The Accidental Leader

Not only did George W Bush accidentally come to lead the nation as the President in 2000 (I say accidentally in the sense that America didn't want him there; it was just an accident), he accidentally became the leader of the so-called "conservative movement." Since his ascendancy, Bush became the figurehead for a movement of social fascists (aka Christianists) bent on dismantling the Constitution and its well-tried freedoms and replacing it with the Christian Bible. (Really, these people were no different than the Taliban and other conservative Islamists who wanted Sharia law to govern their caliphate, other than the fact that they didn't use guns or strap bombs to their bodies.)

But wouldn't it just be the shit if it turned out that Bush had zero interest in furthering the cause of the Christianists?

Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent for the Washington Examiner, reports on Bush's attitudes about the "movement" conservatives, in an upcoming book scheduled for release next week and written by former White House speechwriter Matt Latimer. York reports:

Bush was preparing to give a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The conference is the event of the year for conservative activists; Republican politicians are required to appear and offer their praise of the conservative movement.

Latimer got the assignment to write Bush's speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic.

"What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?" the president asked Latimer.

Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement -- the movement that gave rise to groups like CPAC.

Bush seemed perplexed. Latimer elaborated a bit more. Then Bush leaned forward, with a point to make.

"Let me tell you something," the president said. "I whupped Gary Bauer's ass in 2000. So take out all this movement stuff. There is no movement."

Bush seemed to equate the conservative movement -- the astonishing growth of conservative political strength that took place in the decades after Barry Goldwater's disastrous defeat in 1964 -- with the fortunes of Bauer, the evangelical Christian activist and former head of the Family Research Council whose 2000 presidential campaign went nowhere.

Now it was Latimer who looked perplexed. Bush tried to explain.

"Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say," the president said, "but I redefined the Republican Party."

Andrew Sullivan writes today, "He didn't. He just broke it." I'm in the middle. I see how he broke it by co-opting liberalism and using his born-again religiosity to create so-called "compassionate conservatism." The problem is that he took the worst of both -- profligate spending and moral tunnel-vision -- to frame the context of his presidency. In that way, therefore, he redefined the Republican Party as the party of fiscal recklessness (which unfortunately forced Obama to print and borrow more money to correct) and lunatic fringe Christianism. And it will take more than a decade for them to find their way back into the mainstream.