I am from the other side of the age spectrum, and missed most of that collectivist swill that the Left pushed into the classroom, though one could sense it building on the horizon back then. Also, I was protected by that fact that I did not attend public schools.

But I taught and was an academic for a few years, and believe me, my heart goes out to you. I know it is tough to be in your shoes.

But whatever it is in you that lead you to your apostasy, cleave to it and hold on to it. It speaks of character.

There is hope if enough of your generation turn from this madness.

JHM: Yes it was and is abundantly clear. No post ww2 engagement has been jawboned more that the Iraq war, not even Viet Nam. Read the UN resolutions, for heaven’s sake.

The whole WOT was explained quite well and vividly by Bush, Rummy, Cheney and a host of others.

I find this a surprising comment. Nothing could have been clearer.

It was certainly made much clearer that any of the post war “adventures” hatched up by the Democrats: Korea, Vietnam, Clinton’s “exercises”, etc.

It is true that military tactics were sometimes obscure, but that is that nature of war.

The Left tried to do exactly what they did during Viet Nam. They may yet pluck defeat from the jaw of victory. Americans should have demonstrated a little more wisdom when faced with this. They should have taken all the rhetoric, casuistry, sophistry and fear mongering of the Left for what it was, taken their measure and shamed them off the nation stage. They did not. In fact a lot of us have come to think in the same vile thought processes of the left. This one of the reasons that Obama is president.

That is just one of my main points. After the Viet Nam experience, the nation should know better, they should understand what the Left is up too. But even today we cannot understand the Viet Nam experience clearly it seems. Millions were sacrificed because of our quite callow failure of nerve there, and no amount of rationalization and carping can cover hide this.

We in fact could say this about the entire Cold War area wherein the large portions of the Democrat party fought a rear guard action for the international Left. We should know better.

And, true enough, more people in the country where aware of it than during the Viet Nam years, and so we got some success. But not enough. It is not Bush’s fault that the boomers cannot be honest about their youth — honest about their motives then and now.

I think the blame lies with the rest of us not taking on the left.

This is not all Bush’s fault, not by a long shot.

Or perhaps what you are saying that it was more a matter of Bush did not propagandize the war enough rather than not explaining it properly.

This could be true, but again read his speeches (and those of Cheney, et al.). This point of view — and forgive me, for I am not trying to put words in your mouth — veers towards a very low estimation of the intelligence of Americans. And I think it was not necessary (or should not have been). I noted that “Joe the Plumber” got it. Our elites and our upper middle classes seem to have a difficult time with it however. This is because they have bought into the intellectual and spiritual vices of the Left, if you ask me (I am not including you in this, JHM). There is a woeful lack of common sense out there in the body politic.

ALso, I think it was also clearly articulated at the GOP convention for the 2004 election.

It was a failure to understand and parse the strategies and tactics of the left and compensate for them on the part of the American people.

Again, a large section of the people did not behave very well through out this whole episode. True, another large segment behaved quite well.

Remember that the Democrat may yet undo all the advances so far made in the WOT. In fact, they could undo the whole Cold War.

They would love too, you know.

You and I may have maintained our trust, but polls (and the election) show we’re in the minority. Let’s be honest, President Bush lost the support of half the people who used to support him. We have to understand why.

Blaming the mendacious MSM isn’t enough. Sure, they helped, but too many people ultimately decided they weren’t getting enough information on what the President was trying to do. What’s mysterious? How about, what were we trying to do in Iraq?

Do you know what the President’s objective in Iraq was? I mean really know. Not guess, not project, not assume, but know. I honestly don’t know. I have an assumption. I think my assumption makes sense, is a right thing to do (as opposed to the right thing to do) and it fits with most of the observed facts of our involvement. But after a while, I realized I didn’t know – I was ultimately projecting my hopes for what we were doing onto the President’s actions.

Watching Obama’s rise, I have also realized just how dangerous projection is.

Regarding your comments on the Congressional GOP – taken as a whole they are exactly as you described – bumbling, unethical incompetents. Honestly, where do these people come from? Or better yet, what does the national party do to them? Somehow, the GOP turned Duke Cunningham into a felon. Karl Rove is called a political genius. I have my doubts. He’s looking more and more like one of those CEOs who took over a thriving company, goosed profits for a quarter or two, and then augered the whole thing into the ground.

That is not to say I agreed with everything he did or proposed, I just do not find them mysterious.

And again, I was being rhetorical, I am thankful that you did what you did.

