If I were an American citizen, I think I would be a Democrat rather than a
Republican. And I would have voted for Gore rather than Bush. But with all
the Bush bashing, especially here, I have decided to bring some balance.
Here is something going against the tide:


The Certainty Crisis
From the March 7, 2003 London Times: George W. Bush's waffle-free directness
alarms the fashionably doubtful commentariat.
by David Brooks
03/10/2003 12:00:00 AM
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/344hkcxs.asp

THE AMERICAN COMMENTARIAT is gravely concerned. Over the past week, George
W. Bush has shown a disturbing tendency not to waffle when it comes to Iraq.
There has been an appalling clarity and coherence to his position. There has
been a reckless tendency not to be murky, hesitant, or evasive. Naturally,
questions are being raised about President Bush's leadership skills.

The United States is in the midst of the certainty crisis. Time magazine is
disturbed by "The blinding glare of his certainty," as one headline referred
to Bush's unwillingness to go wobbly on Iraq. "A questionable certainty" was
the headline in the Los Angeles Times. "This kind of certainty worries
Bush's critics," noted U.S. News & World Report. "Moral certainty, for the
most part, is a luxury of a closed mind," observed William Lesher, a
Lutheran school of theology professor, who presumably preserves a subtle
open-mindedness about the Holocaust and other such matters.

Meanwhile, among the smart set, Hamlet-like indecision has become the
intellectual fashion. The liberal columnist E. J. Dionne wrote in the
Washington Post that he is uncomfortable with the pro and antiwar camps. He
praised the doubters and raised his colors on behalf of "heroic
ambivalence." The New York Times, venturing deep into the territory of
self-parody, ran a full-page editorial calling for "still more discussion"
on whether or not to go to war.

The leading Democratic presidential contender, John Kerry, has become the
political standard-bearer of the high-toned, agnostic, and incomprehensible.
He begins his speeches on sunny days and under crisp skies and proceeds to
lay down such a miasma of equivocation and on-the-other-hands that the sun
is blotted out and you can't see the question marks as they fly by in front
of your face. The fog of peace is thick indeed.

In certain circles, it is not only important what opinion you hold, but how
you hold it. It is important to be seen dancing with complexity, sliding
among shades of gray. Any poor rube can come to a simple conclusion--that
President Saddam Hussein is a menace who must be disarmed--but the refined
ratiocinators want to be seen luxuriating amid the difficulties, donning the
jewels of nuance, even to the point of self-paralysis. And they want to see
their leaders paying homage to this style. Accordingly, many Bush critics
seem less disturbed by his position than by his inability to adhere to the
rules of genteel intellectual manners. They want him to show a little
anguish. They want baggy eyes, evidence of sleepless nights, a few
photo-ops, Kennedy-style, of the president staring gloomily through the Oval
Office windows into the distance.

And this prompts a question in their minds. Why does George Bush breach
educated class etiquette so grievously? Why does he seem so certain,
decisive and sure of himself, when everybody--tout le monde!--knows that
anxiety and anguish are the proper poses to adopt in such times.

The U.S. press is filled with psychologizing. And two explanations have
reemerged.

First, Bush is stupid. Intellectually incurious, he is unable to adapt to
events.

Secondly, he is a religious nut. He sees the world as a simple battle of
good versus evil. His faith cannot admit shades of gray.

The problem with the explanations is that they have nothing to do with
reality.

The charge that Bush is too simple to change course flies in the face of his
whole career. As governor of Texas, he proposed one version of tax reform.
When it faltered in the legislature, he pivoted and embraced an entirely
different plan.

He entered the White House with one sort of minimalist foreign policy. After
September 11, he adapted to the new era more quickly and comprehensively
than any other figure in the world, proposing an entirely new and expansive
national security strategy.

As for those who claim Bush's faith gives him a Manichean worldview, have
any of them actually read the Bible? The holy texts that Bush cites do not
divide humanity between good and evil, but emphasize the sin, temptations,
and goodness entwined in each soul. And when Bush calls a regime evil,
surely only the most simple-minded secularist believes he is saying a simple
thing. If they think evil is simple, haven't they at least read Dostoevsky?

Now it is true that Bush values what Shirley Robin Letwin called the
vigorous virtues: "upright, self-sufficient, energetic, adventurous,
independent minded, loyal to friends, robust against foes." But the main
difference between Bush and his critics is that he is in a position of
responsibility and they are not. On the colloquium couch, everyone can show
off their full appreciation of the strategic ambiguities. In the parlor of
intellect, timing is never a problem, because battle plans never have to be
made, actions never have to be put in train.

But those who actually have to lead and protect, and actually have to build
one step on another, have to bring some questions to a close. Bush gave
Saddam time to disarm. Saddam did not. Hence, the issue of whether to disarm
him forcibly is settled. The French and the Germans and the domestic critics
may keep debating, which is their luxury, but the people who actually make
the decisions have moved on to more practical concerns.

Bush has decided that Saddam is a menace to the world. All of the
difficulties that now arise--a negative vote in Turkey, for
example--complicate the issue of how to achieve the goal. They do not change
the goal. You can call that dangerous certainty. Those of us who agree that
Saddam is a menace may choose to call Bush resolute, which is a much finer
word.


David Brooks is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.


© Copyright 2002, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.





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