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.
"Had Bush fired every single Clinton appointee"
That was his biggest mistake. He should have sacked everyone of them.
By reading some of these pretentious posts, it appears even some so-called conservatives have drank the looney liberal kool-aid. I think Dubya doin just fine and will NOT allow the left leaning propoganda to infest my clear thinking. Thankya, Dubya.
You got that right!
I think Dubya is too nice, FRankly. By all reports, he was raised to be and is, a gentleman. It is very, very difficult for a gentleman to kick ass and take names.
FRankly, I was hoping that he would show up as a fighter pilot FRom time to time during his Presidency. Fighter pilots, as you know, are trained to kick ass and take names. He has not done that as often as he needed to or as often as I hoped he would.
The first 100 days of his Presidency would have been a damn fine time show up as a fighter pilot (at least on his inside game) and to have kicked every Democrat ass out of the Executive Branch of our government!
At his level, being a gentleman is expected and required, but kicking some ass and taking a lot of names is also necessary, and Dubya has not shown much affinity for that sport!
The FRee world has suffered because of Dubya's tendency to follow bad advice FRom his "Inside the Evil Beltway" advisors as opposed to his own instincts, which I think are better than the ITEB advisors!
Bump!
Right...
Everything is fine...
Very true.
All current indications are that we are going to sit and dither all the way up to the point that Iran has nuclear weapons - if they don't already.
Allowing Iran to go nuclear is a serious failure on our part that we and Israel will pay for dearly. History will not judge us kindly for letting it happen on our watch.
You say everything is 'adrift'.......I say, it seems that way to you, but you are wrong..........and you counter with "Right......Everything is fine."
There is a giant chasm between "We are adrift" and "Everything is fine"
Or didn't you notice that?
I don't believe for a minute that Bush has one knee on the canvas,
BUT
for those who do,
some cliches might be helpful here: It's always darkest before the dawn.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is the war on global terror defeated in 24 hours, no matter how impatient the non-soldiers get.
The youthful sheeherder, David, was called from following the sheep to kill the lion and the bear (he succeeded), then to slay a giant (he succeeded), then to be a king, and was even anointed by the prophet Samuel for that reason. What followed? A short time of favor before the reigning king, Saul, followed by Saul spending the next several years trying to kill him. God's call on David's life succeeded; Saul's determination to kill him did not succeed.
W does not have anything to fear but God, and he does that quite well.
I think it was Oswald Chambers who wrote (imprecise quote): Show me a man who fears people and I'll show you a man who fears everything else. Show me a man who fears God, and I'll show you a man who fears nothing else.
W is on the right side of that line.
Blogger -- thanks for the prayer ping.
I'm not familiar with the author's, John L. Perry, writing but he reads like he needs to up his meds.
" For God [has NOT given] us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of POWER, of love, and of self-discipline." - II Timothy, 1:7
Looks like I'm not the only one seeing this.
What's the so-called truth about his grand vision of Homeland Security that includes shaking down gray-haired white folks in airports yet leaves the borders so porous that any number of murderers, rapists, drug dealers, thieves, etc. continue to wreak havoc while "terrorizing" innocent Americans?
The numbers of people in this country that've been terrorized by these cretins who shouldn't even be here far outnumbers those poor souls from 9-11, OKC, etc......where's the fedgov's concern for those folks?
That doesn't mean he doesn't need extra prayer right now, but he's not down on one knee, and the situation is not as dire as this doom and gloom article makes it sound.
He's the one God has entrusted to get us through these times, and there's a reason for that. He's up to the challenge.
The only intelligent thing to do is to screen everyone, and I for one, am glad that they're doing it............even the gray haired white folks.
*
I thought we were talking truth here.......what's the answer to his lack of attention to saving the quality of life for those people in border states?....this is not an attack but it's a very, very critical subject that affects peoples lives across the country every day. He and his admin. advisors do not seem to understand the seriousness of what's going on down there.
One can disagree with the methods being implemented to secure the borders, and one can believe that not nearly enough is being done, but I completely resist the idea that he has done nothing, and that his border policy negates everything else he has successfully done to keep us safe for five years.
So, since you clearly have that opinion, I'm not sure how much can be accomplished by continuing this discussion.
Besides which, it's not really on topic, is it?
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.