{"id":523273,"date":"2010-04-11T14:30:59","date_gmt":"2010-04-11T18:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/?p=77807"},"modified":"2010-04-11T14:30:59","modified_gmt":"2010-04-11T18:30:59","slug":"rick-santorum-on-the-bush-era-%e2%80%9cconservatism-didn%e2%80%99t-fail%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/523273","title":{"rendered":"Rick Santorum on the Bush Era: \u201cConservatism Didn\u2019t Fail\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-77808\" title=\"225px-Rick_Santorum_official_photo\" src=\"http:\/\/static1.firedoglake.com\/1\/files\/2010\/04\/225px-Rick_Santorum_official_photo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"177\" height=\"224\" \/>At the Southern <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">Strategy<\/span> Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, the Frothy Mixture offered up <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/washwire\/2010\/04\/10\/santorum-apologizes-for-04-specter-endorsement\/\">a favorite wingnut talking point<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class='wbq'>\n<p>\u201c<strong>We let America down. I say that conservatism didn\u2019t fail America.  Conservatives failed conservatism<\/strong>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>See, here&#8217;s where I&#8217;m confused. Just how did Bush Republicans fail conservatism?<\/p>\n<p>Gigantic tax cuts for the rich, check. Gutting regulations, check. Huge increases in defense spending? Check. Bombing\/invading countries? Check. Right-wing ideologues appointed to the Supreme Court? Double check. Declaring war on science? Check. Erosion of the middle class? Check. Giving Big Oil and Wall Street everything they want? Check. Rewarding polluters? Check. Weakening gun laws? Check. Demonizing teh gays and brown people? Check and check. Etc., etc., etc.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, the size of government grew under Bush\/Cheney. As it did under St. Reagan of California, Poppy, Ford, Nixon and Ike. Are they all conservative failures too?<\/p>\n<p>Unless &#8220;conservatism&#8221; is now a one-issue ideology, it&#8217;s undoubtedly the case that conservatives like Bush and Cheney served conservatism very loyally.<\/p>\n<p>Meaning, they royally screwed the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/share-this\/share-icon-16x16.gif\" alt=\"Share This icon\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/?p=77807&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"Email, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_77807\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"noindex nofollow\">&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the Southern Strategy Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, the Frothy Mixture offered up a favorite wingnut talking point. \u201cWe let America down. I say that conservatism didn\u2019t fail America. Conservatives failed conservatism,\u201d he said. See, here&#8217;s where I&#8217;m confused. Just how did Bush Republicans fail conservatism? Gigantic tax cuts for the rich, check. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5394,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5394"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}