en. Georges Boulanger cut a fine figure; he looked splendid in uniform, and magnificent on horseback. So his handlers made sure that he appeared in uniform, astride a horse, as often as possible.Posted on 05/06/2003 5:50:38 AM PDT by Phlap
en. Georges Boulanger cut a fine figure; he looked splendid in uniform, and magnificent on horseback. So his handlers made sure that he appeared in uniform, astride a horse, as often as possible.
It worked: Boulanger became immensely popular. If he hadn't lost his nerve on the night of the attempted putsch, French democracy might have ended in 1889.
We do things differently here — or we used to. Has "man on horseback" politics come to America?
Some background: the Constitution declares the president commander in chief of the armed forces to make it clear that civilians, not the military, hold ultimate authority. That's why American presidents traditionally make a point of avoiding military affectations. Dwight Eisenhower was a victorious general and John Kennedy a genuine war hero, but while in office neither wore anything that resembled military garb.
Given that history, George Bush's "Top Gun" act aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln — c'mon, guys, it wasn't about honoring the troops, it was about showing the president in a flight suit — was as scary as it was funny.
Mind you, it was funny. At first the White House claimed the dramatic tail-hook landing was necessary because the carrier was too far out to use a helicopter. In fact, the ship was so close to shore that, according to The Associated Press, administration officials "acknowledged positioning the massive ship to provide the best TV angle for Bush's speech, with the sea as his background instead of the San Diego coastline."
A U.S.-based British journalist told me that he and his colleagues had laughed through the whole scene. If Tony Blair had tried such a stunt, he said, the press would have demanded to know how many hospital beds could have been provided for the cost of the jet fuel.
But U.S. television coverage ranged from respectful to gushing. Nobody pointed out that Mr. Bush was breaking an important tradition. And nobody seemed bothered that Mr. Bush, who appears to have skipped more than a year of the National Guard service that kept him out of Vietnam, is now emphasizing his flying experience. (Spare me the hate mail. An exhaustive study by The Boston Globe found no evidence that Mr. Bush fulfilled any of his duties during that missing year. And since Mr. Bush has chosen to play up his National Guard career, this can't be shrugged off as old news.)
Anyway, it was quite a show. Luckily for Mr. Bush, the frustrating search for Osama bin Laden somehow morphed into a good old-fashioned war, the kind where you seize the enemy's capital and get to declare victory after a cheering crowd pulls down the tyrant's statue. (It wasn't much of a crowd, and American soldiers actually brought down the statue, but it looked great on TV.)
Let me be frank. Why is the failure to find any evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear weapons program, or vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons (a few drums don't qualify — though we haven't found even that) a big deal? Mainly because it feeds suspicions that the war wasn't waged to eliminate real threats. This suspicion is further fed by the administration's lackadaisical attitude toward those supposed threats once Baghdad fell. For example, Iraq's main nuclear waste dump wasn't secured until a few days ago, by which time it had been thoroughly looted. So was it all about the photo ops?
Well, Mr. Bush got to pose in his flight suit. And given the absence of awkward questions, his handlers surely feel empowered to make even more brazen use of the national security issue in future.
Next year — in early September — the Republican Party will hold its nominating convention in New York. The party will exploit the time and location to the fullest. How many people will dare question the propriety of the proceedings?
And who will ask why, if the administration is so proud of its response to Sept. 11, it has gone to such lengths to prevent a thorough, independent inquiry into what actually happened? (An independent study commission wasn't created until after the 2002 election, and it has been given little time and a ludicrously tiny budget.)
There was a time when patriotic Americans from both parties would have denounced any president who tried to take political advantage of his role as commander in chief. But that, it seems, was another country.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
What actually happened?
Arabic men hijacked four jumbo jet airplanes and crashed three of them into buildings full of people, many of them civilians in a non-military building.
Simple enough?
Oh, PLEASE! Where were Mr.K's criticisms of Clinton whenever the Hippocrit-And-Cheat appeared with the military doing at least the similar photo-op. Krugman's lack of perspective is as obvious as his biases.
Slaves to the fashion trends have now been informed that this was not cool, despite what they initially might have thought. That's a relief! Now they can go back to sipping their Chardonnay (French, of course) and make snide comments about how superior they are in matters of taste to those of us out here in fly-over country.
I do so hope I am called again for a subscription to this rotten paper. I feel the need for another 5-minute speech to the salesperson who calls.
Krugman just can't resist the leftist need to piss on the parade of liberation, which after all has been led almost exclusively by conservative American administrations for the last twenty odd years. The more free and prosperous the world becomes, the more pessimistic and embittered the left becomes. For the record, Mr. Krugman, Iraqis were wailing away at the base of that statue with a sledgehammer previous to the American troops arriving on the scene, but don't let the facts dilute your acid cynicism.
Let me be frank. Why is the failure to find any evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear weapons program, or vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons (a few drums don't qualify — though we haven't found even that) a big deal?
Frankly, it isn't a big deal. It is actually irrelevant. This worried me from the very beginning, and should have been challenged from the start -- that the press fundamentally misreported the substance of U.N. Resolution 1441. They framed the issue as if it was necessary to discover evidence of WMD in order to show that Iraq was in "material breach" of 1441, and that only then would "serious consequences" be justified.
This interpretation was invented by the press. What 1441 actually asserted was that Iraq was already in "material breach" of previous U.N. resolutions. It laid out a process whereby Iraq could get out of this condition. Iraq never even complied with the very first, and essential, step of this process, which was to give a complete and truthful account of the WMD programs last December. The report they did issue was acknowledged to be inaccurate and incomplete both by the inspectors and all security council members.
There is no necessity to show that Iraq (still) had WMD at the time we attacked. The fact that Saddam failed to comply with 1441 was entirely sufficient. An attack on Saddam under the auspices of 1441 was justified at least as soon as the inspectors concluded that his December report was incomplete and full of lies.
It now appears that Saddam may indeed have destroyed much of his WMD, but he still wasn't about to expose the programs and personel to the U.N., or give up the equipment to make more. His obvious intention was to jerk the inspectors around for a few years (or however long it would take) and reconstitute his WMD stores when the heat was off.
The left is just pissed off that he didn't succeed in this.
It it's good enough for Christ, it's good enough for me [when He returns on horseback, so will His believers].
Rev.19:6 And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! 7 "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." 8 And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9 Then he said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!' " And he said to me, "These are the true sayings of God." 10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, "See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." 11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. 15 Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 16 And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
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