March 26, 2004

A President's Job

The 9/11 hearings: We're all Bush Doctrine believers now.

Give President Bush's critics credit for versatility. Having spent months assailing him for doing too much after 9/11--Iraq, the Patriot Act, the "pre-emption" doctrine--they have now turned on a dime to allege that he did too little before it. This contradiction is Mr. Bush's opportunity to rise above the ankle biting and explain to the American public what a President is elected to do.

[This is more of the Left's "Bush can't do anything right" approach. By applying it Liberally, shall we say?, they hope to so tie the President's hands that he can't do anything at all. What an opposition. And it's American citizens' lives that hang in the balance!--Jen]

Any President's most difficult decision is how and when to defend the American people. As the 9/11 hearings reveal, there are always a thousand reasons for a President not to act. The intelligence might be uncertain, civilians might be killed, U.S. soldiers could die, and the "international community" might object. There are risks in any decision. But when Presidents fail to act at all, or act with too little conviction, we get a September 11.

This is the real lesson emerging from the 9/11 Commission hearings if you listen above the partisan din. In their eagerness to insist that Mr. Bush should have acted more pre-emptively before 9/11, the critics are rebutting their own case against the President's aggressive antiterror policy ever since. The implication of their critique is that Mr. Bush didn't repudiate the failed strategy of the Clinton years fast enough.
[...]
But this election is about leadership. And a President who takes the oath to protect America has to make difficult, often life-or-death, decisions based on imperfect information. In a world of terrorism and (still unsolved) anthrax attacks on the U.S. Capitol, a President doesn't have the luxury of waiting for French approval or proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In Iraq, the burden was on Saddam--a proven supporter of terrorists, user of WMD and enemy of America--to show he had destroyed the weapons we know he once had. He didn't, and so Mr. Bush acted to protect America and prevent another September 11.

Thank you, WSJ!
This is what I've been saying for over 2 years!
[I had my 2nd blogiversary on Wednesday and forgot to notice, so upset had Dick Clarke's testi-lying made me!]
President Bush will invariable state in his speeches that he had to choose between the word of a madman (Saddam Hussein) and protecting the security of the American people and he chose to protect us.
Great call! And it was the correct call.
As I've said on several occasions, I don't know where those WMDs are now, but they're not in Iraq in that madman's hands and that makes me feel that much safer.
Now, if only we can apply the Bush Doctrine to Syria, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia...just to name the rogue states that are our most immediate concern.