Clinton makes enormous cuts government spending (see story on his NEA cuts), liberals don't complain. Why? He's "our guy."

In contrast, Bush massively increases government spending, and liberals don't praise him for it, but in fact act as though the increases aren't even happening. Why? He's "not our guy." In other words, this is personal and partisan, not a decision based on principles.

While social conservatives (myself included) were aghast over Clinton's behavior with Monica, and his alleged rape of Juanita Brodrick, and technology transfers to China, there were many of us who also noted -- rightly -- that he kept spending under control. (Though in my opinion, this alone is no more likely to save the "Clinton legacy" than a robust economy and ending the war in Vietnam was able to save Nixon's "legacy".)

And now that Bush is increasing gov't spending, there are numerous complaints among conservatives. Why? Not because he is/isn't "our guy", but because there's this little, tiny thing called principle to which we cling. As Fox News reports:

The grassroots base that helped Bush to get elected has begun grumbling, both on the dais, in various panel discussions and in individual circles. The complaints are focused on the political direction the president is moving and the pull he has had on the Republican-led Congress.

“Our Republican Party is not conservative no matter what they say when they go home,” Don Devine, vice-chairman of the American Conservative Union (search), said of the attendees at the convention. “The fact is, [the administration is] not going in the right direction and we have to do something about it.”

Many of the activists who have worked hand-in-glove with the Bush administration say the agenda lacks the social and fiscal conservative principles they’ve been fighting to expand. Many complain that Bush has forsaken his base of support in order to make deals with Democrats.

They point to the numbers that show that Bush has overseen a growth in non-defense domestic discretionary spending of 8.2 percent over the last four years – an increase not matched since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society (search) budget boom in the 1960s.

Fiscal conservatives are also stunned at the Republican leadership's role in helping to pass the 10-year, $400 billion Medicare bill, signed by the president late last year. Opponents say the bill is loaded with goodies for pharmaceutical and insurance industries and will put the country further into debt.

“I’m concerned about this strategy of buying off the opposition,” said National Right to Work Foundation (search) President Mark Mix, who spoke at a panel entitled “Fiscal Outrage: Stop the Spending!”

[...]

“The conservative movement was about limiting the scope of government. We have not seen that in the first four years of the Bush administration,” said former Clinton administration FBI agent Gary Aldrich, who spoke with Devine on a panel called “GOP Success: Is it Hurting the Conservative Movement?”

Bush should learn, as the last Republican president did, that courting the support of liberals doesn't work. When Ted Kennedy and Bush write a bill together, liberals will blame Bush if it's bad, and praise Kennedy if it's good. (And believe me, bashing Bush is always more politically valuable than praising Kennedy -- so the bill will be found to be bad.) And increases in funding for social programs will be depicted as decreases, and decried as such.

Because the vocal liberal contingent today seems to lack principle.

Meanwhile, conservatives see the increases as what they are, and start asking if it's worth abandoning the Republican party in order to send a message about the importance of governmental fiscal responsibility.

And to you liberals riled at Bush's fuel-cell researching funding (saying he's paying off his energy-industry friends), and who rail against Bush's medicare and perscription drug benefits (saying he's paying off his "friends" in the phramaceutical industry), and Bush's spending in Iraq, etc...

Congratulations! You're conservatives now!

Just try, try, try to stick by those principles regardless of who's in office, mmmkay?

It's the principled thing to do.