???
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies. They seek to impose and expand an empire of oppression, in which a tiny group of brutal, self-appointed rulers control every aspect of every life. Our aim is to build and preserve a community of free and independent nations, with governments that answer to their citizens, and reflect their own cultures. And because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace."
-George Bush, Feb. 2, 2005.
???
I'm not really openly political. I really don't understand this part. Is he saying we have no intention of imposing our form of government on others, but we are because democracy is more effective? Or he is saying that it's not our form of government because we have a democratic republic and that's not the same as the democracy they're using in Iraq?
(http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/02/sotu.transcript/)
I think what it boils down to is:
ReplyDelete"I am saying what will appeal statistically to as many Americans as possible while alienating as few as possible."
I was talking to this law student the other day who was on the John Edwards campaign. She said the Bush team (Rove in particular) is absolutely brilliant about the personal part of politics - the part about getting people on your side and using language the majority of people can identify with, and using controversy as a controlling device.
After all, isn't that the ultimate goal of the politician? Not to win over everybody, but to get enough people behind you that you stay in office? It's a problem with democracy that I can't think of a solution to. Why you're popular doesn't matter. It certainly didn't matter for Kerry. People got rabid about getting him in office, very little of which had anything to do with Kerry at all.
So in the end, of course Bush wants to make it clear that we're not imposing our government on anyone else. Because even though liberals will scoff at that, that is what they want to hear. And of course Bush wants to make it clear that we are liberating the Iraqis with democracy, because that's what the conservatives want to hear.
If we had a totalitarian party with enough clout, he would have apologized in the same speech for getting rid of Saddam in the first place. And it's really not even hypocrisy, because his words are so generalized that the conclusions have to be drawn independently.