BE W:

Bring Bush (Monica Crowley, 3/06/11, Political Mavens)

On November 19, 2003, President George W. Bush delivered a major address at Whitehall Palace in London. Here’s part of what he said:

“We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. .

“As recent history has shown, we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found.

“Now we’re pursuing a different course, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. We will consistently challenge the enemies of reform and confront the allies of terror. We will expect a higher standard from our friends in the region, and we will meet our responsibilities in Afghanistan and in Iraq by finishing the work of democracy we have begun.”

In his selfish and narcissistic drive to be the “anti-Bush,” President Obama refuses to embrace the most strategically and morally correct of Bush’s policies: the freedom agenda. This explains in large part his pathetic reluctance to offer clear words of moral support to the Iranian and Libyan peoples who are struggling and dying to free themselves from their terrorist and murderous tyrannies, tyrannies that also happen to be enemies of the United States. Obama is so obsessed with not appearing to embrace Bush’s overt and covert support of freedom and liberty and respect for human rights—-as correct as it was and is—that he is making serious strategic mistakes to the great detriment of U.S. national security.