I watched Geraldine Ferraro last night on the Neil Cavuto Show as she spouted the Democratic Party line. Bush running around making all these speeches about terrorism (he should never have stopped) is all “about politics.” Other tedious voices of the quondam left are now even saying the Islamist threat is essentially inflated and that reputations of the likes of Khalid Sheik Mohammed puffed up for propaganda purposes. (I wonder how those supposed wizards would feel if their families were in an airplane or a subway car during an attack – sudden conversion out of one of those cheesy Hollywood Bible flicks of the fifties…).
Meanwhile, the war continues and the “fictional” Ahmadinejad is rumored to be trying to speak to the UN General Assembly again after he has continually defied the same organization on nuclear weapons (and the show of Holocuast denial cartoons continues its triumphal run in a gallery in Tehran). And he has a good chance of succeeding. Does anyone think this man isn’t serious? Well, never mind.
The situation is grim. Really grim. The US is not “winning the war on terror.” The war has only begun, as Newt Gingrich, one of the few politicians capable of doing his own writing, says today in a WSJ editorial:
Just consider the following: Osama bin Laden is still at large. Afghanistan is still insecure. Iraq is still violent. North Korea and Iran are still building nuclear weapons and missiles. Terrorist recruiting is still occurring in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and across the planet.
Gingrich is not the first to make comparisons between our times and the Civil War but he does it well.
The first and greatest lesson of the last five years parallels what Lincoln came to understand. The dangers are greater, the enemy is more determined, and victory will be substantially harder than we had expected in the early days after the initial attack. Despite how painful it would prove to be, Lincoln chose the road to victory. President Bush today finds himself in precisely the same dilemma Lincoln faced 144 years ago. With American survival at stake, he also must choose. His strategies are not wrong, but they are failing. And they are failing for three reasons.
(1) They do not define the scale of the emerging World War III, between the West and the forces of militant Islam, and so they do not outline how difficult the challenge is and how big the effort will have to be. (2) They do not define victory in this larger war as our goal, and so the energy, resources and intensity needed to win cannot be mobilized. (3) They do not establish clear metrics of achievement and then replace leaders, bureaucrats and bureaucracies as needed to achieve those goals.
These are issues that far transcend the partisanship of an election year. Yet the media and the pols are locked in the banality of that process. To some degree that’s human nature, to another the laudable workings of a democracy that cannot and should not stop, but to another a blindness that seems frighteningly oblivious to real danger. The political merry-go-round is spinning out of control. The Democratic Party appears to be run by clueless careerists bound to some tired playbook labeled 1972 and the Republicans only slightly (very slightly) better. In this mess, Bush needs to be more courageous and more eloquent. Can he do it? I’d hate to be in his shoes.
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9 Comments
1. ray_g:“…the media and the pols are locked in the banality of that process.”
I contend that this predates 9/11/01, and contributed to the nation’s unpreparedness.
Sep 7, 2006 - 8:02 am 2. David Thomson:George W. Bush and the Republicans are the lesser of evils. Unfortunately, they are the only game in town. The Democrats are mostly disingenuous pacifists. Iím supporting Rudy Giuliani in 2008. In the meantime, few Democrats deserve our support in the current November elections.
Sep 7, 2006 - 8:31 am 3. Ron:No one wants war when there is any possibility to stop it. No, that canít be said anymore can it, Iran wants war or martyrdom and either way they will get their goal, eternal salvation and their 72 houris. The Christians and Jews have been fighting this war for 1400 years for Islam is not a religion of Peace unless you consider the peace of the graveyard such. Its been a continual war all this time, since the inception of Islam, its a war of subjugation, intolerance and forced conversion; it has just flared again.
