"Arrogant bunker mentality"

(Disclaimer: Don't read while eating)

Governor Huckabee has accused the Bush administration of having an "arrogant bunker mentality"; he stated this a while ago.

Mitt Romney, of all people, actually said that this statement showed Huckabee was "disloyal" to the president. Now, excuse me for a moment while I go pull out my hair, throw up, and laugh myself silly all at once. (Maybe two moments, since cleaning up and recovering from the first moment may take a while.)

Ok, back. Where to begin?

1) This is a democracy. I hope we are still allowed to express "disloyalty" to our leaders, Governor Ken Doll.

2) Whatever President Bush has earned from traditional conservatives (the word gratitude perhaps comes to mind), he certainly has NOT earned our loyalty. FEMA director Brown, anyone? Harriet Miers nomination, anyone? How about approving RU-486 (the morning after pill) for over-the-counter sales? "Comprehensive immigration reform"? Entitlement expansion? Out-of-control spending? Any of this ringing a bell? Thank goodness Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Manuel Miranda, and others have been "disloyal" to the president on these issues.

If there is a lesson conservatives should have learned from the Bush presidency, it's that you can't refrain from making and accepting criticism when it's due, even if it may temporarily harm your "team". "Good" people, on the "right side", wearing white hats are capable of misguided and even black (hatted) deeds, and must from time to time be opposed. (Or, to quote J. K. Rowling via Sirius Black, "The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters".) It's better to take the hit in the short run than to let a long-term liability snowball to an unbearable size. (But enough about social security.)

Case in point: Senator John McCain. Now, McCain isn't a 100% conservative. Probably has never claimed to be. So, he probably wasn't at the top of President Bush's speed-dial when it came time to plan the war in Iraq. So when the aftermath of the war didn't go nearly as well as the President had planned, the anti-war left and the Michael Moores of the world (could the world actually contain more than one?) were able to drag the President's (and by extension, the Republican party's) image through the mud and turn public opinion against the war. I believe as early as 2003 Senator McCain tried to tell President Bush more troops were needed. Did the President listen? No. (Full disclosure: I favored invading Iraq, still favor staying there as long as need be, and have never faltered on this. I also voted for Bush in 2004, and given the same choice again, would do so, though perhaps not as enthusiastically.)

Election '04 came and went, and the President and his party did well. But the war continued to worsen after a time. Again came the calls to change strategy and deploy more troops. Bush ignored this advice, coming from an interested member of his own party. Bush again rebuffed the advice. Then the party lost control of both houses of congress in 2006. NOW the President was suddenly in a mood to admit he was wrong. This should never have happened. Bush should have sacked then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld BEFORE the election, not after. This alone may have saved the Republicans from losing congress and facing the specter of a Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid. (Although, in Bush's defense, it's still hard to type those words with a straight face. Who'd have thunkit?)

But most importantly, we paid the cost for Bush's foolishness in human lives. This is why it matters, more than any political agenda.

Now Senator McCain has been vindicated on the surge strategy, no thanks to King George's "arrogant bunker mentality". But on all of the above debacles, the evidence shows time and again that Bush refused to listen to those who were not his 100% ideological allies, often to his own detriment. The public has noticed this, while in a most curious phenomenon, many Republicans have not.

Either Mitt Romney has buried his head in the sand on this one, or he is condescending enough that even though he knows Huckabee to be right, he is pretending to disagree in a desperate attempt to appeal to primary voters. The fact is, President Bush has surrounded himself with yes-men and he and others have paid the price for it. This is the quintessence of an "arrogant bunker mentality".

3) If Mr. Romney think Republican voters should punish Governor Huckabee for being "disloyal" to the President because he dared point out Bush's obvious flaws, Governor Romney deserves the guillotine for the multitude of issues on which he disagreed with President Bush during his time as Massachusetts governor. I think the word "audacity" comes to mind when I hear Romney criticizing anyone for being either a) too liberal or b) not a big enough fan of George Bush.

(Case in point: watch the faces at debates when Romney starts lecturing all the life-long conservatives about what a conservative is.)

Prediction: Neither Rudy nor McCain nor Huckabee will endorse Romney over any of the others in a tight contest.

4) EVEN IF Huckabee is wrong about the President, and to my knowledge he has been very measured and precise in what he means by all this, you'll notice how none of the Republican candidates are exactly gushing over President Bush, and for good reason: he's about as popular as Michael Jackson. So it'll be interesting to see if pleas for loyalty to the President translate to general election votes. (If Romney can beat the Democrats, they should be probably throw in the towel.) Yes, "popularity" is superficial and fluid, but to be frank, it matters a great deal in a winner-take-all system in which the people decide.

That's all for now... somehow these always end up being longer than I expect them to be.