June 11, 2007

So, Mr. Republican Candidate, You Want to be Unlike Bush

So you don’t want to be another George W. Bush. More than that, you promise you won’t be.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said last week that any Republican candidate who positions himself as a continuation of the Bush Administration will lose. Gingrich may run, but those who already are running seem to have gotten the message. In last week’s GOP debate – the latest in the never-ending series – candidates seemed to go out of their way to distance themselves from Bush.

Granted, the media gleefully put its emphasis on every such incident, which made it appear to have happened more than it did. But to be sure, none of the would-be standard-bearers announced: “George W. Bush has been a fantastic president and I will be just like him!”

Bush is unpopular, and Washington culture has one clear rule of engagement when someone is unpopular – cut and run. (And you thought this was just for wars.) The Republican candidates can read the polls. It is yet to be determined if they can read anything else, but they know that all indications suggest the electorate wants “change.”

OK. So. You’re a Republican and you want to be president, but you won’t be like Bush. You’ll be different. All right. How?

One of Bush’s first moves was to cut taxes. Lower tax rates have been a consistent policy of the Bush Administration, and have helped bring the nation to a three-plus-year stretch of consistent economic growth and phenomenally low unemployment for every state not shaped like a mitten. Perhaps you could raise taxes. That would make you different from Bush. After all, employers are having trouble finding people. Higher unemployment would fix that.

Maybe you could appoint unprincipled judges. They would be easier to get through the Senate, after all, so there wouldn’t be as many yucky headlines about bruising confirmation battles. You might also end up with a lot more criminals running loose, but look on the bright side. They might vote for you!

Oh, hey, if you want to be popular, you know what you need to do? Start listening to the United Nations more. A few weeks ago, the UN actually announced that global warming may change the sex of lizards. Did Bush care? No. Did Bush do anything? No. The UN keeps offering to set up international bureaucracies to enforce controls on industries – including those in America – and Bush is so darn uncooperative. All the cool ineffectual bureaucrats keep saying that if you don’t get on board with conventional thinking on global warming, you are just cutting yourself out of the debate.

Kiss the rings of the UN potentates and they will love you. You will be screwing America, but you’ll get good press coverage.

This applies in foreign policy as well. It was the UN’s own resolutions at which Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose, and yet by the UN’s arcane rules, the Security Council could not muster a vote calling for action against him without seeing it vetoed by France and Russia. (Many forget that the vote was actually 9-7 in favor.) So Bush, being a jerk, took him out anyway, without the blessing of the UN!

Then, to make matters worse, he wouldn’t even give the French any reconstruction contracts. No wonder the world hates America. You want to be a different kind of Republican? Go back to letting the UN dictate U.S. foreign policy. Maybe then they’ll let us back on the “human rights commission” with Cuba and Libya, and back on the ‘disarmament committee” with Iran.

There are lots of other things you can do. When U.S. attorneys are blowing off your law enforcement priorities, just leave them there and don’t do anything. That’ll make you popular. When the Democrats want you to surrender to terrorists? Do it. Russians upset about missile defense plans? Scrap them. Media wringing their hands because you’re keeping terrorists locked up at Gitmo? Release them and write them letters of recommendation for jobs at Google.

You want to be different from Bush, do you? Because Bush is so unpopular. Must be a good idea.

The only problem is that most of the people answering the polls – the ones that establish Bush as unpopular – think the nation’s leading news story is Paris Hilton’s jail sentence, and think “The Today Show” is a source for actual news.

If cutting taxes, reducing unemployment, appointing principled judges, defending American industry, locking up terrorists, ousting dictators and telling the UN to stick its diplomatic niceties where the sun doesn’t shine don’t allow you to poll well, fear not.

There are candidates for president who will oppose all this. They’re called Democrats. And if no Republican is willing to tout the achievements of this Republican president, they shouldn’t expect anyone to elect another one.