Friday, May 11, 2007

The Wages of Bushism?

Charles Barkley--who might as well be Cincinnatus in my book--now claims he isn't a Republican (and never was). He says some beautiful things.

I wonder if we'll be seeing more of this in the next couple years: People who are basically conservative being repulsed from the Republican party in general by the incompetence of the Bush administration?

9 comments:

Matt said...

I can't find a source, but my favorite Barkley-as-a-Republican story is when he explained to his mother why he was a Republican. The conversation went something like this:

Barkley's mom: "Charles, I can't believe you're a Republican! Don't you know that's the party of rich people?"

Barkley: "But Mom, I am a rich person."

Hei Lun said...

Such iconoclasm was on display in 1988, when he told his mother he was considering voting for George Bush. "But, Charles, Bush is only for the rich," she said. "Mom, I am the rich," he replied.

Michael said...

GWB is conservatives' LBJ.

Bush has done everything that Reagan did, reckless federal budgets, aggressive foreign policy, contempt for the UN, contempt for Human Rights, etc, etc...

I don't know if you can call it incompetence. What you have is a philosophy which has broken through it's upper limit.

My Dad is a lifelong Philadelphia Republican, but other than Spector, he hasn't voted Republican since Bush in 1988.

I wouldn't be surprised if you see Hillary Clinton the former Goldwater Girl, say "I didn't leave the GOP, the GOP left me."

Anonymous said...

Saw a pale gold Jaguar this weekend in Northern Virginia (a real Jaguar, a beautiful older model, not one of the new ones that looks like a Ford Taurus). The car had two stickers on the bumper, a "Bush 04" sticker and an "Allen 06" sticker.

The difference between the two? The Allen sticker was crisp and clean. But the owner had obviously tried and failed to scrape the Bush sticker off the bumper. The Bush sticker had the telltale long triangular tears of adhesive that doesn't want to unstick running in from both edges, and scratch marks on the bumper around it that looked like a boxcutter blade at work.

I used to be able to identify the few Republican households in my neighborhood by the W bumper stickers on their cars. It's been a couple of months since I've seen even a single W bumper sticker in my neighborhood. Even the old guy with the beater pickup and the "ban flag burning" poster in his front window seems to have stripped off the Bush stickers that completely covered his tailgate starting in mid-2000.

I remember seeing bumper stickers from Reagan's reelection still on cars well into the 1990s. (Then again, there was a long-delayed surge in new-car purchasing just around then, so maybe this is just market timing. But I digress.) You still see folks with their Gore 2000 bumper stickers. But I'd bet that Bush bumper stickers will not survive his second term.

Anonymous said...

Glad you're not doing politics.
Of course, that was bullshit - you always do politics but try to cloak it in some kind of elitist mumbo-jumbo.
This is not to defend Bush - but the reality is that you have always had a hard-on for him. I am pretty sure that it is your belief that you are so much smarter than him (and pretty much anyone else) and cannot deal with it. You will never be President or be in a position to actually have some effect on the world and you are bitter about it.

Anonymous said...

The day I start caring how a basketball analyst votes, just shoot me. And the day that a basketball analyst -- who, by the way, always denied being a Republican -- starts to symbolize a national movement by conservatives who actually follow politics, then the Republican party is doomed.

Lots of conservatives are fleeing from Bush, but it's not for the liberal reasons: Iraq, Guantanamo, the environment, being too hard on terror. It's for conservative reasons: immigration and the amnesty program, increased federal spending, increased federal regulation, being too soft on terror.

What Bush does well is that his policies run the gamut from conservative to liberal, which should appeal to a wide audience. What he does poorly is communicate. He makes absolutely no effort to sell or justify his policies to anyone. And since no one is arguing the pro- position, then con- position wins by default. See, e.g., Gregg Easterbrook's article on Bush's environmental record.

Anonymous said...

Lots of conservatives are fleeing from Bush, but it's not for the liberal reasons: Iraq, Guantanamo, the environment, being too hard on terror. It's for conservative reasons: immigration and the amnesty program, increased federal spending, increased federal regulation, being too soft on terror.

