Bush Is No Conservative

by Paul Craig Roberts

President Bush passes himself off as a conservative Republican and a born-again Christian. These are disguises behind which Bush hides. Would a Christian invade another country on false pretenses, kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians, and show no remorse or inclination to cease the aggression?

Longtime Republican policy wonk Bruce Bartlett recently published a book, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, in which he proves that President Bush is no economic conservative, having broken all records in spending taxpayers' money and running up public debt.

Were Bush merely another big spender, his presidency wouldn't differ from other pork-barrel administrations, but Bush's radicalism goes far beyond spending. Bush has taken an irreverent approach to the U.S. Constitution.

Bush bears no resemblance to a political conservative. A political conservative does not confuse government with country. Patriotism means loyalty to country. Bush, however, demands allegiance to his government: "You are with us or against us!" Critics of the Bush administration are branded "unpatriotic" and even "treasonous."

Loyalty to country means allegiance to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the separation of powers. It does not mean blind support for a president, an administration, or a political party.

(The rest is here.)

Paul Craig Roberts is the John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy, a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. A former editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service, he is a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles and a columnist for Investor's Business Daily. (For more on Paul Craig Roberts, go here.)