The Pendragon's Hall

Hillary Clinton may just have doomed herself. By announcing that a bill limiting immigration "would keep out the Good Samaritan and probably Jesus Himself" last week, she placed herself firmly to the left of the mainstream of America on an issue that will probably factor big in the 2008 election. One wonders if Clinton has ever even read the Good Samaritan parable. I don't think it was about illegal immigration--it was about ethnicity being a bad way to judge people since it's their actions that counts. But the problem is, more and more Americans especially in key southwestern swing states like Arizona and New Mexico, plus Florida and California, are fed up with the influx of immigrants. Bush has left himself vulnerable by not taking a more proactive stance on this and many conservatives feared that a third party candidate running on a get-tough-with-Mexico platform in 2008 would split the vote enough that Hillary would steal in on a plurality much like her husband did in 1992. Now she has given us the greatest gift: her opponent in 2008 need only favor tougher immigration laws and he or she will be handed a bunch of key states. In a close race, as this one is predicted to be, it is likely to make all the difference.

Someone asked me recently why in a contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, women and blacks would still swarm to support Hillary. "What," this person asked, "do poor blacks in the inner-city have with a rich white woman?" It's a good question. Unfortunately, since the beginning of this country, portrayal is everything. In 1800, the Yankee planter John Adams faced off against Virginia aristocrat Thomas Jefferson and the press of the time portrayed Jefferson as the humble man of the people and Adams as the rich, idle monarchist. The picture has stuck to this day. Only two years ago, millionaire tag-team Kerry and Edwards were portrayed as men of the people, boldly sticking up for the little guys against the evils of the corporate empire, headed by George W. Bush. But there is a deeper problem. Everyone likes to feel victimized and what rich, white women like Hillary tell blacks living in poverty in the inner cities is that there is nothing wrong with them. They are the hapless victims of a vast, rightwing conspiracy to keep them downtrodden and the only way they can better their station in life is to keep voting liberals into office. Since a majority of Americans will never vote liberal, Hillary can count on the blacks wasting away in poverty without ever having to answer for it. But people like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell give blacks in the inner city a far less comfortable picture. They give them the idea that blacks can indeed better their station themselves. By hard work and perseverence, these two have risen to the heights they have. So if the blacks are living in squalor in the inner cities, there is more than one reason. For some it may be a mixture of lack of opportunities but for many more it can be lack of incentive and refusal to take responsibility for one's own life. This is why blacks will continue to vote for rich, white liberals instead of hardworking black conservatives. It is not because liberals are good for blacks, the way the general press tells it, and it's not because they're stupid, as some (unfortunate for us) conservatives tell it. It's because a message of blacks excelling through taking initiative means they can't keep counting on pity; they have to earn the right to be respected. That's an uncomfortable truth for anyone, black or white.

"We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence. I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."

So spoke the junior, and I mean junior, senator from New York. The one who couldn't wait till 2004 to try her hand at winning a senate seat in her homestate of Illinois. The one who wants to be Queen. Leaving aside the fact that both Carter and Clinton are at least in the running for worst administration ever, and despite the reverence the great historian Hillary Clinton commands among media elites, the Pendragon feels the need for some correction.

How do I judge the Bush administration? He has made errors of judgment. Something needs to be done about illegal Mexican immigration and he has done nothing but offer amnesty by another name. He has allowed Ted Kennedy to dictate to America the state of our education system. He has allowed the McCain-Feingold assault on free speech to stand as law. And he has done nothing to curb reckless government spending.

Nevertheless, he took a shattered nation after a devastating terrorist attack and toppled two governments with ties to the terrorists. While nation-building is hard and slow work, it is progressing rather well, given the subject matter he has to work with. He has remained committed to making sure that Americans, and not the government, get to spend some of their own money. He has worked hard to promote a culture of conservatism: one that values all life, even that of the unborn, that respects traditional institutions (like that of marriage), that is based on the timeless ideals of justice and liberty. He has prevented another terrorist attack, following the Clinton-inspired 9/11 disaster. He has rebuilt America's military, following the laughable showing it made in Kosovo. He has put America first and our allies second. Yet by putting America first he has also ensured safety for our allies, and for the world in general.

So where does Bush rank among the presidents? It is too early to tell. But since he sems to be on the same track as FDR and Lincoln and Harry Truman, I expect he shall rank high. Every year historians rank the Presidents, and since I have not yet this year, I too shall do it. I leave out William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor because they were not president long enough to know. Grover Cleveland also counts twice.

1. George Washington
2. James Monroe
3. Abraham Lincoln
4. Andrew Jackson
5. John Adams
6. James Madison
7. Theodore Roosevelt
8. Ronald Reagan
9. Woodrow Wilson
10. Thomas Jefferson
11. Harry Truman
12. George W. Bush
13. Dwight D. Eisenhower
14. John F. Kennedy
15. James K. Polk
16. William McKinley
17. Franklin D. Roosevelt
18. Ulysses S. Grant
19. Grover Cleveland
20. Richard Nixon
21. George H.W. Bush
22. Martin Van Buren
23. Calvin Coolidge
24. John Quincy Adams
25. Rutherford B. Hayes
26. Gerald Ford
27. Herbert Hoover
28. James Garfield
29. John Tyler
30. Andrew Johnson
31. Chester A. Arthur
32. William Howard Taft
33. Lyndon B. Johnson
34. Franklin Pierce
35. Benjamin Harrison
36. Millard Fillmore
37. Bill Clinton
38. Warren G. Harding
39. James Buchanan
40. Jimmy Carter

In reading for my American Foreign Policy class, I stumbled across an essay by Arnold A. Hoffner on President Truman and the origins of the Cold War, entitled "Provincialism and Confrontation." In it, predictably, he blames the Cold War fiasco that ensued following the Second World War as largely Truman's fault. And why did Truman make the choices he did? Was he simply evil? Not evil, but too American. His decision making was shaped by "his uncritical belief in the superiority of American values." Even his service in the First World War did not shake this: "He deplored Europe's politics, mores and food and sought only to return to 'God's Country.' He never intended to revisit Europe." His foreign policy "largely comprised military preparedness." During the war between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, "he hastily remarked that they should be left to destroy one another--although he opposed Germany's winning--and he likened Russian leaders to 'Hitler and Al Capone' and soon inveighed against the 'twin blights--atheism and communism.'"