That's just excuse-making. Bush 43 has consistently upheld and outdone the Reagan record: more tax cuts, more federal intervention in social issues, more military spending on credit (the largest portion by far of the Bush 43-era spending increases have gone to national defense), deploying missile defense rather than merely researching it, more appointments based on ideological commitment, more reliance on blind optimism, a more market-driven proposal for dealing with Social Security.

No one who voted for Bush in 2000 has any excuse for being surprised at how Bush 43 has governed -- except on military and foreign policy. In 2000, Bush promised less military spending than Gore and a less interventionist foreign policy than Clinton. Aside from that, Bush promised pretty much everything he has delivered, and he's been unusually consistent in delivering on campaign promises. It's his great virtue, which even fair-minded Democrats should admire.

Bush promised huge tax cuts and delivered. He promised spending increases that would blow the surplus in year one and give us another generation of defecits and delivered. He promised nanny-state social intervention in education, welfare, religious charities, and social "values" issues and delivered. He promised massive federal subsidies to pay for prescription medicine for old people and delivered. He promised to appoint ideologically committed conservatives throughout the federal government and delivered. He promised to rely on Russia's goodwill and delivered.

In the first debate in 2000, when Bush was asked to describe how voters could expect him to deal with unexpected events, he talked about how as governor he once went to the scene of a wildfire that burned some homes and how it broke his heart and how he gave the victims hugs and cried with them for a few minutes. Which in the event pretty well sums up his presidency.

Everything conservatives are now holding against Bush was right there out in the open in 2000. The debate transcripts are available online; the stump speeches too. This wasn't failure or betrayal. It was his platform. Those who turn against Bush now are rather like Captain Renault in Casablanca, shocked, shocked! to discover gambling going on at Rick's.

But speaking of the Eagles: With even conservative jocks beginning to abandon him, is there a chance that Bush will still be a viable candidate for baseball commissioner when he leaves office?

Anonymous said...

Huh? Many of your criticisms are things that conservatives don't complain about. Missile defense, tax cuts, social values issues, privatizing social security, and appointing conservative judges aren't exactly driving conservatives away. So I'm not sure those points are rebutting anything I'm saying.

But let's take some of your other criticisms in turn:

Bush's amnesty program wasn't "out there" in 2000.

And if you're aware of any stump speeches in which Bush promised to increase federal spending, increase federal regulation, and be soft on terror, then I'd love to see them.

Bush promised huge tax cuts and delivered.

I'd disagree with the adjective "huge," but he did promise and deliver tax cuts.

He promised spending increases that would blow the surplus in year one and give us another generation of defecits and delivered.

No. He actually said he had a plant to cut the deficit in half by 2010. And he didn't exactly deliver on that ... because the deficit was cut in half by 2006. Woops! What a jerk, right?

He promised nanny-state social intervention in education, welfare, religious charities, and social "values" issues and delivered.

Yes on education. No on welfare (nor has he). No on religious charities (nor has he). And I don't know what you mean by social values issues. Are you talking about abortion? If so, Congress did pass the partial birth abortion ban, which is favored by the vast majority of Americans. So we're all shocked and saddened by that.

He promised massive federal subsidies to pay for prescription medicine for old people and delivered.

Not in 2000. But yes, in 2004.

He promised to rely on Russia's goodwill and delivered.

I have no idea what this means. Heaven forfend that Russia show us goodwill. Care to elaborate?

deploying missile defense rather than merely researching it

True. But it's also been working in tests, so again, I don't think that's a bad thing.

a more market-driven proposal for dealing with Social Security

Promised, but not delivered. To the disappointment of his conservative base.

I have no problem with fair criticisms of Bush. I think we all know he hasn't exactly been Abe Lincoln. But if we're going to criticize, let's at least be fair and criticize his actual record.

And by the way, unless there was some expansion recently that I didn't hear about, there's no pro baseball team called the Eagles. The Eagles are a football team.

