Bush Knows His History(Michael Barone opines)

Two weeks ago, I pointed out that we live in something close to the best of times, with record worldwide economic growth and at a low point in armed conflict in the world. Yet Americans are in a sour mood, a mood that may be explained by the lack of a sense of history. The military struggle in Iraq (nearly 2,500 military deaths) is spoken of in as dire terms as Vietnam (58,219), Korea (54,246) or World War II (405,399). We bemoan the cruel injustice of $3 a gallon for gas in a country where three-quarters of people classified as poor have air conditioning and microwave ovens. We complain about a tide of immigration that is, per U.S. resident, running at one-third the rate of 99 years ago.

George W. Bush has a better sense of history. Speaking last week at the commencement at West Point -- above the Hudson River, where revolutionary Americans threw a chain across the water to block British ships -- Bush noted that he was speaking to the first class to enter the U.S. Military Academy after the Sept. 11 attacks. And he put the challenge these cadets willingly undertook in perspective by looking back at the challenges America faced at the start of the Cold War 60 years ago.

"In the early years of that struggle," Bush noted, "freedom's victory was not obvious or assured." In 1946, Harry Truman accompanied Winston Churchill as he delivered his Iron Curtain speech; in 1947, communists threatened Greece and Turkey; in 1948, Czechoslovakia fell, France and Italy seemed headed the same way, and Berlin was blockaded by the Soviets, who exploded a nuclear weapon the next year; in 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea.

"The war began on my watch," Bush told the class of 2006, "but it's going to end on your watch." Truman might have made the same point, accurately as it turned out, to the class of 1952. We're lucky we had then, and have now, a president who takes bold action and braves vitriolic criticism to defend our civilization against those who would destroy it.

Amen!

Yet Americans are in a sour mood, a mood that may be explained by the lack of a sense of history.

This is part of it. A constant drumbeat of doom by the drive-by media, the libs' desperate attempts to get back in power by attacking those in power, and the baby boomers (and I'm one of them) on the looney left (and I'm NOT one of them) lusting for another Vietnam also contribute.

We complain about a tide of immigration that is, per U.S. resident, running at one-third the rate of 99 years ago.

This guy lost me when he got to trying to sneak this one into the list of "positives".
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but was the rate of immigration 99 years ago composed of mostly illegals? I think it was virtually 100% legal immigrants.

Another demagogue hoping we can't tell the difference, either.

Sorry, but I don't giove any kudos to Bush for this approach for 2 reasons:

a) In the late 1940's, the Soviet Union had 100 divisions in Eastern Europe and then exploded an atomic weapon. The mullahs in Iran, the Sunni fascists in Iraq, etc., cannot fight their way out of a wet paper bag: it is insane to allow the United States to face and existential threat like a smuggled nuclear weapon from such weak opponents. To put it bluntly, our current enemies are unworthy of such caution.

b) In the 1950's the fellow travellers and communists were suppressed and played no role in limiting America's defense and the pursuit of its enemies. As Vietnam showed and the current actions of this group regarding Iraq continue to demonstrate, it is extremely difficult to fight a 'long war' when you have an active 5th column in the media, academy and business and political elites that is stabbing the country in the back. If you think it's necessary to fight such a war, this column must be crushed: those actively engaged in treason (Code Pink, the Evergreen nutroots, etc.) need to be arrested and charged; those engaged in unseemly defeatism and anti-American protest in the street or in the acdemy need to be confronted using the bully pulpit, legislative hearings, etc., and shamed into shutting up or be booted out of their positions for turning the media and the academy into mindless left-wing propaganda organs.

We won the cold war through an accident of character: if Jummy Carter had been a little better domestically, the Soviet Union would have established complete hegemony and would probbaly still exist.

I don't think the existence of the nation needs a policy where success hinges upon such accidents.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.