E-nough!: We'll take George W Bush

E-nough! has decided to endorse George W Bush for president of the United States. Each of our three bloggers has provided the following commentary to support their choice.

Carine:

"The election that may well change the future of the planet". Or something like that.

Here's what we have been hearing day and night for the last few weeks in France. Here's how they justify their extensive (and so biased it would make CBS look neat) coverage of the American election in France. Here's why most of my "fellow" citizens continue to claim we should be allowed to vote for the American President. Because what America and America's next President will do will have an impact in the whole world.

Indeed. And that is precisely why I am supporting President Bush, although I refuse to pretend I should have a right to vote in the United States of America.

My co-bloggers and friends have summed up quite clearly the reasons why a President Bush seems to be the best, if not the only option today, for America. I won't insist on that.

On the other hand, I would like to take a moment to talk about the so-called negative image America is suffering from in the world supposedly because of George W. Bush.

Would a President Kerry change anything? Would a President Kerry "restore" America's aura in the world? In France in particular? Every American President in the past 30 years has had a mean French nickname, at the very least. Most have been dubbed imbeciles or idiots, including the oh-so-regretted-now-here Bill Clinton. So is anti-Americanism really about George W. Bush? That would be so simple.

I'm sorry to say that there's only an anti-Bush (not necessarily pro-Kerry, btw) Democrat to still believe this. Even the French are quick to say "Bush, Kerry, what's the difference? They're both Americans!" They're both Americans, anyway. Can you guess how many times I heard this sentence lately?

The difference is that George W. Bush's America is standing and refusing to let America's name be trampled on. I'm afraid a Kerry America would be kneeling to any corrupted organization or country, the U.N. and France included. A Kerry America would ask for forgiveness for all the good the country has done. A Kerry America would be vulnerable. A Kerry America would be accountable to the world (not my words, the words of a young man from the Democrats abroad debating a young Republican at a well-known Business School in Paris, last Thursday). A Kerry America would be weak.

A weak America would be France's (and to some extent Europe's) favorite America. And of course, the enemy's victory.

If only for this reason, it should be evident that George W. Bush has done a good job and should be re-elected. I do believe the world is safer now, after four years of a Bush administration, hence French champagne is waiting to flow for Mr. Bush's victory. And I'm looking forward to four more years.

Go Bush!

NYC Letter (Damian):

My vote on Tuesday will go to the candidate who exemplifies one quality: Trust.

I trust Mr. Bush.

Whatever his political fortunes, I trust Mr. Bush to speak plainly, speak honestly, and speak to the issue at hand. I also trust Mr. Bush to do the right thing, especially when polls suggest political shims might better steady his standing.

I also believe that Mr. Bush has done a very good job, better than he is credited. Mr. Bush inherited a recession in the making* and has ably kept government out of the way of the recovery. The broad criticisms of his going to war, its conduct, and its aftermath are based on formularies -- sometimes tendentious, sometimes quaint – informed by pre-9.11 surmises, when terrorism was a mere “nuisance”, and a near-complete ignorance of the conduct and nature of war. Also contrary to the popular cant, Mr. Bush has greatly restored respect for America in the world. His critics would rather America be “liked”.

Mr. Kerry, whatever his electoral fortunes, will never be a popular candidate. The Left will go to the polls Tuesday, hold its nose, and hope for the best. Mr. Kerry’s telling qualification is that he is not Mr. Bush. Other than not being Mr. Bush, a qualification shared by the whole American polity minus Mr. Bush, Mr. Kerry’s presidential qualifications are blandly Constitutional, scil., he is a natural born Citizen, who has attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States. In these regards, most of us are as qualified as Mr. Kerry.

But is that all there is to Mr. Kerry?

Mr. Kerry has a singularly unspectacular 20-year record as a legislator (a distinction he shares with his running mate, Mr. Edwards). His military service is clouded by what in more judgmental times was clearly understood to be sedition. His “plans” and rhetoric, which a love-struck press characterizes as “complex” and “nuanced”, are confused legislative pipedreams, bankrolled on a fabulous rollback of tax cuts for the rich. Mr. Kerry’s rhetoric is not soaring, it is the same old tired promises and imminent apocalypses the Democratic Party has taken on the huskings for the past 30 years.

