Capitol Ideas/Conservative Bird, Liberal Bush
Bethell, Tom
CAPITOL IDEAS CONSERVATIVE BIRD, LIBERAL BUSH The story so far: Republicans keep getting into trouble because they have so little sense of entitlement or legitimacy. They don't understand that...
...But he seemed to think of them as photo opportunities...
...The candidate of choice at Chumps is of course George Bush...
...This changed with the New Deal...
...Instead of always being criticized for helping our rich friends . . ." That's been about the intellectual level I'm afraid...
...senior officials nervously read the Washington Post in the morning andstudied the network news in the evening...
...He's a nice enough fellow, of Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent...
...Thank goodness you abandoned your principles (such as they were)," they will say, "but don't expect us to believe you have adopted ours...
...Bill Brock, secretary...
...And so the "realignment" that so many anticipated in the Republican party never did happen...
...We can forget about Alexander Haig, who is actually campaigning for tax increases...
...Can it be they will repeat their tax mistake of 1984...
...Maybe hire a few conservative speechwriters, even bring in Pat Buchanan for window dressing...
...I added (TAS, February 1985) that "these people—Deaver & Co— are going to get President Reagan into big trouble before very long, if they haven't already gone a long way in that direction, on the topic of arms control...
...Oh, sure, the Gipper was going to have to do some campaigning outside the Beltway to bring the people along with him...
...And so it was that the same old Republican Establishment retained control...
...Those who yearn simply for constitutional government and the rule of law had best get behind Rep...
...Evidently he thought of policy in terms of its support rather than its wisdom...
...My sense of George Bush is that, like the busi12 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1987 ness establishment in general, he thinks of government as little more than an elaborate system of rewards, posts, and emoluments that the winners are entitled to hand out to their friends—provided they don't blow it by trying to alter the fundamentals of policy, which is the Democrats' preserve...
...The postwar period shows that the Country Clubbers have a tenacious grip on the Republican party and they aren't going to let go without a fight...
...There has been almost no criticism of Reagan from his right...
...On this point Reagan made the worst miscalculation of his political career...
...Well, how about this for an idea...
...Reagan's foreign policy is indeed in disarray, and who has been in charge of it...
...Then he reached to the liberal bush . . . There was some basis for thinking along these lines, unfortunately...
...Not that he's going to get one...
...The Beirut hostages never were Reagan's responsibility...
...What is needed is someone who knows what he wants and above all knows how to say no...
...Reagan's actions on Iran make Jimmy Carter look statesmanlike, frankly...
...There was some elaborate handshaking, dues to be paid (just sign here, don't worry we'll make it up later), and he's been an honorary member and duly grateful ever since...
...The Democrats would probably beat Bush with almost anyone except Jesse Jackson, however, so perhaps we don't have to worry about him...
...If he thinks it is going to be redeemed by an arms control treaty, he has been spending too much time reading the Washington Post...
...The framers thought of government officials as analogous to umpires, administering laws impartially...
...Not that there is any way Reagan will ever get the liberal (history-book writers') support he seems to crave...
...They don't understand that government was envisioned by the framers of the Constitution as a neutral enterprise, with the laws applying equally to all...
...and, hey there hard-charging Charlie Wick, Armand Hammer says we should tone down the rhetoric at the Voice of America...
...The Democrats established a new role for government as a player that was supposed to join in on the losing side, the idea being to equalize the score...
...And "support" he seemed to think of as comparable to box office in the movies...
...Reagan surrounded himself with people who thought of policy in terms of its impact on that night's, or perhaps the next night's, evening news...
...He seems to have believed that the credit he would get if the hostages were freed would far outweigh the blame he might incur for violating his own declaratory policies on terrorism and on Iran...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1987 13...
...hardly a reassuring prospect...
...Reagan had Rose Garden receptions for the released hostages...
...The supply-siders say not to worry, he won't make it, but don't forget the Junior Chumps (Lion, Elk & Rotary divisions) have all shaken George's hand in the last decade...
...Reagan's great weakness turns out to have been his craving for popularity—a quality that does not endear one to a man in authority...
...Meanwhile let's slap some import quotas on those infernal Japanese autos, beef up the Export-Import Bank, see if we can't do some business with that charismatic Machel in Maputo, add some new cash to the IMF so their Third World loans can repay our banks (which are, believe us, strapped...
...Carter's Iran hostages (Embassy personnel) really were his responsibility, he tried to rescue them but had bad luck and failed...
...The conservatives were Reagan's fan club and he figured he had those birds in the hand...
...In retrospect I think that Reagan has been badly hurt by the virtual taboo against criticizing him in conservative circles...
...Doesn't Bethell know we should be grateful for small favors...
...Imagine the conservative outcry if Jimmy Carter had spouted those fantasies about abolishing nuclear weapons...
...Come on in, Ron...
...Don't count it out—they are so blinded by ideology...
...Iissimple, really...
...How Reagan can have placed himself at the mercy of people of such poor political acumen is perhaps the major mystery of his Administration...
...George Shultz, who in turn took his marching orders from the Foreign Service...
