Niall Ferguson and Andrew Sullivan have made the case that a Kerry victory will not be disastrous for conservatism in American and even beneficial. Ferguson wrote, “But then what? The lesson of British history is that a second Bush term could be more damaging to the Republicans and more beneficial to the Democrats than a Bush defeat.” Sullivan added, “Domestically, moreover, Bush has done a huge amount to destroy the coherence of a conservative philosophy of American government; and he has been almost criminally reckless in his hubris in the conduct of the war… Put all that together, and I may not find myself the only conservative moving slowly and reluctantly toward the notion that Kerry may be the right man - and the conservative choice - for a difficult and perilous time.”
The conservatives’ critics against Bush do have valid points about Bush’s excessive spending. President Bush and the Republican congress has increase spending faster than the Republican Congress working with Bill Clinton and the Medicare reform package is a huge boondoggle that will prove to be a disaster in the future- if not reformed. The biggest criticism that these individuals have against Bush is economic and socially, since both Ferguson and Sullivan have questioned the libertarian conservative alliances with the evangelical conservatives. Sullivan has always been a libertarian on social issues and his support for Gay rights have led him to oppose the social conservative wing. As for Ferguson, he believes that eventually the right will split up over social issues. So he is pushing for the split now.
While I agree with the CAB (conservatives against Bush) on Bush’s lack of discipline on the domestic front, they have yet to make the case that Kerry will be better on these issues. On the contrary, he will be worse. Kerry will increase the domestic budget further and has made it clear that he will also raise taxes. The present tax cuts that are in place will be reverse. So why allowing Kerry to be President for four years will be helpful to the domestic economy is a mystery.
Article comments
1 - Lono
The conservatives’ critics against Bush do have valid points about Bush’s excessive spending
- you can say that again! GWB has not vetoed a SINGLE bill that has come before him. He is making pork barrel history by giving the OK to everything the Repubs put in front of his desk. Remember 'checks and balances' from civics class? That balance does not exist right now, and we can only hope the coming election will rectify that.
As a devout conservative and Republican, I hate to see what this jackass is doing to our party and our image.
2 - Eric Olsen
Very well done Tom, thanks. While my domestic agenda is much more in line with Kerry's, especially on social and energy issues, I agree totally that foreign policy is the determining factor in the post-9/11 world, and agree that Bush is more likely to pursue an aggressive anti-terror path
3 - JR
Democrats like Zell Miller, Ed Koch and Actor Ron Silver understand that the present Democratic Party can no longer be trusted with National security. For them, 9/11 was a wake up call.
How interesting that 9/11 was a "wake-up call" to the fringe Democrats, not to mention George Bush, Jr. Mainstream Democrats like Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Gary Hart (all presidential candidates at one point) were already wide awake, they just couldn't get the Bush Administration to listen. Just repeating over and over that Democrats can't be trusted with national security doesn't make it true.
The fact is that the Republicans of the first Bush administration were as eager as anyone to reap the "peace dividend" by cutting our military. And what did George Bush, Jr. do when he got a memo stating "bin Laden determined to attack in the U.S."? Bush's standing policy toward Osama bin Laden seems to be "out of sight, out of mind". I notice terrorism has not exactly abated since that wake-up call. Nor have the Keystone Cops exploits of the current Justice Department been particularly impressive. What I can't understand is how anyone can still trust the Republicans with national security.
By the way:
We would have compromises that most Americans can live it and ditto the issues of defining marriage and civil unions. Which is how our founding fathers designed our Constitution.
The Founding Fathers also added a Bill of Rights so that on some issues there would be no compromise, regardless of what "most Americans" can live with.
4 - jack e. jett
Democrats like Zell Miller, Ed Koch and Actor Ron Silver understand that the present Democratic Party can no longer be trusted with National security. For them, 9/11 was a wake up call.
