Joseph Sobran’s
Washington Watch

Bad Times for Bush

(Reprinted from the issue of November 24, 2005)

These are bleak times for President Bush. Republican defeats in voting from New Jersey to California were only a symptom; his approval ratings have plunged, and support for the Iraq war has reached such a low that the Republicans in Congress are joining the Democrats in demanding an exit plan, or something like one.

Will this mean another congressional realignment next year, undoing the Republican takeover since 1994? Maybe not; there seems to be no great enthusiasm for the Democrats among the voters.

But we may be approaching the fatal point when an exasperated electorate simply opts for change — anything but more-of-same — without even hoping for any substantial improvement beyond relief. This sentiment can be summed up as "Throw the bums out, even if it brings nothing better than a fresh set of bums."

Next year may be a good year for those candidates who lack name recognition. It could be an advantage to avoid Bush’s endorsement, which was the calculation of Jerry Kilgore, Virginia’s Republican candidate for governor this year. When Bush came to the state shortly before the election, Kilgore found a flimsy pretext for not being seen with him; only when facing defeat did he ask Bush to appear with him. Bush gamely came again, trying to help; Kilgore was trounced anyway.

Last January, when he began his second term, Bush looked invincible; now the political capital he boasted of is pretty much gone, and his own party regards him as a liability. A president usually hits a rough patch during his second term, but Bush’s troubles may be setting some sort of record.

Even the elements have turned on him, with hurricanes making him look ineffectual; and then there are scandals, investigations, a high-level indictment; but worst of all a war that has gone bad in every way, injuring even his reputation for blunt honesty.

He used a Veterans’ Day speech to denounce his critics, not seeming to realize how undignified, and downright desperate, this seemed. If he hasn’t sold the country on the war yet, he’s not likely to do it now.

Neoconservative supporters of Bush’s war aren’t helping him; they still clamor for a more belligerent foreign policy. Hardly a day goes by when The Washington Times, The New York Post, or The Wall Street Journal doesn’t rave about alleged threats from Iran, Syria, or China, or of the treachery of Saudi Arabia, France, and other erstwhile allies.

But the right-wing press has a hard enough time rallying its own side, let alone the rest of the country. Forced optimism isn’t contagious.
 
The Abortion Front

Bush’s best move lately was his selection of Samuel Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court. At least it won back the support of his base, lately put off by the nomination of Harriet Miers. But with the Democrats ready to fight again, even that hit a possible snag when it was learned that Alito, as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, had expressed his unequivocal conviction that there is no constitutional right to abortion.

This came as no surprise, and of course Alito was quite right; if abortion is a constitutional right, why did it take the Supreme Court two centuries to notice this? And how did all 50 states pass abortion laws all the while without even noticing that they were violating the fundamental law of the land?

Still, the news gave Bush’s enemies ammunition just when they needed something to boil the pot and rally their own forces. One columnist called it “Alito’s smoking gun,” as if it were a guilty secret. The unbiased liberal press also weighed in with a couple of timely contributions to the abortion cause.

The New York Times ran an article making the point that the word “abortion” never actually occurs in the Bible; true, but neither do such words as “counterfeiting” and “embezzling.” “Thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not steal” cover the relevant cases, and as I often point out, the Times itself never uses the word “kill” when reporting or discussing abortion.

Not to be outdone, The Washington Post carried an article by a woman who’d aborted her son (she, aged 42, and her boyfriend Mike, 52, had already named him John) when she learned he would have Down syndrome.

It was a “wrenching” decision, of course. Embarrassing, too, when her friends and coworkers found out. She avoided the word “kill” throughout the piece, except when quoting those nasty pro-lifers who use words like “baby-killer.” She expressed her certainty that her choice was best for everyone, herself, Mike, and of course John.

The Post ran this revolting piece in its weekly “Health” section. Personally, I thought it belonged in the “Business” section.
 
The Bright Side of Mao

In its Sunday book review, The New York Times also carried a long lead review of Mao: The Unknown Story, a huge, utterly damning biography by Jung Chang, a Chinese refugee, and her husband Jon Halliday.

Far from being a genuine Chinese leader, it appears, Mao was a disciple and paid puppet of Stalin who surpassed his master in callousness, egomania, and cruelty. As millions of peasants starved, he complained that they ate too much.

The reviewer, Nicholas D. Kristof, is one of the paper’s more sensible and humane columnists, and he praised the book almost without reservation — until he felt constrained to put in a good word for Mao’s achievements: land reform (what about those peasants?) and the “emancipation of women,” which “moved China from one of the worst places in the world to be a girl to one where women have more equality than in, say, Japan or Korea.”

This is simply an astounding comment. One of Mao’s successors’ innovations has been China’s notorious one-child policy, any violation of which makes a woman eligible for forced abortion, even in the ninth month of her pregnancy.

What makes this remark especially grievous is that Kristof himself has, in word and deed, fought nobly against the barbarous practice of child prostitution in Asia; he has not only called attention to it, but has spent his own money to buy some unfortunate girls their freedom from that wretched trade.

Asia in general may be a bad region for the female sex, but Chinese women are hardly to be congratulated.


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Joseph Sobran