"Is the blogosphere turning against Bush? A little," says Andrew Sullivan:
The president is in a lot more trouble than he seems to think. His cocky partisanship Tuesday night was unnerving.I'm a fiscal conservative, social/cultural liberal and foreign policy hawk. Neither party provides a comfortable home for people like me.
The war made my support for Bush stronger than I ever expected. I still admire his courage during that terrible time and respect his tenacity against terror. This time, I'm leaning toward Bush for those reasons but appalled by his fiscal recklessness, worried by his coziness with the religious far right, and concerned that he has no forward strategy in the war. I'm equally concerned about the obvious irresponsibility of the Democrats on national security (and spending) at a time of great peril. But at least they're not going to bait gays . . .
The truth of the matter is that anyone who across the board supports the Democrats or the Republicans is bound to be stuck in various harrowing intellectual binds. Both parties are wrong about tons of stuff. The GOP has all that rightwing Christian crap, and the Dems have shown themselves to be pathetic sissymen in response to all three Bush international police actions (Iraq I, Afghanistan & Iraq II). They whined about them all. And all three nobly intentioned military actions sought to discipline rogue states, using post-Cold War big power consensus (when achievable), the cherished dream of peaceniks since League of Nations. The Bush Wars represent a huge step forward in terms of evolution of collective security/world peace. Sloppy and unpredictable, yes; violent and chaotic, indeed. Sort of like the Wild West justice of Earp and Hickok. But a reasonable beginning, a stab at international law and order (as opposed to Haguestyle student-council justice). But nervous, hypocritical Dems choose to view this as unilateral war-mongering, and act as if they want the efforts to fail, because...well, they want to be back in the White House. How noble.
Posted by: woodlander | May 11, 2004 at 04:39 PM
Well said, woodlander.
Posted by: Sissy Willis | May 11, 2004 at 04:43 PM