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Truman was hated during his presidency and immediately following. But now most rankings by historians of the Presidents place him in the top five. I think Bush is due for the same sort of vindication. The problem with Truman, among academics, is not that he was a bad leader or that he did something wrong, but he refused to allow his conscience to be dictated to by the heads of state in Europe. This is always the unforgivable sin with liberals. Never mind that following the two world wars, Europe did not look particularly like a moral paragon to be emulated. As for his assessment of Germany vs. Russia: he was dead-on. We should have let them kill each other and waste away their armies. Then we could have mopped up and rid ourselves of two evil dictators with one blow. We gambled that between Hitler and Stalin Hitler was the greater threat and in an immediate sense he was, but certainly there was no "moral high ground" in taking Stalin's side against Hitler. The nice thing to know, in the long run, is that you're right and history has a way of vindicating unpopular-at-the-time Presidents. I still think Bush will be in the top ten someday soon.

You know the Democrats smell blood. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is introducing a resolution censoring the President of the United States. If it passed, which it won't because as Lincoln noted not everyone is as stupid as you hope, it would be the first censure since Andrew Jackson's presidency. Feingold's name is right behind Hillary's on the list of senators seeking promotion in 2008 so you can imagine what's really on his mind. Before the Democrats gets too happy about this, though, I would like to remind them that the last Democratic President also had something happen to him that hasn't happened to a President since a guy named Andrew. If I wasn't worried about them running the country, it would be fun having so many liberals around. They take an issue--the wiretaps--wildly popular with the country (last approval rating over 60%) and pretend they have some great cause to stand up for in attacking it. There are many things Bush could probably be undermined on right now--the Dubai ports deal comes to mind--but the Republicans were against that too. Social security reform is dead, thereby ensuring my generation will get stuck with paying millions into a bankrupt system. So what do they have left? The policy that will unite the people behind Bush: the war on terrorism. November 2006 is going to be a sad month for Democrats unless they get some new strategy and probe why their way of doing things is better.

It is ironic how individuals are never known for what they want to be known for. Bush came to office in 2001 promising a lot of things: compassionate conservatism, social security reform, tax cuts, education reform, prescription drug benefits and the beefing up of the American military. What will he be known for? The Iraq War. Three years and the people who apparently thought it would take three months to rebuild a whole country too used to tyranny and dictatorship are still not done bellyaching. I am worried and disappointed by the escalating recent violence and beginning to doubt whether a true Islamic state can also be democratic (more on this another time) but the naysayers overlook a very important success in Iraq. Perhaps, as Francis Fukyama laments, Iraq has become a magnet for terrorists to fight the United States, but they are no longer in the government. Although the ultimate goal, of course, is eradication of terrorism, only an idiot would think that is doable in such a short time. I'll settle for keeping them contained in Iraq, fighting to reinstate a government friendly to them. If they're busy doing that, they can't be over here bombing buildings and subways. Under Saddam Hussein, the terrorists always had a state to flee to, so they could focus on the actual terror. Now, they don't have that anymore. This is a victory in and of itself. Will a Jeffersonian democracy ever emerge from the chaos that is Iraq? Maybe, maybe not. But right now, the terrorists are struggling to keep Iraq in a state that they can use to their advantage and not everything is going their way, contrary to what the whiners will tell you. And before anybody starts on me about how Saddam was a secularist, hated by the religious extremists, the 9/11 hijackers left bills on their credit cards for strip clubs and bars and yet Osama bin Laden kind of liked them. That's about as secular as it gets. Terrorists will use anything they can to strike at the US and the less things we give them the better. That is what the war in Iraq is all about and like another US president whose war dragged on longer than the "90 days" the newspapers predicted, I think Bush will be vindicated by history. Look for his name in the "top ten" if you're still alive in fifty years.

All right, Hillary, enough already! The good senator declared today that the reason she is drawing such fire from Republicans is because she's a woman. I have news for her: it has nothing to do with that. You don't hear Condi telling people: "Democrats hate me because I'm a black woman." Although that might actually be true, come to think of it. Hillary has politicized death, historical figures' birthdays, race, gender and everything she can get her hands on and has done it, not in a uniting way but a dividing way. She should expect some criticism. Good grief, a conservative can't even raise his head without a fusillade of reproach. Why should she get off? Just because she's a woman? Talk about your reverse snobbery.

This is interesting. With all the nations of Western Europe lining up for the coming war with Iran, Hugo Chavez and Venezuela have chosen to ally themselves with the terrorist state now seeking nuclear power. They join a handful of countries, including Syria and Cuba, who have done so. We know how pro-Bush the French are, and even they are willing to use high-powered nuclear weapons to end the Iranian program. But Chavez has taken his anti-Bush screed to the next level: openly supporting and siding with America's enemies. I am not suggesting we invade Venezuela--why would we want it? Nor am I on board with Pat Robertson in calling for his assassination. But perhaps it is time to begin freezing some assets and let Chavez and the rest of his cronies know that to stand with Iran is to be isolated from civilized society. Oppose the American program all you wish, but keep your money away from terrorists.