[Mb-civic] Even Republicans Fear Bush

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http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1031-30.htm

Published on Sunday, October 31, 2004 by The Nation  
Even Republicans Fear Bush  
by John Nichols 
  
The most divisive election campaign in recent American history has not 
merely split the nation along party lines, it has split the Grand Old Party itself. 
Unfortunately, most Americans are wholly unaware of the loud dissents 
against Bush that has begun to be heard in Republican circles. 
If the United States had major media that covered politics, as opposed to the 
political spin generated by the Bush White House and the official campaigns 
of both the Republican president and his Democratic challenger, one of the 
most fascinating, and significant, stories of the 2004 election season would 
be the abandonment of the Bush reelection effort by senior Republicans. But 
this is a story that, for the most part, has gone untold. Scant attention was 
paid to the revelation that one Republican member of the U.S. Senate, 
Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, will refrain from voting for his party's 
president -- despite the fact that Chafee offered a far more thoughtful critique 
of George W. Bush's presidency than "Zig-Zag" Zell Miller, the frothing, 
Democrat-hating Democrat did when he condemned his party's nominee. 
Beyond the minimal attention to Chafee, most media has neglected the 
powerful, and often poignant, condemnations of Bush by prominent 
Republicans. 

Former Republican members of the U.S. Senate and House, governors, 
ambassadors, aides to GOP Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan 
and George Herbert Walker Bush have explicitly endorsed the campaign of 
Democrat John Kerry. For many of these lifelong Republicans, their vote for 
Kerry will be a first Democratic vote. But, in most cases, it will not be a 
hesitant one. 

Angered by the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq, 
record deficits, assaults on the environment and secrecy, the renegade 
partisans tend to echo the words of former Minnesota Governor Elmer 
Andersen, who says that, "Although I am a longtime Republican, it is time to 
make a statement, and it is this: Vote for Kerry-Edwards, I implore you, on 
November 2." 

Many of the Republicans who are abandoning Bush express sorrow at what 
the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies in Congress have done to their 
party: "The fact is that today's 'Republican' Party is one that I am totally 
unfamiliar with," writes John Eisenhower. But the deeper motivation is 
summed up by former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, a Kentucky Republican, 
who explained in a recent article for the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper 
that, "For me, as a Republican, I feel that when my party gives me a 
dangerous leader who flouts the truth, takes the country into an undeclared 
war and then adds a war on terrorism to it without debate by the Congress, 
we have a duty to rid ourselves of those who are taking our country on a 
perilous ride in the wrong direction. If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I 
paraphrase his words), a president who deems to have the right to declare 
war at will without the consent of the Congress is a president who far 
exceeds his power under our Constitution. I will take John Kerry for four 
years to put our country on the right path." 

In the end, of course, the vast majority of Republicans will cast their ballots 
for George w. Bush on Tuesday, just as the vast majority of Democrats will 
vote for John Kerry. But the Republicans who plan to cross the partisan 
divide and vote for Kerry have articulated a unique and politically potent 
indictment of the Bush administration. 

Here are a dozen examples of what Republicans are saying about George 
W. Bush -- and John Kerry -- as the November 2 election approaches: 


"As son of a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically 
expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election 
of 2000, I was. With the current administration's decision to invade Iraq 
unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and 
barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the 
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry."
-- Ambassador John Eisenhower, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece 
published in The Manchester Union Leader, September 28, 2004. 


"The two 'Say No to Bush' signs in my yard say it all. The present Republican 
president has led us into an unjustified war -- based on misguided and 
blatantly false misrepresentations of the threat of weapons of mass 
destruction. The terror seat was Afghanistan. Iraq had no connection to these 
acts of terror and was not a serious threat to the United States, as this 
president claimed, and there was no relation, it's now obvious, to any serious 
weaponry. Although Saddam Hussein is a frightful tyrant, he posed no threat 
to the United States when we entered the war. George W. Bush's arrogant 
actions to jump into Iraq when he had no plan how to get out have alienated 
the United States from our most trusted allies and weakened us 
immeasurably around the world... This imperialistic, stubborn adherence to 
wrongful policies and known untruths by the Cheney-Bush administration -- 
and that's the accurate order -- has simply become more than I can stand."
-- Former Minnesota Governor Elmer Andersen, a Republican, endorsing 
Kerry in an opinion piece published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, October 
13, 2004. Andersen argued in the piece that, "I am more fearful for the state 
of this nation than I have ever been -- because this country is in the hands of 
an evil man: Dick Cheney. It is eminently clear that it is he who is running the 
country, not George W. Bush." 


"The Bush George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical 
to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have 
been based on the hopelessly naive belief that foreign peoples are eager to 
be liberated by American enemies -- a notion more grounded in Leon 
Trotsky's concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative 
statecraft."
-- Scott McConnell, executive editor, The American Conservative, endorsing 
Kerry in the November 8, 2004 issue. 


"I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George 
Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to 
supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government 
that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat down 
and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to keep 
the secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court."
-- Former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, Republican from Kentucky, endorsing 
Kerry in an opinion piece that appeared in The Louisville Courier-Journal, 
October 20, 2004. 


"My Republican Party is the party of Theodore Roosevelt, who fought to 
preserve our natural resources and environment. This president has pursued 
policies that will cause irreparable damage to our environmental laws that 
protect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the public lands we share 
with future generations."
-- Former Michigan Governor William Milliken, from a statement published in 
the Traverse City Record Eagle, October 17, 2004. 


