Addressing the "Bush is Liberal" Myth.

The crack must be good in the Washington Post op-ed room/lounge, because Richard Cohen is high like a kite:

Years ago, someone coined the term "neoliberal." I was never sure what it meant, and it has since fallen into disuse, but whatever the case, I'd like to revive (and mangle) the term and apply it -- brace yourself -- to George W. Bush. He's more liberal than you might think.

See what happens during a three-day holiday with little going on and you need to make a deadline? Why, oh why did Mr. Cohen make such an accusation?

But consider this: An overriding principle of conservatism is to limit the role and influence of the federal government. Nowhere is this truer than in education. For instance, there was a time when no group of Republicans could convene without passing a resolution calling for the abolition of the Education Department and turning the building -- I am extrapolating here -- into a museum of
creationism.

I don't think you can use the size of the federal government as a standard for liberalism. The federal government grew under Reagan and Nixon, and neither were liberal. I think the argument can be made that government is bound to grow a little with each president, but it is up to that particular administration to keep that growth as minimal and cost-effective as possible. So forgive me for not accepting the "size of federal government" as a sign that Bush is liberal.

Cohen's second example?

I am not suggesting that any of these appointees -- including Bush's former White House counsel, Harriet Miers -- are what is pejoratively known as affirmative action hires. I am suggesting, though, that Bush has not only diversified his Cabinet and staff but obviously got enormous satisfaction in doing so. You only have to listen to Bush talk about the virtues of immigration -- another liberal sentiment -- or his frequent mention of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to appreciate that the
president is a sentimental softie, what was once dismissively called a "mushy-headed liberal."

So because of Rice and Gonzales, Bush is diverse. What Cohen misses is that diversity is not just about skin color, but one's culture and ethnicity. It's one thing to appoint and black or Latino person who was raised in a predominately white society and claim that you're being diverse in you're hiring. It's another thing to have a minority who grew up in an area where their race/ethnicity was prevalent.

The last example of Bush's "neoliberlism?" How about Iraq?

Allow me to make the case that this is also true when it comes to Iraq. I acknowledge that the war is a catastrophic mistake and was incompetently managed. But if you don't think it was waged on behalf of oil or empire, then one reason for our involvement was an attempt to do some good -- rid the world of a really bad guy and make life better for Iraqis and others in the region. This "liberal" intent may have left Dick Cheney cold and found Don Rumsfeld indifferent, but it appealed to Bush and it showed in his rhetoric and body language. Contrast it to the position of the so-called foreign policy realists, exemplified by the first President Bush and his trusted foreign policy sidekick, Brent Scowcroft.

So because Bush claimed that the Iraqi invasion/occupation was to get rid of Saddam and free the Iraqi people from his tyrannical reign, he should be deemed a liberal. Nonsense. If I remember Bush's pre-invasion speech correctly, he said "My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger." Reads like "free it's people" was second to disarmament. And "disarm Iraq" and "defend the world from grave danger" has to allude to the first stump-speech reason for going in: Weapons of Mass Destruction. So in reality, only 1/3 of Bush's reasoning had to do with "freedom;" the majority was related to his crappy, fixed intelligence. Also, if Bush was so big on saving people, explain his environmental record. Explain his stance on Darfur. "Saving" or "freeing" people is gravy on his warmongering mashed potatoes, and Cohen just seems to slop it up. It's this type of lame re-writing of history that makes me wonder certain people got their jobs.

Cohen's conclusion seems to imply that the failure in Iraq is the failure of liberalism. I beg to differ. The failure in Iraq is due to the arrogance and ignorance of the Bush Administration.