Doonesbury, Salon and a Conservative on Why Bush Should Not Be Given a Second Term

Today's Doonesbury cartoon (it should be available for about 2 weeks after publication here as well) features "Megaphone Mark" Slackmeyer as "Mr. Honest Voices". He's being asked "Where can I find a reasoned critique of the Bush record by a Reagan Republican?"

Mr. Honest Voice's response is to point him to this article at Slate.com.

(Access to Slate is by subscription, but they're offering this article for free since Doonesbury points to it. Doonesbury's daily strip is available through Slate.com as well, so it's a bit of free advertising all around)

To quote from the article:

Republican partisans have little choice but to focus on Kerry's perceived vulnerabilities. A few high-octane speeches cannot disguise the catastrophic failure of the Bush administration in both its domestic and its foreign policies. Mounting deficits are likely to force eventual tax increases, reversing perhaps President Bush's most important economic legacy. The administration's foreign policy is an even greater shambles, with Iraq aflame and America increasingly reviled by friend and foe alike.

Quite simply, the president, despite his well-choreographed posturing, does not represent traditional conservatism -- a commitment to individual liberty, limited government, constitutional restraint and fiscal responsibility. Rather, Bush routinely puts power before principle.

and

For some conservatives, the clincher in favor of Bush is the war on terrorism...Yet Bush's foreign policy record is as bad as his domestic scorecard. The administration correctly targeted the Taliban in Afghanistan, but quickly neglected that nation, which is in danger of falling into chaos. The Taliban is resurgent, violence has flared, drug production has burgeoned and elections have been postponed.

Iraq, already in chaos, is no conservative triumph. The endeavor is social engineering on a grand scale, a war of choice launched on erroneous grounds that has turned into a disastrously expensive neocolonial burden.

and

A few conservatives are distressed at what Bush has wrought in Iraq. "Crossfire" host Tucker Carlson said recently: "I think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it." William F. Buckley Jr., longtime National Review editor and columnist, wrote: "With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."

The article is well worth the read, as is this article on why a second term for Dubbya would be a nightmare. (You may have to go through a few Advertisemnt pages to get to a "Daily Pass" link to read the article. Sorry.)

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