No place for conservatives critical of Bush

I have often quoted conservative and former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts here at MEJ. He has been one the the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration. Roberts used to be the darling of conservative talk shows but rarely is seen on television anymore, yes he's been blackballed. Well it appears he has some company, Bruce Bartlett, also a member of the Reagan administration as well as the administration of Bush Sr. His crime, write a book critical of George W. Bush.

GREAT FALLS, Va. — What happens if you're a Republican commentator and you write a book critical of President Bush that gets you fired from your job at a conservative think tank?

Bruce Bartlett was fired from his job at a conservative research group after writing "Impostor," a book sharply critical of President Bush.
For starters, no other conservative institution rushes in with an offer for your analytical skills.

"Nobody will touch me," said Bruce Bartlett, author of the forthcoming "Impostor: Why George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy." "I think I'm just kind of radioactive at the moment."

Mr. Bartlett, a domestic policy aide at the White House in the Reagan administration and a deputy assistant treasury secretary under the first President Bush, talked last week at his suburban Washington home about his dismissal, his book and a growing disquiet among conservatives about Mr. Bush.

Strong words result in strong actions by the Bush/Cheney cabal. Is Bartlett an example of changing attitudes towards Bush among conservatives? Perhaps.

"Bruce is really an exception, not the rule, in the degree and thoroughness of his discontent," said William Kristol, a conservative strategist and the editor of The Weekly Standard. "So I wouldn't make too much of it. On the other hand, one thing I've noticed giving speeches in the last couple of months is that conservatives remain pro-Bush, but the loyalty to the movement and the ideas is deeper than the personal loyalty now. Two years ago, Bush was the movement and the cause."

I for one would look forward to once again doing battle with "real" conservatives again.