George W. Bush, Conservative Champion
It is the goal of many in the conservative movement to make the American people believe that the government cannot accomplish anything; that government is fundamentally incompetent, and every goal, whether slight or great, is more easily accomplished by private industry. No President in America' s history has made the case for this belief as effectively as George W. Bush. From our failure to safeguard the World Trade Center (which was not the President's fault...but still contributed to the impression) to our failure to tame the warlords and the opium trade and al Qaeda in Afghanistan to our failure in Iraq to our failure to rebuild New Orleans to the bad new prescription drug plans to the Veteran's Affairs housing problems to the President's own declaration that Social Security was in a desperate crisis, followed by his failure to do anything about it, President Bush has administered over a government seemingly unable to do anything right. Many might say that Bush is just that incompetent, but I think most of these government failures must surely be the product of design. No one capable of getting elected President can possibly be so incapable of everything else.
The liberal counter-argument, that government is not inherently incompetent, but that neoconservatives are either incapable or unwilling to run the government well, is certainly a case that can be argued, but the American people might be in too sour a mood to distinguish between the present administration, and the government as a whole. While George W. Bush must rank near the bottom of all American Presidents, he may be the greatest benefactors of one part of the conservative movement: He may have destroyed America 's belief that we can work together for the common good.
What more could he do for the cause?
