Reader Defense of the President:

I received the following thoughtful response from a reader, an American now living in Europe:

I agree with you that the President should be more forthright, but this almost never happens when in the midst of a war.

I have been doing research into WWII and when the Germans launched the offensive that became the Battle of the Bulge, the Americans were simply stunned [Think TET Offensive circa 1944]. There was quite a bit of criticism of the government that it should have known better, but the Roosevelt administration simply stonewalled and shut down opposition that was too loud. Roosevelt gets no flak for this because we were in an important war. Furthermore, the NY Times in 1945 began investigating the failed Sherman tank for its inadequacy and the government stonewalled on
that as well, despite the correct charge that thousands died because of this mistake.

The problem is that today, most on the left deny there’s a war going on. So any failure is picked apart. In my view it
doesn’t’ matter how savvy the Prez is (and he isn’t very media savvy) the Left just keeps pushing until anything sticks. In this environment something always will. If it’s not the 911 probe, it’s something else.

Heck, here in Europe the attack on Madrid is seen as refuting Bush, though I don’t see how that is possible. Think about it, we won the war quickly, humanely and have done a great job of helping Iraq move to a stable democracy. The worst thing is that there were no WMDs. In a different world people would sigh with relief. Here it’s GOTCHA.

You know the Manhattan Project was started because we feared the Germans had the bomb. It turns out they were no where near to getting it. I don’t see anyone who bitched about that. Anyway, keep on writing.

I generally concur with this writer–especially in his assertion that there is a divide between those who think we have been in a state of war since 9/11 and those who do not think we have been at war since then–but I still think that, in this media age, when asserting a controversial doctrine of preemption–which is necessarily based on intelligence of present capability and future intentions–when the capability turns out not to be as predicted, the President or someone in his administration should make some effort to explain why everyone was fooled by the intelligence. I myself am willing to give this President the benefit of the doubt on this question–WMDs played only a partial role in why I thought and still think the war was legal, justified, and good policy–but this country is deeply divided politically and this political situation needs to be factored into any war strategy. Initially, and perhaps even still, many would accept a credible explanation for why no explanation can be made at this time. Of course, no explanation will satisfy the most intense of Bush haters–especially those who cannot distinguish between the concept of a mistake and the concept of a lie–but some sort of explanation would be of great assistance to those who support the war or those who may not know what to think about it.