Colin Powell says that the Republican party has drifted too far to the right in the past few years — toward high spending, No Child Left Behind, a new prescription-drug entitlement? What in the world could he mean? That George W. Bush tried to reform Social Security, with very little support, including from his own party? Where and what is this rightward drift? It’s a fantasy, that’s what. But it’s a fantasy that many people adopt without thinking. The idea that the GOP is now more right-wing than it has been is laughable.
Look, the Bush administration has even stood strong for race preferences — as in university admissions. And the thanks it gets is to be denounced as far-Right.
I have noticed this over the past several years: I speak to liberals, and they regard Bush as some right-wing monster, a foe of government, a Social Darwinian, content to let dog eat dog. I speak to conservatives, and they say, “I wish.” To them, Bush is a big-spending, amnesty-granting squish. Indeed, Bush is in the odd position of being friendless: The Left regards him as intolerably Right; the Right regards him as Elliot Richardson with a twang.
What a bizarre political world, our current one. I feel that emotion is trumping reason, big time. (Did you notice I said “I feel”?!)