Blumenthal: Bush goes to war with modernity

[kskiska]

The more Bush supplicates his core voters, the more he repels the rest

Even before senator John Kerry's sweep of primaries on March 2 - Super Tuesday - made him the presumptive Democratic nominee, Bush trailed him in every national poll. Faltering on the economic and national security fronts, Bush opened another war: the culture war.

Bush had campaigned in 2000 as a "compassionate conservative", softening his edges and separating himself from the hard right. As it was, he lost the popular vote by more than half a million. Now he has decided he has no choice but to chase his base.

The launch of his Kulturkampf has been a blitzkrieg. Bush proposed a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. He dismissed two scientists who dissented on his bioethics board, which he has used to ban forms of stem cell research, replacing them with adherents of the religious right. Bush made a recess appointment of William Pryor of Alabama as a federal judge, blocked in the Senate for his extremism. Pryor had said that "abortion is murder" and supported the building of an altar of the 10 commandments in a courthouse. Then the attorney general, John Ashcroft, subpoenaed the medical records of women who have had abortions at planned parenthood clinics.

(snip)

After September 11, Bush began extensive polling of Jews. "We have a figurehead at the top of the ticket who has the potential to catalyse a realignment," said Matthew Brooks, head of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Visions of carrying the entire east coast, including New York and California, and holding Florida for ever, danced in Bush's head.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1161750,00.html

[boobooday]

1. The medieval president

If he gets another four years, we'll probably regress all the way back to the stone age.

http://www.wgoeshome.com