Taking Radical Responsibility to Create a Humanized World (United States‪)‬

As the war in Iraq worsens, approval of George W. Bush fades, and criticism of his administration mounts, conservatives who supported Bush in 2000 are denouncing him today. Pat Buchanan, Christopher Layne, and Scott McConnell of the American Conservative, George Will of the Washington Post, Jeffery Hart of the National Review, and conservative political scientists such as John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, Stephen Walt of Harvard University, and Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute have all sharply criticized the Bush administration's handling of foreign policy. Hart and Mearsheimer, who both voted for Bush in 2000, have publicly announced their enthusiastic support in this election year not for Bush but for John Kerry. In October 2003 many of these prominent foreign policy conservatives helped form the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy (CRFP) as a direct effort to oppose the foreign policy of the Bush administration and the direction it is leading the country. The impact these conservative intellectuals have had so far on the forthcoming elections is negligible. According to a Time/CNN poll conducted shortly after the revelations in May of the abuses perpetrated by U.S. soldiers on Iraqi prisoners, Bush's approval rating for the first time during his presidency sank below his disapproval rating (46 percent versus 49 percent). Nonetheless the same polls have Kerry holding only a marginal lead over Bush.