You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Bush, that is. Not by any definition that is at all meaningful. And people are starting to realize it. This is a nice piece by Dana Milbank about Bruce Bartlett and Andrew Sullivan appearing at a Cato Institute panel discussion.

Author of the new book “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” Bartlett called the administration “unconscionable,” “irresponsible,” “vindictive” and “inept.”
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Nor was moderator Boaz a voice of moderation. He blamed Bush for “a 48 percent increase in spending in just six years,” a “federalization of public schools” and “the biggest entitlement since LBJ.”
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Bartlett certainly thought so. He began by predicting a big tax increase “to finance the inevitable growth of government that is in the pipeline that President Bush is largely responsible for.” He also said many fellow conservatives don’t know about the “quite dreadful” traits of the administration, such as the absence of “anybody who does any serious analysis” on policy issues.
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“If Bush were running today against Bill Clinton, I’d vote for Clinton,” Bartlett served.
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Bartlett argued that Richard Nixon “is the model for everything Bush is doing.”

It’s true. The emperor is buck naked.