"As an environmentalist who served as chairman of the U.S. Senate 
Committee on Environment and Public Works, I know that this administration 
has turned environmental policy over to lobbyists for the oil, gas and mining 
interests. On the other hand, I know first-hand of your commitment to a more 
balanced approach to environmental policy -- one where we can have both 
jobs and profit for industry as well as clean air and water. There is no 
stronger evidence of this than your outstanding leadership and support in the 
restoration of the Florida Everglades. John, for each of these reasons I 
believe President Bush has failed our country and my party. Accordingly, I 
want you to know that when I go into the booth next Tuesday I am going to 
cast my vote for you."
-- Former U.S. Senator Bob Smith, Republican from New Hampshire, from 
an endorsement letter sent to John Kerry, October 28, 2004. 


"Nixon was a prince compared to these guys."
-- Former U.S. Representative Pete McCloskey, R-California, from an article 
in the Palo Alto Weekly, September 8, 2004. McCloskey, who is active with 
Republicans for Kerry, says of members of the Bush administration, "These 
people believe God has told them what to do. They've high jacked the 
Republican Party we once knew." 


"The war is just a misbegotten thing that's spiraling down. It's a matter of 
conscience for me. After 9/11, the whole world was behind us. That's all gone 
now. That's been squandered. Now we've made the entire Muslim world hate 
us. And for what? For what?"
-- Former State Senator Al Meiklejohn, Republican from Colorado and World 
War II combat veteran, explaining his decision to support John Kerry in an 
interview with The Denver Post, September 19, 2004. 


"We need a leader who is really dedicated to creating millions of high-paying 
jobs all across the country."
-- Former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca, who campaigned for George W. 
Bush in 2000 and appeared in television advertisements for the Republican 
Party of Michigan that year. Iacocca, who complains that under Bush deficit 
spending is "getting out of hand," endorsing Kerry on June 24, 2004. 


"In a dangerous epoch -- made more so by a president who sees the world in 
stark black and white because simplicity polls better and fits into sound bites 
-- John Kerry may seem out of place. He is, in fact, in exactly the right place 
at the right time to lead our country."
-- Tim Ashby, who served during the Reagan and George Herbert Walker 
Bush administrations as director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean 
for the U.S. Commerce Department and acting deputy assistant Secretary of 
Commerce for the Western Hemisphere, endorsing Kerry in a Seattle Times, 
October 14, 2004. 


" I have always been, and I still am, a registered Republican, but I shall 
enthusiastically vote for John Kerry for president on November 2... If the 
Bush administration stays in power four more years, it will pack the Supreme 
Court with neocons who reject the idea that the Constitution is a living 
document designed to protect the freedom of the citizens." 
-- Anne Morton Kimberly, widow of former Republican National Committee 
chair Rogers C.B. Morton, Secretary of the Interior during the Nixon 
administration and Secretary of Commerce during the Ford administration, 
endorsing Kerry in a an opinion piece that appeared in the Louisville Courier-
Journal, October 14, 2004.


"Mainstream Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility, internationalism, 
environmental protection, the rights of women, and putting middle-class 
families ahead of big business lobbyists. Moderate Republicans should not 
be asked to swallow the right-wing policies of George W. Bush."
-- Clay Myers, who was Oregon's Republican Secretary of State for 10 years 
and the state's Treasure, endorsing Kerry at a press conference for Oregon 
Republicans for Kerry, September 1, 2004. 


"The current administration has run the largest deficits in U.S. history, 
incurring massive debts that our children and grandchildren will have to pay. 
Two and a half million people have lost their jobs; trillions have been wiped 
out of savings and retirement accounts. The income of Americans has 
declined two years in a row, the first time since the IRS began keeping 
records. George W. Bush will be the first president since Hoover to have a 
net job loss under his watch... President Bush wanted to be judged as the 
CEO president, it is time to say, 'you have failed, and you're fired."
-- William Rutherford, former State Treasurer of Oregon, endorsing Kerry as 
a press conference for Oregon Republicans for Kerry, September 1, 2004. 


"I served 20 years in the Ohio General Assembly as Republican. People have 
asked me why I oppose George w. Bush for president. My first response is, 
'He is incompetent.' His behavior, his bad judgment, his record, all 
demonstrate a failure as president. He certainly misled the country into a no-
win war in Iraq. Following his preemptive invasion, he totally misjudged the 
consequences of his action. He made a bad situation worse, fomenting 
widespread terrorism, all done with a frightful loss of lives and money."
-- Former Ohio State Representative John Galbraith, a Republican legislator 
for 20 years, endorsing Kerry in a letter to The Toledo Blade, September 28, 
2004. 


" Before the current campaign, it might have been argued that at least in 
affirming the importance of faith and respecting those who profess it the 
administration had embraced traditional conservative views. But in the wake 
of the Swift Boat ads attacking John Kerry, even this argument can no longer 
be maintained. As an elder of the Presbyterian Church, I found that those ads 
were not at all in the Christian tradition. John McCain rightly condemned 
them as dishonest and dishonorable. The president should have, too. That 
he did not undermines his credibility on questions of faith.

Some say it's just politics. But that's the whole point. More is expected of 
people of faith than "just politics."

The fact is that the Bush administration might better be called radical or 
romantic or adventurist than conservative. And that's why real conservatives 
are leaning toward Kerry."

-- Clyde Prestowitz, counselor to the secretary of commerce in the Reagan 
administration and an elder of the Presbyterian Church, from "The 
Conservative Case for Kerry," published in the Providence Journal and other 
newspapers, October 15, 2004.

© 2004 The Nation

 

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