Defining a compassionate conservative

Something nice to say about the Bush Administration

Those of you who have perused previous posts clearly understand that I'm not a big fan of the policies of the current administration. And while the nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, may have some scary ideas about executive power, he did offer up the following opinion which in my mind makes him at least interesting.

Seems one beer maker was running an ad criticizing Coors for making beer that sucks. Coors filed suit in an effort to try to get the ad campaign stopped. (As an aside, I wonder if Coors supports so-called tort reform efforts because there are too many frivolous lawsuits. Seriously, if all those companies and individuals that support tort reform would stop filing silly suits they probably wouldn't have any reason to want tort reform in the first place.) But let's get back to the case at hand. Coors is feeling bad because they've been criticized in an ad campaign by a rival, they sue to stop the campaign.

Judge Michael Mukasey tosses out the suit by saying, according to the New York Times,

"De gustibus cerevesiae non scit lex"

I don't know Latin but the Times translated the phrase this way,

"…the law takes no account of taste in weak beer."

Finally, someone in the Bush administration takes a stand I can believe in.

I'll enjoy it while I can.

Does Bush Rock?

My friend Anne has this thing for George W. Bush. I can't figure out why, but she does. She recently posted this list of his accomplishments on her blog in response to my being a bit critical of the President.

The question is, are these really accomplishments? If you were President, would you aim to achieve as much, more than or less than President Bush?

Rough days for Republicans

Things are rough for Republicans these days and no one sums up the state of the party than former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan. Noonan's column in today's Wall Street Journal includes the following tidbits.

What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker--"At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

How bad are things in the party? Well read this!

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens?

Good question, Peggy. The answer is that they are Repbulicans and that is what Republicans do. Don't you watch Fox News? The Republican party has been so devoid of political ideology, policy ideas and ethical leaders for so long that all Republicans know how to do is to speak insultingly, with hostility of their opponents who are simply concerned citizens. Peggy, you really ought to stop your whining.

What happened to Republicans is that they got so caught up in their hatred of Government that they decided not to ever govern. Peggy, were you the one who wrote the Reagan line in his first inaugural address, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Post-Reagan Republicans get elected so that they could have power and use that power to enrich themselves and their friends. They don't care about governing or good government. There is no vision for what government ought to be -- only a vision for what government ought not to be. As a result, the Republican party and its' leadership has become both ethically and ideologically corrupt.

Peggy Noonan did get the following right when she wrote of the current administration,

What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks.

Hacks got the jobs in Iraq. Qualifications didn't matter. Hacks got the jobs in FEMA. Qualifications didn't matter. Hacks got the jobs in the Justice Department. Qualifications didn't matter.

Jimmy Carter never should have retracted his statement that the current Bush administration is the worst in history.

Bring the troops home

I'm one of the few Democrats I know who thought invading Iraq and getting rid of Saddam was the right course of action to take. I didn't come to that conclusion because I agreed with the President. Instead, I've come to believe that America must lead the world in eliminating genocidal dictators. Our ouster of Saddam was the right thing to do – it just happened 15 years too late.

Iraq was and is a killing field. Estimates are that Saddam executed more than 300,000 Iraqis during his reign. We let that happen. Presidents from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton lacked the moral fortitude to stand up to this murderer. It was more convenient for Americans to ignore what was happening on the other side of the globe than do what needed to be done and commit our military to getting rid of Saddam.

Unfortunately, the only President willing to take on Saddam is George W. Bush. While Bush should get a small amount of credit for getting rid of Saddam the fact is that Bush did it for the wrong reasons. And his management of the war effort has been absolutely incompetent.

America suffers today because the Republican leadership in Washington is more interested in the game of politics, gaining and keeping power, than in the art of leadership. George Bush, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich and Denny Hastert don't have a clue how to govern.

The leadership of the Republican Party consistently prioritizes partisan politics over public policy. As a result, our conduct of the war in Iraq has been a disaster. Tom Friedman has an excellent column on this subject in today's New York Times. Friedman writes,

One benchmark the Bush team has been urging the Iraqi government to meet is to rescind its broad “de-Baathification” program — the wholesale purging of Baathists after the fall of Saddam — which has alienated many Sunnis and hampered national reconciliation.

But while the Bush team has been lecturing the Iraqi Shiites to limit de-Baathification in Baghdad, it was carrying out its own de-Democratization in the Justice Department in Washington. We would feel that we had failed in Iraq if we read that Sunnis were being purged from Iraq’s Ministry of Justice by Shiite hard-liners loyal to Moktada al-Sadr — but the moral equivalent of that is exactly what the Bush administration was doing here. What kind of example does that set for Iraqis?

And this wasn’t only a Washington problem. Read Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s outstanding “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” which details the extent to which Americans recruited to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad were chosen, at times, for their loyalty toward Republicanism rather than expertise on Islamism. “Two C.P.A. staffers said that they were asked if they supported Roe v. Wade and if they had voted for George W. Bush,” he wrote.

