“American Conservative” endorsements : Anyone but Bush

[Cyrus]

The “American Conservative” magazine editors came out with their endorsements. They make for interesting reading.

Sample from Scott McConnell’s article :

[ QUOTE ]
If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. And it is then that more traditional conservatives will have an audience to argue for a conservatism informed by the lessons of history, based in prudence and a sense of continuity with the American past—and to make that case without a powerful White House pulling in the opposite direction.
George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme.
A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” Kerry's the one. This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sample from Taki Theodorakopoulos’ article :

[ QUOTE ]
The party of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and William F. Buckley Jr., a party motivated by libertarian impulses and deep convictions about personal freedoms, ain’t no more.
Since when is a Leviathan federal government with a record deficit a conservative Republican one? How does a Bush administration supposedly committed to ideas like limited government, personal freedom, and a balanced budget explain a $450 billion budget deficit, the loss of American manufacturing jobs, and the promise of an amnesty for illegal aliens? How can the party of Robert A. Taft excuse the catastrophic war against Iraq and the idea that those who opposed it are traitors, an accusation Pat, Scott, and I were tarred with by Ariel Sharon’s agent David Frum?
The words of Gen. George C. Marshall, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army during World War II, come to mind: “I would be loath to hazard American lives for purely political purposes.” Yet Bush continues to heed men whose policies have radicalized the Mideast and converted much of the Islamic world into a giant recruiting station for Osama bin Laden. As Buchanan wrote recently, the Republican Party is now the party of big business, big government, and big war.

Kerry is an opportunist sans pareil, Bush a man under the wrong influence. Vote for the real deal, the Constitution's Party candidate, Michael Anthony Peroutka.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sample from Allan W. Bock’s article (he is senior editorial writer for the Orange County Register):

[ QUOTE ]
George W. Bush richly deserves to be punished at the polls. He got the United States into a war of aggression in Iraq that is likely to be followed, in a best-case scenario, by a long and difficult occupation that will inspire increasing hatred of the United States among people likely to express their hatred in unpleasant ways toward innocent Americans.
On the home front, Bush has presided over the most dramatic increase in domestic discretionary spending since the Great Society. While he talks of freedom and a government that leaves the people alone, the initial debates show that both his and Cheney’s learned response to problems in American society is to throw taxpayers’ money at them. This record does not deserve support or encouragement from even a modestly principled American conservative.

And a vote for a Libertarian is the best way for a small-government, constitutionalist conservative to let various establishments know there is still a constituency for the Constitution.

[/ QUOTE ]

We can see a strong pattern of conservatives feeling betrayed by the George W Bush administration in the matters that matter most to them ideologically : fiscal restraint and foreign policy prudence. The magazine's editorials are very explicit about that.

[vulturesrow]

Cyrus,

I must applaud you on your clever post. I want to comment on your first excerpt, from the American Conservative. Here is the editor's note.


Unfortunately, this election does not offer traditional conservatives an easy or natural choice and has left our editors as split as our readership. In an effort to deepen our readers’ and our own understanding of the options before us, we’ve asked several of our editors and contributors to make “the conservative case” for their favored candidate. Their pieces, plus Taki’s column closing out this issue, constitute TAC’s endorsement. —The Editors

The magazine has a slew of editorials arguing for various candidates. Their is one supporting Bush and several other candidates. Frankly I find this whole argument about spending to be a bit overblown. Yes there is room for it to be cut and I believe there is fat to be trimmed from the government. If you look at the budget outlays for fiscal year 2004, they increased by 6.2 percent. If you take out healthcare and social security entitlements, defense and homeland security , you get about a 3.4 increase. Adjusted for interest you get a little over 3%, which is just slightly ahead of the inflation rate. Additionally, tax receipts increased by 5.5 % and coroporate tax receipts increased by 43.7%. The deficit came in at 3.5% of GDP, which is not the highest ever by any stretch. Can discretionary spending be decreased? Yes it can but its not the boogeyman its being made out to be. Yes there are conservatives who dont think you should re-elect Bush. But I find them to be a distinct minority, including those traditional conservatives that you cite. Anyways, good post, I did enjoy reading those editorials, and good on you for reading from sources on the "other side" , even if you were just looking for ammunition [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[tanda]

These editorials are a fairly accurate reflection of the ambivalent feelings about GWB among conservatives and libertarians.

They also show why MSM and Dem image of Bush is a big lie.

He is considered an extremist by both yet he has presided over historically high growth of government. He has led the enactment of the largest entitlement program to come on the books in decades - Medicare prescription drug coverage. Education spending is way up. He has failed to veto a single spending bill. As Fred Barnes said weeks ago, Bush is a big government conservative.

If I was a welfare-state liberal, I would find much to like about GWB. He is a big spender.

[ACPlayer]

... that Kerry be elected. Get the conservatives back in the republican party and get rid of the present big spending charlatans.

[ACPlayer]

... that Kerry be elected. Get the conservatives back in the republican party and get rid of the present big spending charlatans.

[andyfox]

The Republican Party is not the party of Goldwater, Reagan and Buckley. Buckley was always a right-wing fringe neanderthal. So was Goldwater and he was trounced when he ran for president. The party is truly the party of Ronald Reagan, who made conservative Republicanism respectable.

The party has always been the party of big business and, since Reagan, big government. Bush has now added big war, which previously had been the Democrats' baliwick.