Posted on 10/17/2004 5:18:04 PM PDT by ArmoredCav
CAMPAIGN 2004
High Stakes
Quite simply, Kerry must be stopped; and Bush must win
PAUL JOHNSON
The great issue in the 2004 election — it seems to me as an Englishman — is, How seriously does the United States take its role as a world leader, and how far will it make sacrifices, and risk unpopularity, to discharge this duty with success and honor? In short, this is an election of the greatest significance, for Americans and all the rest of us. It will redefine what kind of a country the United States is, and how far the rest of the world can rely upon her to preserve the general safety and protect our civilization.
When George W. Bush was first elected, he stirred none of these feelings, at home or abroad. He seems to have sought the presidency more for dynastic than for any other reasons. September 11 changed all that dramatically. It gave his presidency a purpose and a theme, and imposed on him a mission. Now, we can all criticize the way he has pursued that mission. He has certainly made mistakes in detail, notably in underestimating the problems that have inevitably followed the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and overestimating the ability of U.S. forces to tackle them. On the other hand, he has been absolutely right in estimating the seriousness of the threat international terrorism poses to the entire world and on the need for the United States to meet this threat with all the means at its disposal and for as long as may be necessary. Equally, he has placed these considerations right at the center of his policies and continued to do so with total consistency, adamantine determination, and remarkable courage, despite sneers and jeers, ridicule and venomous opposition, and much unpopularity.
There is something grimly admirable about his stoicism in the face of reverses, which reminds me of other moments in history: the dark winter Washington faced in 1777-78, a time to "try men's souls," as Thomas Paine put it, and the long succession of military failures Lincoln had to bear and explain before he found a commander who could take the cause to victory. There is nothing glamorous about the Bush presidency and nothing exhilarating. It is all hard pounding, as Wellington said of Waterloo, adding: "Let us see who can pound the hardest." Mastering terrorism fired by a religious fanaticism straight from the Dark Ages requires hard pounding of the dullest, most repetitious kind, in which spectacular victories are not to be looked for, and all we can expect are "blood, toil, tears, and sweat." However, something persuades me that Bush — with his grimness and doggedness, his lack of sparkle but his enviable concentration on the central issue — is the president America needs at this difficult time. He has, it seems to me, the moral right to ask American voters to give him the mandate to finish the job he has started.
This impression is abundantly confirmed, indeed made overwhelming, when we look at the alternative. Senator Kerry has not made much of an impression in Europe, or indeed, I gather, in America. Many on the Continent support him, because they hate Bush, not because of any positive qualities Kerry possesses. Indeed we know of none, and there are six good reasons that he should be mistrusted. First, and perhaps most important, he seems to have no strong convictions about what he would do if given office and power. The content and emphasis of his campaign on terrorism, Iraq, and related issues have varied from week to week. But they seem always to be determined by what his advisers, analyzing the polls and other evidence, recommend, rather than by his own judgment and convictions. In other words, he is saying, in effect: "I do not know what to do but I will do what you, the voters, want." This may be an acceptable strategy, on some issues and at certain times. It is one way you can interpret democracy. But in a time of crisis, and on an issue involving the security of the world, what is needed is leadership. Kerry is abdicating that duty and proposing, instead, that the voters should lead and he will follow.
Second, Kerry's personal character has, so far, appeared in a bad light. He has always presented himself, for the purpose of Massachusetts vote-getting, as a Boston Catholic of presumably Irish origins. This side of Kerry is fundamentally dishonest. He does not follow Catholic teachings, certainly in his views on such issues as abortion — especially when he feels additional votes are to be won by rejecting Catholic doctrine. This is bad enough. But since the campaign began it has emerged that Kerry's origins are not in the Boston-Irish community but in Germanic Judaism. Kerry knew this all along, and deliberately concealed it for political purposes. If a man will mislead about such matters, he will mislead about anything.
There is, thirdly, Kerry's long record of contradictions and uncertainties as a senator and his apparent inability to pursue a consistent policy on major issues. Fourth is his posturing over his military record, highlighted by his embarrassing pseudo-military salute when accepting the nomination. Fifth is his disturbing lifestyle, combining liberal — even radical — politics with being the husband, in succession, of two heiresses, one worth $300 million and the other $1 billion. The Kerrys have five palatial homes and a personal jet, wealth buttressed by the usual team of lawyers and financial advisers to provide the best methods of tax-avoidance. Sixth and last is the Kerry team: who seem to combine considerable skills in electioneering with a variety of opinions on all key issues.
Indeed, it is when one looks at Kerry's closest associates that one's doubts about his suitability become certainties. Kerry may dislike his running-mate, and those feelings may be reciprocated — but that does not mean a great deal. More important is that the man Kerry would have as his vice president is an ambulance-chasing lawyer of precisely the kind the American system has spawned in recent decades, to its great loss and peril, and that is already establishing a foothold in Britain and other European countries. This aggressive legalism — what in England we call "vexatious litigation" — is surely a characteristic America does not want at the top of its constitutional system.
Of Kerry's backers, maybe the most prominent is George Soros, a man who made his billions through the kind of unscrupulous manipulations that (in Marxist folklore) characterize "finance capitalism." This is the man who did everything in his power to wreck the currency of Britain, America's principal ally, during the EU exchange-rate crisis — not out of conviction but simply to make vast sums of money. He has also used his immense resources to interfere in the domestic affairs of half a dozen other countries, some of them small enough for serious meddling to be hard to resist. One has to ask: Why is a man like Soros so eager to see Kerry in the White House? The question is especially pertinent since he is not alone among the superrich wishing to see Bush beaten. There are several other huge fortunes backing Kerry.
