Posted on 08/12/2006 12:59:12 PM PDT by Wolfstar
_ Tuesday, the President will participate in a National Security Council and Homeland Security Council briefing at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Virginia. He will have a meeting with the counterterrorism team, attend lunch with the counterterrorism and homeland security teams, and also meet separately with the homeland security team. According to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, these are long-scheduled meetings, and are not a reaction to the recently discovered plot to blow up flights between Britain and the United States. However, the investigation will be part of their discussion.
_ Wednesday, the President will travel to York, Pennsylvania, where he will participate in a tour of Harley Davidson vehicle operations. He will also participate in a roundtable on the economy and attend a Lynn Swann for Governor reception.
_ Thursday, the President will sign HR4, the Pension Protection Act of 2006, at the White House. Later in the day he will travel to Camp David.
_ Friday, GWB will participate in a meeting with his economic advisers. He will spend Saturday at Camp David and return to the White House on Sunday, the 20th.
What other theme could there be this Saturday, just two days after the magnificent work the United Kingdom did in breaking up a monstrous terrorist plot to take down multiple airliners? Today's photo essay tells a story that will be more fully told in the years to come, but photos can be uniquely revealing at any time.
Rarely on the world stage are such close professional, personal, and consequential bonds formed between two national leaders such as the remarkable relationship between the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Honorable Tony Blair, and the President of the United States, the Honorable George W. Bush. (This thread is a tribute to both of them. I place Mr. Blair's name first here only in the same sense as one puts a guest in one's home first.)
Certainly other comparable pairings occurred in the vast sweep of human history: At the birth of our country, the unlikely duo of Washington and Lafayette formed both a life-long friendship and political alliance that eventually brought France into the War for Independence on the American side. Closer to our own time, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, while perhaps never truly friends, nevertheless formed a very close alliance that towered over their era and won WWII. More recently, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher formed a life-long friendship and political alliance that defeated the Soviet Union.
Those relationships (and comparable parings going back as far as Antony and Cleopatra) certainly have make their mark on world history. But there is something quite unique about the bond between Tony Blair and George Bush. Something that is at once easy to see in these photos, and yet difficult to capture in words. The best way I can put it is that they truly appear to have become like brothers and yet more.
In their respective domestic politics, the two men could hardly be more different. We American conservatives surely would chafe under Mr. Blair's domestic policies, which would have a home in the American Democrat Party. Nor are the two men in total lock-step in international affairs. Yet, as the photos on this thread will clearly show, the two have formed a deep, comfortable friendship that is likely to last their entire lives. And, on the central issue of our times, international Islamofacist terrorism, these two men certainly have provided rock-solid world leadership on a par with that of Roosevelt and Churchill.
Unlike the definitive ending to WWII, we are not likely to know how the story of these times plays out for decades to come. Yet we do know now that these two great men -- I use great here in a sense far larger than mundane politics -- have given their all. They've tried their best and then some. They have done everything possible to protect the peoples of the United States and United Kingdom from the monsters that walk among us. Through it all, they seem to fit each other like a comfortable pair of gloves with the fingers intertwined, each giving support and strength to the other.
The "Brothers 'B' " have freed tens of millions, handing those people not a paternalistic neo-colonialism, but a chance to make or break their own futures. In other words, true freedom. Those critics who constantly wail about the Iraq "quagmire" either refuse to or genuinely can't get it: True freedom means the Iraqi people must make of their own country what they will. If they want it to be awash in blood, it will. If they want to restore it to "Garden of Eden" beauty, they can. They are free to choose. Free will. What God bequeathed to us all. This is what George W. Bush and Tony Blair have given to the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq -- a chance to exercise their own free will.
Putting their careers and, in a real sense, their lives on the line, the team of Bush and Blair have made excruciatingly hard decisions in the face vicious opposition (a couple of small examples included here so the photo essay is complete in the story it tells). After Thursday's events, at long last opinion is being written that they have been vindicated. (See this editorial from Investors Business Daily: Vindicated.)
What those freed from the yoke of tyranny by these men (and the blood of the troops they lead) will make of their opportunities, only time will tell -- and it's up to them to write the final chapters in this story.
Cow, I see I'm making far too many typos. That's what I get for staying up past by bedtime. Have had a mild cold this week. Should have been in bed hours ago, so I'll say good night, my friend. :)
Sleep well.
((((How sweet your post!))))
Okay I'll find whatever and also continue
with the wolfs & stars...
Just to give you a variety.
"...I see your kindness as a gift beyond price..."
Mega sweet & touching part.
Same to you Wolsstar!
s = f
((((Thank you very much for your post in 339! Nothing was done or said on my part to bring it on...T'was unmerrited and out of the blue.
Thank you for enforcing decorum, etc...))))
My, my, oh yes. ;>
Thanks for the link
excellent!
The best we can hope for is that it goes into a prolonged remission.
Evil is a permanent part of the human social condition, both individually and collectively, just as germs, viruses and cancers are a permanent part of the human biological condition.
We waxed overly optimistic when we defeated the German Nazi's and Japanese Imperialists, as we did when we defeated certain germ born diseases. But in a way, those were easy, as they formed massed armies and separately identifiable cells.
Islam and cancer are proving more difficult, as they improve their ability to hide in plain site and mask their presence. It takes a strong and accepted authority figure or a desperate patient to submit to some of the radiation and chemical therapies available for cancer, and many good cells die in the process. Like AIDS, Political Correctness weakens our cultural immune system, making it more difficult to tell friend from foe.
Maj, I saw that and scratched my head as to why that individual chose to tell you to shut up. You didn't do anything to warrant it, but even if you had, being told to shut up would still be inappropriate on the Dose.
We try to keep the Dose a friendly place. There are plenty of other threads on FR where arguments rage constantly. The Dose isn't called Sanity Island for nothing.
Snugs, you are absolutely right. It's hard for those of us raised with a deep-seated value of freedom of religion to come to grips with a religion-based facist ideology, but we must.
"...The Dose isn't called Sanity Island for nothing."
And am I ever grateful for that. I'm not into arguing.
I frequent The Dose / The Finest daily and often
and steer clear of much else because I dig social;
friendly;clean humor;patriotic
and of course firstly Christian aspect of FR
and steer my self clear as best I can from anything else.
But occasionally I get drive by comment shooters,out of
nowhere, regardless of my efforts to steer clear...
Cranks seem to wander onto the Dose from time to time. They are always swiftly dealt with, because we all feel the same way you do, Maj. I know that, with everything else going on in my life, I can always find a bit of peace and welcome here. I refuse to let any cranks disturb that, and I know everyone else here feels the same.
So not to worry. You are safe here. :)
Thanks for your comments! I read the instructions, but obviously didn't understand thoroughly what I was supposed to do. I will give it a try another time and hope to do it correctly.
I think you handle yourself so well on this issue! It must be difficult at times. We are so grateful for your PM's support/stance on the WOT, but I suspect that most of us here would feel similarly to you if we had to live under his leadership! Do you think there are any good prospects for his replacement when the time comes?
Thanks for the article. It was a very good read.
What I will never understand is why any party which has vowed to overthrow our government is allowed to have teachers and professors in our colleges and universities. I am talking about the communists, of course. They won a supreme court hearing on the basis of freedom of speech. I can't call what they teach freedom of speech. It is tyranny and they should all be in jail.
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