Bush was preparing to give a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The conference is the event of the year for conservative activists; Republican politicians are required to appear and offer their praise of the conservative movement.
Latimer got the assignment to write Bush's speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic.
"What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?" the president asked Latimer.
Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement -- the movement that gave rise to groups like CPAC.
Bush seemed perplexed. Latimer elaborated a bit more. Then Bush leaned forward, with a point to make.
"Let me tell you something," the president said. "I whupped Gary Bauer's ass in 2000. So take out all this movement stuff. There is no movement."
Bush seemed to equate the conservative movement -- the astonishing growth of conservative political strength that took place in the decades after Barry Goldwater's disastrous defeat in 1964 -- with the fortunes of Bauer, the evangelical Christian activist and former head of the Family Research Council whose 2000 presidential campaign went nowhere.
Now it was Latimer who looked perplexed. Bush tried to explain.
"Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say," the president said, "but I redefined the Republican Party."
The Oval Office is no place for a low-ranking White House staffer to get into an argument with the president of the United States about the state of the Republican Party -- or about any other subject, for that matter. Latimer made the changes the president wanted. When Bush appeared at CPAC, he made no mention of the conservative movement. In fact, he said the word "conservative" only once, in the last paragraph.
What's surprising here is that Bush didn't really get it. The religious right had become a defining force within the GOP. If the leaders of the religious right couldn't get elected, it was because they were too single-issue to go anywhere. Without the work of the "movement conservatives," a man like George W. Bush would've never gotten anywhere. Bush didn't "redefine the Republican Party," the movement did. And, if they hadn't, some obvious moron whose only real talent was to jam God into just about any issue would've never gotten anywhere.
But, back to my point, this proves what I always said; Bush played the "values voters" for chumps. He didn't give a damn about them and it showed. After winning in 2000, Bush went to work on starting wars, handing out top-heavy tax cuts, destroying environmental and consumer-protection regulations on industry, and setting up a surveillance society. The religious right got nearly nothing. After 2004, Bush decided that he had a "mandate" to privatize Social Security. The religious right, hoping for a national ban on same-sex marriage, got pretty much nothing. He went to the religious nuts to get votes every time he needed them and, just as consistenly, he screwed them over. Now we see he thought they were a bunch of cranks.
Too all those who thought I was terribly partisan for saying that Bush and the GOP had screwed over the religious right for years, try some BBQ sauce on your crow.
2 comments:
Have you heard of Republican Gomorrah? Fascinating. My apologies if you've already written about it -- I haven't been very good at following. Twitter will make me better. Really.
Whether Bush intended to or not, he and republicans tilted the Supreme Court, recruited officials that recruited kooky Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson soldiers at the Department of Justice on over to The Christian Embassy in the departments of war and defense-- on down the military ranks.
That's not to mention the C- Street, or THE FAMILY.
Conservative Republicans like Ensign, Coburn, Sanford-- on and on-- applying an aspiring biblical interpretation of governance and their version of "values."
"Biblical capitalism" is an interesting phrase.
But Christianity is everywhere in government. It's been that way since Columbus to the founding of America-- with all sorts of interesting little secret societies and coexisting cults throughout the history of the American government. The Freemasons, Skull and Bones, and whatever kinky and awesome European underground world Benjamin Frankiln belonged to.
So when Bush says, "there is no movement," he's sorta right. Christianity and christian fundamentalism is everywhere anyway and for some reason, fundamentalists do find a way to infect the institution of government with exploitation and neglect.
There's more Christians who do great things and help a lot of people through everday kindness, charity, gestures and ways-- but there's just enough little demons running amok in the name of Christianity and otherwise.
It does seem like a miracle we've made this far without abruptly destroying mankind in an instant.
We do it more slowly, but are encouraged to fear The Big One.
Maybe that's what "biblical capitalism" is all about?
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