Dreher and Parker on the Republican revolt

In a blistering column, Rod Dreher declares the collapse of the Bush presidency while also telling his fellow Republicans that they need to admit their responsibility for this failure and not act as if Bush has simply betrayed them. It’s important that Dreher says this, because, as I’ve often noted, today’s establishment conservatives—the NRO-cons, for example—have the most disconcerting habit of switching sides on an issue, such as Iraq, without declaring that they are doing so, without admitting that they have held the opposite view for years, and without explaining how they came to change their view.

Dreher writes:

… I think as the last wheel comes off this presidency, and the GOP comes to grips with what this presidency has meant for the Republican Party and the conservative movement, there will be a strong temptation to resist owning up to our own complicity. Success has a thousand fathers, after all, and failure is an orphan. This failure is not President Bush’s alone. The Republican Party owns it. The conservative movement, with some exceptions, owns it.

Few of us stood up to Bush when he took us to this disastrous war in Iraq. Few, if any, stood up to him over his foolish support for Rumsfeld, long after it became obvious what a disaster Rumsfeld was. Few, if any, stood up to him over his amassing of power in the executive branch. Few, if any, stood up to him on the spending. Few, if any, stood up to him over the massive prescription drug benefit. Few stood up to him over the political hackery pervading his administration, which became distressingly obvious during Katrina (indeed, there are still Republicans now who insist that the corrupt politicization of the Department of Justice is a non-issue, because these people “serve at the president’s pleasure”). Correct me if I’m wrong, but the first time any of us stood up in significant numbers, and with full-throated voice, against the president was over the Harriet Miers debacle. And then we fell silent again, for the most part.

So yes, by all means let’s turn our backs on this failed presidency, and save what we can, while we can. But let’s not kid ourselves: Bush has failed conservatives, yes, but we have also failed ourselves. It doesn’t take much courage to stand up for conservative principle to a president as weak as this one has become. It would have taken real courage to stand up for conservative principle in 2002, 2003, 2004, even early 2005. How many did? I know I didn’t—not until Katrina and Miers, which came late in 2005. If we’re looking to blame someone for the failure of Republican government and the conservative crack-up, look to the White House, yes, and look to the late, unlamented Republican Congress. But also look to the conservative talk show hosts, the conservative columnists, and finally, in the mirror. The only way we’re going to rebuild after the present and coming political shattering is through honest reckoning, and taking responsibility for what we’ve done. It is tempting to blame Bush for everything. But it’s not fair, and it’s not honest. Bush is today who he always was. The difference is we conservatives pretty much loved the guy—when he was a winner.

Randall Parker quotes the Dreher column and comments:

At this point I’d like to know: Who called Bush correctly early on? Who on the Right quickly figured out Bush’s weaknesses and came to see his Presidency in a negative light? These are the people to pay attention to on other subjects. They have better track records in figuring out what really is. Of course, you can find people on the Left who saw Bush as terrible. But most of them would have done so regardless just based on a President’s being a Republican. It is more useful to look at which commentators see someone clearly when they do not have partisan motives. So who saw Bush clearly? I’m thinking Greg Cochran, Lawrence Auster, Steve Sailer and some of the VDare writers.

I agree with Parker’s general point that conservatives who have seen the problems with Bush all along, including myself (though of course I supported the invasion of Iraq), have more credibility than those who have blindly wed themselves to Bush for all these years. But is the number of early and intelligent Bush critics on the right really so small as Parker’s list suggests? After all, there’s a not insignificant faction of paleocons and trad-cons, many of whom voted for Howard Phillips or Patrick Buchanan in 2000. So Bush’s early conservative critics can’t just be a handful of people.

(Also, in a comment following Randall Parker’s article, Alex asks whether the conservatives who have broken with Bush have really broken with his policies.)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 05, 2007 07:53 AM | Send