Hugh Hewitt MEGA PING!
Posted on 05/22/2002 12:23:23 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
As usual, the elite media is asking the wrong question. Much more interesting than what Bush knew is what Bush didn't know. The list is long.
Bush didn't know that the leadership of the Democratic Party could never be expected to sacrifice its political interest to the national interest, not even after the slaughter of thousands of Americans and the beginning of war.
Bush didn't know that every few weeks a Democratic leader would launch an assault on his conduct of the war in the hopes of nicking the president's huge standing with the public. Whether Biden's "mano-a-mano" laugher, Daschle's "no exit strategy," or Hillary's and Gephardt's bald charges of last week, Bush clearly has been surprised by the McKinney Democrats.
Bush didn't know that, even though the confirmation of his deputy attorney general was stalled by the Senate until May 10, the confirmation of his assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division until June 14, and the confirmation of his commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service until July 31, that he would be blamed for not having cleaned up the mess at Justice in time to prevent 9-11.
Bush didn't know that Robert Mueller, confirmed as director of the FBI on Aug. 2, would get the heat for FBI fumbling instead of Louis Freeh, whose last day as director was June 30.
Bush didn't know that the Beltway punditry, now so eager to label him as inattentive, would collectively forget their fascination with Chandra Levy and Jim Jeffords. Bush didn't know that, even now, when "focus" is so highly valued by the sideline second-guessers, no one is asking whether Jeffords may have been a little too self-absorbed for the country's good. Bush didn't realize that a media that covered for the Gore-Lieberman attempt to strip the votes from the military serving overseas would turn a blind eye to the chaos in the intelligence community created in the locust years of Clinton-Gore.
Bush didn't know that the country's "leading" newspaper would not think twice about headlining a columnist who questioned his courage, as Maureen Dowd did when, in writing about the use of a photo from 9-11 for fundraising she penned: "Fortunately for the Republicans, it's a photo and not a video. Otherwise we might hear the president nervously inquiring of his adult supervisor, 'Hey, Dick, is it safe to come home yet?'" Did the Times, during World War II, wonder aloud about FDR's cloaking his travels to meet with Churchill and Stalin? After Kennedy's assassination, did the Times feature second-guessings about LBJ's every move?
Bush didn't know that Newsweek's Howard Fineman was not only a partisan hack, but also clairvoyant. Fineman's assertions on Hardball on May 16 that the president was not completely surprised by 9-11 because he had been warned by the CIA, and because his jaw did not drop when told of the attack, represent a new low for "journalism" that Bush clearly did not anticipate.
Bush didn't know that his decision to keep George Tenet as head of the CIA in January would not be remembered as an act of continuity and bipartisanship, or that his refusal to fire the Clinton holdover post 9-11 would not be credited as a refusal to scapegoat the previous administration. Bush is clearly surprised at the Democrats' willingness to heap scorn on the FBI and CIA of Clinton's creating even as they try and finger Bush for those agencies' failures.
And Bush is quite obviously taken aback by the Jerry Nadlers of the world, whose own quite obvious internal demons allow them to voice the idea that the country needs to investigate whether a president of the United States would not have acted to prevent the massacre of thousands.
Bush didn't know that Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was not only not around the bend, but that she was an opinion leader of the Democrats. And Bush didn't know that straight-faced Democrats and their buddies in the Beltway media would send up a chorus of demands for a new "commission" to review intelligence failures, even as Democratic staffers leaked the documents the already launched investigation had unfortunately placed in their hands.
Bush didn't know that there are two kinds of conservatives – loyal conservatives and ratings-driven conservatives, and that the former aren't very skilled at combating the Beltway machine and the latter don't want to.
Bush didn't know that many Republicans couldn't tell the difference between a steel tariff and a JDAM, or the difference between a wheat subsidy and the dispatch of special forces to the Philippines and Georgia.
Bush didn't anticipate how quickly a country as spoiled as ours could will 9-11 into the memory hole.
Bush didn't foresee the cravenness of the commenting class, or the capacity of Tom Daschle to be both Iago and Cassius at the same time. Bush couldn't imagine a Patrick Leahy lying or (and forgive him here, no one could see this coming) a Hillary Clinton demanding answers from the White House.
Bush did not know that a Senate that could not understand what the meaning of "is" is, could never understand what the meaning of "war" was.
In short and in summary, President Bush was wholly unprepared for the decadence of D.C. as he found it in 2001.
But then again, so was I, and so apparently are the vast, vast majority of the American people. President Bush has found it prudent to disguise his disgust, but there is no reason why the electorate should. The reckoning is in November, and there is little that Dowd, Fineman et al can do about that.
ELECT MORE SOCIALIST BASTARDS LIKE DA$$HOLE, CLINTOON, GEPHARDLESS, LEAKY LEAHY, BIDEN, DODD AND KENNEDY, THIS NOVEMBER!
Unbelievable.
Why? When we got guys, like Bush and his people doing the Socialists' dirty work. (Look at the recently passed farm bill; Campaign finance; Office of Home Security (what a joke!); Not allowing Pilots to carry in the cockpit; and the list goes on and on and on.....Just to be safe for the elections. The Republicrats are in trouble.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.