ninme

The Times - It won’t suddenly be peace and love when Bush goes. World Briefing by Bronwen Maddox

It is a delusion to pretend that Bush is a one-off villain, an aberration, from the country that so recently produced Clinton. In two years, the dream goes, he will be gone and we shall all be free to love America again.

That is a misunderstanding of the forces that produced Bush — and Clinton. True, Bush’s excessive decisiveness has produced a chaotic presidency. But his rise still says something important about the direction of US politics. To disregard that would be a recipe for perpetual disillusionment with his successors, Republican or Democrat, and for disappointment in America, which would be unjustified and destructive.

I’m basically agreeing with her premise. She’s trying really hard to not be charitable to Bush, which is annoying, but I’m so used to that it hardly matters anymore. But then there’s this:

On the other hand, Bush, under the War on Terror banner, has won victories for what might be called results- orientated Republicanism: not explicitly ideological, and justifying the means by the ends. The crumbling of opposition to his Bill on the treatment of suspected terrorists is the latest sign.

Some Republicans, led by the senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner, had protested that Bush was overturning fundamental legal protections and overextending the power of the presidency. But the implosion of their protest, in a compromise that looks like granting most of the victories to Bush, showed how little support Congress feared this position held in the country.

I would have said that was the Democrat’s line. The Republicans were worried about our moral authority, standing in Europe, and if we’ll be seen as rewriting the Geneva Conventions. Which really is retarded. Especially when it’s giving cover to the Democrats, who are just wrong.

Hmmm…

…how could the problems of the rest of the world not seem less pressing?

Except those of Israel, perhaps. Clinton is right to remind European leaders, as he does pointedly, that Israel believes, if its existence is threatened, that it could not rely on Europe, only on the US. Bush’s critics in Europe are wrong to pin that reflex on his Administration or on Republicans; it is deeply woven into American politics.

David Cameron played with fire when he mused on the need for balance in dealing with Israel. That provoked rage in the US, most of all on the Right. As Blair warned Manchester, if you distance yourself, you may find it is a long way back.