Posted by
ClearCommentary.com on Tuesday, July 01, 2008 3:32:34 PM
Writing in today's Boston Globe, Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international affairs at Boston University, presents the left's case against the Bush Administration's legacy. It's a lengthy piece you're welcome to wade through, but the result faithfully mirrors liberalism's curioiusly scripted view of the past seven years. Absent from his condemnation is any hint of understanding that President Bush was heir to his predecessor's missteps and outright failures.
Bacevich begins with a writ of charges against Mr. Bush, which range from his declaration that this is an 'age of terror,' to instituting a policy of pre-emption against radical Islam, to supporting 'power projection' as the most reliable foil against would-be foes, all of which clarifies that every action Bush has taken was not only logical in terms of safeguarding America, but was the direct result of the willful indifference President Clinton demonstrated in dealing with this nascent enemy.
Charging Mr. Bush with "Enhancing the prerogatives of the imperial presidency on all matters pertaining to national security" has the catchy populist ring of an executive out of control. Until you consider his alleged sins, among which are warrantless wiretaps for suspected or known al-Qaeda operatives, which a sizeable majority of Americans support. Moreover, the charge of "expanding the national security state" would be laughable were it not palpably naive. What, pray tell, would the professor have us do when three percent of Muslims worldwide (or 1.4 million) have sworn the destruction of the United States?
The only true statement in his paean to liberalism is that his litany of criticism "has yet to garner mainstream attraction," and it won't because Bush's strategic blunders in Iraq aside, most Americans want him to aggressively protect the nation against radical Islamists and, unlike liberal academic elites such as Bacevich, they understand the threat is real.
For Bacevich, the 90s might well not have existed, since he seems to be conveniently overlooking the incubational process in those years leading up to 9/11. It's that historical vacuum and denial of unequivocal patterns that proved, for those not predisposed to filter them out, that the West generally, and the U.S. specifically, is in the crosshairs of a pernicious and savage foe, the Islamic extremists.
Sometime during the liberals' rush to eviscerate our core traditional values from the civic landscape, the novel idea that a president is obligated to protect the nation became vilified. Along with stigmatizing authority and judgment, the left has successfully undermined the Truman-Kennedy-Reagan strategy of facing our enemies rather than appeasing them.
It's a view of the world that fictionalizes evil and leads the likes of Bacevich to assert that Obama can advance his candidacy by stating such banalities as "Bush has put the country on a path pointing to permanent war...". Imagine the response in early 1944, when the outcome of the war was still uncertain, had either party staked out a position with a charge such as that against President Roosevelt.
Bacevich leaves us with this final recommendation for Obama:
By articulating a set of principles that will safeguard the country's vital interests, both today and in the long run, at a price we can afford while preserving rather than distorting the Constitution, Obama can persuade Americans to repudiate the Bush legacy and to choose another course.
Unburdened with the responsibility of defining that set of principles is just in a day's work for a history professor who lives in a consequence-free world. Indeed, rather than being obligated to define precisely how President Bush has "distorted the Constitution," Bacevich is free to merely assert it, which confirms that for the left, how one feels about a policy supersedes its merits.
Our nation's political system is predicated on two strong, opposing parties with clearly articulated and credible policy positions. But when one party's ideas have failed to keep intellectual pace with the world, in particular in the area of foreign affairs, it's not only unhealthy for the electorate, it's probable that it will be denied the reigns of power.