In defense of the President.

I make no secret that President Bush has disappointed me. His failure to aggressively address our illegal alien problem and the frustrating blindness to Islam's true nature send me running for my blood pressure medicine at times.

Yet there's much good to be said about our Chief Executive. And forgetting that only makes me a part of the problem, not the solution.

Here is a passionate defense of the man. I don't find anything in it I disagree with.

[The following is written by John L. Overland, Jr., Esq., a practicing attorney living in Manhattan. Reproduced with permission and without edit.]
11 November 2006
Even as I write this I know that people smarter than I will have written their own concise and analytical commentaries as to what went wrong for Republicans during the mid-term elections of 2006 and for me, that’s OK. My intent is not to analyze what went wrong for us but to express my own appreciation to a man often belittled, often maligned, and often unjustly so. That man is my President, George W. Bush, and right now I sincerely believe that the President needs some kind words. He has received damned little in the course of his Presidency. Instead, throughout his Presidency and certainly in the last week he has suffered the most vicious attacks, consistently from the Left but lately even from certain of us on the Right, and it’s time to provide an honest appraisal.

Many of my fellow conservatives rending their robes and gnashing their teeth right now, angrily insisting that the President never meant to lead a conservative revolution and that somehow he betrayed the cause, need to take the midterm results with some historical perspective. President Bush came to office in the aftermath of a bitterly contested election that was ultimately settled by Supreme Court decision. A slim Senate majority greeted his inauguration, which was promptly erased with the exit of Jim Jeffords from the Republican Party and which was not restored until the midterm elections of 2002. When President Bush first went to Washington, he understood that the American people expected their government to work and, having worked with both parties in Texas he tried to work with and build relationships in Washington with Democrats at the national level. We conservatives chafed in frustration, but it was good that the President did so. The 2000 election ended in rancor, and the President understood the need for reconciliation, for our Nation as much as for our elected officials. That it didn’t work is due mainly because Washington’s Democrats had then, as now, only their best political interests in mind. That situation changed only after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and even then only briefly.

I don’t know the President personally but I knew enough about him that I voted for him four times. Two times for Texas governor and two times again for President, and each time I was proud that I did. I was always impressed with his warmth, his genuine concern for people, and what I believe was his core knowledge that people can be trusted with freedom and that a great people trusted with freedom can do mighty things. His conservative critics are right: President Bush is no President Reagan and in December 2000 he didn’t go to Washington promising a great conservative vision. But President Reagan was elected in two landslides that gave him a definite mandate, and was blessed with a personality that, even while continually facing a biased media long before the Limbaughs and the Hannitys came along, overcame his liberal Democrat opposition and helped him achieve most of his agenda. It is extremely important to understand that President Bush did not have this advantage. Even so, he was able to win the tax cuts so that American workers could keep, save, and invest more of what we work so hard to earn. Even in the aftermath of a horrible terrorist attack (the only terrorist attack against Americans since he took office which, it must be emphasized, is something that his predecessor cannot say) and the aftermath of a devastating hurricane we are enjoying a robust economy and the lowest unemployment rate in years. The Gipper himself might comfort President Bush with the words “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Yes, I’m angry with the results of the midterms. Yes, I know that President Bush could have, and should have, done more to advance his agenda. But even in my anger with the results of the midterms I remind myself that since 2002 President Bush enjoyed majorities in both houses of Congress and that it is important not to see this defeat for the GOP as a defeat for conservatism. Again, it is important to maintain a historical perspective: with Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 the Democrats literally dominated both houses of Congress and the White House from 1993 to 1994 and were well on their way to enacting a myriad of liberal legislation. The American people’s response was to utterly reject this liberal agenda after only two years, and Clinton had no choice but to move to the right of his extreme left. President Bush will only have to deal with this Democratic Congress during the remaining two years of his term. Even so, many of these races were hard fought, and many of those Democratic candidates elected won by advocating conservative, not liberal, positions.

Yes, I’m angry with the results of the midterm elections. But I’m angrier still with the shrill, hateful voices that have plagued this man and his family for over six years now. It is easy to be angry with President Bush for not fighting harder for his judicial nominees or for his agenda but it is also irresponsibly lazy to blame him alone. It must have been hard for him to be singled out to shoulder the responsibility for the reported horrors of Hurricane Katrina alone. (I never understood how Floridians could make it through four to five hurricanes in rapid succession in 2004, or how the people of Mississippi and Alabama, white and black, could survive Katrina and even come together to immediately begin the recovery, and how at the same time New Orleans became such a basket case, but such is politics.) It must have been terribly hard for him, and harder still for his Laura attending with him, at Coretta Scott King’s funeral in February of this year, an event that was supposed to honor the memory of a civil rights icon that turned into an orgy of hate. And it must have been tremendously hard to advance any agenda when so many members of his own party stood so resolutely against him. The morning after President Bush won the 2004 election and gained solid Republican majorities in both houses, Rush Limbaugh named several prominent liberals during a morning broadcast and proudly proclaimed, “You lost.” But the furtherance of a conservative agenda was not to be. Had there been no John McCain’s, no Lincoln Chafees, no Lindsay Grahams and a few more Tom DeLays in both Houses, perhaps more could have been accomplished. In the end, it was a constant beating by the Democrats, aided and abetted by the media and a total reluctance on the part of Republican senators and representatives to fight back, and to fight hard for a conservative agenda, that led to last Tuesday’s “thumping.”

Finally, yes, I’m angry with the results of the midterms, but I am angrier-infinitely angrier-with the drumbeat of hate that has been pounded throughout the terms of this genuinely decent man. I remember when Bill Clinton suffered his heart attack in September 2004 and as much as I despise Clinton’s character and demagoguery (hell, as much as I despise him) , despite whatever relationship he and his wife share or tolerate, I never once hoped that he would die. My first thought when I heard of his attack was of his daughter, who certainly must have been very frightened, and to pray earnestly for his recovery. Nor did I ever once read or hear of any conservative commentator or friend pray or wish otherwise. Bush and his family, in disgusting, utter contrast, have had to endure insults, accusations that he is evil, and finally, the sick, disgusting, perverted masturbatory fantasy of his assassination committed to film. I have personally argued fiercely with people who actually think of this man as evil, and this year I stormed out of a temple sanctuary during a Yom Kippur sermon that deviated into a hatefest. The officiating rabbi apparently never heard of the term khillul Ha-Shem, or the profanation of the Name. What G-d originally intended when He commanded “Thou shalt not take the Name of the L-rd in vain” was for us as Jews to act and speak in a way such that the Gentiles would want to seek out the Torah and follow it and Israel’s G-d. Profanation of the Name meant acts and speech that would cause people to turn away from G-d and His Torah. This rabbi apparently never got the memo. There are people who say that Islam is a religion that has been hijacked by fanatics. So, apparently, has Reform Judaism. I have not set foot in a New York temple since.

President Bush has not been perfect. But neither was any of his predecessors and he has served and continues to serve in a manner that amazes me. That he has endured so much, and has done so with humility and a genuine appreciation of those whom we have sent in harm’s way, reminds me that I would not be able to meet this visceral hatred with such grace and serenity as he has and that he has faced these challenges with courage and with more composure than I ever could. He alone led us through the most terrifying moment of our lives, kept us safe in the aftermath, and has been a careful steward of our economy. If he deserves anything from us it is not the sick, disgusting hatred of the Left and Right, but the heartfelt thanks of a grateful people.