Out
of the many conservative politicos on television, Fred
Barnes of Fox News is perhaps the most talented and savvy. His
arguments are often the clearest, and he is a formidable opponent
even on those occasions when his talking points are obviously
beaten. In his new book, Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George
W. Bush, Barnes puts forth a thesis which would occur to few
Americans. He regards our current President as a maverick who
stands outside and above the establishment, and one who, in the
spirit of the Starship Enterprise, has boldly gone where no scion
of an incredibly fashionable family has gone before.
My
first reaction upon completing the opening pages was, “Surely
he’s doesn’t really believe this?” Ah, but Barnes does
believe it or at least he appears to for the purposes of political
expediency. We find that despite our President’s family spending
decades in the nation’s capital, Bush the Younger is “an alien
in the realm of the governing class.” The author gives a
plethora of reasons for why this is the case such as the
President’s refusal to wear a tuxedo to social events more than
once a year, and the way in which he called a terrorist a
terrorist by delegitimizing the authority of Yasser Arafat. Some
of Barnes’ contentions are persuasive. Certainly, one can buy
that George Bush is assertive in his interpersonal relationships
along with his not being an intellectual captive of his cabinet.
That he never had any desire to be part of the beltway “in
crowd” is also convincing, but concluding that he is a rebel is
a non sequitur.
Bush
rules by traditional means and there is precious little turbulence
to be found in his submissive habit of affixing his name to
pork-laden bills promoting economic stagnation and adamantine
bureaucracy. A rebel would not mistake socialism for compassion; a
rebel would veto budgets and curtail spending; a rebel would stand
for his convictions, but in George W. Bush we have not a rebel but
a politician. Even if this is readily discernible to most pundits,
it has not prevented Fred Barnes from pretending otherwise,
perhaps as an attempt to secure a favorable legacy for our 43rd
President—a legacy which he assuredly does not deserve.
There
have been many unusual things about the Bush presidency, but
perhaps the oddest is why the political left hates him so. It is
rather bewildering for those of us who see that, aside from
foreign policy, he is more Jimmy Carter than Calvin Coolidge. He
is the big spending liberal your parents warned you about. He even
stands out within a Republican Party filled with “95 percenters”—meaning
guys who self-righteously denounce the Leviathan while eagerly
embossing their names to $180 billion “Republican” federal
ventures which are reportedly far more liberty friendly than the
Democrats 190 billion dollar versions of the same bill. Many of
these Nixonians have never seen an airport flunky they didn’t
want to pin a badge to, yet W, a 105 percenter, makes them look
like Ron Paul. Our President stares down the Democrats with steely
determination while announcing, “I’ll see your 12 expanded
district offices and raise you 70 new Directors of Diversity.”
Bush may not be a
Washington
society man, but he certainly is a government man. Barnes spins
against such conclusions by attempting to contrast him with
another devotee of state coercion:
“There
was a thread running through FDR’s scheme: big government
in
Washington
as the answer to
America
’s
economic and social problems.
And
there’s an idea that unites Bush’s package: individuals acting
responsibly,
not big government in
Washington
is the answer.”
Let’s
consider this for a moment. If big government is not Bush’s
answer then why did spending grow by 33
percent during his first term? Does anyone know of a large
scale program that Bush slashed? Barnes acknowledges that many
conservatives desire the termination of the Department of
Education, but he claims that the 43rd President has
used the federal department as a means to promote testing and
establish accountability within our public schools. It’s hard to
not laugh after reading such blatant spin because our schools are
by no means more accountable today than they were ten years ago.
No Child Left Behind is a boondoggle which has enacted no
substantial reform of the system. The teachers unions are as
resilient as cockroaches, and, in many states, have already made a
mockery of the bill’s intentions. The real question is how could
Bush not have anticipated the uselessness of the aforementioned
act after Ted Kennedy gave his buzzed endorsement to this “historic
reform.”
George
W. Bush is the greatest boon that the Libertarian Party has ever
had. His fiscal profligacy has made conservatives like myself
alter our self-descriptions from conservative or
conservative-libertarian to libertarian alone. It’s hard to
stand behind a man whose increases in discretionary spending surpass
those of Lyndon Johnson. You knew the true extent of Bush’s
contamination of the right when John Kerry campaigned under the
sober auspices of government having to let the people know what
they could and could
not afford. Far worse, this “rebel-in-chief,” has enabled
Washington
to
play “daddy” to our states and localities by allowing
bureaucrats to
intrude on community practices.
Barnes
concedes that Bush does not meet everyone’s definition of
conservative. He figures that on a 1 to 3 scale of conservatism, W
rates a 2 as he supports traditional values and a hawkish foreign
policy but is a promoter of obese government. Yet, this is a very
skewed way in which to rate conservatism. No conservative worthy
of the label would ever think that officialdom promotes the public
good, which is exactly the view Bush endorses when he bloats the
budgets of the civil service.
Furthermore,
one traditional value in
America
is
that a person can fulfill their dreams if they have talent and
apply themselves. Yet these are the types of dreams quashed by
pernicious federal policies like affirmative action. Despite his
personal convictions which he so eloquently put
forth in January of 2003, Bush came out in support for the
racist practice after the Supreme Court announced their decisions
in Grutter and Gratz. His
turnabout was a disappointment to everyone who believes in
equality. The President’s flip-flop made a liar out of him,
traduced the American dream for a plurality of our people, and
announced that for the foreseeable future there will be:
“Political correctness today; Political correctness tomorrow;
Political correctness forever.”
Bush
is not a conservative in any real sense of the word. To corrupt
that famous phrase by William F. Buckley, he jogs alongside
history and yells, “If we hurry, we can get in another mile
before sundown.” He has done more to level differences between
the two major parties than any other politician in recent memory.
It is becoming progressively more difficult to argue with the
opinion that there’s not “a dime’s worth of difference”
between them.
There
was one more aspect to Barnes’ fantasy-based initiative which
made one feel that the text was more PR than historical analysis.
The author’s favorable comparison of Bush to Reagan was absurd
and manages to offend. The current President—a glad-handing,
all-things-negotiable, former cheerleader—is as close to the 40th
President as Cold Duck is to Veuve Clicquot. Had Reagan led
between 2000 and today, his desk would have large indentations on
it from stamping a veto upon Congresses’ porcine expenditures of
the public’s wealth. That Reagan was unsuccessful in stopping
legislative spendthrifts of his era is more reflective of
Democratic supremacy in both Houses than it was due to Bushian
delusions about the efficacy of government intervention.
Once
one finishes the book, one must acknowledge that Fred Barnes
deserves a modicum of credit. I can’t think of any other
conservative who would have the audacity to lionize a
RINO
leader in the way that he has. George W. Bush will be remembered
in the decades to come not as a rebel, but as a politician..
