People haven’t been obsessing about Bush’s legacy the way they obsessed over the Clinton legacy eight years ago. What was that Clinton legacy, anyway, and does anyone care?
But Karl Rove knows his duty, and so he’s set forth his list of has boss’s achievements.
- First, Bush was right about Iraq
- Bush was right to go after nations that harbored terrorists.
- Bush was right to fight AIDS in Africa.
- He was right to cut tax rates, on wages, dividends, and capital.
- “Mr. Bush was right to match tax cuts with spending restraint.”
- He was right to do Medicare Part D drug benefit.
- He was right to do No Child Left Behind.
- He was right to be pro-life.
- He was right not to respond to Democrats who called him “a liar and a loser.”
It’s helpful to have Karl Rove’s take. It provides a benchmark on what the Bush administration thought it was doing, and wants us to think of it, now that it’s all over. For this conservative, what is palpably missing is a serious effort to start a movement away from the welfare state culture of compulsion.
The truth is, I’m not sure I know where to start.
Actually I do. The effort to reform the welfare state and move towards a welfare society begins with women. When women decide that they don’t want the important things in their lives—health care, education, and welfare—run by the government on a model of universal compulsion and brute force masquerading as compassion, then things will start to change.
It’s up to us to help in any way we can.
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