Between Victor Davis Hanson and Charybdis
January 28th, 2009 by Nick SaintBack in early December, I wrote about an emerging strategy from GOP party-line hacks: portraying certain Obama policies as functionally identical to some of the Bush policies he criticized on the campaign. I imagined that, while sticking to the standard this-is-terror-loving-socialism fare on most issues, they would trot this Bush v2.0 routine out whenever he was doing something particularly popular, successful, or irritating to the hard-left, who would be a great source of rhetorical ammunition. It did not occur to me, however, that they could ever use both of these strategies at the same time. How naive. Here’s Victor Davis Hanson, summing up the early days of the Obama administration:
If one were to have gone into deep sleep in late October during the Dark Ages, and woken up in late January in the AB (after Bush) era of Hope and Change and an end to all evil, would the world seem different? No, it looks pretty much the same. Same old Predator strikes on terrorists in Pakistan [wait, the strikes Obama promised before Bush ever ordered any? Sorry, keep going]. Same old DC and NY grandees caught fudging on taxes and giving complex explanations of hiring less than legal nannies and maids, same old Guantanamo open with the same old pledges to, “Close it now! Or at least soon!”
Yep, the more things change, and all that. This should be wonderful news for Bush fans. Sure, you have to hate Obama for being such a dishonest hypocrite, but you also have to be pretty thrilled that W’s agenda is still on track, right? Er…:
The Obama presidency is only one week old, but it has already limned [sic] its main moral outlines:
On January 20, President Obama called for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. He also declared his intention to give multiple rights and privileges to homosexual couples.
On January 22, he issued an order announcing his intention to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within one year, but admits he has not figured out how to do that. President Bush had expressed a similar wish, but could find no nations willing to take responsibility for the detainees.
On January 23, President Obama issued an order that authorizes tax dollars for abortions abroad.
From these announcements we learn that President Obama recognizes no difference between the Jewish-Christian covenant between a woman and a man (a covenant that they will have and nurture children, if they are so blessed), and a civil contract between two persons of any sex, in order to set up a household of affection and sexual favors.
This is a relapse into paganism. The point of monogamous family networks is to treat male and female with complementary and mutually cooperative dignity and to tie the power of sexuality (male, especially) to self-sacrificing communities of love.
We learn, second, that this president’s guiding light in matters of national security is not a realistic assessment of the national interest but personal concern for what kind of figure he is cutting in the international eye. Good headlines first, practical thinking later.
Thirdly, we learn that the president is willing to do what a substantial bloc of U.S. taxpayers abhor, and will resist in conscience. Moreover, it is a mistake to think that people in most other nations love, honor, and respect the secularist preoccupation with abortion.
The first week did not have to begin this way. These first steps were unworthy of a great nation and unworthy of a serious leader. These decisions humiliated those who voted for President Obama because they had been assured, and assured others, that the new president would take seriously the culture of life. It is now clear that the new president was willing to allow those who risked their moral reputations to support him to feel in retrospect like liars.
Phew, got all that? (It’s Mike Novak, by the way.) I apologize for the long quote, but it’s just too awful to look away. A household of affection and sexual favors! Paganism! Unworth of a great nation! Something about a culture of life!
Note that these two agree on all of the relevant issues: gay people shouldn’t be married, fetuses shouldn’t be aborted, Gitmo was awesome because it was a convenient place to torture people, and torturing people is something we should be doing a lot of, etc. They are writing for the same blog, a few days apart. Everyone needs to evaluate these things for themself, of course, but is it really plausible that Novak honestly believes that Obama is returning us to paganism while VDH, who sees eye-to-eye with Novak on the merits, honestly believes that Obama is cynically maintaining the course their buddy Bush put us on?
