Today a conservative administration is close to asserting that whatever the facts turn out to be regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the enforcement of U.N. resolutions was a sufficient reason for war. If so, war was waged to strengthen the United Nations as author and enforcer of international norms of behavior. The administration also intimates that ending a tyranny was a sufficient justification for war. Foreign policy conservatism has become colored by triumphalism and crusading zeal. That may be one reason why consideration is being given to a quite optional intervention -- regime change, actually -- in Liberia.
This in the context of a larger article that addresses domestic policy anti-conservatism by Bush as well. It's intriguing to see how ideology gets trumped by ideology - wheels within wheels...
Safire is uncharacteristically honest about Bush being on the wrong side of FCC deregulation, as well:
The Bush veto threat would deny funding to the Commerce, State and Justice Departments, not to mention the federal judiciary. It would discombobulate Congress and disserve the public for months.
And to what end? To turn what we used to call "public airwaves" into private fiefs, to undermine diversity of opinion and � in its anti-federalist homogenization of our varied culture � to sweep aside local interests and community standards of taste.
This would be Bush's first veto. Is this the misbegotten principle on which he wants to take a stand?
I used to think that the only way the Bush Administration's own ideological allies would dare to disagree with him would be when Bush had total command over government. But when he achieved that in Nov. 2002, the critiques from within the GOP were still non-existent. Now that Bush is weakened by his foreign policy missteps and the SotU, conservatives are suddenly emboldened.. to criticize him. It's an interestingly counter-intuitive development.
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