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January 25, 2008Did Bush Kill the GOP and other questions -UPDATEDPeggy Noonan writes today, that President Bush has killed the GOP:
I have a great deal of respect for Ms. Noonan, but I’m not sure I can agree. Certainly President Bush should have used his veto power and curbed Congressional spending sooner than he eventually did, but let’s face it, the GOP in Congress helped build those spending bills and sent them to him. It seems to me that the entire congressional GOP needs to take some responsibility, there. And yes, he should have “surged” in Iraq much sooner than he did, but no one prosecutes a war perfectly. Ms. Noonan cites “immigration” as a causal agent of Bush’s “destruction” of the GOP, and here I must strenously disagree and cite a piece of my own - which co-incidentally runs today over at Pajamas Media - in which I quote President Reagan, in his 1988 State of the Union Address, talking about meeting with the Mexican government about “make[ing] the border something other than a locale for a nine-foot fence,” and envisioning “a day when the free flow of trade — from the tip of Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Circle — unites the people of the Western Hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange,” or what some on the right lately refer to as “Bush’s North American Union.” As you can imagine, my argument is not being received well by “the base,” and some of my mail indicates that few have actually read the Reagan quotes before cocking their verbal shotguns my way, but that’s alright. I still believe that - as Mrs. Noonan herself put it so well, once, on Hardball - “people can disagree and still be decent people.” Agree or disagree, there is a case to be made here that - while President Bush certainly was not a “perfect” conservative president - the Congressional GOP bears some of the blame for the shape the GOP is in; and a case may also be made that the advent and popularity of new media (talk radio and political forum echo-chambers) have moved the conservatives further right. UPDATE: Ed Morrissey is also writing about Noonan’s charge:
Sigh…Ed says it so much better than I do. That’s why he’s the Blog-father! Other interesting questions and links around ’sphere: Isn’t all this talk about apocalypse getting a bit boring. Lorie Byrd has a bang-on-bang-up piece on The Clinton Reunion Tour. Is this what we wanted?
Read it all. If any group had to make a “come back” I’d have preferred The Temptations! EJ Dionne notes that Bill Clinton once praised Reagan, and it was much more clearly “praise” when he did it than when Obama mentioned the Gipper. This pregnant mother of three, diagnosed with liver cancer, refused treatment and gave her son life. Probably by the time of diagnosis she was already past curing, but I’m sure some still won’t understand the heroic thing she has done. I’d like to think I would have the grace and courage to do the same, but I am always awstruck when I read such a story. Can the GOP reframe the Illegal Immigration Issue? Is Rudy DOA or is he hanging in there a bit more? Quite honestly, after the debates last night, I am putting up a RUDY sign in my front window today. It’s a leftover from his Senate campaign in 2000, but it’ll do. http://theanchoressonline.com/2008/01/25/did-bush-kill-the-gop-and-other-questions/trackback/ 15 Responses to “Did Bush Kill the GOP and other questions -UPDATED” |
January 25th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
President Bush isn’t solely to blame, but he does qualify as a co-conspirator.
Conservatives need a new home. The Republican Party has abandoned us. In our hour of need, at that.
January 25th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Great post Anchoress.
I was already in a foul mood today before I read this. Well as usual I disagree. I have followed Mrs Noonan for years and to say the least she has distaste for George Bush at times. As to immigration she did not help matters. In many of columns she said that anyone that was for COmprehensive reform was for “open Border” pretty much. A charge that is of course not true.
What Mrs Noonan falils to note is that Bush was quite a success. Who can forget(a few it seems) that in 2002 the Republicnas were all forcast to lose seats in the off year elections. Bush through his wise campaigning was a part of that not happening.
In 2004 again we were forecast to lose seats. We actually gained in the Senate!!! Also do to the Bush White House skill
2006 was not a banner year but a correction was far far overdue. At some point Bush gave much of his base up to 75 percent of what they wanted. They sneered back that was WHOLLY INSUFFICIENT. I hate to say it but Mrs Noonan and others were a part of that problem
Before I cam over to your blog I had read this article. The first thing that came to my mind was a post you did called “The Essential President Bush” Pretty much what you said then goes now You said in part Quote:
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It was true then Anchoress and true now
January 25th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
If immigration was so important to people like Peggy Noonan, why didn’t they deal with it years ago?
I think this is ridiculous. Bush won against McCain in 2000, because the GOP thought he was more conservative. However, Bush was not Gingrich and he did not pretend to be. Back in those days Fred Thompson was supporting McCain and no one talked about immigration or even small government. Bush made it plain that he wanted to pursue domestic issues like education. He did not say anything about shutting down entitlement programs. I will be honest, I think it was the GOP that changed, not Bush.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
fporetto:
Well just go for it. After all, if you can not control it all why bother to be part of a coalition. Just take your marbles and go home.
The Republican party is a political party, it is not a creed. Conservatism is an ideloogy, it is not a political party. Why is it that people can not understand this? Conservatives do not make up a majority in this country. Once upon a time they understood that.
