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Pecking Ourselves to Death
By Peter & Helen Evans
April 16, 2004
The sorry spectacle of the politically timed "9/11 Commission," with its partisan carping about the Bush administration's lack of reaction to the "clear indications" in the August 6th, 2001 Presidential Briefing Document, is perfectly mirrored by Candidate Kerry's attempt at high-toned harrumphing about the Bush administration's "unilateral" and "premature" over-reaction of invading Iraq. Overseas observers, especially those many Iraqis yearning for freedom, may be justified in wondering if democracy is really such an unqualified good after all.
For decades in America, those on the left have been the institutionalizers of victimhood, going back at least as far as the "Great Society" welfare initiatives of the 1960's (does anyone remember the "war on poverty"?), and perhaps as far back as the "New Deal" whose regulatory interference prolonged the Great Depression. Their message to the benighted masses in the 1960's was, "Your condition is not your fault. It's 'Society's' fault." Implicit in this message was the understanding that what was strong and successful in 'Society' (ie, the primarily Republican military-industrial complex) was to blame for what was weak and unsuccessful.
The outrage of 9/11 brought the "blame America first" crowd face to face with a dilemma composed of two horns. On the one hand, their guilty self-loathing meant that it had to be their own fault. On the other hand, their long-internalized victimhood meant that it had to be someone else's fault. What to do? Their solution is to project their signature self-loathing anti-Americanism onto George W. Bush.
With disgustingly evident relish these chickens are now trying to peck the President to death. What a perfect target this man presents! After all, he and his cronies "stole" the Presidency in 2000. The Democrat's didn't "lose." They were victims of a theft. According to them, Bush didn't inherit an eight-year old Democrat foreign policy of appeasement and token bombings, designed to distract us from what had been happening in the Oval Office. Oh no! His cowboy boots were obviously the final provocation that snapped the reserve of the terrorists. He wasn't blinkered by politically correct but legally ham-strung intelligence services, courtesy of 1995 Democrat Attorney General, Janet Reno. Oh no! "He should known." Evidently the Presidential crystal ball was among the 'souvenirs' when the departing Democrats plundered the White House in January 2001.
Yesterday's Presidential address was the occasion for more pecking by that institutionalized counter culture known as the "mainstream" media. So-called "questions" were designed to elicit the "mistakes" that he and the administration must have made prior to the attack, or a "mea culpa" like that blurted out by the shameless former security advisor (now book publicist) Dick Clarke in his testimony before the "9/11 Commission." Absurd queries as to whether the President felt any sense of "personal responsibility" for the attack. They weren't looking for someone to take responsibility. They were looking for someone to blame. Duh! It was the terrorists, stupid.
Apparently, the assembled media and observing pundits chose not to remember the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on our nation. While we trembled in shock, grief and impotent rage, one man stood up before America and the world and (finally!) did take responsibility for the situation. In gratitude we rallied behind his moral courage and gutsy determination to rid the world of the nihilistic plague of terrorism. Could it be that the subsequent absence of terrorist strikes in America is the result of this President's success? Success, however, is a condition that creates discomfort among ideological victims. It just doesn't suit them. They won't be happy until they're sorry.
If they are successful in pecking the President to death, if they are successful in electing the wretchedly vacillating wind-vain Kerry, then they will have succeeded in making all of us very, very sorry indeed.
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