>> I could not disagree more Bush was just not a conservative. He was a main stream establishment Republican. In other words democrat light. He was heading in the same direction as Obama, just slower.
The problem with the term "conservative" is that it means different things to different people. I consider GWB to be a conservative. But he certainly was not a Wm. F. Buckley Jr. conservative.
The argument that Bush was not conservative doesn't make a lot of sense to me. He was conservative on most issues. While he was too accommodating to the Left in many areas, a lot of the spending he was blamed for was pretty much essential, and a lot of the balance made good sense. For example, TARP, which I opposed at the time, was absolutely brilliant and (Obama's claims to the contrary, notwithstanding) saved the economy from a much more horrendous fate at what turned out to be fairly minimal cost. Contrast that with the "liberal" approach, a trillion dollars of wasted "stimulus".
One could argue Medicare Part D is anything BUT conservative, however, there is in fact a conservative argument to be made -- that is, the program overall was highly effective and outperformed budget figures by a mile. Until, of course, Obamacare got hold of it, which destroyed the fiscal measures Bush had put in place. I suppose he could be blamed for not having foreseen that.
A lot of people felt going to war with Iraq was not a conservative act; however, it was the correct move at the time given the intelligence that was available. The "Freedom Agenda" once again made total sense from a conservative standpoint, unless one factors in the likelihood of a subsequent incompetent president coming in and totally screwing it up.
History should give GWB good marks for the most part. Real history, of course -- short term Doug Brinkley/New York Times history -- that's a different thing. |
