Posted on 08/21/2006 3:30:36 AM PDT by Aussie Dasher
No doubt, President Bush has one knee on the canvas. What is in doubt is whether he's buying time or simply cannot get back up.
Just look at the serious body blows he has taken lately:
His bold Bush Doctrine of striking down terror before it shatters us is in disarray in Afghanistan, Iraq, even here at home.
His magnificent ambition to plant the seeds of liberty and spread freedom throughout the enslaved world is unraveling.
His sworn obligation to protect Israel, one of America's few authentic allies, at all costs, and never to accept a peace in Lebanon that resurrects the status quo ante is down the drain.
His stern warnings to Syria and its master Iran to keep their filthy hands off Israel are derided.
His pronouncement that the Free World cannot abide a nuclear North Korea is shrugged off.
His warning, through a United Nations resolution, to Iran that it must by the end of this month abandon its nuclear-weapons program is answered by sneers, insults and invective from Tehran, followed by a salvo of serious Iranian rockets to show it means business even if he doesn't.
His enemies from the left in Congress grow bolder and nastier by the day in what they say of him, threatening impeachment if they regain control of the House of Representatives this November.
Opportunists like a second-term senator from Nebraska within his own party are warming up to walk across his face in quest of the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
Opinion polls, of dubious veracity themselves, are allowed to go unchallenged, thus becoming their own self-fulfilling prophesies that the president is going down the pipes.
The leftist "mainstream" media have abandoned all pretext of accuracy and objectivity, now daily making up bogus anti-Bush stories, trying to outdo one another in venality. While all that's been going on, what counterpunches has the president landed? None that come to mind.
Something quite alarming is going on, and it's showing increasingly in the president's public appearances.
His body language of late has been ... well ... just awful.
Gone are the televised events in which he leans across a podium, full of energy and believability, sharing his convictions and enthusiasm with responsive audiences.
Is This Our President?
Now, his TV-appearance arrangers have him standing awkwardly alone, shifting uncertainly from one foot to the other. In the background sit or stand a few unknowns, all scowling as if in disbelief or suffering acute indigestion.
The president's own visage is scarcely recognizable. Disappeared is the buoyant smile, the twinkling eyes.
His syntax, usually a problem (actually not, since its candid openness was a big plus with most Americans, who speak the same way he does) has been all right. But he now seems unable to articulate anything.
Here is a man who is either grievously sleep-deprived, physically and emotionally drained, or weighted down, in honest despair, by realities that would terrify any mortal.
It Must Be Tempting
Is he on the verge of saying to himself, "To hell with it. I did my best. And all anyone wants from me now is my head on a pike. They can take this job and shove it. I'm heading home to Crawford."?
Or does he know something the rest of us don't know – and probably wouldn't want to know? Does he see apocalypse just over the horizon? Is global nuclear winter nearly upon us, and there's not a blessed thing he can do about it?
Or does he know what has to be done to save this nation, and the rest of civilization? Is it crushing his very soul? Is it like looking straight down the throat of doomsday?
Is he buying time – letting Enemy win all the little battles – so he can furiously regroup, retrain, rearm in order to make the dreadful preemptive move that only can win the ultimate war?
Totally Out of Character
Everything we've come to know about this remarkable, decent man from Texas tells us he has steel inside, not flab, that he is not afraid to do what's right regardless of political consequences. It is impossible to think of him in terms of capitulation to anything.
Yet what is the alternative? Is he about to confide in us, his people, that, like it or not, we are all – including him – going to have to face, and make, a life-or-death decision unprecedented in history?
That's enough to wipe the smile off any man's face.
No one who admires and wishes him well wants to think he is down on one knee, having to take the full count because he has been cruelly beaten, defeated, humiliated, immobilized.
Now Let Us Pray
No one of sane mind wants to believe he is kneeling there, having to take the count up just short of 10 in order to buy every split-second of precious time to get us ready for the indescribable.
Yet, that may well be the lesser of two intolerable possibilities.
This good man, our 43rd president, needs – deserves – the nation's prayers. Even more than did our 16th president.
Abraham Lincoln had to wage a war he hated to save the union he loved. George W. Bush has to agonize about saving civilization.
Those who believe in prayer had better get busy.
There is nothing the left wants more than to discourage and defeat conservatives and our cause, and allow the RATS to take over Congress in November.
