An immediate benefit is that, preoccupied by managing the potential natural disaster, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have cover to remain in the background:John McCain tore up the script for his Republican National Convention on Sunday, ordering the cancellation of all but essential opening-day activities as Hurricane Gustav churned toward New Orleans.
"This is a time when we have to do away with our party politics and we have to act as Americans," he said as fellow Republicans converged on their convention city to nominate him for the White House.
On the eve of his convention, McCain positioned himself as an above-politics, concerned potential president determined to avoid the errors made by President Bush three years ago. "I have every expectation that we will not see the mistakes of Katrina repeated," he said.
Bush and Vice President Cheney scrapped plans to address the convention on Monday, and McCain's aides chartered a jet to fly delegates back to their hurricane-threatened states along the Gulf Coast. Campaign manager Rick Davis said the first-night program was being cut from seven hours to two and one half.
Now I am a great admirer of President Bush, who will be remembered as a great President, and of Vice President Cheney, who has been a stalwart defender of our Constitution and our Country against enemies both foreign and domestic, and I think they deserve the enthusiastic cheers that the Convention would have accorded them.
But by foregoing the accolades of a grateful Party, they will make it more difficult for the Democrats to paint the first McCain term as a third Bush term, thus depriving the Dems of what was, I think, the major theme of all of the speeches at their Obamafest in Denver.
I pray that Hurricane Gustav will weaken, and turn back into the Gulf, or dissipate without doing major damage. But I am confident that the weeks to come will see a series of significant "bounces" for Senator McCain and Governor Palin.
"COUNTRY FIRST" AIN'T A SLOGAN FOR MCCAIN; IT'S A WAY OF LIFE.
ReplyDeletei'm a republican and a 22 year member of the army.. currently on active duty.. but i'm not so sure that bush will be remembered fondly and cheney certainly won't be remember as a defender of the constituton. go read thomas paine's "common sense" if you need a refresher on our powers that be and the rights we citizens bestow them.
ReplyDeleteMcCain is making the right choice to postpone the conventions festivities, Will this be twisted into a political manipulation by the Liberals, of course.
ReplyDeleteBut as we've seen, the Liberals were praying that devestation would befall innocent humans to further their own agenda of stopping the Republicans (Micheal Moore, Former DNC chairman Don Fowler). What Don Fowler and Micheal Moore said they were hoping would happen (as they are trying to connect what they said to what Falwell said about 9/11 which was after the fact and reactionary)...these guys are putting politics over human lives.
Where does this end?
With abortion being sold as compassinate because it keeps babies from living lives of sorrow, to hoping people suffer so that you can blame Bush, the Liberals aren't trying to make anyones live better.
Where is Obama at this time of need, nowhere to be seen. McCain was on scene checking up on the progress of evacuations and putting people first, not politics.
wesley:
ReplyDeletethank you for yopur service.
and for blogging since 2002 - when you were ... 16! that's great too.
during ww2, fdr made sure the govt listened to every intl phone call and read every intl telegram without a warrant or fisa. and he put japanese AMERICANS in camps.
but not a single solitary lib will critique him
bushcheney have done far far far FAR less but are harangues as constitutional-attackers and anti-civil rights.
the attacks are idiotic.
during the clinton years we were attacked numerous times abroad and in the homeland by al qaeda. he did nothing.
on 9/11 the holiday from hsitory ended.
bush didn't stop with whacking the taliban with missiles.
we invaded and liberated afghanistan.
and then iraq.
liberating 50 million people.
by historical standards both wars have been magnificently fought. and for good reasons and high, honorable golas.
sure, there have been setbacks and mistakes.
that is war.
d-day was a fiasco on many levels. does that mean fdr and ike were criminally negligent or that counter-attacking agaianst hitler was wrong?
nope.
and BTW: we attacked/invaded NORTH AFRICA first.
er um: they didn't bomb us on 12/7.
by the "logic" of todays' lefties fdr was wrong to attack africa,
and the usa was wrong to "impose" democracy on germany and japan.
which is IDIOTIC and AMORAL.
like the rampant amd facile criticism of bush and cheney by the left/msm/dems.
had kerry been elected IRAN and AL QAEDA would control iraq.
had bush taken OBAMESSIAH'S advice in 2007 the same thing would've happened.
that would have been a disaster for the free world. and only encouraged al qaeda amd iran.
i have NOT been a 100% fan of bush.
he has done many things i do not like.
and had us fought the wars with one hand behind our back.
i voted for him in 2004.
happily.
but - if he were able to run again - i would not vote for him again UNLESS HE RAN AGAINST ANY DEMOCRAT. or any lib or any dove.
