More ecstasy over Bush

I’ve never felt so out of tune with the American people, and certainly not with “conservatives,” in my life. I saw part of the President’s speech and read through it quickly, it struck me as the same points we’ve heard so many times before, yet people are regarding it as a speech for the ages, an admiration that is combined with their inordinate joy over the Iraq election. Thus Gerard Baker writes in the Times of London: “The momentum for change in the Middle East is now unstoppable. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, Iraq’s elections will change world history.” Really? How can he be so sure of this? I ask again, am I missing something profound here? Or are the Bush supporters in some kind of collective mesmerism? Here’s a Rush Limbaugh caller waxing ecstatic:

CALLER: Let me tell you, I was watching that speech last night I had to tape it because I had an appointment last night, stayed up late to watch it. And I’m watching this and about halfway through, I mean the part where the Iraqi lady was hugging the parents of our hero over there, I mean that was—I mean that was just over the top for me, but halfway through the speech I’m watching this and I’m thinking, “I’m watching probably perhaps one of your four or five greatest presidents of all time.” We won’t hear about it tomorrow, we won’t hear about it maybe even in five years, but ten, 15, 20 years down the road, this man will be compared—it just struck me, I voted for Bush twice, I’m a Bush supporter, it just struck me that this man, he’s walking his own road, and great people walk their own road, you know what I’m saying? And I’m listening to you this morning, and I’m saying, I could be in your head because your response is exactly my response. One of the greatest speeches I’ve ever heard in my life. I’m about a year older than you so you and I are pretty much contemporaries, and one of the greatest speeches I’ve ever heard in my life and I was having chills halfway through that speech. He did not—I mean, he just knocked it out of the ballpark. He hit a grand-slam home run.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 03, 2005 06:52 PM | Send