Cone and Medved take different looks at leadership, or the lack thereof.
In yesterday’s N&R, Cone writes
It is a dangerous moment for the nation and the world because ultimately Bush’s responsibility for the mess is less important than the mess itself and our obligation to fix it. That doesn’t mean the escalation for which he pleaded is the right course, or the wrong one, but it does mean that the country cannot afford to tune out the message with the messenger.
Bush closed with the usual uplifting personal stories of Americans who do great things, including Wesley Autrey, the man who jumped onto a New York subway track to save a stranger’s life, and Sgt. Tommy Rieman, who won a Silver Star for his courage under fire in Iraq.
He used those examples to argue that the State of our Union is strong, and in the broader context his words remain true; the weakness that bedevils us is in the speaker of those words.
On his Friday show, Medved took an hour to discuss Jimmy Carter, whom he describes as both the worst president and the worst ex-president in our country’s history. Medved can understand Carter’s liberalism; he just can’t understand Carter’s un-Americanism.
Funny Carter’s been in the news Bush lately, because, depending on whom you ask, one of them is the worst president ever. But I vote for Carter, because he’s proof that no matter how bad you think it is now, things can always get worse. Yes, the U.S. was weakened position following its withdrawal with Vietnam, but it still retained an overall position of strength in the Cold War, right? That position would have been maintained had Ford been re-elected, and certainly if Reagan been elected.
But Carter not only weakened us in the eyes of the Communist world, but also us in the eyes of the Muslim world. As I’ve said before, the main thing I got from the Truth and Reconciliation report was how close our country was in 1979 to imploding in the face of two very dangerous enemies. That too was a dangerous time for our country, and I shudder to think what would have happened had Carter been re-elected.
Bush, with the help of our valauble ally the British, has never weakened our position in the overall on war terror, no matter how grim the situation in Iraq looks. Leaving Iraq aside, I fear a Democratic president, possibly with the help of his or her comrades in Congress, would weaken our position in the bigger war on terror and, yes, increase the odds of another major terrorist attack.
No matter how bad you think it is now, it can get worse.
