"The Better Deal" Or "The Triumph Of Gigantic Government"?
I didn't have the chance to watch or listen to President Bush's speech from New Orleans Thursday evening. I did listen to the post-speech analysis on KVI Talkradio 570 in Seattle, and the consensus there didn't sound very encouraging for "the Republican wing of the Republican party."
Not wanting to form an opinion from just one source, I combed through the gamut of center-right opinion and the results were all over the map.
We'll start with Cap'n Ed Morrissey, whose take was, "Better late than never":
I think Ed, like Bush himself, is still buying into the bogus notion that the President suffered any "political damage" from the Katrina aftermath. Credible polls never showed it, and the reaction to the President's speech belied it as well.
The Cap'n flatly contradicts himself when he says in the next graph....
I would point out that Bush has been to New Orleans three times previously in the preceding two weeks; he just didn't give a national address before two days ago.
But regardless, in practical terms, a president is far more useful staying out of the way "on the ground" and letting the relief work proceed apace rather than "showing his involvement" - i.e. photo-ops - that accomplish nothing tangible. Even worse, to do so in the midst of the partisan savaging to which he was subjected would have made his failure to defend himself (and the wholly unjustified axing of his FEMA director) even more egregious. Finally, to do so before relief/reconstruction efforts were well underway and briskly advancing would have drawn even more heat from the other side by making Morrissey's suggested photo-op look like it was meant as a distraction from what suvivors really needed "on the ground." It would have been the worst sort of panicky pandering, and in a period where he made pretty much whiffed on every non-relief decision, waiting to deliver this speech until this week was one Dubya got right.
Leaving aside the question of timing, Rush Limbaugh saw Bush's theme as "We've Done It Your Way for 60 Years,Now We're Going to Try It Our Way":
Each of these ideas is from the progressive conservative school that, rather than frontally resisting big government, seeks to redirect it in jiu-jitsu fashion toward non-statist ends. And here is a massive opportunity to demonstrate the efficacy of these ideas in one of the country's worst urban liberal hellholes. It is, indeed, a chance to deal a death blow to the New Deal governing paradigm. No wonder libs are so nervous; they know that both the New Deal and the Great Society were enacted in the aftermath of cataclysmic events/upheavals (the Great Depression and the JFK assassination, respectively). Hurricane Katrina could be another such turning point. And how do they argue against it without sounding like...well, like their own caricatures of Republicans? Hard-hearted, mean, bereft of "compassion." You could almost call it "the perfect storm."
Almost, that is.
Hugh Hewitt, as you might have expected, was waving his pom-poms:
Yeah, Hugh is an unabashed Bush cheerleader, but as the linked page above illustrates (to ABC's chagrin), the President's speech did indeed connect to Katrina victims - African-American Katrina victims - who don't blame Bush for the bungled aftermath and do blame Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin. And far from this being regained ground on Bush's part, it is simply a reaffirmation of the character and credibility that carried him to the White House in the first place.
Of course, not even Double-H could stomach the Administration scheme to turn regional miltary bases into massive trailer parks:
This segues well into T.J. Walker's bottom line over at NRO, which was anything but rah-rah-rah:
This is the potential downside of the policy direction the President has set. It grows out of the fact that it will outlast the Bush presidency itself. In the meantime, the federal bureaucracy and the Congress - which has statist tendencies even with Republicans in charge - are permanent fixtures, and three years from now we will probably be looking at a Clinton White House restoration. All of those factors auger against enterprise zones, vouchers for education and housing, etc. remaining in "empowerment" form instead of being debased into standard welfare boodle. And then we'll have the "trillions of dollars of budget deficit" Walker fears.
But there's one thing - okay, two - that ideological conservatives always forget that political conservatives (like Bush, for instance) cannot: politics doesn't take place in an ivory tower, but in the real world. And GDub long ago decided, doubtless after watching Newt Gingrich crash and burn in the winter of 1995-96, that ideological (i.e. "small government") conservatism will never get over with the public ever again. So he set about constructing a paradigm ("compassionate conservatism") that assimilated the tents and precepts of the aforementioned progressive conservative school of thought. In essence, to use the lib's own institutions and templates against them.
It's a little late to be suddenly realizing that George Bush has no plans to abolish four Cabinet-level departments - as though congressional Republicans would grant such a wish in any case.
This is the view of The American Spectator's John Tabin:
And, like it or not, that's the name of the game, as Brother Meringoff concurs:
So what do I think?
