Posted by
Bruce Bartlett on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 5:30:31 PM
The title of this post is the same one I used for my column today, which is posted here:
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/BruceBartlett/2007/05/29/taking_ron_paul_seriouslyAfter writing it, an article from the current issue of
The New Yorker came to my attention that reinforces my argument that incompetence has become the defining characteristic of the Bush 43 presidency. The article quotes a number of conservative leaders such as Newt Gingrich, Mickey Edwards and Dave Keene echoing arguments that I have been making for three years. Gingrich, for example, now calls Bush the Republican Jimmy Carter--harsh criticism from anyone who remembers the disaster of Carter's presidency, which paved the way for 12 uninterrupted years of Republican rule. I hope Democrats don't benefit similarly from Bush's gross ineptness.
The article can be found here:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/04/070604fa_fact_goldbergFor conservatives inclined to automatically dismiss anything appearing in the liberal
New Yorker, I recommend a new book from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute,
The Future of Conservatism: Conflict and Consensus in the Post-Reagan Era, edited by Charles W. Dunn. Here's a link:
http://www.isi.org/books/bookdetail.aspx?id=15b944cf-243b-4394-b140-a1e85efb58b7I would call special attention to the contributions by George Nash and George Carey. Nash is, of course, the author of
The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945, also published by ISI. Carey is a professor of government at Georgetown University and one of few conservatives holding such a position anywhere in academia. Therefore, it is revealing when Carey writes this: "To apply the word
conservative to Bush and his administration...not only is misleading but also debases conservatism." He also says that Bush's poll-driven political expediency is operationally no different than liberalism.