Saturday, July 15, 2006

The Administration   [John Podhoretz]

I'm at a total loss to understand Mike Ledeen's blast at the Bush administration for the way it's handling the Israel crisis. John Bolton works for Condi Rice, and has been making brilliant statements at the U.N. and vetoed an evil Security Council resolution. Mike, you can't think Bolton is acting alone here. The Bush foreign-policy team has, in effect, given Israel a green light by saying it has the right to defend itself but not to be disproportionate — which is code for saying what Israel has done so far is not disproportionate. Once again the Bush administration has proved itself the best friend Israel has ever had — and, relative to almost any other administration one could think of, standing up to appeasing world opinion here in a very resolute manner. What Mike proposes sounds wonderful in theory but is something only a president in a fantasy novel would actually do. What this president is doing in actuality deserves praise, not brickbats.

07/15 12:24 PMShare