Mr. Bush noted: “The enemy declared war on us. Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president. The next four years will be peaceful years.” He repeated the words “peace” or “peaceful” many times, as he has done increasingly in his recent appearances. (emphasis added)
A few weeks ago, Kevin Drum asked, just what is it that people who support Bush on security grounds think that Bush will do and Kerry will not? Gregory Djerejian at the Belgravia Dispatch answered, in part:
To Kevin’s query: “(b)ut does anyone think there are any more wars coming up in the near future?”–I’d answer–we’re in the middle of a war right now….
There’s, er, a lot going on–and I’m not confident that Kerry a) fully gets the stakes and b) will field a national security team that will be up to the challenge.
I’ve seen some version of this sentiment on a lot of pro-Bush blogs, and I think that it enjoys a lot of support. But how can it hold if Bush has decided to go around making the ludicrous promise that the next four years will be peaceful?
Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan
{ 11 comments }
Ophelia Benson 07.21.04 at 7:44 pm
How can it hold? The same way it always does. Candidates say whatever they think will get them elected, and are seldom held to account for not living up to what they say. Or at least seldom held to account enough. The gaps get mentioned, but they seldom if ever seem to make any actual difference to popularity or votes the next time around.
Keith 07.21.04 at 7:49 pm
The disconnect from reality boggles the mind. A three time purple heart winning Vietnam Vet is somehow lax on national security while captain AWOL, who couldn’t be bothered to show up for national Guard duty, is tough? WTF? I’ve never understood this line, as it is simply the most illogical statement I’ve ver heard (asside from the whole, “God wnats me to be president,” line)
Richard Bellamy 07.21.04 at 8:37 pm
Usually, however, the flip is not so soon after the flop.
Bush sets case as ‘war president’
“Mr Bush said he was a “war president” and the top issue for voters should be the use of American power in the world.
“I’m a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind,” he said.
“I see dangers that exist and it’s important for us to deal with them.”
mc 07.21.04 at 8:38 pm
“Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president. ”
George just slipped up. Don’t mind him.
It’s just like with bin Laden. “He’s our top priority on the terrorist list. We’re gonna smoke him out. Bring it on”. “I’m not really that concerned about him to be honest.”
If you only knew how hard it is for a man like him to keep track of what they tell him to say, you’d show a bit more compassion. What is it with you liberal people? Give him a break. It’s not easy to be the President, nevermind deciding if you’re the war President or peace President or war and peace President. So many choices, it’s complicated.
Richard Bellamy 07.21.04 at 8:48 pm
Also, didn’t Bush tell Bob Woodward that he had a mandate from God to liberate all the oppressed peoples of the world?
How can he liberate them as a peace president? Has he lost his mandate, or is he going to affirmatively disobey God?
mc 07.21.04 at 8:58 pm
But Richard, war can lead to peace and peace can lead to war so what he’s saying is, to make peace you need war so he’s the war president but in order to become a peace president. He is like Janus. He can be both things at the same time. Yin and Yang. He keeps the balance. The book of changes.
There. Doesn’t it make sense now? Don’t you see the spiritual beauty of it?
praktike 07.21.04 at 9:51 pm
It’s really quite simple.
War is peace.
Rinse and repeat.
q 07.22.04 at 5:51 am
Ted-
I am not sure what can be obtained by analysing the speeches of George W Bush. I would like to take-him-at-his-word but he prefers popularity and his hidden agenda over honesty and truth.
So I suppose he is trying to appeal to people who don’t want a war president? Good for him???
Lance Boyle 07.22.04 at 6:39 am
Something that catches a lot of otherwise sensible and aware individuals is their lack of experience with and of the deprived, the products of the chaotic underside of society. So that when there is direct confrontation it’s often bewildering, the rules aren’t clear, and all those TV shows didn’t provide any useful guidance.
I’ve seen bad people, strong and ready-to-be-violent young men, intentionally use irrational behavior to unbalance a mark, to announce unequivocally that all rules were now their sole prerogative.
It’s disorienting for people who were raised to believe that irrationality is for losers.
This constant harping on Bush’s inability to speak coherently, and the hammering away at his absurd lies and justifications for the poisonous debacle in Iraq seems to be coming from a desperation, a need for reassurance on the part of people who believe that sanity and moral goodness are supposed to win. Every time. On their own, without commensurate force.
It corresponds with a lot of the “unite behind Kerry” as pragmatic, as “our only hope”.
I’m looking for some contemporary accounts of the Vichy bureaucrats, the rationalizing, the justifications, the necessities of collaboration. There’s validity to the general argument, but the Resistance had all the fire, and that’s where the soul of France was kept alive.
The very arguments that produced the “surrender monkeys” of the egregious Limbaugh’s elocution were absolutely repudiated by the underground.
Kerry’s America’s Blair.
If you can’t draw a line here and now, you won’t be able to draw one when it’s too obvious to ignore.
Constantine 07.22.04 at 2:00 pm
a need for reassurance on the part of people who believe that sanity and moral goodness are supposed to win. Every time. On their own, without commensurate force.
I agree with your disagnosis, but I think you have it wrong when it comes to this campaign. Trust me on this one. I don’t think anyone is supporting Kerry because they believe he’s the candidate of “sanity and moral goodness.” It’s because he’s the one that can use “commensurate force” during the campaign. “Unite behind Kerry” isn’t just pragmatic. It’s more like… Machiavellian.
Why is Kerry going to win? Because he plays the game better than Bush. He is the candidate that Americans look at and think, “yeah, he seems to be president.” Is it rational? No. But it’s a game that needs to be played.
The constant “harping on Bush’s inability to speak” is not a complaint about the “unfairness” that such a inadequate man is in the Oval Office, but rather an attempt to portray Bush as an overgrown child who is dwarfed by the office.
Lance Boyle 07.23.04 at 3:59 am
Bush’s failings as a human being, his inadequacies, his delusions, mean virtually nothing to me. It’s his failing as President of the United States. What he’s presided over. The things he’s done, and the things he hasn’t done, as well as the things he’s undone. In every general and specific Kerry is his synonym. Kerry is the left hand to Bush’s right.
This is infantile. It’s hiding under the covers. Kerry supported the war in Iraq. He wants to drill ANWR. He backs Sharon all the way. He hasn’t said one damned word about Abu Ghraib that has any backbone to it.
He might just maybe put a little more weight behind social programs, but Congress will block his feeble attempts, and in the long run, or even the intermediate, it won’t matter a bit.
Trust you on this one? You didn’t say anything, not one word, to differentiate them, except the obvious, that they’re two different men, with different names and faces. I knew that already.
Tony Blair is different than the two of them, and he has an accent into the bargain. So now there’s three. Peas in a pod. Interchangeable hollow men.Worthless the lot of ’em.
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