NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER: Underwhelmed

...Nixon...

...Their comments are reasoned but provocative, on point but critical...

...Nixon always talked a good conservative game...

...When conservative criticism started getting too loud, he would throw a bone to the right, usually calming them down...

...Alfred S. Regnery, publisher of The American Spectator, is writing a book on the conservative movement...

...And what a price we paid...

...But we do not like his fondness for big government, his spending record, or his neglect of his conservative base...

...May Mr...

...We believe that in foreign affairs, he needs to be reminded that as noble as spreading democracy around the world may be, the United States also has a duty to our own interests which, as Congressman Henry Hyde reminded Condoleezza Rice recently, may sometimes necessitate actions focused on more tangible returns than those of altruism...

...Nixon was, if nothing else, the master politician, and was willing to do whatever it took to get votes, regardless of the long-term consequences...

...He campaigned for limited government and against centralized power, for less regulation and lower taxes...

...There is still much, over the next three years, to be done...

...When he imposed wage and price controls, he realized full well that theywould hurt the economy, but freely admitted that short-term political gain trumped long-term economic considerations, stating: "Whenever political considerations are not present we can afford to look at things purely from an economic standpoint...

...But that will not be often...

...NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER Underwhelmed BY ALFRED S. REGNERY L IKE MOST CONSERVATIVES, we are not overwhelmed by George Bush's presidency, and we are doing, in this issue, what conservatives are supposed to do to Republican presidents who veer offcourse: let him know that we are displeased, and that he should not take us for granted...

...4 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 2006...

...In Nixon's case, "conservative enough" was not good enough, and it did not take long for conservatives to realize their mistake...

...He promised to appoint "strict constructionist" judges, but three out of four of his Supreme Court appointees voted with the majority in Roe v. Wade, and most of his lower court appointees were establishment Republican lawyers to whom strict constructionism was somebody else's game...

...Instead, he raised taxes, created new agencies, and expanded government...

...Bill Rusher, one of the architects of the Goldwater campaign in 1964 and a longtime and consistent critic of Pdchard Nixon, reminds us that conservatives had a choice in 1968, when Richard Nixon was nominated, but chose not to exercise it, convincing themselves that Nixon was "conservative enough...

...As economist Herb Stein said, "Probably more new regulation was imposed on the economy during the Nixon administration than in any other presidency since the New Deal...

...George W. Bush is not Richard Nixon...

...So we have asked several of our most able writers to examine the Bush presidency from a number of perspectives...

...We applaud the President for his tax cuts, for his efforts to reform Social Security, for his Supreme Court appointments, and for sparing us A1 Gore and John Kerry...

...Bush look more to the Reagan years, for guidance, than to those of Mr...

...By the time Nixon had imposed wage and price controls, had accelerated d~tente with the Soviet Union, had increased domestic discretionary spending over Lyndon Johnson by 60 percent, had created the Environmental Protection Agency (by executive order), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Consumer Products Safety Commission, giving these new agencies some of the most far-reaching regulatory authority in the history of the federal government, and had sold Taiwan down the river, conservatives realized that Nixon was going to be a disaster-and all of that was before Watergate, and I did not even mention Vietnam...