(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom)
Hunter has done a series of excellent diaries on the astonishing ‘walkback’ that conservatives have been doing as of late. Nowadays, we have Reagan appointees running as Democrats for the U.S. Senate; we have notable conservatives such as William Buckley and Bruce Bartlett speaking out against a Republican administration that has had a GOP-controlled Congress acquiescing to its every wish. To me, it’s indicative of the five stages of grief: conservatives have long been in denial about the true nature of this administration, but more are finally beginning to accept what Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button has said for a few years: George W. Bush is a failure.
The first stage is denial.
“It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.”
John Hinderacker, Powerline, July 28, 2005
“Now when he is at his lowest point yet in the polls is the time for those who love and admire President Bush to say so. Depending on the final success of his already successful campaign to bring the rudiments of democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, George W. Bush, #43, may go down as a truly great president, who against fierce odds turned the entire Middle East in a new, more democratic, and more creative direction…What I do want to argue is that, after Washington and Lincoln, Bush is the bravest of our presidents.”
Michael Novak, National Review Online, May 23, 2006
The second stage is anger.
“‘Clintonian Triangulation’ gets two thumbs down from the Kos crowd; noted. Maybe y’all should just, you know, fight harder! I mean, on every issue. Think – maybe it’s just that you’re not quite left-wing enough for all those middle-class midwestern and southern voters …
And after all, what does a Clinton know about winning elections anyway, right?
The Kos-wing of the Democratic Party is like a chimp caught in a chinese finger trap.”
INDC Journal, January 28, 2006
“I know it will come as a shock that a number of ‘open-minded progressives’ at The New School acted like fools today during Sen. McCain’s commencement address. They don’t like his views on just about everything — Iraq, Iran, the War on Terror, abortion, gay marriage, etc. — and the fact that he spoke at Liberty University the week before. When Sen. McCain spoke at Liberty there were also some in the audience who disagreed with him on some issues. But they listened respectfully to an elected official who had also spent nearly 6 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Such courtesy was evidently in short supply in Greenwich Village.”
Daniel McKivergan, The Weekly Standard, May 19, 2006
The third stage is bargaining.
“If that’s the case, then I’ll have to plead guilty to allowing sanity to triumph over paranoia and common sense to win out over stupidity.
Or, dare I say, patriotism to trump defeatism?”
Reply to a post by Daniel Drezner, September 21, 2005
“One of the keys to President Bush’s election victories was his commitment to appoint judges who would strictly interpret the constitution and not legislate from the bench.”
Ken Connor, Center for a Just Society, July 1, 2005
The fourth stage is depression.
“For two full days, George W. Bush was bashed. He was taken to task on his handling of stem cell research, population control, the Iraq war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina. The critics were no left-wing bloggers. They were rich, mainly Republican and presumably Bush voters in the last two presidential elections.”
Robert Novak, September 22, 2005
“Mr. Bush is in the hands of a fortune that will be unremitting on the point of Iraq. If he’d invented the Bill of Rights it wouldn’t get him out of his jam.”
The fifth and final stage is acceptance.
“If Bush were running today against Bill Clinton, I’d vote for Clinton.”
Bruce Bartlett, March 8, 2006
“We do know that four years after September 11, the whole foreign policy of the United States seems destined to rise or fall on the outcome of a war only marginally related to the source of what befell America on that day. There was nothing inevitable about this. There is everything to be regretted about it.”
Francis Fukuyama, September 12, 2005