Does the Tea Party GOP make Bush look 'liberal'?

Bill Clinton says the Republicans have moved so far right, they make George W.Bush look left wing. Acute analysis or typical Democrat bluster?

Through Tea-colored glasses, Bush is just one of liberals.
(Image credit: Getty)

The sudden surge of far-right Tea Party candidates on the Republican ticket this election season has made former President George W. Bush seem leftist by comparison — or so says his predecessor, Bill Clinton. "A lot of [Republican] candidates today," said Clinton at a fundraiser for Minnesota Democrat Mark Dayton on Wednesday, "they make him look like a liberal." Has the conservative political landscape really shifted so far to the right since Bush left office?

Tea Partiers would dismiss Bush as a RINO today: This is "actually a pretty acute observation," says Ed Kilgore in The Democratic Strategist. Since the rise of the Tea Party, Republican incumbents who supported Bush initiatives like No Child Left Behind, immigration reform or TARP have been "routinely denounced as RINOs by opponents." If Bush was in politics today, he'd be described in exactly the same terms.

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