From bold wartime leader to the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
We have written our fair share about polls, about how the MSM use them to make headlines, etc; further, that there are all sorts of tricks that pollsters play with sampling to influence results; further, that off-season polls tend to be exercises in creativity, while polls near elections are more about peer respect. Having said all that, once in a while you see a picture over time that is pretty compelling, all the more so because the institutional bias is imbedded in all a company’s polls, so that bias is consistent over time. Therefore, even in flawed polls, you get a longitudinal trend that is accurate. The ABC / Washington Post poll paints such a picture — the picture of a man who has gone from bold wartime leader to the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit:
We like an America where our leaders are bold, our wars are short, our laws are enforced, our beliefs are clear, and our people are proud. We don’t like an America where our wars are indeterminate, our laws are ridiculed, our beliefs are whispered, and our people are made to cower before lawbreakers and two-bit tyrants.
The difference between the one America and the other is not entirely a difference between action and inaction; it is also a difference between clarity of thought and speech, and palaver and mumbo-jumbo.
America has two large issues on the front burner, and the President’s performance is not good. The first issue is militant Islam, and that is both a hot war and a cold war. We don’t have major problems with Iraq, and our patient approach may well prove to have been correct. However, Iraq will probably turn out to be some sort of Islamic state, and therein lies the long-term problem. Islamic law, or sharia, is fundamentally incompatible with Western values; one only has to look at the apostasy or technology issues to understand this. And George Bush has absolutely failed to engage in the cold war against sharia, and has provided no foundation for our taking out Iran militarily the way it appears very likely to be necessary (see Mark Steyn in City Journal). This is the Great Issue of our time, and freedom and American values must be championed every time they are threatened (as in the Rahman Affair and the Cartoon Riots) or we surely will lose.
As for illegal immigration, the GOP/conservative base is virtually unanimous against the President’s policies, favoring an ‘enforcement-first’ approach in overwhelming numbers (see Powerline). This one is not even difficult, at least as we see things: build a wall or a fence, and then deal with human issues humanely. At the very least, it is political suicide to show the base such a lack of respect. But political issues are one thing, and there are broader principles in play, most importantly respect for the rule of law. A country where you can get arrested for smoking but not for being here illegally has become fatuous and its laws capricious and unworthy of respect; it makes a banana republic look good by comparison.
Failure in these two issues must be laid at the President’s doorstep. He is the responsible man; he has the bully pulpit. We continue to want him to succeed, but to do so he must provide the right kind of leadership. At this moment, he is not.