Posted on 03/06/2005 4:34:35 PM PST by quidnunc
Jon Stewart, the sage of Comedy Central, is one of the few to be honest about it. "What if Bush … has been right about this all along? I feel like my world view will not sustain itself and I may … implode." Daniel Schorr, another critic of the Bush foreign policy, ventured, a bit more grudgingly, that Bush "may have had it right."
Right on what? That America, using power harnessed to democratic ideals, could begin a transformation of the Arab world from endless tyranny and intolerance to decent governance and democratization. Two years ago, shortly before the invasion of Iraq, I argued in these pages that forcefully deposing Saddam Hussein was, more than anything, about America "coming ashore" to effect a "pan-Arab reformation" — a dangerous, "risky and, yes, arrogant" but necessary attempt to change the very culture of the Middle East, to open its doors to democracy and modernity.
The Administration went ahead with this great project knowing it would be hostage to history. History has begun to speak. Elections in Afghanistan, a historic first. Elections in Iraq, a historic first. Free Palestinian elections producing a moderate leadership, two historic firsts. Municipal elections in Saudi Arabia, men only, but still a first. In Egypt, demonstrations for democracy — unheard of in decades — prompting the dictator to announce free contested presidential elections, a historic first.
-snip-
great Post
great Post
bttt
One day the liberal boomers woke up, finding themselves, incredible as it may seem, behind the wheel of a big ol' automobile. I can't really blame them for drivin' that sucker... but their dream is winding down.
The Bush middle east doctrine was probably just common sense to Pres. Bush, who is a common sense MBA kind of guy.
Everyone else simply kept rearranging the deck chairs. President Bush knew that they need to switch ships.
Same old, same old wouldn't accomplish anything. Changing the actual situation on the ground would add new possibilities and kill old entrenchments.
Common sense.
"The embarrassment of the presumed experts.."
Well, I don't think these folks are any more subject to embarrasment than BJ Klintoon.
When Charles Krauthammer speaks, I listen. He is one of the few with depth. My day is made when he is on with Brit Hume.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
My unobservant husband has been Krauthammer fan on FOX News, but did not know he was paralyzed until I told him last week. Maybe others don't either and the following obituary by Krauthammer explains much about himself, as it does the man he's honoring:
"A Man for All Seasons
http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- HERMANN LISCO, a gifted scientist and legendary teacher, died last week. He was a quiet man from an unquiet place. German-born, he received his medical degree from the University of Berlin in 1936, came to the United States to teach pathology at Johns Hopkins University, and was recruited to the Manhattan Project. In secret, he worked with a team of scientists at the University of Chicago studying the biological effects of a strange new human creation: plutonium.
Later, he was flown to Los Alamos to study the first person to be killed by acute radiation poisoning. Lisco performed the autopsy, and, later, those of eight other victims of accidents at Los Alamos. His findings were a scientific milestone, the first published account of the effects of acute radiation exposure on the human organism.
A decade later, he was instrumental in producing a landmark United Nations report on the effects of radiation on humans and on the environment. But Dr. Lisco was more than a scientist. At Harvard Medical School, where he subsequently became a professor, he was the most beloved and influential mentor of an entire generation of students.
His home was always alive with the sound of students. He and his wife, Lisa, (a formidable intellect in her own right and daughter of James Franck, winner of the 1926 Nobel Prize in physics) ran a combination halfway house and salon.
Medical school is not hard, but it is all-consuming. As our world got narrower, Hermann's goal was to keep us human, in touch with a larger world and larger possibilities.
He did so, in part, by example. He was a rare specimen of what used to be called a humanist: His mastery of science was complemented by deep knowledge of the humanities. With his supple and sophisticated mind, he discoursed easily on art, literature, politics, history.
His belief in broad horizons was more than theoretical. He was instrumental in setting up a traveling scholarship for students to take a year off and see the world. He arranged for Michael Crichton to be given the freedom as a fourth year medical student to research and write books.
