It's just too simplistic

Jules Crittenden has written the speech he thinks President Bush should deliever tonight. Somehow, I doubt things will be delivered as simplistic as Crittenden has advocated, even as prudent and correct as such action would be. Some highlights:

Don’t bother standing up or clapping, any of you. I already know who won the election, and I know how you feel.

I come before you tonight not to make amends, not to make it good, curry any favor or find any middle ground.

[...]

So what is the best thing I can do tonight? I can tell you the
truth. What none of you want to hear. What you’ve been stopping your
ears to. The ugly truth.

The State of the Union is a disaster. I did my best, but I made mistakes, and my best wasn’t good enough.

We went to war without building up our army, and now, I am trying to make up for that.

But that is not the disaster.

The disaster is that you, Congress and the American people, do not care to fight.

[...]

ou didn’t like it when I talked about evil. Sounded too simple, too uncompromising, too moralistic. Too … biblical.

I don’t know what else you call people who fly passenger jets into
office buildings; who rape women in front of their husbands and
children, and execute their opponents in acid baths; who seek to spread
tyrannical and archaic religious regimes that enslave women and stifle
fundamental freedoms. Who want to dominate the world’s primary oil
fields with nuclear weapons.

I call it evil. Works for me.

[...]

I will engage evil directly where I find it, in Iraq and in Iran.
With an aggressive and ruthless new strategy and a plan to build our
army as we should have a long time ago, I will show the American people
that we can fight and we can win. I expect that the American people,
though misled by their press and many of their elected representatives,
will see results and will get it. Because the American people are a
people who in the end don’t give up, don’t stop fighting, refuse to
lose, and will choose to win. I have faith in them.

Oh, there’s another one of those words you don’t like.

A nation that is not willing to fight for what it believes in, for
its place in the world, is not worthy of its own ideals. But that is
not America. I now intend to help America restore its faith in itself.
By fighting this necessary fight that we cannot afford to lose.

Well said indeed. I have always stood by the President's use of the word "evil" to describe the Islamists extremists that want to murder us. Though I wasn't there, I fully understand and accept Reagan's labeling of the USSR as "the Evil Empire." Unless we call it what it is, we will never overcome the dark forces that are controlling the actions of our enemies.

More important than continuing the discussion of the evil we face, though, is the will to face it. The President can explain that we face evil, but knowledge of such evil is only half the battle. Here is where the president must shine. He must, as Crittenden as stated, explain that he is not here to discuss middle ground or compromises. He is not going to be a lame duck. He must continue to battle this evil with ruthless determination. The State of the Union depends on it. The state of Freedom depends on it.

Technorati Tags: Bush, War on Terror

powered by performancing firefox