The Great Leader (Or: Why I Stand with George “Dubbya” Bush)

At this crucial time in American history, with Bush’s inauguration recently concluded, I would like to take an opportunity to sound off on a few of the reasons I personally stand behind America’s visionary leader and commander-in-chief, President George “Dubbya” Bush. And since it just isn’t practical to enumerate all the myriad reasons for this eminently logical choice (there being far too many!), I’ve decided to distill the bases for my loyalty to Bush down to a few key points—key points that make the case so well by themselves that they require none of the long-winded qualifications or belabored analytical tortures so common among the nattering nabobs of negativity that comprise the liberal elite.

In order of relative importance, the following are my five primary reasons for supporting George “Dubbya” Bush, despite the flurry of unwarranted controversy that has swirled around his Presidency from the outset.

Bush’s Leadership “Style” Is Steadfast and Unwavering. It’s a point too often glossed over by those who don’t recognize real leadership when they see it: Bush cannot be swayed from a chosen course of action, under any circumstances. Even when new information emerges, he acts as though nothing’s changed. This sort of unflinching resolve is an essential trait that all truly great leaders in history share. Consider Nebuchadnezzar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Adolph Hitler, and Kim Jong-IL. When confronted with new realities that don’t conform to their preconceptions, Great Leaders ignore them. (Recent examples of Bush’s iron resolve include: Discounting the failure to find WMDs in Iraq as irrelevant; insisting that the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to a theoretical war declared on an abstraction, no matter how many real-world casualties are incurred; refusing to concede that massive tax cuts for the wealthy are a lousy way to fund a campaign of perpetual warfare.) This is what strong, visionary men do: They charge brashly forward to wherever it is their fleeting whims lead them, and they take the world along with them. That’s why they’re called “leaders”—because they lead. It stands to reason, then, that the strongest leaders are those who can lead their followers in the most seemingly irrational directions. If people are willing to follow you over the edge of a cliff in complete defiance of reason, then you must be a strong leader, right? Wouldn’t you have to be? Well, that’s exactly the kind of leader “Dubbya” is. His iron-will should be an inspiration to us all. The shrieking critics of the Bush administration will no doubt point out that, in fact, Bush has wavered—if not made a complete about-face—on a wide range of national policy issues, from universal healthcare to American intervention in the affairs of sovereign nations. But these objections miss the point: It’s not Bush’s actions as a leader that matter, nor even the consequences of his actions. It’s the style of his leadership. Through it all, the style of Bush’s leadership has been unwavering: He remains blustering and confident—even defiant—in the face of his many critics. And why shouldn’t he? God sent him to do this job.

Bush Doesn’t Tolerate Disloyalty. It has been widely touted in the press that Bush doesn’t cotton to people disagreeing with him publicly (nor perhaps even privately, according to some). Well, why should he? He’s the leader, is he not? Leaders who tolerate dissension within their ranks are destined for ignominy. Great Leaders, on the other hand, insist on absolute obedience and unquestioning loyalty. As a result of Bush’s insistence on fealty, there’s been a lot of staff turnover during his first term as President. From the EPA to the CIA, major staffing changes have proven inevitable as Bush stridently pursues his visionary agenda for America. But it’s a telling point that, despite all the controversy surrounding their departures, not one of the administration’s departing personnel has gone on the record to speak out critically of the President or his policies after the fact. Why? Because they know they’ll suffer even graver consequences if they do (a dearth of future employment opportunities, say, or getting their relatives outed as CIA operatives). Bush understands the value of instilling fear in one’s underlings and of teaching them respect for their betters. That’s one of the marks of a Great Leader.

Bush Sets Clear Goals for America’s Future. Unlike his opponent (who’s name I won’t even mention), Bush understands the importance of pursuing clear, unambiguous objectives in American foreign and domestic policy. Time after time, he has described America’s new role in the world in unequivocal and ideologically stark terms: America must fight Evil wherever in the world it’s found. What mission statement could be clearer than that? We all know what Evil is, right? It’s the Enemy, and the Enemy hates our Freedom. And we all know where to find the Enemy, don’t we? Of course we do: Everywhere. Meanwhile, Bush’s adversaries don’t even come close to formulating such a clear agenda for America’s future. They ramble on endlessly about petty little details, splitting hairs over such irrelevant details as whether or not Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, when we all know such questions miss the point. THEY did it. All of them did. We’ve got to teach them all a lesson. What would we do without a leader who can so clearly articulate the threat posed by the nameless, faceless menace who awaits us on the plains of Armageddon?

Bush Lies. Recent anthropological research has demonstrated that the natural leaders among us commonly tend to be those individuals who can best lie with a straight face. Study after study has borne out this simple fact: The better a liar the individual is, the more likely we are to entrust him or her with a leadership role. If natural leaders tend to be better liars, then it couldn’t be any clearer that Bush is a natural leader. His skillful manipulations and distortions are just further evidence of the divine providence of his leadership. What Bush recognizes that so many lesser statesmen fail to grasp is this: If we truly hope to give the Enemy a real fight, we must play by the Enemy’s rules. The struggle to defend American freedom is too vital to allow quibbling over minor ethical concerns (like international standards of justice or American civil liberties). The President of the United States can’t be fettered by the meddlesome machinations of international governing and regulatory bodies, much less those pinkos from the NAACP and ACLU. Occasionally, even the leader of the free world has to hide a few bodies from the Red Cross. Such is the degree of authority and autonomy we routinely grant to even the paltriest of tin-penny dictators. As the leader of the free world, isn’t Bush entitled to take just as many liberties with the truth as the Enemy he opposes? How else are we supposed to win this war! The Enemy doesn’t hesitate to lie when it suits his darker purposes. If we demand complete honesty from America’s leaders, we put them at a dangerous disadvantage. Critics might respond: Yes, but what does lying about his National Guard service or accusing a highly-decorated war hero of having come by his combat medals dishonestly have to do with protecting the public from the Enemy? It’s simple. Sometimes the public needs to be misinformed, because we can’t always handle the truth. It is in our best interests to ensure that Bush has the authority he needs to lead America in whatever direction he sees fit at the time. Great Leaders don’t hesitate to help us stay comfortably deluded if it’s in our best interests, and George “Dubbya” Bush, more than any previous figure in American politics, embraces this profoundest of leadership principles: To lie is to lead.

Bush Truly Understands Freedom of Speech. As we all know, Freedom knows no bounds. Moreover, to speak of Freedom is to speak of that which constitutes the most sacred covenant between America and its fearsome, vengeful God. We all know that Freedom of Speech is a constitutionally protected right, but unfortunately, too few of us truly understand the nature of this right we so often take for granted. As few men besides Bush have the penetrating insight to comprehend, Freedom of Speech is not about the freedom to say whatever you please. It’s about the freedom to speak at length about the virtues of Freedom. In Freedom-hating parts of the world, such speech is strictly prohibited. In Taliban controlled Afghanistan, for example, innocent women and children’s tongues were routinely cut from their mouths for the mere offense of speaking the name of Freedom. This is why we cannot tolerate unpatriotic speech or other forms of subversive expression (like homosexuality and hip-hop culture). Malicious or careless speech that undermines support for America in the trying times ahead cannot fail but threaten our cherished Freedom of Speech—or to put it another way, to jeopardize our very freedom to speak of Freedom!—and then what could possibly remain of that white-hot spark of Liberty from whence the wildfire of American Democracy originally sprung forth? As Abraham Lincoln so eloquently intoned in the closing lines of the Gettysburg Address: “Gentlemen, freedom is not free. Amen.”