Over the past eight years, my political ears have grown deaf as leftists have not put down their Bush-bashing bullhorns for even a second. Like jocund cheerleaders inciting the demise of their own team, liberals have been praying that Americans would be worse off than they were during the Internet-boom era of the Clinton years.
Day one, liberals were screaming “illegitimacy!” They had been disenfranchised as Bush won the Electoral College, but failed to secure the popular vote. How quickly they seemed to forget that analysts were expecting Gore to come out on top in the same scenario. Certainly, for them, that would have been fair. Likewise, with a bit of revisionist history, somehow liberals have convinced Americans that Gore won the recount. After 9/11, enough leftist conspiracists crazily ranted about the tragedy being an inside job, that some surveys have as many as 33% of Americans now accepting the myth as truth. We went into Afghanistan and to date have been unsuccessful in our efforts to find and kill Osama Bin Laden. On another front, as Afghanistan seemed to calm down a bit, Bush began discussion of a war with Iraq. After months of trying to garner the public support necessary, he finally saw it come after his State of the Union address in which he claimed that there was sufficient evidence that Iraq had been purchasing Uranium from Nigeria. In 2003, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador to the region, refuted the claim that was responsible for the uptick in support of the Iraq war. And then, suddenly, his name began appearing in the news again. Joseph Wilson’s wife and then CIA operative, Valarie Plame, had apparently been outed by some person high-up in the administration.
During the Bush years, blogs and internet mobilization networks also took hold:
In his second election Bush could not escape the ghost of Gore. Liberals thought they could win by reminding America that Bush was a sort-of fake president. He was a placeholder for the guy — whoever it was — that they picked. America disagreed. Despite a bogus report questioning George Bush’s National Guard service (a report for which Dan Rather was forced to retire), Americans put Bush into office over John Kerry, this time with more than 50% of the vote. Instantly, liberal media hacks began sounding the war drums. In a much-acclaimed Rolling Stone article, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wrote that he had mathematical evidence that Bush stole this election, too. Bush had won Ohio by sneakily increasing his counts in districts where electronic voting was performed. Despite the lack of real evidence and obvious irony of a Kennedy complaining about a stolen presidential election, liberals instantly gave the story the credence it certainly did not deserve. RFK Jr. went around the country speaking at prominent universities like Brown.
Also, during these years, while the new Bush strategy in Iraq, commonly referred to as the surge, seemed to be making the messy little war see some successes, liberals instantly began to call for the withdrawal of our troops. By this time, it was good money to bash Bush. Everyone began to cash in. While Joseph Wilson ran his own successful consulting business, he also began speaking around the country regarding the terrible plight the Bush administration had forced upon his family. His wife wrote a book about her career in the CIA and the unfairness of her ousting. Half the book is unreadable because it is blacked out, the other half is unreadable because it is abominably written. Even Bush’s former press secretary, Scott McClellan, decided to write a book deriding his former employer. All of this culminated in the events of the last few weeks: mass emigrations from the Republican party by middle Americans and the newest member of America’s political elite, President-elect Barack Obama.
It all goes to show that when ominous half-truths are yelled enough by loud people, like a bad cough, the half-truths infect the minds of even those who tend to guard themselves against idiocy. And so, bullhorns in hand, leftists have successfully painted George Bush in the diametric pose of being both a fascist idiot and one who successfully pulled off two of the most advanced election fraud schemes in the history of America without leaving a trace of evidence. He has allegedly impinged unnecessarily upon our civil liberties, all the while ensuring that post-9/11 America saw not a single terrorist attack upon its soil.
How will Bush be remembered? That depends on who pens the history books. But watch the next four years. It will be equally as interesting to see how history is written with regard to the near future. As Mr. Obama begins his Presidential reign, we will see a very different leftist. While it is likely that Obama will not rescind any elements of the Patriot Act, leftists will, on the whole, stop complaining about the carte blanch they claim it gives the government. While Obama will not stop the wiretapping procedure that had liberals up in arms just months ago, the complaints regarding the program will all but vanish. While Obama will drag his heels and make sure to leave Iraq in a state that allows America to save face and declare victory, liberals will stop asking for an instant withdrawal. It is to say, when it is a Democratic teammate committing the tyranny, the tyranny takes on a different color. Democrats no longer view the acts as the tactless policies of a moral-less, power-hungry dictator, but, rather, the beneficent implementations of save-the-world policies by a Messianic figurehead. And yet, despite the likelihood of seeing almost no change implemented by our new leader in regard to old policies, the new policies that Obama is advocating are even more draconian and will likely be considered out of sync with traditional American values. Free, government-subsidized stuff is really nice, but we must keep in mind that it all comes at a cost. If Obama gets some form of nationalized health care instituted in the States, for example, we will see a new paradigm in which Americans get treated based on their utility to society. During the next four years, as we see two (and possibly three) Supreme Court justices retire, Obama will likely usher in a new group of non-originalist ideologues who will further solidify constitutionally problematic rulings like Roe v. Wade.
But while it is important that conservatives fight to maintain normative values, it is equally as important that we do not engage in the same tactical mudslinging that was ever-present during the Bush years. Ours is an intellectual battle. Working against one’s own President simply for case of bitter envy is hardly effective. While I don’t like it, Obama will be my President, and his decisions will affect my country and me. And while I think he will be ultimately harmful to America, we do not assess policies by the person proposing them. The value of policy is intrinsic and individual — not contingent on its proponents.
If what Obama works for will ultimately be good for America, it ought to be something we support. If, on the other hand, Obama works toward policies that will harm America now and in the future, we ought to stand staunchly opposed to those measures. We must, in the words of the now deceased William F. Buckley, Jr., stand athwart history yelling stop. For in this supreme moment, while America has been convinced that its new hope is in he who clings to elements of a socialist ideology, it is likely that now is a time that few are willing to listen to the prudent ideas of the conservative coalition.
We cannot stop the election of Obama, but we can certainly oppose the dangerous, ideological diarrhea that will flow freely through the halls of Congress during the next four years. Additionally, the Republican party must use this opportunity to reassess its own values. While Bush was, in fact, our President, it is important to acknowledge the problems he will leave behind. The most notable of his foibles is the fact that he has presided over one of the largest increases in government ever. His administration’s spending has been out of control. That aside, there is something I will never do, and I hope that my fellow conservatives will come along in this. We must resist the temptation to seek revenge for the idiocy of leftist anti-Americanism that percolated the rhetoric of liberals during the last four years. We cannot, in the face of what is to come, pick up our anti-Obama bullhorns and rant like lunatics about this, that, and the other thing, for those are the tactics of cowards without a message.
