Posted by
Zentrist on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 9:07:43 PM
The first man who comes to mind is George W. Bush. Right, wrong--or something "grey" and "in-between," our previous president proved his political courage by engaging Saddam Hussein in a war to prevent big problems down the road. At that time, he easily could have led the country in quite a different direction. Namely, he could have focussed on Afghanistan and let Saddam alone. The energy he used to build up support for war there, in Iraq, could have been channeled into a laser-like concentration on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Let's leave aside the question whether this would have been the thing to do. Instead, let's ask, What would his poll numbers have looked like had he chosen not to invade Iraq? My point is a mere intuition: the president would not have suffered in the Gallup ratings had he failed to "conquer" Iraq, albeit for the people of that complicated place. More to the point at issue: the energy that was in fact used to start this epic-scale war has turned on itself--so much so that most people now think the effort was mistaken. Or that the results have not been proportionate to the disturbing costs in blood and treasure. We hear now that over 100,000 civilians have been killed, thus far, in this horrific campaign. Yet, in spite of that fact, or in part because of it, what Bush and Cheney did took great poltical courage. It is worth repeating in different words--it would have been much easier not to do this.
Yet, they chose not only to do it, but to persevere in the most noble way, once the effort had been begun; and especially after "impending doom" began to rear its ugly head. Not only that, Vice President Cheney continues to argue the case, and, by the way, not in an "angry" way, as our always-distorting press has said. I've seen the interviews. He is just stating the case, defending the Administration. I've not seen any "anger." Heroism, yes. Anger, no.
Now, on an equally epic and perhaps tragic scale, President Obama is matching, in a way, the political courage evinced by George Bush and Dick Cheney. Only in this case, the lives of millions of civilians could be at risk. I mean, our grandchildren. If the Steve Moores of the world, or let me pick on a former candidate of character, Steve Forbes--if these supply-siders are right, then the Obama budget is nothing more and nothing less than impending doom. The health care plan is a disaster in the making. The bailouts are going to land us in a catastrophe of world-historic proportions.
******************************************************************************************************
The term, "political courage," was used today by Charles Krauthammer on the cable show, The Fox All Stars, my favorite program. The great former psychiatrist answered the question he himself posed, Why haven't we curtailed oil consumption--instead of the way we've been doing it--by implementing his, and others', well-thought-out gasoline tax? (See the Weekly Standard article on this that appeared last year, during four-dollar-per-gallon months.)
His answer, which I agree with completely and how could anyone not? "Because no one has the political courage to propose it."
The lesson I draw from this pathetic state of affairs is perhaps an equally pathetic maxim: IN DEMOCRACIES WE GET THE LEADERSHIP WE DESERVE.
But I'm not going to leave it there because I still like and admire, encourage and pray for--our courageous president, Barack Hussein Obama.
I would add only one more thing at this juncture. No, two things. First, I highly recommend anything Cal Thomas writes, but especially his very fair-minded article on the Notre Dame speech. Second, having watched the video of this magnificent speech, I'm extremely proud to be a Catholic American, a member of the "gang" so beautifully represented by one of the greatest institutions of all time, Notre Dame University. I say this as a believing, pope-admiring, admittedly aging and therefore not-so-passionate...Roman Catholic (see the recent article in Time on-line--on the Vatican's response to the Obama Phenomenon generally).