January 25th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Did Bush kill the GOP? Not exactly. Serious warning signs for the GOP were already in place when Bush took office. However, Bush did not address the underlying causes of the warning signs. If anything, he participated in the contrary. IMO the Bush presidency was a make-or-break test for the GOP; the Republican President and Republican Congress both failed that test. The Democrats may not do better, but my point is that I no longer give Republicans the automatic benefit of the doubt.
When the GOP mishandled the 1995-6 budget conflict with Clinton, I had my first concern with their ability to be the nation’s governing party. That concern was validated when the Republicans moved to remove Clinton from power–in particular, when they persisted with impeachment after a historically anomalous setback in the 1998 election.
Notwithstanding that, I wound up supporting Bush in 2000. His convention speech put me off enough to give Gore a serious hearing–whereupon Gore horrified me.
“The President is who you vote for to protect you from other people’s Congressmen.” The high point of Bush’s Presidency was the 2002 election, in which he successfully risked his prestige on behalf of his party’s Congressional candidates. Thereupon he was in a position to put the Republican Congress back on track and consolidate the GOP’s majority position. Instead of knocking heads and stroking egos, he facilitated and enabled the misbehavior that ultimately led to the 2006 election results. (IMO the Republican establishment might consciously prefer presiding over a big-government minority party to overseeing a limited-government majority.)
If Bush’s conduct of the war is based on a coherent strategic vision, he certainly hasn’t conveyed that to me. I wish the Iraqi people well in their opportunity, but I worry that the invasion may have been a misallocation of limited military, political, and economic resources. Even if it works out, it may be a pyrrhic victory–still better than a ruinous defeat, of course.
Today the S&P 500 closed at 1331. It stood at 1343 when Bush was sworn in seven years ago. Most of the index’s value is based on expectations of future earnings. America’s future looks no better to investors than when a Republican President joined the Republican Congress in government; in fact, it looks worse because the dollar, in which the S&P 500 is priced, has declined. Notwithstanding the overhyping during the Clinton-era Internet bubble, America was then obviously the country that would lead the world into the economic future. Today, that role is in serious question.
The GOP is no longer accepted as the country’s governing party. Although much can happen in the remaing year, if the Bush presidency ended today I doubt that history would consider it successful.
January 25th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Yes, the GOP is a political party. But if it has no firm principles, from which its officials and other standard-bearers will never depart, it’s just a power-and-privilege-seeking machine. It’s no better than the Democrats. And therefore, it will receive no support from those of us who hold that principles and standards are what matter, NOT mere partisan allegiance.
If there are no absolute standards of right and wrong, then all of human intercourse reduces to the struggle over power. Power over others. Power to bend others to your will. And as I am one who understands and loves freedom, I will have no part of that!
January 25th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Freedom?? What has Bush done to take away your freedom? What has Bush done to take away your principles? Bush has principles, he has not strayed from them. He has not abandoned the party. They lost an election and got pissy and now they are looking for someone to blame.
So yes, they need principles. But the point is that conservatism is subjective, people do not even agree on what it is. A political party is an institution, a coalition forged to win elections, therefore if it is pure ideology, devoid of compromise it becomes useless to people in their everyday lives. It is not a religion.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
g:
Oh please. If it even looks like America might go into a recession markets all over the world react. So much for the US being in decline. The last few years have seen a lot of challenges that any President would have had a difficult time dealing with. 9/11, War, natural disasters. All of that required resources. It is not all about Bush. Even the lending crisis had its roots back in the 90’s. I had a real estate license for some time and I can remember in the 90’s when lenders started pushing people to buy buy buy. My broker said a decade ago that it would blow up in their faces some day. And it did.
Who gets blamed for that? The financial experts? The politicians?
January 25th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
The GOP is no longer accepted as the country’s governing party. Although much can happen in the remaing year, if the Bush presidency ended today I doubt that history would consider it successful.
Man, that’s tough. He came into a recession and it took forever to get his cabinet in place- attacked 8 months later, the economy didn’t tank, kept us out of the International Criminal Court, avoided the Kyoto trap, named a couple of good judges - won in ‘02 and ‘04 while battling a negative press and a “loyal opposition” that blocked everything it could, held the line on Embryonic Stem Cells, how many quarters of growth before this slowdown? A LOT - unemployment even now in these “terrible” times is 5%; liberated a couple or forty million people - he stood firm on Iraq & Afghanistan and won - might not have been as pretty a win as we wanted, but a win’s a win - oh, and we haven’t been attacked (here or overseas) since 9/11.
I read a comment over at Captains Quarters today that I liked - someone said that on 9/12/01 we believed we were in for a hell of a time, and if we had said then that if he did nothing more than kept us safe and free from attack throughout his term, it would be enough, and we’d have been right.
Sounds remarkably successful to me.
He doesn’t seem like such a failure to me. In fact, I think he’s rather spoiled us. We’ve forgotten a great deal, I think. Which means we’ll be doomed to repeat it.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
It might also be worth remembering that Bush is not responsible for everything. It is not his job to meet our every need. It is not his job to pacify the pundits and suck up to the press. That is not what he was elected to do. And considering the fact that Republican always like to say they are in favor of individuals assuming control of their own lives, it seems to me they are laying a lot at the feet of this one man. After all, are they not capable of knowing who and what they are without his instruction?
