Axis of feeble

May 11th 2006
The Economist

With Mr Blair weakened and his own political capital trickling away, Mr Bush will find it harder to trust his own instincts, let alone rise Churchill-like to the challenges in the remaining two and a half years of his presidency. Critics of the improbable partnership—those who think Mr Bush and Mr Blair overreacted to September 11th, lied their way into Iraq, trampled over law and liberties and inflamed the very clash of religions that Osama bin Laden was so keen to ignite—will rejoice. In a world of one superpower, some say, people are safer when its president is too weak for foreign adventures.

They are wrong. That Mr Bush has made big mistakes in foreign policy is not in doubt. He oversold the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, bungled the aftermath, betrayed America’s own principles in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, ignored Mr Blair’s pleas to restart peace diplomacy in Palestine. But America cannot fix any of these mistakes by folding its tents and slinking home to a grumpy isolation. On the contrary. In his belief that America needed to respond resolutely to the dangers of terrorism, tyranny and proliferation, Mr Bush was mainly right. His chief failures stem from incompetent execution.

What is required when Mr Bush’s term ends is a president no less committed to the exercise of American power when it is necessary, and no less willing to rise to external threats. Perhaps that will be a John McCain or a Hillary Clinton.

Hillary “Morally Correct” Clinton hasn’t had much to say about the war lately. She has, however, been up to her usual preaching, this time injecting her comments with lame-ass culture-war crap—now she’s complaining that our young people don’t know the meaning of the word “work.” And as usual, she has found a culprit that “everyone” can agree on (emphasis mine):

The former first lady blamed cable TV, high-speed Internet, cellphones and iPods for creating a culture that “really argues against hard work. It’s a culture that has a premium on instant gratification.”

Please. Please.

Meanwhile McCain, with loftier matters on his mind, made a stirring speech down in Falwell-Land.

I supported the decision to go to war in Iraq. Many Americans did not. My patriotism and my conscience required me to support it and to engage in the debate over whether and how to fight it. I stand that ground not to chase vainglorious dreams of empire; not for a noxious sense of racial superiority over a subject people; not for cheap oil; — we could have purchased oil from the former dictator at a price far less expensive than the blood and treasure we’ve paid to secure those resources for the people of that nation; not for the allure of chauvinism, to wreak destruction in the world in order to feel superior to it; not for a foolishly romantic conception of war. I stand that ground because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country’s interests and values required it….

Americans deserve more than tolerance from one another, we deserve each other’s respect, whether we think each other right or wrong in our views, as long as our character and our sincerity merit respect, and as long as we share, for all our differences, for all the noisy debates that enliven our politics, a mutual devotion to the sublime idea that this nation was conceived in – that freedom is the inalienable right of mankind, and in accord with the laws of nature and nature’s Creator.

Like Andrew Sullivan, I’m a little bit of a sucker for McCain. I’m left-ish, and I disagree with many of McCain’s political positions and some of his moralistic campaigns. What I like is his unabashed love of his country despite its many, deep flaws.

It’s a breath of Reagan-esque fresh air, and I think that those who ignore or downplay the importance of McCain’s esprit de corps (bleeding heart liberals, New York Times, Democrats, libertarians, netroots folk, the anti-Bush mob, I’m talkin’ to you) do so at their own peril.