Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Bush’s State of the Union

I must confess that I had no desire to watch the president’s State of the Union address this evening. I am sick of hearing the carping and slamming of this man who has done noble work on the state of our union. Is he perfect? Has he done everything right? Of course not, but he is a man of conviction who has gotten an awful lot right, despite what his critics have claimed since he took office. One would think in light of the pressure and constant drip of negative that he would be bedraggled or show some of the wear and tear of the office. He has not.

I was impressed by his conviction that the war on terror, and in Iraq, is something we cannot simply turn away from and wish away. As he stated:

This war is more than a clash of arms -- it is a decisive ideological struggle, and the security of our nation is in the balance.


I am reminded of other statesmen in history who spoke truth about great ideological struggles and faced ridicule, including Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan. The pacifists and isolationists were wrong then and they are wrong now. Thank God there are leaders of conviction who understand that leadership is not about following polls, but about standing on conviction. President Bush is one of those, and I believe history will prove him out.

8 comments:

Tom Van Dyke said...

I hope you're right that history will prove Bush out, MDV.

History will prove him not a bad man, as he's so commonly libeled these days, but if we might make a historical comparison to Woodrow Wilson if not Jimmy Carter, perhaps a failed idealist.

In either case, pro or con, he bet on some inherent goodness in man, which history has indicated is always the odds underdog.

But if Bush turns out to be wrong, only a cad would take delight in it.

Evanston2 said...

I don't watch speeches or debates any more. Until my mid-30s, I always watched. What changed? The respect for facts versus "attitude." And by then I'd figured out the media would never give a conservative a fair hearing.
With the Internet you can find out what you want, efficiently, and skip the folderol.
Debates and speeches are rapidly becoming events of interest only to those who are paid to attend or comment on them.

Anonymous said...

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

"Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
-Theodore Roosevelt, 1918

Anonymous said...

Since actually getting you to see the lack of substance in your thought is so hard, I'll just keep throwing quotes. Mostly because I'm bored, but also because I hold no hope of ever being able to engage a fanatic like yourself.

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." - George Orwell

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." - Orwell again

Tom Van Dyke said...

The Roosevelt quote is interesting. He'd just lost a son in WWI, hated Wilson, and was fixing to run for president again when he dropped dead.

The concept that one owes his president only as much loyalty as one's estimation of him is quite faulty, in my view.

If you ever saw The Caine Mutiny, the opposite point is made quite exquisitely.

(BTW, TR thought Wilson was too soft...)

S. T. Karnick said...

Mr. Elliott, we get the point: you disagree. Now, would you be so kind as to knock it off? Thanks in advance.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to vent the echo-chamber. But it needed doing. Most of you have minds that are too valuable to let waste.

S. T. Karnick said...

I appreciate the comments. It's just when they get to the "you're a stupid fanatic" level that I would wish to see a little more generosity of spirit.