Bush So Far: Conservatives Mostly Happy

Bush So Far: Conservatives Mostly Happy

Wes Vernon
Saturday, March 10, 2001

"We will agree 80 percent of the time," a top-ranking Bush confidant told a gathering of conservatives two months ago.

He was speaking to the real core of the GOP's party base. Rule 1 for any successful politician is to keep your base on the reservation. So far, after seven weeks on the job, President Bush is doing that, with some notable exceptions. And even those exceptions seem to realize it would be premature to cut loose. But some of their strong complaints could spell trouble down the line, depending on what ultimately develops in overall administration policy.

"Yes, I like this president better than [Nixon, Ford, Reagan and the elder Bush at this point in their terms]," conservative icon and Free Congress Foundation President Paul Weyrich tells NewsMax.com. "He has not forgotten who elected him since the election.

"Yes, I think we agree with him 80 percent of the time. Do I like all his appointments? No. But the GOP is a coalition, and there are liberals in that coalition who supported Bush. They are entitled to some consideration from Bush."

Syndicated columnist Michael Kelly marvels at "Bush’s political smarts." The president, as Kelly sees it, has "the ability to understand and manipulate people and situations."

In this, he is seen as a Clinton in reverse, minus the dishonesty and criminality. He knows he must satisfy his core's non-negotiables, most notably on abortion and taxes. He understands that most swing voters want a "nondivisive 'nice' president, and that giving ground on contentious issues will please the swing, weaken the standing of the anti-core, and be tolerated by the core."

Bush's stand against racial profiling is cited by the columnist as an example. The core may view it as conceding to racial demagoguery, but doesn't see it as "non-negotiable."

Moreover, the White House is keeping its lines open to conservative groups, in and outside Washington. By and large, the strategy is paying off, as reflected in the president's approval ratings.

That having been said, there are strong dissents from the right on a number of fronts.

Right now, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman is causing the most concern among Bush supporters.

NewsMax.com was among the first to lay out for a national audience Mrs. Whitman’s generally liberal record at governor of New Jersey (See Whitman, Heading for EPA, Leaves Fiscal Mess and 'Moderate' Whitman Seen as Sure Thing.)

On several different occasions in recent days, the same EPA administrator who only a few weeks ago was confusing "global warming" with the "hole in the ozone" now tells us with an air of authority that "the science is good" on the theory of global warming.

One conservative lawmaker tells NewsMax.com that Whitman now realizes that she was mistaken as to Bush's policy and that she would "moderate" her views on the matter.

The president's own stated position on the campaign trail was that the science is inconclusive and bears monitoring and that the Kyoto treaty, signed by then-President Bill Clinton but rejected by 97 members of the U.S. Senate, which would have to ratify it before it could constitutionally take effect, was flawed and would not work.

The late political science professor Adam Wildavsky of the University of California commented that withdrawing carbon from production as part of "multipollutant strategy" – which Whitman has said she favors – could realize "the environmentalist dream of an egalitarian society based on the rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population's eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of services much more equally."

In short, the Kyoto Treaty would, as charged by its critics, "shut down America" based on junk science.

In the midst of all this comes a geologist from Old Dominion University who says that, if anything, we may be heading for an ice age and, in fact, that we may be in the early stages of it.

Research professor Douglas Jens Bischoff spells it out in his new book, "Ice Drift, Ocean Circulation and Climate Change." The book argues that gradual climate change could lead to colder winters and shorter planting seasons.

"If I were a politician, sure I would use my research to make a point," Bischoff tells the Associated Press. "But I’m not doing that."

Beyond the global warming flap, anti-abortionists are not satisfied that Whitman has let go of her pro-abortion activism.

Larry Cirignano, communications director for CatholicVote.org, tells NewsMax.com that "Christie Whitman is not off the record; she is off the reservation."

Cirignano adds that "as a representative of the Bush administration, she is given a national platform and should not be speaking out against the party platform and the president's policy. She will continue to raise money for pro-abortion groups, and that is wrong."

