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What Is Alien in the White House Joan Swirsky
Recently, President Bush spoke extensively – to Brit Hume on the Fox News Network and to the United Nations – and what the world saw was alien to a good portion of his listeners. Alien because they are so unaccustomed to hearing straight talk, tough talk, compassionate talk and moral talk. In Hume’s interview, the president revealed that he only spoke to his mother and father, the former president, every two weeks, mostly to comfort them about the negative reports and indeed non-stop assaults that have come his way since the beginning of his presidency – not only from the usual suspects, both apoplectic and filibustering Democrats and a media that seem to take disproportionate pleasure in reporting (and, too often, inventing) bad news, but also from “allies” like France and Germany. I tell them, “Don’t worry about me,” said the compassionate president, clearly placing the feelings of his parents before his own formidable concerns. How alien for a U.S. president – by any measure, the most powerful man in the world – to actually be “putting [other] people first.” The president spoke about his faith in God, again revealing that a man of immense confidence can also be a man of immense humility. “I recognize,” he said, “that in the eyes of the Almighty, I am a lowly sinner, and I ask for strength and wisdom and I pray for calmness when the seas are storming. I pray for others. …” And he added that he was amazed “that a lot of people pray for me.” How alien that the president should recognize his limitations and seek answers from the God upon whose overarching strength and wisdom our forefathers founded this country. The president explained to Hume that the picture of Abraham Lincoln in his office reminded him of the impossible difficulty Lincoln faced when overseeing a war in which Americans were fighting other Americans, and that it gave him perspective, inspiring him because “throughout [Lincoln’s] entire presidency he thought about the United States of America. … Lincoln kept it united … he helps me recognize that one of my most important jobs is to set big goals and unite the nation to achieve them.” How alien to have a president who, like Lincoln, has a clear vision of the pain and sacrifice it takes to keep our magnificent Republic protected against its avowed enemies, who sees the “big picture” and is guided by the lessons of history. He also told Hume that he understood and accepted people who disagreed with him but didn’t understand those like Sen. Ted Kennedy – who accused the president of cooking up the Iraqi war and bribing foreign leaders for self-interested reasons – for using “uncivil” rhetoric that gave aid and comfort to our enemies. How alien to have a president who, unlike his antagonists, addresses the language and not the character of his critics. The president told Hume that he didn’t read the daily newspapers but relied on his staff – who were dealing first-hand with the people involved in the great events of our country and the world – to brief him. How alien to have a president who recognizes that our most prominent newspapers are, with notable exceptions, staffed by partisans who inevitably contaminate the “news” with their own biases. When it came to Iraq, the president once again demonstrated a refreshing historical perspective, citing the five months we have been in that country (as opposed to the four years of World War II and decades of reconstruction that followed) and the amazing progress that has been made in completely obliterating all the things his most vitriolic opponents say they stand for: an end to tyranny, mass graves, rape rooms, torture. And that is not to omit the concrete accomplishments he mentioned of the widespread immunization of Iraqi children, the opening of thousands of schools and hospitals, the slow-but-sure return of electricity, increasing law enforcement and the president’s three-pronged plan – a constitution, elections and an orderly transfer of sovereignty – now well on the way to being actualized. How alien to have a president reporting objective and verifiable signs of progress that the media and hysterical Democrats, to their shame, have obstinately refused either to acknowledge or report. Topic by topic, the president presented a case for the war in Iraq that his detractors can only rail about, offering only personal attacks but not one whit of wisdom, save their advice to cut and run – hardly Lincolnesque of them, or, for that matter, Bushesque. Weapons of mass destruction: They’re there, the president said, as the U.S. Congress, the worldwide community and the United Nations acknowledged for over a decade. We have to be patient, he advised. “The truth will be out.” How alien for a president to be patient instead of impulsive and driven by fickle public-opinion polls. Our allies: “We've got relatives who died on French soil to help with their security. Why would they not only resist what many Americans thought was necessary with Saddam Hussein, but lead a coalition?" the president asked, echoing generations of people who remember, with exquisite pain, America’s sacrifices in the name of freedom. How alien that our president, instead of buckling to our fair-weather friends – and the waffling Democratic presidential candidates, most of whom voted not six months ago to support the president – reminded them of our heroic past and its relevance to our imperiled present. Still, President Bush maintained a stance of conciliation, stating that the French president, Jacques Chirac, “needs to hear this clearly from me … that America is a good nation … and when we see suffering, we do something about it. And when we see threats, we will deal with the threats … before they come back to our shore.” How alien that our president has to remind a so-called ally of this reality, but how significant that his patience and vision have now resulted in the willingness of France, Germany and Russia to join the reconstruction efforts in Iraq. His opponents? “Their slogan is: Vote for me, I don't like George Bush. Well, you know … the American people are going to make that ultimate judgment as to whether or not I ought to be re-elected.” How alien for a sitting president not to make a re-election pitch, given the opportunity, and to trust the ultimate judgment of the American people, no matter what it will be. A few days later, the president spoke at the United Nations, reminding that largely Marxist body and the rest of the world that the wars the U.S. had waged in Afghanistan and Iraq had annihilated their murderous regimes, liberating millions of people in the name of freedom and better lives. As he addressed a chamber full of representatives, many from dictatorships and terrorist states, Mr. Bush reminded these “diplomats” of the recent terrorist bombings in Bali, Mombassa, Casablanca, Riyadh, Jakarta, Jerusalem and, yes, at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, where 22 people including one of their own (Sergio Vieira de Mello) were murdered in cold blood. Naturally, the president’s reception from the thugs among the crowd was icy, especially when he reminded them that “All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization.” The moribund audience was once again reminded of its historical ineffectualness when the president noted that the Security Council itself had demanded that Iraq destroy its illegal weapons or face “serious consequences,” none of which the U.N. has ever leveled, its hollow “resolutions” notwithstanding. But “because there were consequences,” the president said, referring to the American-led coalition that a sneering Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder had nothing but contempt for, “a coalition of nations acted to defend the peace, and the credibility of the United Nations, Iraq is free, and today we are joined by representatives of a liberated country.” And just in case there were any doubts that the vast power of the United States comprises more than wealth and military might, the president yet again reminded the world body of America’s uncountable and unmatched acts of humanitarian aid, medical treatment to needy countries, anti-nuclear-proliferation efforts and anti-slavery actions around the world. Then he figuratively embraced the audience, saying: “Let us move forward.” After watching the president’s speech on TV, one word came over and over again to my mind: statesman. I searched my consciousness for another statesman in today’s world and, for that matter, even a semblance of statesmanship among the proliferating crop of Democratic presidential contenders. And I asked myself why his actions appear so alien to so many. In the split-second era in which we live, memory is short. Americans – in fact, the world citizens – are no longer accustomed to leaders who subscribe to and live authentic family values, practice religious devotion out of the limelight, choose their advisers out of deeply held ideological and philosophical beliefs, base their actions on the expectation (and measurement) of empirical outcomes, and, most important, dedicate their tenures to the good and safety of their country, facing adversaries or even doubters with a willingness to listen and to compromise but never forsaking their unwavering convictions to confront the most difficult challenges with no ambition outside of their accomplishment. In short, what is most alien to the president’s critics is the presence of a leader – a statesman – for whom no recent frame of reference exists. Fortunately, one now occupies the White House. Joan Swirsky is a New-York-based journalist and author who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com.
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