But this degree of partisanship — loyalty over competence — was destructive in a much bigger way. It also deprived the Bush team of the support it needed when things in Iraq didn’t turn out to be as easy as it expected.

Only a united America could have the patience and fortitude to heal a divided Iraq — and we simply don’t have that today. Why? Because George Bush and Dick Cheney asked everyone to check their politics at the door when it came to Iraq, because victory there was so important — everyone but themselves. They argued that the war in Iraq was the central front of the central struggle of our age — an unusual war, a war against terrorism and the pathologies that produce it — but then they indulged in the most rancid politics as usual at home.

They actually thought they could unite Iraq, while dividing America.

As much as I would like our efforts in Iraq to succeed and as much as I would like to believe that we could leave Iraq united, free from terror and on the road to democracy, that just isn't going to happen. Why? Because George Bush and his advisors are incompetent. No matter what we do in Iraq, no matter how hard our troops fight and work to stabilize that country, we will lose because George Bush is President of the United States. It is time to end America's role in this disaster and bring the troops home. The Iraqi people ought to start praying for mercy. Things are going to get much worse for them. George Bush ought to start praying for forgiveness. He's responsible for the mess.

Send the Queen Home

I've read one article about the Queen of England's visit to the United States. I read it because I was interested in how the White House pulls off a big fancy dinner. I really have very little interest in the British royals. I find the entire idea of a monarchy to be absurd.

The article I read was in the NY Times on Saturday. In it, the reporter shared some dos and don'ts as to how people are to behave when hanging out with British Royalty.

Aides to Mrs. Bush shared a few dos and don’ts. The queen shall be addressed as “Your Majesty.” The prince is “Your Royal Highness.”

For women, curtsying is acceptable, but not required. One does not shake the queen’s hand unless the queen offers hers first.

And after Her Majesty finishes her meal, everyone’s meal is finished. (Not to worry, a senior official said of Mr. Bush: “He’s a really fast eater.”)

Will someone please tell the White House we won the Revolutionary War? We aren't royal subjects any more. We don't need to cow-tow to some pompous, old, over-paid, ribbon cutter. We certainly don't need to rush through our meal just so we can finish before the Queen and avoid her having to send us to bed without our dessert.

I'd feel a bit differently if the dinner were in London. But this dinner was in our house. I think it is time for England's Queen to respect our rules.

Iraq

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell reportedly told President Bush that if he invaded Iraq the "you break it, you buy it" theory would apply. This meant that once Bush invaded Iraq (broke it) it would be the responsibility of the United States to stabilize the country and restore order (buy it.)

But a funny thing happened. We went in and broke the country with remarkable speed and efficiency. Then, instead of working as hard as we could to put the pieces back together, we began making all kinds of excuses as to why we shouldn't be responsible for things over there.

These excuses and arguments continued for years. Our leaders claimed everything was fine and that we really shouldn't have to buy anything. Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney argued that the Iraqis needed to put their own country back together and that our claiming any responsibility was simply unnecessary coddling. In the meantime, while American troops died, the situation on the ground grew worse and worse. Iraq dissolved into civil war.

Now, the President is finally willing to admit that he broke Iraq. And he has asked for more troops to try to help end the civil war. But he waited too long and he no longer has the trust or support of the American people. To make a bad situation worse, the newly empowered Democrats, knowing a good political issue when they see one, are doing all they can to whip up opposition to the President and to our efforts in Iraq.

And to top it all off, the few allies President Bush had in his "coalition" have started announcing troop withdrawals from Iraq.

So while allies withdraw, Democrats rail and grandstand and an incompetent, befuddled President dithers, American troops die, Iraqis die and terrorists begin to win by creating anarchy in Iraq.

Iraq is broken and we broke it. And while we have paid a heavy price in both American lives and dollars, we have yet to complete the deal to buy it.

So what do we do now? I believe that in theory, John McCain and President Bush are right. We need to send more troops to Iraq to try to bring some stability to the country.

But here's the problem with that approach: This President and his advisors have absolutely no clue what to do with the troops once they get there. As a result, the new American troops will simply become additional targets for terrorist insurgents as they practice and hone their war-making skills.

The other option is to pull out. But if we leave, we provide the world with yet another example of failed imperialism, we increase instability in a part of the world that is already not at all stable, and we give the terrorists another place from which they may base their operations and train their followers.

Staying means we rely on the failed leadership of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and Steven Hadley. And that is unacceptable. Leaving means even more chaos in the Middle East. And that is unacceptable.

My guess is we will stay. And Iraq will continue to get worse and worse until on a cold day in January, 2009, a new President will take over and be faced with an immediate decision as to what to do with Iraq.

Iraq has truly become one of the worst blunders of American foreign policy ever.

And in the end, my guess is that George W. Bush will be remembered in American history books as the President who failed in the war on terror because he refused to fight it, deciding instead to fight a war that had nothing to do with terror. In doing so, President Bush has simply increased anti-American fervor and in all likelihood handed the terrorists a victory over the United States. In Iraqi history books? Well, George W. Bush may just end up being more notorious and known as more destructive than the man he went to war against, Saddam Hussein.