Bush doesn't represent the ideals of the Republican Party
initiated by Abraham Lincoln, and all true Republicans see
the Nazi streak in George W Bush.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/31/opinion/main652488.shtml
(The Nation) This column from The Nation was
written by John Nichols.
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Oct. 31, 2004
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: ***** Cheney. It is eminently clear that it is
he who is running the country, not George W. 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.
By John Nichols
Reprinted with permission from the The Nation.
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