Among the wide spectrum of prominent Bush-haters there is the normal clutter of Hollywood performers and showbiz self-advertisers. That is to be expected. More noticeable, this time, are the large numbers of novelists, playwrights, and moviemakers who have lined up to discharge venomous salvos at the incumbent. I don't recall any occasion, certainly not since the age of FDR, when so much partisan election material has been produced by intellectuals of the Left, not only in the United States but in Europe, especially in Britain, France, and Germany. These intellectuals — many of them with long and lugubrious records of supporting lost left-wing causes, from the Soviet empire to Castro's aggressive adventures in Africa, and who have in their time backed Mengistu in Ethiopia, Qaddafi in Libya, Pol Pot in Cambodia, and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua — seem to have a personal hatred of Bush that defies rational analysis.
Behind this front line of articulate Bushicides (one left-wing columnist in Britain actually offered a large sum of money to anyone who would assassinate the president) there is the usual cast of Continental suspects, led by Chirac in France and the superbureaucrats of Brussels. As one who regularly reads Le Monde, I find it hard to convey the intensity of the desire of official France to replace Bush with Kerry. Anti-Americanism has seldom been stronger in Continental Europe, and Bush seems to personify in his simple, uncomplicated self all the things these people most hate about America — precisely because he is so American. Anti-Americanism, like anti-Semitism, is not, of course, a rational reflex. It is, rather, a mental disease, and the Continentals are currently suffering from a virulent spasm of the infection, as always happens when America exerts strong and unbending leadership.
Behind this second line of adversaries there is a far more sinister third. All the elements of anarchy and unrest in the Middle East and Muslim Asia and Africa are clamoring and praying for a Kerry victory. The mullahs and the imams, the gunmen and their arms suppliers and paymasters, all those who stand to profit — politically, financially, and emotionally — from the total breakdown of order, the eclipse of democracy, and the defeat of the rule of law, want to see Bush replaced. His defeat on November 2 will be greeted, in Arab capitals, by shouts of triumph from fundamentalist mobs of exactly the kind that greeted the news that the Twin Towers had collapsed and their occupants been exterminated.
I cannot recall any election when the enemies of America all over the world have been so unanimous in hoping for the victory of one candidate. That is the overwhelming reason that John Kerry must be defeated, heavily and comprehensively.
bump
Yeah, but he's WRONG in saying "Bush has no sparkle". He's got plenty and Lefties hate him for it.
Thank you! Mega Bump.
The first paragraph is astonishingly true.
"The great issue in the 2004 election — it seems to me as an Englishman — is, How seriously does the United States take its role as a world leader, and how far will it make sacrifices, and risk unpopularity, to discharge this duty with success and honor? In short, this is an election of the greatest significance, for Americans and all the rest of us. It will redefine what kind of a country the United States is, and how far the rest of the world can rely upon her to preserve the general safety and protect our civilization."
Let us hope a majority of us in the majority of states vote wisely.
Paul Johnson possesses absolutely the most lucid mind and offers the shrewdest judgements of any living historian.
It was absolutely thrilling to read so concise a summing-up of our current situation. I especially liked "there is nothing glamorous about the Bush Administration....it is all hard pounding...." as he refers it back to wartime 200+ years ago. Contrast the realities of the world the Bush Administration has dealt with for four years with the ersatz Nouveau- Camelot image the Kerry wannabes are trying to sell: it's simply the difference between Reality and Fantasy, and it's a reality we must face now, in this accelerated game of "catch-up" we've been forced to play by the unprecedented event of 9-11. But back to Johnson:
I have to recommend INTELLECTUALS, in which he deals with some prominent 20th century "public intellectuals" like the odious Lillian Hellman, bad boy Norman Mailer, and Jean-Paul Sartre, among at least a dozen others. Once you have read Johnson's analysis of Sartre, replete with some incredible real-life details, you will NEVER forget it, and NEVER be able to hear or read the name "Sartre" again without snorting. THANKS FOR THIS GREAT POST!!
"quoting a Brit about a war in Iraq??'
"A tad bit off their focus?"
Lots of Hispanic Americans making the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq.
Johnson is absolutely top drawer.
Great find, and thanks for taking the trouble to type it in for us. Anyone who honestly thinks that the UN can handle the radical Islamists is free to vote for Kerry. (I'd just as soon somebody that stupid didn't drive, but there it is.) What I find baffling is the level of deliberate denial among those who seriously consider a hugely-funded international effort that has committed the atrocities that radical Islam has to be a "nuisance." I'm sure there were those who thought that Pearl Harbor was but a pinprick, but at least back then they were smart enough to keep their mouths shut about it.
I am forwarding this to some conservative history teachers.
Wow. What an article.
Paul Johnson gees it (in fact, in another article he recently wrote for Forbes magazine he points out the Bushies' mistake in Iraq in underestimating the Arab capacity for prolonged resistance - citation from memory) while most Americans, yes most, don't. If George W. Bush were in the next three weeks go into a grocery store, look at a barcode scanner and say "Golly, when did they invent that?" or, heaven forbid, mispell the word "tomatoe", he'll be sure to lose this coming election.
bump
gees=gets
Thanks! I will read it. :)
bump. good find
Bush must win. Fabulous. Thanks for posting this. I am e-mailing it to friends.
Well....from his mouth to God's ear. We all know this, that's why we've been so strongly behind this man. He's us, and he has to finish what has been started. This world is in a battle for it's very life.
Very good article ~~~Ping~~~ British Historian's view of why Bush must win.
Twice.
thanks
check
That line, which is also the title of my book, is "These are the times that try men's souls."
Congressman Billybob
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