George Bush, in his weekly radio address, gave one of the whiniest speeches of his career when he pouted that the Democrats were micromanaging the conflict. The whole speech was nothing but the same tired old politics as usual from a President who cannot take no for an answer.
All of this reminds me more and more of a teenager defying his parents. “Johnny, you can’t go out with your friends because last time, you were out too late.” “NO!” “Johnny, you’re 16, but we can still tell you what to do.” “MOM, You’re so mean!! All you ever do anymore is tell me what to do!!”
So, what is the next logical step of this? Take away the keys. Bush, of course, is the whiney kid trying to pout his way into staying out later at night. The parent is us, trying to exercise our authority over that teenager. What will this parent choose?
The fact of the matter is that if you fail to take the keys away from your wayward teenager, that kid will not learn what his boundaries are. They will think you are just nagging and making suggestions and that you don’t really mean business.
And at some point in time, the Democrats will have to show Bush that they mean business. But the problem is that some of the Blue Dogs are like the permissive parent whose no really means that if you beg for it 10 times, the answer is yes. That is why, just like we need to get rid of overly permissive parenting, we need to get rid of the overly permissive “Democrats” who are afraid of being seen as “too mean” and “not bipartisan enough” when Bush turns to whining and pouting to get his way.
And Bush whines:
Bush said some lawmakers see a chance “to micromanage our military commanders, force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq and spend billions on domestic projects that have nothing to do with the war on terror.”
Since when is spending for Global Warming not a tool against terror? His own Pentagon gave a sombering assessment of what would happen if the worst-case scenario were to happen in the event of global warming. Then, it would be a national security issue.
Or, what if we did not do enough to develop alternative fuels and Al-Qaeda were to take over Saudi Arabia? What would happen to our gas and our oil? How would we be expected to go to work every day?
Mr. Bush is weak on terrorism percisely because he does not want to be bothered with these questions. After all, government does not solve problems; government is the problem. Bush can talk all he wants to about how he is tough on terror. But when it comes down to actually supporting the things that would stop terrorism cold in its tracks, like getting us off of big oil, he opposes the steps that are necessary to do so.
In his weekly radio address, the president said, “Many in Congress say they support the troops, and I believe them. Now they have a chance to show that support in deed, as well as in word.”
Of course we support the troops. And we will support them in deed as well as word by getting them out of the Middle East and protecting our nation against terrorism by getting us off of big oil so that we can bankrupt Bin Laden so that he can never attack us on our soil again.
Bush repeated his promise that his spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan must be approved “without strings and without delay” or he will veto it.
In other words, he whines, “Give me a blank check to do whatever I want, or I will veto it.”
Let’s go back to the parent-teen scenario. If the teen were to repeatedly get speeding ticket with the car, then they have abused that privilege and should not be trusted with the car keys again until they show that they have changed. Or they move out of the house at 18. We would not trust that teen with the car keys when they have violated that trust to such a degree. So, why should we trust Bush when he has violated that trust to such a degree by lying about the jusitification for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and hiring a crooked attorney general who cares about loyalty to party over loyalty to country?
Bush said all of those “arbitrary and restrictive conditions” are unacceptable.
“These restrictions would handcuff our generals in the field by denying them the flexibility they need to adjust their operations to the changing situation on the ground,” he said. “And these restrictions would substitute the mandates of Congress for the considered judgment of our military commanders.”
Well, that is what the Constitution says, not what I say or Congress says. The Constitution mandates congressional oversight of our warmaking and our foreign policy. If Bush has such a problem with the Constitution, then let him come on out and say what his huge problem with the Constitution is, so that we can have a proper debate about it.
And let it be noted that we have never summoned generals home from the battlefield now to explain their conduct of the war like we did with William Westmoreland during Vietnam. If Bush were really interested in seeing this war through to victory, then he would have called a draft, put this country on a war footing, and turned factories into warmaking plants 24/7 so that we could churn out weapons at a rapid rate so that we could have an overwhelming edge in the battlefield. But that is not what is happening. Bush whines about micromanagement on the one hand, but is unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary on the other hand to win the war.
People may give this war their knee-jerk support, but they do not see the urgency about why they should put aside their lives and make the sacrifices that are necessary to make this war succeed. Bush has not called on us to have shared sacrifice like we did when we were really confronted with a threat back in World War II. A just war must have one of two outcomes:
- The war must be easily winnable by our current forces.
- The urgency must be great enough that the whole country would be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve victory.
As a corollary to #1, no military occupation can succeed without the consent of the governed. In fact, no occupation can qualify as #1. If the objective is occupation, then the urgency must be great enough that we as a country are willing to work as a country with a single-minded purpose to achieve this victory. Iraq, of course, never had that kind of urgency and never would have.
The whole point is that Bush forfeited the privilege of being able to whine about how our commanders are not given enough flexibility when he refused to call on this nation to make the sacrifices necessary to see this occupation through. By failing to call on this country to develop a sense of shared sacrifice — including sending Barbara and Jenna into the Armed Forces — he pronounced judgement on himself when he whined that the Democrats were not going to give his commanders the resources they needed.
“Congress must not allow debate on domestic spending to delay funds for our troops on the front lines,” the president said. “And members should not use funding our troops as leverage to pass special interest spending for their districts.”
Well, what is this invasion and occupation of Iraq, if not putting special interests of the Neocons over the interests of the American people? He is even putting the special interests of a cabal of nationalistic extremists over the priority of fighting and catching terrorists. If he were really as against special interests as he says he is, then he would not have called off the pursuit of Bin Laden, outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, and gone to Iraq at the behest of the Neocons. This whole invasion and occupation is the same kind of pandering to special interests that he says he’s against.
