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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (408153)	5/21/2003 2:51:00 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Yes. ---------------- Ah, the vibrant strands of modern American conservatism: social traditionalists … economic libertarians … . libertarian libertarians … paleo-cons … .and the "national greatness" neo-con crowd. Republican activists are fond of saying that tax cuts are the glue that holds the strands together. As long as you cut 'em, you don't really have to worry about the movement fracturing. (See, Bush, H.W., 1992 et. al.) But, as the Washington Times Notes today, there are many economic conservatives for whom tax cuts are only part of the foundation. Opposition to big government — whether by dint of the government's actual size, its international aspirations or its intrusive power — is another. For all the chatter on the left about how the "right wing" has Karl's direct dial and Lezlee Westine's Blackberry, a few big feathers of that wing feel sheared off from the bird — with that farm law as Exhibit A, and the president's failure to pursue major spending cuts Exhibit B. And on that score and in a story only he could write, Z. Hallow has evidence that some economic conservatives aren't as "in" at the White House as previously thought. LINK We're not sure how much this article reflects a division within the grassroots as much as it does the elite, but it's going to be a must-read at the White House, and therefore, a must-read for us. "Conservative activists fear that they are not exercising as much influence on the Bush White House as they did in previous Republican presidencies. In a memo to hundreds of fellow conservatives, a former Reagan administration official says traditional views are being edged out by a neoconservative 'national greatness' ideology that accepts big government and advocates interventionist foreign policy." "'Today, most conservative pressure ends up as simple cheerleading for the White House,' Donald J. Devine, who was President Reagan's director of the Office of Personnel Management, wrote in the memo. 'That can be helpful, but there is nothing that pushes politics further to the right, leaving conservatism and the Republican Party to drift.'" "For nearly half a century, conservatives nudged American politics, Republican ideology and government policy toward modern conservatism's founding principles. Chief among those principles is limited government." "Yet 'government keeps growing,' says Mr. Devine, now vice chairman of the American Conservative Union. 'Journalistic conservatism is silent about this growth of government, which is especially fueled by neoconservative dreams of empire and which threatens the whole project of American liberty.'" "Veteran conservative journalist M. Stanton Evans agrees. 'By far the biggest political disappointment for me — and I think for many other conservatives — has been our failure to get a handle on the problem of big government,' he says. 'This very much interacts with the question of the GOP, which always runs pretty hard on this issue, but has trouble translating its rhetoric into practice.'" "The close identification between the conservative movement and Republican politics is part of the problem, said former Reagan administration official Floyd Brown." "At a recent White House briefing, visiting conservative leaders urged the administration to fight harder for Senate confirmation of judicial nominees, even though some of the nominees were considered moderates who had served in the Clinton administration." "'It is strange that conservatives are pushing us so hard on this when normally you would be opposing us for nominating a judge with a relatively moderate record and who served under Bill Clinton,' Mr. Devine quoted White House political adviser Karl Rove as having told the assembled conservatives. 'The Democrats have been so relentless that the whole battle has been between the left and the political center.'" "Mr. Devine said, 'Rove put his finger directly on the nub of the matter: Conservatism today is not even on the battlefield.'" abcnews.go.com