Greg Djerejian and Austin Bay wanted to know why President Bush has been subtle about the nature of this war's victory and defeat?
She's an astute writer but Peggy Noonan's lilting condescension is something for which I've never cared. With Peter Robinson, she's the second Reaganite with cold feet over President Bush's address. That Ronald Reagan was as unabashed an advocate for freedom in his own simpler day, thought just as "dreamy" and "over-the-top" as Noonan says Bush is now — like a State Department careerist tearing out her hair after Dutch told Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" — compounds the irony of the 43rd president apprehending the Baghdad dictator the 40th president grimly tolerated.
Noonan opens her book of history, whose first page marks less than sixty years ago, and recites, "Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn't expect we're going to eradicate it any time soon."
If only tyranny were going to be as deliberative as she would see us.
Robinson's own historical contribution reaches back two hundred years but halts at 1823. When Washington and Adams were alive, oceans were boundaries. James Monroe could talk of an aloof America because it was still conceivable. After three modern world wars and September 11th, an electoral majority has finally realized that democracy was never meant to coexist with tyranny. And they've begun to understand, through Noonan's "inebriated" president, that evil is a very real thing — not just a line in a speech performed on the D.C. cocktail circuit. The state, the electorate has learned, was only one way to channel authoritarianism; now that the modern age has empowered the individual, a madman can commit mass murder and conquest without a banner. With the free world's own inventions he can do it exponentially. He will not wait for us.
Poor Robinson and Noonan. It is reluctance and fear of the unknown, instructed by having spent most of one's life before the twin towers fell, that somehow makes freeing the Third World foolhardy and treading water in a rising dictatorial river sensible. As I've said: Knowledge through experience is a double-edged sword: chances are, you've seen it before, but chances are greater that you'll miss something new by mistaking it for what you've seen before.
The president's finest moment was when he declared "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one." We have no choice. We never did. There are those who believe mankind was built for accomplishments, not just trying hard, and I suspect that the president's skeptics are dumbstruck at the most powerful statesman in the world having volunteered an answer to the eternal question of peace on earth — one they were content to leave to someone else. I believe we were meant to face this quandary; to be forced to live freedom by giving others the means to enjoy it themselves. Thanks to God we have a man in charge who, despite all his faults, understands that.
WHY I SUBSCRIBE TO THE MAGAZINE: The Weekly Standard understands, too.
WHAT IS AND ISN'T PRACTICAL: Scott Ott is one of the kindest bloggers. He's also the funniest. Today, he's serious, and spot-on.