As for me, well, he made my career possible. Toward the end of my freshman year, I was paralyzed in a serious accident. Hermann, then associate dean of students, came to see me in intensive care. He asked what he could do for me. I told him that, to keep disaster from turning into ruin, I had decided to stay in school and with my class.
If Hermann had doubts--I would not have blamed him: no one with my injury had ever gone through medical school--he never showed it. He told me he would do everything possible to make it happen.
He did. Within a few days, a hematology professor, fresh from lecturing to my classmates on campus, showed up at my bedside and proceeded to give me the lecture, while projecting his slides on the ceiling above me. (I was flat on my back in traction, but I'm sure Hermann had instructed everybody to carry on as if such teaching techniques were entirely normal.)
He then went to work behind the scenes: persuading professors to let me take their tests orally with a recording secretary (I did not learn to handwrite for another three years); getting me transferred for my 12 months of inpatient rehab to a Harvard teaching hospital so that I could catch up at night with my class's second-year studies and rejoin it in third year; persuading (ordering?) skeptical attending physicians to allow their patients to be cared for by the student in the wheelchair with the exotic medical instruments (the extra-long stethoscope Hermann had made for me was a thing of beauty).
Hermann did all this quietly, without fanfare. At graduation, he took not only pride but a kind of mischievous delight in our unspoken conspiracy. We broke no rules, but we bent a few, especially the stupid ones. I'm sure he liked that.
That was Hermann's great gift: He was a man of orderly habits and orderly mind, but he never flinched from challenging the orderly. In Germany, he had seen order turned into malevolence. Mild mannered as he was--I never once heard him raise his voice--he was good at defiance. In Nazi Germany, Hermann married a Jew, the daughter of an early, very prominent ant-Nazi. Defiance ran in the family. Hermann's father was fired as head of Gottingen's elite high school for his opposition to the regime.
Hermann did not much respect nature's strictures either. At age 70, he was still climbing mountains in his beloved Adirondacks. At 80, he was still taking miles-long walks in the woods.
And now, just short of 90, he is gone. Those who were touched by this man, so wise and gracious and goodly, mourn him. I mourn a man who saved my life. "
.
Praise GOD that...
President promised,
During a BUSH Presidency,
FREEDOM's Return to:
Communist Cuba
Communist Vietnam
Communist North Korea
..as well as...
FREEDOM's Arrival to:
All the countries of the Middle East
...as America's own best self-defense against future Terrorrist attacks here at home (*)
(*) Promises made in an April 2003 signed BUSH letter read out loud to 1,000's of FREEDOM-Loving Little Saigon Vietnamese-Americans demonstrating in support of FREEDOM's Arrival to Iraq, compliments of President BUSH
Signed:..A Witness &...
Veteran-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965, Landing Zone Falcon
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set2.htm
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set3.htm
(Photos)
.
Three cheers for Charles!
If you recall, he was particularly outraged at Edwards' comment about the disabled getting up and walking - if only Kerry gets elected President.
I'm not so bullish on Krautie, but he has come a long way since he was a Mondale advisor 25 years ago!
"When we had to sit alerts, there were two pilots, and two crew chiefs that sat out in the alert barn. George was like everybody else, except while George was over in a corner reading somebody's autobiography, the rest of us were watching Hee Haw." -- Joe Glavin, a member of Dubya's Texas Air National Guard squadron, quoted HERE.
Speak softly and carry a big stick - but first you gotta show them the big stick......
.
Just like his saving the lives of his U.S. 7th Cavalry Skytroopers at the Battle of IA DRANG-1965...
RICK RESCORLA saved 1,000's of lives at the World Trade Center's Tower II on September 11, 2001 ...while giving up his own so that others might live.
See:
Hero's medals, portrait now at Infantry Museum
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1356698/posts
.
Thanks for posting an incredible story, which I'm sure was news to many people. Although I was aware of Krauthammer's disability, I had no idea about the facts covered in the story.
As for his article just posted, he continues to show more wisdom than the whole MSM put together. G-d bless him.
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