Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Our Man in Brussels Sets the Tone
Our Man in Brussels is the title given to this annotated version of President Bush's speech in Brussels this Monday. The annotations are done by the blog New Sisyphus , which presents the views of a State Department official commenting unofficialy. I had read the speech, but really enjoyed this annotated version. It's long, but well worth the time if one wants to understand how far forward this presidaent has moved us and the world. I agree that events are proving Bush right on a global scale and that you won't read much of this in the MainStream Media (MSM) . From the blog intro :
" Today President Bush delivered what we hope will be a landmark address on the future of European-American relations. Working from the base of momentum that the recent very successful trips of Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld created, the President delivered a speech that nicely sums up America's new foreign policy. The MSM, blind as usual, has painted the trip as a “mending fences” mission critical to the President’s success. Nothing could be further from the truth. President Bush’s core message has not changed one whit. If the President is, as the MSM insists, in Europe to kiss and make up, one would expect the President to adopt a different tone, speak a different language, "moderate" his positions. He did nothing of the sort.
What has changed is that the President is now coming off a series of political victories—elections in Kabul, re-election to the Presidency, elections in Iraq, a new movement for peace on his terms in the Israel-Palestine conflict, reform picking up pace in the entire Muslim world—that make it impossible for European governments to continue to view the Bush Administration as an aberration the next “normal” administration will correct. In addition, as the facts on the ground continue to trend Bush’s way, more and more people are beginning to realize that the President’s prescriptions were not the ravings of a wild-eyed “neo-con” fantasy but, rather, a “new realist” view that continues to be vindicated by events."
It's worth reading the whole thing for the annotations that are intermingled with the Presidents words.
" Today President Bush delivered what we hope will be a landmark address on the future of European-American relations. Working from the base of momentum that the recent very successful trips of Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld created, the President delivered a speech that nicely sums up America's new foreign policy. The MSM, blind as usual, has painted the trip as a “mending fences” mission critical to the President’s success. Nothing could be further from the truth. President Bush’s core message has not changed one whit. If the President is, as the MSM insists, in Europe to kiss and make up, one would expect the President to adopt a different tone, speak a different language, "moderate" his positions. He did nothing of the sort.
What has changed is that the President is now coming off a series of political victories—elections in Kabul, re-election to the Presidency, elections in Iraq, a new movement for peace on his terms in the Israel-Palestine conflict, reform picking up pace in the entire Muslim world—that make it impossible for European governments to continue to view the Bush Administration as an aberration the next “normal” administration will correct. In addition, as the facts on the ground continue to trend Bush’s way, more and more people are beginning to realize that the President’s prescriptions were not the ravings of a wild-eyed “neo-con” fantasy but, rather, a “new realist” view that continues to be vindicated by events."
It's worth reading the whole thing for the annotations that are intermingled with the Presidents words.
