Posted on 07/16/2003 3:41:02 PM PDT by conservativefromGa
July 16, 2003 -- THE liberation of millions goes ignored. Democrats attack the Republican president over a continuing conflict, insisting it cannot be won, as they position themselves for upcoming elections.
The president acts vigorously in response to a threat to our national survival - exacerbated by the fecklessness and timidity of his predecessor in office. His critics are outraged and unforgiving.
A retired general is one of the contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, although the Army realizes it's winning and continues to support the president.
Continental European powers, especially France, tacitly back Washington's enemies, jockeying for financial advantage - even approaching open support for the enemy's leader.
Domestically, subversives and traitors are arrested. Some are handed over to military tribunals. Civil libertarians argue that the U.S. Constitution is being destroyed.
The nation's intellectual elite cannot bear the president's Western simplicity, rustic mannerisms and lack of polish.
The media attack the president savagely, making fun of his lack of sophistication and even his appearance. Cartoonists lampoon the man even more fiercely than his policies. Leading newspapers and journals insist that his policies are disastrous and that he is unfit to lead the nation.
Even the British media portray the president as a dangerous lunatic, out of control.
On Capitol Hill, self-interested members of Congress establish a committee to investigate the president's handling of the war, as well as alleged distortions and corruption in his administration.
The president's secretary of state is accused of failure and ineptitude, while the cabinet member responsible for the Army has a knack for angering everybody.
The verdict of the intelligentsia is unanimous: This president is leading the nation into disaster.
Yet, the people continue to support the man, admiring the very qualities the intellectual elite despises. The president continues to do what he believes is necessary for the nation's security and survival, ignoring his exasperated critics.
President Bush? No.
Abraham Lincoln.
And the approaching elections were those of 1864, not 2004.
While history will decide whether our current president truly is another Lincoln or merely a revved-up Ford, many of the political parallels are striking - right down to the disputed, three-faction campaign that put him in office (one of the consistent failures of the post-modern left is its inattention to history - perhaps because history rarely supports its views).
The current attacks on President Bush over who knew what and when, over who supposedly lied and the merit of crucial decisions, are based in politics, not in a sincere concern for our national interests. Lincoln endured nearly identical attacks in an earlier age of mortal threat to our nation.
The repellent personal attacks on the president, the cartoons portraying him as a mentally deficient cowboy stumbling over his own words, call to mind the vicious cartoons of Lincoln as an ape and a hick. Those whom the scribbling classes cannot destroy through the force of argument they mock and caricature. The personal nature of the attacks upon President Bush are indicative of the failure of attacks based upon issues.
And why have the policy-oriented attacks upon the president failed? Primarily because they've attacked the wrong policies.
Perhaps the greatest failing of the intellectual elite and those elements of the media that pander to it is that they consistently underestimate the American people, imagining that the "common" man or woman might be led by the piques and whims of those who never had to sweat for a living and never will.
College professors, journalists or party operatives who assume that the American people are not smart enough to see into the heart of great matters without the guidance of their betters will always be frustrated by the ultimate common sense, moral force and courage of their fellow Americans.
The elite regard the masses as politically incompetent, yet the people consistently have been right when the intellectuals were wrong.
Americans grasp, intuitively and viscerally, that the War Against Terror, of which our campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq were vital phases, is as justified as it is essential. It is the elite, imprisoned still in their Clintonian fairy-tale worldview, who refuse to see that the United States remains in mortal danger from enemies who cannot be appeased, persuaded or deflected.
No congressional committee ever won a war, and no columnist ever stopped a terrorist from killing.
This column does not mean to idolize the president. Indeed, many of his domestic policies give cause for serious concern, from his slight of hand on environmental issues, through his questionable respect for women's rights, to his ideologically driven, ill-timed tax cuts. But his foreign policy is courageous, effective and vital.
The current flock of interchangeable Democratic presidential aspirants attack the president's strengths, while failing to appreciate his weaknesses. The military equivalent would be a frontal attack across an open field against dug-in machine guns and artillery.
Instead of reciting their litany of imaginary failures overseas, can't a single Democratic presidential hopeful admit that the potential danger to the U.S. from hate-intoxicated terrorists could one day cause an even greater loss of American lives than did our Civil War?
In 1864, the people voted overwhelmingly for Lincoln's re-election. Unless a Democratic champion emerges who is willing to abandon petty sniping in favor of genuine leadership, at home and abroad, the American people doubtless will favor President Bush in 2004 - as they did his greatest predecessor.
I hope Peters is going to stick to military issues. From this quote, I get the idea that Peters thinks it is a bad idea to cut taxes during a recession. Note to Ralph, even the Keynesians agree that you cut taxes during a recession.
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