some loyalty and the benefit of a doubt as he tries to bring you the 75% you so callously spit back at him as insufficient?

We do not know everything we think we know. Nothing is static; everything is in flux, and it is very likely that more is at work here, on many levels, than any of us can dream. There are things seen and unseen. Think about it.

Here is a question, and I’ll be writing on it some more during the week, but start thinking about it, now: HOW DO YOU RECEIVE A GOOD?

How you receive a good has a lot to do with whether any more “good” comes your way. The Conservatives got a “good” in 2000 and 2004; they’re receiving it very badly, indeed. I think the throwing-under-the-bus-of-George-W-Bush by “the base” is one of the most shameful things I have ever witnessed in all my years of watching politics, from both sides of the political spectrum. How do you receive a good?

President Bush has never surprised me. He is, in essentials, the man he ever was. It does not surprise me that he is a Christian man living a creed before he is a President, that he is a President before he is a Conservative. It seems to me precisely the right order of things.

You don’t have to agree with everything President Bush does; I don’t. But he deserves a lot better than he’s getting from his own side. He deserves, dare I say it, a spirit of compromise and workability, as opposed to the hard-line demand for a “perfect” solution (one which will never pass congress) to a problem no one else in government has even dared to address.

You “base” have received a great good. You’ve forgotten it. Continue to do so at your - at all our - great peril.

Related: Attn GOP, Meet the Woodshed
Did Bush Kill the GOP?
Thompson, Reagan and Goldilocks Republicans
Bush, Betrayal & the Nation’s Soul
Harriet, Bring the Cannoli
Cowboys, Wormwood, Big Pictures
Newsweek’s Glimpse of Bush W/ War Families

WELCOME: Pajamas Media Readers! While you’re here, please look around. I am inviting an answer (100 words or less) to the question What’s Wrong With the World?. Tonight we’re also talking about the Florida primary and the likelihood of a brokered convention, the good economic news you’re not seeing covered, my impressions of Nancy Pelosi’s wandering mind at the SOTU address, and there is always time for opera.