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It's Too Late for George Bush John LeBoutillier As Carole King sang thirty years ago, "It's too late, Baby." She was referring to romance, but in this context it is too late for Team Bush to recapture the loyalty of the conservative GOP base. Immigration/amnesty, Dubai Ports, Harriet Miers, Katrina, deficits and Iraq have destroyed Mr. Bush's credibility as president. The new federal effort on gay marriage is as transparent as dispatching "less than 5,000 unarmed National Guardsmen" to our southern border: a cosmetic ploy in a vain effort to keep the conservatives in line. This White House just doesn't get it. Period. Before – when Bush was in the '50s in all national polls – he could keep the GOP in line, and the GOP was happy to follow because they were winning. But when your leader plummets to 29 percent – and is voted in the latest Quinnipiac poll as the worst president since WW II – there is no hope of enforcing party discipline. Thus you see the open defiance in the House on the Bush-Senate-McCain-Kennedy amnesty for illegal immigrants. And you see Speaker Hastert basically tell the president off over the FBI raid of Rep. Jefferson's Capitol Hill office. The internal state of the Republican Party is one of total turmoil. They are floundering – and do not know what to do to right the ship of state. So they are – again – trying to federalize a state issue: marriage. Story Continues Below
Since when did we conservatives believe the federal government should usurp state's rights? This is yet another example of the Bush Big Government philosophy changing the basic tenets of the Republican Party. The Bushes, believers in a Big Federal Government, have become the un-conservatives: a huge Department of Education, a bloated and ridiculous Department of Homeland Security, massive deficits, a new ‘entitlement' – prescription drugs – a never-ending war that has morphed into the dreaded ‘nation-building' and on and on and on. After all of that, why would conservatives happily rejoin Team Bush just because he mouths a few platitudes about an issue a close friend of his tells Newsweek "He doesn't give a s*** about"? Both George Bushes – father and son – tried to portray themselves as conservatives; both were cynical manipulators who cleverly used symbols – pork rinds, country music, a phony ‘ranch' with no animals – to hide their Rockefellerish belief in massive federal power, especially when they control that power. But it is indeed "too late." GW Bush's credibility is shot, his power eroded, his ability to influence events virtually gone. His own arrogance and ignorance caused his downfall. He was too arrogant to listen when warned about the impending fiasco in Iraq, and he was too ignorant – and lazy – to study history to see what lay ahead in a war such as this. The result? A presidency deteriorating right before our eyes. Never – even under the inept Carter or the corrupt Nixon – have we seen a self-immolation quite like this. And we still have two and a half years to go! The Republican Party is a mess; the Democrats are horrible and should never be trusted again. No wonder more and more people are calling for a third party. Or, as has been written in this space for more than a year, an independent third candidate who will run against both parties. That may indeed happen in 2008. But that is a long, long time from now. First comes a major battle: Where is the heart of the Republican Party? Is it for someone like McCain – a Teddy Kennedy in GOP clothing? Or is there another Ronald Reagan true-blue conservative out there somewhere who wants to retake our party and put it back on conservative principles? That is the key question today. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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