Posted on 09/15/2002 9:34:11 PM PDT by Pokey78
The president's speech to the United Nations was perfectly straightforward. His remarks at Ellis Island were also fine: I especially liked the way, in contrast to certain predecessors who shall remain nameless, his salute to the American spirit wasn't all about him. But the anniversary has passed, Year Two has begun, and those of who are partial to George W. Bush have nevertheless had to get used yet again to the old familiar pattern. Anyone who followed the guy during the 2000 campaign will recognize it.
He stacked up more money and a bigger poll lead than anyone had ever seen in a competitive race--and then he didn't bother campaigning in New Hampshire. So he lost the primary.
But he clawed his way back and won the nomination--and then he pretty much disappeared from sight to spend the summer working on his new ranch house back in Texas. So by Labor Day, Al Gore was ahead in the polls.
But he roused himself and eked out a small lead in the run-up to November--and then, in the wake of a damaging last-minute leak about an old DWI conviction, he flew back home and took the final weekend of the campaign off.
But he just about squeaked through on Election Day, even though his disinclination to rebut the drunk story almost certainly cost him the popular vote and a couple of close states.
This is the way George W. Bush does things, and his rendezvous with history on Sept. 11--the day that ''changed the world''--did not, in the end, change the Bush modus operandi. A few weeks after the attacks, he had the highest approval ratings of any president in history. But he didn't do anything with them. And, in political terms, he might as well have spent this summer playing golf and watching the director's cut of Austin Powers.
On Election Day in November, without Saddam's scalp on his bedpost, Bush will be right back where he was on Sept. 10, 2001: the 50 percent president, his approval ratings in the 50s, his ''negatives'' high, the half of the country that didn't vote for him feeling no warmer toward him than if the day that ''changed the world'' had never happened. The 90 percent poll numbers were always going to come down. It was just a question of where they stabilized, and what Bush would manage to accomplish while they were up in the stratosphere. By that measure, he squandered his opportunity.
The first casualty was his domestic agenda. Even as the USAF was strafing Tora Bora, Vermont's wily Sen. Pat Leahy continued to stall the president's judicial nominations; Ted Kennedy gutted the Bush education bill, and their fellow Democrats obstructed plans for oil-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. At that moment, with his poll numbers in the 80s, it would have been so easy for Bush to do to Leahy what Clinton did to Gingrich.
The president could have said that, with so many suspected terrorists and their accomplices in custody, we can't afford vacancies and backlogs in our courthouses and my good frien' Pat needs to stop playin' politics with the federal judiciary. He could have said that wartime is no time for Congress to put preserving the integrity of Alaska's most pristine mosquito habitat over the energy needs of America. Sept. 11 is not just an event, hermetically sealed from everything before and after, but a context: Everything that's wrong with the eco-zealots, with the teachers' unions, with the big-government bureaucracies can be seen in their responses to that day. Bush should have struck in their hour of weakness; instead, he gave them all a pass: The time-servers and turf-protectors in the FBI, CIA and the other hotshot acronyms that failed America on 9/11 are all still in their jobs.
Perhaps the president's greatest mistake was his failure to take on the enervating Oprahfied therapeutic culture that, in the weeks after Sept. 11, looked momentarily vulnerable. There were two kinds of responses to that awful day. You could go with ''C'mon, guys, let's roll!'' the words of Todd Beamer as he and the brave passengers of Flight 93 took on their Islamist hijackers. Or you could go with ''healing'' and ''closure'' and the rest of the awful inert language of emotional narcissism. Had Bush taken it upon himself to talk up the virtues of courage and self-reliance demonstrated on Flight 93, he would have done a service not just to his nation but to his party, for a touchy-feely culture inevitably trends Democratic.
But he ducked the rhetorical challenge. And so, to mark the anniversary of Sept. 11, the teachers union encouraged us to stand around in a ''healing circle,'' so that America's children can master the consolations of victimhood rather than the righteous anger of the unjustly attacked. Same for the grown-ups: On TV, Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung and the rest of the all-star sob sisters were out in force with full supporting saccharine piano accompaniment. The elites decided America's anger needed to be managed. It was a very Sept. 10 commemoration of Sept. 11. As the law professor Eugene Volokh put it to his own students, ''Wake up and smell the burning bodies.'' Despite the flags and the more robust country songs, Bush has allowed the culture to lapse back into its default mode of psychobabbling self-absorption.
In the end, even Bush's magnificent moral clarity faded away into a Colin Powellite blur. Long after it became clear that 3,000 Americans were killed by Saudi citizens with Saudi money direct from members of the Saudi royal family, Bush was still inviting Saudi princes to the Crawford ranch and insisting that the kingdom was a ''staunch friend'' in the war against terror. This is not just ridiculous but offensive. Even if it's merely ''rope-a-dope'' and behind the scenes all kinds of plans are being made, the public evasions diminish the president's authority. Symbolism matters. The White House is for business, the privilege of kicking loose at the ranch ought to be reserved for real friends. Yet Australia's John Howard, whose boys fought alongside the United States in Afghanistan, didn't get an invite to Crawford, and the fellows who bankrolled al-Qaida did.
In January, naming Iraq as part of the ''axis of evil,'' Bush declared that ''time is running out." Eight months later, time had run back in again. ''I'm a patient man,'' the president says every couple of days now. By May, the American people were back to ticking ''education'' as the most pressing issue facing the nation. Four months ago, I wrote that if war with Iraq isn't under way by the first anniversary of Sept. 11, George W. Bush might as well nickname himself President Juan Term. Since then, the evaporation of the Bush presidency has only accelerated. George W. Bush's modesty is endearing. But even a modest man needs to use the bully pulpit once in a while.
