gibingus

this article hits the nail on the head: if you consider yourself a conservative, this administration is not cutting it. if you think they are, you need to re-evaluate how you define conservative.

story at washingtonpost.com

Conservatives for Kerry? Here's Your Man.
An Old Nixon Hand Smacks the Bushes
By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 29, 2004; Page D01


LITCHFIELD, Conn. -- Utter three words -- George Walker Bush -- and watch eminent author Kevin Phillips, a longtime Republican, a former Nixon aide and past party theoretician, pucker like he has inhaled a pickle.

"I've never understood why we take Bush and his family seriously," he says. "They come from the investment-inherited-money wing of the Republican Party. They display no real empathy for anyone who is not of their class."

He pauses a few seconds as his fingers execute a tap dance on his picnic table.

"They aren't supply-siders; they're crony-siders. As far as I'm concerned, I would put Bush on a slow boat to China with all full warning to the Chinese submarine fleet."

Silence again. Phillips sits on his back porch and looks at you from under hooded eyes, with only the vaguest hint of a chipmunk smile. He's a curious cat, this 63-year-old Nixon-era Republican populist. His best-selling, muckraking book on the family that has held the presidency for eight of the past 16 years, "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush," is a sustained rummage through the Bush family closet. He pulls out all manner of files on the early Bushes and the Walker branch of the family, and their dealings with post-World War I German industrialists and post-World War II Saudi princelings. And he draws a bright connecting line between those wheeler-dealer financiers and their Texas-lite descendants.

Phillips's bottom line is unsparing. He describes the Bushes as second-tier New England monied types who made the strategic move from Greenwich, Conn., to Midland, Tex., just as the nation's power pendulum took a southern swing. This was not a particularly daring strike into the interior. Rather, like proper Wall Street capitalists, the Bushes and many other financier families had sniffed the scent of sweet cash and sent a relative or two to investigate.

Texas, Phillips writes, "represented one of the century's great American wealth opportunities."

The Bushes settled in a west Texas city that, far from being the cowboy wildcatter's paradise of political myth, was a leafy enclave thick with Ivy League scions, street names such as Princeton and Harvard, and enough Wall Street gilt to keep everyone in country club fees.

As it happens, this state and that family have come to embody everything that Phillips can't stand about turn-of-the-century America. Texas is wealthy and obsessed with the accumulation of more. It's economically polarized and ranks 42nd in per-capita state spending. Its Republican elite seem splendidly immune to guilt.

"Texas civic culture," Phillips writes, "more akin to that of Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil, has accepted wealth and its benefits with minimal distraction by guilt and noblesse oblige."

Phillips elaborates on this critique during an interview. "George W. is the first president to come directly out of the oil industry, even if he was a failure at the actual business of looking for it," he says. "And who did he pick as his vice president? Another man from the oil industry. It's astonishing that nobody really questions the implications of this."

It's a righteous rap, and the sort of angry and richly detailed critique that one might expect from any number of left-liberal luminaries working the Bush-Just-Might-Signal-the-End-of-the-World circuit. These authors and filmmakers are the toast of Santa Monica and Madison and Cambridge and Montclair and Burlington, and they fire up the Democratic faithful. Except that Phillips doesn't remotely hail from there.

He's a New Yorker, yes, but also a Republican born and bred, a kid who couldn't stand that liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller. He penned "The Emerging Republican Majority" in 1969, one of the first books to argue that the Sunbelt could catapult the Republicans to national power. And he locates the source of his populist scorn for Bush not in the polemics of the left but in the politics of his hero, Dwight Eisenhower. The former general was a politician who embraced a top marginal tax rate of 90 percent, who warned of the abuses of the military-industrial complex and who -- in Phillips's telling -- had little use for the country club Republican set.

"The Republicans I respected really cared about the meatloaf crowd," Phillips says. "The Bush crowd can call me a pinko if they want, but that really doesn't go down well with people who know anything about politics."

Phillips mentions a recent television appearance with a panel of liberal historians, including Arthur Schlesinger Jr. As Phillips recalls the moment, his fellow panelists spoke of Bush and the Republicans in terms, to Phillips's mind, that were far too mild and tempered. When Phillips's turn came, he said to Schlesinger: "Now you're about to hear the real Republican viewpoint."