But we really should have organized like the Democrats, and we should have seen this coming; we got complacent. Conservative nitpicked and groused too much in the year after his re-election and the Democrats really took advantage of this disatifaction and played apon it. Seems to me that Obama even shaved off a portion of the so called “religious right” this time around. He seems to have gotten quite a few Catholics, for example. If so, then shame on them. This is hardly Bushes fault. It can only be chalked up to momentary moral insanity

We have only ourselves and the GOP to blame for this. We really need to face our collective culpability on this and stop blaming Bush for everything.

For example, he may have been right after all about the immigration issue. I bitterly fought it at the time, but if the GOP had been identified with it, the vote from Latino demographic might have been different in this last election. Now that voting block appears to be lost for a generation and there WILL be amnesty, and on much worse terms than he had proposed. As bitter as it is to admit it, he appears to have been right on this one after all.

I am not sure what you mean by “killed his agenda”. He stated more than once that the WOT was by far the main focus of his administration and he was wildly successful here, at least in my book. What was the agenda that was killed?

The final kicker was the bizarre behavior of the GOP on the Hill. They could not act either ethically or ruthlessly, not to mention intelligently, for the sake of the nation. They are fearful as church mice, aa bumbling as clowns and appear to have no principles at all. Time and again they were told to stop acting like European christian socialist and time and again they arrogantly ignored this warning. The had plenty of waring in 2006 and they continued in there ineptitude through another election cycle.

They never seem to understand what the democrats are really up to, they cannot understand what enemies they are to our civilization and way of live. They think that they are either misguided fools or just playing to locked constituencies that control locked in seats. They cannot grasp what they are up to at all. They also can never stand up to the meida or create alternative channels. The stupid party, indeed.

The left are motivated and involved. We do not put in the same time in an organized, focus manner as do they. We expect the GOP to do it for us. If we are to take back the country, we have to change that. (I realize that this assertion s not true of some people reading this blog, but I am talking in general.

No, this is not Bush’s fault. That is just the path of denial and self delusion. There is plenty of blame to go around. We cannot fix things until we get over this.

The final balme must rest on the American people. TO chose Obama because of Bush — really more emotional manipulation by the MSM and the democrat establishment — is really mindless and childish. Bush can do little about that.

Again, if there is an honest appraisal of Bush histroy will treat him kindly, and condemn the traitors, scoundrels and scum that harassed him.

Actually, I think the conceit is that they assume one particular agenda item must have been the thing that got them the votes, and usually it’s (conveniently) an agenda item that plays well with some small but vocal and generous interest group. The ’94 Republicans is a bad example – they got elected on the strength of the Contract With America and Democrat hamhandedness about health care. After a brief attempt to enact some changes, they decided it was too hard and bellied up to the trough instead. That’s what ultimately cost the GOP control of Congress.

Did all of us stand up for him at every turn, in the work place? Did the GOP in congress do so? No, all of this lies at rest at the feet of the American people and the enablers for this moral rot that are to be found in the Democratic Party and their minions in the MSM.

I partially disagree. I did stand by and up for him at every turn. I never waivered in my support. But I sure felt unsupported myself. I gave him the benefit of the doubt every time he neglected to explain why he was doing something, but eventually I started to wonder. Was I just projecting my own hopes onto his unexplained actions? It was a possibility I had to consider, and had to consider it more frequently as time went by. I stuck by to the end, but others gave up along the way and I don’t blame them becaue I knew I was gambling. The only thing that held me was a deep-seated mistrust of Democrats – I knew that gambling on Bush was better than throwing in with Kerry. But Bush convinced too many of his supporters that he was playing three-card-monte with them by not being more forthcoming. It sunk his agenda.

I agree with you that Dubya was not that bad a president, and did his best. His best was not good enough, but with a hostile opposition party, daily denunciations in the news media, and selfish alliances like the “Gang of Fourteen” arrayed against him, he had a hard row to hoe. It would have been a hard road for any of our presidents. He can go home to Crawford to relax and console himself that at least he tried. Meanwhile, the MSM will give Obama a free pass on just about anything, so it’s up to the blogosphere to hold him to account, until 2012.

Isn’t this THE SECRET, writ large? Envision the world you want to live in and inhabit it? What happens if the healer doesn’t heal?

My point is we did not mobilize like the hordes of the Left. Perhaps if we had had a couple of million man marches or a coordinated national boycott of the media, things might have been different. We can not blame all of this on one man, and certainly not fine a men as GWB or Dick Cheney.