Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

In Lubbock, Texas – Lubbock Comma Texas, the heart of Texas conservatism – they dislike President Bush. He has lost them. I was there and saw it. Confusion has been followed by frustration has turned into resentment, and this is huge. Everyone knows the president’s poll numbers are at historic lows, but if he is over in Lubbock, there is no place in this country that likes him. I made a speech and moved around and I was tough on him and no one – not one – defended or disagreed. I did the same in North Carolina recently, and again no defenders. I did the same in Fresno, Calif., and no defenders, not one.

He has left on-the-ground conservatives – the local right-winger, the town intellectual reading Burke and Kirk, the old Reagan committeewoman – feeling undefended, unrepresented and alone.

This will have impact down the road.

I finally understand the party nostalgia for Reagan. Everyone speaks of him now, but it wasn’t that way in 2000, or 1992, or 1996, or even ‘04.

I think it is a manifestation of dislike for and disappointment in Mr. Bush. It is a turning away that is a turning back. It is a looking back to conservatism when conservatism was clear, knew what it was, was grounded in the facts of the world.

The reasons for the quiet break with Mr. Bush: spending, they say first, growth in the power and size of government, Iraq. I imagine some of this: a fine and bitter conservative sense that he has never had to stand in his stockinged feet at the airport holding the bin, being harassed. He has never had to live in the world he helped make, the one where grandma’s hip replacement is setting off the beeper here and the child is crying there. And of course as a former president, with the entourage and the private jets, he never will. I bet conservatives don’t like it.

–Peggy Noonan, “The View from Gate 14”, The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2008

Towards the end of the Clinton administration, I worked with someone who claimed that he was “sick and tired of conservative [plural anatomical expletive].” He defined “conservative [plural anatomical expletive]” as people who constantly attacked President Clinton and took shots at his character failures. A devoted Clinton supporter, he regarded Clinton’s critics as malcontents, people who were never satisfied with anything in America, people who seemed to enjoy being disgruntled.

Back then, I regarded this coworker as a typical loudmouthed “progressive”—but now, all these years later, I think I see his point. The Republicans Peggy Noonan recently met—the ones who are constantly complaining about President Bush and bemoaning his lack of ideological resemblance to Reagan—are little more than “conservative [plural anatomical expletive].”

Is Bush a severely flawed leader? No doubt—but these conservatives knew that when they voted for him in 2000 and re-elected him in 2004. Bush was not Reagan and never claimed to be—so why are these folks so surprised that he has not governed as effectively as Reagan governed?

Enough with the sulking and whining. Yes, times are tough. Yes, the gas prices are too high and consumer confidence is too low. Yes, people are anxious, worried, nervous. As Dick Cheney might put it, “So?”

America has been through nightmarish times before. We’ve overcome fears of nuclear war, previous fears of economic collapse, fears that our homeland would be subjected to another terrorist attack. We’ve come through these tough times, and we’ll do so again.

I find it amazing that the conservatives who backed Bush because they feared a de facto third Clinton term and backed him again because they feared John “Global Test” Kerry as President have suddenly decided that Bush is worthless now. Talk bout fair-weather friends.

Bush will be viewed by history as just slightly better than his father. He never came close to Reagan’s greatness—but common sense would have told his new conservative critics that he was not going to match or surpass Reagan’s record. Why are they complaining as though they were duped?

It’s one thing for John McCain to dump on Bush for his perceived mishandling of post-Katrina New Orleans: with Bush’s poll numbers in the septic tank, McCain has to establish himself as someone who will not follow the Bush blueprint. It’s another thing for those who were all gung-ho about Bush in 2000 and 2004 to turn on him now. What happened to “in for a penny, in for a pound”?

It’s bad enough when “progressives” blame Bush for everything that’s wrong in this country; it’s even worse when conservatives do the same. For example, how is Bush responsible for the high gas prices? That’s the fault of the “progressives” who fought against previous efforts to drill for oil in our own country. There’s no reason for the most powerful nation in the world to have to be dependent on foreign oil. Bush can’t be blamed for this state of affairs, so conservative voters shouldn’t hold him responsible. As the philosopher Sinead O’Connor once said, fight the real enemy.

It’s sad that “Bush Derangement Syndrome” has afflicted the right. Conservative voters who are lashing out at Dubya conveniently forget that just a few years ago, they viewed him as a firewall blocking the viruses of socialism and secularism. All of a sudden, they act as though the left was right all along. It’s intellectual dishonesty.