__________
maybe it was a wake up call for them to move out of the united states. like they insist the liberal democrats do.
zell miller is no more a democrat that i am a heterosexual. ed koch is no more a democrat that my mother is a homosexual. ron silver....who gives a flying fuck what he thinks? what, was he in the musical "cats"?
jack e. jett
5 - Mark Edward Manning
I don't agree with the "big government conservatism" so popular among the neocons. The neocons "get it" with regard to foreign policy, but not with the domestic budget. Big government conservatism is an oxymoron.
6 - Mike Kole
"The neocons "get it" with regard to foreign policy, but not with the domestic budget. Big government conservatism is an oxymoron."
This is why the average libertarian is not a neo-con. The average libertarian is not hawkish on foreign policy, and does not support any expansion of the domestic budget.
7 - Bill Clinton
- you can say that again! GWB has not vetoed a SINGLE bill that has come before him. He is making pork barrel history by giving the OK to everything the Repubs put in front of his desk. Remember 'checks and balances' from civics class? That balance does not exist right now, and we can only hope the coming election will rectify that.
That depends on what the definition of veto is.
8 - Mac Diva
I think we need to remember that most conservatives against Bush are to the Right of him. A scary thought, I know. But true. Moderate conservatives may be vocal in the blogosphere, but there don't seem to be all that many of them in real life. At the sites I monitor for civil rights purposes, the participants actually make Shrub look liberal.
9 - Tom Margolis
Bush is better against terrorism than Kerry? You've got to be kidding me.
Since we attacked Iraq, compared to the equivalent period before 9/11:
- terrorist recruitment rates have skyrocketed
- support for terrorism worldwide has skyrocketed
- frequency of terrorist acts has more than doubled
- intensity of such attacks has more than doubled, measured by body count
The consensus in the Pentagon and the CIA is that we are much less secure now than we were before Bush brought us into Iraq. The CIA reports that the next attack will likely come from a growing Al Qaeda cell in southern Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda is on the rise again. Remember Afghanistan? Where Al Qaeda was based? Where Bin Laden hung out? Remember how we pulled almost all of our resources from Afghanistan to attack Iraq - which posed no threat to the U.S. and had no established links to Al Qaeda or to 9/11?
Bush dropped the ball. We should have committed to Afghanistan, and we should have aggressively confronted Saudi Arabia for their continued support of Al Qaeda training camps. Iraq was a diversion, and we are going to pay for it with American lives. Bush's foreign policy is a like a global recruitment campaign for terrorist groups.
10 - tom donelson
Where do I begin? Terrorist recruitments up? Do you take a poll? Fact number one- Terrorists have been attacking US for decade before 9/11. What we now are seeing is that the war that was hidden from us due to our own wishful thinking is in full bloom.
We saw it on 9/11.
Do you not really think that terrorist cells do not exist without sponsoring nations?
I will put in this fashion, which I know that you will disagree. We have eliminted two bases from which terrorist groups worked from.
Two, we are begining the process of helping two nations building civil societies. That is fact.
I could go on and have done so in previous writing. Others such as Richard Mintor have done as well by using enough documentation to prove my case.
Here an anology. This would have been like the Boston Red Sox forfeiting the world series after the first two games on the assuption that they might lose due to curse. We are winning and ahead in the game. Quite and we forfeit. It is that simple I will follow up more on thesis tomorrow.
11 - Hal Pawluk
You got that right, Tom: The "Owner ship Society" gives the small government conservative their Trojan Horse.
Except the part about 'small government.'
This Trojan Horse is a method for transfering huge sums of money to campaign contributors.
Additionally, it will require a reduction in benefits paid, and around $2 trillion to cover the shortfall cause by the withdrawal of the money into private acccounts.
You can read more here (links open in new windows):
Bush's New Ad Theme: Give Us Your Money
Scam Alert: Watch Out For "Ownership Society" And "Investor
Class"
Bush's Ownership Scam, Part II
The "Privatization" Rip-Off: A Bush Collaboration
12 - Hal Pawluk
I can also help, Tom, answer your puzzlement: So why allowing Kerry to be President for four years will be helpful to the domestic economy is a mystery.
