High Stakes
by Paul Johnson
The great issue in the 2004 election - it seems to me
as an Englishman - is, How seriously does the United States take its role
as a world leader, and how far will it make sacrifices, and risk
unpopularity, to discharge this duty with success and honor? In short,
this is an election of the greatest significance, for Americans and all
the rest of us. It will redefine what kind of a country the
United States
is, and how far the rest of the world can rely upon her to preserve the
general safety and protect our civilization.
When George W. Bush was first elected, he stirred
none of these feelings, at home or abroad. He seems to have sought the
presidency more for dynastic than for any other reasons. September 11
changed all that dramatically. It gave his presidency a purpose and a
theme, and imposed on him a mission. Now, we can all criticize the way he
has pursued that mission. He has certainly made mistakes in detail,
notably in underestimating the problems that have inevitably followed the
overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in
Iraq
, and overestimating the ability of
U.S.
forces to tackle them. On the other hand, he has been absolutely right in
estimating the seriousness of the threat international terrorism poses to
the entire world and on the need for the
United States
to meet this threat with all the means at its disposal and for as long as
may be necessary. Equally, he has placed these considerations right at the
center of his policies and continued to do so with total consistency,
adamantine determination, and remarkable courage, despite sneers and
jeers, ridicule and venomous opposition, and much unpopularity. There is
something grimly admirable about his stoicism in the face of reverses,
which reminds me of other moments in history: the dark winter
Washington
faced in 1777-78, a time to "try men's souls," as Thomas Paine
put it, and the long succession of military failures
Lincoln
had to bear and explain before he found a commander who could take the
cause to victory. There is nothing glamorous about the Bush presidency and
nothing exhilarating. It is all hard pounding, as
Wellington
said of
Waterloo
, adding: "Let us see who can pound the hardest." Mastering
terrorism fired by a religious fanaticism straight from the Dark Ages
requires hard pounding of the dullest, most repetitious kind, in which
spectacular victories are not to be looked for, and all we can expect are
"blood, toil, tears, and sweat." However, something persuades me
that Bush - with his grimness and doggedness, his lack of sparkle but his
enviable concentration on the central issue - is the president
America
needs at this difficult time. He has, it seems to me, the moral right to
ask American voters to give him the mandate to finish the job he has
started.
This impression is abundantly confirmed, indeed made
overwhelming, when we look at the alternative. Senator Kerry has not made
much of an impression in Europe, or indeed, I gather, in
America
. Many on the Continent support him, because they hate Bush, not because
of any positive qualities Kerry possesses. Indeed we know of none, and
there are six good reasons that he should be mistrusted. First,
and perhaps most important, he seems to have no strong convictions about
what he would do if given office and power. The content and emphasis of
his campaign on terrorism,
Iraq
, and related issues have varied from week to week. But they seem always
to be determined by what his advisers, analyzing the polls and other
evidence, recommend, rather than by his own judgment and convictions. In
other words, he is saying, in effect: "I do not know what to do but I
will do what you, the voters, want." This may be an acceptable
strategy, on some issues and at certain times. It is one way you can
interpret democracy. But in a time of crisis, and on an issue involving
the security of the world, what is needed is leadership. Kerry is
abdicating that duty and proposing, instead, that the voters should lead
and he will follow.
Second,
Kerry's personal character has, so far, appeared in a bad light. He has
always presented himself, for the purpose of
Massachusetts
vote-getting, as a Boston Catholic of presumably Irish origins. This side
of Kerry is fundamentally dishonest. He does not follow Catholic
teachings, certainly in his views on such issues as abortion - especially
when he feels additional votes are to be won by rejecting Catholic
doctrine. This is bad enough. But since the campaign began it has emerged
that Kerry's origins are not in the Boston-Irish community but in Germanic
Judaism. Kerry knew this all along, and deliberately concealed it for
political purposes. If a man will mislead about such matters, he will
mislead about anything.
