TailOverTeaKettle.com

Just to follow up my rant from yesterday, I would like to present a great article from Wednesday’s AJC by Shaunti Feldhahn (see, as long as it is not their normal opinion writers, then there can be some good stuff in there!): Shaunti Feldhahn : Bush certain to take heat regardless (4/14/2004):

I’d like those who accuse our president of ignoring pre-Sept. 11 threats to join me on a little tour.

It is early April 2001. After a contentious election, President Bush has been in office just 10 weeks. No 747s have been hijacked. No towers have fallen. But the tech market has been crashing for a year, losing two-thirds of its value and putting hundreds of thousands out of work. The effects of the tumbling economy are beginning to be felt.

The crew of a Navy spy jet is being "detained" in China, and news pundits mercilessly criticize the administration for continuing such broad intelligence-gathering in a post-Cold War world. The spy race, these sages say, alienates our friends and exhausts resources that should instead be boosting the economy. Starting with the stock market. We liked it better when it only went up. You remember those days?

Now let’s move into the fantasy land occupied by the president’s detractors.

In April 2001, Bush calls a news conference. Henceforth, his top priority will be a war on terrorism, an imminent threat. The government will increase global intelligence-gathering, starting with a Patriot Act to increase the FBI’s domestic surveillance powers. The State Department will freeze assets of suspect Islamic charities and the Immigration and Naturalization Service will register and fingerprint visitors from Islamic states.

Most importantly, Bush announces, we will soon invade Afghanistan and overthrow its government, which is beholden to a terrorist network bent on harming us. Any questions?

Consternation! Chaos!

Members of the astonished White House press corps scramble for their phones, and every news outlet fires up its indignation meter. Bush has lost his mind. He thinks he’s back in the Cold War. He’s going to turn the world against us and doom our economy. And what cowboy arrogance to consider a pre-emptive strike against another state!

Even if some terrorist network has taken over, what gives us the right to overthrow the Taliban to address what is, at best, a murky threat? Mr. President, can you prove these claims? No, our intelligence doesn’t reveal a specific plan for attacking us.

No, the Taliban itself is not an imminent threat, but it is harboring this group called al-Qaida. Yes, pre-emption is a new strategy, but our intelligence indicates that al-Qaida is capable of inflicting great harm. No, I can’t share that intelligence. No, as I said, we don’t know what they are planning, but they must be stopped before we find out the hard way.

For the next month, incredulous newscasters and gleeful Democrats analyze the administration’s attempts to explain the unexplainable. The president’s approval ratings plummet.

Now, fast-forward to real life, to the 9/11 commission, and to the many who accuse the Bush administration of negligence for not foreseeing and preventing al-Qaida’s attacks. With responsible hindsight, what becomes obvious is not that our president could have prevented Sept. 11, but that his detractors would have savaged him if he had tried. And almost every national security measure the president is criticized for taking after Sept. 11 is exactly what his detractors fault him for not doing beforehand.

No one gets credit for preventing catastrophes; only criticism. And this Catch-22 crosses the aisle. Many conservatives wrongly disparage President Clinton for somehow not eliminating al-Qaida earlier, ignoring the fact that they would have decried any such attempts.

Our president doesn’t have the luxury of living in hindsight. He is tasked with protecting us, with taking decisive action. And the surest sign that he takes that job seriously is that he is being sniped at from those who are sitting safely on the sidelines.

Before the Atlanta Journal and Constitution merged into one edition there used to at least be some choice in the typical editorial slant you could subscribe to. Now it’s gone. In fact we even got treated the other day to a wonderful essay from Al-Jazzera blaming all of the trouble in the Middle East on Isreal because Palestinian children have been killed. (Of course, they forget to mention that they are killed with regret when seeking out those Palestinian terrorists who have already blown up Isreali military and civilian targets… but never mind - it’s the vicitim who always finds a way to bring it on themself.

More content like Ms. Feldhahn’s would be greatly appreciated.