Losing Our Bearing

As usual The Anchoress hits the nail on the head when it comes to Bush:

A much-esteemed, long-neglected friend sent an email this morning, which was delightful to recieve. At one point he mentioned this post from yesterday and wrote: I think (President Bush) has lost his bearings. but then, so did Moses from time to time, it’s quite understandable.

That made me wonder a little – has President Bush lost his bearings, or have we? Is it President Bush who has broken faith with “his base” or have they?

When I read my friend’s line, I thought of a line from Pride and Prejudice, in which Elizabeth Bennett says in new appreciation of Mr. Darcy, “In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was.”

Perhaps I am a dim bulb, but President Bush has never surprised me, and that is probably why I have never felt let down or “betrayed” by him. He is, in essentials, precisely whom he has ever been. He did not surprise me when he managed, in August of 2001, to find a morally workable solution in the matter of Embryonic Stem Cells. He did not surprise me when, a month later, he stood on a pile of rubble and lifted a broken city from its knees. When my NYFD friends told me of the enormous consolation and strength he brought to his meetings with grieving families, I was not surprised.

[...]There were no surprises in President Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan to battle AlQaeda. There were no surprises when he went after an Iraq which everyone believed had WMD, an Iraq that had tried to assassinate an American President, an Iraq whose NYC consul did not lower its flag to half-mast after 9/11.Actually, there was one surprise. He did surprise me by going back to the UN, and back to the UN, in that mythical “rush to war” we heard so much about. But then again, the effort in Iraq was never as “unilateral” as it had been painted.

President Bush did not surprise me when, faced with the scorn of “the world community” and those ever-ready A.N.S.W.E.R. marches which sprang up condemning him and Tony Blair, he stood firm. A lesser man, a mere politician, would have folded under such enormous pressure. I was not surprised when Bush did not.

[...]It never surprised me that Yassar Arafat, formerly the “most welcomed” foreign “Head of State” in the Clinton White House was not welcomed – ever – to the Bush White House.I wasn’t surprised by the, not one, but two tax cuts he got passed through congress, or the roaring economy – and jobs – those tax cuts created. I wasn’t surprised when he killed the unending farce that is the Kyoto treaty (remember, the thing Al Gore and the Senate unanimously voted down under Clinton?), or when he killed U.S. involvement in the International Criminal Court, or when he told the UN they risked becoming irrelevent, or when he told the Congress and the world, “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.” Not surprising.

[...]Let me tell you what has surprised me about George W. Bush. I have been surprised by his ability to keep from attacking-in-kind the “public servants” in Washington who – for five years – have not been able to speak of the American President with the respect he is due, by virtue of both his office and his humanity, because they are entralled with hate and owned by opportunism. I have been surprised that he has kept his committment to “changing the tone” even when it has long been clear that the only way the tone in Washington will ever change is if everyone named Bush or Clinton or Kennedy is cleared out and “career politicians” are shown the door and – it must be said – every university “School of Journalism” is converted to a daisy garden, maaaan. We are stardust. We are golden.[...]And now, the Great Big Immigration Imbroglio of ‘06 has turned “the base” quite vicious. President Bush is no longer simply a moron or an idiot to his base, he is a bad man. He is a bad American. He is a bad president. Everything he does now, is wrong. As yesterday’s WSJ pointed out, Bush is closer to the deified Ronald Reagan on this issue than anyone on the right wants to admit. And they’d never do to Reagan what they are doing to Bush.

[...]President Bush’s immigration policies have not changed materially since he was Governor of Texas. You folks knew that when you elected him, twice. He has not changed, cannot change, because his policies arise not from his poll numbers but from his convictions and his conscience. You used to love that about him. Can everything, everything that needs to be done BE done, and all as you would have it done, in the real world, a world of bitter bipartisanship and a corrupted press?

[...]Here is a question, and I’ll be writing on it some more during the week, but start thinking about it, now: HOW DO YOU RECEIVE A GOOD?

How you receive a good has a lot to do with whether any more “good” comes your way. The Conservatives got a “good” in 2000 and 2004; they’re receiving it very badly, indeed. I think the “throwing under the bus of George W Bush:” by “the base” is one of the most shameful things I have ever witnessed in all my years of watching politics, from both sides of the political spectrum.

I have said much the same as The Anchoress has, albeit with less eloquence, but the substance remains the same. The man we elected has not made choices that should surprise ANYONE. He has performed admirably in my opinion and will go down as an excellent President who saw us through some very tough times and we came out of it winning many battles in the long War against Terror, with a strong economy, with some GREAT judges on the bench and a strong national defense.

While I disagree with some of his views on immigration, overall he has done an outstanding job and I will not be a part of throwing him under the bus like a spoiled rotten little kid.