He's a worldbeater, all right
Pookie
He's a worldbeater, all right
January 23, 2005
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
I picked up the Village Voice for the first time in years this week.
Couldn't resist the cover story: ''The Eve Of Destruction: George W. Bush's
Four-Year Plan To Wreck The World.''
Oh, dear. It's so easy to raise expectations at the beginning of a new
presidential term. But at least he's got a four-year plan. Over on the
Democratic bench, worldwise they don't seem to have given things much
thought. The differences were especially stark in the last seven days: In
the first half of the week, Senate Dems badgered the incoming secretary of
state, Condoleezza Rice -- culminating in the decision of West Virginia
porkmeister Robert C. Byrd to delay the incoming thereof. Don't ask me why.
Byrd, the former Klu Klux Klan Kleagle, is taking a stand over states'
rights, or his rights over State, or some such. Whatever the reason, the
sight of an old Klansman blocking a little colored girl from Birmingham from
getting into her office contributed to the general retro vibe that hangs
around the Democratic Party these days. Even "Eve Of Destruction," one
notes, is a 40-year-old hippie dirge.
The Democrats' big phrase is "exit strategy." Time and again, their senators
demanded that Rice tell 'em what the "exit strategy" for Iraq was. The
correct answer is: There isn't one, and there shouldn't be one, and it's a
dumb expression. The more polite response came in the president's inaugural
address: ''The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the
success of liberty in other lands.'' Next week's election in Iraq will go
not perfectly but well enough, and in time the number of U.S. troops needed
there will be reduced, and in some more time they'll be reduced more
dramatically, and one day there'll be none at all, just a small diplomatic
presence that functions a bit like the old British ministers did in the Gulf
emirates for centuries: They know everyone and everything, and they keep the
Iraqi-American relationship running smoothly enough that Baghdad doesn't
start looking for other foreign patrons. In other words: no exit.
If you want an example of "exit strategy" thinking, look no further than the
southern "border." A century ago, American policy in Mexico was all exit and
no strategy. That week's President-for-Life gets out of hand? Go in, whack
him, exit, and let the locals figure out who gets to be the new bad guy. If
the new guy gets out of hand, go back, whack him and exit again. The result
of that stunted policy is that three-quarters of Mexico's population is now
living in California and Arizona -- and, as fine upstanding members of the
Undocumented-American community, they've got no exit strategy at all.
By contrast, the British went in to India without an "exit strategy," stayed
for generations and midwifed the world's most populous democracy and a key
U.S. ally in the years ahead. Which looks like the smarter approach now?
''Most Indians Say 'Thumbs Up' To Second Bush Term,'' reported the Christian
Science Monitor this week, "and no, that doesn't mean something rude in
Indian culture.''
The problem with "exit strategy" fetishization is that these days
everywhere's Mexico -- literally, in the sense that four of the 9/11 killers
obtained the picture ID they used to board their flights that morning
through the support network for "undocumented" workers, and only a few days
ago the suspected terrorists supposedly en route to Boston were said to have
entered the country via the Mexican smuggling route. But everywhere's also
Mexico in the more figurative sense -- if you've got a few hundred bucks and
an ATM card you can come to America and blow it up. Everyone lives next door
now. Sept. 11 demonstrated that the paradox of America -- the isolationist
superpower -- was no longer tenable.
That was what Bush accomplished so superbly in his speech: the idealistic
position -- spreading liberty -- is now also the realist one: If you don't
spread it, in the end your own liberty will be jeopardized. "It is the
policy of the United States," said the president, "to seek and support the
growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture,
with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." By the end of his
second term? Well, not necessarily. But what matters is that the president
has repudiated the failed "realism" that showers billions on a friendly
dictator like Egypt's Mubarak and is then surprised when one of his subjects
flies a passenger jet into the World Trade Center.
You'd think the Democratic Party would welcome this: They spent the days
after Sept. 11 yakking endlessly about the need to address "root causes."
But, as the pitiful displays in the Senate hearing made clear, they still
don't comprehend the new world -- abroad or at home. The other day David von
Drehle of the Washington Post did a monster tour of what he called "The Red
Sea" -- Bush country -- and went to almost painful lengths to eschew the
condescension the coastal media elite usually apply to their rare
anthropological ventures into the hinterland. But in the middle of his
dispatch was this quote from Joyce Smith of Coalgate, Okla.: "When Kerry
said he was for abortion and one-sex marriages, I just couldn't see our
country being led by someone like that."
Von Drehle added: ''Later, I double-checked what Kerry had said on those
subjects. During his campaign, he opposed same-sex marriage and said that
abortion was a private matter.''
If the point is that Red Staters are ignorant, double- or even
triple-checking John Kerry isn't the best way to demonstrate it. Insofar as
I understand it, Kerry's view on abortion was that, while he passionately
believes life begins at conception, he would never let his deeply held
personal beliefs interfere with his legislative program. On gay marriage,
likewise. That's why gay groups backed Kerry and why von Drehle's media
buddies weren't running editorials warning that a Kerry presidency would end
"a woman's right to choose": They understood his deeply passionately
personally deep personal passionate beliefs were just an artful but
meaningless formulation designed to get him through election season.
Message: If Kerry's elected, abortions will continue and gay marriage will
happen and he'll be cool with both. Joyce Smith understood that. Von Drehle
seems vaguely resentful that she wasn't dumb enough to fall for the spin
cooked up by Kerry's hairsplitters and enthusiastically promoted by his
media cheerleaders.
There's a big lesson for the Democrats there that goes way beyond the merits
of abortion or gay marriage. On Sept. 11, the world came unspun: There's no
shame in acknowledging, as Condi Rice did last week, that previous policy --
Republican and Democrat -- toward the Middle East is wrong. But there's
something silly and immature about a party that, from Kerry to Boxer to
Byrd, can't get beyond spin, grandstanding and debater's points: Joyce Smith
sees through it, even if David von Drehle thinks it's ingenious. If the
president's speech yoked idealism and realism, that doesn't leave much for
dissenting Dems except their own peculiar combination of cynicism and
delusion.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn23.html
joses...@aol.com
January 23, 2005
Copyright © The Sun-Times Company
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast,
rewritten, or redistributed.UNQUOTE
Kerry actually voted against Miss Rice before he voted against
Miss Rice.
Quintal
<pooki...@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>He's a worldbeater, all right
>
>January 23, 2005
>
>BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
>
>
>
>
>I picked up the Village Voice for the first time in years this week.
>Couldn't resist the cover story: ''The Eve Of Destruction: George W. Bush's
>Four-Year Plan To Wreck The World.''
>
>
>
>Oh, dear. It's so easy to raise expectations at the beginning of a new
>presidential term. But at least he's got a four-year plan. Over on the
>Democratic bench, worldwise they don't seem to have given things much
>thought.
They have the same plan, because it is the same bench. Get a clue.
You picked between Skull and Bones.