Compassionate Conservatism lead directly to Barack Hussein Obama, just like the first President Bush and his stated desire to be known as “The Education President” lead to the immature Bill Clinton. The same people (David Frum, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker) who are flapping their gums about the tea partiers, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin are the ones who have very little problem with President Obama and I suspect actually pulled the lever for him. By the way Newt Gingrich ought to get lost.
by Jonah Goldberg
I attended the Cincinnati Tax Day tea-party rally as a speaker. But it was more interesting to be an observer.
First, here’s what I didn’t see. I didn’t see a single racist or bigoted sign or hear a single such comment. Nor did I see any evidence of “homegrown fascism.” Though in fairness, such things are often in the eye of the beholder, now that dissent has gone from being the highest form of patriotism under George W. Bush to the most common form of racism under Barack Obama.
But I did see something a lot of people, on both the left and the right, seem to have missed: a delayed Bush backlash.
One of the more widespread anti-tea-party arguments goes like this: Republicans didn’t protest very much when Bush ran up deficits and expanded government, so when Obama does the same thing (albeit on a far grander scale), Republican complaints can’t be sincere.
[..]
But how, then, to explain the relative right-wing quiescence on Bush’s watch and fiscal Puritanism on Obama’s?
No doubt partisanship plays a role. But partisanship only explains so much given that the tea partiers are clearly sincere about limited government and often quite fond of Republican-bashing. So here’s an alternative explanation: Conservatives don’t want to be fooled again.
Read the rest: A Delayed Bush Backlash
