December
21, 2005
A
Christmas Bombing
By Tony Blankley
As we approach Christmas I am reminded of Mexican President General
Porfirio Diaz's lamentation after the Mexican American War: "Pobre
Mexico! Tan lejos de Dios, y tan cerca los Estados Unidos (Poor
Mexico! So far from God, and so close to the United States.")
While I
am glad President Polk fought and won that war for America's manifest
destiny, I can sympathize with President Diaz's regret that the
harsh realities of man's politics overwhelm his quest for spiritual
peace and truth.
Now, just
days before we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, I am
struck that His promise that the meek shall inherit the Earth
is seemingly no closer to realization today than it was 2,000
years ago when the mailed fist and iron sword of the Roman legionnaires
harshly enforced Roman rule of the western world.
Today, whether
it is the murderous plans and actions of the Islamist terrorists,
or merely the unrelenting verbal assaults of Washington politics,
there is scant time to pause and bring central to our minds His
teachings, by which we aspire to live our lives.
Pity our
president, who after a summer and fall of unremitting war, disaster
and political strife, surely was looking forward to the strength-renewing
solace of a brief Christmas break. By long Washington tradition,
these are the weeks when the politicians and media lay down our
(figurative) swords, brass knuckles, slings and arrows, sniper
rifles and bazookas, and toast each other across the partisan
and professional divide over convivial spirits at Christmas parties
from one end of K St to the other. In the Middle Ages such a moment
was known as the Truce of God.
Only last
Thursday, the president and his gracious First Lady opened the
White House to the brutes of the press -- offering up groaning
tables of delectables and seasonal libations, and a ready smile
and photograph with each and every member of that brazen horde
(and the line was long with the many takers of that photo opportunity).
But just
a week before Christmas, The New York Times, Democratic
(and a few Republican) senators and the rest of the ever-willing-to-be-brutal
media launched their Christmas bombing of the Bush White House.
At least when Richard Nixon ordered the Christmas bombing of Hanoi
and Haiphong between Dec. 18 and 30, 1972 by 700 B-52's, he was
attacking the enemy.
But in case
the Democrats, the media and its flagship, The New York Times,
haven't noticed, the president of the United States is not the
enemy of the people of the United States. And, whatever the policy
differences between Americans may be, both the timing and the
ferocity of their Christmas attack on the president is an appalling
breach of decency.
The
New York Times, which fiercely criticized President Nixon
for bombing our enemy, North Vietnam, starting on Dec. 18 (so
close to Christmas), claims it had the NSA story for a year and
chose to release it on Dec. 16.
The media
immediately has drawn from their shopworn cupboard their predictable
heroes and villains for the story. I was on "Hardball"
on MSNBC this week when the guest hostess called the NSA officials
who feloniously released the highly classified information "whistleblowers."
By that logic, Benedict Arnold was America's first whistleblower.
I suppose
from the perspective of King George III, revealing George Washington's
war plans was whistleblowing. Arnold is more commonly remembered
by most Americans as our first traitor -- though clearly not our
last.
I have appeared
on several radio and television shows with prominent journalists
who manifest a perfect ignorance of even the most basic principles
of constitutional law -- even as they pronounce with self consciously
weighty judgment the unconstitutionality of the president's actions.
However,
the most basic constitutional principle is that in wartime, the
constitutionality of government intrusion into peacetime civil
liberties must be proportional to the magnitude, likelihood and
exigency of the threat or danger to be prevented.
Until one
has measured the threat, one cannot rationally judge the constitutionality
of the intrusion into civil liberties of the executive action.
The president's critics simply ignore -- or are oblivious to --
the threat.
They rarely,
if ever, even mention the palpable threat of Islamist terrorist
(very possibly WMD) attack on our home soil in their analysis.
They ought to re-run regularly (if only in the privacy of their
living rooms) the video of our fellow Americans leaping out of
the 90th story windows of the Twin Towers.
The Supreme
Court may eventually judge this matter. And, keeping in mind that
as Justice Robert Jackson once observed, the Constitution is not
a suicide pact, I would expect the president's actions to be upheld.
But, however
it is finally decided, it is beyond any reasonable doubt that
the president has been motivated in his actions by an earnest
commitment and a passionate sense of high duty to protect us from
the genocidal intentions of our Islamist terrorist enemies.
For this
burden that he carries for us all as he performs his sacred and
possibly sacrificial duties, California Democratic Sen. Barbara
Boxer and iconic Georgia Democratic Congressman John Lewis raised
the prospect, as Christmas approaches, of the impeachment of our
president.
How far
we poor creatures find ourselves from His spirit this Christmas
2005, anno Domini.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
