Thanks to the Maximum Leader and the Foreign Minister for answering the questions I posed about Bush’s election.
I hope the Foreign Minister is correct in his belief that Bush’s muscular foreign policy will be successful. I, as my friends and our readers know, am an advocate of an interventionist, muscular, even pre-emptive engagement with our enemies, so the Foreign Miister and I are on the same page - but I fear the Bush’s version, laden with ideology, may not be an effective muscualr policy. The recent pressure on Fallujah is, hopefully, a good sign.
The Maximum Leader’s post about the perennial nature of Evangelicalphobia is well-taken. I don’t remember commentators attributing previous elections to Christian fervor. I for one was not particularly bothered by the elections of any of the Presidents I remember in my lifetime; I may have disagreed with one policy or another, but didn’t think that basic civil liberties were in jeopardy.
But evangelicals haven’t been shy about claiming credit for this election and immediately moving to advance their agenda - witness James Dobson’s moves against Arlen Spector (that dirty, Christ-denying Jew!), and Dobson’s declaration that since his boys delivered the election, he expects an Anti-Gay rights amendment, a repeal of Roe v. Wade, a crackdown on pornography, and prayer in school.
If anyone out there rememebers similar euphoria amongst the Christian right after previous elections, please e-mail me or the Maximum Leader.
As to fiscal discipline, I say, with all due respect, Mike and Greg are smoking crack. A divided government is almost always more likely to result in fiscal discipline. Bush was not a deficit hawk in the last administration - even setting aside military expenditures and entitlements, discrentionary spending rose faster than at any point in Clinton’s admistration. Bush has said he intends to pass a new tax cut every year. Republican-controlled Congress remains addicted to pork. And after the election results minimized the influence of fiscal conservatives, why does the Maximum Leader believe that the Republicans will suddenly begin to rein in their profligacy?
At any rate, I hope Mike and Greg are right and I am wrong; as Kerry said, once the election is over we are all Americans and have to pull for the success of the administration.
