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July 13, 2007
Waiting it Out
Bush's second term has been a failure, and a disappointing one. His refusal to do more than mouth tired platitudes about the importance of the war are infuriating. His silence has allowed the war's opponents, the ideological heirs of Chamberlain and Quisling, to define the conflict in defeatist terms. When a college professor of classical history makes a better case for the war online than the president, you know there's something wrong with the administration.
Domestically, the legacy is in tatters. Consider the promise of his 2004 acceptance speech and all of the changes we thought were coming - tax reform, less spending, social security reform, medicare reform, tort reform...none of it happened. Instead, we conservatives got higher spending, more pork and a terrible immigration bill almost rammed down our throats.
So I understand the new affliction among conservatives - Bush Disappointment Syndrome, and I think Noonan is right here - we're just waiting out the next year, supporting the president's policies on the war while wishing we had a better spokesman to articulate them and fight on their behalf.
UPDATE - In debating with a hyper-partisan "my president right or wrong" type at Hot Air, some thoughts came to me. The failure of the domestic agenda, while irritating, is actually much less important to me than the president's failure to make this war the central focus of his presidency.
What was FDR's domestic agenda during WWII? What was Lincoln's domestic agenda during The Civil War? For the most part, those two wartime presidents sacrificed the desire to leave a domestic legacy because they realized the importance of the wars being fought during their presidency.
Bush has tried to have it both ways - and in doing so has divided his attention. What a mistake.
War is not something you fight while trying to pass immigration reform or find money for education. FDR and Lincoln talked about the war constantly, keeping Americans focused on the importance of the conflict. I'm not suggesting we adopt as martial a viewpoint, but we should expect the president to support the troops by making their mission the most important thing he does as president.
A huge part of that would be fighting back against Pelosi/Reid and their rampant defeatism. Name names and in doing so, define the struggle. This isn't just about trying to bring democracy or order to Iraq - this is about something larger. This is a fight against a new tyranny. Some say we're fighting religious extremists - I'm not so sure of that anymore.
Like Stalin and Hitler before them, extremist Islamists want power. To people like the Taliban, I doubt their religion matters much - it's simply a vehicle they use to acquire the power they seek so they can mold whatever society they take over to fit their twisted vision. I think Glenn Beck is right - there are a lot of people who are Muslim who are just as horrified as we are by what terrorists are doing around the world. And yes, I wish they'd speak out more, but that's not really important in the long run.
The president needs to cast his net a bit wider and really define this struggle - this is not a war against people who "hate us for our freedoms." It's a fight against those who wish to re-create the middle east and the world in their own sick vision.
The president has said this sort of thing before - it's time to get back on message.
Posted by slublog at July 13, 2007 09:22 AM
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What was FDR's domestic agenda? To perpetuate the welfare state, introduced by himself. Indeed, WWII made it a permanent fixture, more through the Republicans' inability to focus on its elimination than through anything FDR had to do.
Posted by: steveegg at July 13, 2007 02:00 PM
Oh, and don't forget LBJ. A lot of his actions during the Vietnam era were actually driven by his desire to enact "Great Society" and other domestic reforms and doing what he had to politically in order to get them passed.
Posted by: Sinistar at July 13, 2007 03:04 PM
I won't call myself pro-war by any means, but I think we shouldn't leave Iraq to civil destruction.
steeegg, FDR's solution was to give life to a limping animal for a time. His "new deal", it wasn't a permanent solution.
Sinistar, a 'great society' which was domestically about elimination of poverty and racial injustice.
differed from JFK.
Posted by: coldmexican at July 14, 2007 11:00 PM
FDR gave his famous "Four Freedoms" speech in 1941, where he basically laid down his justification for all the welfare programs we enjoy today. But I agree with Slub: I don't think he made much headway after the war started. After he died, however, his wife got the ball rolling again by spearheading the US contribution to the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (in 1948).
The UDHR had 30 articles. Most are reasonable, but check out Article 25:
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
The UN has been trying to get its members to adopt the UDHR as law. President Carter signed the treaty to do just that, but the Senate hasn't ratified it. If we ratify the treaty, all conservative principles regarding domestic spending and entitlements will have been outlawed by international law.
Had it not been for WWII, we'd probably be at that point already.
Posted by: geoff at July 15, 2007 10:31 AM
Had it not been for WWII, we'd probably be at that point already.
If we hadn't have gotten into WWII when we did, we'd probably be discussing this in German. Then again, we probably wouldn't be.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at July 15, 2007 10:15 PM
I give FDR credit for reinventing class envy politics.
Dinesh dSouza argues that Reagan was successful with two or three big things (tax reduction, rebuilding the military, and fighting communism) because he didn't allow himself to be distracted by other things. So much so he couldn't remember who his secretary of HHS was (he didn't care). I buy that theory.
Slubs, where was the HA debate?
Posted by: Dave in Texas at July 16, 2007 05:04 PM
-Warm Regards,
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