One question I was asked a lot in my sabbatical from the blog: Did I still think President Bush "the right man"? Often the question was asked with heavy sarcasm, followed immediately by a grim roll call: Iraq, Katrina, prescription drugs, Dubai, immigration, etc.
There's a loaded rhetorical question.
There are many things to say about George W. Bush, positive and negative. But with his numbers dropping into the mid-30s, and even many of his friends having to acknowledge doubts and disappointments in his performance, here is one verdict that remains true, the same that Lincoln delivered on General Grant. "He fights."
And farts and burps too. Sadly, Frum continues:
When I wrote The Right Man in 2002, I tried to do justice to the president's personality, both virtues and vices. I carefully reread that book as part of my preparation for writing this next one. It itemized so many of the faults that have had their cost over the past year: the president's sometimes over-hasty decision-making, his disinclination to ask sufficiently probing questions, his aversion to detail, the overcentralization of decision-making, his often surprisingly poor personnel decisions, his unwillingness or inability to explain himself as fully and convincingly as a president ought.
Still delusional. No, David, we really didn't miss you.
In another part of the piece I can't bring myself to cut-and-paste, Frum digs into Spain after the 3.11.2004 train bombing, and conflates the Spanish response with Bush's single minded fervor for Iraqi war.
For starters, Dave, the subsequent election results had exactly nothing to do with not being "legendarily brave people" and everything to do with the Aznar government trying to sell the idea for its own political gain that ETA, the Basque separatist movement, was responsible for the bombings. The Spanish people's rage about the attacks, fueled by their disgust for Aznar's actions led to the election of José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero of the Socialist Worker's Party.
Well, we know anything uses the words Socialist and Worker's in a positive way is likely to annoy Frum. But in what is clearly the punch line of the piece, he derides Zapatero for, you know, following the clear will of the Spanish people by removing Spanish troops from Iraq.
David, you were wrong about Iraq, you were wrong about GWBush, you are wrong about Zapatero.
Three strikes. As Rex Hudler says, "You got to go."
Note: I just had to add these lyrics:
Blame Canada
Shame on Canada
For...
The smut we must stop
The trash we must bash
The Laughter and fun
Must all be undone
Before someone thinks of blaming uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!!!!
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