The Bosque Boys

Watching the President and British Prime Minister Tony Blair meet the press in the East Room today, I am reminded of the Okie Gardener's comment years ago: Tony Blair may prove to be Aaron to George Bush's Moses (Exodus 4:10-14).

It is perhaps difficult to remember how surprising it was to some of us when Blair proved so stalwart in his conviction that remaking the Middle East was the crucial task of our generation. Where would we have been without Blair?

Like Joe Lieberman, the opponents of the war rightly hate Blair, without whom the President would have been hard-pressed to move forward. Blair's integrity, credibility, resolve and eloquence steadied the President and the policy in indispensable ways over the past five years. In the ultimate statesman-like fashion, Blair has sacrificed his popularity and his short-term legacy to support the President in what he (Blair) sees as the right thing to do.

If anything, the administration has made too little use of Blair's vast talent. Nevertheless, Americans owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to this valiant friend.

News coverage of the press conference from the AP. Press Conference video from C-SPAN.

Real Clear Politics featured a Victor Davis Hanson essay yesterday (Thursday, July 27), "The Fragility of the Good Life," which should be read by all.

Noting that we have come to view "the good life" as an American birthright, completely oblivious to the tumultuous world just outside our gates and ignorant of our own modern history.

How is it, Hanson wonders, that we have "forgotten the 1970s"? (I wrote a similarly themed piece earlier this month, "Alarming History," which fretted that a "perfect storm" of events, similar to the events of the late-1960s and early-1970s, might coalesce to thrust us back into violent economic distress.) Hanson asks if we are unconcerned with our current budget deficits, trade deficits and Chinese ownership of our national debt?

Our culture, now anchored on middle class luxury and affluence, worships consumerism and high tech gadgetry at the expense of traditional values and skills.

Hanson notes: "By historical standards, they are pretty helpless. Most of us can't grow our own food, don't know how cars work and have no clue where or how electricity is generated. In short, few have the smarts to survive if the thin veneer of civilization were to be lost, as it has been from time to time in places like downtown New Orleans."

Hanson's sobering conclusion: "The good life sometimes can be lost quite unexpectedly and abruptly when people demand rights more than they accept responsibilities, or live for present consumption rather than sacrifice for future investment, or feel their own culture is not particularly exceptional and therefore in no need of constant support and defense.

"We should tread carefully in these challenging days of our greatest wealth - and even greater vulnerability."

To reiterate: The entire essay is well worth the read.

This week the American Bar Association issued a report from its "Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine." The report expresses alarm, and makes five recommendations, regarding the presidential practice of attaching accompanying commentary and administrative instructions to bills signed into law.

Thinking Out Loud:

While I have only skimmed the ABA report (and seen a few interviews with task force members and Michael Greco, ABA president), several thoughts occur to me:

1. The Preservation of the Separation of Powers is a noble pursuit.

2. I am pleased that the ABA, the press and the Senate Judiciary Committee are investigating and engaging the executive on this important development in the relationship between the branches.

3. The Task Force offers five resolutions that strike me, for the most part, as common sense recommendations.

4. The Task Force claims bipartisanship (and I recognize Bruce Fein and Mickey Edwards as members ostensibly disinclined to associate themselves with an anti-Bush lynch mob). Nevertheless, There are enough red flags to make me suspicious. Feel free to attach any relevant commentary on the composition of this committee.

5. Debatable Interpretation of History.

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I have expressed before my understanding that the current conflict between the West and Islam must be understood in the context of the nearly 1400 year-long conflict that has waxed and waned since the beginning of Islam. And, on the difficulty and perhaps impossibility of coming to a reasonable compromise of coexistance with any form of Islam that takes Muhammad and the Quran seriously. read here and here and here and here and here and here. Joseph Farah in this article makes the same points. Link from Jihadwatch.

Last Thursday (July 20), Real Clear Politics ran a Victor Davis Hanson essay entitled, "Patience is Wearing Thin," in which VDH argued that the West was running out of civilized choices in the Middle East and hinted that we might soon resort to massive retaliation against terrorists and their benefactors.

