WHAT FALL?:

Bush's real strength (The Telegraph, 09/04/04)

To understand Mr Bush's appeal, consider his keynote speech in New York. It was, we were told, inspired by FDR, but its central theme - "a safer world, a more hopeful America" - owed at least as much to Ronald Reagan. President Reagan, too, was written off by his domestic and foreign critics, portrayed by British cartoonists as a trigger-happy buffoon.

Yet he was one of the greatest figures of the post-war era. Where detractors saw a simpleton, keener observers saw a simple patriot who never allowed himself to become distracted from his two big themes: small government at home, military resolve abroad. On both questions, he was right, and he carried his country behind him by the force of his infectious optimism.

George W Bush understands this in his bones. Many years ago, when an interviewer put it to him that he was too dim to be president, he replied, with a twinkle in his eye: "That's what they said about Reagan."

Reagan-like, he has stuck to his two themes: carrying the fight to his country's foes while cutting taxes. He, too, communicates a cheerfulness that ordinary voters appreciate rather more than political commentators. In Fahrenheit 9/11, for example, Mr Bush is shown pledging to defeat the terrorists before returning to his golf swing. The scene is meant to indicate his unsuitability for office. Yet it is surely heartening to see a commander behaving with the nonchalance of Sir Francis Drake.

The same goes for Mr Bush's lack of nuance. European commentators winced at his phrase "axis of evil". Yet the concepts of good and evil mean more to American voters than to some Europeans.

That secular societies deprive themselves of even such basic necessities as access to the concepts of good and evil suggests why they are declining so swiftly.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 3, 2004 8:41 PM