Like Reagan, Bush Must Seize Moment

The Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 06-20-04 | Mark Steyn

[MamaLucci]

Like Reagan, Bush Must Seize Moment
Chicago Sun-Times, by Mark Steyn

I feel a bit like a guy who's been dating a pleasant lady in the office for a couple of years and suddenly bumps into the gal he always adored in high school. As readers will know, I'm very supportive of George W. Bush, especially on the foreign policy front. But it was unfortunate that a week of 24/7 Ronald Reagan greatest hits on the cable networks should have had to stop once or twice a day to cross to a blinking, groggy Dubya at some G-8 press conference with a duplicitous pseudo-ally going round in circles on Iraq for the umpteenth time. Bush is a great and remarkable president and, between Normandy and G-8 and the U.N., he actually had a very good week. But gosh, it's hard not to miss the Gipper. . .

One difference emerged in Bush's eulogy for Reagan, which managed to be both somewhat reductive and, next to his dad, the Iron Lady and Brian Mulroney, somewhat hard-edged, like a stern Sunday School teacher. The president is an evangelical Christian and to try and duct-tape over his faith (as some on the left think he should) would be highly unnatural. But presumably he also subscribes to the Reaganite view that there is a purpose behind the blessings the Almighty has showered on America. To Ronald Reagan, the nation was a ''shining city on a hill'' -- a phrase he modified from John Winthrop, aboard the Arbella, bound for Massachusetts Bay in 1630, and anticipating the colony he hoped to help build ("a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us"). Winthrop, in turn, got it from Matthew and Isaiah. Reagan just neatened it up a little and planted a 350-year-old catchphrase into the language.

[MamaLucci]

Mark Steyn, as usual, sums it up perfectly.

[NittanyLion]

Yep. Steyn is brilliant.

[MamaLucci]

For his part, Bush's conservatism is neither a romance nor a balance sheet. He's adopted a lot of the soft fatuities of the left -- "Leave no child behind" -- and he doesn't care how expensive they are to implement. On Labor Day last year, Bush said: "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." With conservatives like that, who needs Sweden?

Constructive criticism that should be heeded, IMHO.

[BibChr]

Already posted in full (not excerpted) HERE.

Dan

[MamaLucci]

Thanks, I searched the entire headline, nothing turned up.
Mods, you may want to pull this.

[MamaLucci]

Now I get it.....different headline in the Sun-Times.

[Dark Wing]

A Steyn Ping!

[Elvis van Foster]

His critique that the Bush team is good at walking the walk but not caring about talking the talk is spot on. Especially about touting the economy. Their PR has been a disaster. Bush should be smiling confidently, giving thumbs up, and b-r-a-g-g-i-n-g, c-r-o-w-i-n-g about it every time that he's in front of a camera. If he is dumb as they claim, he's confirming it in this once example, IMHO.