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That’s A Rather Large Exception

Regarding the recent Noonanian gnashing of teeth about Bush and others’ complaints about conservative complicity with the Bush debacle, Poulos, MPM, says: Had Iraq gone much better or not gone at all, this conversation would not be happening. Conservatives fought properly when offered bad policy. They gave in when Congressional and Party operators concluded that election cash […]

Regarding the recent Noonanian gnashing of teeth about Bush and others’ complaints about conservative complicity with the Bush debacle, Poulos, MPM, says:

Had Iraq gone much better or not gone at all, this conversation would not be happening. Conservatives fought properly when offered bad policy. They gave in when Congressional and Party operators concluded that election cash answered questions of political philosophy. Not until now — Election ’08 — had other choices been both compelling and viable. I think, then, that the question of conservative guilt distills down to the question of war guilt — for good, ill, or both.

I think James is somewhat right in his explanation of what has made the Bush repudiations and conservative guilt-tripping rather more common. Without the war pummeling Bush’s approval rating into the ground (and confidence-destroying episodes happening every few months in some important department of government), there would probably be fewer conservatives rocking the old boat.  On the other hand, had the Iraq war never happened, Bush would have drifted along aimlessly, probably would have been voted out in 2004 as a government-increasing squish just like his father and the relative conservative passivity in the face of bad domestic legislation would have gone down as a black mark against them.

As someone who v-voted for “B-Buchanan” in 2000, I can assure him and everyone else that it was not out of “spite”–I voted for the most well-known conservative candidate and, what’s more, one of the only prominent voices on the right who actively opposed the bombing of Yugoslavia when it was happening. 

I wonder if James thinks that conservatives actually “fought properly” and fought hard enough against NLCB or Medicare Part D or any other bad–by conservative lights–domestic policy.  There was some grumbling about NLCB, but that early issue lacked any memorable, “This bill will pass over my cold, dead political body” moments of resistance.  Ditto McCain-Feingold and the Medicare prescription drug bill (the latter of which was, I acknowledge, rammed down the House’s throat by DeLay, but which did not precipitate massive rebellions in the base).  The giving in part of the process seemed to me to happen rather quickly.

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