Football hooligans?
NBA Championship rioters?
Or Iraqi looters?
Posted on 04/12/2003 9:21:02 AM PDT by Dog Gone
| IT IS tempting to say that this sudden victory has won President Bush a second term. That is certainly the exultant mood in the White House this weekend. But although Saddam Hussein has gone, the peace is hardly won. The scenes from Baghdad of hospitals being stripped of cardiac machines and incubators, and battered office desks and swivel chairs being dragged from the wrecked doorways of dusty offices must disabuse anyone of the notion that Iraq shed of its dictator has instantly become Minnesota. That anarchy, for the moment entirely unrestrained, makes it impossible to say yet that the military triumph translates automatically into votes in November 2004. There is no doubt that success in Baghdad will have confirmed Bush in the sense of his presidency that he acquired on September 11. The themes are set; we can expect them to be distilled into a stronger flavour in the rest of his term. But even in this moment of high confidence, he cannot afford to pursue his targets abroad in entire disregard of 2004. He has achieved one thing that his father failed in — deposing Saddam. He now badly wants the second — re-election. However, the polls suggest that the political rift evident in the country at the time of his election, the phenomenon of “50-50 America”, is still pronounced enough that he cannot take that victory for granted. Last year, well before plans for the Iraq war were finalised, Bush spelled out the principles of his presidency. Although he has insisted in the past that “I’m not a textbook player, I’m a gut player”, this philosophy acts as a faultless script for the past six months of frustrated diplomacy and rapid military action. “We’re never going to get people all in agreement about force and use of force,” he told Bob Woodward, the Washington Post journalist and author of Bush at War. The President argued that international coalitions and the United Nations were the wrong tools for dealing with rogue states. “But confident action that will yield positive results provides kind of a slipstream . . . which reluctant nations and leaders can get behind,” he said. There we have it: that is now the view of Bush and the dominant members of his Administration about how America should conduct itself in the world. On the draft target list for “confident action”, to judge by the Administration’s comments this week, may be Iran, North Korea and Syria. Russia and Arab leaders have shown that they are willing to get in the slipstream, more or less; so, more enthusiastically, have some Central and Eastern European countries. France is unforgiven; the German snubs may be overlooked, but are not forgotten. Those close to Bush have an exhilarated tone this week. That does not, however, imply that more military campaigns will automatically unfold. When the giddiness settles in Washington, Bush’s team will have to take careful note of the effect on public opinion. As his father found, Americans are enormously supportive of military success, particularly after the event. They are more tolerant of military casualties than often supposed, particularly if the war is successfully won. Bush’s popularity ratings rose from 53 per cent on election to 86 per cent after September 11. They fell last year, largely on economic worries and criticism of his lack of surefootedness in the Middle East, back to 60 per cent last spring. At the beginning of the Iraq war, when Basra failed to fall quickly, they fell to 55 per cent; as success seemed within grasp, they rose fast to 70 per cent. But in Iraq’s case, Americans were slow to be convinced that this was an appropriate target. Their instincts are still against entanglement in far-off wars unless entirely persuaded that the conflict is justified and the campaign well-planned. There is, too, the looming question of Bush’s commitment to a Middle East “roadmap”. It was extracted by Tony Blair as the price for his support. But to put pressure on the Israeli Government, in essence Blair’s request, is risky in what is now the run-up to the next presidential election, given the power of the pro-Israel lobby, with its Jewish, Christian fundamentalist and neo-conservative wings. Yet if Bush holds back on this front, it could badly restrain the US’s relationship with Britain and the Arab world, in turn restraining what Bush can do abroad. So far, Bush has acted as if he will approach domestic policy in exactly the same spirit. The policy that most inspired him on taking office — the giant package of tax cuts — is still his preoccupation on the home front, despite opposition by the Senate and now criticism from the International Monetary Fund.
Worryingly for Bush, a quarter of Americans now think that they will be worse off financially in a year’s time, and nearly two thirds think that he could be doing more to improve the economy. Bush may have secured one victory that eluded his father, and in a manner which may encourage him to repeat the feat. But the popularity of further campaigns is far from assured, while the faltering economy remains the enemy at home that he has yet to defeat. |
I wish the elections were next week, because the public can't seem to remember anything longer than about six months.
The situation certainly isn't as dire as this writer tries to portray, but it's something to keep an eye on.
Football hooligans?
NBA Championship rioters?
Or Iraqi looters?
Liberals are going to go full bore in changing the subject - just watch! This needs an Undermining the Victory Alert!
What exactly should he be doing that he's not doing now? He's encouraging spending with his pep talks after the 9/11 stock market crash, he's trying to give the taxpayers cuts despite the naysaying Rats, he's trying to encourage savings with a bill to exempt earned dividend interest from being taxed again against the naysaying Rats, and he's trying to eliminate the death tax again against the naysaying Rats. And according to another topic, he showed $60K to charity compared to the measly $300 Rat Gore gave one year in office.
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