# Is Duhbya a lame duck? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 24, 2001, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-duhbya-a-lame-duck/66393 "2001-05-24T18:40:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2001, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-duhbya-a-lame-duck/66393/41 "2001-05-27T04:55:18Z")
Sterling: That’s what I mean. Sure, to liberal people Bush seems very conservative, because he is conservative. But to very conservative people, Bush seems moderate, because he’s he’s not _very_ conservative. To your average conservative, Bush seems like an average conservative. Bush’s message was, “I’m conservative, but not like THOSE people…” He NEVER ran as a moderate moderate, but as a moderate conservative. That means he was going to appoint people more conservative than he is, like Ashcroft, and people less conservative than he is, like Powell. But they’re all going to be somewhere on the conservative half of the scale. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2001, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-duhbya-a-lame-duck/66393/42 "2001-05-27T12:48:31Z")
Well, not quite, **Lemur866**. Bush didn’t run as a “moderate” conservative, but as a “compassionate” one (as, implicitly, in contrast to the usual “noncompassionate” kind). The words are NOT synonymous. It’s understandable anyway that Bush’s refusal to discuss the philosophical underpinning of the term, if any, allows it to be defined any way the listener wants it to, and you appear to be a case in point. Isn’t it possible that the term was simply campaign spin, encouraging conservatives with guilty consciences about the human consequences of their views to feel better about voting for him? We’re still waiting for **December** to enlighten us as to what the term “compassionate conservative” means to her(him?). Well? ---
**Author:** ![SterlingNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@SterlingNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SterlingNorth)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2001, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-duhbya-a-lame-duck/66393/43 "2001-05-27T13:44:22Z")
**ElvisL1ves** went ahead and said all that I was going to care to on this Sunday morning about Bush’s empty slogan. Anyway, I stumbled across an old Washington Post Magazine piece about Tom Delay, who is close ideologically to Trent Lott (whom I mentioned above). Bush was doing his damnedest to separate himself from the likes of those two. Yet I think this passage from Delay is telling. > [@](#): > > As leader of the conservatives, DeLay could hurt Bush’s efforts to appeal to the middle. DeLay in 1990 led a bitter attack on Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush, for backing down on a pledge not to raise taxes. And last year during the campaign, when the younger Bush had harsh words for House Republicans, DeLay publicly dismissed it as a reflection of Bush not understanding Congress. > > **Yet DeLay now says he thinks he and the president are actually close, ideologically. “George W. is really saying the same things we are,” DeLay says, "only we are saying them differently.**" > > [sub][Peter Perl. “Absolute Truth.” _Washington Post Magazine._ May 13, 2001.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6825-2001May9.html)[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2001, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-duhbya-a-lame-duck/66393/44 "2001-05-27T17:35:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SterlingNorth \* > \*\* I stumbled across an old Washington Post Magazine piece > _Washington Post Magazine._ May 13, 2001. \*\* Wow… the internet really has changed the way we view time. “Old” is now something published 2 weeks ago… ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2001, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-duhbya-a-lame-duck/66393/45 "2001-05-27T17:39:00Z")
Sure. The question is whether Bush is tricking the moderates or tricking the conservatives. Of course this is a fairly meaningless term, just like Clinton’s third way. But anyone who looks at Bush and sees a hard-core ideological conservative is missing something. Bush is not an ideological ANYTHING. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-duhbya-a-lame-duck/66393.md?page=2)