The Tranzi Totalitarian progressives launched the most vicious political destruction of a man ever seen in American politics. I was no Bush fan, but what the Left did to him in a time of war was wrong. Everything he proposed they were against, even though they were Progressive ideas! They made him out to be some far Right politician. In reality Bush was a Left of Center Progressive Republican, just not an America hating type like Obama. He actually did love America and although I disagreed with many of his Progressive based policies, he genuinely thought he was doing good.
Real Conservatism is making a comeback and is poised to deliver a massive blow to the Progressive Democrats. Now all of the sudden they like Bush! That’s right, Peter Beinart is now lamenting the fact that Conservatives are eliminating Progressives Ideology from the Republican Party. After years of demonization, now they realize Bush was close to them on many policies.
On issues from immigration to Islam, the 43rd president staked out a view far more progressive than today’s conservatives. Peter Beinart on how declining U.S. confidence has changed the right.
In the age of Obama, I always assumed that the Democratic Party would define itself against George W. Bush. But I never imagined that the Republican Party would as well.
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After September 11, Bush described Muslims in the same universalistic way. A few months after the attacks, he insisted that “Islam is peace,” a view dramatically at odds with the one being propagated by most conservative talking heads. (A 2002 poll of evangelical Protestant leaders found that only 10 percent thought Bush was right.) But Bush’s brand of Christianity was genuinely ecumenical. Although he had transformed his life through Christ, he knew that lots of former addicts had done so through born-again Islam. As president, he sought out people like Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya who told him that the people of Iraq yearned for democracy, and were capable of building it. And it was this belief that made him receptive to the arguments of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who as ambassador to Indonesia had been emboldened by watching the world’s largest majority-Muslim country move from dictatorship to democracy. Two months before the Iraq War, Bush declared, “The human heart desires the same good things, everywhere on Earth. In our desire to be safe from brutal and bullying oppression, human beings are the same. In our desire to care for our children and give them a better life, we are the same. For these fundamental reasons, freedom and democracy will always and everywhere have greater appeal than the slogans of hatred and the tactics of terror.”
Read the Rest: The GOP’s Revolt Against Bush
The Progressives should have realized that on many issues Bush was actually on their side. Instead, in pursuit of power they did all they could to destroy him. They did the same to McCain, another progressive Republican. What didn’t occur to them was that they helped defeat the Progressive element of the GOP and opened it to genuine Conservatives. Now they are dealing with a monster of their own Creation and they don’t know what to do. Many Conservatives have gotten over Bush and moved on. Now in an ironic twist of history it’s the Left who will miss Bush.
This is not the first time it has happened. The Left attacked Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford. Now these three Presidents are idolized by the Progressives. Even Reagan and Goldwater are getting praised by the Left. This is hypocrisy and dishonesty on part of the Left.
The moral of the story is to always be careful what you wish for!
