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Eight Wasted Years
Margaret Thatcher used to talk about the "ratchet effect." When the Left gets power, she said, they drive everything Left; when the Right gets power, they slow the Leftward drive, perhaps even halt it for a spell; but nothing ever gets moved to the Right. U.S. politics in the 21st century so far bears out this dismal analysis. What does the Right have to show for eight years of a Republican presidency? I supported George W. Bush in 2000 because I thought he had a conservative bone in his body somewhere. I supported him in 2004 because I thought him the lesser of two evils. At this point, I wouldn't let the fool park his car in my driveway. Bruce Bartlett was right, every damn word.
I see that some of my NRO colleagues are scratching around for shards of optimism -- of Hope! -- in the general wreckage. Good luck to them. I see nothing for conservatives to hope for in an Obama administration. We just have to stick it out. This shallow, ignorant, self-obsessed man, who held an actual job for just one year of his charmed life (low-grade editing for an obscure newsletter -- he felt, he tells us in Dreams, "like a spy behind enemy lines," the enemy of course being capitalism), this red-diaper baby and his wife, will be our First Couple for the next four years and some weeks. It'll be interesting. Interesting.
I have a simple message for Mr. Derbyshire: stuff it.
I'm tired of reading about how every smart Republican on the planet had it in for George Bush, never liked the man, never agreed with his policies, never agreed with his appointments, and in general was the Cassandra proclaiming how we were doomed.
If we'd only listened to Derb. Well, nuts to that.
You try running an administration, big boy, and then tell the rest of us plebians how it's done. You try balancing the different constituencies, the Democrats trying to gnaw your legs off, the hundred Senators each of whom thinks that he or she would be a better president, the feckless allies, the dishonorable media, the thousand demands for more and more dollars, and the various events that just pop up out of nowhere, and then you can castigate the man who did it for eight years.
I won't explain in great detail that we haven't had a successful attack on our country since 9/11. That housing prices are still higher than they were in 2000. That George Bush saw the mortgage meltdown coming and tried to fix Fannie and Freddie. That Bush fixed his biggest mistake, the strategy that was failing the reconstruction of Iraq, and got the new strategy and people right even as everyone at home hammered him. Derb should know all that.
But he thinks Bush is a 'fool'. Must be nice being right all the time. Clearly has a touch of Buckley in him. With that kind of track record, Derb chould write for the New York Times. Or run for President. |
Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-11-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=254948 |
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