How Bush wrecked conservatism

The American right has embraced Bush's catastrophic war in the name of "moral clarity." But where is it written that conservatives have to be stupid?

By Gary Kamiya


Oct. 23, 2007 | Once again, major fissures in American conservatism have appeared. Leaders of the Christian right, appalled that a pro-choice, thrice-married candidate, Rudy Giuliani, is leading in the polls, have threatened to lead a mass defection from the GOP ranks and support a third-party presidential bid in 2008. Few expect them to make good on their threat. If they leave, they'll cost the Republicans the election; loyalty will almost certainly prevail. But the real issue isn't the loyalty of the hardcore religious right, who may never find another candidate so congenial as Bush to their fundamentalist beliefs and reactionary agenda. It's the inexplicable loyalty of that majority of American conservatives who are not driven solely by biblical fervor. The real question is: After seven years of George W. Bush, why would any genuine conservative still support his party?

Bush's presidency has made a shambles of real conservatism. Let's leave aside the issues on which liberals and conservatives can be expected to disagree, like his tax cuts for the rich, expansion of Medicare or his position on immigration, and focus solely on ones that should be above partisan rancor -- ones involving the Constitution and all-American values. On issue after Mom-and-apple-pie issue, from authorizing torture to approving illegal wiretapping to launching a self-destructive war, Bush has done incalculable damage to conservative principles -- far more, in fact, than any recent Democratic president. And he has been supported every step of the way by Republicans in Congress, who have voted in lockstep for his radical policies. None of the major Republican candidates running for office have repudiated any of Bush's policies. They simply promise to execute them better.

The Bush presidency has damaged American civil society in many ways, but one of the most lasting may be its destructive effect on conservatism. Even those who do not call themselves conservatives must acknowledge the power and enduring value of core conservative beliefs: belief in individual agency and responsibility, respect for American institutions and traditions, a resolute commitment to freedom, a willingness to take principled moral stands. It is a movement that draws its inspiration from towering figures: Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Burke. It stands for caution in foreign adventures, fiscal sobriety and a profound respect for tradition.

Or at least it used to stand for those things. Today's conservatism is a caricature of that movement: It embraces pointless wars, runs up a vast debt, and trashes the Constitution. Selling out their principles for power, abandoning deeply seated American values and traditions simply because someone on "their side" demanded that they do so, conservatives have made a deal with the devil that has reduced their movement to an empty, ends-obsessed shell. How did the party of Lincoln end up marching under the banner of Tom DeLay and Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Ann Coulter?

To be sure, Bush is not single-handedly responsible for the sorry state that American conservatism finds itself in today. The movement has always been intellectually fractured, riven by contradictory beliefs. As George Nash pointed out in his classic "The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America," from the beginning modern American conservatism has been divided between traditionalists and libertarians. Libertarians regard individual freedom as the highest good, support the free market, and oppose coercive government policies. Traditionalists regard virtue, not freedom, as the highest good, believe in a transcendental moral order and are wary of unfettered individualism. Despite attempts to "fuse" them, the two worldviews are fundamentally incompatible -- you either believe in surrendering to God and tradition or you don't. Time and again, conservative attempts to implement policies that do justice to both the movement's "freedom" and "virtue" wings have failed.

The classic example is the Republican embrace of supply-side economics, aka trickle-down economics, which holds that cutting taxes on the rich will result in money trickling down to everyone else. Starting with Ronald Reagan, Republicans adopted this economic policy because its insistence that getting rich is morally good satisfies the demands of both freedom and virtue. As events proved, and as its architect, David Stockman, famously acknowledged, [link|http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/279.html| supply-side economics failed miserably]. But this did not prevent Reagan and all subsequent Republican presidents from claiming it worked, and continuing to pursue similar economic policies. Reagan raised taxes and expanded the federal government enormously, but he insisted that he had cut taxes and dismantled "big government."

Similarly, the moral impulse of conservatism has from the outset been caught in a welter of self-contradiction. When the Judeo-Christian injunction to help the less fortunate collides with the "I've got mine, Jack" ethos of Ayn Rand individualism, selfishness inevitably triumphs. Crony capitalism, corruption and unchecked greed have been the inevitable result. As a result, conservative morality in practice has been squeezed into an ever smaller, ever more theocentric core. The fact that the Christian right claims to stand at the pinnacle of American virtue is grotesque, but it's the logical consequence of the shriveling of conservative morality.

In one sense, George W. Bush's presidency represents the ugly culmination of all of these tendencies. But in a more important sense, it is a radical departure from earlier American conservatism. Bush has undermined core American institutions and values in ways that no previous president, Democratic or Republican, has ever done.

However much liberal critics (like this writer) might disagree with them, Republican presidents from Ford to Reagan to the elder Bush generally refrained from radically changing American institutions, law and values.

[. . .]

