And now, the President's speech

I re-read Rumsfeld's American Legion speech this morning, and it's just horrible, an embarrassment, for all the reasons Fred Kaplan says. I said it was a "disgrace" yesterday, and I mean just that. The very idea that the Secretary of Defense, given the calamitous way he's handled Iraq, has the nerve to parachute in and paint his critics as cowards and appeasers, and the news media an America-hating fifth column, is just beyond the pale.

But enough about him. What about Bush? Here's the White House transcript of his speech to the American Legion. It was a much better speech, but then again, it would have been hard to have done worse. This is what caught my eye:

In the space of a single morning, it became clear that the calm we saw in the Middle East was only a mirage. We realized that years of pursuing stability to promote peace had left us with neither. Instead, the lack of freedom in the Middle East made the region an incubator for terrorist movements.

So we push for democracy, and bring to power a Shia theocracy in Iraq as a prelude to a civil war. And we bring to power Hamas among the Palestinians. Is it really "the lack of freedom" that has incubated terror there? Why is it that many other nations lived, and do live, without freedom, yet are not tempted by a psychotic religious vision? Why is it that giving "freedom" to people in this society only institutionalizes their pathologies? Maybe the lack of "freedom" is only tangential to the real problem.

The freedom agenda is based upon our deepest ideals and our vital interests. Americans believe that every person, of every religion, on every continent, has the right to determine his or her own destiny. We believe that freedom is a gift from an almighty God, beyond any power on Earth to take away. (Applause.) And we also know, by history and by logic, that promoting democracy is the surest way to build security. Democracies don't attack each other or threaten the peace. Governments accountable to the voters focus on building roads and schools -- not weapons of mass destruction. Young people who have a say in their future are less likely to search for meaning in extremism. Citizens who can join a peaceful political party are less likely to join a terrorist organization. Dissidents with the freedom to protest around the clock are less likely to blow themselves up during rush hour. And nations that commit to freedom for their people will not support terrorists -- they will join us in defeating them. (Applause.)

So America has committed its influence in the world to advancing freedom and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism. We will take the side of democratic leaders and reformers across the Middle East. We will support the voices of tolerance and moderation in the Muslim world. We stand with the mothers and fathers in every culture who want to see their children grow up in a caring and peaceful world. And by supporting the cause of freedom in a vital region, we'll make our children and our grandchildren more secure.

Lord have mercy, will he not observe that to more than a few people in the Muslim world, freedom does not mean the same thing it does to Americans. Freedom means freedom to live as they believe God has commanded them to live. Democracy means electing people who will implement God's law, as they understand it. This crazy hubris, believing that everybody in the world wants the same thing as Americans, is wrecking us. The president said today:

The freedom agenda is based upon our deepest ideals and our vital interests. Americans believe that every person, of every religion, on every continent, has the right to determine his or her own destiny. We believe that freedom is a gift from an almighty God, beyond any power on Earth to take awa y.

We don't believe that for one minute. We believe that every person has the right to determine, in a political sense, his own destiny in the same way that feminists believe women should have the choice to work or to stay home: we only believe it insofar as they'll choose our way of doing things. I think it's probably true that we hold liberal democracy to be divinely mandated. The conservative scholar Claes Ryn does a first-rate critique of this belief here. Excerpt:

This mode of thinking is in marked contrast to the old Christian tradition. Christianity has always stressed the imperfect, sinful nature of man and warned against placing too much faith in man made political institutions and measures. Augustine (354–430) is only one of the earliest and least sanguine of many Christian thinkers over the centuries who would have rejected out of hand the idea that mankind is destined for great progress and political perfection, to say nothing about the possibility of salvation through politics. Although Christianity has stressed that rulers must serve the common good and behave in a humane manner, it has been reluctant to endorse any particular form of government as suited to all peoples and all historical circumstances.

The president continues:

The path to that day will be uphill and uneven, but we can be confident of the outcome, because we know that the direction of history leads toward freedom.

There you have it: the Whig theory of history. The whole speech sounds as if it had been delivered three years ago. We are in trouble.