Joseph Sobran’s
Washington Watch

The President’s Feelings

(Reprinted from the issue of April 22, 2004)

President Bush’s poor vocabulary and clumsy syntax have been widely mocked, and I’ve often found them funny myself. But his problem as a communicator goes deeper than the mere occasional gaffe. He is almost incapable of coherent conceptual thought. It’s not that he has trouble expressing what he means; it’s that what he means doesn’t make much sense.

This was never truer than in his April 13 press conference. His defective communication skills were actually the subject of one reporter’s question: “Have you failed in any way to make your case [for the Iraq war] to the American public?”

Bush’s reply: “I guess if you put it into a political context, that’s the kind of thing the voters will decide next November. That’s what elections are about.... If I tried to fine-tune my message based upon polls I think I’d be pretty ineffective.... If you don’t [understand my message] maybe I need to learn to communicate better.... I’ll speak as plainly as I can. One thing is for certain though about me, and the world has learned this, when I say something I mean it. And the credibility of the United States is incredibly important for keeping world peace and freedom.”

In fairness, Bush suffers from stage fright. Contrast his awkward performance vis-à-vis NBC’s Tim Russert with the poise of Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell under far more pressure. In answer to an earlier question about whether he has made any big mistakes, he was almost pleading: “I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn’t [sic] yet.” Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States. One was embarrassed for him.

The whole evening went like that: “There is a resolve by these [allied] leaders that is a heartening resolve.” “Oceans don’t protect us. They don’t protect us from killers.” “We’re an open country and we’re a country that values our openness.” “I don’t plan on losing my job. I plan on telling the American people that I’ve got a plan to win the war on terror.” “Saddam Hussein was a threat.... Saddam Hussein was a threat. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.” “This is a war against people who have no guilt in killing innocent people.”

This is a Bush tic: repetition, talking in circles, assuming that mere portentous words (“killers,” “dangerous,” “freedom,” “democracy,” “weapons of mass destruction,” and of course “terrorism”) will convey forceful meaning without the need of definition or rational explanation. There is no sense of measure behind his words. Hence his tendency toward exaggeration, signaled by his frequent use of “incredibly.”

Another telltale Bush tic is his habit of appealing to his own feelings to justify his actions: “I feel incredibly grieved when I meet with family members [of the slain],” “I have no doubt in my mind that ...,” “Here’s what I feel about that,” “I feel strongly that ...,” “I also have this belief, strong belief, that ...,” “It’s a conviction that’s deep in my soul,” “I feel the same way,” and of course his repeated expressions of “anguish” for the 9/11 victims, for American troops, for their “loved ones.” As for “the men and women in uniform,” their “spirit is incredible” and “I’m incredibly proud of them.”

Well, this is a democracy, and you have to expect a certain amount of emotional ostentation as a feature of its sentimental politics. But Bush takes this to an extreme, offering feelings as substitutes for rationales, and counting on mere inarticulate empathy to do the job of communication. He is outraged by the heartless killers, anguished for their victims, incredibly proud of our troops, resolved to spread freedom, and so on. The point isn’t whether all these feelings are sincere; it’s that Bush expects them to pass for reasons for making war in the real world. He is betting that the voters will share his feelings in November.

These personal feelings are easily translated into policies, called “obligations.” Toward the end of the press conference, Bush’s “strong belief” in “freedom” produced this flight of compassionate conservatism: “I believe so strongly in the power of freedom.... Freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in the world. And as the greatest power on the face of the earth we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom. We have an obligation to feed the hungry.... We have an obligation to lead the fight on AIDS, on Africa [sic]. And we have an obligation to work toward a more free world. That’s our obligation.”

This is the same George W. Bush who, in his state of the union message, saw nothing incongruous in belittling big government while proposing several ambitious new federal programs. The man simply has no sense of limits. This is the source of the imprecision of his language. Don’t blame the mess in this country on his English teachers.
 
Islamic Europe

Is Islam a threat to the West? Yes, but not because of terrorism. The real threat is demographic, as Pat Buchanan argues in The Death of the West. But it’s not because Muslims are aggressive. It’s because they’re moving into a vacuum, particularly in dying Europe.

The British historian Niall Ferguson has recently agreed with Buchanan. Tens of millions of Arab Muslims have migrated to Europe, where they reproduce rapidly, while the native European birthrate has plunged below replacement levels. Ferguson points out that whereas a century ago Europeans were 14% of the earth’s population, today they are 6%, and by 2050 they will be 4%.

“Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe,” Hilaire Belloc wrote; and as the faith has withered on that once Catholic continent, which has embraced abortion, contraception, divorce, and every other form of license, the decline has followed naturally. All these morbid trends have been fostered and abetted by Europe’s secularist governments.

Belloc also warned that Islam was likely to enjoy a huge resurgence. At the time he predicted this, it sounded implausible. The modern West regarded Islam as a defeated, hopelessly and permanently backward civilization. Belloc was one of very few who perceived its innate strength and tremendous potential. If the faith should continue weakening in Europe, he said, that potential might one day be realized in an amazing way.

Belloc died more than 50 years ago; today he is unfashionable and nearly forgotten. But he was one of the most prophetic writers of the 20th century, precisely because he was a faithful Catholic, aloof from all the fads of his time.

The West won’t be saved by a misconceived war on terrorism. It can only be saved by a tremendous revival of the Catholic Church in Europe.


I try to keep Belloc’s spirit and vision, Catholic and radical, alive every month in my monthly newsletter, SOBRAN’S. If you have not seen it yet, give my office a call at 800-513-5053 and request a free sample, or better yet, subscribe for two years for just $85. New subscribers get two gifts with their subscription. More details can be found at the Subscription page of my website.

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Joseph Sobran