Posted on 05/23/2006 8:34:45 AM PDT by Pokey78
NNow when he is at his lowest point yet in the polls is the time for those who love and admire President Bush to say so. Depending on the final success of his already successful campaign to bring the rudiments of democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, George W. Bush, #43, may go down as a truly great president, who against fierce odds turned the entire Middle East in a new, more democratic, and more creative direction.
But I do not want to argue here the question of his greatness (I have heard voices call him the worst ever) because the question of ranking is above my pay grade and my foresight.
What I do want to argue is that, after Washington and Lincoln, Bush is the bravest of our presidents. He has faced the most intense fire, hatred, contempt, heavily moneyed and bitterly acidic partisan opposition, underhandedness, betrayal, of any president in the last hundred years. He has faced hostility over a longer time, in possibly the most dangerous period of international warfare in our national history. He has remained constant, firm, decided, and generous (to a fault) with his opponents.
He has faced almost unbroken contempt from the academy, from the mainstream press, from Democratic elites, from Moveon and all the other holders of the Democratic-party purse strings, from the Democratic Congress, from his treacherous (if not treasonous) Central Intelligence Agency, and from many levels of the permanent State Department. Almost every day, he has been pummeled and undermined by powerful forces of American power. Still, he has stayed firm, with clear arguments, and an even clearer vision.
On the number-one issue facing the nation—the war declared upon us by fascists who pretend to be religious—he has not wavered, he has not bent, he has stayed on course and true.
In Iraq, civil society, nearly comatose under Saddam Hussein, is today alive and full of vitality. Newspapers and television and magazines are full of diversity and energy, political parties multiply, private associations are functioning by the thousands, most of the country is more secure than some American cities. Iraqi exiles from around the world, far from fleeing, are coming back in droves.
In Paris, France, more cars may have been set on fire this past year than car bombings in Baghdad. In the decade of the Algerian war some time ago there may have been more bombings in France per week than there are now in Iraq. A tiny band of extremists, led by a crafty but crazed Jordanian, are still capable of impressive resourcefulness and ruthless killing, especially within camera reach of the hotels in Baghdad, where the American press is bunkered down. But they represent only a small fringe of Iraqi voters—and of course they loathe democracy with all their writhing intestines.
Despite the depredations, beheadings, and homicide bombings aimed at American public opinion, and especially elite opinion, President Bush has bravely kept his focus on eliminating one by one the dwindling band of terrorists, on the reconstruction of Iraqi civil society, and on the ability of Iraqi parties to broker and bargain and argue themselves into consensus in a political manner.
Whatever American voters may say of him to opinion pollsters—and his polls are now very low indeed—the survival of democracy in Iraq will in the future count as an enormous achievement. Moreover, the exchange in Arab minds of the "big idea" of democracy for the grand illusions of the past (Arab nationalism, Arab socialism, Baathist dictatorship, pan-Arabism), may a generation from now confer on President Bush the unmistakable honor of having been one of those presidents who actually changed the course of history. A president who changed the course of history, yes—and also one who did so against unprecedented opposition at home, bitter and hysterical opposition, even from those who were formerly of the party of democracy, human rights, and international outreach.
It takes more bravery to continue walking calmly through immense hostility at home, than to face down a foreign foe, with a united nation at one's back. This, as I say, is a very brave president.
It may also turn out that, despite currently swirling furies, the president's stout refusal to be merely partisan or to throw red meat to some of his best supporters (he knew as well as anybody what they most wanted now), alongside the five interlinked courses of action he proposed, will have empowered a much more thorough immigration reform than seemed possible even four weeks earlier.
Despite a normal diet of failures and setbacks, common to all presidents, it is also worth counting up his steady, always surprising successes in cutting taxes, in reshaping the Supreme Court, in getting personal Social Security accounts and personal medical accounts on the agenda of public discussion (the first president since Roosevelt to touch the third rail and live to tell of it), and in presiding over the most amazing economy in the world during the past six years.
Polls may be fickle. Notable accomplishments endure, as rock-solid facts. The full record of this president may yet turn out to be as highly ranked as his bravery is bound to be.
If you were in his shoes, would you not prefer the fame of 30 years from now to popularity in your own time? Being popular is neither within one's own control nor, in the larger scheme, a goal worth pursuing. Doing the right thing steadily, as best one can, is.
I like this guy. And I admire his guts, and his decency.
— Michael Novak is the winner of the 1994 Templeton Prize for progress in religion and the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Novak's own website is www.michaelnovak.net.
bump
I'm so glad FR is actually returning to being a Conservative/Republican site. Articles like this are too rare around here these days.