-- Comish

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, you mistake me. I don't mean to suggest that conservatives should be troubled by every item I listed. But individual conservatives have cited all of these things to me, at one time or another, to explain how Bush has disappointed them and maybe he was never really a conservative at all, so please don't blame conservatives for the actions of the man they nominated for president twice. My point is simply that there are scant grounds for anyone who was paying attention in 2000 to make a reasonable claim to be surprised by the manner and content of Bush 43's government.

Bush's amnesty program wasn't "out there" in 2000.

In 1999, Bush said that he would "consider" a guest-worker program, but that his approach to illegal immigration was to offer a "path to citizenship" so as not to break up families with mass deportations nor disrupt the American economy. If a man tells me plainly to my face that he intends to do A, and then I hire him on the expectation that he'll do B, I can't say I was fooled when he actually does A.

"He promised spending increases that would blow the surplus in year one and give us another generation of defecits and delivered." No. He actually said he had a plant to cut the deficit in half by 2010. And he didn't exactly deliver on that ... because the deficit was cut in half by 2006. Woops! What a jerk, right?

In 2000, there was no deficit to cut in half. There was a $3 trillion projected (i.e., fictional) surplus. Bush promised to use the projected surplus to fund $4 trillion in tax cuts and longterm spending increases and still have a $1 trillion surplus left over. Putting aside the obvious arithmetic impossibility of subtracting 4 from 3 and being left with positive 1, Bush's fiscal priorities were well advertised in 2000. In the event, he's spent less than promised on social programs and much, much more than promised on defense and security. And isn't increasing defense spending on credit fundamental conservative fiscal policy?

It was in 2004 that Bush promised to cut in half the deficit that his own prior budgets created. Now, if one night I dumped 100 pounds of dog poo at your front door with a note promising to clean up half the pile in six weeks, but I actually have half of the pile shoveled away after two weeks, would you thank me?

"He promised massive federal subsidies to pay for prescription medicine for old people and delivered." Not in 2000. But yes, in 2004.

In September 2000 Bush fleshed out with numbers a promise he'd been making all campaign to cover more medicine for more seniors than Gore. His plan called for several hundred billion dollars in new federal subsidies and a program of private plans to keep costs down with market competition. And then in the debates of October 2000 he consistently criticized Gore for not doing enough in office or promising enough new spending as a candidate. Bush's campaign proposal was pretty much the bill he signed into law. In 2003. Which pretty well disproves the claim that prescription drug subsidies were a 2004 campaign promise.

You know, this stuff is easy to Google if memory fails.

"He promised to rely on Russia's goodwill and delivered." I have no idea what this means. Heaven forfend that Russia show us goodwill. Care to elaborate?

When asked in the first debate in 2000 what he would do about Milosevic's defiance of Serbian elections, Bush said that direct intervention to overthrow foreign dictators did not serve America's national interest, and that in this case he would call on Russia to exert diplomatic pressure. He mentioned his hopes to rely on Russian cooperation in several other international problems over the course of the campaign. You know, I recall Republican friends at the time scoffing at Bush's frequent foolish or naive foreign policy pronouncements. With Cheney and presumably Powell on board, and Bush 41 a phone call away, surely the younger Bush would learn quickly on the job. Instead, he's governed pretty much as advertised in the 2000 campaign, in style as well as substance.

Which is supposed to be a virtue. Grover Cleveland might be the last president to stick as doggedly to his campaign agenda in office and to deliver on so many of his promises. And despite a rocky second term from which he left office massively unpopular, Cleveland today is regarded as a pretty good president, even if in his second term he was overmatched by a couple of events beyond his control.

I am curious: What specific actions has Bush 43 taken that should have surprised any voter who was paying attention in 2000?

The thing about the Eagles was a deliberate non sequitur. I used to think Bush would be a good choice to succeed Bud Selig as baseball commish, and that would be an interesting path for a relatively young ex-president to take. But I wonder now whether there is a point at which Bush's reputation for leadership and management, fairly or not, will become so poisoned that he could not be considered even for that kind of non-political post. If such a point exists, has Bush passed it, or is his reputation yet salvageable? And is Barkley a sign that even jocks are abandoning Bush, or is Barkley an outlier?