I think what we got from the President is pretty much what I expected. And while my heart is with T.J. Walker, my head recalls Otto Von Bismarck's famous 1867 pronouncement: "Politics is the art of the possible."
It's just that Bush has pushed the envelope of possibility so much better in the past than he is now.
Not wanting to form an opinion from just one source, I combed through the gamut of center-right opinion and the results were all over the map.
We'll start with Cap'n Ed Morrissey, whose take was, "Better late than never":
Bush did a marvelous job of touching on the despair, the heroism, the personal stories that touch hearts and motivate us to greater efforts, as well as the policy decisions that will spring from Katrina's aftermath. Unfortunately, this speech came about a week late. He may well undo the political damage done by the massive confusion of the first few days in the weeks and months ahead if he can quickly start rebuilding and returning people to their neighborhoods, but Bush missed an opportunity to not only demonstrate leadership but to instill a sense of confidence by getting out in front of the cameras like this last week or by the weekend at the latest.
I think Ed, like Bush himself, is still buying into the bogus notion that the President suffered any "political damage" from the Katrina aftermath. Credible polls never showed it, and the reaction to the President's speech belied it as well.
The Cap'n flatly contradicts himself when he says in the next graph....
I don't mean to advocate the ubiquitous "I feel your pain" response of the Clinton administration to every wounded soul and offended group in America. Eight years of that weepiness gave us our fill of empty and saccharine rhetoric. However, this unprecedented devastation called for our national leader to get on the ground early and show us his involvement. There are times for modesty, but on occasion a leader has to show a muscular and personal presence - and Bush should have instinctually known that this was one of those times.
I would point out that Bush has been to New Orleans three times previously in the preceding two weeks; he just didn't give a national address before two days ago.
But regardless, in practical terms, a president is far more useful staying out of the way "on the ground" and letting the relief work proceed apace rather than "showing his involvement" - i.e. photo-ops - that accomplish nothing tangible. Even worse, to do so in the midst of the partisan savaging to which he was subjected would have made his failure to defend himself (and the wholly unjustified axing of his FEMA director) even more egregious. Finally, to do so before relief/reconstruction efforts were well underway and briskly advancing would have drawn even more heat from the other side by making Morrissey's suggested photo-op look like it was meant as a distraction from what suvivors really needed "on the ground." It would have been the worst sort of panicky pandering, and in a period where he made pretty much whiffed on every non-relief decision, waiting to deliver this speech until this week was one Dubya got right.
Leaving aside the question of timing, Rush Limbaugh saw Bush's theme as "We've Done It Your Way for 60 Years,Now We're Going to Try It Our Way":
What the President did last night, I think a lot of you have a view that this was, "Okay, the President said to hell with conservatism and it's over with." He didn't do that. If you just look at the total amount of money being spent and you listen to the ways you hear it being spent, you might think, "Oh, God, we're just chucking it," but we're not. I think a subtitle of what the President's speech last night was could be this: Okay, libs, we've tried it your way for 60 years and now we're going to try it our way. He was talking about enterprise zones, school vouchers, turning renters into owners, rebuilding this place without rebuilding slums. They're not going to rebuild it the way it was with the same architecture and the same structure politically and everything else. It is a pretty decent opportunity here. [emphasis added]
Each of these ideas is from the progressive conservative school that, rather than frontally resisting big government, seeks to redirect it in jiu-jitsu fashion toward non-statist ends. And here is a massive opportunity to demonstrate the efficacy of these ideas in one of the country's worst urban liberal hellholes. It is, indeed, a chance to deal a death blow to the New Deal governing paradigm. No wonder libs are so nervous; they know that both the New Deal and the Great Society were enacted in the aftermath of cataclysmic events/upheavals (the Great Depression and the JFK assassination, respectively). Hurricane Katrina could be another such turning point. And how do they argue against it without sounding like...well, like their own caricatures of Republicans? Hard-hearted, mean, bereft of "compassion." You could almost call it "the perfect storm."
Almost, that is.
Hugh Hewitt, as you might have expected, was waving his pom-poms:
Perfect pitch returned tonight, and the President's looks backward and forward were on target. As Chris Matthews observed, it sounded a little LBJ/FDR-like in its vows about the underclass of the recovery region, but that is exactly why it worked so well: That is what needs to happen, and he identified the best approaches in the empowerment of entrepeneurs and the retraining of the evacuees. The enterprise zone could prove a turbo charged motor to the effort, and the promise of innovation was well delivered.
