Republicans and the word "Bush"

Dana Goldstein watched last night's debate and concluded that "Republicans are terrified of the words "George W. Bush.""

That's quite true, as far as it goes: None of the Republicans are eager to associate themselves with the president, and pretty much nobody in the wide but shallow world of conservative intellectuals would dare conflate their favorite Republican with this administration.

But that's about where the substantive dissociation ends. Read Dana's words closely closely--"terrified of the words 'George W. Bush'"--and you can probably imagine a race in which the only thing the GOP candidates dislike about George W. Bush is his name. And, indeed, that's what's happening before our eyes today: Conservatives are still looking for a president that, in ascending order of importance, hates gays and abortions, hates taxes, and loves the Iraq war. That, in my mind, describes George W. Bush to a tee.

And, indeed, you can see pretty clearly that conservative critics treat taking a heterodox stance on any of these issues as a major act of heresy. Giuliani's position on gays and abortion is a big ol' heresy. Huckabee's spending propensity is an even bigger heresy. And let's not forget that Ron Paul--who's pretty well placed compared to his peers on the social and economic conservatism fronts--is guilty of the biggest heresy of all; which is, of course, that he opposed, and still opposes, the Iraq war.

It was obvious going into primary season that conservatives were concerned about the effect George Bush's low popularity might have on the new crop of Republican hopefuls. But--whether out of shrewdness, or stubbornness, or a movement-wide sclerosis--they don't seem to have concluded that the policies that may have made George Bush so unpopular in the first place are yet worth discarding. More to the point, they behave as if the most poisonous of them--the Iraq war--is still the party's trump card.

I don't think I'll ever really understand politics.