Centerfield

I'm not a big Malkin fan so I will wait and see what else comes out. An odd combo of Malkin (conservative, at times, incendiary pundit) quoting Civil Service union members.

Posted by: c3 at September 21, 2005 07:34 PM

The point is, whether she is correct or not, the fact that conservatives (other than the real True Believers)are starting to question Bush shows that they are beginning to see him as a liability. I can't believe Michelle Malkin would have written this a year ago. Some of this is to be expected in a lame duck, but this seems much more than that.

It's pretty clear that, whatever else happens, Bush can forget about his legislative agenda (ie, Social Security).

Posted by: Marc at September 22, 2005 10:09 AM

No Marcus, this is not a new phenomenon at all. Conservatives have been questioning Bush on the illegal immigration issue since he has been President.

Conservatives taking illegal immigration and terrorism seriously means social security reform won't pass? Your logic escapes me.

Michelle Malkin did in fact write a great deal of this sort of thing a year ago, in fact she wrote a whole book on the immigration & terrorism subject.

Given the importance of the position I would hope the White House would reconsider and withdraw the nomination.

Posted by: Susan at September 22, 2005 03:40 PM

This will sound glib but one obvious split between GW and conservatives: many of them will be running for office, he won't.

Posted by: c3 at September 22, 2005 11:36 PM

Conservatives taking illegal immigration and terrorism seriously means social security reform won't pass?

Social security reform won't pass, period. The President made a vast miscalculation by making that the lead issue in his second term - it then crashed, burned, and he has never recovered since. The public overwhelmingly told their Representatives and Senators, you vote for this and you can find another job. My opinion is that it was simply mis-sold - when you hear Gingrich talk about this stuff, it seems rational and sensible. But the reality, it seems to me, is that no Republican who wants to get re-elected will vote for it this year, next year, or any other, and that being the case, I suspect Speaker Hastert is too much of a Gentleman to bring the issue to the floor.

"[T]aking illegal immigration and terrorism seriously", on the other hand, is something that is wildly popular, although not everyone agrees on what to do about it. The main sticking point seems to be that the Bush administration wants to deal with the problem at the gates by tearing down the walls, while mostly everyone else is thinking more about shoring up the gate and dropping the portcullis.

I feel very despondent, as a Republican, about the situtation in Washington. Our fiscal policy is absurd, our Representatives have become fattened and corrupted (see the highways bill), and we have a feckless President prone to appointing cronies and refusing to fire anyone (how Rumsfeld still has a job is beyond me). Having tasted the forbidden fruit of federal power, we are playing fast and loose with federalism. If there was as much as a halfway-credible alternative, we'd be screwed.

There are so many potentially great choices for the party in 2008; I hope I feel better about this soon. Maybe I'm just extra-anxious (super-duper-anxious, perhaps...) because of the SCOTUS stuff.

Posted by: Simon at September 23, 2005 09:54 AM

"True" small gov't conservatives are in deep do-do. See Peggy Noonan! Michelle Malkin has long been critical of Bush -- but the Dems would be worse on immigration; worse on free spending (if the Reps would let them, which they wouldn't); and much, much worse on terrorism.

But cronyism has long been a problem in gov't -- and it's politically STUPID of Bush to support "barely qualified" J. Myers just after barely qualified (un-?) Brown resigns (forced to?).

Roberts at SC was brilliant. Myers -- NOT.

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at September 23, 2005 11:31 AM

The Roberts nomination was a political masterstroke, granted. But I wish I was more confident that it was the right move for the court, and his answers to the Committee gave me no sense that this guy is a fullfilment of what I thought we were promised.

Posted by: Simon at September 23, 2005 11:58 AM