The War Party

Support for George W. Bush’s foreign policy now defines the GOP.



by W. James Antle III

Litmus tests must go. That is the rallying cry of those who believe Republicans should drop their insistence that the party’s 2008 presidential candidate toe the line on taxes, abortion, guns, or immigration. Wartime, the argument goes, is no time for conservatives to demand ideological purity. Or, as Noemie Emery put it in an emblematic essay for The Weekly Standard, “in a time of national peril, the test is a luxury [conservatives] cannot afford.”

Judging from presidential preference polls, many Republicans appear to be listening. The current 2008 frontrunner, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, is pro-choice and supports civil unions for gays, gun control, and a fairly permissive immigration policy. Until recently, he favored taxpayer funding of abortion and opposed the partial-birth abortion ban. In second place is Sen. John McCain, who voted against the Bush tax cuts, sponsored amnesty for illegal immigrants, championed a campaign-finance law that put restrictions on conservative groups ranging from the National Rifle Association to the National Right to Life Committee, and believes the federal government should referee professional boxing.

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