Politics: How Partisanship Hurts Conservatism

Obama-loving liberals are goofy. Despite their once fierce — and warranted — hatred for George W. Bush, Democrats now make every excuse in the book for a president who behaves just like him. Obama first burst on the national scene promising to reverse the Bush policies most unpopular with the Left — quagmire wars, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, torture — yet he has not only continued each, but expanded them. Leftist Noam Chomsky noted, at the beginning of this president's first term, “As Obama came into office, [former Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice predicted he would follow the policies of Bush's second term, and that is pretty much what happened, apart from a different rhetorical style.” Obama Democrats continue to confuse that style for substantive difference, exemplifying the same sort of mindless partisanship that characterized the Bush Republicans they once abhorred.

... regardless of which party is in control, when was the last time a president departed office, leaving behind a federal government smaller than he found it? Not even Ronald Reagan did this, as each successive administration piles on new and massive bureaucracy. Imagine this — what if there had never been a George W. Bush, and America went straight from Bill Clinton to Obama in 2000. Now imagine Obama did exactly everything Bush did, in terms of policy, programs, the whole works. Would the Right be beating up a Democratic president for doing exactly what they either defended or ignored Bush doing? Of course they would. “Why is President Obama on vacation down at the Crawford Ranch in Texas?” an angry talk radio caller might ask. Limbaugh would have probably asked the same, incessantly. “Barack Hussein Obama” would have been accused by conservatives of bankrupting the country with his Medicare expansion, and “riots” might have been predicted over No Child Left Behind. It would certainly not go unnoticed by Republicans that Obama had doubled the national debt. And the GOP would be promising voters they would never do any of this stuff — and a vote for them come November would be the surest way to stop it.

For more, see How Partisanship Hurts Conservatism by Jack Hunter, August 12, 2010, at The American Conservative.