In the past few months I've blogged about Bruce Bartlett here and here a couple of times.
Mr. Bartlett, you'll remember, lost his position at a conservative thinktank after writing a book critical of President Bush. I thought that at some point I should post something about the book, which, by the way, is entitled Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.
Because I can't read ever potentially interesting book, I'll have to quote a reviewer in this post. And I figure that the reviewer ought to be a member of the conservative movement, given the accusation of betrayal in the book's title. I never thought much of Reagan, except for his opposition to the Soviet Union, and so betraying his legacy isn't an issue with me.
Well, where to look? I stopped my regular online reading of The National Review and The Weekly Standard not quite three years ago. (The timing coincides, you might notice, with the beginning of the occupation of Iraq, when too many conservative commentators went into full-shill mode.) But Pat Buchanan's The American Conservative has remained a dissenting, somewhat cranky voice within contemporary conservatism. It's not part of the GOP mainstream, but it's recognizably conservative.
I see that Doug Bandow has written a review of Bartlett's book. Here are the opening paragraphs:
President George W. Bush took office to the sustained applause of America’s conservative movement. In 2000, he defeated the liberal environmentalist Al Gore, abruptly terminated the legacy of the even more hated Bill Clinton, and gave Republicans control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. A few cynics were suspicious of Bush’s understanding of and commitment to conservative principles, but most on the Right welcomed his inauguration.
Five years later, the traditional conservative agenda lies in ruins. Government is bigger, spending is higher, and Washington is more powerful. The national government has intruded further into state and local concerns. Federal officials have sacrificed civil liberties and constitutional rights while airily demanding that the public trust them not to abuse their power.
The U.S. has engaged in aggressive war to promote democracy and undertaken an expensive foreign-aid program. The administration and its supporters routinely denounce critics as partisans and even traitors. Indeed, the White House defenestrates anyone who acknowledges that reality sometimes conflicts with official fantasies.
In short, it is precisely the sort of government that conservatives once feared would result from liberal control in Washington.
You can sort out the politics contained in the remainder of the review when you have the time or the inclination to do so. The fur always flies when conservatives bandy about accusations of disloyalty and betrayal.
The most interesting aspect of the review, at least to me, is its characterization of President Bush as a man of "unbridled hubris" who is failing to win converts to the conservative cause. One of Reagan's great strengths as a politician was his ability to inspire people.
Once you've read Bandow's review, you might take a look at Joshua Green's "Reagan's Liberal Legacy" to be reminded that Reagan wasn't as much of a Reaganite as some conservatives nowadays would have you think.