The Bush Veto

Six and a half years, two measly vetoes. Since his inauguration in January 2001, President Bush has wielded his veto pen on only two occasions. Purebred conservatives are understandably flummoxed over the fact that, under Bush’s watch and with a Republican Congress, federal spending actually outpaced the money burning seen during the Clinton era. When the time comes for an evaluation of the domestic policies of the current administration, principle criticism will focus on the president’s liberal check signing at the behest of a spendthrift Congress. Once upon a time, Republicans talked about smaller government, real tax cuts, returning power to the states and a little thing called federalism, etc. That time has long since passed into distant memory.

However, Bush’s lonely vetoes do tell us a great deal about the man and his vision for America. Both speak to the precise reason why I have continuously, unapologetically, even stubbornly, stood pat in my support of him. His two vetoes: one of a bill that would have opened the door to further, destructive embryonic stem-cell research and the second, rejecting a Democratic-sponsored bill that did everything but raise a white flag in Iraq, have done much to compensate for earlier fiscal blunders.

As I see it, the United States is gravely threatened on two fronts: one menace is external and pertains to the proliferation of Islamic terror cells, the other is an internal hazard, threatening the moral cohesion of our society. The Democratic Party has, by and large, proven itself woefully incapable of providing a mature strategy for addressing the threat of terrorism, other than simply opposing Bush out of principle at every turn. At the same time, the left has become the unrivaled champion of the culture of death, promoting such measures as abortion on demand, contraception, euthanasia, destructive embryonic stem-cell research, gay “marriage,” and so on. The first of the president’s vetoes pushed back the advances made by the culture of death via the Democratic Party and the second slammed the door to a Democrat-sponsored, ignoble defeat at the hands of terrorist thugs in Iraq.

And speaking of vetos: Last week, House Democrats passed a bill that seeks to expand hate crime-laws to encompass sexual orientation and gender-based attacks. And, in an all-too-familiar and predictable display of liberal absurdity, the bill sets out to delineate twenty-five different sexual and gender orientations. The Senate will soon take up the bill and, more likely than not, pass it as well. Bush’s promised veto would bring the grand veto tally up to three. Where it counts the most, Bush’s veto has been a steady barrier against the harbinger of Democratic-spawned madness and folly. The White House reasonably argues that the Democratic bill, were it to become law, would prove superfluous because extant state and local laws already punish violent crimes.

The dirty little secret is that the Democratic bill reveals the alarming degree to which the left in America is interested in pursuing thought-control legislation. In light of existing punishments already in place for all acts of violence perpetrated against individuals, what further motivation can the bill’s authors have, other than to induce a move toward regulating, not only actions, but thought as well? How are we to define a “hate crime?” Is it too far beyond the realm of possibility to suggest that such a malleable and broad nomenclature could effortlessly expand to include mere criticism of a particular act? Over time, the umbrella-term that is “hate crime” legislation would dilate without limits, until everything that is deemed by those in power to be disagreeable or discriminatory would be targeted as “hateful,” swiftly suppressed and those responsible punished.

Another tucked-away caveat of the Democratic-sponsored bill is that it starts with an offensive premise: It suggests that the bill’s opponents, by the sole fact of their opposition, are hateful and bigoted. Their reasoning is faulty but cunning. Those, for example, opposed on principle to homosexual acts must, de facto, harbor odium toward gays as people. Opposition to affirmative action must imply deep-seated hatred for minorities. Such a law would certainly stymie free speech and the free-flow of discussion of germane issues facing contemporary society. The dread of being labeled a racist or bigot, and the possibility of facing prosecution at the hands of the zealous Jacobins charged with enforcing the law, would cow all who value honest debate to the same imposed silence that has enveloped totalitarian regimes.

House Republicans, understandably concerned about Democratic scheming to loosen restrictions on abortion by surreptitiously slipping various provisions into bills, recently wrote to President Bush, requesting that he reiterate his position in favor of life and his objection to any such attempt by Democrats. The president responded swiftly in a statement; vowing to veto any bill that would push back the significant progress made over the years to sideline abortion.

He’d better get used to the feel of that pen.