Posted on 02/04/2008 5:14:17 AM PST by SJackson
Before and after President George W. Bush’s final State of the Union address, his critics hammered away at his record. For instance, in their “pre-buttal,” delivered some four days before Monday’s State of the Union, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took turns attacking Bush’s foreign policy, counterterrorism strategies, foreign-aid programs, education reforms and healthcare initiatives. Then, in her response to Bush’s address, Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas declared, “The last five years have cost us dearly—in lives lost; in thousands of wounded warriors whose futures may never be the same; in challenges not met here at home because our resources were committed elsewhere.” And just before noting that Americans “have no more patience for divisive politics,” she added, “If more Republicans in Congress stand with us this year, we won’t have to wait for a new president to restore America’s role in the world, and fight a more effective war on terror.”
All of this is to be expected, and none of it is out of bounds, especially in an election year. However, the Left’s deep-down disgust with George W. Bush continues to amaze. After all, this is the man who, according to Peggy Noonan, “destroyed the Republican Party.” But even if Noonan has succumbed to a bit of rhetorical excess, there are other reasons the Left might, at least, appreciate the Bush presidency.
Take, for example, how he eschewed the realism embraced by the wise old men in his own party—the ones who bequeathed to him and his predecessor the radicalized chaos of Afghanistan, the “stability” of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the open-ended occupation of Saudi Arabia, the Middle East “peace process, the measured responses to the mass-murder of Marines in Beirut—and instead pursued a foreign policy that looked and sounded more like Woodrow Wilson’s than that of the elder Bush.
“The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder,” he declared. “They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life.”
And there was more.
“The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” he intoned in 2005. “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one… So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”
“It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world—or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim—is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life,” he preached in the early days of his presidency, sounding positively Wilsonian.
But these weren’t mere words. There was action behind them: When the Left writes its history of the Bush presidency, there will be no mention that his was the first administration to officially call for the creation of a Palestinian state, long a cause championed by America’s Left. Of course, the tradeoff was that Bush refused to deal with Arafat and his terrorist brethren.
Bush launched genuine wars of liberation that freed women from a medieval monstrosity in Afghanistan and shut down a vast torture chamber in Iraq. In place of the Taliban and the Baathists, Bush propped up a pair of progressive, popular governments in the heart of the Muslim world, bolstering them with the sort of open-ended, nation-building efforts the Left once championed in places like Haiti and Bosnia and Kosovo. He created new aid programs to support pro-freedom elements behind Islam’s iron curtain. And he carried out a long-overdue withdrawal of troops from the theocratic thugocracy in Saudi Arabia.
His policies would be equally dramatic—and one would think, equally appealing to the Left—in the realm of arms control. The Left maintained that nuclear arms reductions would solve the world’s problems. President Bush set America on a path to slash its nuclear arsenal from 7,000 warheads to just over 2,000, and convinced Moscow to do the same. It’s the sort of disarmament program Bush’s predecessors could only imagine but dared not attempt. So why isn’t the Left celebrating Bush’s sweeping reductions?
Likewise, the president’s critics on the Left overlook the development programs he poured into the chronically undeveloped world. “We must include every African, every Asian, every Latin American, every Muslim, in an expanding circle of development,” he explained. And then he increased and revitalized foreign aid with his Millennium Challenge Account program. He conceived and promoted huge new aid programs in Africa, devoting perhaps $45 billion to the global fight against AIDS.
Here at home, Bush supported something close to amnesty for illegal immigrants. The Right punished him for it, and the Left certainly didn’t applaud him personally.
Under his administration, albeit partly as a result of the forces unleashed by 9/11, federal spending grew from $1.9 trillion to about $3 trillion. But government growth was also aide by new entitlements like Medicare Part D, the widely popular and costly prescription benefit Bush endorsed, and new education spending under No Child Left Behind, which Bush promoted. In fact, in his first five years in office, as USA Today reported, Bush increased K-12 education spending by an average of seven percent annually—more than double the increases his predecessor achieved.
So the question remains: Why do liberals despise this big-government, big-spending, humanitarian, nation-building, idealistic, internationalist, arms-cutting president? And why do so many conservatives still defend him?
Ironically, the two sides may have the same reasons for their divergent opinions of this polarizing president.
First and foremost, Bush defeated two of the Left’s standard-bearers in bitterly contested elections.
In 2000, he refused to back down during the Orwellian post-election campaign of Al Gore, author and chief adherent of the global-warming creed. That endeared Bush to the Right and enraged the Left.
Then, Bush played hardball in 2004, overcame incredibly high odds as an unpopular president presiding over an unpopular war, and defeated a leftist archetype in John Kerry.
These were Bush’s original—and unforgiveable—sins.