Mr. Kerry is a rank opportunist. Following a 4-month tour in Vietnam, he returned stateside and calumniated his brothers in arms (and himself) describing top-down sanctioned “My Lai everyday” conduct; he then shows up 30 years later at the DNC convention “reporting for duty”. When it was expedient he manufactured “seared” memories of derry-do in Cambodia. Later this fairy tale brought in conformance with the facts, though the grill marks remain. Without impressive foreign policy experience, Mr. Kerry manufactured memories of two-hour sit-downs with the entire UN Security Council. He asks us to believe he’s chatted up significant numbers of other world leaders in the UN cafeteria and local Turtle Bay coffee shops. He advertises himself as a practicing Catholic though he has been out of communion with his Church for 20 years and believes his Church’s proscription of abortion is an “article of faith” (any seven-year-old Catholic catechumen wouldn’t make this error).

Lastly, Mr. Kerry represents a political organization that is bereft of ideas, ideals, and common sense.

Mr. Kerry claims he will do things better. The French seem to trust him. I do not.

I respectfully ask that you consider casting your vote for Mr. Bush. He’ll be mighty appreciative.

* Few remember this part of Mr. Clinton’s legacy. It was on his watch that $5 trillion in American wealth disappeared in 2000, 40% of annual Gross Domestic Product, or about $50,000 per family. This performance compliments of the party of the working stiff.

Valerie:

My heroes have always been cowboys.

And if you had known me before 9/11, you would know that the Cowboy Dubya was far from being on my list of potential heroes. I was born and bred a Democrat, had been incredibly disappointed in Bubba, yes, and, unlike many Democrats today, willing to admit it...and found myself wondering why anyone would ever vote for Gore in 2000, but I was no Republican.

I didn't realize it then, but I was already losing my footing. I couldn't understand the voting results in 2000's election - I had been sure of a stronger Republican showing after 8 years of a Democrat. Again, unlike many Democrats today, I accepted the new president, although I was not a fan. After all, 4 years goes quickly. And presidents come and go.

9/11 changed everything. Everything. The minute I saw President Bush talking to the American people after the attack, I thanked our lucky stars we had a cowboy for president. I couldn't imagine Al Gore speaking to us, being us in a post-9/11 world. We can speculate that he would have risen to the occasion, too, as President Bush did (my, how he rose!)...but seeing what Gore has become today, a shadow of his former groomed-for-public-service self, well, I doubt it very much.

Dubya knew what we were feeling. He 'spoke' to you and me at a time when many of us were without voice, silenced by the enormity of the attack and the horrendous loss of life. He said what we knew had to be said. And what he said was American: We will not allow anyone to murder our people without paying the consequences. We will not allow anyone to destroy what we have built. We will fight. We will do what we have to do to be safe again. God Bless America.

If I had had any doubt about whether or not America should follow its president then, seeing first-hand the barely-hidden joy that most of the French media and political elite were feeling in the wake of our pain and horror would have quickly dispersed it.

That doesn't mean I've lost all objectivity. No president is perfect. Bush isn't perfect either. Face it, no president, war-time or not, has ever done or ever will do a perfect job. But this war-time president has gotten the message out. Don't mess with us. We will not take it lightly. We are not above sacrifice. Beware.

Moreover, we sense that our president is instilled with a mission. And that mission is not about him and his needs and his future glory. It's about you and me and it's about now.

As for Kerry, his career as a senator (Wake up, Massachusetts!) has been about him, his needs, his future glory. It has been about him and not about the people of Massachusetts. He has done nothing during his career as senator to further anyone's cause but his own. His career in Vietnam, again, was about him, his needs and his hoped-for future glory.

John Kerry is the epitome of what the Democrat Party has become. The former Democrat in me is in mourning - the Kerry candidacy, in my opinion, has shown us all too well how barren the Democratic Party has become.

But I did not vote for Bush because of Kerry. I voted for the cowboy, the candidate who has America's best interests at heart and who is strong enough to fight for those interests. He has proven himself already. I have no reason to doubt him now.

History will decide if George W Bush is looked back on one day as a 'hero'. I sincerely believe that if he is re-elected, that will be the case.

Four more years.