Posted on 06/21/2007 6:45:17 PM PDT by SJackson
IN THE CURRENT by GOLDA SHIRA By . (06/15/2007) President George Bush is my hero. No, this is not another Bush joke. The truth is that I have come to see him as a man of rare integrity. What a guy!
No, I wouldn't have said those things seven years ago. I certainly wasn't keen on the mechanics of his election. And I wasn't voting for a guy who started out not too interested in international involvements, certainly not in the Middle East.
Yet he has risen to the challenges presented during his presidency with courage and enormous self-sacrifice.
So you think he's doing this for daddy? You think he's doing this for a legacy?
How could that be? Look what he is enduring-not only constantly being the butt of jokes and (friends of) Pelosi's spitting through her teeth seething contempt, but also facing a 66% disapproval rating.
Doesn't seem to me that that's trying to win a popularity contest.
Except maybe Upstairs. Where it really counts. I think the man is really trying to do the right thing. No, it's not easy for me to say. Yes, I have very dear friends who have served and are about to go back to Iraq. My heart is in my mouth not only for them and their families but also for my very own sleepless nights and the anguish I endure every day they are away.
But that is the greatness of what America is and hopefully always will be: a nation willing to make wrenching sacrifices in the name of freedom and democracy.
It isn't easy. And we like easy. While we sit in our leather easy chairs and watch the biggest and newest HD flat screen TV and relieve our boredom with the latest flavor of chips (Tuscany parmesan sea salt guacamole salsa baked) and get really irate about the ending of "The Sopranos," or really annoyed that we can't see how much blood got spilled when someone got whacked on our favorite permutation of "CSI" because some special was on. While our domestic crime statistics rise and we blithely go about our business unwilling to do much to stop that senseless bloodshed, we are nonetheless enraged that our country has the nobility to stand up for the very values upon which this country was founded.
We can pretend otherwise but we pretend at our peril.
We love our violence but we love it only if it's wrapped up in 60 minutes. We choose instead the myopic focus on Paris Hilton and Jennifer Aniston's new boyfriend.
"Don't bring me down with this war stuff, man. War is not peace, man." And it sure as heck ain't easy.
Okay, so did we go into Iraq the right way? No. Did we make grave errors in how this war has been fought? Absolutely.
But there, too, the President again is humble enough to admit that. And to change course and put in men like General David Petraeus so we will correct course and do better. And we are.
Listen to our amazingly brave soldiers who almost unanimously say they want to stay and get the job done. They know it won't be fast and they know it won't be easy. They and the President know that to leave now is inviting greater tragedy the likes of which most Americans cannot conceive.
We elect leaders to lead and Mr. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have embodied the statesmanship to be true leaders in the face of unrelenting scathing attacks. And because Mr. Blair knew he was right, he willingly sacrificed his position as prime minister rather than back down.
Hello? Is anyone awake out there? Politicians don't do that. Leaders of true stature do. Risk themselves and their reputations and their good name for all time to come in the name of what is for the greater good.
They know the real and present danger global terrorism is, and not just because they're privy to intelligence we're not. They, and any of us who have lived or spent ample time in the region, know we're dealing with a mentality and an insidious and pervasive many-headed hydra that obviously most Americans can't and don't want to understand.
Until the next 9/11 or worse, G-d forbid. (Until then, we're back to our cushy routines. And they are cushy compared to the standard of living of the average Iraqi. Or the average Israeli.)
I think it presumptuous, ignorant and arrogant of us to think otherwise. I could be wrong. No one wants another Vietnam. We Americans are a good-hearted, heroic nation.
For posterity, what will matter in the end is not how "The Sopranos" end, but how this war will end. How we, the mostly highly-educated boomers who live in the legacy of Woodstock, grow up and confront the reality for which previous generations were willing to fight. To fight for what's right, do what needs to be done, even if it's hard, especially if it's hard, in order to create peace not just in one country, one region but also to help bring it to the world.
Golda Shira is a multi award winning journalist (Columbia University Press Association, numerous Rockower awards) who has been part of the White House Press Corps for the past ten years and has covered the Middle East for the last three decades.
EVERYONE who covers the white house, right or left, is in the “white house press corps.” That includes the Washington Times, national review, Les Kinsolving, etc., etc. If you’ve got a gripe with ther article, fire away, but there’s no point to a pointless snark.
The HUMAN LIVES he has saved by the Supreme Court Justices he nominated and the Senate confirmed and his veto of the Stem Cell BILLS will be counted for many years to come, unless we conservatives destroy the GOP with our ONE ISSUE members and give the Presidency to the leftist Democrat Party like we did the Congress.
He has done wonders for the Economy with his tax cuts. He has done an admirable job with the WAR, NOT THE WAY I WANT, but he has been STEADFAST in his LEADERSHIP for our TROOPS.
His stance on the border issue is disastrous but does anyone doubt his BELIEF that he is doing the right thing in spite of the publics opinion.
He is a LEADER and in a time of WAR I can only say I am thankful we have one for the alternative would be unthinkable.
1. supporting Abbas and Fatah.
