Go Left, Mr. President

Jacob Sullum | November 9, 2005

Writing in The New Yorker before the Alito nomination, David Remnick described how President Bush's betrayal of conservative principles had cost him support on the right:

Many of his newly emboldened critics are leading members of the true-believing conservative wing of the Republican Party, ideological radicals who saw Harriet Miers as the most underqualified crony to be nominated since the Truman Administration and could not bring themselves to believe the Administration's winks and nods hinting that she was ideologically—and theologically—One of Us. With the Miers nomination, a moment had arrived in which ideological devotion trumped partisan loyalty...Over the years, the purists could absorb some of Bush's departures from the conservative creed—the Medicare prescription-drug legislation, a campaign-finance bill—but they could not countenance a failure to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, a "swing vote" on the Court, with a jurist in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas.

The solution to the anger on the right? According to Remnick, Bush should move further to the left.

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|11.9.05 @ 12:49PM|#

Part of Bush�s vanity��and his Oedipal drama��is that he has modelled himself on Reagan and not on his father, but it is hard to imagine him cleaning house the way Reagan did in 1987 and moving toward the center.

If I can drag any meaning from this article, it's the suggestion that the President move to the center on foreign policy--whatever that means at this point.

The President's impression of Ronald Reagan looks a lot like President Johnson. ...I liked Cavanaugh's impression of Ronald Reagan better.

Tim Cavanaugh|11.9.05 @ 10:40AM|#

According to Remnick, Bush should move further to the left.

Whoa, what a shock! I'm comin' to join ya, Elizabeth!

|11.9.05 @ 10:55AM|#

I was half expecting him to nominate some qualified lefty, just to give a big FU to those on the right who criticized and abandoned him since we all know how petty and vengeful his political machine is.

|11.9.05 @ 11:00AM|#

We don't want him.

|11.9.05 @ 11:06AM|#

Would moving to an anti-torture position count as moving to the left?

|11.9.05 @ 11:17AM|#

Since when did Miers go from being a totally unqualified religious nut to the Greatest Supreme Court Nominee Ever, and victim of the right?

alkali|11.9.05 @ 11:25AM|#

I don't think that states Remnick's position correctly. Remnick says that Reagan's staff reshuffle moved him toward the center but that it is "hard to imagine" Bush doing the same, in part because there is no longer a firm Republican center.

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