Impolitic

The New Republic Online ^ | Martin Peretz

[oldtimer2]

Impolitic

Martin Peretz Post date: 06.16.05

It's a terrible risk in my environment to write anything positive about George W. Bush. When I do, my wife treats me as if I am a bit ill. My children (grown) are reluctant to introduce me to their pals. The phone stops ringing, except when there are nasty people on the other line. I get snubbed at dinner parties. Friends humor me, apparently hoping that this is just a phase--"Rather like," said a professor of law at the University of Texas, "when you went off the deep end and supported aid to the Contras." I didn't remind her that the Sandinistas actually lost an internationally supervised election.

I want to say something favorable about Bush again. It is this: He seems to me to have completely transcended the biases of gender and race in his appointments. Oh, he has his prejudices: He wants his appointees to be a certain sort of conservative. But no one can deny that he has broken the glass ceiling for women and blacks and Latinos in the executive and judicial branches. This is an embarrassment for Democrats who, like their present chairman, still attribute bigotry wholesale to Republicans. Well, Bush is a Republican who isn't bigoted: He has put his foreign policy in the hands and head of a female African American. This is not without some risk. Imagine the inner challenge to Saudis and other Arabs who encounter Condoleezza Rice as the plenipotentiary of the most powerful country on earth. You get an inkling of what that might feel like from the Arab saying that "a black face begins a black day." And just look at the proliferation of minorities among generals. Many of these decencies are the work of the hated Donald Rumsfeld.

[oldtimer2]

Martin Peretz is editor in chief of New Republic. He is beginning to get it. Maybe there is still a chance for other reasonable Democrats to get it. Notice the first paragraph. As Rush says, these people don't know anyone who is a Republican.

[lilylangtree]

Sounds like family, friends and coworkers leave a lot to be desired.