VDH reasons that despite the "conventional wisdom" against an additional American military mission aimed at Iran or Syria, the United States (and the West) may come to realize that "diplomacy, aid, support for democracy, multiculturalism, and [partial] withdrawal" does not satisfy the troublesome Islamists. At which point, once our patience is exhausted, we will "opt for hard and quick retaliation" and eschew our historic concerns for humanity, local sensibilities and world opinion.

I could not disagree more.

An aside: This VDH essay reflects the rapidly accumulating frustration and mounting dejection even among stout-hearted, intelligent, patriotic Americans.

The ugly truth: the conventional wisdom that our hands are tied, unfortunately, is absolutely right. If you are Iran (or North Korea), there is very little peril in disdaining the United States right now. Syria is a bit more vulnerable, because of internal uncertainty and weakness, but they might ask as well: what is the United States going to do?

There is no military option.

There is one insurmountable obstacle to another military expedition in the region: American public opinion.

Presently, the American people are in no mood to support any unprovoked aggressive military action anywhere in the world. Americans are no longer convinced that our invasion of Iraq was necessary. Much worse, they are thoroughly unimpressed with our government's administration of Iraq and increasingly pessimistic about our ability to remake the Middle East.

Because the President has lost the American people, he has lost the "loyal" opposition in Congress and is beginning to lose politicians on the periphery of his own party. In addition, the President's inner circle of advisors is in the midst of extended acrimonious hostilities with large parts of the executive bureaucracy. And the media and academia, also at odds with this President from the outset, now emboldened by his weakness, bombards him with derision and destabilizing accusations continuously. The President cannot go on the offensive in the Middle East because he cannot get off the defensive at home. This president does not have the time or the standing to prepare the nation for a greater war in the Middle East. We are stuck.

In the end, I agree with VDH's concluding statement, if not with his reasoning that undergirds the sentiment:

"So in the meantime, let us hope that democracy prevails in Iraq, that our massive aid is actually appreciated by the Middle East, that diplomacy ultimately works with Iran, that Syria quits supporting terrorists, and that Hamas and Hezbollah cease their rocket attacks against Israel -- more for all their sakes than ours."

What happens when our patience wears thin? We go home. We leave rather meekly (see Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia), and we are unlikely to blow up the place on the way out.

For more on this from me, please review: "The War on Terror and the Middle East Dilemma."

I am not a follower of bicycle racing so I did not know the story of the recent winner of the Tour de France. A classic tale of grit overcoming obstacles. I'm a sucker for stories like this. The Mennonite boy from Pennsylvania who overcame chronic pain to win cycling's biggest event. Read article.

I have not commented on the current conflict so far, because I have nothing really to add to what others are saying. But, this article from Der Spiegel says what I think so well, that I want to link to it. What he said. (The article is in English) Link from Jihadwatch.

I was taught flag etiquette by my Grandfather Taylor, a WW1 veteran and life-long member of the American Legion. (Also a protestor against the Vietnam War, but that is another story.) I remember helping my Grandfather erect a flagpole in the rural cemetery near our home where many of our family were buried. For several years I had the job of mowing the cemetery, and taking care of the flag. Every morning I would raise the Stars and Stripes, and every night I would lower it. Sometimes I would forget, or be busy when the sun set. That would mean a trip in the dark to the middle of the cemetery to get the flag. My grandpa had instilled in me a rigid code of respect for the flag; even after he died I would not allow the flag to hang at night.

This link gives proper flag etiquette. Note the rules for nightime display of the flag: "The flag should be raised briskly and lowered slowly and ceremoniously. Ordinarily it should be displayed only between sunrise and sunset. It should be illuminated if displayed at night."

More and more I see flags left up day and night, without illumination. Businesses as well as private individuals not bothering to lower the flag at sunset. This bothers me. I know that lowering the flag each evening and raising it each morning takes work, takes care and attention. But, how do we show respect, really? Is it not by giving care and attention? Respect the flag. Give it the care and attention it deserves. Raise and lower it each day, or at least each holiday. If you want to fly it all night, put up a light.

