President George W. Bush is not a true conservative. If you have any doubts, just take a peek at
American Conservative. He's made a number of strategic decisions during his reign-on-terror that may cost him dearly on Nov. 2. It's certainly cost him the support of many of the writers for this right-wing magazine.
Brace yourselves, some conservative voices to ponder below the break.
Is anyone more conservative then Pat Buchanan? I don't know, but here's what he's saying in
Retreat of Empire (9/13 edition in the archives)
As has been written here before, we are not an imperial people. We do not have the will or perseverance for empire. We have no desire to rule other nations. Now the "white man's burden" is beginning to weigh on our military and imperil the re-election of a president who, at the instigation of the neocons, has foolishly committed American power and wealth to some enterprise called "the world democratic revolution."
Oh my, calling the president foolish for listening to the neocons. Buchanan also pounds home some of the economic numbers that support this profound thought: Pat Buchanan knows conservatives, and George Walker Bush is no conservative.
In the same publication, there's another piece by Paul W. Schroeder, Misreading the 9/11 report that questions our response (thus the Bush administration's response) to the 9/11 report.
This report says that the United States needs but does not have a long-range strategy that recognizes the centrality of foreign policy. In the vital global struggle with the terrorists over ideas, influence, allegiance, recruitment of followers, and commitment, we are losing. Our world influence and image have deteriorated so badly that measures we need others to take for our mutual benefit become less likely simply because we urge them. A more decisive verdict of policy failure is hard to imagine.
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The differences between Bush and Kerry in personal qualities, beliefs, and abilities, though important, need not be decisive here, and the differences in their announced programs, goals, and policies for Iraq and elsewhere are notoriously not that far apart. But this commission's analysis and recommendations call for major change on the foreign-policy side of the struggle against terrorism, and to do any good a change must be perceived as credible--not just in America but especially in other parts of the world. Re-electing Bush rules it out.
This president cannot change himself or his administration's foreign policy. That would contradict his style, character, and self-image, and overthrow his whole campaign and appeal to his base. He must go on as he has, insisting in the face of every evidence of failure that things are going well, that he and America are right and good and that only evildoers fail to see it.
<snip>
The same facts that make serious change in the direction of American foreign policy impossible under Bush make it possible under Kerry. The crucial factor is not whether he is better qualified by education, experience, intellect, and temperament. It is rather that he is not burdened by the crushing baggage Bush carries--the Bush Doctrine, the open disdain for international institutions and law, the choice of preventive war, the misleading arguments for it, the botched occupation of Iraq, the stains of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Kerry already enjoys in much of the world, especially Europe, such credibility as a harbinger of change that some call for toning down the praise so as not to create a backlash in the United States.
One more thought, intended to sweeten slightly for conservatives the bitter pill: many think that voting out an incumbent president in wartime shows national irresoluteness, even cowardice. Rationally and historically this makes no sense. It is no more a sign of weakness to change leadership in wartime if success depends on it than it is to remove a baseball pitcher who is getting shelled in order to prevent the game from becoming hopelessly lost.
My completely uninformed guess is that there will be a lower voter turnout among traditional conservatives; though I fervently hope many will turn out and vote for John Kerry.
I know, the polls show the Republican base more firmy comitted then the Democratic base. But there are strong voices from the right questioning the direction Bush has taken this country.