I’m not happy about Bush’s performance either, but eight years ago I knew he was not going to be the greatest President of all-time. The whole point of electing Bush was to stop the corruption of the Clinton-Gore era, not to re-establish Reaganism. The whole point of re-electing Bush was to stop Kerry from moving the country in a hard-left direction, not to remake the country in a conservative mold.

Bush has lived up, or down, to expectations. He will not be regarded as an excellent President. Yet, all of the country’s problems cannot be laid at his feet—and it’s foolish for his one-time supporters to act as though he’s to blame for every dark cloud in the sky.

The three detectives accused in a fatal New York shooting are acquitted. More from the Washington Post.

John McCain rips President Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina. At least he didn’t go on a Kanye West-style rant.

Actor Wesley Snipes is sentenced to three years in prison on tax-fraud charges.

Legendary Boston sports anchor Don Gillis passes away at 85.

Why isn’t Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick giving his friend Barack Obama better advice?

While Patrick’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign wasn’t flawless, he never made errors commensurate to the ones Obama has committed. Patrick never trashed working-class Bay State voters as “bitter”, never made excuses for extremist rhetoric from friends, and never asked reporters to let him finish his breakfast instead of answering tough questions.

Patrick’s flaws were relatively minor. He did express scorn for those who opposed the 2003 Supreme Judicial Court ruling authorizing same-sex marriage, but the political tide against the ruling had already ebbed by the time he announced his bid for governor. He gave evasive answers to questions concerning his advocacy on behalf of convicted rapist Ben LaGuer and his controversial actions as head of the Civil Rights Division of the Clinton Justice Department, but those answers caused little political damage.

Remember the halo Obama used to have around his head before the scandals involving Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezo and Bill Ayers erupted? Patrick had that same halo around his head two years ago—and his political adversaries couldn’t knock it off. Patrick was so skilled, so slick, so smooth that his Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, couldn’t lay a finger on him; Patrick’s political gifts (including his effective exploitation of anti-Mitt Romney sentiment in Massachusetts) powered him to a 21-point victory over Healey in the general election.

Like Obama, Patrick had a far-left track record during his previous stint in public service—but unlike Obama, Patrick understood that the key to victory was presenting himself to non-liberals as a man of moderate temperament and sound decision-making. Massachusetts is a nominally liberal state, but it had elected three Republican governors between 1990 and 2002 because many voters were deeply concerned about allowing the Commonwealth to drift too far to the left.

Patrick pointed to his private-sector experience as proof that he was not an anti-business radical. Patrick denounced income-tax cuts, but proposed broad property-tax relief (which he has not delivered on as governor, and probably never will). Patrick used plenty of hope-and-change rhetoric, to be sure, but he was able to convince voters who had previously gone GOP in past gubernatorial elections that he could be an effective steward of the state.

Patrick knew how to transcend political boundaries—something that his friend Obama has clearly failed to do on the campaign trail. You would have never heard Patrick talk about how he didn’t want teenage mothers to be “punished” with a baby. You would have never heard Patrick attempt to rationalize the hatred that motivated a minister to call God’s damnation upon America. Patrick was simply too smart for that.

Why isn’t Patrick telling Obama to knock it off? Perhaps he has, and Obama, in his arrogance and stubbornness, isn’t listening. It’s clear from his overrated Pennsylvania speech on race that Obama is a rather hard-headed individual: surely, he must have been told that it was absolutely necessary to wash his hands of Rev. Wright, but he refused to do so out of a bizarre sense of personal loyalty. Perhaps there’s just no getting through to Obama.

Patrick obviously loves and respects Obama. However, one has to wonder if Patrick is looking at Obama’s foibles and sighing to himself. Obama is making amateur mistakes, while Patrick was an absolute professional on his way to victory in Massachusetts.

It’s impossible to imagine Patrick discrediting himself as a Presidential contender the way Obama has. Patrick was trained at the Bill Clinton School of Faux-Moderation; he understood that many voters had an innate mistrust of (real or perceived) radicalism, and tailored his candidacy to appeal to those who didn’t want an apparent “wild-eyed moonbat” in power. Like Clinton after January 20, 1993, Patrick kept his ultra-liberalism under wraps until after he won the election.

If Obama loses to John McCain in November, it wouldn’t be surprising if Patrick begins to hear a Presidential tune playing in his ear. Patrick has had an absolutely disastrous run as Massachusetts governor, but he can effectively explain his failures away by pointing to the obstructionism of Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi, a fellow Democrat who has been less than enamored of Patrick’s ideas. Obama’s pre-scandal success has made it somewhat easier for a “progressive” African-American Democrat to become President in the future.  It’s hard to see Patrick running for President in 2012, since the likely Obama comparisons would doom him at that point. Yet, depending on how things shake out, he could be a formidable Democrat contender in either 2016 or 2020.

