The Bush Dilemma

Victor David Hanson has written a piece for National Review Online called the "Bush Dilemma". In it he wonders why Pres. Bush is willing to take risks abroad, but not at home. A fair question. His opening paragraph reads,

Who would have believed a year ago that there would now be headlines reading, "Was George Bush Right?" in the European left-wing newspapers, or admissions in the New York Times, Washington Post, and The New Republic that the removal of Saddam Hussein and the efforts at democratization of the Middle East might have been right all along?

VDH says we are at the crossroads of history and I cannot argue that we may very well be; time will tell. His position is that we are at these crossroads mostly due to the "resoluteness of the United States military and its commander-in-chief." He ignored his critics, the naysayers and the pundits and was able to grasp that Islamic fascism was not a criminal justice matter.

Note too that all the past expert advice — set a time-table for withdrawal, delay the elections, trisect the country, invite in "moderate" Sunni participants from neighboring countries, and turn over the "occupation" to the U.N. — has in retrospect proved flawed and is now quietly abandoned.

VDH also notes that Pres. Bush was successfully re-elected, there was the startling success of the Iraqi voting and its heartening effects in other areas of the region, low unenemployment, moderate inflation, affordable interest rates, real growth is strong, but yet he is enjoying only an approval rating of only about 50 percent.

He asks, "Why, then, the discontent?" Go read the rest here.