Posted by
Playful Walrus on Monday, January 28, 2008 3:13:47 PM
D.R. Tucker over at
Human Events blogged a defense of President Bush. Bush’s approval ratings are around 30 percent. But why is that? The drive-by media tries to make it look like Bush is too far right, and that most people don’t approve of Bush because they are “progressive”.
The truth is, however, that there are a lot of conservatives and libertarians who have a hard time giving Bush a blanket job approval.
We knew in 2000 that Bush wasn’t very conservative, and certainly not libertarian. That has been shown to be true with all of the spending and new programs during his administration, and his willingness to interfere with the mortgage situation. The border control and amnesty situations have angered many, too.
But as far as the Democrats and Leftists go - let’s be honest.
They hate him because he is a Republican. Some of them see hating Bush as justified payback for how Republicans reacted to President Clinton. And while politics has always involved some vitriol for opponents, we now have generations raised with a short attention span, an entitlement mentality, and a global, mobile, around-the-clock, ubiquitous media spin machine. Pop music mocks Bush. Television shows and movies of all sorts attack Bush. What do we expect the wishy-washy independents to think?
There are way too many people who think it is the President’s job to make sure they are happy with their job and their pay, happy in their marriages, happy with their local schools, happy with their education, and happy with their medical care.
There is no pleasing such people.Go ahead and ask some of these Leftists who insist Bush is a horrible President and that everyone agrees exactly why they disapprove of Bush. Very few can cite a specific reason. Even fewer can cite a reason based in reality.
The 9/11 conspiracy nuts hated Bush anyway. Their hatred of Bush (and for some, any President) feeds their willingness to believe in a conspiracy, not the other way around.
Such people are likely to cite a “loss of civil liberties” under Bush. Has anyone noticed any loss of their civil liberties?
Being inconvenienced at the airport is not a loss of a civil liberty. If we’re talking about guerrilla terrorist combatants in foreign lands who are interrogated at Gitmo – our Constitution does not apply to them.
Plenty of Bush critics point to situation in Iraq. Many of these people only approve of military actions when a Democrat is President, so there is no way Bush can please them. Some of them are disappointed that Saddam didn’t unleash WMDs on our soldiers.
They dislike Bush for having the guts to follow through with enforcing the terms of the cease fire agreement with Saddam, for having the guts to act on even what most of the Democrats believed.Some cite the initial response to Katrina, but state and local authorities have the responsibility for disaster preparedness and response. FEMA comes along and pays some of the bills. It isn’t FEMA’s job to be first responders. People concerned about this should be upset with the local and state authorities, not Bush.
The “man-made global warming” faithful would never think a Republican is doing enough. It’s a religion to them, and Republicans are the devil.There are people who cite Bush’s strong faith as a problem, yet they are hard-pressed to cite how his faith has impacted them negatively or caused him to do something they don’t like.
Some people cite Bush’s move to deny Federal tax dollars to fund the destruction of human beings for new embryonic stem cells. But if such research is so promising, why the need to tax money anyway? Private funding should be plentiful. Washington, D.C. does not have a Constitutional mandate to fund such research. Besides, other advances are showing promising research without the need to kill human beings.
Finally, some haters may cite “world opinion” – that people in other countries don’t like Bush. This is a little like saying a Pepsi factory worker isn’t thrilled about the CEO of Coca-Cola. So what? It is President Bush’s job to defend us and our Constitution. The evidence shows he’s doing a great job in that respect, and people still want to come live here.
Bush’s failings have largely involved his attempt to please the Left and to grow government. Let’s hope we’re not choosing another soft conservative to be our candidate for President.