The Manchurian President These are well-deserved dark days for conservatives. If only there were some truth to what the conservative editorial staff of The Business Report (UK)has concluded: ...There is no pleasure in recording this. This newspaper is second to none in its pro-American sentiments; in the early Bush years it devoted much ink to defending the President against the often malevolent and ignorant attacks of a congenitally anti-American European media. But we know a lost cause when we see one: the longer President Bush occupies the White House the more it becomes clear that his big-government domestic policies, his preference for Republican and business cronies over talented administrators, his lack of a clear intellectual compass and his superficial and often wrong-headed grasp of international affairs – all have done more to destroy the legacy of Ronald Reagan, a President who halted then reversed America’s post-Vietnam decline, than any left-liberal Democrat or European America-hater could ever have dreamed of. As one astute American conservative commentator has already observed, President Bush has morphed into the Manchurian Candidate, behaving as if placed among Americans by their enemies to do them damage. Read It: To suggest, even for a moment, that the Inspector Clouseaus who constitute the Democratic congressional leadership could be capable of such a thing is absolutely ludicrous. They can't even muster a hint of opposition to the war, fight against the repeal of the estate tax, or pour piss out of a boot. I doubt Patrick Leahy could find the cheese at the end of the maze much less hatch a plot of any magnitude. President Bush isn't a Manchurian Candidate, in fact, I would even argue that he's arguably the most successful president in modern American history. With the help of an aquescent media, a Republican congress, and a stacked judiciary, he's been able accomplish most of the objectives of his ideological, theocratic, and corporate constituency. Cronyism, a wrong-headed grasp of international affairs, defecit spending, and big-government policies (at least when it comes to the military), make Bush the perfect heir to St. Reagan. If the country is going to hell in a headbasket, (and I think it is), it won't be due to the failure of President Bush, but rather, due to his success; his success at giving the right wing of this country exactly what they've asked for. What conservatives are witness to is the detrimental, deliterious nature of their own policies. They've gotten everything they wanted, the country is the worse for it, and