…otherwise I'll lose the election again!
The President Makes Danger His Campaign Theme
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
ASHINGTON
THERE was something familiar in the language that President Bush used in his State of the Union speech Tuesday when he asked Americans to stay with him through the journey that began on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. "We've not come all this way through tragedy and trial and war only to falter and leave our work unfinished," Mr. Bush said, in words that bore the strong imprint of his chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, an evangelical Christian.
Some listeners detected an allusion to a passage in "Amazing Grace," the hymn written by a slave trader turned minister and abolitionist, John Newton, after he survived an Atlantic storm:
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
Newton was referring in the last two lines to his salvation by God, a sentiment often echoed by the president. But in this speech, which served as the opening shot of Mr. Bush's 2004 campaign, the real message was there if listeners substituted the name "Bush" for "grace."
In short, Mr. Bush was holding himself out as the candidate who can best protect the nation from the evils of a post-9/11 world. Many Democrats call it the politics of fear; Republicans call it reality. Whatever the terminology, Mr. Bush has never before so bluntly told voters that the choice was between him and "the dangerous illusion" (read Democrats) that the threat had passed. Members of both parties say that running on national security may well guarantee Mr. Bush a second term. The White House is betting the election on it.
This is hardly news to the Democrats, who have never said the fear is not real. The candidacy of Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the commander of the Kosovo bombing campaign, was driven in large part by Democrats nervous about the national security credentials of the antiwar Howard Dean; John Kerry began to surge after a soldier whose life he saved in Vietnam turned up in Iowa. The Democrats tried to make the economy the issue in the 2002 midterm elections, but Mr. Bush led the Republicans to gains by vowing to hunt the killers down "one by one" and charging the Democrats with holding up the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.
The State of the Union speech took the strategy to new heights. "This was a remarkably candid acknowledgment of how much he intends to exploit the political value of his posture as the only effective warrior in the war against terror," said David M. Kennedy, a professor of history at Stanford. "It's a very strong card, and may well prove to be a trump card."
Historically, Americans have not voted out the commander in chief in the middle of war, which helps explain, Democrats say, why Mr. Bush used the grand stage of the State of the Union speech to underline the threat. ("And it is tempting to believe that the danger is behind us. That hope is understandable, comforting and false.") It is also why the president traced the two-year narrative of a war on terror and then rebutted those who questioned, as he put it, "if America is really in a war."
Posted by P6 at January 24, 2004 04:13 PM
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Comments
Of course, the war on terrorism could last many decades, we're told, so we wouldn't want to vote out Republicans for at least that long. Right?
Posted by Al-Muhajabah at January 25, 2004 12:07 AMWe would as soon as the Democrats come up with a more credible plan for winning the war.
Posted by Phelps at January 26, 2004 01:37 PMNonsense. You still wouldn't vote Democratic had there been no invasion.
Posted by P6 at January 27, 2004 04:41 PMROFL
Posted by Al-Muhajabah at January 28, 2004 02:58 AM