Credit Where Credit Is Due
It has taken me this long to finally get my hands in the Soil, and who'd've thunk it'd be to shower praise on the President, but... For the first time since Jan. 21, 2001, I woke up this morning to the newspaper at my doorstep, read a headline about the President, and said, "right on!" If the citizens of a repressed or occupied regime call out for freedom, America is their friend. The President's loud support for the Lebanese in their bid to cast out Syria may be his shining moment. It embodies a humble but visionary American foreign policy that says we will not dictate to the world what to do, but if a sovereign people initiate their own direction for peace and freedom, America will have your back. When I read the President's Second Inaugural, I was moved and supportive of this idea. It actually reminded me of President Barlett's announcement at his fictional second inaugural that so many bleeding heart liberals only dreamed could ever be real: that America would follow a doctrine of intervention when only humanitarian interests were at stake.

As always, though, the devil is in the details. And we've come to learn over the years that even when President Bush's words or vision point in the right direction, his administration can't put one foot in front of the other without tripping over themselves and breaking everything in the store. Execution is not their strong suit. So we'll have to wait and see how he manages the very uplifiting developments of late that reveal the potential for his freedom is on the march worldview. Liberals and democrats do not, and should not, oppose this vision. We all desire to see freedom the world over and the crumbling of autocratic and oppressive regimes. The how is often a sticking point. At least with regards to Lebanon, so far so good. Our fingers are crossed that the President continues to support this situation wisely. Caution as well, that while we all support the freedom peeking out from the darkness in Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, and while the world support's President Bush and America as we help these reformers however we can, that provides no carte blanche for the radical ideological agenda the conservatives seek to implement here at home. Those headlines still make me cringe daily.
- posted by Anonymous @ Friday, March 04, 2005