But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
William Shakespeare
Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene II
Often, when I discuss next year’s presidential election with my conservative friends, they seem assured that 2004 will be a repeat not of 1992, but of 1984. Though I confess to being a poor predictor of electoral outcomes, I cannot but feel that their confidence is misplaced. A year will pass between the printing of this article and the 2004 election, and the behavior of the nation’s leading Republican has diluted rather than garnered support for his party. Rotten leadership from President George W. Bush has transformed a once-sure win for the Republicans into a genuine contest. Ever since Bush’s commendable response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, next year’s election has been his to lose. He may yet accomplish that task.
When candidate Bush, in 2000, painted himself as “a uniter, not a divider,” he did not know how right he was. He has united no one, except perhaps his foes, and he has divided his friends with chilling brazenness. Tax cuts notwithstanding, Bush has no interest in advancing the conservative agenda, nor need he, since the Republicans will renominate him no matter what he does. Their faith in Bush may prove to be the spike on which conservatism is finally impaled. Though the Democrats have painted him as a right-wing extremist, he has governed everywhere but from the Right. At times, it is difficult to understand for whom he is ruling this country. Even on those issues where the American public is the most conservative, the President has defied them.
On June 24 of this year, the United States Supreme Court held that state universities’ racial discrimination against white and Asian applicants is permissible under the Constitution. The American people are conservative on this issue; they recognize, as Justice (now Chief Justice) William H. Rehnquist wrote in a 1979 dissenting opinion, “that no discrimination based on race is benign, that no action disadvantaging a person because of his color is affirmative.” The president, however, warmly praised the Court for ignoring the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition of racial discrimination. “Today’s decisions,” he said, “seek a careful balance between the goal of campus diversity and the fundamental principle of equal treatment under law.” One who draws this equation speaks only for a minority of Americans, few of whom would ever vote for this panderer-in-chief.
Moreover, that bastion of Bolshevism the New York Times has reported that Bush is considering appointing Alberto Gonzalez, a diehard advocate of racial preferences, to the Supreme Court. He has also considered elevating Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to the chief justiceship should Chief Justice Rehnquist step down, the Times reports. Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court this year in Grutter v. Bollinger, upholding racial preferences, and three years before cast the decisive fifth vote in Stenberg v. Carhart, striking down Nebraska’s ban on partial-birth abortion. Conservatives therefore have little reason to expect that Bush will deliver when it comes to the judiciary. True, he campaigned on a promise to appoint Justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, but considering that he does not even know Justice Scalia’s first name (he called him “Anthony” and “Antonio” on one occasion), that promise must have been fed to him by a political adviser.
Bush has disregarded the views of a still greater majority of Americans who want our immigration laws enforced and who want legal immigration tightened. The United States takes in over a million legal immigrants a year (more than any other country), and perhaps half a million illegal immigrants with them. Shortly before Sept. 11, the President—the nation’s leading law enforcement officer—proposed an amnesty program for 3 million illegal aliens. Does the word “illegal” mean anything today? At least he had the good sense to scuttle this plan following Sept. 11. But more than two years since then, our borders remain wide open, and the President has done virtually nothing about it. For all practical purposes, this man is no less supportive of illegal immigration than the Mexican government.
The president hopes to paper over all this by selling himself as a great leader in the War on Terror. Yet, it is difficult to understand how we can be serious about fighting terrorism while our own borders remain out of control. In the words of Steven Camarota, Research Director for the Center for Immigration Studies “if a Mexican day laborer can cross the U.S. border with little difficulty, so can an al-Qaeda terrorist.” The fact that many terrorists planning to wreak havoc on our country are already here does not mean that more terrorists will not sneak in years from now. Legal immigration is a very long and intricate process, the hassles of which can easily be sidestepped by entering illegally—which many terrorists have done in the past and almost certainly will do again. That such a disconnect could exist between public opinion and public policy on an issue as important as this is appalling beyond words.
