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COMMENTARY
October 23, 2004
Letter to USA, II
The reader is under no obligation to take me seriously; my credentials are currently archived on my website half-a-million words since 9/11 that will or won't stand the test of re-reading. I am a "pundit" -- never meant to be but there you have it. Woke up the morning of Sept. 11th 2001 as usual wondering what I would write about that day but by mid-morning was galvanized to a purpose. Not something from within but something from outside had done the galvanizing. I realized in the moment I learned the aircraft had hit the towers that there are some opinions that can't be thrown away. That my curmudgeonly and ironical view of the decline of the West could no longer be casually witty and charming. There are things so important that a man must fight for them. My view of President Bush coalesced in the fortnight after the attacks. I formed the opposite to the common Canadian view of the man called an "idiot" and a "moron" even by our cabinet ministers prime ministerial aides and other "dwarves who never lived" (the phrase is Guillaume Apollinaire's). For a brief moment it was widely conceded that Mr. Bush handled himself well; then "left" and "right" were re-asserted. Mr. Bush's speech to Congress on Sept. 20th 2001 will most certainly go down with Churchill and Pericles and the rest. It should be re-read now by American electors. Yet I had not been much impressed with Mr. Bush beforehand. I had caught a glimpse of him before he became President and so already knew he was an exceptionally smart and astute politician capable of great articulacy when he had something to say and almost intentionally bumbling otherwise. In other words I already knew that the media account of Mr. Bush was as false as the media account of anything. But I would not have guessed how far he could rise to an occasion like 9/11. I may disagree over many of his policies I may even disagree over his final assessment of the enemy we face and therefore over long-term strategy for defeating that enemy. But the man has guts and a spine common sense intellectual honesty and a profound love of his own people. He was and remains the indispensable captain. It is still too early to judge how history will review this U.S. President though I expect he will rank with Lincoln Roosevelt and Reagan if he does not lose his footing now. For even what sort of history will be written may turn on the outcome of this election which is happening at one of the crossroads of history. In the weeks after 9/11 I concluded that Mr. Bush made a fine captain having the qualities of character that are needed in critical times. Despite frustrations I have had no reason to revise that view. Nor since I have got the flavour of Mr. Kerry have I had reason to revise my belief that he is unfit for command. He is a man with a shady past who will say or do almost anything to get elected. As the opponent of and only available alternative to Mr. Bush he is the darling of the media of Hollywood of the liberal establishment and the university professoriat -- of America-haters abroad and self-loathing Americans at home. He would be their darling-for-the-night even if he were indistinguishable from the incumbent. But the two men aren't indistinguishable. Bush is a straight-shooter; Kerry a master of bafflegab. As I said the reader is under no obligation but let me tell you I sincerely believe this election is the most important in which anyone will vote during my lifetime. (The Carter/Reagan election of 1980 may have been almost equally important but a decade had to pass before we could appreciate what had been at stake. This time we can know in advance.) While superficially the election is between a Republican and a Democrat between Candidate Bush and Candidate Kerry these men of such different character front for two radically different Americas in an election in which the winner will take all. And if Mr. Kerry is elected it is hard to imagine the degree to which the America that stood up bravely to 9/11 and which moved boldly into Afghanistan and Iraq will feel betrayed and demoralized. Americans are voting on whether to advance or retreat against as big a challenge as they (and we) have faced. Domestically as well as internationally everything that holds the West's last bastion together is suddenly on the line. Their choice really is: "faith family and freedom" or funk. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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