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2004-07-29 Home Front: Culture Wars

The Case for George W. Bush i.e., what if he's right?

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Posted by .com 2004-07-29 07:19|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Long article which might best be described as the intellectual journey from easy, complacent, faux outraged Anybody But Bush to realizing he is probably doing the right thing, and even if it means his own political end, he has the will to do it... and if he's right, then there really is a wolf at the door. Oops!

Very well written, chock full of pick-apart LLL memes which, well, mostly get picked apart, more or less. I found the author's journey fairly honest and enlightening. I took the same journey long ago - before the meme existed and the ABB pressure existed as a cause celebre bolstered by forces from both within and without. Stopping the ABB snowball, once you're involved, must be something like quitting smoking or leaving home. Glad I missed it.

Posted by .com 2004-07-29 7:31:32 AM|| 2004-07-29 7:31:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Thanks for noting that article. I am printing it out now to add to the 200+ pages of documentation I am giving to my brother to try to restore his sanity after he drank the Mecca Moore Kool-Aid.

Posted by DanNY 2004-07-29 7:47:20 AM|| 2004-07-29 7:47:20 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 DanNY - :)

The more I reflect on the piece, the more I agree with your intentions - that it would be an excellent article to offer to a struggling / recovering ABBer. There were some leftover bits here 'n there that made me slightly angry - and they would serve the reverse purpose for the others - a touch of comfort. Sort of like saying, "There, there, you're not a total idiot. An idiot, yes, but not a total idiot..." Lol!

The ending, however, makes it plain enough: all the marbles are on the table. Figure it out: what's really important?

Posted by .com 2004-07-29 8:27:50 AM|| 2004-07-29 8:27:50 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Dennis Miller had a great comment about Bush. He said something like even if he loses in November, he's sincere enough about fighting this war that he will still be fighting it just as hard on the morning on January 20th. That said, I am fairly confident that he will be fighting it on the evening of January 20th as well.

Posted by Tibor 2004-07-29 11:25:31 AM|| 2004-07-29 11:25:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 The author of that piece, Tom Junod, is one of the best magazine writers out there today. he also did "The Falling Man" for Esquire, which should have won the National Magazine Award it was nominated for.

Posted by growler 2004-07-29 11:27:31 AM|| 2004-07-29 11:27:31 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 growler, I knew it!
Both the "Falling Man" and this piece were outstanding!
We can only hope and pray that Junod's writings are seen by and similarly persuade as many ABBers as possible!
Viva Bush!

Posted by GreatestJeneration 2004-07-29 5:29:06 PM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-07-29 5:29:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 "There were some leftover bits here 'n there that made me slightly angry..."

For me it was more than just a "few bits"; and I'm very reluctant to join the rest of you in congratulating this veteran Bush-hater for finally seeing the light.

Because I don't think he has, except for perhaps a glimmer. But OK, I'll give him credit for at least making a start on overcoming his prejudices and doing at least a little bit of self-examination. He deserves that much credit.

Big whoop.

What struck me most in this article is something I've seen again and again: people who start out from a position of blind, unreasoning hatred toward Bush always seem to have an extremely hard time figuring out what we are doing in Iraq, why we are doing it, and Iraq's crucial role in the war against Islamic totalitarianism.

Those who can't overcome their hatred of Bush simply cannot figure it out and they react with bafflement, confusion and anger. And their inability to figure it out (an inability carefully and deliberately nurtured by the Democratic Party, by the way) reinforces their hatred for Bush. It's a vicious circle, and maybe Junod now has a chance of breaking out of it.

But he's got a long, long, LONG way to go.

Posted by Dave D. 2004-07-29 5:54:58 PM|| 2004-07-29 5:54:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Dave, I know how you feel...I had kind of the same reaction when I read it, too, especially the first page where he calls President Bush an "asshole."
But Junod reveals how kneejerk and thought-less the whole Bush hate thing is and how right the Bush doctrine has proved.
I'm convinced that many of those in the Bush-hating camp either can't handle reality (The whole "there is no war" mindset) or are just plain afraid since 9/11 and can't get past the fear.
In that many Leftoids read Esquire and also respect this guy's opinion, we can only hope that Junod is doing the Lord's work, as it were, with this piece.

