{"id":6808,"date":"2006-08-22T12:58:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-22T19:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=6808"},"modified":"2006-08-22T12:58:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-22T19:58:00","slug":"not-leaving-is-not-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=6808","title":{"rendered":"Not Leaving is Not Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post<\/i> characterized<\/a> President Bush’s words for the press pool<\/a> as “impassioned,” causing Townhall’s Mary Katherine Ham<\/a> (guest host of Vent yesterday <\/a>and today<\/a>) to quip, “What, not cuckoo or angered-by-his-utter-defeat-and-imminent-demise?”\n<\/p>\n

\nYou can watch the video of Bush’s remarks here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\nAs you’ll see, Bush remains (as is his signature stance) determined and resolute, but for some of the GWOT’s most stalwart early supporters, steady conviction is no longer enough.  What they want to see is action—and for many, the US \/ Israeli capitulation to Hezbollah via the UN cease fire agreement, coupled with Iran’s blustery and confident intransigence, is sending all the wrong signals. \n<\/p>\n

\nWell, unless of course you’re one of those who is actively cheering on a US\/Bushco failure so that we can return to those pre-911 salad days, when history ended and Presidents played the sax and mixed in a hummer with their US\/Chinese diplomacy.\n<\/p>\n

\nHere’s Allah’s take:<\/p>\n

\n

It ends with a question, the answer to which is in serious doubt even among righty bloggers. Foremost among them is Moran in this widely-linked piece<\/a> which says it\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s time to crap or get off the pot. The Commissar<\/a> and Rusty<\/a> are dejected too, as, of course, is the high priest of civilizational pessimism, Mark Steyn<\/a>. Watching the clip, one gets the impression that Bush thinks staying put is, in itself, a form of victory instead of a mere precondition. His resolve is admirable, but it would be a lot more admirable if it applied not just to things we shouldn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t be doing, like pulling out, but to things we most assuredly should<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nI’m not quite so pessimistic as Allah, et al—but I do agree that we don’t appear<\/i> to be doing what we need to be doing to win the GWOT, though as I said last week, I think Bush’s use of “Islamic Fascism” was a nice (belated) move in the right direction.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt could simply be misplaced faith and optimism on my part, but I feel like there almost must<\/i> be things going on in the background that we’re not seeing.  Otherwise, I’d be despairing, too.\n<\/p>\n

\nBecause if this is it—if all we can manage politically at this point, even with someone as stubborn Bush in office, is to declare victory by staying the course—then our adversarial press and the cynical opportunists on the left (with an assist from the nativists on the paleocon right) will have shown the world that America is indeed the weak horse, crippled by its own inner tensions and power struggles, and by the soft transnational leftism that, by controlling the narrative and sowing seeds of manipulated dissent, pushes us ever closer to its goal of turning the US into a kind of European satellite nation and prevents us from committing to the kind of difficult, long-term projects that may just affect the kind of change necessary to stave of an otherwise inevitable worldwide conflagration brought about by an emboldened and resolute Islamism.\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd I’m just not ready to live with that.\n<\/p>\n

\n****
\n
\nSee also, McQ<\/a>, Mark Coffey<\/a>, and James Joyner<\/a>.  Lots of calls for Rumsfeld’s ouster—a position I don’t happen to share, but one for which the arguments are worth considering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post characterized President Bush’s words for the press pool as “impassioned,” causing Townhall’s Mary Katherine Ham (guest host of Vent yesterday and today) to quip, “What, not cuckoo or angered-by-his-utter-defeat-and-imminent-demise?” You can watch the video of Bush’s remarks here. As you’ll see, Bush remains (as is his signature stance) determined and resolute, but for some of the GWOT’s most stalwart early supporters, steady conviction is no longer enough. <\/p>\n

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