Mr. Auster’s observation regarding the degeneration of political discourse in this country is right on the mark. It’s really amazing - and distressing - to see conservatives reduced to such a level of sheer childishness. George W. Bush a great Churchillian stateman? He might best be described as a Republican version of Jimmy Carter. As John Stossel says “Give me a break!”

Carl’s incisive comment reminds me of something columnist Martin Sieff wrote in the late summer or early fall of 2002: the way for the confused to understand George W. Bush was not to think of him as a Republican president, but as the best Democratic president since Carter. I think I prefer Carter (whom I cordially despise). HRS

“[T]he best Democratic president since Carter”? That is not much of a comparison, Bill Clinton being the only (other?) Democratic president since Carter.

I think Sieff’s point (I am not sure), is that young Bush is easier to understand if one stops trying to fit him into some imagined Republican template and simply looks at what he says and does. Then one sees that, against the general behavior of the two major parties since the New Deal, Bush is far easier to predict if one asks himself what a “moderate” Democrat would do in any given situation he faces - as that is what Bush essentially is, despite the GOP label. HRS

Mr. Auster’s comment on the level of idiocy to which the right, as well as the left, has fallen is all too apt.
I disagree with the contention that Bush is the best Democratic President since Carter. Much as I dislike saying so, Clinton was a better man than either Carter or Bush!

Perfectly apt, although I’m getting annoyed at commentators and Democrats who refer to Bush’s Glee Club as Conservatives. Neocons aren’t Conservatives, Globalists aren’t Conservatives, and the Open Borders crowd aren’t Conservatives.

Bruce,
I wish the Bush administration were neoconservative. The reality is that Bush is an ideologically incoherent short-term thinker who cannot express ideas. He hides behind competing personalities in his administration. But for the partisan desire of Republicans to protect him and the patriotic impulse to support ones president in time of war, Bush would have to face reality.
I believe that GW Bush has some good insticts. Unfortunately, he has never matured in an ideological manner. On his own merits, Bush would never have been president. He is certainly no John Quincy Adams.

That said, what is to be done? The only other real option is the eminently worse John Forbes Kerry.

I’m going to stick up for Jimmy Carter here, because I happen to believe he was the best Democratic president since Grover Cleveland. (Unless you count Ronald Reagan.)

How could a conservative think otherwise? He certainly did much less damage.

“Much as I dislike saying so, Clinton was a better man than either Carter or Bush!” — Alan Levine

You might want to go back and reread P.J. O’Rourke’s “100 Reasons Why Jimmy Carter Was a Better President Than Bill Clinton”. (The best: Joseph Califano was prettier than Donna Shalala… and he opposed abortion.)

A more able administrator, granted, and a political ability to slacken Machiavelli’s jaw, but “man”? In what way was he a man? He even sinned like an adolescent.

And that’s just the thong thing. Let’s not get into the aggravated rape…

“That said, what is to be done? The only other real option is the eminently worse John Forbes Kerry.” —RonL

The other other option is a stronger, righter, more vigorous Congress. The Toomey challenge in Pennsylvania is an excellent model. A smart right would focus on the Senate.

Bush has been criticized for his refusal to veto. That could mean either of two things: Congress has been so vigilant and responsible that it hasn’t passed any questionable bills.

Or, more likely, that all three branches are under the sway of left-wing Republicans.

Thanks Mr. Caesar for pointing out the importance of congress. I am convinced that the true political hope for conservatives lies in electing a block of solid conservatives, regardless of party label. The problem we all observe is deeper than Bush. The entire Republican leadership has caved to liberalism (or, as our fellow VFR poster Matt would day - danced the Hegelian Mambo) on issue after issue.

Trent Lott was a disaster. Bill Frist, Hastert and Co. are every bit as bad. A sufficiently large block of true conservatives in congress would be able to put up a more effective fight in congress by occaisionally siding with unionist Democrats against the free trader/corporatist Republicans who run the party - and advance liberalism.

I certainly won’t defend Clinton as a moral examplar! But I think Reg Caesar, like many other people, has forgotten how incompetent and, yes, morally abominable, Carter was. Think of the Mariel boatlift, the infamous “inordinate fear of Communism” speech, the freeing of the terrorists who had tried to kill Harry Truman… I have not read the O’Rourke piece, but would commend Clark Mollenhoff’s account of the Carter Administration.

Didn’t the issue of rewarding Puerto Rican terrorists reappear at the end of the Clinton Administration? At any rate, the best strategy for dealing with FALN comes from former Temple runningback Bill Cosby’s routine about facing a lineman twice his size: “Now, I ask myself, what does this man want? Why, he wants… the ball! …so I GAVE it to him!”

Well, you say, the majority of the Puerto Rican people don’t want independence?

But do the majority of the AMERICAN people want Puerto Ricans? Have they even been asked?

Here is one American who strongly supports a unilateral declaration of independence for Puerto Rico - by the United States. The influx of Puerto Ricans into the United States is another unforeseen consequence of heedless interventionism - in 1898. Surely the present state of New York City is not what old Knickerbocker Theodore Roosevelt had in mind! HRS

In about May or June of 1999, I visited relatives in Connecticut. We decided to take a trip into New York City to one of the art museums. Not having checked any papers, we did not know that it was the day of the annual Puerto Rican Parade. The art museum was in the midst of the parade area.

I will spare you the details of the day, but let us say that “Celebrate Diversity” was not what came to my lips after fighting through that crowd for hours.

Carter freed the Puerto Rican Nationalists who tried to murder President Truman in 1950 (and who did kill a Secret Service man.)
I thoroughly agree that the annexation of Puerto Rico, and, even more, the decision by the Wilson Administration to give Puerto Ricans American citizenship instead of independence, was a thoroughgoing disaster!