Too nice for the beltway?

It's ironic that the Dems big knock on Bush is dishonesty. I think he has legitimately tried to restore civility to politics by not reacting to a lot of provocations. Of course, that was greeted with namecalling and accusations, the least of which was that he hasn't restored civility to politics. It seems like a suckers' play to even try. Nobody wants to be civil these days. Conservative intellectuals can't even be civil to their own side, let alone to their opponents, and the liberals seem determined to use profanity and personal insults because they don't have anything to offer that the voters want.

Note that even in his "pushback" speeches he doesn't name any names and he doesn't accuse them of lying, as they are doing to him. His harshest accusation is that they are "rewriting history." He gives credit to those who have consistently opposed the war.

Bush has always impressed me as a man who believes in Jesus and his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and really tries to live by it. My older sister recently asked me what I thought of him. When I responded with that observation, she almost broke into tears, because she as felt the same thing and hasn't heard anybody give him credit. I've been critical of him at times, but I have always admired his restraint in the face of so much unfairness.

I keep hearing the complaint that the war isn't going anywhere, that he doesn't have a plan. Hogwash. We have a treasonous press corps which thinks of itself as intellectual, but it's partisan, not thoughtful. The "Bush lied!" meme entered the realm of "common knowledge" with such rapidity and with such flimsy logic, that one can't help but wonder how anybody could not question it. The press jumped on it with glee. Anybody who can watch a White House press conference and not feel the hostility and determination to discredit him at any price doesn't have a fair bone in his body.
Not even the mainstream Democrats dared make that argument, until they felt that Bush wasn't going to challenge it.

This press hostility has done more to discredit it and damage it financially than almost anything else could have. The MSM have never seemed to understand how ludicrous stories like the fake memos attacking George Bush's National Guard service make them look. Mary Mapes is still trying to salvage her reputation while only digging the hole deeper. The fact that Mike Wallace couldn't see what was going on makes me wonder if you have to have some kind of lobotomy to work for CBS. And I still haven't figured out why they are so bitter toward Judith Miller after treating her as a celebrity for years. Was it because she dropped a dime on a source, even with his permission? If they think their civic duty trumps protecting lawbreakers, they haven't convinced anybody but themselves.