Is Bush a conservative? Of course not, in many ways. Andrew Sullivan spells them out in this article with the sub-hed "the liberal within". Beginning thus:
it may sound like a stupid question but the dizzying mix of policies that this president has pursued - domestically and in foreign affairs -is surprisingly immune to coherent ideological analysis. Where it does seem to make sense, it certainly doesn't look like the classical conservatism of the Reagan-Thatcher years, or the revolutionary conservatism of the Gingrich period. And in some critical ways, it's far less traditionally conservative than the administration of Bill Clinton...Read the rest if you're at all interested in the political/ideological category game, and cite it if you want a row (as this observation tends to rub partisans of both "sides" the wrong way.) Posted by Dr. Frank at July 22, 2003 04:19 PM | TrackBack
But he's got (R) after his name (and opposes abortion), so he must be a sinister arch-conservative on all things!
(And, so on.)
Posted by: Name: at July 22, 2003 04:43 PMSullivan is right. So are you. And so am I. :)
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at July 22, 2003 07:35 PM