Bush in New York
FEW WOULD doubt President Bush's intention to stay the course in a second term. When he said, "We are on the path to the future -- and we are not turning back," the determination in his voice was convincing. What is at issue, however, is not his resolve but the path itself.
If Americans think that Bush's war on terror is making real progress in shrinking the network of extremists and reducing the number of attacks worldwide and if voters believe that their families' welfare and the US economy are improving, Bush will doubtless keep his job.
But Bush will have a hard time making the case that his path has indeed made the nation more secure -- either in the world community or at home. Certainly he did not prove it last night.
The continuing terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, where a group of relief doctors recently was forced to abandon their work, and in Iraq raise a serious question of whether our actions are really snuffing out terrorist activities or whether our preemptive belligerence is encouraging more.
The million Americans newly added to the rolls of the impoverished and the million more lacking health insurance surely do not believe that they are on the right path. And Bush, in claiming to be the candidate of the future, ignores the enormous debt -- as much as $400 billion a year into the future -- he is piling on the shoulders of the nation's children.
Some of Bush's speech last night was personable and appealing, including its references to his own grammar, swagger, and bluntness.
And the president's optimistic view of how freedom might liberate the world was the essence of an American dream. But the problem here is that Bush's dream for the people of Iraq was not backed up with a plan. When Iraqis did not embrace freedom and their liberators at once and failed to move directly toward a democracy, the United States was left scrambling to maintain basic order, and often failing.
It is hard to mount freedom atop the growing list of American and Iraqi dead and abuses such as those that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison.
Bush last night did not hesistate to take on his Democratic opponent directly, accusing Senator John Kerry of failing on a number of fronts, especially to uphold the nation's security.
No doubt this battle will engage swiftly -- Kerry came out swinging after Bush's speech last night.
The battle will be fought between two men, but the context will and should be the one Bush set out last night: not only who is the better candidate to lead the nation in the next four years but what is the right path to that future. 