“Who defines your values?” is the heading on a Campus Progress advertisement in last week’s Daily Lobo. The villains in this ad are Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly and James Dobson, who are cast as “the face of today’s conservative movement.”
I am more conservative than any of these people, and I can tell you they don’t speak for me. Besides, Campus Progress didn’t even have the presence of mind to define “conservative.”
According to Clyde Prestowitz, a former member of the Reagan administration, conservatism in the United States means support for small government, balanced budgets, fiscal prudence and great skepticism about overseas adventures.
Coulter appears to wholeheartedly support Bush’s war on Iraq, so she can’t be a conservative. I know nothing about O’Reilly, so I won’t comment on him. Based on what I have seen of Dobson and his Focus on the Family group, he doesn’t qualify either. Coulter and Dobson seem to be naive middle-of-the-roaders who go along with the Republican Party no matter what it does.
Whether one accepts this definition, if it is applied to President Bush, he is certainly not a conservative. Based on his record, it should be patently obvious to anyone he is the opposite of conservative.
Steven Dapra
UNM community member
Dapra clearly has no clue who Coulter or Dobson are. “Naive middle-of-the-roaders”? Ha — just like Atilla the Hun.
I’m continually amazed by Conservatives who disown Bush and his ilk. Sorry — from Duhbya on down, they call themselves conservatives.
I feel some sympathy for those conservatives who feel their philosophy and party have been hijacked. Ironically, those with the power within the Conservative Movement call you RINOs — Republicans In Name Only — and are working to exclude you completely. It’s much better to be in opposition to this gang than to try to explain how they’re not really what they say they are — surprise! they lie constantly. But who put them in power? Not the Liberals. If you don’t want to be tarred with the same brush, you blew your chance to take the power from BushCo last fall. Now you’re going to have to endure the shame of being ‘a conservative just like Bush.’ mjh
Update: Printed in the Lobo Letters on 3/1/05 under the wrong headline and with some very curious edits.