Posted on 05/04/2003 4:19:05 PM PDT by Chi-townChief
Conservative commentators in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere have been asking why so-called liberals have been made so glum because of America's victory in Iraq. No longer is there a need to ask. I know why.
It's a variant of the self-help notions found in ''When Bad Things Happen to Good People'': ''When Bad Things Turn Out to be Good for Questionable People.''
George W. Bush wasn't enjoying a successful presidency before 9/11. On Sept. 10, 2001, half of his administration was implicated in the corporate scandals that were finally getting their moment in the sun. Bush's one victory--the large tax cut for the wealthy--was beginning to look not so victorious as the economy continued to sour. The fallout from the 2000 election was still falling. The president often looked not-so-presidential; he had been relegated to friendly grade-school audiences, where he could count on respectful treatment. And it was on such a stage that Bush learned about the attack on the World Trade Center.
It isn't just leaders who rise to the occasion when something terrible happens--those who are led rise up and want their leaders to succeed: They are receptive to any show of strength and resolve. So, after a rocky start, Bush began to appear presidential. National traumas such as 9/11, like private ones, often erase history, cause amnesia, leave a clean slate. Bush was given a fresh start, a new contract with the American people.
There is an old Shakespearean formula that pertains: Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Bush's life reflects a version of this: He was born great, insofar he was born to a wealthy and powerful family; he achieved greatness, the governorship of Texas and personal riches with the help of a network of his father's supporters, and managed to acquire the presidency with their help, too. Then with the calamity of 9/11 greatness was thrust upon him, though it was the greatness of the shock to the country's sense of self, our place in the world.
Bush responded with what we have an overabundance of: military might. We trampled Afghanistan in a thus-far fruitless search for Osama bin Laden, while scattering an already scattered al-Qaida, ousting Afghanistan's rulers, returning the country to a fractured version of its pre-Taliban political system, warlords and tribal fiefdoms. Congress passed the Patriot Act, letting the attorney general curb freedoms and rights, and brought about a Homeland Security Department to make everyone feel more insecure, inventing a terrorist warning alert system that has never gone to green--the state of no alert--making sure we never forget that the president is fighting the war on terror.
Then we invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, allegedly to end a national threat armed with weapons of mass destruction, but at this point, more a mission of pure self-sacrifice on the nation's part, freeing a country of a murderous tyrant. Indeed, it's like an adolescent's fantasy of Superman: righting wrongs, smiting evil, bringing truth, justice and the American way to a backward land.
Bush is the perfect embodiment of that dream. Why aren't liberals happy? Isn't the result worth the methods? So what if the president needed to claim Saddam was a threat to national security? He was a threat to our economic and political interests, as they are judged by the Bush administration. Even disasters breed winners and losers, and as Bush has done all his life, he continues snatching victories from defeats.
Bush bent the truth to get us to Iraq and he will go on calling apples oranges in order to get more from his new-found powers of leadership. It is clear that his tax cuts exist not just to give money to the rich, but to take services away from the poor for ideological reasons.
''Fend for yourselves [our friends excepted]'' is the administration's motto.
Baghdad has fallen and next will come the push to sell another bill of tainted goods to the people: privatizing Social Security, privatizing Medicare, etc.--all the domestic shock and awe to follow. Sept. 11 was a boon for Bush. That's why liberals are glum.
worourke@nd.edu
It amazes me how these lefties keep trying to peddle this crap one minute and then trying to act like September 11th never happened the next:
" ... inventing a terrorist warning alert system that has never gone to green--the state of no alert--making sure we never forget that the president is fighting the war on terror."
Who is he taking about besides White? Cheney was never a serious problem in my eyes. And, I thought that Enron and the rest of those scandals broke after 9/11. What say the rest of you?
On Sept. 10, 2001, half of his administration was implicatedLie.
I think about the only one who was even remotely implicated was the army guy who just resigned, and that was only because he didn't want to divest. Everyone else was clean.
Heck, the complaint seemed to be that Bush saw the Enron folks, and then did nothing to cover their graft.
Dear Mr. O'Rourke,
Good catch. Plus, the story didn't get legs untill well after 9/11.
Yep, our defenses are just too damn strong.
I am not sure of the timing. I do know that this fraud started and flourished during the Clinton administration and was uncovered and prosecuted by President Bush's administration.
Wealth and power does all that? Would ANYONE ever consider Unca Teddy - 'great'? Maybe in size...
Just what constitutes rich, and what "services" would the rest of us be losing? I for one would love to defund the Internal Revenue "Service", that would more than pay for any tax cuts.
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