...Pollsters, the very antithesis of leadership, really should be banned from the White House...
...but basically (they said at Chumps) we're going to run a tight ship here...
...Mike Deaver was quoted by the Washington Post's Lou Cannon at that time as saying of Reagan: "He will be more realistic and more pragmatic than he has been...
...So let's all lower our voices for once and see if we can't be constructive...
...Failing Bush, Bob Dole looms on the horizon...
...let Tom Winter and the Human Events crowd into the Oval Office once a year for an interview with the Gipper...
...The bad news for conservatives is that Reagan no longer has to face the electorate," I wrote in this space eightby Tom Bethell een months ago, adding that Reagan "has chosen.to insulate himself with a senior layer of advisers—I am thinking of the pragmatic firm of Shultz, McFarlane, Baker, Darman & Deaver—who are more in sympathy with Inner Beltway analysis than they are with the electorate...
...That should keep that side of the aisle happy...
...He is brimming over with ideas and genuinely relishes them (it's been a long time since the Republicans had a candidate like that...
...Mike Deaver, supplicant...
...He is, well, Ronald Reagan—just an actor...
...course, but that is hardly what is needed in the Oval Office...
...whose worldview in turn reflected the Beltway consensus of permanent bureaucracy, the State Department, the journalists, the Democrats .. Reagan became President with the tacit understanding that . . . look fellas, I'll read it but you guys are going to have to produce and direct and be sure that we come in under budget...
...We'd go way up in the polls and we'd be the heroes for once...
...Everyone I know who has worked in the Reagan White House says this...
...Since then his presidency has gone downhill...
...W hat a terrible disappointment President Reagan has turned out to be...
...It has been hard for conservatives to see this partly because it is exactly what the liberals were saying about Reagan for years...
...At least Reagan gives us rhetorical support, if nothing else . . .") Popular support is indeed desirable, indeed essential, for a President, butthe trouble is that (as measured by pollsters) its decline doesn't show up until some time after the erroneous policy-course has been set...
...The Governor has that useful old conservative rhetoric down pat," they said among themselves...
...Again, he would be only too happy to carry out the Chumps' agenda...
...that is, once they realized that Reagan indeed was willing to read the script handed him by "pragmatic" Republicans...
...Unable to counter this shift, the Republicans found themselves stuck with the villain's role: siding with the winners...
...As for trying to woo the liberals, hasn't Reagan yet heard that the policies they prefer have led to one disaster after another...
...Dole can project an image of toughness, which the electorate may well be looking for, and indeed he clearly is no wimp...
...n the day after his triumphant re-election with an unprecedented electoral sweep in 1985, Reagan, having campaigned for Strategic Defense, said that he now had "an opportunity to press for a fresh start in arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union...
...I heard there was even some murmuring about my mild, February 1985 comments quoted above...
...Significantly enough, the liberals have now stopped saying it, and they stopped once they realized how true it was...
...they roared from the country club door...
...The Gipper was their man and they saw him coming years ago in California...
...Nothing but an actor...
...And I am'as confident that Kemp would defeat any Democrat in the general election as I lack confidence that Bush would...
...Possibly Pete du Pont would also...
...It is not at all reassuring that the news media Praetorian guard seems to have decided that Dole is their kind of Republican...
...Jack Kemp, and the sooner the better...
...If we could somehow spring the hostages, think how great that would look on television...
...The same Old Guard stayed in charge...
...And it was perhaps best put by Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich of Georgia: Reagan isn't Orson Welles, who wrote his own scripts, directed the movies, and THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1987 11 acted in them, Gingrich told a journalist recently...
...And this, undoubtedly, was how Reagan himself thought of policy...
...The Gipper wants an arms deal with the Soviets...
...Podhoretz is right...
...orally, it's worth taking a closer look at Reagan's mistake...
...Until they can find the courage to believe in the neutrality of government, Republicans in Washington will continue to slink along guiltily in the shadows...
...Hey, they took some of our guys in Beirut...
...Dole is making conservative noises now, but he cannot be trusted...
...Washington Watering Hole: Chumps and Charleys, "dedicated to serving the interests of businessmen in government," Malcolm Baldrige, chairman...
...They are unanimous on the point...
...The collective mindset of the Reagan White House seems to have been: "How we doing, fellas...
...Likewise, incidentally, some of the Democrats—Dick Gephardt, for example...
...Voters or pollsters measured the one, customers the other...
...Hmmmmm, do you notice the media keep showing those families on television...
...and he alone among the Republican candidates would bring about the long-delayed realignment of the party...
...It is appropriate, after all, to be grateful to those who recognize your talents...
...Norman Podhoretz recently alluded to Reagan's "insatiable greed for popularity...
...But a compass seems to be missing from his makeup and one can see how easily he would be captured within the Beltway—raising taxes to balance the budget and so on...
...The Labour party in England repeated its 1983 errors this year, and the Democrats today have much the same ideology...
...Worthless Wirthlin was brought in to poll the populace (mustn't risk being unpopular, must we...
...Charles Z. Wick, hard-charger...
Vol. 20 • August 1987 • No. 8
