W. knocks it out of the park...
To say this speech is terrific is an understatement. This is his best speech in a long time. This is where he is at his best. It is this why I am still in full support of him and prefer him to be our current leader over anyone else. The simple point is, that the War on Terror is #1 on the list of priorities. ALL others are tied for a distant #2. While I might not like things he does on blowing the budget, not stopping pork like 'Bridges to Nowhere', or even making SCOTUS nominations that don't inspire me, he gets what truly matters…. just right. If we don't get #1 priority right, it doesn't matter if we have 9 Scalias on the Bench.
Here is the text. But, people need to feel good about W. today and watching him deliver it is sooo much better...
I think more now that Peggy Noonan was right about 'Dubya's New Deal', even if she doesn't anymore:
"FDR would sacrifice anything, he'd tack left right and center, to win World War II. …..
Mr. Bush is doing the same thing. He is accepting what he thinks he has to accept (pork, a bad trade bill) in order to keep or expand the power balance he has in Washington, and in order to keep from angering or offending your basic, normal, politically nonobsessed citizen."
This plays nicely into an emailer's assertion to Jpod over at NRO that all W. cares about Miers is that she will support the administration's views on the W.O.T.
Bush's speech today is FILLED with great quotes. Such as:
"And Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure. By fearing freedom -- by distrusting human creativity, and punishing change, and limiting the contributions of half the population -- this ideology undermines the very qualities that make human progress possible, and human societies successful."
And my favorite:
"There's always a temptation, in the middle of a long struggle, to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world, and to hope the enemy grows weary of fanaticism and tired of murder. This would be a pleasant world, but it's not the world we live in. The enemy is never tired, never sated, never content with yesterday's brutality. This enemy considers every retreat of the civilized world as an invitation to greater violence. In Iraq, there is no peace without victory. We will keep our nerve and we will win that victory."
Resist that temptation Mr. President. Please.