First, They Came for the Supply-Siders…

On Oct. 18, the NY Times ran this story about longtime GOP-friendly commentator and policy analyst (and sometime Reason contributor) Bruce Bartlett being sacked by the National Center for Policy Analysis for being too anti-Bush. A snippet:

In the latest sign of the deepening split among conservatives over how far to go in challenging President Bush, Bruce Bartlett, a Republican commentator who has been increasingly critical of the White House, was dismissed on Monday as a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative research group based in Dallas.

In a statement, the organization said the decision was made after Mr. Bartlett supplied its president, John C. Goodman, with the manuscript of his forthcoming book, "The Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."

Whole thing here.

And here's a snippet from Bartlett's latest syndicated col, via the Wash Times:

The truth is now dawning on many movement conservatives that George W. Bush is not one of them and never has been. They were allies for a long time, to be sure, and conservatives used Mr. Bush just as he used them. But it now appears they are headed for divorce.

As with all divorces, the ultimate cause was not the final incident but grievances built up over a long period that one day could no longer be overlooked, contained or smoothed over.

Whole thing here. Among the particulars with which Bartlett charges Bush are crapola education "reform" at the national level, backing campaign finance reform (aka limitations on the First Amendment), weak immigration policy, hikes in regulation (such as Sarbanes-Oxley), and massive increases in spending beyond anything plausibly connected to the War on Terror.

It's never good to be shitcanned, but the kernel of corn here may be that this gives some tremendous pre-publicity to Bartlett's book, due out in April from Doubleday. Look for the release date to be pushed up a bit.