On the one hand, President Bush is more willing to put American money & might (not to mention his own political future) on the line to fight for human freedom abroad than I could possibly have hoped back when he was running against Al Gore. On the other, he seems just as willing to restrict human freedom at home as I feared, well, back when he was running against Al Gore. Andrew Sullivan puts it thusly:
I was also struck by how hard right the president was on social policy. $23 million for drug-testing children in schools? A tirade against steroids? (I’m sure Tom Brady was thrilled by that camera shot.) More public money for religious groups? Abstinence only for prevention of STDs? Whatever else this president is, he is no believer in individuals’ running their own lives without government regulation, control or aid. If you’re a fiscal conservative or a social liberal, this was a speech that succeeded in making you take a second look at the Democrats. I sure am.
Yep.
And that’s without mentioning his asinine attack on the rights of gay citizens. No, he didn’t come out and explicitly call for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage; as even Pat Buchanan pointed out on MSNBC, said avoidance is shorthand for “shut the fuck up about a constitutional amendment already, you nitwits.” But he clearly felt either obligated or happy (or both) to give a nod and a wink to the anti-gay right, and I simply can’t brook that.
His points on Iraq and terror were razor-sharp and rock-solid. But he spent the rest of the speech coming out swinging on behalf of a reinvigorated, non-reexamined PATRIOT Act, a failed religious-based policy toward sexually transmitted disease,an expanding war on the personal freedom of American citizens and even children in the guise of the “War on Drugs,” and an insult to the decency and moral seriousness of American homosexuals. All this and record deficits, too.
Couple this with the Democrats’ apparent rejection of their own rejectionist extraordinaire in Iowa two nights ago, and the loyal opposition begins to look a lot more appealing.