That's why articles like this are written, and that's why anti-Bush freepers glom onto them and try to bring us all down.
Don't let them succeed at achieving their goal.
This is WAR. And he and everyone in his administration has said from the beginning that it was going to be a long hard war.
But we can see the effects of living in a McDonald's drive-through world, and the American people are wimpy and impatient.
Thank God that the President isn't.
I'm sure you're right about that, but that's why WE here on Fr have to continue to tell the truth, and that truth is OPTIMISTIC.
I believe that he is committed as well. I have also seen, however, the lack of sparkle in his eyes. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders and the world (with a few exceptions) just continues to beat on him. His policies are not being as effective as they could be because of a treasonous congress that wants to put politics above our well being. Certainly, there is a need to pray for him now and at a time such as this more than ever.
Good post!
OhioWFan, look at his face in these pictures...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1674686/posts
There have been times as the situation in the world has grown darker that his heart has been clearly burdened. I don't think at all its because he is not trying. But his message is not being as effective as it should be and the world is getting worse and worse.
I think that praying for this world and that its blinders would be lifted is also quite in order as well as praying for strength, wisdom, and encouragement for the President.
I understand what you're saying about the world's getting worse and worse, but I believe that God, in His Sovereignty, is allowing this to happen during President Bush's terms because He knows He has a trustworthy servant leading the world from the Oval Office.
None of this is accidental, nor outside the providence of God, Blogger. And though it is definitely a call to prayer, it is also not a reason to worry.
I hope you saw the Press Conference this morning. The picture of President Bush is in reality quite different than this article presents him to be.
The reality is, IMO, that no President has had more challenges to deal with since Lincoln and sometimes it shows in his face, but he also has the resources with which to solve them. That is our reason to be confident.
Voter Registration Info
http://www.fvap.gov/
Only 78 days until Election Day!
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." PLATO
Vote on Nov 7 2006! Is YOUR voter registration current? Check today.
BTTT
I agree. People have already declared him 'down for the count'. ANd then wonder what the problem is.
WHAT??? This author is delusional. Did he not hear about the bigger than 9/11 terror plot that was uncovered and PREVENTED? If that isn't striking down terror, I don't know what is!
The only terror that President Bush hasn't been able to strike down is the terror we are subjected to EVERY day by the ENEMEDIA and DemocRATS like Murtha!
Amen! Perry is usually pretty good, but for this article I'm tempted to say "misunderestimate him at your peril!!"
And currently many insane people are applying for the job..
Absolute BS. This statement represnets the old addage of repeating a lie long enough in the hopes of people taking it as the truth. The fact is, the people of both Afghanistan and Iraq, in the vast majority, support our actions and are enjoying and working for and fighting for and dieing for their new found freedoms. They have proven this over and over in the entire process of voting in interim governments, developing and approving their own constitutions, voting in their new governments and doing it all in the face of death threats from the terrorists.
All of this really unerves and angers two groups of people...the terrorists who are hell bent on tyranny in those countries, and the liberal democrats and other naysayers (media, etc.) who are hell bent on gaining political power or influence regardless of consequences.
He does seem a little confused lately...Kind of like his father maybe? Now were giving 230 million to the Lebanese???? Thats our money folks, ripped from our paychecks ,going to a pathetic spineless terrorist enabling muslim country that attacked western civilization.
Including columnists who describe Bush as having "one knee on the canvas".
I BELIEVE in Bush, the media is the ones who want defeat at all costs.
We need that same attitude we had going into Iraq...Kofi and the UN , shut up and get out of the way so we can get the work done.
Had Bush fired every single Clinton appointee, as he should have (including the ones who "burrowed into" the Civil Service), it would by now be long forgotten, as were Bill Clinton's firing of the Bush people.
We live in a nation besieged by liberal propoganda. We are blessed, however, with Free Republic (thanks Jim!,) Rush, Ann, Sean, and Fox News, to bring balance.
Just like last time, everything will be fine as long as we get up on election morning and get in the voting line. (As Rush said, rather poetically, "We meet at dawn.") As Sean said in last election "I want you to be scared, scared enough to get up and go vote."
So, ok, be afraid, and go vote!
President George Walker Bush has not made any mistakes and I am not going to apologize for him. He has done an excellent job! Until Our Lord Jesus Christ reigns upon the earth, we will still be served by frail human minds that pale by the magnificent power of God's wisdom.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.