And with that Phillips fired both rhetorical barrels at Bush.

As you might expect, Phillips's salvos, and his essays for such liberal magazines as the Nation and the American Prospect, don't amuse conservative Republicans. They talk and write of this former Republican theorist -- now a registered independent -- as a nephew might of a favorite uncle grown dyspeptic and perhaps daft. They describe him as a relic of the Nixon era, which in the vernacular of modern conservatism connotes something akin to dangerous liberalism.

"Like many Nixon admirers, Kevin Phillips left the Republican Party when it shifted its attention away from the nanny state towards a resurgent conservatism," writes Meghan Keene in a review of "American Dynasty" for the American Enterprise Institute. "Phillips . . . has long since distanced himself from Republican principles."

Some go further still. Robert Locke, a columnist with arch-conservative Frontpage.com, lacerated another conservative magazine for daring to print an essay by Phillips. To do so, Locke argues, "is very disturbing, and indeed bordering on political treason." Phillips, he says, has "descended into the muck of crude economic populism."

It's a strange business, this notion that Phillips is beyond the conservative pale and that Richard Nixon was a closet liberal and lover of the welfare state. Except that perhaps there's some truth to this. Nixon endorsed a 50 percent tax rate on the wealthy, courted labor unions and had an instinctive feel for lower-middle-class economic resentments. And far from destroying the welfare state, he proposed a guaranteed minimum income.

Several prominent old Nixon hands, from Patrick Buchanan to former Treasury secretary Peter Peterson, have enunciated tough critiques of Bush's foreign policy and his tax cuts. (Asked recently by Bill Moyers if he needed the Bush tax cuts, Peterson replied: "I'm really almost embarrassed by the idea . . . that I'm going to be getting tax cuts so that my 6-year-old . . . grandchildren can pay bigger taxes in the future.")

None of this surprises Phillips.

"Every time I wrote an attack on Bush Sr., Nixon would send me a handwritten note of praise," Phillips says. "People ask why I won't register as a Democrat. I tell them that after Bush, the [Republican] party may come back. I'm historiographically a Republican."

Phillips has sailed far from the Republican ports of his youth, but he's not comfortable throwing down an anchor in a Democratic harbor. He congratulates Democrats on their journey away from their political and cultural irrelevancy of the 1980s. As he puts it, they learned "the art of shutting up." But he sees a party that, like the Republicans, has developed an umbilical taste for the campaign money flowing from the Wall Street and media elites.

"The Democrats understand that they killed themselves politically when they reached a point where they couldn't talk to the blue-collar worker in South Philadelphia or Queens," he says. "But now they just want to raise as much money as the Republicans, and so they're mute."

He's confounded, too, by the Democrats' inability to savage their opponents. He frowns -- it's as if someone took pliers and pulled out the party's canine teeth. "The Democrats accumulated all this dirt on Bush, but they wouldn't use it," he says. "These people have no taste for the jugular."

Phillips's critique meets with eager nods from the Democratic left. Richard Borosage, a longtime left thinker and activist, has urged Democrats, particularly those of patrician mien like John Kerry, to adopt a populist edge, the better to defuse the cultural attacks of the Republicans. "Phillips has always been scornful of Wall Street Republicans, and he understands that the Republicans are scared of a populist critique," Borosage says. "Phillips and Lee Atwater always warned that a populist Democratic candidate would cause the most problems for Republicans."

Phillips's populism was not bred in the bone. He grew up a bright lad in a middle-class neighborhood of the Bronx. His parents were active Republicans and he found in voting trends and political history the same fascination that his teenage friends discovered in batting averages. Even today, if you ask Phillips about a particular hill county in Tennessee, he will walk you back to the Scots-Irish and their antipathy toward the royalist Cavaliers, and then take you forward to last year's Senate race.

It's this talent, slightly nerdy and invaluable, that piqued the curiosity of Nixon. The presidential candidate heard Phillips expound on how Republicans could reach southern working-class whites and northern Catholics who had been turned off by the Democratic Party's turn to the cultural and social left. "I argued that there were a lot of white ethnics for whom a vote for [John F.] Kennedy was a last hurrah," Phillips recalls.

