The conservative case against George W. Bush

Columns

September 30, 2009

By Byron York Picayune Item Wed Sep 30, 2009, 10:59 AM CDT

How many times during the past eight years did you hear that former President Bush was a dangerous right-wing extremist? Probably too many to count.

What you heard less often were expressions of the deep reservations some conservatives felt about Bush’s governing philosophy.

Conservatives greatly admired Bush for his steadfastness in the War on Terror — to use that outlawed phrase — and they were delighted by his choices of John Roberts and Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court.

But when it came to a fundamental conservative principle such as fiscal discipline, many conservatives felt that president just wasn’t with them.

You saw that throughout the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, when GOP candidates, while not mentioning Bush specifically, got big applause from conservative Republican audiences by pledging to return fiscal responsibility to the White House.

Those cheering conservatives will find a revealing moment in a new book by former White House speechwriter Matt Latimer, a veteran of conservative politics. An admirer of Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, for whom he worked for several years, Latimer also worked in the Rumsfeld Pentagon before joining the Bush White House in 2007.

The revealing moment, described in “Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor,” occurred in the Oval Office in early 2008. Bush was preparing to give a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The conference is the event of the year for conservative activists; Republican politicians are required to appear and offer their praise of the conservative movement.

Latimer got the assignment to write Bush’s speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic.

“What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?” the president asked Latimer.

Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement — the movement that gave rise to groups such as CPAC.

Bush seemed perplexed. Latimer elaborated a bit more. Then Bush leaned forward, with a point to make.

“Let me tell you something,” the president said. “I whupped Gary Bauer’s ass in 2000. So take out all this movement stuff. There is no movement.”

Bush seemed to equate the conservative movement — the astonishing growth of conservative political strength that took place in the decades after Barry Goldwater’s disastrous defeat in 1964 — with the fortunes of Bauer, the evangelical Christian activist and former head of the Family Research Council, whose 2000 presidential campaign went nowhere.

Now it was Latimer who looked perplexed. Bush tried to explain.

“Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say,” the president said, “but I redefined the Republican Party.”

The Oval Office is no place for a low-ranking White House staffer to get into an argument with the president of the United States about the state of the Republican Party — or about any other subject, for that matter. Latimer made the changes the president wanted. When Bush appeared at CPAC, he made no mention of the conservative movement. In fact, he said the word “conservative” only once, in the last paragraph.

Bush veterans are going to take issue with some of Latimer’s criticisms in “Speechless.” As an observer of it all, I certainly don’t agree with his characterizations of some Bush administration officials. But looking back at the Bush years, the scene in the Oval Office adds context to the debate that is going on inside conservative circles today.

Right after the Republican Party’s across-the-board defeat last November, there was a wave of what-went-wrong self-analysis. Republicans were divided between those who believed the party had lost touch with conservative principles and those who believed it had failed to adapt to changed political and demographic circumstances.

Bush’s words in the Oval Office speak directly to that first group. You can argue whether Bush was a fiscal conservative at any time in his political career, but he certainly wasn’t in the White House. And some real fiscal conservatives, with their guy in charge, held their tongues.

Now, with unified Democratic control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, we’re seeing spending that makes Bush’s record look downright thrifty. Republicans have again found their voice on fiscal discipline. And some of them wish they had been more outspoken when a president of their own party was in the White House.

(Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.)

Text Only

Columns

‘Calico Joe’ evokes memories
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
The new “small” novel “Calico Joe” — John Grisham’s much-anticipated paean to the game of baseball — was the perfect traveling companion on a long drive from Mississippi to Fayetteville, Ark., to witness my niece’s graduation from the University of Arkansas last week.

May 19, 2012
Is there a censored race war?
Thomas Sowell/Syndicated columnist
When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks — beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work — that might seem to have been news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn’t.

May 19, 2012
The virtues of grunt work
By Cokie and Steven V. Roberts/Syndicated columnists
Occasionally a really bad idea gains currency and credibility. Here’s one: College students who work at unpaid internships are unfairly exploited by money-grubbing capitalists. In fact, goes this argument, the whole system is not only immoral but probably illegal and should be abolished.

May 19, 2012
Once, there were no words
By Rhetta Grimsely Johnson/Syndicated columnist
No matter how many times I stand in front of a group to speak, I get nervous. One of the reasons I went into print journalism was because I figured I’d never have to do any public speaking or wear grown-up clothes.

May 19, 2012
‘Finding Your Roots’ good show
By Cal Thomas/Syndicated Columnist
“Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr.” is another of the Harvard professor’s wonderful television series for PBS. This is “must-see TV” and a more than worthy sequel to three previous projects Gates has hosted about how some of us came to be what and who we are.

May 17, 2012
Moral duties in a muddied world
By Kathryn Jean Lopez/Syndicated columnist
In an election season in which the White House has instituted a policy that puts unprecedented limits on the constitutional right to freedom of religion, questions of conscience, duty and spiritual and moral obligation are of critical importance.

May 17, 2012
Colleges, development intertwined
By Sid Salter/Syndicated columnist
At his speech here to the movers and shakers in the Mississippi Delta’s business, agricultural, educational and political circles, Gov. Phil Bryant’s remarks were met with more than polite applause. Bryant, the mechanic’s son from Moorhead, understands the Delta region’s challenges as lessons from his boyhood.

May 16, 2012
Prolific circuit judge relieved of duty
By Wyatt Emmerich/Southside Sun
Relieving the best criminal judge of all his criminal cases is not the way to exercise responsibility as senior circuit judge. What on earth is Hinds County Senior Circuit Judge Tomie Green doing?

May 16, 2012
Romney braces for ‘conspiracy’
By Byron York/Syndicated columnist
“There will be an effort,” Mitt Romney said recently, “by the, quote, vast left-wing conspiracy to work together to put out their message and attack me.”
By those words, many observers thought Romney, speaking to Breitbart News, meant the press. After all, the Republican nominee is likely to face some pretty tough coverage from left-leaning outlets in the months ahead.

May 16, 2012
Invasion of the body snatchers
Diana West/Syndicated columnist
Remember the sci-fi cult classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers"? The 1956 movie is about a small town where extraterrestrial “pods” take over the townspeople. Even pillars of the community change into zombielike clones, as revealed by their blank stares and abnormal impulses. Outwardly, though, the “pod people” remain unchanged.

May 16, 2012
More Columns Headlines

Columns

Search Results

The conservative case against George W. Bush

Site Map

Contact Us