GETTING TO KNOW YOU:

Suddenly, George Bush is looking better (MICHAEL COREN, 1/15/05, Toronto Sun)

I have to admit it. U.S. President George Bush is beginning to grow on me.

In an interview with a Washington newspaper this past week, he made two statements that have landed him in a certain amount of trouble, but which are in fact supremely wise.

The first was that a political leader, particularly an American president, should be a person of faith. The second was that women should never have to fight on the ground, in the front line, in a military conflict.

As for the former, he is absolutely correct. People who believe in their own supremacy rather than that of a higher being are far more capable of acts of sadism and horror. Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot, among others, have taught us that. [...]

As for the latter remark, Bush's view of women in combat may be unfashionable, but that does not make it any less ethical or accurate.

Equality does not mean the elimination of differences. Women can be prime ministers, women can be editors, women can be business leaders, women can be almost anything they want to be.

They have a fundamental right to equal pay, equal privileges and equal dignity. But the right to not be women is not a right at all but an abuse of nature. And women as killers is precisely that, a destruction of the quintessence of what it means to be a female.

Now, if only Canada had a political party that agreed.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 15, 2005 9:53 AM