Vision Thing (former Bush speechwriter sells stay the course in Newsweek)

[ProSense]

Monday, August 14, 2006
VISION THING. Boy, that Liberal Media sure is tricky -- letting former Bush apparatchik Michael Gerson go on for thousands and thousands of words in Newsweek! If any of you fellers figure out how this advances the LM's Islamocommie agenda, please let me know, 'cause I'm stumped.

Gerson was once a Bush speechwriter, and like Peggy Noonan is trying to tell the new breed how it's done. His peroration is meant to convince the public to stay the course, terror-wise, despite their obvious desire to go another way.

Snip...

Or, to put it in the visionary Bush's own words, who cares what you think? Gerson goes further, proposing a "new compact between citizens and their government":

Americans have every right to expect competence and honesty about risks and mistakes and failures. Yet Americans, in turn, must understand that in a war where deception is the weapon and goal of the enemy, every mistake is not a lie; every failure is not a conspiracy. And the worst failure would be a timid foreign policy that allows terrible threats to emerge.

Snip...

Having thus cuffed his audience, Gerson believes they will sit quietly while he fills the middle section of his address with W's Greatest Hits. Democracy in the Mideast is "messy" but "no one has a better idea." We must "draw a line." "Liberty improves life." Democrats practice "McGovernism." Etc.

And now for the wow finish:

The response of many Americans to all of this is ... up in the air. And, unfortunately, the demands of history may just be beginning, requiring more engagement, more sacrifice, more promotion of democracy, more foreign assistance to raise failed states where dangers gather. Setting out this case will fall to presidents of both parties, in calm and crisis—and making it will always be difficult in a weary hour. But necessity, in the end, makes a stronger argument than the finest rhetoric. And from London to Lebanon, history is proving that peace is not a natural state; it is achieved by a struggle of uncertain duration. In that struggle, the cynical, the world-weary, the risk-averse will not inherit the earth.

Snip...

So they're serving it up raw: weary struggle and blind obedience, and "cynicism" is the new treason.

This new model does not require formation-flying displays, the National Anthem, or invocation of the Founding Fathers. In fact, such things would tend to mess up the routine. We are no longer talking about our hopes, but about our apprehensions. We are no longer encouraged to celebrate our infinite possibilities, but ordered to accept our lack of choices. And democracy is not a gift with which America is blessed, but a sort of chemotherapy that America must wearily roam the earth administering to other nations.

more...

http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2006_08_13_alicublog_arch...

Found at:digbysblog

[MissWaverly]

1. peace is not a natural state-what baloney

When you have competent leadership, it is.

Can't wait for November.

[boobooday]

2. Peace is not a natural state

When so many profit from war.

[earthboundmisfit]

3. Full of shit, Michael Gerson is

"In that struggle, the cynical, the world-weary, the risk-averse will not inherit the earth..."
How the f*ck does this bozo presume to know, anyway?

Edited for bad spellin'

[Kagemusha]

4. So this is one of those "war is peace, peace is war" screeds?

Lovely. I'll have to go over the whole thing in detail at some point, but sounds like I won't enjoy it.

[theanarch]

5. Gerson has long been the high-priest of...

...acolytes in the cult that worships Junior's "personality"...too bad these folks never took Psych. 101 in college, because if they had, they might know that Junior doesn't even have a personality.

[AX10]

6. This is another example of how out of touch the Media is.

60% of Americans OPPOSE the war in Iraq!

[loyalsister]

7. more promotion of democracy......

That's the summary of the message of the PNAC.
Democracy by force.

"We are no longer encouraged to celebrate our infinite possibilities, but ordered to accept our lack of choices. And democracy is not a gift with which America is blessed, but a sort of chemotherapy that America must wearily roam the earth administering to other nations."

This is entirely based on the fallacious generalized belief that America has "the best" system of government that can be exported and imposed without regard to the enduring cultures of other countries.

[ProSense]

8. This article was the media prep for Bush's speech today. n/t