The American Mind

President Bush has lost Peggy Noonan. Coming from her that means a lot. Noonan is the type who tries to look at the best in people whether she agrees with them politically or not. She’s the epitome of civil political discourse. It takes a lot for her to turn her eloquent words into a slap, even if they’re from her her velvet glove.

One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they’d earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he’d been elected to Reagan’s third term. He thought he’d been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.

Remember, Bush ran as a “compassionate conservative” with talk of injecting faith into government to make welfare state programs more effective. He never uttered anything like Ronald Reagan’s “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” He didn’t even come close to Bill Clinton’s “The era of big government is over.” Such words would be too harsh and harken back to the revolutionary calls to shut down the Department of Education during Speaker Newt Gingrich’s moment of political dominance.

Bush is the anti-Clinton. In 2000 he projected himself as a decent man, not too clever to ever ask what the definition of “is” is, confident but not condescending, earnest without fakery. He would be the MBA President running the government like he ran the Texas Rangers.

In 2000 there were no pressing issues threatening the nation. The economic boom neared its end, but people were happy living in the End of History without an existential threat. The Islamist threat was still a year away from being fully realized. The Right was satisfied with a candidate who would remove the stain of the Clintons from the White House. A placeholder who would respect the decency of the nation he lead would suffice. George W. Bush could win and was conservative enough so he was acceptable.

I have to take issue with some of Noonan’s themes.

First, Bush was the campaigner who said he would lead on what he believed and felt was best for the country. Unlike the Clinton administration his wouldn’t be guided by polls. Judging by his low approval numbers the President isn’t listening to the public or his conservative base. It’s a little late to start complaining the administration is holding firm by saying “too bad.” Does Noonan want a President who constantly pandered to his base ignoring his own belief in what was best for the country?

Another point deals with Noonan’s perception of how the Bush administration and its allies are engaging in the immigration debate. She writes,

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic–they “don’t want to do what’s right for America.” His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, “We’re gonna tell the bigots to shut up.” On Fox last weekend he vowed to “push back.” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want “mass deportation.” Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are “anti-immigrant” and suggested they suffer from “rage” and “national chauvinism.”

The President’s quip about opponents not caring about America and Sen. Graham’s accusation of bigotry are unfair. Ed Morrissey calls it typical Bush political hardball. However, many enforcement-first proponents would love to see mass deportations of illegal immigrants. Sealing the border and stopping the inflow isn’t enough. They want to throw out the leechers like the trespassers they think they are. Also, there is a significant portion of the public who thinks the U.S. has enough people and immigrants aren’t wanted. By definition that’s being “anti-immigrant.”

After watching the Republican Presidential race a little bit you’ll quickly see the party is moving beyond President Bush. He’s rarely mentioned by name in stump speeches. The closest mention is in the candidates’ (Rep. Paul excepted) defense of the Iraq War and their desire to win it. In defining themselves the candidates don’t look to President Bush or his father but Ronald Reagan. Some of that is Reagan fetishism, but a lot of it comes from both Bushs inability to deeply connect with conservatives.

“Too Bad“