Echoing my comments of May 29 on Bush's great popularity on the right when he was winning, Dreher, in response to the Noonan column I revised on June 1, raises the question of how those on the right -- specifically, conservative thinking heads -- ought to feel about themselves now that they're repudiating the president. Sullivan pulls quote:
If we're looking to blame someone for the failure of Republican government and the conservative crack-up, look to the White House, yes, and look to the late, unlamented Republican Congress. But also look to the conservative talk show hosts, the conservative columnists, and finally, in the mirror. The only way we're going to rebuild after the present and coming political shattering is through honest reckoning, and taking responsibility for what we've done. It is tempting to blame Bush for everything. But it's not fair, and it's not honest. Bush is today who he always was. The difference is we conservatives pretty much loved the guy - when he was a winner."
Oh, but it is fair to blame Bush for everything Bush has advanced that has failed. But Dreher wants to go deeper -- to ask whether "we conservatives" are to blame for supporting Bush, or for not opposing him, or not opposing him loudly enough, or .... Quickly it becomes clear that, as is usually the case with manufactured guilt, it is not entirely apparent how much guilt is enough and on precisely what action or inaction it is supposed to be focused. Bush in no small part stopped winning because of conservatives -- conservatives who revolted against Harriet Miers and revolt still against immigration and complain about No Child Left Behind (and no small number of whom opposed invading Iraq from the beginning).
The only Bush policies that got strong conservative support were taxes- and terrorism-related, and as much as the Patriot Act should not have been renewed in identical form, and as serious constitutional questions are raised by imprisoning a handful of Americans indefinitely on American soil, it is beyond doubt that the civil-liberties problems raised by the Bush administration, including wiretaps, have done far, far less damage to the domestic and international position of the United States and the position of the Republican Party in the United States than Bush's insane financial profligacy and mostly ineffective foreign policy. It is very easy to undo or curtail a wiretap program. It is impossible to recover trillions of dollars spent on things that ought never to have bought in the first place. I cannot think of anything conservatives should have fought the president on which either they didn't fight on or didn't fight hard enough on -- with, of course, the exception of Bush's execution of his foreign policy. Weren't conservatives disgusted from the beginning with everything unconservative that Bush tried to do? And didn't they stop it when they had the means? Didn't some conservatives vote for Kerry in 2004, even just out of spite, o-or B-Buchanan in 2000? I suppose somehow No Child Left Behind could have been derailed with just a little more effort? Nobody "pretty much loved" Bush's immigration proposal simply because he was a 'winning' president. And nobody supported Bush's push for private accounts simply because Bush had political capital.
Conservative guilt appears to me to fall under a very gross rubric -- the one that comes across when inveterate people on the left say with vengeful contempt that they knew all along that Bush would be a complete disaster, only an idiot wouldn't or couldn't know, only a fool, blinded by partisanship, could possibly ... etc., etc. And as much traction as some people get out of saying that any average reasonable person on planet Earth could see that invading Iraq was both incredibly challenging and pressed uncomfortable moral and legal questions, the whole thrust of the We, The Unblinded, Knew All Along bit denies retrospectively what we all know to be true: that almost everything in politics is contingent, that nothing is inevitable, that things could not have turned out otherwise. When, in fact, as conservative opposition to Bush has shown all along, things do turn out otherwise. It's very hard for conservatives, or any other group of thinking heads, to prevent disasters when they simply lack the votes in government. Bush could have done nothing without Congressional support, and finally the accretion of manure that we see in heaps around us today strikes me as tied to the knee-jerk support of Bush triggered by the political money game. And if there's one group of people who can't be blamed, and shouldn't feel guilt, for failing to criticize Bush hard enough because they had been bought and sold, it's everyday American conservatives.
Had Iraq gone much better or not gone at all, this conversation would not be happening. Conservatives fought properly when offered bad policy. They gave in when Congressional and Party operators concluded that election cash answered questions of political philosophy. Not until now -- Election '08 -- had other choices been both compelling and viable. I think, then, that the question of conservative guilt distills down to the question of war guilt -- for good, ill, or both.
Update: Larison critiques. To be continued...
It isn't so much what we "feel" it is what we think.
It does little good to go over the terrible record of the GOP controlled congress and the GOP president, both domestic and foreign. Indeed, my own former GOP congressman, Bob Ney, is currently "holding two, looking through."
We are, in fact, staring at "Madam President," Allah Akbar, and a horde of illegal Mexicans all determined to weaken or destroy the nation.
Is there time to "rebuild the conservative coalition" and regain power through the elective process? There's no guarantee these people will be any different than the Neo-Marxists and/or the NeoCons, human nature being what it is.
Quite a conundrum!
Posted by: Robert C. Cheeks | June 03, 2007 at 08:31 PM