It strikes me that many of my recent comments in re "democracy" and American foreign policy carried a certain scornful dismissiveness. While I stand by my substantive analysis, I probably offered them in a misleading tone. Perhaps a few caveats and some nuance would be helpful.

What of democracy?

One problem: we are generally imprecise in our language. What we enjoy today in the United States (and often call "democracy") is a hybrid of republicanism (self determination through representative government) and democracy (popular sovereignty, rule by the people). In our system, power is invested in all the citizens--but generally exercised by a professional and learned political class. More importantly, for us, "democracy" has also become shorthand for a national culture of market-oriented economics, individual rights and equality of opportunity.

An aside: James Madison et al viewed raw democracy as "mob rule" and a recipe for disorder. While the framers of our constitution adamantly believed in government of the people and for the people, they were quite cautious concerning government by the people. The founders would not be surprised by the current tumult in the Middle East. They would have seen clearly the potential calamitous problem with democracy in that region: radical elements might use elections to take control of government and install themselves as dangerous but "legitimate" states.

For Americans, the Age of Jackson brought the beginning of a change in attitude, and within a generation, all elements of the American political system embraced the rhetoric of "democratic" government. Republican virtue, which idealized an elite class of statesman divested of their own self interest (disinterested), gave way to the "Democracy," which seized on an increasingly broadly distributed franchise and advocated, in the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, "self interest rightly understood."

In the decades that followed the War of 1812, the American democracy became inextricably coupled with the Market Revolution and forever linked with self improvement and free labor as a means of social mobility. In essence, the American Dream became not just political freedom, as defined in the Declaration of Independence or Bill or Rights, but economic opportunity as well.

Our calls for "democracy" in the Middle East are not necessarily demanding one-person-one-vote government. We are actually endorsing a broader, loosely defined idea of self-determination, which includes individual empowerment and a personal investment in stability among the people of the region. In our shorthand, democracy means a modern, educated, connected society in which the citizenry rightly understand their self interest--and act accordingly.

I have indicated that the subtext of this plan for "democracy" in the Middle East includes introducing Muslims to the pleasures of consumerism. Economic self interest, "rightly understood," is a key component within peaceful societies based on government by the people in the modern world.

This is not a new idea. In the midst of WWII, the Allies (USA, Great Britain & USSR) all agreed on "pastoralization" for post-war Germany. That is, the German nation was to be dismantled and de-industrialized and remade into an agrarian state, deprived of its status as a world power and forever defanged as a war-making threat.

But by the end of the war, the United States backed out of the gentleman's agreement. The United States opted for rebuilding and re-industrializing the defeated German nation in order to create a powerful democratic partner and strategic ally in a crucial part of the world. A few years later, after the "loss of China," the United States pursued the same policy in re Japan. As we know, these gambits paid handsome dividends.

Were these initiatives altruistic (giving the gift of freedom to our vanquished foes)? Or opportunistic (creating a lucrative economic partnership)? Or strategic? The answer is most likely "Yes." None of those explanations are mutually exclusive.

When we speak of "spreading democracy," generally, we are not cynically covering our ugly American imperial bent. Most of us genuinely believe in the superiority of our system of government and our way of life. We sincerely believe in the "greatness" of our system, and we want to share it with the "less fortunate." Would we like to make a buck and achieve our own security in the process? Absolutely.

Nevertheless, the initiative to remake the Middle East, however wrong-headed it may prove to be, is based on good intentions, national pride and a specific set of successes in our not-too-distant past.

For the record, I am not completely cynical about the power of democracy.

One of the treasures in my denomination (Reformed Church in America) is Lou Lotz, a pastor who writes a monthly column for our church magazine. Here is his latest essay. I encourage you to read it, and all his columns. He writes with insight and creativity, bringing faith and life together.