And another bump
Excellent piece.
Including now from within his own party from grassroots conservatives caught up in a dangerous and blinding absolutism over immigration. They look only at this one issue and ignore all the other ways in which Bush has advanced their favored agenda and now choose to jump ship on the man. A fair weathered friend in my book is always worse than a consistently hostile adversary. I have no use for the disloyal.
That's not to say it's wrong to disagree with the president. I happen to think he's not been strong enough in vetoing spending or even still done enough to get control of the border. But it's the level of rancor that comes from both the far left and the far right I find so distasteful. I may not see eye to eye with all Bush does, but I'll be damned if I'm going to abandon the man who has done so much to protect the nation and revive its economy and to do so when he most needed my support. Kicking a friend when he's down is just the lowest of low behaviors. I feel we owe him too much as a party and a nation to allow our loyalties to be so fleeting and capricious.
He has faced all the adversity with dignity and leadership yet in a compassionate way. Which are rare qualities for a President. He sticks by his convictions. And I would say he is loyal.
I admire and respect President Bush!!
Excellent article! I agree.
You are absolutely correct, sir!
BUMP! I think his biggest problems are with RINO and weak Republicans in the House and Senate. You go to war with what you have. I am not proud of the congress he has had to work with. However, I am very proud of my President!
Meanwhile the dopey American people pine for the days of Clinton when we had prosperity and peace, or so they thought. The nation almost doesn't deserve as decent and brave a man as GWB as president.
It's still a conservative site. The nutball Buchananites who have been lurking silently in the shadows for so long just waiting to leap on a "we told you so" opportunity have just been temporarily emboldened by the immigration debate. Alas their absolutist voices will again fall silent one day soon, but I fear not before doing grievous harm to the party and the president. But as extremists always do, they'll remain in the shadowlands forever marginalized without power or voice and will ultimately not impact a thing. They will remain on the political periphery until the next opportunity to raise their shrill and intolerant voices presents itself again. And then once their tide again receeds which will come largely through having delegitimized themselves because of the harshness of their rhetoric and chauvenism, the adults can once again get back to the hard work of governance and carrying on a thinking debate as opposed to a purely visceral one.
Oh, puh-leeze. To compare this bunch of savages with the threat posed by the Nazis and the Communists is so preposterous as to fatally undermine the points the author is attempting to make.
"In Iraq, civil society, nearly comatose under Saddam Hussein, is today alive and full of vitality."
In contarst to Hitler and the Nazis, we'll never know the tribulation W has saved the world from, if the cancer of Saddams Iraq and collusion by sympathetic countries and the UN had been allowed to continue.
Agreed! In addition, one of the things folks forget is that Bush is not El Supremo - that is, he doesn't just point a finger and presto, it's done. He has to go through a very reluctant, RINO-filled Congress, and in many ways it's remarkable that he's gotten anything at all done.
As for points where I don't agree with him (excessive spending, being too nice to RATS), these are all things that I don't hesitate to discuss, but in no way do they take away from my respect for Bush.
But these "savages" are rapidily gainingg access to nuclear weapons.
A great thread today about the base abandoning Bush put it just right, I think. I wasn't too thrilled with the Miers pick at all, but I was alarmed at how the base FREAKED over it on such flimsy reasoning, and the MSM leaped on that. As the article pointed out, the main opposition seemed to be based on the idea that she "wasn't OURS", i.e. someoen Ann Coulter went to Republican fundraisers with, all the supposed justifications to the contrary. (Alito and Roberts had more substantive strikes against them, and it amused me how all those who want term limits and "regular folks" in power positions in government descended on Miers's lack of judicial track record).
You've hit the target with the Buchanan wing comment, though. Like the DUmmies they will never be satisfied until the Republican party is 100% THEIR version of Conservative and in turn the President is, as well. That ain't gonna happen in a nation so closely divided politically as this one. I know it's heresy to those folks to consider that even Pat or Savage! couldn't run the country as they claim they would, but, sorry, they couldn't, and neither could any Republican president, not with this Congress, at least. Absolute fidelity to an imaginary Conservative Ideal will never be reached; a President can only strive for it within the constrictions he's got in a politically-divided nation. He should be judged on that reality, not in his inability to create a Conservative fantasyworld.
I am surprised National Review would publish an article like this. They are usually the first to clamor that the sky is falling. They spend the whole day on their Corner blog parsing CBS and ABC polls that have the president at 29% and predict definite gloom for the GOP. They truly have become defeatist and cowardice in their writing. National Review has become spineless since WFB let go of the reins. This article that Michael Novak has written is common sense.
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