Does Bush Want Hillary Clinton to Win?

To many partisan U.S. Citizens who follow politics, there is strong antipathy towards the other side. It always surprises such people when they see unmistakable evidence that though the members of each team may dislike the other, the guys at the top get along great and see themselves as an elite class who have more in common with each other than they do their "supporters" on either side. The ignore or conduct half-hearted investigations of one another's alleged misconduct. Despite election-year prattle, they by and large govern with the same policies, even when the clear majority of the population opposes them both (see illegal immigration).

In all of that context it is believable that President Bush wants Hillary to succeed him, not whoever the Republican candidate is. You will recall that the Clinton's and the Gore's had friction at the end, and the former more often stole the spotlight from the latter than they helped him. They would not even deliver Arkansas for Gore. Then Bush Sr. proclaimed Clinton to be like another son to him. W. Bush picked a V.P. who is not available to succeed him and in fact made no move at all to groom a successor, despite an unprecedented willingness to jump into GOP primaries all over the country. He is pushing through as many neocon and globalist policies as possible, even ones that are extremely unpopular and over the objections of members of his own party who worry that his actions are ruining their chances for 08. The Bush family controls much of the money spigots in GOP circles, and it seems that they have dried up.

This week, he vetoed a bill that would greatly expand socialized medicine for children, claiming the bill was "too expensive". This from the man who gave us the prescription drug plan. He rarely balked at big spending before. Don't get me wrong, I am glad on a policy level that he did it, but he almost never did anything I agreed with before, why would he now? One possible answer: to keep health care alive as an issue for Hillary. If most of the country already has socialized medicine she could hardly win votes promising it to people- especially once they get a good taste of it.

I have taken to calling the last 20 years of our Republic the "Bush-Clinton Administration" because regardless of their rhetoric, the broad thrust of their polices has been identical. I now think that it is a distinct possibility that George W. Bush wants Hillary Clinton to win the next election. Even if he does not, his actions are those of a man who does.