His policies have reduced the quality of life for most Americans (jobs, health care, education).The answer is quite simple:
He is a total loser on trade issues.
And the huge, world-record-setting deficits he has achieved (trade and domestic) have set up the potential for a recession, with economists around the world are getting nervous.
Bush is a dangerous man when it comes to economics.
Further reading (links open in new windows):
Bushonomics and Jobs: A Total Failure
Bushonomics: Are We Better Off Than 4 years Ago?
Spend it While it's Still Worth Something
Bush Seems to Have Broken the American Jobs Machine
13 - Hal Pawluk
On foreign policy, Bush has been an even bigger disaster than on the domestic front.
He has alienated allies and broken alliances that took decades to build.
He has put American lives at risk in a reckless political invasion of a foreign country. And today we hear that as many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians may also have been killed since the start of this invasion.
He has increased the hatred that creates radical Islamists, and increased the number of terrorists and the danger to us all.
The harm he has done already will echo for centuries.
But he will "stay the course."
He is "resolved."
Or could that be "obsessed?"
14 - tom donelson
A few points:
First, I made the statement that many CAB are right about Bush's spending and as for his trade policy, there have been mistakes.
Kerry will excerbate the spending problem and his plan for health care will add more strain for medicare.
Social Security will collapse, it is a matter time since it is a ponzi scheme based on workers to retirees. Bush system changes that formula. Will a individual recieve if they have some of their earnings in growth investments? No, common sense and past history will show that.
Kerry plan to tax the upper class will not close the budget. The supply experiment has worked and over taxing the wealthy is not a way to prospersity.
Here is the bottom line and more than enough studies have shown this from state levels to international.
Nations or state that keep tax burden low, regulations common sense, and open to trade have higher growth rate. There are elements of Bush's plan that does that. More than Kerry. Bottom line, Bush was given a bad hand to deal with a recession that started in the Clinton's administration. The recession was the shortest and shallowest.
Is Bush the worse economic President, hardly. Carter was worse.
One more point, our economic performance, including Bush, have outstripped Europe for the past two decades. THe European Model that many on the left are in love with have failed. So what are we left with.
Simple: lower taxes, less spending, free trade, reform of the tort system, and a ownership society that will in the end help the common man and woman.
Kerry plan fails on all of these points and Bush succeed on some. Who is better is easy to see. Bush, case closed.
If you are a conservative, there is no alternative. If you are liberal, as I have already written, then you have to decide based on national security. Bush wins on both cased closed. What can I say? The facts still on my side. Nice try thou.
15 - tom donelson
Once again, Professor Donelson is at work. You have repeated the same arguments about alliance. Okay, here is the deal- Bush is forming new alliance in the ashes of the old. Central Europe, countries who we have liberate are looking in our direction. Follow India media and you will see increase military cooperation. Read my first book Economics 101 and Other Thoughts for the essay on India emergence as a world power.
Now here is your problem, You only view our alliance through the prism of France and Germany and everyone else be damned. Little more complicated than that. Think outside the box and you will see a new world.
16 - Hal Pawluk
Your simplistic points in 14 are talking points, but with no substance.
Your comments about my view have no resemblance to reality.
Like your original post.
17 - tom donelson
I have come to one conclusion about some of your folks.
I give facts and historical and you call them talking points and yet most of you have repeated the same mantra on every piece I write. I could say the sky is blue and you will see that Bush is acting unilateral.
Here are some more facts to ponder. Bush 3rd quarter economic data is actually better than what got Clinton re-elected. So if Bush was a disaster as President- then what was Clinton?
Now this piece was for conservatives against Bush. There is another piece called appeal to Liberals. Bottom line, the case for Bush is becoming stronger every day.
18 - Hal Pawluk
You do include some facts, but embedded in many generalizations and conclusions with no evidence.
Read your stuff again and see which is which.
It could be an eye-opener for you.
19 - tom donelson
My historical analysis has stood the test of time. Beside, we are writing columns not thesis. On to my next piece, I see you there.