2. considering reaching out to the Muslim Brotherhood.
3. probably closing Gitmo for terrorists.
4. not building a fence on a border that Hezbollah has come across.
5. letting 15,000 Saudi students in the country.
Let me know which of those five you support.
1. We all know FR has been infested by RATS.
2. I’m sick of all the whiny hand wringing, amnesty posts while the Islamo terrorists are planning to nuke us. Bush this and Bush that and the omnipotent Reagan and 12 million illegal Mexicans milking us and blah blah blah.Oh yeah people, closing the borders will stop the terrorists....please. Fake identities, plastic surgery, etc. etc. They’re coming, amnesty or not.
When you all are layin on the ground with your face peelin off and your children have been incinerated because of the prevalent political and social chasm in the US that the terrorists feed upon, it won’t matter that Juan, Carlos or Maria snuck into our country illegally... you and your families will be dead and gone.
Oh, good for you, stop all the illegal immigrants and kick them all out of our country, all of them, 12-20 million, put them on a friggin bus and send them all back to Mexico and they will all just stay there. No more sucking on the US teat because they didn’t pass a bill in the RAT infested congress. Great, just great, we kicked “them” all out of our country. “Bush sucks”. “He’s not the guy I voted for”. Happy now? “He spend too much $”. “Government is too big.” Do you think the terrorists give a rats ass about any of these issues. Only one....we are divided RATS & Pubs , Libs and conservos.
Meanwhile, terrorists are planning to nuke us. And we sit on our asses and complain, complain complain. We are worried that the emergency rooms are over crowded, schools have too many mexicans and they don’t speak english, kill white people while driving drunk, shoot border guards and we’re just taking it and giving them a free pass cause President Bush has defected to the RATS, has a couple of pics with Killer Kennedy and doesn’t have the greatest communication skills. Oh poor poor us. Oh my God. Illegal mexicans in the fields, hotels, schools, hospitals, gangs, welfare lines, etc. Oh no, kick all of them damn illegals out and the US will be a better place.
Do you know that perhaps an illegal immigrant at the video store worked with the Feds to bring down the home grown jihadists that were planning to attach FORT DIX in NJ. Do you?
hey, when Bush went live after 911 and laid it all out to the American people and the terrorists, did he have the communication skills then?
My God, people, there is a large group of twisted terrorists trying to wipe us out and a large majority of conservatives are worried about Mexicans over-running the US.
I hate to say it and I know you all don’t care but I’m withdrawing all my financial and moral support to FR. I’m sickened of what happened here.
Flame on Johnny. Not gonna read them. I’m out. Yeah , I know, good riddance. Good luck FR. I hope you make it.
BTW, my wife is a LEGAL immigrant after I have filled out dozens of forms over the past 5 years, paid numerous filing fees and she will be a US citizen soon. Played it by the book. What the hell does it prove if my family gets killed while attending a basketball game in L.A. because Hitlery gets elected cause bad, bad Pres Bush likes Mexicans and she and the cigar wielding , impeached Bill coddles the terrorists while the mexicans I pass on the streets of LA, NY and elsewhere are illegal. Any answers?
Don’t bother. I quit.
but does anyone doubt his BELIEF that he is doing the right thing in spite of the publics opinion.
Yeah I doubt it.I doubt it as much as I can say it !!!
I find it extremely insulting, since I live about 35 miles from the Otay Mesa border crossing, that part of this forum is so ga-ga over President Bush and what color his tie is that they ignore the high cost of his amnesty/open border policy.
Not only does it cost me more money to support the illegals and their children but our president promised to do everything he could to keep us safe. Day workers aren't the only ones coming into our country through those open borders!
What a ridiculous thing to say. You always need to tear down Reagan to make Bush look better. Ain't gonna work and it makes you look silly.
I was aware of what the White House Press Corps was and is. Using that as a credit carries about as much gravitas as me claiming to have graduated from High School, which is where this level of tortured and constipated writing can be found. Take a look at the rest of the posts on this thread, and consider that the huge task of taking this piece “to task” has already been accomplished. I wouldn’t know where to begin taking issue with this piece, which shows no evidence of having ANY thought or insight behind it. Do you know Golda Shira personally? Or do you just still have stars in your eyes thinking of GW Bush, like she does? That wasn’t too snarky, was it?
Unsurprisingly, I find your posts “insulting” and “silly” . . . FYI: I don’t “tear down Reagan” (that would be what you do with Bush); instead, I post historically accurate information in an effort to inject PERSPECTIVE into discussions that are more often than not characterized by irrational name-calling and vitriol . . . oops, there I go being “silly” again.
[BTW: I like the photo on your homepage!]
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More Strange Silence [Michael Ledeen]
General Petraeus gave an interview to the London Times in which he said
The Iranian involvement here we have found to be much, much more significant than we thought before. They have since about the summer of 2004 played a very, very important role in training in Iran, funding, arming.