Furthermore - if it was a factual charge - what kind of person do they think he is, suggesting that he makes geo-political decisions that impact us all based on what is good for his family fortune? What a profound insult. I can think of few things worse than that.
Who would that be?
"After observing the spectacle of 9-11's first anniversary, is there any doubt as to the truth of this statement? I certainly wouldn't place all (or even most) of the blame for this phenomenon at Bush's feet, but I do think Steyn has a point — Bush seems to have an unfortunate tendancy of not pressing the advantage when he should for the sake of being a nice guy."
I still think the problem with Bush is that he doesn't really understand the amount of power he has, and how Truman-like he has to become if he's ever going to get the U-S firmly behind this Iraq thing.
The U.S. is known for many things, patience is not one of them. He gave a great speech, but it was directed to the U.N., not to the U.S. And it included almost nothing in the way of new specific information.
Bush, despite all the tales told about him, will never be a manipulator.
He simply has a little trouble making up his mind. And that trouble shows, despite the wonderful speech.
Bush apparently decided against whipping us up into a war frenzy..because there's only one way he's going to do that..provide specific evidence of the Iraqui connection to 9/11. You can BET there is one, he's just not telling us, and Colin Powell is arguing that the country of Iraq shouldn't suffer for the actions of its leaders, and Ashcroft is arguing not to release the information because the prosecutions might be harmed, that it might endanger the intelligence agencies and on and on. All of these points are valid.
But I think the author here is trying to point out that despite the surprises Bush provided at both speeches last week, he still hasn't hit a "grand slam", to use a baseball analogy,either in the U.S., or at the U.N., in terms of making the case to invade Iraq. It seems more like we're in the fifth inning of a game that began Sept.12,2001,and we're behind 3-1.
That to me, is at least the public perception, if the public really looks into its heart.
I think Bush has to be a little more public about some of the evidence he has..not all of it, just enough of it to convince the world (and the media)...that Sadaam not only is a current threat to the U-S, but has actually used his "weapons of mass destruction" on us already, and is planning to do so again, soon.
There is such a thing as honorable propaganda.
For example, if there's any truth to this West Nile virus/terrorism thing, he might say so. And save some lives in the process. I don't think the whole country would freak out, as some alarmists (Ashcroft) might believe. I don't think too many people would be suprised. And it would help his case..as long as there is CREDIBLE evidence to support the allegation.
It's not that people don't believe Bush, they do. They just need something a little more solid to justify a war.
It's not so much that Bush needs to clarify his reasoning --he did that last week. And it's not really that he has to expand all that much on what he said. He simply has to realize that a lot of people in the U.S.on both sides of the aisle are concerned about the constitution, and civil rights in the wake of 9/11, and he needs to address all that in terms of Iraq.
If he expects Americans to put their lives and their children's lives on the line..he should understand that America needs to know WHY.
What else to say?
I hope you're right, Pokey -- but see Mark Helprin's article in today's WSJ: Written on Water.
Sorry pokey, but there's actually a lot of truth to what Mark Steyn wrote. Bush has squandered some of the opportunites afforded him last winter. He has caved into pressure on other issues not mentioned by Steyn, too, i.e., CFR. And yes, he could have used the bully pulpit, at least a couple of times in the past year.....to an effective end.
I still think Bush is a great President......but he has let his arms be twisted too much by those with no morals and no concern for this country (i.e., little Tommy fufu, Kennedy the murderer, and Leaky Leahy).
What's the point? IMO, the Republican party needs to select a fighting, consistent pro-Constitutional conservative to run for President. No more neo-cons.
Ditto. I see GW's approach on Iraq being the same as with the Taliban and Afganistan. Make it appear that we are giving them plenty of opportunities to peacefully negotiate a settlement, while putting into place a military force and plan.
Remember how most everyone here was screaming for an imediate invasion of Afganistan and GW kept giving Omar and the Taliban plenty of opportunities to hand over OBL? While all of this brokering was going on GW and our military were putting their formidable military forces in place. When the time was right and Omar continued on his path of refusal, that GW knew would happen, we struck and were victorious.
I see the same type of GW scenario taking place with Iraq and Saddam, when the time is right, all of our military forces in place we will strike and it will be a quick and decisive victory.
Wow! How many hugs for Ted Kennedy, literal or symbolic, did it take to convince you of that.
Or did "Islam is a religion of peace" finally nail it for you?
At the time during the campaign that Steyn says Bush disappeared, he WAS campaigning. The media imposed a news blackout to help Gore. In order to counter this, A Citizen Reporter and I had people document Bush's appearances, which were placed on threads called Bush/Cheney 2000 Victory Tour. Those threads are still bookmarked on my page. Bush campaigned almost non-stop, but the canard persists that he lazily stayed off the trail.
In addition, Bush HAS used the bully pulpit all summer. He has made at least 3 appearances per week making speeched, in addition to numerous press briefings. Anyone who watches Fox News knows this. He has repeatedly spoken about judges, and has been putting the presure on. National networks do not cover him, and that is why many people like Mr. Steyn, who lives in small-town New Hampshire, probably do not understand this salient point: Bush is busy, but the networks don't show him.
I am quite disappointed in Mr. Steyn in this article, because it demonstrates that he is unwilling to grasp the complexity of the situation the President faces.
Oh, and Saudui Arabia said last night that we could use their bases.
I hope with all my heart that this happens.
But, I have feared from the beginning that GWB's good old boy, put an arm around your opponent, techniques ... so effective in TX where a lot of the Dims are more conservative than the Rinos is Congress ... were just plain silly in the leftwing snakepit that is Washington.
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