Jonah Goldberg has a good essay on the nonsense that is populism:

It should be no surprise by now that populism has always been a fundamentally left-wing phenomena. Indeed, just looking around the world to see which countries call themselves “people’s republics” should be evidence enough of that. Throughout history, populist movements, no matter what their ideological origins, ineluctably devolve into socialist enterprises—and most of them start out that way. Right now, we’re witnessing the growth of classically populist movements across Latin America. The president of Bolivia just last week essentially appropriated the nation’s oil and gas reserves. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has been posing as the voice-of-the-people-made-flesh for years now as he systematically dismantles the market economy in explicit homage to Fidel Castro. In America, Populists have invariably championed socialistic policies. The Populist Party—also called the People’s Party—pushed for the nationalization of railroads and other industries, and demanded “popular” control over natural resources. (You can peruse the U.S. Populist Party’s 1892 platform here. Note its call for mandatory unionization, the seizure of lands from corporations and “aliens,” and the nationalization of the telephone companies.) Father Charles Coughlin and Huey Long were explicitly socialist (though they didn’t always use the word) in their economic policies. Patrick Buchanan’s move toward populism coincided with—indeed, required—a steady rejection of free market principles (see Ramesh’s “A Conservative No More”).

I have long considered Pat Buchanan to be a "populist" - - does that mean he really is a leftie?

Premature posting. Heh!

So that means Buchanan (and Bush, the biggest spender of all) really are lefties. Who knew. :-)

In many significant ways, yes. George Bush is certainly no conservative. If he'd been a Democrat with all of his domestic spending proposals, the Dems would be cheering him.

I suppose Bush is like LBJ on the domestic front and Woodrow Wilson on foreign policy. Makes me glad he's a Republican. :-)

If Bush wasn't busy trying to play up to the Christian Right on stuff like abortion and gay rights and enriching his K Street cronies (Abramoff etc. . .) maybe more DLC Democrats would like the guy.

There are some new Democrats (Jim Webb in VA for example) who appear to oppose both the Bush and the Hillary way of doing things.

= = =

But since Bush won't even ackowledge who the enemy is in the "War on Terror" I am hard pressed to see anything a conservative could possibly find of value in the President's policies.

Is there anything Bush does right or is it merely a case of "better than Kerry"? If its the latter, conservatives in Congress had better get their act together.

But since Bush won't even ackowledge who the enemy is in the "War on Terror" I am hard pressed to see anything a conservative could possibly find of value in the President's policies.

Not being a conservative, I wouldn't know. I'm certainly not thrilled with them, at least domestically.

Is there anything Bush does right or is it merely a case of "better than Kerry"?

Mostly the latter, but it's not just "better than Kerry." It's "better than any conceivable Democrat who could get the nomination."

If its the latter, conservatives in Congress had better get their act together.

Conservatives in Congress have always been a distinct minority. Don't confuse Republicans with conservatives.

Bill wrote:

Is there anything Bush does right or is it merely a case of "better than Kerry"?

It certainly is popular to bash Bush these days. As a libertarian minded person I disagree with the President on several things. But it is worth noting the positive things he has done:

* Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condi Rice.
Bush has the wisdom to empower and stick with intelligent and accomplished people of action. The results in Afghanistan were nothing short of miraculous and were based up a very "creative" war strategy.

* The supreme court nominations, and lower court nominations. Superb. Partial credit for accomplishing this.

* Tax cuts. I, and every other tax paying american keeps more of their own money.

* Integrity. No Whitehouse scandels. No corruption. Stead policy leadership despite pressure from the media and the polls.

* Leadership on Social Security -- alas the net outcome hasn't been fruitful.

* Leadership against Islamic Terrorism. On the positive side, we haven't suffered a major attack since 9/11 at home, and we have gone on the offensive abroad engaging the enemy on his turf in an attempt to usurp corrupt culture conditions that feed the terrorists. Partial success in this tough battle.

* Sanity on environmental policy. Did not give into the socialist driven policies thinly gussied up as Kyoto protocols.

* Partial credit for keep the country away from creeping socialism (compared to what a Dem might have done). Although the medicare welfare for rich old people is a monumental error.

If this fellow is correct then preventing either party from holding all the cards may be the best we can hope for.

I know that Reagan was often refered to by the MSM as a populist. I'm surprised that Goldberg, of all people shouldn't remember this.

Jonah Goldberg now asks whether evangelicals are conservatives

Gotta collect those Jonah links in one comment and see just who he does approve of, if anyone

/snark

It all depends on the meaning of the word "conservative" (one of the reasons that I prefer to eschew such unuseful labels, particularly as attached to myself).

Long live the robber barons and wage slavery!