Tough guy Bush? The man's a total fake


What a pity that George W. Bush is not as bad as British liberals think he is. They foolishly believe the President's pose as a dedicated conservative is genuine, when in fact it is an almost complete fake.

Mr Bush dare not actually do anything to repel the grim-jawed armies of political correctness that have seized control of most of American life, education, broadcasting and business. The US is no longer a conservative country, even if the BBC and Guardian newspaper think it is.

The sexual revolution roars and thunders on its destructive way. Abortion flourishes while marriage grows weaker. The schools produce illiterates, the universities - as the great Tom Wolfe's bitter new novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, reveals - are a miserable swamp of drink and casual sex, where the very word morality is obsolete.

It is virtually forbidden to mention Christmas, and multiculturalism goes unchallenged. Smoking, the one human pleasure liberals are prepared to stamp out by law, is so fanatically banned in public places that I often feel tempted to take it up after a lifetime of loathing tobacco.

Uncontrolled mass immigration is fast turning large parts of the US into Latin America. The US's most precious possession - a single language - is being casually, weakly thrown away because it could cost votes to preserve it.

In what may be his most dangerous folly, the President is squandering the national treasure like a teenager who has been handed a gold card.

The US government is more than £200billion in debt, the US trade deficit is more than £300billion a year, the dollar's value is shrivelling. No tax-and-spend socialist could have debauched the economy more totally.

American industry has now declined to such an extent that the country could not repeat the moon landings of the Sixties, while China plans its first expedition to the moon.

The President has foolishly exposed the limits of his power by starting a war in Iraq he does not know how to finish. The White House has used the 'war on terror' to make shameful attacks on the very liberties it claims to defend.

As for Mr Bush's allegedly tough foreign policy, the supposed mortal foe of terror has simperingly entertained Gerry Adams in the White House and his diplomats actively seek any way of making concessions to the blood-soaked, uncompromising enemies of Israel.

Everyone pretends not to notice that Osama bin Laden has now openly said that American support for Israel was his main target on September 11, 2001.

If they admitted that this was the case, then their appeasement of terror would be obvious.

Instead they have to pretend, ludicrously, that Islamic militants want to kill everyone in America because they don't like the American Way of Life.

Yet, by claiming to share their hopes and fears, this President has managed to fool decent Americans in their millions into voting for his miserable, dishonest, incompetent administration for another four years.

They think Mr Bush will do something to turn America back into the country that they - and I - have loved for its generosity, energy, goodness and moral purpose.

Some silly Britons come to the States and mock Americans for their religious faith.

In fact, this fervour is what binds America together and what made it the astonishing country that it used to be and to some extent still is. We could do with some ourselves.

The legions who queued to vote for Mr Bush in moving numbers did so overwhelmingly because of justified fears that their country - like ours -is being dismantled by cultural revolutionaries who despise them.

What a pity they will be disappointed.