So too was the emphasis of the President on the private side of the relief effort, on the central issue of home ownership, and of the need for local union to help local union, small congregation to help its similarly situated cousin, for every American to stay committed. The President's sincere faith connected with Americans of sincere faith, and the weeks and months ahead will show again and again that this trust in the average American's good will is well placed.
Yeah, Hugh is an unabashed Bush cheerleader, but as the linked page above illustrates (to ABC's chagrin), the President's speech did indeed connect to Katrina victims - African-American Katrina victims - who don't blame Bush for the bungled aftermath and do blame Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin. And far from this being regained ground on Bush's part, it is simply a reaffirmation of the character and credibility that carried him to the White House in the first place.
Of course, not even Double-H could stomach the Administration scheme to turn regional miltary bases into massive trailer parks:
Look: Give every family a check. A good sized check. Tell them that's their relief payment and to use it wisely. Match them with churches/not-for-profits around the country and ship them out. Creating trailer parks for this many people is just a terrible idea.
This segues well into T.J. Walker's bottom line over at NRO, which was anything but rah-rah-rah:
Appeal to liberals:
If Hillary Clinton once channeled Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House, then Bush one-upped her by channeling FDR and LBJ. Bush said the answer to all of New Orleans' problems was big government or gigantic government. New government program after new government program was proposed. Ted Kennedy must have been chortling to himself thinking "I must be back in the 60s world of big government solutions to every societal problem." For a moment it seemed Bush would promise a chicken gumbo in every pot.
Appeal to conservatives:
Zero. Bush ignored the concepts of individual accountability and responsibility in his speech. In the Bush world, his new moral relativism makes no distinctions between those who bought flood insurance and those who didn't; those who choose to live in safe mountains high above sea level and those who build below sea level in flood zones predicted by every expert to be washed away. Bush's message was redistributionist, collectivist, and nannist. Individuals bear no responsibility for their misfortunes or for their own recovery. Any conservative with third grade math skills or beyond could smell trillions of dollars of budget deficit flowing out of Bush's mouth.
This is the potential downside of the policy direction the President has set. It grows out of the fact that it will outlast the Bush presidency itself. In the meantime, the federal bureaucracy and the Congress - which has statist tendencies even with Republicans in charge - are permanent fixtures, and three years from now we will probably be looking at a Clinton White House restoration. All of those factors auger against enterprise zones, vouchers for education and housing, etc. remaining in "empowerment" form instead of being debased into standard welfare boodle. And then we'll have the "trillions of dollars of budget deficit" Walker fears.
But there's one thing - okay, two - that ideological conservatives always forget that political conservatives (like Bush, for instance) cannot: politics doesn't take place in an ivory tower, but in the real world. And GDub long ago decided, doubtless after watching Newt Gingrich crash and burn in the winter of 1995-96, that ideological (i.e. "small government") conservatism will never get over with the public ever again. So he set about constructing a paradigm ("compassionate conservatism") that assimilated the tents and precepts of the aforementioned progressive conservative school of thought. In essence, to use the lib's own institutions and templates against them.
It's a little late to be suddenly realizing that George Bush has no plans to abolish four Cabinet-level departments - as though congressional Republicans would grant such a wish in any case.
This is the view of The American Spectator's John Tabin:
Bush went on to make several somewhat gimmicky proposals: an entrepreneur-friendly "Gulf Opportunity Zone," "Worker Recovery Accounts" of up to $5,000 that evacuees can use for job training and education or child care, and an Urban Homestead Act to give federal land away to low-income individuals who can build homes with either a loan or charity. What the President is doing is inflecting Clinton-style microinitiatives with an Ownership Society flavor. Whether or not that's good policy, it's almost certainly good politics.
And, like it or not, that's the name of the game, as Brother Meringoff concurs:
You can call it FDR/LBJ liberalism, big government conservatism, or compassionate conservatism. I call it American-style pragmatism (a more restrained style of pragmatism might dictate that we simply forego rebuilding New Orleans) and, as such, it will unite most of the country.
So what do I think?
I think what we got from the President is pretty much what I expected. And while my heart is with T.J. Walker, my head recalls Otto Von Bismarck's famous 1867 pronouncement: "Politics is the art of the possible."
It's just that Bush has pushed the envelope of possibility so much better in the past than he is now.
posted by JASmius at 11:43 AM
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