Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, April 30, 2009 12:21:57 AM
I wrote last about the big lie that Obama's victory is the death knell of conservatism*, but as I wrote that post, I realized there was a second, related big lie. That is the lie that somehow the conservatives were hypocritical in criticizing Obama and supporting Bush. Be it on torture, or on the budget or on "pay offs to big business" or whatever whipping boy the left uses to bash Bush.
There are two errors here, related but separate.
First, Bush was not a conservative. I have
assessed his presidency elsewhere, and, while I do agree with some of his policies, he was by and large a "moderate" and in some cases almost liberal. The left may
caricature him as an extremist, a theocrat and a fascist, but in reality, he is the most moderate Republican since Nixon at least. And, like Nixon, he tended to enact policies quite at odds with traditional conservative values, be they big spending, tariffs, forced mergers, bailouts, what have you.
Second, the conservatives were never in the tank for Bush. We may write favorably about certain aspects of his presidency, but in general, conservatives were quite critical of Bush and many of his actions. You need only review my blog to see my many criticisms of Bush. So it is absurd for the left to argue that the right was either in the tank for Bush or that Bush was somehow an exemplar of conservative thought.
In short, not only was Bush no conservative, but conservatives were quite critical of him while he was in office and since.
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* I would argue that once the effects of his
massive inflation,
out of control spending,
bailout lunacy,
intermittent fondness for protectionism,
AGWsilliness and
the related "green energy" boondogles,
anti-business legislation and
reckless foreign policy are felt, Obama will repeat the Carter anti-miracle and prove the death knell of the Democrats for a decade or more, but that remains to be seen.
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POSTSCRIPT
The torture comments are most interesting, as it was Bush's excessive sensitivity which probably caused the problem. Yes, the left was going to complain about any treatment of captured terrorists, and any form of interrogation. But Bush, being the "get along" kind of guy he was, tried to avoid upsetting them, and so made sure he was not legally "torturing" anyone, the same way he set up military tribunals to avoid
any Geneva Convention problems.
Had he instead gone to the public, said "we have terrorists, we are holding them without trial as unlawful combatants until the war ends, and we may have to be a bit rough to find out what we need -- then again, the law says we can shoot them if we want, so how can they object to being held?", the public support would have largely cut off any objections form the left before they began. By being too sensitive to potential objections, Bush actually made things harder on himself.