Nixon hammered at these themes and took key border states in his 1968 election. Nixon sent Phillips to work as a political aide for Attorney General John Mitchell, but Phillips didn't care for much of the Nixon crowd -- H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman deep-sixed most of the young aide's ideas. But he developed an enduring fondness for his strangely awkward president. Nixon was an inchoate man after Phillips's own heart.

"Nixon only liked first-generation millionaires, the guys who had four car dealerships in Los Angeles," Phillips says. "He probably wanted to get into the private golf clubs, but he always knew it would be an uphill struggle."

Phillips left the Nixon White House after about a year. While his writing remained influential within Republican circles for the next decade, he never became a political consultant. Instead he has written 11 well-respected books on history and economics, and made a considerable pile of money writing business newsletters and giving speeches on politics. "I've done well with Bush-o-nomics, no doubt," he says. "Unfortunately, it's disastrous for the country."

Phillips's antipathy for the Bushes took root in the Nixon administration. Nixon, he says, regarded the elder Bush as a lightweight and so assigned him to the United Nations. Nixon then appointed him as chairman of the Republican National Committee, where Bush proved swell at sweet-talking donors into parting with large sums of money for the sake of the party. (In this way, Phillips says, the father prefigured the son. George W. Bush never ran a profitable oil business, but he was terrific at raising copious sums of finance capital and walked away from each oil venture with a fatter bank account).

In the end, though, it's not the money that most galls Phillips, nor even the unseemly origins of the Bush fortune. (Earlier generations of Bushes apparently profited handsomely from World War I contracts and from the reckless lending of bonds to a collapsing Weimar Republic government, not to mention some Bush-Harriman investments in Germany as it rearmed during the 1930s.) Phillips is too much the scholar not to know that scoundrels stand behind most great fortunes.

What bothers him is that generation after generation of Bushes are so unwilling to transcend their class interests.

"An old buccaneer and bootlegger like Joe Kennedy became an SEC head for Roosevelt and cracked down on his own class," Phillips says, adding: "The Bush family would just appoint a Gucci-shoe-licking sycophant. The family has simply developed a culture of being enormously supportive of their class."

Even the president's Texas twang grates on Phillips, whose own accent is clipped and clear and, we must note, a tad patrician. "Listen to them! Assemble the very best panel of linguists you could find and have them listen to brothers Jeb and G.W. -- they wouldn't even guess they're in the same family," Phillips says. "G.W. talks like a cowboy and he's no more a backwoods Texan than I am."

So what's an Nixon-Eisenhower Republican to do when he steps inside a voting booth in November 2004? Phillips shrugs. As it stands, Kerry has his vote, although the text of Phillips's endorsement probably won't appear in any Democratic ads. "I'm hoping that Kerry's a seven on a scale of 10, but I'm afraid maybe he's just a five," Phillips says. "But Kerry's running against a zero. So my choice is clear."

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

__________________
if everyone is thinking alike, chances are no one is thinking.

Seaver

I stopped right there. It's clear he's never been in Texas outside of the airports let alone met any of the people here.

He's old and disgruntled because he worked under a paranoid and corrupt President and because of that his political career was cut short. I'm just so surprised this aging man ran to a known liberal newspaper just so that someone will hear his name for the first time in 30+ years.

filtherton

I think he was talking about the civic culture, i.e. politicians. I don't see how meeting actual texans is relevant since, if texas in anything like the rest of america, most actual texans probably have nothing to do with the formation of texas policies and laws.

If you can get past that point, he does have some good points. It seems like bush could not possibly care less about anyone outside of his socioeconomic class, aside from attempts to get their votes. How is that any kind of good for america? Bush is a neoconservative, which despite containing the word conservative, has nothing to do with actual fiscal conservation. The real meaning of neoconservative is that he thinks everybody outside of his own sphere of super wealthy power mongers is irrelevant aside from their ability to vote.

tecoyah

I intend no offense in this statement.....so please take none.
This simple line seems to be the underlying problem inherent in quite a few conservatives I associate with. That being, I stopped reading here. I have noticed that the ostrich in the sand analogy is well suited to some people. When something is unpleasant, you just ignore it, and find the means to rationalise the brush off as a lie, or an attack. Perhaps a bit more in depth understanding, and an opening of dialogue would benefit both sides (I am neither by the way).
On the other side of the wall, nobody seems to have the fortitude to make any form of actual message audible. I honestly have no Idea what the democratic party stands for, at least I can understand the many faces of the republicans, and decide for myself who they really are.
This situation is upsetting, as I seriously dislike the "Man" George Bush, due to his past record, and his seemingly limited intellect. I seriously doubt his ability to correct the problems his administration has created. Kerry on the other hand, cant seem to make up his own mind about who he is,....so how am I supposed to do it.

