"Thinking" Conservatives Have Swords Drawn

Pens, keyboards, and the internet -- all theoretically mightier than swords -- are helping to foment a growing right-wing rumbling against President Bush in the wake of his nomination of Harriet "Bulldog" Miers to the Supreme Court.

Bruce Bartlett of the National Center for Policy Analysis lists a series of big-government Bush atrocities, and then concludes what many of us outside of the halls of power have been thinking for a long time:

[The] point is that George W. Bush has never demonstrated any interest in shrinking the size of government. And on many occasions, he has increased government significantly. Yet if there is anything that defines conservatism in America, it is hostility to government expansion. The idea of big government conservatism, a term often used to describe Bush's philosophy, is a contradiction in terms. [...]

Had George W. Bush demonstrated more fealty to conservative principles over the last five years, he might have gotten a pass on Miers. But coming on top of all the big government initiatives he has supported, few in the conservative movement are inclined to give him the benefit of a doubt any longer.

One man who won't give him the benefit of the dout any more is David Keane of the American Conservative Union, who drew a line in the sand yesterday by proclaiming "no more blank check" from conservative quarters:

Most conservatives have stood with Bush from the beginning. Those of us who know him like him. We've swallowed policies we might otherwise have objected to because we've believed that he and those around him are themselves conservatives trying to do the right thing against sometimes terrible odds. We've been there for him because we’ve considered ourselves part of his team.

No more.

From now on, this administration will find it difficult to muster support on the right without explaining why it should be forthcoming. The days of the blank check have ended because no thinking conservative really wants to be part of a team that requires marching in lock step without question or thought, even if it is headed by the president of the United States.

As I pointed out elsewhere last year, the "American road to Hayekian serfdom [may] be marked with awkward Republican footprints and neoconservative road signs." Thinking conservatives abandoned the Bush ship of statism a long time ago. Libertarians remain landlocked... er, firmly grounded.