There is a lot of talk about the recent personnel shuffle at the White House. Nearly all of it is substance-free conventional wisdom about President Bush and about presidential second terms.
The script goes like this: The appointment of new Chief of Staff Josh Bolten is an unlikely-to-succeed attempt to jolt the administration out of a swoon that plagues all second terms. And Bush must be really desperate since he demoted henchman Karl Rove, stripping him of his policy making role and evicting him from a choice office to make room for Bolten?s deputy.
Add on high gas prices, low poll numbers and Iraq. All of this equals a Republican debacle in November as voters punish Bush for being too conservative and too arrogant.
But conventional wisdom only obscures the truth when it?s applied to an unconventional president. Taken together, two recent books about Bush go deep enough to get at the real truth.
In “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” economist Bruce Bartlett makes a convincing case that Bush simply isn?t a conservative. From No Child Left Behind to pure pork to the unspeakably ridiculous Medicare drug plan, Bush?s fiscal recklessness is in a league with FDR and LBJ.
For Bartlett, Bush?s betrayal will be complete when Republicans in the near future have to accede to drastic new taxes aimed at deficit reduction, scattering the various factions that Reagan brought to the party with his tax-cutting conservatism. But unlike Reagan, W. doesn?t have a Democrat Congress to blame for his deficits. He?s never even pretended to threaten a veto in order to curb appropriations.
Bartlett, who worked in the Reagan White House and the elder Bush?s Treasury Department, also echoes a criticism that usually hits Bush from the left: An imperious Bush chooses political appointees chiefly for their loyalty to him, which keeps more effective and talented policy hands on the bench.
Also a conservative, Fred Barnes probably wouldn?t disagree with many of Bartlett?s specific complaints. But he?s not surprised that Bush has not governed as a typical conservative. In “Rebel-in Chief” Barnes points out that compassionate conservatism is actually “big-government conservatism.” Bush believes that the power and resources of the federal government should be used to achieve conservative goals, not necessarily reduced or ceded back to states, localities or individuals.
Faith-based programs may indeed be a more effective way to run charities. And an “ownership society” ? with increased home ownership, health savings accounts and individual investment options as an alternative to Social Security ? is undoubtedly a good idea, consistent with conservative philosophy and economic reality.
Bush hasn?t delivered any of that yet. But new blood like Bolten and spokesman Tony Snow, who in his column and on his radio program has shared many of Bartlett?s concerns, suggests that Bush is not giving up on the rest of his term.
Though it?s no excuse, the most likely explanation for Bush?s domestic political failure has been his choice to spend nearly all of his political capital on foreign policy. Barnes sees Bush as an “insurgent president” supremely confident in his ability to defeat terrorism by attacking its sponsors and by aggressively promoting democracy.
But everything really comes down to Iraq and now, we see, Iran. The slow, steady success in Iraq must continue. Whether through diplomacy or force, Bush must separate a brazen Iran from its nuclear weapons.
If he succeeds, he will have secured a lasting foothold for liberty in the Middle East, which almost no one believed was possible. And he will have earned enough new political capital to see if his “big-government conservatism” can expand liberty here at home. If he fails, the deficit won?t be our biggest problem.
Both Bartlett and Barnes have attempted a first draft at history. Bush has 1,000 days to prove whose version will turn out to be right.
Aaron Keith Harris writes about politics, the media, pop culture and music and is a regular contributor to National Review Online and Bluegrass Unlimited. He can be reached at [email protected].