Even setting aside illegal immigration, the prosecution of the War on Terror has been far from ideal. Most perplexing was the administration’s decision to censor the Joint Inquiry Report into the events of Sept. 11, airbrushing that report of incriminating links to Saudi Arabia. This is the last country that our government should be attempting to placate: it has the most extensive ties to Muslim terrorists. Bush appears to be either very smart or very dumb. Admittedly, a civilian like myself is not well-placed to criticize the national security policies of one who has to deal with the issue on a daily basis. Nevertheless, his contention that revealing the censored facts would jeopardize intelligence agents rings hollow. He could provide the facts—surely at least some of them—while blacking out the sources. Moreover, his refusal to take a hard line with the Saudis defies explanation. You do not behave diplomatically with a government that has sponsored terrorist activities for years when you are fighting a war on terrorism.
On federal spending, true Goldwater conservatism might actually catch on with the public, but Bush is not interested. The ideal strategy for any country engaged in war is to slash unnecessary spending, not to swell it, and this is especially the case when the country cannot see an end to the war that it is fighting. Yet the president has wedded himself to one boondoggle after another: AmeriCorps, a federal program that actually pays people to volunteer; a $15 billion pledge to Africa to fight AIDS; a $400 billion expansion of Medicare services; the No Child Left Behind Act; mammoth federal subsidies to farms; and so on. And now we face a historic deficit. By the time he leaves office, Bush probably will have done more than any other president, including Ronald Reagan, to refute the public perception of conservatives as frugal spenders. This will spoil our prospects of gaining votes for years to come.
Many on the Right have defended the president, claiming that he needs to lower the Right’s profile in order to attract votes. Yet, his treatment of genuine conservatives indicates that he cares nothing for their votes. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has criticized Bush for his ultraliberal views on immigration. In response, the Congressman says, the president’s senior political advisor, Karl Rove, warned Tancredo, “Don’t ever darken the doorstep of this White House.” And according to the New York Times, the insufferable Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) will receive President Bush’s support in next year’s primary election. Specter was recently dubbed “The Worst Republican Senator” by National Review, and his lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union (ACU) is a pathetic 42 percent, about half the average rating for Republican senators. Specter’s challenger is conservative Rep. Pat Toomey, whose ACU rating is 97 percent.
Bush has given conservatives almost no reason to vote for him. He has turned his back on us again and again since his inauguration, yet expects our continued support. Some of my ideological brethren argue that Bush is better than any of the Democrats running for president. They might do better to take a long-run view. Obviously, we will not have a long string of Republican presidents back-to-back. Conservatives therefore must be careful in choosing which candidates to support, rather than blindly vote for any candidate with an “R” next to his name. If we return the President’s discourtesy by turning our backs on him, the Republican Party may finally understand that it cannot ignore conservatives yet expect to receive their loyalty.
A Bush victory most likely will leave the country far deeper in debt eight years from now than it is today, thus leaving America ripe for a 2008 takeover by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). Clinton will not be a viable candidate for office in 2008, if a Democrat wins the presidency next year. And by 2012 she will be 65 years old. If we lay the groundwork for another Clinton presidency, we may be none the better for the deal. If we stay with Bush, affirmative action will thrive, our judiciary will be stacked with more David Souters, illegal immigration will continue unabated, Saudi Arabia will continue to get a pass on supporting terrorism, domestic spending and the national debt will mushroom, and for what—so that the Democrats can retake the White House in 2008? If Bush loses next year, however, a conservative may be able to take the reins five years from now. That will never happen as long as Bush remains in the Republican Party’s forefront.
On the other hand, it is possible that turning Bush out of office will hand the Democrats more victories than this country can stand. If a Democrat wins next year and the economy sharply improves, then the Republicans will likely be frozen out of the White House until at least 2012. One shudders to imagine how far leftward the judiciary would move in that time. Many conservatives, probably including myself, would balk at taking that risk. Furthermore, Democrats will probably at least match Bush for liberal views on the other issues mentioned. For example, several Democrats running for president have pledged to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens (a policy that is likely to render the GOP permanently irrelevant in American politics, no matter which party enacts it), and whoever is nominated will be a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of racial preferences.
Then again, if Gerald Ford had won reelection against Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan never would have become President, the Reagan Revolution never would have commenced, and the Supreme Court would be fashioned in the image of Justice John Paul Stevens (an über-liberal Ford appointee). Sometimes, it pays to lose. Our great predicament is not knowing whether that will be the case in 2004. Whatever choice we ultimately make, conservatives must never forget that it is Bush who created dilemma. All we can do to avoid facing that dilemma again is to vow, when he completes his presidency, never again to nominate his like.