January 25th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Anchoress, I suspect you and I don’t use the same criteria when we assess the Bush and Republican records. One of your statements especially drew my attention:
Exactly. Supposedly Democrats are the mommy party and Republicans are the daddy party. You eventually realize having daddy spoil you is not a good thing–even if you don’t admit it, even while you demand more.
In the early 90s, when the Democratic Congress on its last legs, I would read that the Democrats were intellectually bankrupt while the Republicans were the party of ideas–the party confident in its ideas. Something happened.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Granny, I take your point - to a point - but it is nevertheless true that Bush has accomplished a great deal that the base seems unwilling to acknowledge, and he’s managed to do it under tremendous opposition while we’ve all pretty much gone about our lives quite safely. For all the excessive hyperbole from some (I don’t mean you) that he is “practically a socialist” the truth is he has protected America from the “global courts” and “global laws” and “global fakery” (and I frankly think Rudy is the only one left who can continue to do that, btw, but the Rudy Derangement Syndrome will be awful). Times have been very good when they could have been very, very bad indeed…and none of our (non-military) kids have been blown up on subways or fallen from the sky on his watch. And the two judges he got to name (it should have been more but some liberal justices are drinking formaldehyde daily to stay propped up, until a Dem comes round, I think) seem very fine. Think of all the federal judge seats that are still not filled, because of Dem obstruction.
It seems to me just weird, bizarre, unthinkable and in all ways fake for “the base” to not at least acknowledge some of the undeniable “good things” about the Bush presidency. I wonder at it - I wonder at the psychology of it. It seems ungenerous and unjust to me, and a bit specious, too. Bush is precisely who he told us he would be - but suddenly the cry is “betrayed! betrayed!” I don’t get it.
Bush has given us the 60-75% Reagan said was pretty good batting, and he gets thrown under the bus for not batting 1000, as though anyone could.
Sometimes, in watching all of this, I’ve thought of Moses, leading the Jews out of slavery, only to hear from the wanderers, “hey, this sucks, we had melons and meat to eat in Egypt!”
Maybe it is simply human nature for us to lose sight of all the “goods” that we get, and bellyache.
But I’ve always thought that if you do not learn to appreciate the “good” you receive and be thankful for it…welll…you may get MORE good…but you won’t be able to recognise it. And maybe that’s the answer.
Appreciate the thought-provoking comments!
January 26th, 2008 at 12:09 am
The voters gave the Republican Party the power, time and time again, a higher majority in both Houses, and they did not use it.
That’s why the voters decided to give it to someone who would. Period.
Judging by who has a lower approval rating than President Bush, they now realize the maistake of giving power to those with the same tired ideas.
If the Dems(and their MSM diapers) didn’t spend the last eight years talking down the economy, maybe the market would have done better. Know how the Dems spent the days after 9/11? They were planning their “talk down the economy 101″ strategies for the upcoming mid-term elections in 2002. The economy which had recovered and delivered a good Christmas season didn’t start to head south until after the media began to execute this strategy(formulated with Media heads participating, not reporting, btw)in early 2002.
Remember this? “Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter of 2007, according to final estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 3.8 percent.” Caused a stir when it was released. . . When? EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EST, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2007BEA 07-59
Funny how a month later, we are all in a panic as to how bad the US economy is performing! Why? Ask the Propaganda Ministry, er…, the MSM.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I agree with your thoughts about President Bush for the most part Anchoress, although I thought at times that even your mild rants about the President were a bit unduly critical. I’ve been very content with the job President Bush has done while in office. I do remember election year 2000, and I remember dreading an Al Gore Presidency - 4 to 8 more years of Clinton style politics, foreign policy, domestic policy, hamming it up for the gawping media mass - and I for one recognize how much better a deal this nation got than it might have received. Heck, I even remember election year 1992 and seeing Bill Clinton hamming it up playing saxophone on the Tonight Show. I thought then he was not materially sufficient to be the President, but he was elected anyway.
But, breaking the GOP? If the GOP is really broken or going to be destroyed, it is not because of President Bush, it will be because of a portion of the coalition that makes up the GOP thinking it is too good for the GOP.
Of course, I can say this because I am an outsider, not a part of the GOP or the Democrats. I think I typify the general independent voter, which distrusts either party in totality, but when given a choice will go with the fellow who we think will do the best job. Right now, I think that is Rudy. I hope he does get the nomination, but if not, maybe one of the others will not do any more damage to the office of the Presidency than the Clintons did.
January 26th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Thank you, Anchoress for a wonderful post. I think that what’s striking in Peggy Noonan’s columns since her fury over immigration is her lack of maturity. When the bill failed a second time, she raged that the President should hurt as we (but really she meant herself) hurt.
That was a stunning admission of her own emotional issues. This is not how responsible and mature individuals discuss their differences. As you pointed out, she had written that people can disagree and do so with civility, advice that she would do well to heed.