The CatholicVote.Com director thus is saying that Whitman's well-known "in your face" activism on this issue did not end with her joining the Bush team. He is not satisfied that her activities end with her reported statement that she and the president had simply "agreed to disagree" on abortion.

The Cellucci Controversy

President Bush has nominated Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci as ambassador to Canada.

On Wednesday, a band of demonstrators sardonically calling themselves "Perverts for Cellucci" protested outside the Senate against the governor's confirmation.

Anti-Cellucci activity has gone far beyond this one demonstration. Brian Camenker of the Parents Rights Coalition had already met privately with Republican staffers for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss the governor's state Department of Education's collaboration with Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network to distribute packets of material to teach "homosexual techniques."

Public Advocate, the group that organized the "Perverts for Cellucci" demonstration, cites Cellucci's "funding of a March 2000 workshop titled 'What They Didn’t Tell You About Queer Sex And Sexuality in Health Class.' " This was a workshop for youths only, ages 14-21.

I put the question to Public Advocate that if Cellucci's policies were that bad, would it not be just as well to get rid of him and send him over the border, away from the kids in his state?

The response from Public Advocate's Jesse Binnall was that "we are opposing him because we believe that someone with such a record of anti-family extremism cannot properly represent Americans."

To demonstrate the latter point, conservative groups in Canada seem to be saying, "Don’t send us your problems." They are joining the anti-Cellucci coalition, which includes the U.S. groups Concerned Women for America and Eagle Forum.

The U.N. Ambassador

John Dimitri Negroponte has been selected by the president as the next U.N. ambassador, a nomination that Cliff Kincaid, president of America’s Survival Inc., says "looks like New World Order Jr."

Kincaid says Negroponte, a former aide to Colin Powell at the National Security Council in the 1980s, "has been associated with a string of foreign policy disasters including Vietnam as a member of the delegation to the failed Paris peace talks delegation" (widely seen as a Lyndon Johnson ploy to elect Hubert Humphrey at that time); ambassador to Mexico (1989-93), where he "gave flawed and misleading advice on Mexican cooperation in the war on drugs"; ambassador to the Philippines (1993-96), where he "was involved in the failed effort to maintain a military presence there"; and Panama (1996-97), "where he failed to maintain a U.S. military presence there."

Kincaid does concede that as ambassador to Honduras (1981-85), Negroponte did play a role in President Ronald Reagan's ultimately successful effort to keep the region free of communism. Though this will undoubtedly earn Negroponte far-left opposition at his confirmation hearings, America’s Survival Inc. says, "We will not be fooled."

We have written extensively about the decision to keep Louis Freeh as director of the FBI, despite his cooperation with some of the Clinton administration's police-state efforts. (See Bush Pressured to Boot Freeh From FBI.)

So, too, have we written about those who believe that Bush, for all of the energy he is putting into the tax-cut effort, should be upping the ante to deliver the benefits of the plan all at once, especially now that the economy has taken a downturn. But we’ve also noted a leader on the Hill has left open the door to the possibility of bringing about just that result. (See House Leaders Ponder Tax Cut All at Once.)

Some family groups complain that the marriage penalty provision of the tax cut discriminates against stay-at-home mothers. As Eagle Forum Executive Director Lori L. Cole told NewsMax.com, "We’re carrying the torch for marriage."

Though this list may seem rather long when added up, it does not begin to compare with the volume of enthusiastic support that President Bush enjoys among conservatives. The core of the Republican Party admires him for not backing down on his determination to get the tax cut and for taking his message on this and other issues out to the country, talking over the heads of the Beltway liberal establishment.

Conservatives particularly like his sticking with John Ashcroft for attorney general. They only hope that the former Missouri governor and senator has not become "shell-shocked" by the vicious leftist-driven inquisition the Democrats called a "confirmation hearing."

Paul Weyrich summarizes Bush for us this way: "Bush is a very different president. For a Methodist, this is the best Catholic president we have ever had.

"He understands the principle of subsidiarity." We took that to mean putting first things first, not sweating the little things. And that's what the president seems to be doing.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
United Nations