A Bushie, or less commonly, Bushite or Bushy, is a term referring to a political supporter of George H. W. Bush or George W. Bush. More specifically, it is used to denote the of Bush advisors, appointees, and acolytes. The label carries much the same meaning as the terms "Reaganite", "Clintonista", “Obamabot”, and “Trumpeteer”, which are used to denote aides and followers of PresidentsRonald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump respectively.
History
Although the term has a longerrecorded usage, it first came to prominence with the 1993John Podhoretz book about his experiences working for the George H. W. Bush White House, Hell of a Ride. According to reviewer Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post, The term was also defined by David Brooks in a review of the 2001 book Reagan In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America. Brooks differentiated Reaganites and Bushies as types of Republicans. While Reaganites were often Hayekian academics connected to think tanks, Bushies tended to be "boring" corporate careerists with "neat desks and thin briefcases because their reading comes in the form of memos", who saw themselves as "master managers" and politics as a "competition of interests" rather than ideas. Although Brooks acknowledged that both groups were skeptical of government, their skepticism took different forms, with the Reaganites viewing the Bushies as skilled at political or bureaucratic wrangling, but lacking principles. According to Brooks, the failure of the Bushies in the first two years of the elderBush administration, which led to major losses in the 1992 Congressional elections, brought about the ascendancy of "ideologues" such as Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, but their "uncompromising" approach once again returned the reins of the party to the Bushies by the 2000 election, in which George W. Bush was elected. The term became prominent during the investigation of the controversial replacement of several U.S. Attorneys when it was revealed that Justice Department official Kyle Sampson suggested in an e-mail to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft that According to Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reid, a Democrat,
