Support For Bush Continues To Crumble on the Right
As the disconnect between Bush's war rationale and Bush's war fighting strategy and public pronouncements begins to widen, more and more support from the conservative side of the aisle is beginning to slip away. And not very quietly either.
From the beginning, of course, there was a substantial conservative clique that wasn't on board. The so-called paleo-conservatives rejected the Wilsonian impulse they detected in the Administration and warned we were all marching to disaster.
Other than that rather small group, however, the initial coalition held. Then, as it became clearer that a strong executive would insist on full war-fighting powers and use them to detain enemy combatants and to question them, the liberal supporters (such as they were) took off. Andrew Sullivan led that charge.
But, really, you expect that. Any liberal support the President got was a mere bonus. Everyone knew that, hawk-talk and all, a person of the type of Sullivan doesn't have the stomach for the ugly reality of war. And, as many people forget, Sullivan is essentially a member of the British elite, and if there is anything we've learned over the past 40 years it should be that the lack of confidence in their own civilization displayed by the British elite is so deep it's disturbing.
Then, much later, you had the more traditional conservatives beginning to split off. These people, prominent examples of who would be William F. Buckley and George Will, were willing to go along with the President because the plan deserved a chance to be put into real action. However, deep down, they never really had any strong certainty that it was a fool's errand. Now, and the monkey-fist-pump men continue to jump up and down next to the dead bodies of American soldiers, they know it was a fool's errand. Time to admit it isn't going to work and move on, says WFB.
And in the core?
Yes, even there. Rock-solid supporters are beginning to insist on a re-evaluation of our war aims, our war strategies and our war goals as it becomes increasingly clear that Bush's "sensitive" war to support Muslims and help them set up decent states is at odds with the stated goals of the overwhelming majority of the Muslim masses. As this becomes clearer, every day more and more conservatives are peeling off the coaltion--defecting, though to where is unclear--and the President is left alone, muttering the same tired platitudes he's been presenting as policy since 2004.
Need proof?
Oh, I'll give it to you. Proof that, if you're like me, you're going to have to read six or seven times to really comprehend the full reality of it.
Who, among the leading conservative commentators, has been the most supportive, most effective, most clear-headed of the President's vocal supporters?
Mark Steyn, that's who. By a long shot. And today, in the Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Steyn makes it crystal clear that the "Islam is Peace, We're Here to Help" school of thought is dead, dead, dead, dead. An excerpt:
(You can find the full piece here)(Emphasis added throughout).
From all sides, indeed. Including the conservative side.
From the beginning, of course, there was a substantial conservative clique that wasn't on board. The so-called paleo-conservatives rejected the Wilsonian impulse they detected in the Administration and warned we were all marching to disaster.
Other than that rather small group, however, the initial coalition held. Then, as it became clearer that a strong executive would insist on full war-fighting powers and use them to detain enemy combatants and to question them, the liberal supporters (such as they were) took off. Andrew Sullivan led that charge.
But, really, you expect that. Any liberal support the President got was a mere bonus. Everyone knew that, hawk-talk and all, a person of the type of Sullivan doesn't have the stomach for the ugly reality of war. And, as many people forget, Sullivan is essentially a member of the British elite, and if there is anything we've learned over the past 40 years it should be that the lack of confidence in their own civilization displayed by the British elite is so deep it's disturbing.
Then, much later, you had the more traditional conservatives beginning to split off. These people, prominent examples of who would be William F. Buckley and George Will, were willing to go along with the President because the plan deserved a chance to be put into real action. However, deep down, they never really had any strong certainty that it was a fool's errand. Now, and the monkey-fist-pump men continue to jump up and down next to the dead bodies of American soldiers, they know it was a fool's errand. Time to admit it isn't going to work and move on, says WFB.
And in the core?
Yes, even there. Rock-solid supporters are beginning to insist on a re-evaluation of our war aims, our war strategies and our war goals as it becomes increasingly clear that Bush's "sensitive" war to support Muslims and help them set up decent states is at odds with the stated goals of the overwhelming majority of the Muslim masses. As this becomes clearer, every day more and more conservatives are peeling off the coaltion--defecting, though to where is unclear--and the President is left alone, muttering the same tired platitudes he's been presenting as policy since 2004.
Need proof?
Oh, I'll give it to you. Proof that, if you're like me, you're going to have to read six or seven times to really comprehend the full reality of it.
Who, among the leading conservative commentators, has been the most supportive, most effective, most clear-headed of the President's vocal supporters?
Mark Steyn, that's who. By a long shot. And today, in the Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Steyn makes it crystal clear that the "Islam is Peace, We're Here to Help" school of thought is dead, dead, dead, dead. An excerpt:
The quagmire isn't in Iraq but at home. For five years, beginning with the designation of "war on terror," the president's public presentation has been consistent: Islam is a great religion, religion of peace, marvelous stuff, White House Ramadan Banquet the highlight of the calendar, but, sadly, every barrel has one or two bad apples, even Islam believe it or not, and once we've hunted those down we'll join the newly liberated peace-loving Muslim democracies in a global alliance of peace-loving peaceful persons. Most sentient beings have been aware that there is, to put it mildly, a large element of evasion about this basic narrative, but only now is it being explicitly rejected by all sides. William F. Buckley and George Will have more or less respectfully detached themselves from the insane idealism of shoving liberty and democracy down people's throats whether they want it or not. And, on the ports deal with Dubai, a number of other commentators I respect plus a stampede of largely ignorant weathervane pols have denounced the administration for endangering American security on the eastern seaboard. I can't see that: The only change is that instead of being American stevedores employed by a British company they'll now be American stevedores employed by a United Arab Emirates company.
But what I find interesting is the underlying argument: At heart, what Hillary Clinton and Co. are doing is dismissing as a Bush fiction the idea of "friendly" Arab "allies" in the war of terror. They're not necessarily wrong. Even the "friendliest" Arab regimes tend to be a bunch of duplicitous shysters: King Hussein sided with Saddam in the Gulf war, Mubarak and the House of Saud are the cause of much of our present woes. I would be perfectly prepared to consider a raft of measures insisting that, for the duration of the war, there'll be restrictions on access to the United States by certain countries. As I've argued for some years, it's absurd that the Saudis are allowed to continue with their financial and ideological subversion of everything from American think-tanks to mosques to prison chaplaincy programs (and, I'll bet, without providing driver's license numbers).
However, I think we should do that as a conscious policy decision, rather than as reflex piecemeal oppositionism. What Democrats seem to be doing with Dubai Ports World, whether they realize it or not, is tapping in to a general public skepticism (to put it politely) about the entire Muslim world. In that sense, the ports deal is the American equivalent of the Danish cartoon jihad: increasing numbers of Europeans -- if not yet their political class -- are fed up with switching on the TV and seeing Muslim men jumping up and down and threatening death followed by commentators patiently explaining that the "vast majority" of Muslims are, of course, impeccably "moderate." So what? There were millions of "moderate" Germans in the 1930s, and a fat lot of good they did us or them.
Despite being portrayed as a swaggering arrogant neocon warmongering cowboy, President Bush has, in fact, been circumspect to a fault for five years. But the equivocal constrained rhetoric is insufficient to a "long war." And from all sides, more and more people are calling its bluff.
(You can find the full piece here)(Emphasis added throughout).
From all sides, indeed. Including the conservative side.