Patrick may be a woeful governor, but he was an effective vote-getter. Anything Obama can do, he can do better.

Nat Hentoff, Karl Rove, Dean Barnett, Dan Schnur, Robert Novak and Dan Henninger on the ‘08 election.

The Wall Street Journal on Gen. David Petraeus’ well-deserved promotion.

Singer Al Wilson passes away at 68. Also, singer Paul Davis passes away at 60.

Walter Williams on the GOP and the black vote.

Hillary Clinton blows out Barack Obama in Pennsylvania. More from Fred Barnes, Jed Babbin and Jennifer Rubin.

So why did John McCain vote against making Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday in 1983?

Earlier this month, McCain was heckled at an event in Memphis honoring the fortieth anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. At the event, McCain acknowledged that he voted against making Dr. King’s birthday a holiday, saying that he was wrong to do so. The crowed didn’t appreciate his politically incorrect vote, and refused to hide their feelings.

McCain does not have a history of intentional prejudice, or a track record of the unconscious prejudice exhibited by the likes of Trent Lott in 2002. So we can set aside old-school racial bias as an explanation for his failure to support a King holiday.

Thus, one has to wonder if McCain’s one-time animus towards King has more to do with combat and less to do with color.

Unlike John Kerry, McCain does not have a history of speaking out against the Vietnam War; during his captivity in Hanoi, McCain chose not to meet with antiwar activists because he feared such a meeting would be used as propaganda for the antiwar side.  It’s reasonable to conclude that McCain always believed that the initial decision to go into Vietnam was morally right, that it was a just cause for the United States to attempt to check communism by aiding South Vietnam.

If McCain always believed that the Vietnam War was just, he must have also believed that Dr. King was wrong to vociferously oppose it. King angered many Americans with his fierce denunciation of the war in April 1967;  his declaration that America was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” actually generated the same negative heat that Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s remarks about US foreign policy now generate.  Even MLK’s mainstream-media supporters began to turn on him, accusing him of foolishly playing into the hands of those on the far right who believed that he was in league with pro-Communist forces.

Fifteen years after he was murdered, King’s opposition to the Vietnam War was still controversial. Jesse Helms and Patrick Buchanan were strongly opposed to the concept of an MLK holiday, forcefully arguing that the US should not honor a man who once seemingly damned his own country for trying to contain the spread of Communism. Although President Reagan ultimately signed MLK’s holiday into law, he was also initially opposed to the honor, presumably for the same reasons.

As a Vietnam veteran—a man who suffered for five and a half years at the hands of Communists—McCain was, in all likelihood, not terribly happy about the prospect of honoring a man who claimed that America had no business in Vietnam. McCain clearly held a grudge against King for opposing the war, and acted upon that grudge by refusing to endorse the creation of a King holiday.

Based on his remarks earlier this month (“We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans”), it’s also clear that McCain has gotten over his grudge. While King’s language about the Vietnam War was excessively harsh, the positive aspects of his legacy outweigh the negative nature of his antiwar rhetoric. King deserved to be honored with a holiday, and McCain now recognizes that his 1983 view of King was shortsighted.

The mainstream press will certainly make an issue of McCain’s vote against the King holiday; if he defeats Barack Obama, particularly by a significant margin, the press will point to McCain’s ’83 vote as “proof” that his Presidential victory was delivered by extremist reactionaries who loathe both King and Obama. Intelligent Americans will reject this explanation as obvious nonsense, but the blue states will forever regard McCain as a beneficiary of bigotry.

McCain and King are more alike than different. Both men made critical mistakes: the latter was much too harsh in his remarks about America’s effort in Vietnam, and the former was blinded by anger towards those remarks, and lashed out by refusing to vote for an honor the latter richly deserved.  Yet McCain and King are both American heroes, men of character and courage, men who passed life’s most difficult tests, men whose actions helped keep the country great, strong and free. From a certain perspective, it will be very strange if McCain becomes President twenty-five years to the month after the MLK holiday was signed into law. From another perspective, it will be a traditionally American event: one freedom fighter achieving victory twenty-five years after another freedom fighter achieved honor.

Jed Babbin, John Fund, Robert Novak and Michael Barone on Barack Obama.

William Kristol on religion and the ‘08 election.

The Forbidden Kingdom tops the charts.