Curtis Bowman

Unfortunately, Bush Vows to Keep Doing His Job

Naturally, the internet is all atwitter over the Libby indictment. I've come across numerous articles describing the investigation, the effect of the indictment on the Bush administration, and so forth.

In all that I've read so far, the following quotation from this article stood out:

John D. Podesta, who was chief of staff to Clinton, said Bush may be more constrained by his troubles than Clinton was by his. Noting that Clinton's approval ratings remained above 60 percent throughout the impeachment battle, while Bush's are in the low 40s, Podesta said, "When Clinton said, 'I'm going back to do my work,' people cheered," Podesta said. "When Bush says, 'I'm going to do the job I've been doing,' people say, 'Oh, no.'"

This is the funniest thing that I've read in days. Nonetheless, it pretty much mirrors my sentiments.

Carla Power on the Lawrence of Arabia Exhibit at the Imperial War Museum

This article by Carla Power of Newsweek alerted me to the recently opened exhibit on T. E. Lawrence at the Imperial War Musuem in London.

I've long been interested in Lawrence's life. When I first visted the IWM in March 1990, I was struck by the fact that virtually nothing on permanent display was devoted to Great Britain's imperial history. The two world wars were the main emphasis. They had imperial aspects, of course, but the European aspects of those two conflicts were the chief focus. There was also a small exhibit devoted to the war in the Falkland islands.

I had been reading about Lawrence at the time, when I was studying in Munich, and so I knew that a portrait of Lawrence painted by James McBey in October 1918, right after Damascus was captured by the British and the Arabs, was in the IWM collection.

Well, I wandered around the entire museum but couldn't find the portrait. There was, however, a post card of it in the gift shop. I showed the card to the cashier, asking whether or not the painting was on display. She said that it wasn't, but that she could send me to someone who could show it to me. I was led through a door and spoke with a man who worked as a curator of some sort. He took me into the storage area and showed me the painting. I noticed that the painting's background is actually blue, although it appears in the photos that I've seen to be brown.

In January 2003 I went to the IWM again, this time to see its exhibit devoted to British poets from the First World War. The museum had been expanded to include a Holocaust exhibit, among other things, but there still wasn't much on the military history of the British empire that didn't relate directly to the two world wars.

Sean Wilentz on President Bush's Conservative Ancestors

Historian Sean Wilentz tells the story of President Bush's conservative ancestors.

Bruce Bartlett Dismissed

Richard Stevenson of The New York Times reports that the National Center of Policy Analysis has dismissed Bruce Bartlett from his position as a senior fellow. It seems that Mr. Bartlett's offence consists of having written a book critical of President Bush.

Too bad for Mr. Bartlett that he didn't do something more palatable to the people who run conservative thinktanks. If, say, he had planned the invasion and occupation of Iraq, he'd still have a job.

Looks Like the GOP Crackup is Here

Howard Fineman of Newsweek and David Ignatius of The Washington Post argue that the long predicted GOP crackup is finally here.

I blogged about the precarious state of the GOP nearly a year ago.

Unfortunately, however, just because the GOP is splitting along its fault lines doesn't mean that the Democrats will make any political gains.

More: After doing a little more browsing, I see that Gerard Baker of The London Times also sees a bit of a crackup in progress.

Michael Tomasky on Conservatism and the Miers Nomination

Michael Tomasky of The American Prospect observes that the Miers nomination might cause more conservative commentators to defend their principles and make fewer excuses for the Bush administration.

I've Some Sympathy for Kinsley's Darker Conspiracy Theory

The opening paragraphs of this column by Michael Kinsley caught my eye:

Gosh, was it only a couple of weeks ago that Republicans were mocking attempts by Democratic senators to find out what John Roberts's views might be on some of the big legal issues? What happened to all those lectures about how it would be "improper" to call on a future justice to "prejudge" matters that might come before the court?

With President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers, it turns out that Republicans don't want to buy a pig in a poke any more than Democrats do. They were bluffing when they claimed not to know or care about Roberts's views, beyond a vague commitment to avoid "legislating from the bench." They did care, but they thought they knew. The surprising conservative bitterness about Miers reinforces the suspicion of many liberals that "they must know something we don't" about Roberts. Conservatives have been complaining about the Supreme Court for half a century. After a series of false dawns, this would seem to be their true moment. Would they really let Bush squander this opportunity? Apparently not.

Unless, that is, you buy the even darker conspiracy theory that Republican apparatchiks don't really want a counterrevolution at the Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade has been very good to the Republican Party, keeping social and religious conservatives at a full boil of resentment. The last thing the party needs is to turn these motivated activists into satisfied customers, while stoking a fire under activists on the other side. So there was a game of double bluff going on: The conservatives who bluffed that they didn't care about Roberts's views -- and liberals shouldn't either -- were themselves being bluffed, perhaps, by Bushies who assured them that Roberts was on their side.

When waging culture war is your most reliable means of winning elections, you don't want to disarm yourself by doing something — in this case, overturning Roe v. Wade — that deprives you of your troops. This is why I'm willing to entertain Kinsley's darker conspiracy theory.

Or, as Thomas Frank once put it, failure is mandatory.

Sam Tanenhaus on Buckley's Bid to Become Mayor of New York City

In a fascinating article Sam Tanenhaus, author of Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, recounts William F. Buckley's deliberately odd 1965 campaign to become mayor of New York City.

Although Buckley received just over ten percent of the vote, his candidacy helped sow the seeds for today's conservative ascendancy. Note the role that racial issues played in the campaign.