Jackson Diehl: Naive, Dishonest, or Both?

Here we have a typical Democrat's...whoops I mean Washington Post reporter's attempted hatchet job on President Bush.

How Quickly Bush Forgot

By Jackson Diehl
Monday, December 11, 2006; Page A19

Some people suppose that President Bush's freedom agenda was buried last Wednesday by the report of the Iraq Study Group. In fact, history will show that the administration largely smothered its own baby, even before Iraq's descent into civil war propelled the resurrection of James Baker and other "realist" friends of Middle Eastern dictators.

Evidence of that conclusion could be found in Washington on the same day Baker delivered his report, as administration officials, members of Congress and business executives gathered for a glittering dinner in honor of Mehriban Aliyeva, the visiting first lady of Azerbaijan.

Aliyeva's husband, Ilham, rules a Muslim country wedged between Russia and Iran that is on the cusp of becoming a major exporter of oil and gas, with strategic pipelines that offer Europe an alternative to Russian suppliers. It also is at a tipping point politically. Aliyev, who inherited power from his father -- a satrap of the Soviet Union -- has teetered between installing his own dictatorship and promising to liberalize the political system along Western lines.

For a year after Bush's soaring second inaugural speech, in which he pledged "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation," the president seemed to be trying to act on his words in Azerbaijan. Through a letter and State Department envoys, he urged Aliyev to hold free and fair parliamentary elections and promised in return to "elevate our countries' relations to a new strategic level." Unfortunately, Aliyev called Bush's bluff. He staged a vote in October 2005 that even the sympathetic State Department said was marked by "major irregularities and fraud." Days before the election he arrested hundreds of political opponents or would-be rivals, including one of his most pro-Western ministers, Farhad Aliyev.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that sometimes principles must be put aside for a higher calling on the President's obligations. It would be nice if President Bush could have called Aliyev to task for his failures as a democrat, but the President's first obligation is to serve the needs of his own nation and its people. Not pretty, but true.

Let's see if we can project what Mr. Diehl would have written if President Bush had done as he suggests.

President Bush Presses His own Narrow Political Agenda
Causes Disruption in Oil Flow From Azerbaijan

by "Jaxon Deal"

President Bush snubbed one of our best allies in the War on Terror by attempting to force American values on an independent nation's President. By insisting that Azerbaijan ruler Ilham Aliyev institute a "western style democracy" and by snubbing Mehriban, the Azerbaijan First Lady, the President has endangered both our overall Middle East strategy and the free flow of oil and gas to our Western European Allies.

I'd say that's just about right. One must remember, that the Post's primary agenda is not to advocate for the good of the people of the world, nor to advocate for the good of the American people; their agenda is to attack President Bush no matter what he does. Their agenda is to enable the Democrat Party to capture not just the House and Senate, but the White House as well, and they will do anything and say anything to accomplish that goal.

Liberals don't care about the people, they only care about their socialist agenda. Reporting the truth, or "speaking truth to power" (as the Democrats claim to do) is irrelevent. Political power is their only goal and they don't care who gets harmed in their pursuit of it. They believe that "once they get in control" they can then remedy any damage they do to the people by giving them more Middle-class welfare and lying to them. Their contempt for the American people knows no bounds.

What do you think?

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