The American Spectator

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Oxymoronic Clinton Conservatives

5.10.07 @ 12:01AM

NOT FRIENDS OF HILL
Re: W. James Antle III's Republicans for Clinton?:

Suggesting that conservatives vote for Hillary Clinton is the same league as those you justify Mussolini because he made the trains run on time and Hitler because he built those nice autobahns. It's the absolute absence of morality and morality should be the quality above all others that defines the conservative viewpoint -- without morality and moral courage and conviction, conservatives are nothing, there is no point to going to all the trouble of deciding between what is right and what is wrong. Liberalism is far easier to practice than conservatism because it does not require real morality, all that matters is getting along and feeling comfortable. That is easy to do but it also means that liberalism is often empty and without any real meaning. The absence of morality certainly defines the Clintons -- not even their friends ever pretended that they were honest and selfless.

If conservatives think that a colossal, self serving fake like Hillary Clinton deserves their vote then they really should be changing their calling and taking up a less demanding one -- one that doesn't involve convictions and self pride and self respect. Being able to look at yourself in the mirror and not feel like a gutless, flip flopping wimp should be much more important to a conservative than voting for a Hillary who was all in favor of invading Iraq when it was easy to do that and has now changed her mind and her story for exactly the same reason.
-- Christopher Holland
Canberra, Australia

So, let me get this straight, Mr. Bartlett would have me support Hillary or Barack because they can win and abandon Rudy or Fred or Mitt because they can't win. Abandon my core beliefs in order to what? Get along with the "new" Democrat majority. Has the estimable Mr. Bartlett inhaled what Bubba chose not to?

By abandoning the Republican candidates he abandons the party and instead of demonstrating some integrity, some backbone, some cojones he would have us roll over like a puppies and bare our underbelly to be eviscerated. Can there be any doubt that following the lead of summer soldiers like Mr. Bartlett will only ensure the election of a Democrat president and legislature with the subsequent results. Hillary unchecked, what a great idea! Repressive taxes, socialized medicine, surrender, criminalization of dissent (they've started already it's called the "fairness doctrine"), terrorists being read their rights after they've killed in the name of Allah…Gee sounds great Bruce!!

I ain't no ways tired...count me still in the fight!
-- Stuart Reed
Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan

By championing Hillary for the politically-sophisticated conservatives, Bruce Bartlett is displaying a darkened mind not far from the one Pat Buchanan displayed when he said on television that Hillary sounded the most Reaganesque in her response to Brian William's question during the South Carolina debate:

Brian Williams: Okay, look, God forbid a million times we're sitting here tonight and we learn during the course of this press conference that two American cities have been obliterated, and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt it's Al-Qaeda.

Hillary: I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate. If we are attacked and we can determine who was behind that attack, and if there were nations that supported or gave material aid to those who attacked us, I believe we should quickly respond. Now, that doesn't mean we go looking for other fights. You know, I supported President Bush when he went after Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and then when he decided to divert attention to Iraq, it was not a decision that I would have made had I been president because we still haven't found bin Laden.

The problem with Pat Buchanan's assessment of Hillary's answer is that she did not answer the question that was asked. Reagan would have answered the question that was asked and, since it was post- 9/11 given a much different answer than Hillary.

Last November 10 Buchanan wrote:

With the rout of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's initiatives, Democratic victories in New Jersey and Virginia, and President Bush's free fall in national polls on job performance, credibility and character, the Republican Party is in imminent peril of losing the country.

Indeed, since 9/11, the party has indulged in a willful self-delusion that it has become America's Party. The Bush triumph in 2004, talking heads brayed, settled the matter: Red State America has triumphed over Blue State America. The future belongs to us.

This was always hyperbole. Where Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan rolled up 49-state landslides in re-election runs, Bush won 31 states, losing every state north of the Potomac and east of Ohio, two of the three great industrial states of the Midwest, Michigan and Illinois, and he was skunked on the Pacific rim. Had Kerry hammered him on trade and lost jobs in Ohio, Bush would be a one-term president...

Pat Buchanan is full of hyperbole. I advise him to read the letters column of TAS today under "Motor Trends." There, in letters from "the people" he loves and champions more than any other talking head Republican, he will learn the reasons why the Big Three really died (hint: it's no fault of any of the Bush's -- even Barney) and revise and, extend his remarks. Oh, and Michigan ceased to be a great industrial state about 20 years ago.

As for Bruce Bartlett, in November of 2004, he wrote:

"If George W. Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3."

These remarks and columns by Bartlett and Buchanan are just evidence of that civil war.

Don't be fooled into thinking anything else.

Letter to the Editor

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