In her Wall Street Journal column on Friday, author and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan writes an open letter to the disaffected conservative base of the GOP. That is, the 28 per cent that actually still supports President Bush. The base right now looks like an Alka-Seltzer tablet in water, fizzing away after a week of Iraq mayhem, immigration compromise, and Bush actually addressing global warming. What shocked Ms. Noonan isn't just Bush's positions on these issues, but the response from the White House. Says Ms. Noonan:
The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."
Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens?
Uh, where have you been for the last six years, Peg? This is how the Bush administration deals with all its critics -- liberal, moderate, and yes, even conservative. The White House's preferred mode of political discourse is the personal attack. It's been that since Bush's political evisceration of war hero John McCain in the 2000 primaries. As Newt Gingrich noted of the 2004 campaign in last week's New Yorker, "The Bush people deliberately could not bring themselves to wage a campaign of choice'" -- of ideology, of suggesting that Kerry was 'to the left of Ted Kennedy' -- and chose instead to attack Kerry's war record."
That deliberate vindictiveness is aimed at anyone who dares to disagree with the Bush administration. Judges that Team Bush disapproves of are called an "out of control judiciary." If you didn't support Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, you were "elitist." Our Democratic Congress, elected to put oversight on the war in Iraq, is accused of not supporting the troops. US Attorneys who don't do Bush bidding like legal parking valets are fired for incompetence and underperformance. When John Edwards disagreed with Bush on the nature of the enemy in Iraq last month, the president personally called him "naïve." That's at least a step-up from when Vice President Cheney smeared Edwards' Senate record by saying he had never even met him before, or Cheney's simply telling an opponent like Senator Leahy to "go fuck yourself."
Nope, being on the business end of a Bush administration talking point isn't much fun. And as Noonan points out, it's not just elected public officials, judges, and pundits who get it, but "opponents who are concerned citizens." Maybe George W. Bush will never personally call me naïve, but the ugly vibe that he spreads to all who disagree with him -- that we're unpatriotic, troop hating, and naïve -- makes reasonable debate about the best course for Iraq, bringing as many of our troops home healthy, and what to do about the millions of illegals here in America, less and less possible.