The Case for George W. Bush i.e. what if he's right?

Esquire Magazine ^ | Aug 01 '04 | Tom Junod

[oldtimer2]

Esquire does not allow any posting of its content. Here is a link to the article, which is from a "liberal" author in a "liberal" magazine. His conclusions will surprise all Freepers.

[gilliam]

As easy as it is to say that we can't abide the president because of the gulf between what he espouses and what he actually does , what haunts me is the possibility that we can't abide him because of us—because of the gulf between his will and our willingness. What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find his call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion.

[Dominick]

It is chilling. He may have found the Damascus road, the wolf is coming at the door, and if Bush is gone, we will have Kerry who will not cry wolf, but "lets try appeasement".

[Psycho_Bunny]

As easy as it is to say that we can't abide the president because of the gulf between what he espouses and what he actually does

This brings up my favorite type of question for liberals:

"Like?"

"How do you mean?"

"What's an example of that?"

"Based on what?"

 

[mcg1969]

Read the article then.

[tallhappy]

What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find his call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion.

I think yes. This is what has happened to a large portion of the citizenry.

We are conservatives in part because we have overcome this our obligations and responsibilities.

[Josh in PA]

Nice.

[tallhappy]

We are conservatives in part because we have overcome this our obligations and responsibilities.

Should say: We are conservatives in part because we have overcome this and understand our obligations and responsibilities.

[Dolphy]

What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find his call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion

Or in another words, a man of small ideas contemplates a man of large ideas. He may call it being accustomed to ambiguity but I think it's more about being accustomed to moral shallowness.

[Psycho_Bunny]

?

[marvlus]

bump for later

[eyespysomething]

We were attacked three years ago, without warning or predicate event. The attack was not a gesture of heroic resistance nor the offshoot of some bright utopian resolve, but the very flower of a movement that delights in the potential for martyrdom expressed in the squalls of the newly born. It is a movement that is about death—that honors death, that loves death, that fetishizes death, that worships death, that seeks to accomplish death wherever it can, on a scale both intimate and global—and if it does not warrant the expenditure of what the self-important have taken to calling "blood and treasure," then what does? Slavery? Fascism? Genocide? Let's not flatter ourselves: If we do not find it within ourselves to identify the terrorism inspired by radical Islam as an unequivocal evil—and to pronounce ourselves morally superior to it—then we have lost the ability to identify any evil at all, and our democracy is not only diminished, it dissolves into the meaninglessness of privilege.

He gets that part.

[Republican Red]

I read somewhere that when Hillary Clinton was on the David Letterman Show he asked her much the same question. He asked "what if twenty years from now we look back and see President Bush was right in everything he said about Iraq, terrorism and the Middle East". From what I've read Hillary didn't answer.

[mcg1969]

Sorry, I was a bit short. What I'm saying is, the article provides at least somewhat of an answer to the questions you're posing.

Though it's not perfect (emphasis mine:) The United States, at this writing, has been in Iraq fifteen months. At the same point in the Civil War, Lincoln faced, well, a disaster unmitigated and unprecedented. He was losing . He didn't lose, at least in part because he was able to both inspire and draw on the kind of moral absolutism necessary to win wars. Bush has been unable to do the same, at least in part because he is undercut by evidence of his own dishonesty, but also because moral absolutism is nearly impossible to sustain in the glare of a twenty-four-hour news cycle.

I would like him to better answer your challenges in light of this statement...

[oblomov]

A moment of doubt in the intellectual life of an earnest Bush-hater? He sounds like Jeff Jarvis.

[clintonh8r]

bump

[Feiny]

This part is so true:

" The people who dislike George W. Bush have convinced themselves that opposition to his presidency is the most compelling moral issue of the day. Well, it's not. The most compelling moral issue of the day is exactly what he says it is, when he's not saying it's gay marriage. The reason he will be difficult to unseat in November—no matter what his approval ratings are in the summer—is that his opponents operate out of the moral certainty that he is the bad guy and needs to be replaced, while he operates out of the moral certainty that terrorists are the bad guys and need to be defeated. "

[swilhelm73]

An interesting article well worth a read.

In some ways the author basically seems to be considering a return to the idea of being a loyal opposition as was common among the left mainstream until fairly recently.

It is a true testament to how insane the left has become in its lust for power that this article does not even reflect the mainstream of leftist thought anymore, that now to the Left Bush is a fascist, and Islamism a phantasism merely evoked to provide Bush with a tool to advance his own power.

One would think the attacks on 9/11 would have changed such fantastical whimsy for good among the Left. And it did seem to though all to briefly.

I frankly cannot understand the level of willfull ignorance the Left wallows in, even understanding the will to power that is their primary motiviation. Cynicism and expediency are one thing, castigating the most notably anti-fascist world leader since FDR as a fascist while rushing to the defense of real fascists in the Islamic world is quite another.

[stockpirate]

I have read the article! And I find it interesting, but he makes claims about Bush's truthfulness and it has now be proved that he didn't lie to us.

He does however make some very good points.

[loveliberty2]

"What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find his call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion."

What he has described is the Clinton Administration's approach to the President's primary responsibility: that of defending America and its constitutional republic.

Charm, appeasement, and dedication to the leaving of a "legacy" should not be considerations in our leader's decision making. President Lincoln was more concerned about the Union than about his own reelection, and his "legacy" stands on its own. Clinton, on the other hand, "fiddled" while the terrorists continued their war on America, and we had 9/11.

It's time more of the Far Left began to ask this writer's question of themselves. I don't believe that on 9/12 many of them were saying, "Gee, I wish Bill Clinton or Al Gore were our leaders today!"