Speaking of sin, Bush openly talked about how Jesus changed his heart, how his evangelical faith shaped his decisions. Not coincidentally, he encouraged government agencies to make more room for faith-based groups. The Left’s reaction was predictable. A 2003 piece in The Nation condemned Bush’s “heretical manipulation of religious language,” declaring that “Bush’s discourse coincides with that of the false prophets of the Old Testament.”
In 2006, Kevin Phillips, who never fails to remind us that he was a Republican strategist, concluded that “the White House is courting end-times theologians” and embracing “a crusading, simplistic Christianity.” “No leading world power in modern memory,” he inveighed, “has become a captive of the sort of biblical inerrancy that dismisses modern knowledge and science.”
But it was more than Bush’s religiousness, alleged “manipulation” of religion, or connection with the evangelical wing of Christianity that drove the Left to dislike him so much. It had to be.
After all, Jimmy Carter openly shared his born-again, evangelical faith with Americans. Likewise, Bill Clinton wore his faith on his sleeve. Indeed, in the post-Lewinsky era, he seemingly spent more time with evangelical pastors than he did with his cabinet and staff. As E.J. Dionne has observed, “Bill Clinton could quote Scripture with the best of them. Bill Clinton could preach with the best of them. He gave some very powerful speeches at Notre Dame, where he sounded Catholic; at African-American churches, where he sounded (African Methodist Episcopal) or Baptist…He quoted Scripture at least as much, if not more than George W. Bush does.” And it should be recalled Bush’s faith-based programs have their roots in Clinton’s Charitable Choice reforms, which opened the way for religious charities to compete for federal grants and use federal resources to provide social services to those in need.
So what is it about Bush’s faith that provokes such venom? I would submit that much of it has to do with the way his faith informed his position on unborn life.
As a consequence, he would veto a bill that used tax dollars to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos in support of stem-cell research. “Our conscience calls us to pursue the possibilities of science in a manner that respects human dignity and upholds our moral values,” he observed, reminding Congress of a timeless truth: Just because we can do something, just because science makes something possible, doesn’t mean we should do it.
Plus, Bush would appoint judges and justices that seemed open to pulling the plug on Roe. He would reinstate the ban on federal assistance to international abortion providers. His administration would notify states that Medicaid would no longer cover abortion pill RU486—and that states could provide medical coverage under the Children’s Health Insurance Program to “unborn children.” His administration would promote “embryo adoption.”
As others have observed, Roe is the Left’s Holy of Holies. To undermine it is to commit blasphemy, heresy, and the abomination of desolation.
Finally, the Left’s hatred of Bush has been propelled by his stalwart stance on what one observer shrewdly calls “the wars of 9/11”—the military operations that inevitably followed and will continue to follow the attacks on America’s homeland.
Again, the Left’s reaction was predictable. Since the 1960s, the Left has grown increasingly opposed to the use of American power. Viewing everything through the prism of Vietnam, the Left distrusts American power and sees war itself as the enemy.
In addition, the wars of 9/11 served as fuel for Bush’s black-and-white view of the world—even George Will calls him “our Manichean president”—which view further alienated Bush from the Left. In this regard, it pays to recall that the postmodernism which captivates and animates much of the Left assures us that there are no differences between evil and good, no objective truth, no absolutes—except, of course, the absolute that claims there are no absolutes. Thus, someone who uses phrases like “Axis of Evil” and “evil doers” and “monumental struggle of good versus evil” and, as he did during his final State of the Union, “evil men who despise freedom,” is not likely to be embraced by those who see the world in shades of grey.
But those who believe there is good and evil, that force is not inherently evil, that there is even a time for war, would rally around such a president, which may explain why many conservatives still support the president and many leftists never did.
I guess we profoundly disagree that cutting off oil money to the mideast will change the jihadi mindset. Beyond that they will sell every drop they have whether we buy another barrel or not. We may be lucky as it is if we aren't beat out by China as competitive buyers.
Where I live, we don’t have many mexicans, but I understand that some of the farmers are beginning to hire them. I know they work planting and picking crops for a fruit and veg. farmer in the area. There are three or four who work in a small factory nearby as well. I know one mexican family from our church and they’re outstanding people, so I’m not willing to lump everyone in one big pot.
Hardly.
The very market itself will change worldwide with the introduction of an alternative. It’s the nature of markets.
Where I live we have very few Mexicans, but we did have one in our church and they were absolutely wonderful people. One of the girls died in an accident and we’re still mourning our loss. We can’t paint with such wide brushes.
You ought to spend a little time catching up on Cali politics.
Read up on Congressman George E. Brown, D - Colton. He got booted from the Monterey Park, CA congressional district after saying bad and nasty things about our POWs in Viet Nam.