Gen. Curtis LeMay urged President Kennedy to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. Of course, neither Kennedy nor any subsequent U.S. presidents chose to start a nuclear war with Russia. And when Goldwater famously intoned, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice," in 1962, he was excoriated as a scary loose cannon.

Goldwater's words could be Bush's credo. Bush's "war on terror" is a rerun of the Cold War, with "Islamofascism" replacing communism and Dr. Strangelove at the controls. By attacking Iraq, Bush made up for all those decades of compromise and weakness, all that Neville Chamberlain-like appeasement, that groveling accommodation with evil. This time, we're nuking the bastards!

[More ...]

How Bush wrecked conservatism

The American right has embraced Bush's catastrophic war in the name of "moral clarity." But where is it written that conservatives have to be stupid?

By Gary Kamiya


Oct. 23, 2007 | Once again, major fissures in American conservatism have appeared. Leaders of the Christian right, appalled that a pro-choice, thrice-married candidate, Rudy Giuliani, is leading in the polls, have threatened to lead a mass defection from the GOP ranks and support a third-party presidential bid in 2008. Few expect them to make good on their threat. If they leave, they'll cost the Republicans the election; loyalty will almost certainly prevail. But the real issue isn't the loyalty of the hardcore religious right, who may never find another candidate so congenial as Bush to their fundamentalist beliefs and reactionary agenda. It's the inexplicable loyalty of that majority of American conservatives who are not driven solely by biblical fervor. The real question is: After seven years of George W. Bush, why would any genuine conservative still support his party?

Bush's presidency has made a shambles of real conservatism. Let's leave aside the issues on which liberals and conservatives can be expected to disagree, like his tax cuts for the rich, expansion of Medicare or his position on immigration, and focus solely on ones that should be above partisan rancor -- ones involving the Constitution and all-American values. On issue after Mom-and-apple-pie issue, from authorizing torture to approving illegal wiretapping to launching a self-destructive war, Bush has done incalculable damage to conservative principles -- far more, in fact, than any recent Democratic president. And he has been supported every step of the way by Republicans in Congress, who have voted in lockstep for his radical policies. None of the major Republican candidates running for office have repudiated any of Bush's policies. They simply promise to execute them better.

The Bush presidency has damaged American civil society in many ways, but one of the most lasting may be its destructive effect on conservatism. Even those who do not call themselves conservatives must acknowledge the power and enduring value of core conservative beliefs: belief in individual agency and responsibility, respect for American institutions and traditions, a resolute commitment to freedom, a willingness to take principled moral stands. It is a movement that draws its inspiration from towering figures: Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Burke. It stands for caution in foreign adventures, fiscal sobriety and a profound respect for tradition.

Or at least it used to stand for those things. Today's conservatism is a caricature of that movement: It embraces pointless wars, runs up a vast debt, and trashes the Constitution. Selling out their principles for power, abandoning deeply seated American values and traditions simply because someone on "their side" demanded that they do so, conservatives have made a deal with the devil that has reduced their movement to an empty, ends-obsessed shell. How did the party of Lincoln end up marching under the banner of Tom DeLay and Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Ann Coulter?

To be sure, Bush is not single-handedly responsible for the sorry state that American conservatism finds itself in today. The movement has always been intellectually fractured, riven by contradictory beliefs. As George Nash pointed out in his classic "The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America," from the beginning modern American conservatism has been divided between traditionalists and libertarians. Libertarians regard individual freedom as the highest good, support the free market, and oppose coercive government policies. Traditionalists regard virtue, not freedom, as the highest good, believe in a transcendental moral order and are wary of unfettered individualism. Despite attempts to "fuse" them, the two worldviews are fundamentally incompatible -- you either believe in surrendering to God and tradition or you don't. Time and again, conservative attempts to implement policies that do justice to both the movement's "freedom" and "virtue" wings have failed.

The classic example is the Republican embrace of supply-side economics, aka trickle-down economics, which holds that cutting taxes on the rich will result in money trickling down to everyone else. Starting with Ronald Reagan, Republicans adopted this economic policy because its insistence that getting rich is morally good satisfies the demands of both freedom and virtue. As events proved, and as its architect, David Stockman, famously acknowledged, [link|http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/279.html| supply-side economics failed miserably]. But this did not prevent Reagan and all subsequent Republican presidents from claiming it worked, and continuing to pursue similar economic policies. Reagan raised taxes and expanded the federal government enormously, but he insisted that he had cut taxes and dismantled "big government."

Similarly, the moral impulse of conservatism has from the outset been caught in a welter of self-contradiction. When the Judeo-Christian injunction to help the less fortunate collides with the "I've got mine, Jack" ethos of Ayn Rand individualism, selfishness inevitably triumphs. Crony capitalism, corruption and unchecked greed have been the inevitable result. As a result, conservative morality in practice has been squeezed into an ever smaller, ever more theocentric core. The fact that the Christian right claims to stand at the pinnacle of American virtue is grotesque, but it's the logical consequence of the shriveling of conservative morality.