I will vote for someone in November....I just hope I can figure out who that someone is before October.

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

Seaver

No offense taken, but I do listen all the time when people have to say what I dont like. It helps understandings on both parts, and I'm a very liberal conservative (if that makes sense). But people who are angry just to be angry and lash out just to be heard should be taken with a grain of salt. If he had a valid argument against Bush (there are tons, and I support the man) by all means take it, but dont throw out horseshit and expect people to bite into it.

smooth

Seaver, he wasn't throwing out horseshit; you just didn't know what he meant by "civic culture" and interpreted it according to your experiences. The latter part of the sentence clarified it fairly well for me, even had I not known what he was referring to.

actually, rather than just leaving it at that, I'll fill in some of the gaps so you can make a more informed decision about whether this man has been to Texas.

The countries he listed have huge disparities between the richest elites and the next step down--the poverty ridden slums. There is no middle class. Think castles on the hill overlooking ghettos. Civic culture refers to the political culture and noblesse oblige is the belief that the rich and privaledged are obligated to help those less fortunate then themselves. He's making an argument that the nobility in Texas, like those other American nations he listed, seek to secure their class interests without heed to the damaging long-term effects it has on the economy and political culture--e.g., the loss of legitimacy of the capitalist system that everyone should be benefitting if it's going to keep rolling.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Seaver

Ok I broke down and read it all. He's a man whos power imploded because his croney (term used by him, which is why I used it) was as corrupt as any President. He got his power because of dogging relentlessly on Bush Sr. Now that no one even knows who he is, and he's in the twilight years, he's trying to reclaim that presteige and now is going after his son.

My dad once told me, it's not the young you should fear, but those that are turning 40 and 65. At 40 men start realizing they're mortal and either want to make a name for themselves in a rushed manner, or reclaim their youth and temporarily forget the hard learned lessons that got them there. At 65 they start to get labled as old or elderly, and they start realizing that it's only downhill. If they aren't rich/powerful/important enough to be remembered it's not going to happen. This guy is just trying to pull a last ditch effort (where was he when it was popular to support Bush?).

brianna

it's interesting that so many of the replies here choose to discuss the man who wrote this artical and not the issues raised.

the fact is that bush has not been much of a fiscal concervative and lots of republicans are annoyed by that. http://www.republicansforkerry04.com/

reconmike

Ok the issue at hand, shouldnt the topic be A CONSERVITIVE for Kerry?

__________________
Where is Darwin when ya need him?

brianna

you really think he's the only one?

hammer4all

Frankly, I think, hearing what he has to say directly through his interviews is more interesting than just reading sensationalist articles about him.

Here are his past appearances on Democracy Now!:

American Dynasty: Fmr. Top Republican Strategist Discusses The Bush Family's Rise To Power Since WWI

"A Multigenerational Family of Fibbers" - Fmr. Top Republican Strategist Examines the History of the Bush Family

He's also currently acts as a regular Political Analyst on NOW with Bill Moyers.

smooth

damn, dude. thank you. not finished reading all of it, but so far very informative.

this came from one your links:

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

gibingus

Did anyone see Pat Buchanan interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on the Factor Monday night (08/30/04)? I've been looking for a transcript, but haven't located it yet.

Newsday mentions it in it's TV column: http://www.newsday.com/entertainment...sion-headlines

Rather than be a the conservative voice, FOX mouthpieces for the administration. You don't get much more conservative than Buchanan, and he's wicked mean on the current administration. Talk about a backfire, Pat made O'Reilly look a total simpleton on just about every issue. My favorite, quote in response to O'Reilly saying that China was keeping an eye on North Korea so we didn't have to: "Bill, use your head!"

__________________
if everyone is thinking alike, chances are no one is thinking.