Personality, not principle
May 5, 2007 Politics and Poker
Tom Bernstein went to Yale University with Bush and co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team with him. In 2004 he donated the maximum $2,000 to the president’s reelection campaign and gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee. This year he is switching his support to Obama. He is one of many former Bush admirers who find the Democrat newcomer appealing.Matthew Dowd, Bush’s chief campaign strategist in 2004, announced last month that he was disillusioned with the war in Iraq and the president’s “my way or the highway” style of leadership – the first member of Bush’s inner circle to denounce the leader’s performance in office.
Although Dowd has yet to endorse a candidate, he said the only one he liked was Obama.
This demonstrates only that Bernstein and Dowd were fundamentally cronies, not principled supporters of George Bush. I say this not because Bush is beyond criticism, but it is inconceivable that a political conservative could support Barack Obama based on how “appealing” and “likable” he is. They liked Bush’s charisma then; now that the reality has set in, they seek a new boyfriend. You may not like a man’s leadership style, but the idea that this could make you choose, for his successor, someone who is the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate means that you could not have been a conservative in the first place.
And what, then, of this?
But last week a surprising new name joined the chorus of praise for the antiwar Obama – that of Robert Kagan, a leading neoconservative and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century in the late 1990s, which called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Kagan is an informal foreign policy adviser to the Republican senator John McCain, who remains the favoured neoconservative choice for the White House because of his backing for the troops in Iraq.
But in an article in the Washington Post, Kagan wrote approvingly that a keynote speech by Obama at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs was “pure John Kennedy”, a neocon hero of the cold war.
Kagan — who, the article does not tell you, now works for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace — is in at least a momentary thrall to Obama, as this article demonstrates. He paints him as an absolute hawk, admittedly focusing on a speech but not so admittedly ignoring Barack’s entire voting record or any aspect of his actual political past. It’s odd considering Kagan’s own considerable bona fides, much less his current association with the McCain campaign. But perhaps that article is overstating the case, and challenging Obama with his own words; if so, the Times article is guilty of even more overstatement.
Kagan aside, any move from Bush to Obama says far more about the moving man than either politician.
May 6th, 2007 at 7:51 am
…you could not have been a conservative in the first place.
Whoa, Nellie. It’s Bush who wasn’t the conservative. The others are just figuring it out now.
As for the opinions of Bernstein, Dowd, Kagan et.al. there’s some suspicion among the netroots that things aren’t what they seem.
…any move from Bush to Obama says far more about the moving man than either politician.
Same as it ever was. But it might make sense to also look at some unique trends: the latest Newsweek poll shows Bush at his lowest approval rating yet in their polling – 28%. Yeah, I know Rasmussen shows him at 39% and everyone else in between.
But maybe instead of invoking Harry Truman, Bushies should start invoking a more recent president who tanked similarly and then gained redemption out of office — Jimmy Carter.
Why not? They’ve already got a lot in common — they’re both born-again Christians.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Bush may or may not be a conservative. I think he is one who has failed to govern conservatively, if that has any meaning. It doesn’t matter. Say you’re right: These guys, as you suggest, thought they were getting one. Now they want the most liberal Senator?
Your point about Jimmy Carter, Ara, makes no sense.
May 6th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
If enough people strongly want to believe Obama is one of them, or at least on their side, that becomes their reality and he gets in. So his job is to ward off anything that will clarify his future direction.
May 7th, 2007 at 9:47 am
These guys, as you suggest, thought they were getting [a conservative]. Now they want the most liberal Senator?
I’m suspicious too — but not of Obama.
Your point about Jimmy Carter, Ara, makes no sense.
What’s so complicated? Elected one time, a lover not a fighter, a born-again Christian who speaks from the heart, and disgraced and disrespected in his own time. All that’s left is the Nobel Peace Prize!
May 8th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Oh, and gas prices at an all time high!
George W. Bush: The New Jimmy Carter.
May 8th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Not quite yet, Ara, but we’re getting there. Can you explain to me how the President of the United States controls gasoline prices, by the way?
Bush was, “sadly” as liberals like to say, elected not once but twice. And, “sadly,” unlike Carter, he was — no matter what you think of the first election — re-elected.
How has Bush been disgraced, exactly? By being unpopular among liberals and Europeans?
May 8th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
President Bush and the Republican Congress could have done far more to open up domestic oil production and refining, and to encourage nuclear generation of energy. I saw no urgency to their feeble push for energy independence. Maybe Prince Bandar can explain.