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July 25, 2003 Well, it's finally happening. The political enemies of George W. Bush, together with their willing media accomplices, appear to be successfully reengineering the facts in an effort to regain political control. The Bush administration has gone from overwhelming credibility to a bunch of thugs and liars on the basis of one questionable comment included in the State of the Union address, a statement which the Administration acknowledged on its own may have been bad judgement. Had the administration never questioned its own judgement publicly, it is likely this would never even be an issue. The Democrats have taken this unnecessary admission by Bush and turned it into a "scandal" of the highest order, despite the fact it had little or nothing to do with the actual Iraq conflict, which remains a just cause to this day. The media could, of course, objectively point out the relative unimportance of Bush's comment or the fact that it is a truthful statement overall, which is still backed by Tony Blair. Of course, there is little incentive of most media people to behave in this manner. The results of the war and ongoing after effects continue to be presented in the worst possible light by the national and international media. Little emphasis is placed on what has been accomplished in Iraq, while tremendous effort is employed to dig up whatever is wrong. The overall state of the economy continues to be represented as much worse off than it actually is, particularly in light of economic data which is comparable to the mid-term of Bill Clinton's regime. Yet, I don't recall reading many doomsday press reports in 1994. President Bush and his team have made some hard choices on a number of matters, decisions which put their political capital at risk for what they felt was the good of the country and the world. There may be disagreement over the judgement involved in these matters and history will ultimately reflect whether they were right or wrong, but there should be no question as to the intentions involved. With that, let's do something the popular media in this nation never does. Let's examine the accomplishments of this current administration and where we might be without them: 1. It has now been almost two years since the devastating and cowardly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. At that time, the media predicted numerous and even larger attacks to come as well as accompanying economic doom. Yet, there has not been even a small terrorist attack on this nation's soil since that dreadful day. The irony here is that it is a testament to the effectiveness of the current administration in dealing with the terrorist threat that Democrats are now free to rail on Bush because there are no more serious issues to occupy their time. 2. With published economic statistics, it is now clear President Bush inherited a recession from Mr. Clinton. In addition, the events of September 11 provided another jolt to the economy as did the revelation of the business scandals at Enron and elsewhere (all of which took place under the nose of Bill Clinton during the 1990's). Despite the rash of bad news, the economy continues to be fairly strong relatively speaking. Ignoring the overblown and biased media coverage, the unemployment and growth statistics are comparable to historical standards- -even after a horrifying attack which destroyed the World Trade Center! Why is there no credit given to the fact that we are not that bad off all things considered? 3. Due to Bush's prompt action, the Taliban no longer controls Afghanistan and its people. And Osama bin Laden, even if he is alive which is debatable, is certainly in hiding and a nonfactor. The horrifying regime of Saddam Hussein no longer controls Iraq with its iron fist. The future of Middle East peace, while certainly questionable, looks brighter now than it ever has in modern history. The Iraq war was justified, was completed efficiently and effectively and the world is better off now than it was with Hussein and the Taliban in power. Who can reasonably debate this? 4. A sense of decency and decorum has been restored to the Executive branch of the government. No longer do we have someone in power who leads through focus groups in an effort to maintain as much political capital as possible. We now have a president who makes rational decisions for the good of the United States and the world based on his conscience, even at the risk of his personal popularity. His enemies have used his own honesty as a weapon in their baseless attacks on him. Perhaps there will come a day when conservative politicians are treated fairly in the world media. It's not the case at present. Rest assured, if Al Gore were president under all of the same circumstances, we would not hear of half of the so-called problems we are bombarded with on a continual and unyielding basis. Sure, there are issues to be resolved in this nation and the world. Make no mitake, though, most of the "sky is falling" rhetoric thrust upon us is more the result of left-wing hope than actual fact. ------------ Email Edward Abraham: eabra48463@aol.com Comment on this column in the forum. Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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