Good! I have been demanding they get rid of the clone and return the real deal for the past year.
Posted on 12/05/2007 9:19:28 PM PST by smoothsailing
Bush Is Back
By Emmett Tyrrell
Thursday, December 6, 2007
WASHINGTON -- As with the late Abraham Lincoln, so with the present George W. Bush -- once the right general was found and the right strategy adopted, victory was in hand and a beleaguered president's fortunes were restored. Doubtless President Bush is aware of the parallel, and perchance, he will avoid Ford's Theatre.
A curious inhibition shared by both Bush 41 and Bush 43 is to downplay their interest in reading. Actually both are hearty readers, certainly as compared with the general public. Earlier this year, I attended a luncheon that the president hosted at the White House for the distinguished British historian Andrew Roberts, whose 736-page volume, "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900," the president had polished off months before, even before the book was released in America. He had been talking the book up with his staff, and when I heard that my friend Roberts was going to be in town, I passed that intelligence on. Bush invited Roberts in not only for luncheon but also to lecture the White House staff. This president knows his history and its significance.
Through the past three years of gloomy news, he has been called "bullheaded," but the evidence from Iraq, the economy and various other precincts -- for instance, advances in stem cell research -- suggests a different adjective, to wit, "resolute." Moreover, in Iraq, we see not only a resolute president but also a flexible president. Last spring, he changed his tactics in Iraq, and the change has been successful.
Historians studying Lincoln's war have concluded the gravest challenge facing him was to find an effective general. In fact, one of the most authoritative early series written about the war was titled "Lincoln Finds a General," by Kenneth P. Williams. From the successful way things are going in the Iraq war today, it is clear that Bush has found his general, David H. Petraeus, and that this general has implemented a strategy effective across an array of problems that heretofore had made a hash of our post-invasion presence in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus' "surge" has pacified once-violent neighborhoods and effected, in the provinces, alliances with otherwise-warlike sheiks, who have turned on al-Qaida's brutes and apparently beaten them. The surge even has suppressed incoming weapons from Iran. Now Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who in July called the surge a "failed policy" and the president "delusional," has returned from the battlefield and admitted the "surge is working."
The economy is strong with steady growth, low unemployment, low inflation, low interest rates and only one sector in doubt -- housing -- which, in an economy as enormous as ours, can be endured for a while. The president's reluctance to fund federal research on embryonic stem cells has been vindicated with the announcement that scientists have discovered how to use normal skin cells to serve their research purposes. And now comes a National Intelligence Estimate, concluding that Iran decided to abandon a 15-year program to develop nuclear weapons just months after our invasion of Iraq. At the time, Libya gave up its nuclear arms program, too. What desert potentate wants to suffer the fate President Bush arranged for Saddam Hussein?
The nature of modern broadcast media and the present rancorous condition of partisan politics encourage a colossal din after a president undertakes daring endeavors. Today we forget the widespread contempt that surrounded President Harry Truman's last years in office, as he contended with the Korean War and the early stages of the Cold War. Who remembers the sorry repute of Ronald Reagan a year before he vacated the premises? Former White House speechwriter Clark S. Judge, in one of the first newspaper columns to notice the Bush revival, wrote last week, "In 1987, President Reagan's fortunes were down." Judge noted the president's loss of the Senate, the setback of the Bork nomination and, of course, the Iran-Contra affair. "But then," Judge recalls, "the Soviets started to give way on arms and other agreements, the economy continued to grow despite the October stock market crash and Reagan began the long climb in the polls that helped put the current president's father in the Oval Office."
Well, maybe the present president's "long climb" has begun. From a lowly 29 precent approval rating in September, when Petraeus was testifying before Congress on the surge, Bush's approval has climbed to 36 percent. The Democratic Congress' approval is but 22 percent, and its leadership has undertaken no daring endeavors. When President Bush finally retires to his ranch to continue his readings of history, quite possibly the books about contemporary Washington will make for pleasant reading. Perhaps even a boulevard will be named after him in Baghdad.
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R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator and co-author of Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White Hou
©Creators Syndicate
Copyright © 2006 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
But he has my support.
And perchance he will stop spending my money on bottomless entitlement programs.
Actually, the parallels between 1864 and 2007 go farther than just getting the right generals in the right place and the right time.
In both cases, Democrats were actively trying to undermine the President in a time of war.
Some things never change.
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Passing strange that President Bush reaching 36% is a cause for celebration, but these aren’t ordinary times, a completely hostile news media doesn’t help and really GWB “normal” level of support is in the 45% range so 35% for him is a nice step up.
Mr. Tyrell should be glad he wrote that phrase not - after 20 JAN 09, he would be greeted by a knock on his door and badges in his face, asking pointed questions about threats to the life of the Queen.
God Bless President Bush and General Petraeus.
He will be noted in history as a great President.
It will take 40 years though for the historians to write it.
Good! I have been demanding they get rid of the clone and return the real deal for the past year.
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His popularity would go through the roof if he did to Anderson Cooper and Tom Brokaw what he did to Saddam Hussein.
Bravo President Bush.
Yeah, Ramos and Compean are cheering from solitary confinement...
Yes, He is....I Love this President...
Thinking it’s supposed to be a metaphor. A “political” death, if you will.
America is going to miss his leadership.
Pray for W and Our Victorious Troops
No matter what the prior naysaying officers say, they didn’t do their job. Petraeus has done his job outstandingly and Pres. Bush put him there. The RATS can’t argue with success even if they think they can.
Good column. Thanks for posting.
Compared to Congress, the President is doing very well. I wonder what Congress’s approval rating will be when the general population learns of the three-day work schedule coming soon?
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In fact, after Lincoln was assassinated, his VP, Johnson, a dem, sabotaged Lincoln's plans for reconstruction and reunification. If we are so unfortunate to get a dem president in '08, watch out!
Approval up 10%.
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Ditto!
Amen!
Except for trying to placate islamists in Israel.
Isn’t there to be a hearing on these guys at GWB’s suggestion, thought I saw something last week.
It’s not an easy thing, nor is it necessarily wise, for a President to overturn the judgment of a jury.
That said, I think the wheels are turning, and it will happen. But it will be done correctly, and with an eye toward precedent and tradition, unlike the willy-nilly Clinton pardons.
Yeah, me too! That picture says a lot!
Eeeewwwwww. The troops would have to be forced at gunpoint to attend.
Tyrell is almost always good reading. This is a great piece.
I’m witchoo.
Well said. Well said.
Tell that to the Ramos and Compean families...
Oh brother...tommorrow he, by fiat, institutes the biggest socialist bailout in the history of the country and you guys think its great. Conservatives, ya right.
Prayers up for our President.
Meanwhile,
“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”
— Theodore Roosevelt, Republican President
A “hearing?” There should be a pardon, apology, damages, and full re-instatement with back pay should they want it.
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