Saturday - June 02, 2007

 Peggy Noonan-Bush Breaks from Conservatives

Peggy Noonan understands the big picture.  Conservative Republicans aren't breaking away from Bush, it is George W. Bush who has broken with the Republican Party and its conservative agenda.  From here on in, conservatives owe George Bush nothing.  

We backed him when he didn't gear the country for war (what a missed opportunity).  We backed him as he mishandled the occupation of Iraq.  We backed him when he allowed the Taliban to regroup in Afghanistan.  We held our noses when he nominated Miers.  We backed him on Gonzales, even though he is incompetent.  

One the one issue that defines the conservative movement, George Bush abandons us and takes up with the other side.  To add insult to injury, he even calls us racists and haters.

What do we owe Bush?  Nothing.  We owe the Republic our continued support of the war in Iraq, but beyond that, it is time to take our party back.

We can start with defeating this amnesty bill that forgives criminals of their misdeeds and that encourages another wave of illegal immigration by offering hope that future aliens will also be granted amnesty.

What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker--"At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement.

I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they're defensive, and they're defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill--one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions--this is, always and on every issue, the administration's default position--but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate.

They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true!

Trackposted to The Right Nation, Outside the Beltway, Rightlinx, The Pink Flamingo, and MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Technorati Tags: illegal immigration conservative Bush
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