I think this is now on the verge of becoming the conventional wisdom, after years of denial from top Bush-administration officials, including, sad to say, Petraeus's predecessors. There has long been a desperate attempt to deny Iran's role in Iraq (and Afghanistan, for that matter), primarily because it was clear to the military that the policy makers back home didn't want to take the decisive action that the information so clearly demanded. And demands.
Secretary of State Rice seems to have been extremely tenacious in insisting that we must stick to a diplomatic track with the mullahs, even going so far as to recommend the release of the "Irbil 5," the Revolutionary Guards officers captured in Irbil. I suspect—no inside information mind you—that at least some of what Petraeus has learned came from those Iranian killers, and he has bluntly said that he intends to keep them as long as they can talk, as long as we have food for them.
It's quite amazing how the desire NOT to know trumps intelligence every time. Can't let the facts get in the way of good policy, right? The desire NOT to know about Iran is not at all unique to this administration or to this secretary of state. Indeed, it is the basic theme of American policy ever since the 1979 Revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power in Tehran.
Add this, Bush not pressing the Iranians on their aiding and abetting the killing of American soldiers, to the "Either you're with us" list I posted above. -----------------------------------------------
So, Bush supports the Fatah terrorists, is considering engaging in talks with the Muslim Brotherhood, and refuses to admit the degree to which the mad mullahs are behind the Iraqi insurgency....and people want to say that he's good on the WoT. Laughable, I say.
Before you put your heads on the pillow, think about what 15,000 people looks like -- about the size of a basketball crowd -- and imagine all those Saudi students your fearless leader has let in our damn country.
I'm outta here. Sleep well, Bush-fans.
15,000
Golda, you need to take off your rose colored glasses. He's NOT the man you think he is. He's selling you out just like the rest of us.
I’m now being more informed that I really wanted to be
Bush Administration Misleads Public on Illegal Immigration, Docs Show
http://www.judicialwatch.org/6315.shtml
Freedom of Information Act helped acquire this information. Judicial Watch has alot of information, it’s coming to light as promised.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2005/bpsurvey.pdf
“Well, I remember every speech saying this is a long battle. The American people need to grow up and little and give up having to be spoon fed by a babysitter.”
ClancyJ, I agree with you in principle. However, we have to deal with things as they are and not as they should be. One of the major problems the American people have with this war on terror is that we have baked into our cultural DNA a four year threshold for war. As a collective people we seem to be willing to give an Admimistration four years to get the job done and that’s it. Once the war/conflict approaches the four year mark, Americans start to get restless - their thought process (DNA kicking in)being “hey, we won WWII in less than four years, so why is this endeavor taking so long?” Has happened every time (including Vietnam)....
Hmmmm, looks like you're into name calling, eh?
Perspective? Is that what all that is? Just come and visit me and I'll show you perspective. We can visit the border (where there is no fence) and the camps in the canyon behind my house (although it's really not safe after dark).
It is indeed silly to blindly follow someone whose actions are bad for this country. Funny, I'm not in the minority on this issue!
I cannot stand how he has stood beside Mexican Drug Dealers to persecute Border agents. He took the advice of the enemy, and is now prosecuting the Haditha Marines. The ridiculous rules of engagement our troops have to go by in Iraq shows that Bush has learned nothing from Vietnam. Bush is now an environmentalist on top of a globalist. He is letting Libby go to prison. He is friends with Ted Kennedy. Do I really need to go on?
Everything that is hidden will come to light. It was promised and is happening. I trust in God and believe that everything that has been hidden will be brought to light. Trust in him and he will comfort you.
This is one of the most painful prayers to receive answers on. Most of the time we just do not want to receive the answer because it’s not what we thought it would be.
Absolutely with God. However, George Bush??? First thing that comes to mind is sell out. Keep in mind I voted from him twice!
And their answer is?????
Quit and leave and the terrorists will stop beheading people, sending planes into our buildings? Or, are we also as Americans willing to sacrifice 10,000-100,000 Americans in an attack of some sort every 6 years?
We are seeing the results of the “spoiled” generation that grew up getting all they wanted when they wanted it. Parents were there to cater to the whims of the “child”. Now they expect a quick solution to any problem or they throw their little tantraums.
Well, let me ask you a question. What do we do when the terrorists refuse to follow the rules this generation gives them? What if the terrorists don’t want to quit the killing just because we leave?
What if Iran decides - gee - I would like the Iraqi oil then I can exert a great deal of pressure on the neighbors and America? What if a terrorist state develops WITH the Iraqi oil?
Just how do you maintain a stable Mid East with all the terrorists wanting Iraq for its oil?
Hm......where is the quick answer that will not get our children or grandchildren killed in a few years as we claim our quick and fast war?
The problem is, he wasn't elected to be true to his principles. He was elected to faithfully execute the laws of the United States and to uphold the Constitution. He has made a sacred oath to that effect.
To the degree that Mr. Bush has violated that oath and pursued his own values above and in place of the laws of the country, and his duties as enumerated in the Constitution, his tenure is a moral failure.
There's a difference between principled leadership and stubborn arrogance. I believe this administration has crossed that line.
At least he's still fighting the jihadis. It's the one redeeming principle he continues to pursue.
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