An Election Day Note: Thank You President George W. Bush

I have a dark secret to tell before the election so that it's on the record. It's something that is difficult to say to certain friends, peers and family.

President Bush is far smarter, more articulate and less ideological than his plentiful detractors scream, and, ultimately, he will be judged by history - not by vengeful Democrats, hate-filled Hollywood, corrupt foreign governments, an imploding mainstream media or fleeting approval ratings.

George W. Bush is history's president, a man for whom the long-term success or failure of democracy in Iraq will determine his place in history.

The fact that the United States has not been attacked since Sept. 11, 2001, far exceeds the most wishful expert predictions of the time.

By most accounts, al Qaeda is reeling. Yet reflexive enemies of the president - including Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee - shamefully mock him for not having caught Osama bin Laden.

While President Bush has been marshaling a multinational force to take on modernity's enemies in foreign lands, the American left has decided to go to war against not only Republicans but also moderate Democrats.

Much of Mr. Bush's approval rating is born of the ill-gotten gains pilfered from a pre-Bush inauguration strategy to send the message to Republicans that the Democrats play politics harder and better.

Right now, America appears to be leaning toward electing a man for whom popularity is a paramount concern. That means he must trust the American media and the American electorate to guide him to difficult decisions, not the other way around.

Now we have a candidate who claims that citizens are "selfish" if they do not subscribe to the use of coercive government force to take their earnings and give them to others.

Does anybody remember the harsh criticism of Mr. Bush when he honestly answered a question as to who he considered to be a great political philosopher?

A thoughtful reading of President Thomas Jefferson's works would reveal a set of beliefs that are much nearer those of George W. Bush than Bush's critics among both Republicans and Democrats of the Far Left would imagine or admit.

In his first campaign, they mocked Bush for his answer to the question about his favorite political philosopher.

Bush's answer was simple and honest.

Over two centuries before, the same Jefferson who believed that each should use reason to question even the existence of God, also penned our Declaration of Independence which, he wrote, reflected "the American mind" of the time and included references to God in four distinct manifestations.

In others of his writings he stated that Jesus "preached philanthropy and universal charity and benevolence," that "a system of morals is presented to us [by Jesus], which, if filled up in the style and spirit of the rich fragments he left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man."

He wrote, "His moral doctrines...were more pure and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers...and they went far beyond both in inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering all into one family, under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants, and common aids," which, Jefferson said, "will evince the peculiar superiority of the system of Jesus over all others."

Comparing the Hebrew code which, according to Jefferson, "laid hold of actions only," "He [Jesus] pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man; erected his tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the fountain head."

That Jefferson cut out the statements which he believed to be directly attributable to Jesus, pasted them into a little book which he kept by his bed and, by his own words, read from them daily, might lead one to conclude that his political philosophy probably was influenced by what he considered to be the superiority of the "philosophy" of Jesus.

It is unlikely that any person alive today has read the writings of as many of the great philosophers as Jefferson. His talents and abilities were legend. His devotion to liberty and to the ideas essential to liberty were based on simple principles, some of which, undoubtedly, came from his understanding of the basic law underlying all valid human law: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Perhaps George W. Bush understood what Jefferson understood: that the philosophy capsulated in that idea has the power to make people in a society more individually benevolent, more loving, more caring, and more willing to take care of each other.

There is a sharp contrast between a philosophy of love and the politics of hate which motivate the radical Islamic terrorists, as well as the radical Left which now spouts its version of government-enforced "helping" in our partisan politics. Thomas Jefferson summarized an idea that tyrants of all political persuasions deny: "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."

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