But he was a devoted lefty, even Salon Magazine called him 'practically a communist' so the Cali Democrat Party looked about for a place where being 'practically a communist' and having negative feelings towards our POWs would not be a liability.
So they parachuted him into Colton, with it's majority Hispanic voters and he was re-elected again and again and again ..... and again.
I was doing door hangers for a GOP candidate to replace his treasonous A$$ when that comment about " God not making him a rich man..." and similar ones were made.
Ahhh the power of the free cheese ....
There is only one problem with that. There is no alternative in sight that can be even remotely competitive with petroleum.
Nothing you have written in response backs up what you previously wrote. As I said, just because they'll generally take money from anyone that wants to give it to them doesn't make them pro abortion, just pro free ride.
Nothing you have written in response backs up what you previously wrote. As I said, just because they'll generally take money from anyone that wants to give it to them doesn't make them pro abortion, just pro free ride.
Looks like it boils down to semantics.
So I will be a gentleman and concede: They are devoted to a free ride to the extent they have no problem voting for an abortionist, as long as they are assured of free cheese?
And I've been in Mexico too, beautiful country and mountains, but as I've stated here numerous times; if I had been born there, I too would run, jump, swim, whatever to get out.
Granted, many illegals are hard workers and wonderful people, but they will also abuse our health care and tax system - illegally.
Inner city illegals - and many non illegals, and other races for that matter - often have a tradition of consecutive generations of welfare abuse based on there always being small children or current pregnacies, so I thought the suggestion that they were pro abortion to be ignorant.
Mexicans like big families and are generally very religous. I don't really think they'd object to being painted with that brush.
I’m thinking again, believe me.
The Democrats still hold slaves, they're just alot better at keeping them in line...and finding ways for them to vote.
OK. Don’t sweat it. Thinking is causing every conservative to reach for the Advil these days. I think we should all go on vacation.
The 12 families that run things down there would wise up real fast.
I know there are many illegals who are screwing up our whole country and I agree with you basically. I wish we could find a way of dealing with the whole problem but I don’t think our government has the gonads to do it.
Sen Santorum mentioned it.
It is the combination of the flex-fuel engine burning alcohol....preferrably METHanol, but ETHanol will do just to make the transition possible.
You can make you own moonshine!!
:>)
You have to burn one gallon of petroleum to make 1.3 gals of ethanol so when you burn 1.3 gals of ethanol in your car you are in effect also burning one gal of gasoline. I don’t know what will be used to make methanol (wood alcohol) but it will take at least as much energy to distill. Not very efficient, pollution free and doesn’t reduce dependence on petroleum much. Plus ethanol raises the price of corn, a staple food, which increases instability in the world especially in this hemisphere where political instability is already growing to critical mass proportions.
Methanol can be made from coal.
Cheaply, and in great quantity: we have enormous coal reserves.
We use gasoline even though it has roughly the same ratio of energy loss to diesel as it has to ethanol.
When comparing the price of gasoline to the price of alcohol, one must be sure to factor in the price of every soldier, every bullet, every bomber, every rotation, every state department expense, and every dead civilian in our dealings with the jihadists. Add the price of a huge trade imbalance with trillions of dollars and millions of jobs going overseas to jihad despots.
Now add all of that to the price of gasoline.
Then compare to alcohol. The extra cost of the flex-fuel engine, which our car manufacturers ALREADY will give you if you ask, is about a hundred bucks for changing out some plastics and rubber that don’t do well with alcohol.
Remember....Methanol from coal doesn’t raise the price of corn or beef even ONE penny.
Two things you have not satisfied me in the least on are; one, the jihadists will not turn away from their agenda in the least by our changing energy sources. Two, the middle eastern oil reserves will have buyers with or without us. They already do. If we end political and military presence in the ME what we end up doing is ceding all our influence to China, Iran and Russia. And N. Korea.
Modern liberalism is a totalitarian psychotic disorder. This is why it’s never satisfied. No matter how far to the left society goes, the left screams louder and louder that we’re becoming a “right-wing fascist theocracy”. In many ways, a president like Bush enables the left by refusing to challenge them overtly. He goes along with them on enough issues (spending programs, illegal aliens) that when he doesn’t capitulate they go crazy. Surely he must have been bought by international war financiers, otherwise he wouldn’t have removed Saddam from power!
If McCain is elected (God forbid), he’ll immediately be declared an illegitimate president by the left for no other reason than that he beat a woman or a black (depending on whom the ‘Rats nominate) to win his office. If McCain gives the left amnesty, he’ll still be called a fascist if he doesn’t automatically invite another 20 million illegals to migrate here (not that McCain might not do that).
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