Vigorous criticism of President Bush in conservative circles stopped seeming heretical a long time ago. That Bush’s foreign policy has been disastrous is one of the ‘facts’ that many conservatives feel they must grudgingly grant to their liberal antagonists.
No doubt many conservatives came to this conclusion about Bush by independent reflection. But many others have probably succumbed to the natural desire to be within the pale by uncritically embracing received opinion. Edward Luttwak (a Cold War military strategist who took something of a political left turn after the collapse of the Soviet Union) thinks this received opinion happens to be demonstrably false .
Bush, he says, is like Truman: In the main his policies were extremely successful, a fact that his few conspicuous failures unfortunately obscured for some time. Perhaps Bush will have to wait for Iraq, like Korea, to be “half-forgotten” before his achievement in fighting terrorism gets the universal acknowledgment it deserves.
I am not competent to judge Luttwak’s argument, but it certainly seems worth the serious consideration of those who are.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