In one sense, George W. Bush's presidency represents the ugly culmination of all of these tendencies. But in a more important sense, it is a radical departure from earlier American conservatism. Bush has undermined core American institutions and values in ways that no previous president, Democratic or Republican, has ever done.

However much liberal critics (like this writer) might disagree with them, Republican presidents from Ford to Reagan to the elder Bush generally refrained from radically changing American institutions, law and values.

[. . .]

Gen. Curtis LeMay urged President Kennedy to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. Of course, neither Kennedy nor any subsequent U.S. presidents chose to start a nuclear war with Russia. And when Goldwater famously intoned, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice," in 1962, he was excoriated as a scary loose cannon.

Goldwater's words could be Bush's credo. Bush's "war on terror" is a rerun of the Cold War, with "Islamofascism" replacing communism and Dr. Strangelove at the controls. By attacking Iraq, Bush made up for all those decades of compromise and weakness, all that Neville Chamberlain-like appeasement, that groveling accommodation with evil. This time, we're nuking the bastards!

[More ...]

The collapse of Bush's foreign policy

From Turkey to Iraq to Pakistan, the mounting chaos proves the White House is just winging it.

By Juan Cole


Oct. 24, 2007 | The Bush administration once imagined that its presence in Afghanistan and Iraq would be anchored by friendly neighbors, Turkey to the west and Pakistan to the east. Last week, as the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to deteriorate, the anchors themselves also came loose.

On Sunday, just days after the Turkish Parliament authorized an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish guerrillas ambushed and killed 17 Turkish soldiers inside Turkey. In Karachi, Pakistan, a massive bomb nearly killed U.S.-backed Benazir Bhutto, who was supposed to help stabilize the country. The Bush administration's entire Middle East policy is coming undone -- if it even has a policy left, other than just sticking its fingers in the multiple, and multiplying, holes in the dike.

In Iraq, the Kurds of the north are the United States' most reliable allies. In addition to the 5.5 million Kurds in Iraq, however, persons speaking dialects of Kurdish constitute around 11 million of neighboring Turkey's 70 million citizens. There are another 4 million Kurds next door in Iran, and up to 2 million in Syria. All three of Iraq's northern neighbors fear that Kurdish nationalism, which has been fostered by the U.S. occupation of Iraq, could tear them apart. Opposition to that nationalism could provide a platform for an alliance of Syria, Turkey and Iran -- a nightmare for the Bush administration. Washington had hoped to isolate Syria, an ally of both Iran and of Hezbollah in Lebanon. That's not how it is turning out.

Even after Turkey declined to sign on to the Iraq war, then U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz praised it in April 2003 as a dependable ally and secularizing model for the Muslim world. Since then, however, Washington's relationship with Ankara has turned increasingly sour over U.S. favoritism toward the Kurds.

The Turkish Parliament late last week passed a resolution permitting the military to make incursions into Iraq in order to chase down guerrillas operating on both sides of the border. Syria's Bashar al-Assad piled on, appearing to support the Turkish move, though under pressure from Baghdad he denied he had urged an invasion. Iran also fears Kurdish terrorism and has shelled Kurdish villages in Iraq in reprisal for guerrilla attacks in Iranian Kurdistan. Perhaps as a quid pro quo for Syrian support against the Kurds, Turkey offered this weekend to broker an agreement between Syria and Lebanon. Bush's partiality to the Kurds has provided Damascus an opening for newly warm relations with Ankara.

On Sunday, guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) ambushed a Turkish military convoy, killing 17 soldiers. The Turkish military counterattacked, killing 32 persons it said were guerrillas. In Istanbul on Sunday, a thousand demonstrators came out to denounce the PKK. In the two weeks prior to Sunday, the PKK had killed 28 Turkish soldiers. The mustachioed president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, a member of the Islamist-leaning AK Party, vowed that his country would "pay any price" to protect itself. The new tensions have roiled the world petroleum markets, hurt the Turkish economy, and further destabilized an already violent Iraq.

The Iraqi leadership, already presiding over a failed state, agonized at being caught in the crossfire. The Iraqi president, the avuncular Kurd Jalal Talabani, hypocritically condemned al-Assad for urging a foreign military invasion of an Arab country, even though he himself had supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Massoud Barzani, the pudgy turbaned leader of the Kurdistan Regional Authority, warned that his government would defend its citizens and not sit idly by if Turkish troops rolled through Kurdish cities in Iraq. On Sunday, the Iraqi Parliament, having been unable to agree on virtually any internal issue or enact any benchmark legislation, promptly passed a resolution condemning the Turkish Parliament.

[. . .]

Next page: The huge explosion that greeted Bhutto suggests that her arrival is hardly the remedy for Pakistan's instability

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