Posted by GreatestJeneration 2004-07-29 6:14:57 PM|| [http://www.greatestjeneration.com] 2004-07-29 6:14:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 There are so many lefty polemics out there about Bush that have near zero fact to them it is hard to pick one out to focus upon. The one that I hear a lot (SF Bay Area - deep in the heart of the nuthouse) is that Bush runs the government based upon his faith and that he shoving religion down people's throats. Sometimes the criticism is just a vague "I don't like his whole religous thing". There is rarely any specificity to it and certainly no hard evidence of it when challenged. I think it was Bill Maher who slammed him because he is Born Again, making it sound like he handled snakes and is looking at his watch waiting for the Final Days. But it is all just nebulous claims that I hear, like a background feeling that the people can't put into words. I chalk it up to the power of the media to present and continue to reinforce a negative stereotype.

Posted by remote man 2004-07-29 6:42:57 PM|| 2004-07-29 6:42:57 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 The one that I hear a lot (SF Bay Area - deep in the heart of the nuthouse) is that Bush runs the government based upon his faith and that he shoving religion down people's throats...But it is all just nebulous claims that I hear, like a background feeling that the people can't put into words. I chalk it up to the power of the media to present and continue to reinforce a negative stereotype.

However, #9, the Left wingers were not threatened by Billy Jeff's overt expression of religious faith, like when he lugged around that hefty Bible where ever he went, especially after the Lewinsky scandal.

Seriously though, I agree with you, #9, about religion being used as a smear tactic against GWB, as though he is planning to "infect" America with an evil illness. I think some of the reasons the Left has this demented fear of GWB's personal faith:
a) that he was once a womanizing heavy drinking superficial gadfly in his youth, who eventually found his moral compass thru religion pisses them off big time, because they can't or won't do with their undisciplined, sorry lives what GWB did with his life. Many left wingers lead decadent lives, especially in the SF area, if I may be so "indelicate" to mention. Billy jeff and his a-moral life, which he never changed, made the left feel more comfortable with their foibles.

b)many folks in the media are Jewish and I 've read that many Jewish liberals loathe/fear church going Christians even more than aethiets or Muslims, who actually are a threat to them, the former due to general malaise-disinterest and the latter due to well enunciated religious hate. According to a Jewish writer, whose writing I like alot in Frontpage, Mr. Lawrence Auster, Jews associate WWII Nazi atrocities with Christians generally and continue to hold modern day Christians like GWB with contempt.

Well, for what it's worth, those are the 2 nebulous emotionally based reasons I see that GWB is ridiculed/hated/feared for his "born again" Christian faith, because there is certainly no rational reason.

Posted by rex 2004-07-29 8:27:59 PM|| 2004-07-29 8:27:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 The attack was not a gesture of heroic resistance nor the offshoot of some bright utopian resolve, but the very flower of a movement that delights in the potential for martyrdom expressed in the squalls of the newly born. It is a movement that is about deathâthat honors death, that loves death, that fetishizes death, that worships death, that seeks to accomplish death wherever it can, on a scale both intimate and globalâand if it does not warrant the expenditure of what the self-important have taken to calling "blood and treasure," then what does?

That about sums it up. This guy's good.

Posted by tu3031 2004-07-29 9:54:06 PM|| 2004-07-29 9:54:06 PM|| Front Page Top

11:22 Cloon
10:47 Frank G
10:46 Frank G
08:08 GreatestJeneration
07:52 Cloon
00:37 .com
00:03 Jeff Hamlin
20:49 .com
20:21 Cloon
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19:22 .com
19:01 Cloon
14:07 .com
13:51 Cloon
00:18 Derek Morey
07:40 WCW
14:43 paul m johnson 111
12:19 growler
09:59 ed
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06:55 Dragon Fly
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03:18 Super Hose