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Monday, October 22, 2007
Was It Bush or Conservatism?
Michael Tomasky asks a vital question in The Guardian:
That is, Americans have now experienced a conservative government failing them. But what lesson will they take? That conservatism itself is exhausted and without answers to the problems that confront American and the world today? Or will they conclude that the problem hasn't been conservatism per se, just Bush, and that a conservatism that is competent and comparatively honest will suit them just fine?
There's a lot of ink on this subject (Greg Anrig Jr. has written a book on it, Rick Perlstein has a blog), but there are two major fiscal policy stances that are both distinctly conservative and have directly contributed to recent governmental failures (think Katrina, Walter Reed, Iraq, etc.): budget cuts and excessive privatization.
I could be wrong, but I don't think cronyism, corruption or arrogance are in conservative's blood, nor do they have a permanent monopoly on it, however much they do at the moment. But as champions of the "free market" and "self-reliance," conservatives are ideologically disposed to favor agency cuts and privatization.
Once effective governance was an issue to co-opt from the right; now it's a defining issue for liberals, particularly in these two ways. Only liberals can clean up the mess conservatives made of government, because only liberals understand the limitations of the market and the potential of government. Hopefully the public will see this.
Posted by Matt Lewis
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