{"id":8012,"date":"2006-07-24T10:41:51","date_gmt":"2006-07-24T14:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8012.html"},"modified":"2006-07-24T10:41:51","modified_gmt":"2006-07-24T14:41:51","slug":"buckley-if-bush-were-prime-minister-he-would-retire-or-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/buckley-if-bush-were-prime-minister-he-would-retire-or-resign\/","title":{"rendered":"Buckley: if Bush were prime minister, he would ‘retire or resign’"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s been a little too much talk<\/a> lately from high-profile conservatives who want to distance themselves from Bush, claiming he’s not a real conservative. [tag]William F. Buckley[\/tag] seems to be the latest to join the trend, though he’s emphasizing more foreign policy<\/a> than domestic. (thanks to slip kid for the heads-up)<\/p>\n

Buckley finds himself parting ways with [tag]President[\/tag] [tag]Bush[\/tag], whom he praises as a decisive leader but admonishes for having strayed from true conservative principles in his foreign policy.<\/p>\n

In particular, Buckley views the three-and-a-half-year [tag]Iraq[\/tag] [tag]War[\/tag] as a failure. “If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we’ve experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign,” Buckley says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And when Buckley refers to “what we’ve experienced,” he’s not just talking about increased federal spending or the White House’s Medicare scheme — the usual conservative complaints, which Buckley did mention in his CBS interview — he’s referring more specifically to the war in Iraq, which Buckley believes has hampered the administration’s ability to deal effectively with, well, practically everything.<\/p>\n

As for the future, [tag]Buckley[\/tag] added, “There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. I don’t believe his successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious. So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable”<\/p>\n

I’m not sure I’d use the word “ambitious” to describe the goals of Bush’s second inaugural — “hollow cynicism” seems more apt — but “indecipherable” seems to capture the incoherence of the president’s policy quite nicely.<\/p>\n

I’ve lost count of how many conservative leaders have given up on Bush’s presidency, but having Buckley bash Bush on CBS has to sting the White House gang a bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s been a little too much talk lately from high-profile conservatives who want to distance themselves from Bush, claiming he’s not a real conservative. [tag]William F. Buckley[\/tag] seems to be the latest to join the trend, though he’s emphasizing more foreign policy than domestic. (thanks to slip kid for the heads-up) Buckley finds himself parting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}