Bush's Moral Authority

President Bush went to Africa this week and issued a stinging rebuke against the United States' role in the slave trade, but his comments have not set off the firestorm Bill Clinton's offhand apology for slavery provoked when he made a similar trip in 1998.

Bush isn't known for his eloquence, but the speech he gave Tuesday at Goree Island, Senegal, was one of his finest. "For hundreds of years on this island peoples of different continents met in fear and cruelty," he said, standing in front of an old slave quarters.

"At this place, liberty and life were stolen and sold. Human beings were delivered and sorted, and weighed, and branded with the marks of commercial enterprises, and loaded as cargo on a voyage without return. One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of history," he said.

Nor did the president shy away from the horrors of the Middle Passage, describing a "hot, narrow, sunless nightmare" that led some Africans to starve themselves, while others were thrown overboard when they became sick or died in their shackles.

And he pointed an accusing finger at those Americans who trafficked in slaves and profited from their labor. "Christian men and women became blind to the clearest commands of their faith and added hypocrisy to injustice," he reminded all of us.

"My nation's journey toward justice has not been easy, and it is not over," the president said, conceding, "The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation."

Bill Clinton's words were far more elliptical in 1998: "Going back to the time before we were even a nation, European-Americans received the fruits of the slave trade, and we were wrong in that," Clinton said.

If Clinton had stopped there, his comments might not have ignited such a furor. Who, after all, won't admit that America's role in the slave trade is a blight on this nation's history?

But Clinton went further to conflate America's role in slavery with 20th -century American foreign policy. "It is as well not to dwell too much on the past, but I think it is worth pointing out that the United States has not always done the right thing by Africa," Clinton told an audience in Uganda, adding: "Very often we dealt with countries in Africa and in other parts of the world based more on how they stood in the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union than how they stood in the struggle for their own people's aspirations to live up to the fullest of their God-given abilities."

Of course, Clinton failed to remark on the socialist economic policies that impoverished much of Africa during that period or on the thousands of Africans who became canon fodder in the Soviet's wars of imperialist expansion, not only in Africa, but also in Latin America and Asia.

It was context, not content, however, that most differentiated the two presidents' pronouncements on slavery. Bill Clinton made his trip at the nadir of his presidency, while reporters were plaguing him to answer questions about sex scandals.

Indeed, the most memorable image from his visit was a telephoto shot of him chomping on a cigar while he beat an African drum in Dakar the night he received news that a judge had dismissed Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit.

Africa was an escapist adventure for Bill Clinton, and no amount of moralizing about America's past failings could make up for his own moral deficiencies.

When Bush speaks about slavery, we're not suspicious that he's trying to deflect attention from his own failures. President Bush has successfully led America through its darkest hours in the terrorist assault against our nation. He has won two wars against our enemies. And he has delivered on his campaign promise to restore honor and dignity to the presidency.

Unlike Clinton's comments on slavery, Bush's words carry with them the moral authority of the man himself.

He should speak as eloquently about the even greater crime of his own generation of America, abortion. Abortion is more evil than slavery, it's current, it kills 1.5 million innocent babies a year, and will go down in history as an abomination so horrendous it will make slavery look like a love fest. How easy it is to condemn the blindness of an earlier generation, and to ignore the even worse sins of our own generation.

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"Very often we dealt with countries in Africa and in other parts of the world based more on how they stood in the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union than how they stood in the struggle for their own people's aspirations to live up to the fullest of their God-given abilities."

Bill Clinton providing more material than can be contained in Ann Coulter's "Treason"

Abortion is more evil than slavery

This comment is ridiculous.

Slavery was an evil institution. Abortion is as well. To place them on a scale of evil trivializes the very term "evil".

"Unlike Clinton's comments on slavery, Bush's words carry with them the moral authority of the man himself."

I dunno. Sounds to me like he's trying to pander to a bunch of darkies who are never going to vote for him no way, no how. Otherwise, he would also have condemned the black tribes who "accessoried" themselves to the slave trade by capturing defenseless blacks and selling them to white american and european "slavers". In many cases, these were the lucky ones. The less lucky were kept to be eaten or their little infants were eaten before their eyes. He might also have condemned the black slave trade that continues to this day. I get the impression however, he's simply telling a bunch of blacks what they want to hear...slavery is bad when practiced by whites...BUT...good when practiced by blacks. That's a great message.

Unlike Clinton's comments on slavery, Bush's words carry with them the moral authority of the man himself.

I don't recognize Bush as a moral authority. He's only a legal authority. God is clearly the moral authority for all men, and I think Bush alluded to that in his speech in Senegal yesterday. The problem is that Bush and all other R's and D's are ignoring the immigration problem even though a VAST majority of Americans are demanding action to stop the illegal invasion. This is going to cost Bush some votes. Many conservative Americans loathe globalism and its advocates. Another issue that will cost him votes is his penchant for policing the world (e.g. Liberia) - didn't he learn anything from Clinton's debacles?

"Slavery was an evil institution. Abortion is as well. To place them on a scale of evil trivializes the very term "evil"."

There are degrees to everything, including good and evil. The killing of 40 million American babies since 1973 has got to be most evil act ever perpetrated in our nation. In any case, my point was to highlight the hypocracy of a President condeming the evil of a generation of Americans long dead, while he looks the other way at the grande evil of his own day, abortion. He fell into the trap of setting himself up to be judged with equal harshness by a future President, long after abortion is made illegal again and an Amendment is placed into the Constitution stating that the fetus is a human being. Anyway, the sea of American blood that was spilled during the Civil War, to end slavery, is apology enough for me.

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