God Bless Bush and Cheney and our troops and their families.
AND GOD BLESS AMERICA.
good luck to you, wesley.
stay safe.
do your best.
oh 22 year MEMBER not 22 years old!!!!
ReplyDeleteNOW I gotchya!
thanks again for your amazing service.
Wesley,
ReplyDeleteI know that's how it seems to you now, and I respect your point of view, but I think that decades from now, if the West survives, President Bush will be remembered favorably. The real threats to our liberties come from the barbarians you are fighting. The conditions of the 21st century -- cyberwar, internet transfers of funds, electronic communications, the ability of terrorists to inflict mass casualties -- are not the realities that obtained in the 18th century.
President Bush will not be remembered in the first rank of those who led the defense of the West against the Jihad, men like Charles Martel, Leo III of Byzantium, Don Juan of Austria, and the incomparable Jan Sobieski . . . but he will certainly be among those at the head of the second rank.
May I commend to your attention Jim Kuyper's book "Bush's War"?
And rather than Paine's "Common Sense" or "Rights of Man," you might consider his "Crisis" papers.
Christopher,
ReplyDeleteYou are quite right about the ironies:
"With abortion being sold as compassinate because it keeps babies from living lives of sorrow, to hoping people suffer so that you can blame Bush, the Liberals aren't trying to make anyones live better."
They are, however, trying to make their own lives better. That is, they are seeking more power. They want the power to dictate to us every little detail of our lives . . . what we eat, what we wear, where we live, how we travel . . . they know better than we do about every decision there is to be made . . . but the people aren't buying it.
we'll see which way history falls. it's too early to tell. however, while i'm not against the war in Iraq, I certainly think that it shouldn't have been one of the first targets. IMO, Iran is the center of the terrorist universe. the Iranian revolution caused a battle between shia and sunni about who is the rightful protector of islam. this struggle is the cause of the west being attacked. it is one of the causes of the islamic extremism that we see spreading around the globe. we are currently tied down in a situation that prevents us from doing anything productive in the war on terror. we are spending an enormous amount of treasure killing an unending supply of terrorist foot soldiers while their financiers assault us at will. meanwhile, after a disastrous Sec Def (rummy) failed to see the strategic threat poised by over committing too few troops, we are now starting to realize that we have to increase the end strength of our already undermanned military. it will take 5-10 years to get up to 18 divisions again. Russia has already called us on our weakness and continues it's stranglehold on europe. there is very little we can do about it militarily and NATO certainly isn't up to the task.
ReplyDeleteso how do we win the war on terror with the current cards we have been dealt? another trillion dollar democracy experiment? we'll go broke before we democratize all the countries in the middle east. meanwhile, russia and china are getting rich selling arms to our enemies.
we need to use a realist approach to this problem. drop the idealism and let hell rain down on our enemies. we should start with the governments that are actively funding the terrorist. Iran and Saudi Arabia should be first on the list. we don't need democracies we need leaders that support us AND depend on us.
but guess what? Saudi Arabia has been given a free pass for 8 years. we all know why and it is a reason i'll never vote for anyone with the last name of Bush again.
so, when you dig under the surface, yes President Bush (and i shudder to think how bad things would be under Kerry) did some great things while in office. the economy is great and we haven't been attacked again. however, IMO, the strategic war on terror is a mess and has been from the start because we refuse to name our true enemies for the sake of idealism and family ties.
wesley,
ReplyDeleteI think you are right about a lot of what you say.
I agree that Iran and not Iraq is and was the real nerve center of the Jihad. However, we were still technically at war with Iraq, there were many, many UN resolutions against Iraq, the Coalition was ready to go against Iraq, and every intelligence service in the world thought that Saddam had WMDs that were nearly ready to go.
I agree that we should rain hellfire on our enemies, and that at least half of the ruling family of Saudi Arabia are our enemies.
The whole oil thing is a problem, though. It's not that the USA is dependent on Saudi oil, because we aren't, but Europe is, and the world economy is dependent on stable energy supplies. So until and unless we can get our allies on board, or until and unless we can increase the size of our own military, we can not implement a comprehensive solution.
As you note, one of the major problems, perhaps the major problem, is that our leaders aren't willing to admit that we are caught up in a 1300-year-old war. If we understood that, we would know how to proceed.
Anyway, the point of my post initially was, even though I personally find much to admire in President Bush & Vice President Cheney, the fact that they will not be headlining the first day of the convention is on balance a plus for McCain.
ReplyDelete