June 22, 2007
"Clarion of freedom"
Sorry, I'm probably out of the mainstream here, but I think you all oughta appreciate George W Bush now, because you aren't going to see his like again in your lifetime. And in about 20 years, when he's regarded as bigger than Reagan, you will have to scurry over and pretend you gave him heartfelt support all along...
This happened weeks ago, but just came to light today...
By Robert D. Novak
Thursday, June 21, 2007; Washington Post:
On May 31, President Bush met for 35 minutes in the private living quarters of the White House with Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Hong Kong, in an event that was not announced and did not appear on his official schedule. Their meeting did not please the State Department, elements of the Catholic hierarchy and certainly not the Chinese government. But it signifies what George W. Bush is really about.
In Hong Kong, Zen enjoys more freedom to speak out than do his fellow bishops in China proper, and he has become known as the spiritual voice of China's beleaguered democracy movement. Since Hong Kong was handed over to Beijing by the British government in 1997, he has increasingly called for both religious freedom and democracy in China. Consequently, the China desk at the State Department in Washington and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing contended that, for the sake of Sino-American relations, it would be a bad idea for the president to invite the cardinal. So did some of Zen's fellow cardinals.
So, why did the president invite him? The fact that no news of the session leaked out for two weeks indicates that this was no political stunt to revive Bush's anemic poll ratings. The president got divided counsel from his advisers regarding the impact the meeting would have on China's rulers. As he nears the end of a troubled presidency, Bush as a man of faith places the plight of the religious in unfree countries at the top of his agenda...
Cardinal Zen! And the cowboy! Two titans. This must have hit State Department commies and certain Vatican Euro-weenies like being doused with pails of ice-water. Makes me cackle and grin. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Charlene says, "They have no clue what's going on." That's for sure.
...But more important to Bush than advice from a college chum is what he believes, as the difficult days of what has been an unpopular presidency dwindle. He met in Washington last year with dissident "House Christians" from China. Speaking in Prague, a week after his talk with Zen, Bush affirmed his position on the side of religious dissidents everywhere: "Freedom is the design of our Maker, and the longing of every soul."...
...Bush asked Zen whether he was the "bishop of all China." Replying that his diocese was just Hong Kong, Zen told Bush of the plight of Catholics in China, including five imprisoned bishops. The cardinal is reported by sources close to him to have left the White House energized and inspired. George W. Bush is at a low point among his fellow citizens, but he is still a major figure for Catholics in China who look to him as a clarion of freedom....
"but he is still a major figure for Catholics in China who look to him as a clarion of freedom..." Got news for you, kiddos. People all over this planet think the same thing. Just as prisoners in the Gulag used to pass scraps of paper with Reagan's words of freedom on them, people are passing the words and deeds of George W Bush right now. And Reagan came through for the hundreds of millions who were oppressed by communism, despite everything the Democrats and pacifists and realists doing everything they could to keep them enslaved.
And the same thing is happening now. As always, the process is messy and bloody and slow, but the Freedom Train is rolling, and the Democrats and sneering leftists and diplomats and Quakers won't be able to stop it.
Posted by John Weidner at June 22, 2007 05:21 PMI have no doubt that he'll be remembered as one of the great ones...Truman had Bush-level approval ratings as well - but his successors took the policies he set and saw them through. We can only hope those who follow Bush are wise enough to do the same thing...
All good sentiments...but remember, the spin machine will be working overtime. Even though Bush's policies will be adopted by future administrations the media will make sure that everyone knows they aren't really Bush's policies. They're nuanced versions that the idiot cowboy could never grasp, and besides Cheney was his VP, so clearly he was evil.
But eventually terrorism will be defeated by globalization, democracy and free markets, and some historian, probably after we're all dead, will discover in some archive that Bush made a lot of speaches saying that we need to defeat terrorism with globalization, democracy and free markets. Then, and only then, will history begin to look kindly on him.
Posted by: Mike Plaiss at June 22, 2007 08:19 PMI don't think Bush will be remembered as a great President. Upper middle, most likely. The problem is that Bush makes these kind of gestures (like his speech at the dedication of the memorial to the victims of Communism) but he doesn't follow through with policy, as Reagan did.
For instance, why would any one at State feel like he was doused because Bush did this? Are any of them going to get fired, demoted, or even spoken harshly to for undermining this gesture with policy as usual? No, and they know it.
And just look at all non-effort in Iran, the lack of any counter-regime programming and information (and that for one of the "Axis of Evil"). Or the current sucking up the PLO. His heart might be in the right place, but his planning is nowhere.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at June 22, 2007 08:24 PMYou make some very good points and I have certainly been very frustrated with Bush at times (no one is ever going to call him "The Great Communicator"), but he sure as hell has followed through in Iraq. Could he have done it better - in hindsight? Yes, but name a war where that wasn't true.
Given what the Democrats and the media have thrown at him it would take a Lincoln to truly do all that is necessary. And while I still think Bush will be remembered well, he's no Lincoln, and I doubt we could ever have one now.
Posted by: Mike Plaiss at June 22, 2007 09:13 PMI don't want to mix it up too much, but I disagree with the assessment that Bush has followed through in Iraq. The real point of that, as stated in Bush speeches, was to be the vanguard of democratic change in the Middle East. Certainly, that would be a bold policy, the equivalent of how Reagan confronted Soviet Communism. That you think it was just about Iraq is a perfect of example of lack of follow through, even rhetorically. The real centers of the opposition are Iran and the Saudi Entity, and where is Bush on those?
Now, I don't want to dismiss the internal opposition that Bush faces, even worse (IMHO) than Reagan faced, but what makes a great President great is overcoming that sort of thing. Bush has not done that. I wouldn't rate him as a failure because of that, but great? No.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at June 23, 2007 12:15 PMActually, I'm more often in a mood recently to agree with AOG here. But learning of the meeting with Card. Zen was a thrill, because I know that a bunch of people had spinning heads over it. Bush has started more good things than any President I can remember. And now lots of them look like they are dead in the water. He'll be considered great if it turns out that he's set the agenda and momentum for the next few decades.
A president or Secretary of State, by the way, cannot fire or discipline employees of the State Dept. (A pity Bush didn't spend some political capital fixing that one, but fixing SS is probably easier.) The one thing a President can do is spoil their plots, and pursue his own foreign policy despite them.
Posted by: John Weidner at June 23, 2007 12:55 PM...and let's not fetishize Reagan here either. Don't forget that Mr. Won't Negotiate With Terrorists did...that Mr. Tough Guy turned tail Clinton-style in Beirut.
I think folks are comparing Reagan, as seen 20 years later, with Bush, as seen -1.5 years later...no president is perfect - but VERY few are as consistent as GWB has been...
Posted by: Ethan Hahn at June 23, 2007 09:18 PM
