WASHINGTON — The stature and repute of our public figures are
shaped, as I have written before, by this thing called
Kultursmog. It is our political culture, a kultur
utterly polluted by politics, left-liberal politics. For instance,
it renders the Clintons, as reporter John F. Harris hymned in a
recent hagiography: “the two most important political figures of
their generation.” It matters not that they are also the most
scandal-prone couple in American history or that also numbered
among the political figures of their generation is Newt Gingrich,
the wizard behind the “Contract With America” that denied Democrats
control of the House of Representatives and the Senate for the
first time in 40 years. And forget not President George W. Bush,
who also is from their generation, won two presidential terms, and
after 9/11 completely revised American strategic thinking,
introducing preemption to replace whatever was left of containment.
Then too the 43rd president has — facts are facts — led America
through the third longest period of economic growth since such
records began being kept. Only Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill
Clinton have presided over longer periods of unbroken economic
growth.
The way the Kultursmog glorifies its loved ones and
spatters on its outcasts is done both by pumping out epithets and
practicing neglect — both benign neglect and malign neglect. It
simply does not acknowledge its loved ones’ failings (benign
neglect) or its outcasts’ achievements (malign neglect). Consider
the elevation of Senator Hillary Clinton since her defeat. She is
exalted as a female pioneer, though she played down her gender
through the first part of the race to stress her leadership
qualities. Nowhere in the current laudations to her will you be
reminded by the polluters of the Kultursmog of her early
campaign finance irregularities (and shades of 1996, from Chinese
donors), the planted questioners discovered in her audiences, or
the Clinton machine’s bullying of opponents. Then there were her
lies about Bosnia and playing a role in the Northern Ireland peace
treaty. All these scandals the Kultursmog simply neglects
— benign neglect.
Yet in treating those whom the pollutants of the Kultursmog
consider unworthy we see the smog’s malign neglect. In the
case of President Bush, where, aside from this column, have you
heard of the Bush Administration’s protracted period of economic
growth? Incidentally, the growth continues. We have not had a
recession, as economists define one, and we are not likely to have
one. Instead we may be entering into a period of inflation, a
problem caused by the Fed. Nor is the President complimented for
his splendid Supreme Court nominees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
No president since FDR was hit with the instantaneous violence that
Mr. Bush was hit with on 9/11, and most of those who now carp at
his reaction are what FDR called, during World War II, “back seat
drivers.”
President Bush’s war on terror is — though it would be
imprudent for him to boast of it — a success. We have not been hit
again, though no good is served by the president’s crowing about
this and thus goading the barbarians to act. As for Iraq, he
listened to his proven commanders, adjusted tactics, and we are now
winning. In a year or so we will be pretty much out of the country,
and the tyrants of the world will recognize that it is foolhardy to
pull a Saddam Hussein and taunt the United States. This out-going
president is now being snickered at in the Kultursmog for
his claims that history will judge him favorably. My guess is that
he is right.
The Gallup organization reports that his disapproval rating is
the highest of any prior president at 69%. Yet look who follows
him, Harry Truman at 67%. When President Truman left office his
approval rating was the lowest ever, 22%. At least the present
president’s approval rating is at 28%. The historically innocent
have no appreciation for the steep uphill climb Truman’s reputation
has made. Nonetheless, the despised Harry of 1952 is the admired
Harry today. George W. has reason to hope.
In the meantime conservatives should be grateful for his
appointments to the federal bench. They should admire his
supply-side tax cuts, and thank him for fighting today’s
isolationist currents that want to shut down free trade. When he
took office we had free trade agreements with three countries.
Today that figure stands at 15. Finally take another look at our
foreign policy. The President went after those who were out to
wreak havoc in the land and he has succeeded. As William Shawcross,
the famous British opponent of the Vietnam War and champion of this
one, recently wrote: “vindicated…will be the American people, and
some of their leaders. God bless them!”