There is, thirdly,
Kerry's long record of contradictions and uncertainties as a senator and
his apparent inability to pursue a consistent policy on major issues. Fourth
is his posturing over his military record, highlighted by his embarrassing
pseudo-military salute when accepting the nomination. Fifth
is his disturbing lifestyle, combining liberal - even radical - politics
with being the husband, in succession, of two heiresses, one worth $300
million and the other $1 billion. The Kerry's have five palatial homes and
a personal jet, wealth buttressed by the usual team of lawyers and
financial advisers to provide the best methods of tax-avoidance.
Sixth and
last is the Kerry team: who seem to combine considerable skills in
electioneering with a variety of opinions on all key issues. Indeed, it is
when one looks at Kerry's closest associates that one's doubts about his
suitability become certainties. Kerry may dislike his running-mate, and
those feelings may be reciprocated - but that does not mean a great deal.
More important is that the man Kerry would have as his vice president is
an ambulance-chasing lawyer of precisely the kind the American system has
spawned in recent decades, to its great loss and peril, and that is
already establishing a foothold in
Britain
and other European countries. This aggressive legalism - what in
England
we call "vexatious litigation" - is surely a characteristic
America
does not want at the top of its constitutional system.
Of Kerry's backers, maybe the most prominent is
George Soros, a man who made his billions through the kind of unscrupulous
manipulations that (in Marxist folklore) characterize "finance
capitalism." This is the man, who did everything in his power to
wreck the currency of
Britain
,
America
's principal ally, during the EU exchange-rate crisis not out of
conviction but simply to make vast sums of money. He has also used his
immense resources to interfere in the domestic affairs of half a dozen
other countries, some of them small enough for serious meddling to be hard
to resist. One has to ask: Why is a man like Soros so eager to see Kerry
in the White House? The question is especially pertinent since he is not
alone among the superrich wishing to see Bush beaten. There are several
other huge fortunes backing Kerry.
Among the wide spectrum of prominent Bush-haters
there is the normal clutter of
Hollywood
performers and showbiz self-advertisers. That is to be expected. More
noticeable, this time, are the large numbers of novelists, playwrights,
and moviemakers who have lined up to discharge venomous salvos at the
incumbent. I don't recall any occasion, certainly not since the age of
FDR, when so much partisan election material has been produced by
intellectuals of the Left, not only in the
United States
but in Europe, especially in
Britain
,
France
, and
Germany
. These intellectuals - many of them with long and lugubrious records of
supporting lost left-wing causes, from the Soviet empire to Castro's
aggressive adventures in
Africa
, and who have in their time backed Mengistu in
Ethiopia
, Qaddafi in
Libya
, Pol Pot in
Cambodia
, and the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua
- seem to have a personal hatred of Bush that defies rational analysis.
Behind this front line of articulate Bushicides (one
left-wing columnist in
Britain
actually offered a large sum of money to anyone who would assassinate the president) there is the usual cast of
Continental suspects, led by Chirac in
France
and the superbureaucrats of
Brussels
. As one who regularly reads Le Monde, I find it hard to convey the
intensity of the desire of official
France
to replace Bush with Kerry. Anti-Americanism has seldom been stronger in
Continental Europe, and Bush seems to personify in his simple,
uncomplicated self all the things these people most hate about
America
- precisely because he is so American. Anti-Americanism, like
anti-Semitism, is not, of course, a rational reflex. It is, rather, a
mental disease, and the Continentals are currently suffering from a
virulent spasm of the infection, as always happens when
America
exerts strong and unbending leadership.
Behind this second line of adversaries there is a far
more sinister third. All the elements of anarchy and unrest in the Middle
East and Muslim Asia and
Africa
are clamoring and praying for a Kerry victory. The mullahs and the imams,
the gunmen and their arms suppliers and paymasters, all those who stand to
profit - politically, financially, and emotionally - from the total
breakdown of order, the eclipse of democracy, and the defeat of the rule
of law, want to see Bush replaced. His defeat on November 2 will be
greeted, in Arab capitals, by shouts of triumph from fundamentalist mobs
of exactly the kind that greeted the news that the Twin Towers had
collapsed and their occupants been exterminated.
I cannot recall any election when the enemies of
America
all over the world have been so unanimous in hoping for the victory of one
candidate. That is the overwhelming reason that John Kerry must be
defeated, heavily and comprehensively.
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