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Jewish World Review March 11, 2003 / 7 Adar II, 5763

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager
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The Lone Ranger rides again


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Let it be said before we know the outcome of the war in Iraq that America and the world are inordinately lucky to have George W. Bush as America's president.

In fact, I would go further. To the extent that one is ever able to see the hand of G-d in history -- and since biblical times, one has never been given certitude in this regard -- I believe that either divine intervention or good luck on the magnitude of a lottery win explains George W. Bush's rise to the position of president.

It is not meant to disparage the character of two decent men, Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman, to say that we should daily get down on our hands and knees in gratitude that George W. Bush, along with Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, has governed our country since 9-11. I am not alone (even many Democrats now agree) in shuddering at the thought of how close we were to having the Democratic Party governing at this time.

Al Gore, I always believed, was more frightening than Bill Clinton. President Clinton loved politics and power, and he did not appear to have a set of core beliefs. This prevented him from ever attaining greatness. But it also prevented him from being dangerous. Gore, on the other hand, did deeply believe in something: the greatest danger to the world was the threat to the natural environment. George W. Bush most fears a different danger to the world: human evil.

Al Gore and the Democratic Party, like the Western Europeans, fear global warming far more than they fear Saddam Hussein. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney fear Saddam far more than they fear carbon dioxide emissions.

Lacking the moral confidence possessed by President Bush, Al Gore and his Democratic Party would have striven for consensus -- arguing, again just as the European moral relativists do, that it is morally right to attack Iraq if the United Nations says it is, but morally wrong if the United Nations says it is not. For the Democratic Party and their European allies, right and wrong are man-made constructs, and therefore U.N. votes determine what is right. George W. Bush argues that morality should never be decided by a U.N. vote, that having Syria, China, Guinea and France determine what is right and wrong and what America should do to protect itself would precipitate the beginning of the end of America and of civilization itself.

George W. Bush believes in a G-d "who is not neutral" between good and evil, between the torturer and the tortured. The Democratic Party prefers to see G-d as a deity who shies away from making moral judgments. Or whose judgments are His alone, unknowable to mortals.

George W. Bush believes that America has a G-d-given mission to be a light to the world and to spread liberty. The Democratic Party believes that such talk is chauvinistic arrogance. They believe, like the French, that the United Nations, not America, should be the most powerful force on earth. George W. Bush would surely like the world to agree with him and to like him, but, thank G-d, he is prepared to go it alone and to be hated -- a defining trait of a great leader. Most Democrats believe that America should never go it alone and that if America is widely disliked, America must be wrong. In this regard, George W. Bush is the antithesis of his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton, for whom being loved was of paramount importance.

George W. Bush is regularly described by American and foreign critics as a "cowboy." They are right, and for this, too, we should thank G-d. The Europeans and Democrats use that term as an epithet, but for many Americans the image of a lone cowboy fighting bad men is a revered one. Many of us have far more moral confidence in the Lone Ranger than in Jacques Chirac or Kofi Annan.

The Lone Ranger rides again. Thank G-d he does.

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JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. He the author of, most recently, "Happiness is a Serious Problem". Click here to visit his website and here to comment on this column.

Up


03/04/03: Dan and Saddam
02/26/03: Which will the world's future be: Muslim, European or American?
02/18/03: When have millions of Europeans ever been wrong?
02/11/03: Don't waste your money on an expensive college
02/04/03: What the world would like the president to say
01/28/03: How memories paralyze: Why Jews and blacks vote Democrat, cont'd
01/21/03: Why Jews and blacks vote Democrat
01/14/03: Why the Arab world hates America --- time to myth-bust
01/07/03: Conservatives have talk radio; liberals have everything else
12/31/02: If you believe that people are basically good . . .
12/17/02: Lott, Clinton, and the problem of the career politician
12/10/02: The healthiest and longest living generation of humans since the 900-year-olds of Genesis are being scared silly
12/04/02: Morally neutral reporting is dishonest reporting
11/26/02: Understand Nigeria and you understand the Islamic threat
11/19/02: James Bond meets his most fanatical foe yet -- anti-smokers
11/12/02: Conservatives need to be more compassionate on divorce
11/05/02: Of course, the great majority of Muslims are peaceful -- so what?
10/29/02: Nice guys finish first: Thoughts on the World Series
10/24/02: A Jew defends evangelical Christians
10/16/02: Bigot laureate well represents New Jersey
10/11/02: Why the Creator must always be higher than the Angels
10/02/02: Loudmouth "stars" are remaining surprisingly quiet about Israel
09/25/02: Bob Greene is a good man
09/11/02: 9-11 made America better
09/04/02: What I learned at the Minneapolis Metrodome about liberals and homosexuality
08/28/02: Teach our college co-eds about Islam --- but teach them the truth
08/22/02: LET THEM EAT PEANUTS!
08/14/02: How the nuclear family became "controversial"
08/07/02: Every generation is tested by great evil
07/31/02: Those who curse the Jews and those who bless them . . .
07/24/02: Children should talk to strangers
07/17/02: Why my son's best friend is black
07/11/02: Why Hesham Hadayet may be scarier than al Qaeda
07/03/02: "Pro-Israel lobby" is not why America supports Israel
06/26/02: Why does the Left support the "Palestinians"?
06/19/02: The commencement address I would give
06/12/02: Why do adult children live with their parents? Because they actually like them
06/05/02: The stripper and the Christian school: Thoughts on what a Christian school should do when a parent is a stripper and on who the biggest sinner here is
05/31/02: Don't worry, New York, you are safe from a terrorist threat
05/15/02: A proud member of the world's two most hated peoples
05/10/02: What Israelis are saying
05/06/02: Thank Heaven for moral violence
04/29/02: Give back the Nobel Peace Prize: A letter to Elie Wiesel
04/22/02: Why so many students cheat
04/12/02: Is it 1938 again for the Jews?
04/05/02: It's the values, stupid
01/31/02: Smoke and lose your son
10/30/01: Why Arab/Muslim anti-Semites are worse than the Nazis

© 2002, Creators Syndicate