Buckley: Bush Not A True Conservative
Do you think the GOP will get back to its conservative roots and get rid of NEOCONS?
(CBS) President Bush ran for office as a “compassionate conservative.” And he continues to nurture his conservative base — even issuing his first veto this week against embryonic stem cell research.
But lately his foreign policy has come under fire from some conservatives — including the father of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley.
Buckley finds himself parting ways with President Bush, whom he praises as a decisive leader but admonishes for having strayed from true conservative principles in his foreign policy.
In particular, Buckley views the three-and-a-half-year Iraq War as a failure.
“If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we’ve experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign,” Buckley says.
oh, booga booga. Bush is a conservative. Buckley supported him in 2000 and 2004 did he not? I think it’s time conservatives start taking responsiblity for helping put this turkey in office.
You are exactly right, Caroline because the Neocons designed this war in 1996 with a policy paper entitled “A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” Buckley has more inside knowledge than the common person like me and you had, and he was a war monger from day one.
The people that got us into this war were the first to throw Bush overboard. The GOP machine put into place the extremely expensive drug plan for senior citizens with one motive, which was to buy the endorsement of the AARP. But what else could the GOP due, as the buying power of all of us is decreased each day with the falling value of the dollar couple with rising inflation. Seniors needed the help because their savings were eroded with each passing day with CD rates that were a meager 1% at that point in time, perhaps a little more.
No one has a nest egg to depend on, unless they be a corporate thief on Wall Street because the costs of the military industrial complex has left of us bankrupt.
So again, Caroline, you are right because Buckley is an opportunistic phoney just like Bill Kristol and all of the other Neocons who orchestrated this invasion in the Middle East long before Bush entered office.
I think Buckley is in the camp of the whole “united conservatism” idea. But he’s definitely influential whether you think he’s a leader, a follower a neocon or whatever.
http://why-war.com/files/read.php?id=120
“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realmm” 1996
The blueprint for the Iraqi Freedom.
FYI
Negative Iraq Report Could Prompt Shift in Strategy
NPR- Debate over the next phase of the Iraq strategy is centering on a report showing that the Baghdad government has failed to meet even a single major economic or political target for improving stability.
A draft version of the administration’s progress report circulated among various government agencies in Washington on Monday as White House Press Secretary Tony Snow tried to lower expectations, saying that all of the additional troops had just gotten in place and it would be unrealistic to expect major progress by now.
“You are not going to expect all the benchmarks to be met at the beginning of something,” Snow said. “I’m not sure everyone’s going to get an `A’ on the first report.”
The document is to be delivered to Capitol Hill by the end of the week. The Senate, meanwhile, is expected to vote this week on a proposal by Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA), and Chuck Hagel (R-NB), requiring that U.S. troops spend as much time at home as they do in combat. Another proposal, by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), would order troop withdrawals in 120 days.
One U.S. official said Monday the report will push the administration to consider its next move. Another senior official, however, said President Bush and his advisers already have decided no change in policy is justified yet because there was not enough evidence from Iraq.
The senior administration official said the report “will present a picture of satisfactory progress on some benchmarks and not on others.”
Whether conditions merit a strategy shift, such as troop reductions or other scaling back of U.S. operations, will be decided after another status report on Iraq due Sept. 15, said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk more freely about internal deliberations.
The Sept. 15 report originally was proposed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and then enshrined into law by Congress.
In the Senate, several Republican-backed proposals are being drafted that would force a new course in Iraq, including one by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Ben Nelson (D-NE) that would require U.S. troops to abandon combat missions.
Collins and Nelson say their binding amendment would order the U.S. mission to focus on training the Iraqi security forces, targeting al-Qaida members and protecting Iraq’s borders.
“My goal is to redefine the mission and set the stage for a significant but gradual drawdown of our troops next year,” Collins said Monday.
GOP support for the war has eroded steadily since Bush’s decision in January to send some 30,000 additional troops to Iraq. At the time, Bush said the Iraqis agreed to meet certain benchmarks, such as enacting a law to divide the nation’s oil reserves.
This spring, Congress agreed to continue funding the war through September but demanded that Bush certify on July 15 and again on Sept. 15 that the Iraqis were living up to their political promises or forgo U.S. aid dollars.
The first U.S. administration official said it is highly unlikely that Bush will withhold or suspend aid to the Iraqis based on the July report.
John,
The story apparently is that people like Lugar were the beginning of the stampede. There’s no more “wait til Sept”. It’s all about “start the debate NOW” apparently. I guess the Senators and congress have decided that the waiting until Sept only expands the bloodbath that’s going to take place in ‘08.
caroline
Yes I think you are right and this is why!
Poll: Bush approval drops to low of 29%
WASHINGTON — Opposition to the Iraq war has reached a record high, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, a development likely to complicate President Bush’s efforts to hold together Republican support as the Senate begins debate this week on Pentagon priorities.
Bush’s approval rating has reached a new low: 29%.
In the survey, taken Friday through Sunday, one in five Americans say the increase in U.S. forces in Iraq since January has made the situation there better. Half say it hasn’t made a difference.
More than seven in 10 favor removing nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by April.
Still, 55% say Congress should wait to develop a new policy on Iraq until Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, delivers a promised assessment in September; 40% say Congress should act now.
The White House is scrambling to prevent more defections among Republicans in the debate over the defense authorization bill, a platform for amendments on the war. Such senior GOP senators as Richard Lugar of Indiana and Pete Domenici of New Mexico in recent days have called on Bush to change course in Iraq.
“It makes it much harder for him to hold any Republican in the House or Senate,” says Dean Lacy of Dartmouth College, who studies public opinion. “They have to run for re-election. They realize now that Bush can’t help them at all; he may hurt them.”
The results reflect broad dissatisfaction with Bush and the country’s direction:
•Sixty-two percent say the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, the first time that number has topped 60%.
•Two-thirds say Bush shouldn’t have intervened in the case of former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was sentenced to 2½ years in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation of who leaked a CIA operative’s identity. Bush voided Libby’s prison sentence but let his conviction stand.
•Six in 10 say the economy is worse than it was five years ago, and the same number predict that economic conditions are getting worse.
Bush now has had both the highest approval rating in Gallup’s history — 90% in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks — and one of the lowest. Among modern presidents, only Richard Nixon, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter ever had a lower rating.
By 62%-36%, those surveyed say an impeachment inquiry against Bush, promoted by some liberal websites including ImpeachBush.com, wouldn’t be justified. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Congress has no intention of holding such proceedings. Republicans oppose the idea 91%-9%. Democrats support it 54%-44%.
There isn’t any CONSERVE in conservative anymore.
[...] The go it alone, bull in the china shop, policeman of the world foreign policy got us into the mess we are in. The father of the conservative movement William F Buckley made it clear this is a radical foreign policy against core principals of being conservative. [...]