Being Anti-Bush

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Being Anti-Bush
by James Hall, Senior Associate Editor

May 1, 2003

"Leaning Left"

James Hall Okay, I don't like George W. Bush either. Or rather, I don't like the politics he represents. I don't like the uncritical support for corporations, the attempts to privatize social services on the cheap, the packing of the courts with conservative ideologues, or the push for tax breaks for the wealthy while important issues of the nation's social safety net languish.

I don't like the disdain for international law or diplomacy and the eagerness to resort to military force. I don't care for the advancing of a particular brand of Christianity into what should be the religiously-neutral public square. Most of all, I don't like the tone of self-righteousness Bush has lent America's voice.

But that's no reason for me to oppose every action George W. Bush takes. Being against Bush can't be enough for American liberals-we have to be for something else, a vision for the future that's superior to Bush's vision. That shouldn't be too hard, for like his Dad, George W. Bush hasn't mastered "the vision thing."

The left's recent knee-jerk reaction to every Bush move reminds me of the right's reactions to Bill Clinton from 1992-2000. Conservatives hated everything about Clinton then, from his policies to his personal style, and took every chance to be against whatever he was for, regardless of its merit.

Clinton fed off their negativity to remain a popular leader with most Americans even while his tawdry personal life unraveled. Now liberals risk doing the same for George W. Bush, responding to his air of sanctimony and his politics, even when they're correct.

The rest of the world can be free to hate Bush and rant and rave against him. But Americans who oppose Bush have got to be more discerning, if only because they still have a chance to get rid of him in November of 2004.

The American national electorate is a true balancing act, with a conservative third and liberal third of the population ideologically opposed to each other, but each unable to overcome the other. No presidential candidate, liberal or conservative, can become and remain President without appealing to the moderate, non-ideological center, which votes Democratic or Republican as it pleases.

Lately Bush has been adroit in appealing to that center, putting a moderate face on his conservative actions. He's marketed his tax cuts for the wealthy as being for all Americans. He's opened natural resources to corporate exploitation in the name of national energy self-sufficiency and conservation. And he's made the defense of America after 9/11, and the country's natural surge of patriotism during wartime a political issue for his party.

Liberals have done nothing to harm him, either. We've waffled on the war on terror, sending mixed messages at a time when we should stand firm. We have a better solution to that war than Bush and his conservatives, enlisting the UN and the international community in the fight, while conservatives are happy unilateralists. We can fight the battle in America without the fascist Patriot Act or the illegal prisons in Guantonamo and overseas, and by providing more support for our homeland security first responders than Bush has been willing to offer.

When Bush and his neo-cons call for the growth of liberal democracy in the Middle East, liberals can and should agree. But we must also argue that ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to winning the war on terror. No budding Arab democracy will remain favorable to the United States so long as we provide one-sided support to Ariel Sharon's government.

Most of all, we must blow the whistle on Bush's flawed domestic policies, his tax cutting while Social Security and Medicare remain to be fixed, his cash and carry environmentalism, the burgeoning healthcare crisis he's ignored, and his insistence on building churches with tax dollars.

It's easy for liberals to despair now, with 70-plus approval ratings for Bush and the campaigning season around the corner. But the left can and should oppose Bush, though its opposition has to be principled, not just anti-Bush. This is policy, not personal. ***

James Hall
Orlando, FL USA

Photo of the author courtesy of staff files