It took 5 years for President Bush to say who the enemy was, 5years to say Islamic Fascist, not a very good start in a war that will last decades. Not a very good start with one of our major parties ready to throw in the towel to people who used young children to clear mine fields by walking across them during the Iran/Iraqi war. You donít show people like this weakness, they have the steel of a crazed religion or cult in their spines and even if it takes their death they will seek yours for these are the people who ìlove death like you love life.î
We need the shock and awe of a World War 2 type of offensive, they think they can do anything to kill out civilization, to kill us. They have to realize what is to come if they get lucky and take out one of our cities and kill millions of our citizens, we can not let maniacís who have said over and over that they will kill us get away with it, we have to act on the assumption they will do it. The Iranians will either manufacture a bomb or buy one from the North Koreans, the politicians who allow this are remiss in judgment and borders on fecklessness. It must not be allowed to happen.
Sep 7, 2006 - 9:50 am 4. David Thomson:ìIt took 5 years for President Bush to say who the enemy was, 5years to say Islamic Fascist…î
George W. Bush is infected with the virus of political correctness. He simply did not wish to offend the Islamic community. Unfortunately, this has resulting in confusing the majority of American people with his unwillingness to be blunt. Also, he has made himself more politically vulnerable! A more cynical politician would have instinctively realized the benefit in more precisely describing our radical Muslim foes.
I have often remarked that President Bush would be far more effective if were more vindictive like LBJ and Richard Nixon. The guy is just too nice. He needs to be bit more nasty.
Sep 7, 2006 - 10:04 am 5. Captain Hate:“In this mess, Bush needs to be more courageous and more eloquent. Can he do it? I’d hate to be in his shoes.”
I think one of the things that drives the quisling defeatists even crazier is that he shows no sign of being uncomfortable exactly where he is. As David says he should be more forthright in identifying the enemy; as far as eloquent, he usually sounds awkward but his speeches are refreshingly free of gaseous Clintonisms requiring continual parsing and explication.
What was Ferraro doing on Cavuto? Was he interviewing national pols that were married to the Mob?
Sep 7, 2006 - 11:47 am 6. Lem:From the perspective of individuals you can gain some insight into how groups and larger yet – nation states decide to act or not.
This link shows the way someone decided NOT TO ACT against terror.
[sorry, Lem, had to remove your link because it was too long for page. Feel free to repost with Tiny URL. Very long ones break the browser. Roger]
Sep 7, 2006 - 12:32 pm 7. Bruce Wechsler:I think that if Bush “called it like it is” on Islamic Fascism prior to the ‘04 election, he would have lost it or have had another squeaker of a victory that would have weakened him.
So now that his last election is behind him and he has called it like it is, he is justified in his concern that being too aggressive now will hand the White House to the Dems in ‘08.
And I doubt any of us here really know which direction is the better one to bring about a lasting long term victory. Big shoes indeed.
How much ground would we lose (and how hard to make it up) in the long term WOT if the Dems took the white house and summarily lost it after 4 years of fumbling handwringing? Giuliani, or dare I say it, Gingrich, might have a better chance in ‘12 than in ‘08, to play the role of our much needed Churchill.
Sep 7, 2006 - 12:40 pm 8. Terrye:I don’t think Newt Gingrich should be criticizing Bush, after all what did he do to fight these people when he was a big shot in Congress? Back in those days he was a lot more interested in impeaching Clinton than he was in getting Osama Bin Laden.
This is not about Bush not fighting hard enough, this is about people refusing to believe there is a fight. There is only so much one man can do and remain politically viable.
It seems that Newt wants to be president, well let him run and then maybe he can bitch from the front seat instead of the back.
Sep 7, 2006 - 1:24 pm 9. Henry Bowman:Gingrich’s comparison of Bush and Lincoln was really over the top, in my view. The Confederacy was never really a threat to the U. S., despite a couple (disastrous) incursions in the middle of the war. On the contrary, the U. S. was an obvious and real threat to the Confederacy, as was evident by the methods used by both Gen. Grant and Sherman in the occupation. A better comparison might have been Bush and Jeff Davis.
The Islamists, of course, are truly a threat to many Americans, primarily because of more lethal weapons.
Sep 8, 2006 - 5:36 am