Bush's Frienemies

Next week the Conservative Political Action Committee will meet in D.C. to take stock of its movement and, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, "look beyond Bush". Among the conservative critics of the Bush administration are libertarians against domestic surveillance, national chauvinists against foreign labor and Wall Street magnates who would prefer to see more complex financial instruments used against the "wage pull inflation" that looms ahead. Paul O'Neill is perhaps the best example of someone in this last group—whose non-compliance with the Bush PR strategy landed him back in private life and made him into somewhat of a critic of the Bush foreign policy.

The CPAC meeting is expected to showcase Bush's thinning support in his own camp, but also the possibility that the conservatives will develop some genuinely new political visions to leverage against the Democrats' 9 Iraq War veterans running in mid-term elections this fall.

Unfortunately for CPAC, an event opening with George Will sets a beige, bespectacled tone, rather than one of youthful, vigorous renewal. Moreover, all of this soul searching during a 'time of war' makes one wonder what exactly the conservatives stand for. They practically invented the commandment not to undermine the president during a national emergency. Moreover, their ostensible representatives already control all three branches of government. In the abstract the CPAC meet-up looks like a healthy gene-pool for sharing new ideas about governance and social life; however, taken in context, CPAC showcases a totally inbred conservatism that cannot find the blueprint for its next political project and will settle instead for a little Bush-bashing of its own.