Posted on 02/11/2004 9:04:18 PM PST by Pokey78
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:06:27 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
When you are a conservative and tend to support conservatives, it will come as a surprise, and an unwelcome one, when you ding one, as I dinged President Bush the other day about his "Meet the Press" performance. Of those who responded, about 60% disagreed with me, and the rest were more or less in agreement. Many of those who disagreed with me said they thought the president had done well with Tim Russert, that the interview made clear his decency and sincerity. Others said I was kicking the president when he's down and that's the problem with conservative pundits, they can't be trusted. My answer is the obvious one: It is the job of a writer to write the truth as he sees it, and if it's an uncomfortable truth, then so be it.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Amazing that you have the nerve to talk about what is "evil" in your tagline when you think this way. Next I suppose you'll tell us what is "sick".
Excellent, Miss M.
Really, why don't you read Bush's speech he made on prime time national TV when he laid out the case to the American people prior to the war. Bush's case for war was:
1. Saddam's support of terrorists including Al Qeada.
2. Stopping Saddam before he becomes an imminent threat with WMD.
3. Saddam's refusal to live up to the Peace Agreement and UN resolutions.
4. Saddam's a ruthless dictator who brutalizes his own people.
Bush's case was NOT that Saddam was an imminent threat to use WMD. That is a complete lie made up by the media.
Right, you need to get the facts and get back to me.
(Take your pick.) -- All periods of history are unique, but the period of history our nation is now in is truly extraordinary. The tragedy foisted upon the nation on 9/11/01, and our collective response to that tragedy, have caused us all to reconsider our national values, and the defense and advance of those values in the world. Our response to today's challenges will shape the course of this nation and our place in the world for the next century. We live in extraordinary times, and we require extraordinary leadership. George W. Bush is providing that leadership.
After 9/11, it would have been easy for this nation to roll over into a fetal position and question ourselves in a stupor of self-doubt and guilt. The fact we didn't is due solely to George W. Bush. The rest of world may wallow in self-doubt, but we cannot afford to. President Bush said during his State of the Union address that America will not ask permission from the international community to protect America’s security. He has faced-down the appeasers in the UN in a way that no one, not even Ronald Reagan, was able to do. He has been unafraid to go-it-alone when the vital interests of the United States are at stake, because our values are right, and our purposes in the world are just. Will we clearly stand for the unique American values of liberty for all, and for democracy’s advance around the world, or will we follow the likes of France and become a tired and morally ambivalent society? President Bush has already answered that question.
In his speech to the National Endowment for Democracy in November, President Bush declared that the promotion of freedom and democracy would be the cornerstone of US foreign policy. This is a break with the past 50 years where we compromised those principles in the interest of counter-balancing Soviet communism worldwide. The US is the sole superpower in the world, but our power doesn’t come from our military might. Our superpower status comes from our values. President Bush understands this.
We’re a nation deeply divided on a variety of cultural issues. The most important cultural objective to the welfare of the nation is to bring faith back into the mainstream of American society. President Bush’s support of faith-based social programs to meet real human needs will do much to bring faith back into the center of our national life. President Bush is probably the most sincere and public believer in God we’ve had in the White House. We live in dark days, and simple political ideology will not get us through them. The light of honest and real faith in God, a faith and allegiance to One higher than ourselves, will, more than any political philosophy, dispel the darkness. This is an important aspect of what President Bush brings to the Presidency, and why his re-election is vital to the future of this nation.
Just because we didn't write a paragraph and post it on FR doesn't mean we didn't "get" it. We could have actually sent the paragraphs to Peggy at the WSJ site, which is what the instructions say to do.
I didn't, but I'm also not going to try to encapsulate the spirit of President Bush's presidency while I'm trying to get ready for work in the morning.
OK, let's look at the SOTU speech :
Bush (SOTU 1/28/2003): "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
Bush is saying Saddam may not be a danger now, but we can't wait tell he is. The media lied.
Bush (SOTU 1/28/2003): The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages -- leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained -- by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.
Hmmm, seems like Bush is making the case for humanitarian reasons BEFORE the war. Again the media lied. This is not a new 'shifting' position, but one all along.
Bush (SOTU 1/28/2003): Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons --
Seems Bush made a strong case for war because Saddam's refusal to live up to the peace agreement. This has nothing to do with the imminent threat. Again, Bush has not shifted.
Bush (SOTU 1/28/2003): Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world. The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct -- were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq's regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see, and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.
Nothing about imminent threat here. This is about Saddam not following UN resolutions. We know Saddam possessed biological weapons in the past. It was Saddam's burden to show he destroyed his weapons. We can't just assume he did.
To read the SOTU address and the Cincinnati speech and conclude that THE reason the US invade Iraq was an imminent threat of Iraq to use WMD is a lie. Certainly the potential of Iraq to get WMD was a reason, but so were links to terrorism, so were humanitarian reasons, and so were Saddam's refusal to live up to the peace agreement, which was won through an act of war with the blood of US soldiers. The media has ignored 75% of the case Bush made for the Iraqi war and has grossly distorted the other 25%. And those are the undeniable facts.
Actually this is an impossibility. About 2 years ago she was on C-Span for 3 hours (I acquired the tape) and one point she made was that The Wall Street Journal Chiefs gave her an choice---"Write Speeches for candidates or write for us" and she wisely chose to have every Monday, ands I'm sure the pay is better too.
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