Weak leadership

Daniel Drezner is the thinking Republican's person (or permutations on that) and he has been wrestling with his conscience of late. He's been feeling uncomfortably incapable of voting for George W Bush and the gang in the '04 elections. Daniel's thinking is interesting and well worth consideration, but we naturally prefer the following comments he received (from us posting as "Winston"):

That comment by Greg Djerejian (whomever he is - I admit I haven't read him) is so lame that it deserves Fisking.

I will go to my grave not knowing that. I can't answer it. I can't explain the strategic obsession with Iraq--why it rose to the top of people's priority list. I just can't explain why so many people thought this was so important to do.

You know, timid people will ignore the elephant in the living room right up until it treads all over their delicate sensibilities and polite manners. Realists can answer a question as straightforward as Djerejian's with the word "Israel". Elaboration would also be possible, but "Israel" would appear regularly throughout any answer

But if there was a hidden reason, the one I heard most was that we needed to change the geopolitical momentum after 9/11. People wanted to show that we can dish it out as well as take it. We're not a pitiful helpless giant. We can play offense as well as defense.

The sad thing about this is that any giant who reasons that way is, truly, a "pitiful" one. Parents know something about kids who lash out at weaker kids when they're themselves being bullied. It's not admiration they feel for them under the circumstances. This is upsetting commentary from Daniel when this stuff is touted as "must read". Why - aren't there opinions even lamer than this out there for us to waste our time on if that is what we seek?

This crap about the "post 9/11" world is, also, alright for the kiddies and Bush voters to babble on about. Daniel can and does do better. The only thing that changed on 9/11 was that the reality of missed chances, intelligence and security failures, and hamfisted US foreign policy - all fomenting away nicely right throughout Clinton's watch - finally blew up in the face of an even more clueless administration. The world didn't change that day, but Uncle Sam should have woken up a little to reality.

If the USA wants to continue in a happy world of its own imaginings and dreams, oblivious to harsh reality, then it has the chance real soon now to vote four more years to the schoolyard bullies who brag that they and their empire of hubris are the reality of your dreams. Rove (presumably) is quite correct to say that we create our own reality. Thing is - that fact doesn't help you if you don't know much about the rest of the world around you, and don't understand what kind of reality it would be good for you to create. Children spin their dreams in sandpits and their castles in the air, with mom and dad to look out for them. America is presently spinning its dreams in a bear pit, while the adults are fast losing what was their great compassion and sympathy for the once great giant.

Truth is that the best of Americans today still represent what is most noble and admirable in western civilization. None of those Americans will vote for a weak man like George W Bush for President of the United States.

That group which the right wingnuts know as the "hate-filled" voters against Bush waits to warmly welcome Daniel Drezner to the shrill inner fold!