Notes From D. R.

In Lubbock, Texas – Lubbock Comma Texas, the heart of Texas conservatism – they dislike President Bush. He has lost them. I was there and saw it. Confusion has been followed by frustration has turned into resentment, and this is huge. Everyone knows the president’s poll numbers are at historic lows, but if he is over in Lubbock, there is no place in this country that likes him. I made a speech and moved around and I was tough on him and no one – not one – defended or disagreed. I did the same in North Carolina recently, and again no defenders. I did the same in Fresno, Calif., and no defenders, not one.

He has left on-the-ground conservatives – the local right-winger, the town intellectual reading Burke and Kirk, the old Reagan committeewoman – feeling undefended, unrepresented and alone.

This will have impact down the road.

I finally understand the party nostalgia for Reagan. Everyone speaks of him now, but it wasn’t that way in 2000, or 1992, or 1996, or even ‘04.

I think it is a manifestation of dislike for and disappointment in Mr. Bush. It is a turning away that is a turning back. It is a looking back to conservatism when conservatism was clear, knew what it was, was grounded in the facts of the world.

The reasons for the quiet break with Mr. Bush: spending, they say first, growth in the power and size of government, Iraq. I imagine some of this: a fine and bitter conservative sense that he has never had to stand in his stockinged feet at the airport holding the bin, being harassed. He has never had to live in the world he helped make, the one where grandma’s hip replacement is setting off the beeper here and the child is crying there. And of course as a former president, with the entourage and the private jets, he never will. I bet conservatives don’t like it.

–Peggy Noonan, “The View from Gate 14”, The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2008

Towards the end of the Clinton administration, I worked with someone who claimed that he was “sick and tired of conservative [plural anatomical expletive].” He defined “conservative [plural anatomical expletive]” as people who constantly attacked President Clinton and took shots at his character failures. A devoted Clinton supporter, he regarded Clinton’s critics as malcontents, people who were never satisfied with anything in America, people who seemed to enjoy being disgruntled.

Back then, I regarded this coworker as a typical loudmouthed “progressive”—but now, all these years later, I think I see his point. The Republicans Peggy Noonan recently met—the ones who are constantly complaining about President Bush and bemoaning his lack of ideological resemblance to Reagan—are little more than “conservative [plural anatomical expletive].”

Is Bush a severely flawed leader? No doubt—but these conservatives knew that when they voted for him in 2000 and re-elected him in 2004. Bush was not Reagan and never claimed to be—so why are these folks so surprised that he has not governed as effectively as Reagan governed?

Enough with the sulking and whining. Yes, times are tough. Yes, the gas prices are too high and consumer confidence is too low. Yes, people are anxious, worried, nervous. As Dick Cheney might put it, “So?”

America has been through nightmarish times before. We’ve overcome fears of nuclear war, previous fears of economic collapse, fears that our homeland would be subjected to another terrorist attack. We’ve come through these tough times, and we’ll do so again.

I find it amazing that the conservatives who backed Bush because they feared a de facto third Clinton term and backed him again because they feared John “Global Test” Kerry as President have suddenly decided that Bush is worthless now. Talk bout fair-weather friends.

Bush will be viewed by history as just slightly better than his father. He never came close to Reagan’s greatness—but common sense would have told his new conservative critics that he was not going to match or surpass Reagan’s record. Why are they complaining as though they were duped?

It’s one thing for John McCain to dump on Bush for his perceived mishandling of post-Katrina New Orleans: with Bush’s poll numbers in the septic tank, McCain has to establish himself as someone who will not follow the Bush blueprint. It’s another thing for those who were all gung-ho about Bush in 2000 and 2004 to turn on him now. What happened to “in for a penny, in for a pound”?

It’s bad enough when “progressives” blame Bush for everything that’s wrong in this country; it’s even worse when conservatives do the same. For example, how is Bush responsible for the high gas prices? That’s the fault of the “progressives” who fought against previous efforts to drill for oil in our own country. There’s no reason for the most powerful nation in the world to have to be dependent on foreign oil. Bush can’t be blamed for this state of affairs, so conservative voters shouldn’t hold him responsible. As the philosopher Sinead O’Connor once said, fight the real enemy.

It’s sad that “Bush Derangement Syndrome” has afflicted the right. Conservative voters who are lashing out at Dubya conveniently forget that just a few years ago, they viewed him as a firewall blocking the viruses of socialism and secularism. All of a sudden, they act as though the left was right all along. It’s intellectual dishonesty.

I’m not happy about Bush’s performance either, but eight years ago I knew he was not going to be the greatest President of all-time. The whole point of electing Bush was to stop the corruption of the Clinton-Gore era, not to re-establish Reaganism. The whole point of re-electing Bush was to stop Kerry from moving the country in a hard-left direction, not to remake the country in a conservative mold.

Bush has lived up, or down, to expectations. He will not be regarded as an excellent President. Yet, all of the country’s problems cannot be laid at his feet—and it’s foolish for his one-time supporters to act as though he’s to blame for every dark cloud in the sky.