The End of Bush the Bold
December 31, 2002
by Joe Sobran
To read the conservative and neoconservative press,
you'd think that President George W. Bush combined the
military genius of Napoleon, the courage of Coriolanus,
and the moral wisdom of Confucius. My own view is that he
confirms the truth of the adage "Never send a boy to do a
man's job."
Actually, the presidency is more a Superman's job.
Nobody should be given -- or trusted with -- that much
power and responsibility. Nobody can possibly handle it.
By abandoning our Constitution, in which the
legislative branch is supreme, we have permitted the
executive branch to assume a centrality it was never
meant to have. The president is now said to be our
"leader." He's expected to provide governance,
protection, economic expertise, geopolitical cunning, and
inspiration, among other things; and of course he also
has to have a talent for raising money and winning
elections.
Rare is the man who can master even one of these
disparate, unrelated, almost miscellaneous skills.
Requiring all of them is like asking a single individual
to excel at playing the harpsichord, logical theory,
standup comedy, chess, and pole-vaulting.
In these terms, nobody can be a good president. He
can only play one on TV. Reagan was superb at this
impersonation; Bill Clinton might have been just as good,
if only he hadn't set an unhappy precedent by splashing
his personal foibles onto the front pages.
But Bush? For most of his first year in the Oval
Office he gave us the impression he was lost in the job.
After the 9/11 attacks, however, he seemed to achieve a
new stature. Maybe we were right the first time.
In the wake of the attacks, Bush adopted the posture
of Gary Cooper in HIGH NOON. He played a resolute hero
who knew what he was doing. It flew with the public and
most of the pundits; even his liberal critics were
impressed. But he quickly diverted from a "war on
terrorism" to an irrelevant war on Iraq.
He sealed his obsession with Iraq by naming it one
of the three points on an "axis of evil," along with Iran
and North Korea. He said Iraq posed an urgent danger
because it was ruled by a cruel tyrant bent on acquiring
nuclear weapons and threatening the whole region, if not
the whole world.
Well, someone answering this lurid description has
now stepped forward, and it isn't Saddam Hussein. It's
North Korea's Kim Jong Il.
Kim has nukes, and he's not hiding it. He's bragging
about it. He dares Bush to stop him. He passes the "cruel
tyrant" test with flying colors. He's a Communist of the
Stalin-Mao ilk, permitting mass starvation in his country
rather than relaxing his iron grip. He seems quite
cheerfully willing to go to war with his neighbors. And
this is to say nothing of his funny teeth and haircut: he
even looks eerie.
How cruel is he? Well, desperate North Koreans are
actually risking their sorry lives to flee to China,
making China the first Communist country ever to have an
illegal immigrant problem. The North Korean media call
Kim "the Dear Leader."
So how is Bush handling this certified monster? Very
awkwardly. In amusing contrast to his tough talk about
prostrate Iraq, Bush is treating North Korea as a
diplomatic problem, nothing urgent. What about those
weapons of mass destruction? Surely we can resolve our
little differences like gentlemen. What about the "axis
of evil"? Just a figure of speech, it seems. No hard
feelings.
Kim seems to feel differently. He may be crazy, but
he's not stupid. When he heard Bush speak of that "axis
of evil," he heard "hit list," and he figured North
Korea's turn might be coming when Bush was finished with
the Middle East.
So Kim decided to upset Bush's schedule by shaking
nukes in his face before he was ready. Why wait for war
at Bush's convenience? Why not challenge him
preemptively, as it were? Sure enough, Bush, the brave
cowboy, backed off fast. He realized he wasn't dealing
with a mere Saddam Hussein.
So much for Bush the Bold. Yes, the presidency is
too big a job for any man, but Bush, it's now clear, is
far, far out of his depth. Publishing his hit list was an
act of the most puerile bravado.
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