I think it’s a good one.
EXCERPT:
This week’s column is a question, a brief one addressed with honest curiosity to Republicans. It is: When George W. Bush first came on the scene in 2000, did you understand him to be a liberal in terms of spending?
The question has been on my mind since the summer of 2005 when, at a gathering of conservatives, the question of Mr. Bush and big spending was raised. I’d recently written on the subject and thought it significant that no one disagreed with my criticism. Everyone murmured about new programs, new costs, how the president "spends like a drunken sailor except the sailor spends his own money." And then someone, a smart young journalist, said, (I paraphrase), But we always knew what Bush was. He told us when he ran as a compassionate conservative. This left me rubbing my brow in confusion. Is that what Mr. Bush meant by compassionate conservatism?
That’s not what I understood him to mean. If I’d thought he was a big-spending Rockefeller Republican–that is, if I’d thought he was a man who could not imagine and had never absorbed the damage big spending does–I wouldn’t have voted for him.
I understood Mr. Bush to be saying, when he first came on the national scene, that he was the kind of conservative who cared very personally about the poor and struggling, who would take actions aimed at helping them, and that those actions would include promoting policies aimed at keeping the economy healthy and capable of pumping out jobs. I also understood Mr. Bush to be saying–and he often said it–that he meant to allow and encourage faith-based programs that helped young men who were getting in trouble with, or at risk of getting in trouble with, the law. It was clear by at least the 1990s that local programs run and staffed by the religious and their organizations had a higher rate of success than did programs that excluded religion. Under Mr. Bush, the feds would no longer funnel money exclusively into nonsectarian programs. The inner-city pastor would now be able to get a portion.
This is why I did not vote for Bush in the primaries – I voted for Alan Keyes. I never believed Bush to fully be in line with conservatism.
I am very happy that Mr. Keyes is going to be the keynote speaker at the JMJ Life Center fundraiser in Orlando next month. Can’t wait to hear him.
Conservatives like myself have long been disgusted with this administration. Much to our shame, however, we mostly our mouths shut, or were content to grumble amongst ourselves. That changed when the President picked the former head of the Texas Lottery, an intellectual lightweight if there ever was one, to be his pick for a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Of late, we’ve seen conservatives far more willing to be critical of administration policies, and rightfully so. A $9 TRILLION national debt ceiling only being one such issue to complain about.
If you went into a coma just before the 2000 election, and just came out of it, and looked at the president’s domestic policy, other than tax cuts, wouldn’t you think Gore had been elected?
I don’t want to sound like a wacko here, but Bush is commited to several globalist interests, and, besides, what gives the most votes is spending like a liberal and talking like a conservative. Bush does just that. Because that’s what people really want: a government that don’t mess with their lives, but help them if they need. A government that lower taxes and increases expenses.
What is with Noonan using the “Mr. Bush” title? Whatever happened to “President Bush?” I understand the media and Democrats using “Mr. Bush” to deligitimize his winning the elections, but Noonon too? Does anyone ever remember anyone at any time referring to “Mr. Clinton?”
Bush is only as conservative as his constituents appear to be. Gore, Bush, they are all the same. They are part of the elitist society that we have allowed for decades (i.e. products of the “best schools”, senator’s son vs. president’s son and so on ad infinitum).
The majority of the elites will say and do anything to get power. Whether they claim Christianity or secularist beliefs (or both at the same time somehow) the bottom line is that these people worship at the alter of MONEY, POWER, GREED and CRONYISM. The name of God is cynically used as a puppet to further other goals.
If people don’t get together soon and abandon this “us vs. them” attitude we’re all going to be calling ourselves something other than American very soon…more like former Americans.
Some anonymous hypocrite wrote:
They are part of the elitist society that we have allowed for decades
and then:
If people don’t get together soon and abandon this “us vs. them” attitude we’re all going to be calling ourselves something other than American
Regan may have been worse.
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2006/03/a_thousand_poin.html
For most of my life, I’ve battled with my own cynicism, yet, with the beginning of a new century, I found I lost the battle. Now I have no choice but libertarianism, and I don’t have room for all the books!