Isn't it odd that the most "conservative" president this nation has seen in a generation has now been cast out by the movement conservatives?
George W. Bush followed the conservative prescriptions to a T. He didn't even raise taxes after starting a war! Even St. Ronnie raised taxes!
All of W.'s Supreme Court picks were true-blue conservative ideologues - (Roberts, Alito). No wishy washy moderates like his predecessors appointed - (Reagan picked O'Connor and Kennedy; Bush Sr. picked Souter).
Bush didn't budge on Global Warming even in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus. He was a dream come true for the Neo-Con crowd, allowing them to play out all their Middle East fantasies to their hearts' content.
So why are "conservatives" so down on Bush now?
The simple reason is that they had to throw Bush overboard to avoid having to face the truth. The unfortunate truth for conservative ideologues is that many of the core ideas at the foundation of their belief system simply don't work - like Supply Side economics and No New Taxes as the prescription for all that ails the economy.
Reagan was lucky because he had a Democratic Congress. So when his tax cuts produced record deficits rather than surpluses, the conservative ideologues could blame the Democrats in Congress rather than Reagan. Nevermind that every budget Congress passed at the time was smaller than the budgets proposed by the Reagan administration. Congress was in charge of spending so it was their fault. End of story.
But Bush wasn't so lucky. When his tax cuts also produced record deficits rather than surpluses, he didn't have a Democratic Congress to blame it on. So the blame came squarely down on him. It was his fault, you see, because he didn't veto the spending bills or what have you. Because surely the underlying conservative philosophy couldn't be at fault.
So Bush is the scapegoat or the fall guy who had to be sacrificed to cover up for the failures of the conservative movement's core philosophy.
That way the right-wing ideologues can in good conscience continue to insist that we go back and do the same things that got us into this mess to begin with and as soon as enough time passes they will claw their way back into power and the cycle will start over again.
The only hope for the country is that Obama and the Democrats can get most of the mess cleaned up before that happens so that our country will be strong enough to survive yet another stent of fiscal irresponsibility and economic turmoil.
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