TROY SENIK
Staff Writer
Perhaps I owe the president of the United States an apology. At the very least, he deserves an explanation. To the extent that my forays into the written word can be called (generously) a career in journalism, it has been co-extensive with the tenure of President Bush’s administration. During that time, I, a member of the president’s own political party, have taken far more often to the substantially easier path of criticizing the man rather than trumpeting the good I believe he’s done. It is for the one-sidedness of this habit and not its particular manifestations that I enter into confession. Indeed, I still defend most of my criticisms on their original merits.
I rolled my eyes in disbelief as the leader of a party dedicated to free trade erected steel tariffs and farm subsidies as party favors for politically ripe constituencies.
I tentatively held a skeptical tongue as we entered into war in Iraq for reasons that I did not find completely compelling at the time, nor now. However, the accusation that they were lies constructed exclusively for the purposes of spending a lost weekend in the Middle East continues to stretch my credulity beyond the breaking point.
I balked when our chief executive teed up the issue of gay marriage as the path of least resistance to spur the religious right’s trail of saliva all the way to 2004’s ballot boxes.
I shook my head in disbelief as the president ignored common sense solutions on environmental protection in favor of a stonewalling strategy that virtually ensures that Democrats’ “command and control” policies will win the inevitable day when Americans get serious about conservation policy.
I groaned at spiraling budget deficits and the largest increase in spending (even excluding national defense) since Lyndon Johnson. I continue to experience the same paternal mixture of hope and anxiety every time the man opens his mouth in front of a microphone and morphs the English language into impressionist art.
I don’t love the president. At times, I wonder whether I like him. But I do respect him. Given the previous paragraph’s reading from the Book of Life, this may seem to be quickly devolving into the hackneyed “hate the man, but respect the office” routine. I assure you, it is not. Romantic illusions aside, the man is the office.
When President Bush acts, it is with the decision becoming an executive. When he touts the merits of Social Security reform, an issue with no viable constituencies and a time horizon that will outlive his administration, he embodies the poise of a statesman. For those who would cry either “defeat” or “retreat” over American involvement overseas, the pertinent lesson may be this: We may be right, we may be wrong or (most likely) we may inhabit that vast heartland in the middle of the continuum, often referred to simply as “the pages of history.”
Could the United States withdraw from its international role? Absolutely. Retreat would be as simple as a series of troop reassignments and a quick note to the rest of the world letting them know that we will enjoy the fruits of Mammon and watch the battle for Western civilization taking place from the sidelines. But American isolation would simply hand the keys of the kingdom to the next actor waiting to shape the contours of world events.
This is the great paradox of America’s international leadership: In a nation built on the premises of liberty and democracy, we must be the world’s torchbearers not because we are either infallible or divinely ordained, but simply because we are the purest of heart. If the first six years have been any indicator, we are the last great hope of the 21th century.
The President of the United States understands this viscerally. How he reacts to the deluge of criticism that defines every day of his administration we cannot know. But the reason why he does is almost certainly to be found in the principles embodied in the story of the Sword of Damocles: To lead is to venture risk. To lead well is to face that risk with prudence and a fervent desire for the Good.
To those who would criticize the President as wrong, at least thank him for fidelity to your principle to do so. To those who would criticize lengthy engagements for not yielding fast fruit, never forget Karl Popper’s admonition that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” To Democrats, show me a statesman who is willing to lead with the same level of audacity (if not the same ends), and we can restart a national debate.
Until then, I’m sticking with a Texan who may intermittently disappoint, buy who doesn’t have to pronounce “nuclear” correctly for the rest of the world to know what he means by it.
02-09-2006