Posted on 05/18/2006 5:29:51 PM PDT by RWR8189
What the president's immigration speech and "The DaVinci Code" have in common.
What was missing in the president's approach the other night was the expression, or suggestion, of context. The context was a crisis that had gone unanswered as it has built, the perceived detachment of the political elite from people on the ground, and a new distance between the president and his traditional supporters. The president would have done well to signal that he knew he was coming late to the party, as it were; that he'd come to rethink his previous stand, or lack of a stand, and had begun to consider whether there was not some justice in the views, and alarm, of others.
Without an established context the speech seemed free-floating: a statement issued into the ether, unanchored to any particular principle and eager to use, as opposed to appreciate, whatever human sentiment flows around the issue of immigration. It was a speech driven by an air of crisis, but not a public crisis, only a personal and political one.
To acknowledge what he apparently thinks are the biases of the base, he used loaded words like "sneak"--illegal immigrants "sneak across the border"--as if to establish his populist bona fides. This was, not to put too fancy a rhetorical term on it, creepy, and managed to be offensive to everyone.
What was needed was a definitive statement: As of this moment we will control our borders, I'm sending in the men, I'm giving this the attention I've given to the Mideast.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
No one believes in comprehensive solutions. They believe in action they can see. No one believes in the wisdom of government, but they do believe it has a certain brute power.
If Peggy were twenty years younger she and I would be a couple.
<flame retardent undies firmly in place>
and BTW, off subject, Reagan gave amnesty; Bush is not. :)
</flame retardent undies firmly in place>
Once is a mistake.
Twice is stupidity.
I think Reagan would recognize the difference. GWB has not.
I didn't realize Bush is doing what Reagan did. Thanks.
Despite your "Peggy Noonan Alert", I thought her commentary regarding the current immigration debacle was spot on.
Peggy has "too much God" in her columns.
I've grown tired of Peggy.
She is utterly inconsistent, sometimes she writes a very cogent analysis of the topic, other times its crap.
What say you?
Peggy has too much Peggy in her columns. Her palms must be blister-red from all the handwringing she's done of late.
Peggy Noonan's worst moment was in response to Bush's SOTU, when he spoke about using Democracy as a wedge to try to break down the Muslim terror base. It may or may not work, but it was a worthy policy.
She was widely criticized for her comments on Harriet Miers. But about that, she was right. That nomination was disastrous.
And she is right about this speech, too. Too little, too late. Bush needed to repair relations with his base, and he failed to do it. He needed to lead the country on the immigration crisis, and he failed to do it, or even to explain what the crisis is about.
Bush has an absolute blind spot on the problem of illegal immigration, and it shows once again. Those who support Bush, or who have supported him, among whom I would count myself, should be very worried about this. Bush is not just disappointing his base, he is damaging himself and his party. He still just doesn't get it.
Actually (and I KNOW someone will correct me if I'm wrong), but didn't Reagan at least admit that it was, indeed, an amnesty? At least he had the gumption to give it to the electorate straight instead of trying to couch it in happy-speak :P
I think sink remembers, but I am referring to the first of Peggy's nutty columns in which she criticized "W" for having "too much God" in his speeches.
As much as I love RWR, he was also the first governor to sign no fault divorce legislation into law. We all know how that turned out.
Yeah, we killed the USSR. I'd rather have my son back.
"I continue to believe the administration's problem is not that the base lately doesn't like it, but that the White House has decided it actually doesn't like the base. That's a worse problem. It's hard to fire a base. Hard to get a new one."
Wow, touche ... even Noonan is soured on Bush.
And here am I, I stoutly defended Bush through many a deal-breaks against the conservative grain, from medicare drugs to Miers (although I opposed both decisions, I supported the President). But at this point, why bother?
he's going out of his way to promulgate the most libral policy decision and the largest expansion in welfare in the past 2 decades.
If it passes, we can definitely say that Bush is more liberal than Clinton on domestic policy.
That woud have been Bush's second inagural address in which he declared that America would be the patrons of independence and freedom everywhere (a message to any Iranian resistance).
Peggy said there were way too many mentions of God in that speech, yet she drags God into every single one of her columns, often in bewildering ways.
I just can't get past the suspicion that Peggy has had the long knives out for Bush ever since David Frum was fired, and her phone didn't ring.
She's been sour on Bush for at least two years, and maybe longer. She thinks she should be writing his speeches, thus her biting critiques of every one of them.
My husband shares your exact suspicion.
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