Posted on 01/21/2005 4:36:08 AM PST by kattracks
What a difference a day made.When George W. Bush took the oath of office four years ago, it was as a moderate Republican anxious to get beyond the unpleasantness of Florida and reclaim his reputation for easygoing bipartisanship. His agenda was hardly revolutionary: cutting taxes and improving public education at home, steering clear of nation-building abroad. He came across as easygoing, incurious, not given to hard thought or hard work -- and like his father, unencumbered by "the vision thing."
[snip]
Then came Sept. 11.
It was always an overstatement to say that 9/11 changed "everything," but it certainly changed George W. Bush.
The man sworn in Thursday is seen now as a radical conservative with an audacious agenda, from overhauling Social Security to overhauling the Middle East. He is deeply polarizing, more loathed by partisan Democrats than any Republican since Richard Nixon and more admired by Republicans than any GOP leader since Ronald Reagan. The nonideological, can't-we-all-get-along slacker of 2000 has been replaced by an intense, uncompromising, undiplomatic hawk. The visionless son of the visionless father has become the nation's crusader-in-chief, a president determined to change the world -- and not terribly concerned if much of the world hates him while he goes about it.
[snip]
Unlike the brooding weathervane he defeated in the election, Bush consistently points to a brighter, freer, more prosperous future. That is a valuable trait of leadership at any time. In a time of war, it is priceless.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Its not President Bush who changed. Its his critics.
Amen and Amen. Thank ya W.
You're kidding?
Moving from rejection of America as the world's policeman and campaigning against nation-building to a champion of national liberation and the foremost advocate of human rights and nation-building, nay...world-building, it a huge change.
It's a transformation.
Oddly, President Bush has moved left since 1/20/2001 even though the liberal pigs keep squealing about his "extreme right-wing agenda."
Whenever I hear the phrase "America as the world's policeman" I think of a few things;
1) Why do policemen take on the job they do? It is risky. It pays low. People immediately blame them when things go bad.
2) Who is better qualified to do the job?
I wonder what a world with China or Russia as "the world's policeman" would be like?
Most likely, the situation in Iraq would not have happened, but perhaps Saudi Arabia would have been attacked and the oil fields put under Russian control?
The US is the only country in the world with the capacity and the moral strength (although it is weakening) to do the job.
Yep. So here we are, much more than a policeman.
An American president advocating, no, promising wars of national liberation.
As it is, a Republican president promoting international human rights and nation building, by force of arms.
Funny how things worked out.
In essence, he has declared totalitarianism an international crime.
I am not fully in disagreement with this policy. Its tough to have to deal with the responsibility, but the theory is that totalitarian governments do not have the self-control that democratic governments do.
So far, this theory has been well proven.
I believe that the Dubya of 2005 has a close parallel in our nation's history - Theodore Roosevelt. He too began moderately (given the circumstances of his ascendancy), but, by the time he was elected in 1904, turned bold and radical.
Had he presided over a period of a similar attack on America, there is no doubt in my mind he would have charted a very similar course to the one W has taken, while also calling us to manly, warlike virtues.
T.R. was also called a 'radical' by the end of his political career, which frankly suits me fine. When W is now referred to as a Radical Republican by the MSM, I chuckle and think:
"Finally, Thank God", we have a TR-type President once again. Mark this term and mark it well - for the odds are we will be waiting long before we his likes again - that's just the way history works. To praphrase TR, the American people are not always in a "heroic mood".
"Radical Republican". *LOL* Thank the Good Lord. Now lets go break some more china in the chinashop!!!
- Make tax cuts permanent
- Overhaul Social Security
- Give our enemies abroad HELL
And you know, just like TR, W is not a man to back down, even when he is getting "brickbats instead of bouquets", as TR once said.
W is BULLY!!! And I am just tickled pink.
Had TR won in 1912, can you imagine how the world would have been different? America would have entered the war 2 years earlier, defeated Germany and prevented the bloodletting that collapsed Russia and gave it over to the commies.
OTOH, had he lived to run (and win, with 100% certainty, in 1920,) I am certain the Great Depression would never have happened, for his ambitious agenda of reform at home would have replaced the Harding/Coolidge 'hands off' policy.
When he died in January 1919, he was preparing his 1920 presidential run, he had reunited the GOP and was universally acknowledged as its leader.
That is speculation, but speculation based on TR's record, not a flight of fancy.
Yes, Virginia, a 'Radical Republican', courageous, unflinching in the face of criticism, can indeed make the world a better place. And yes, it is our destiny to do just that. Much more so than at any previous time (except perhaps WW II) due to the fact that our ocean borders no longer provide security as they once did, and our economy is so tied in to the world economy.
The answer is not to, Clinton-like, seek to make ourselves partly under the authority of international institutions; the answer is to dominate those institutions and bend them to OUR will.
America, like it our not, has been handed the mantle of Empire (though not a land-acquiring one like those of the past). God Almighty demands that we do not shirk our duty in this regard, that we steel ourselves and gird our loins, then p;lunge into the difficult - but righteous and just - task ahead of us.
Somewhere in Heavem, TR is looking down and flashing that famous "Roosevelt smile". Bully! Bully! Its just Bully! he might be saying.
Al
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