Bush, Speaking Up Against Bigotry

Richard Cohen editorialized in WaPo There are times when George Bush sorely disappoints.

Disappoints the rabid left. I am proud of him.

Just when you might expect him to issue a malapropian explanation, pander to his base or simply not have a clue about what he is talking about,

The rabid left believes that everything he does is some combination of those three.

he does something so right, so honest and, yes, so commendable, that -- as Arthur Miller put it in "Death of a Salesman" -- "attention must be paid." Pay attention to how he has refused to indulge anti-Arab sentiment over the Dubai ports deal.

Would that anyone could say the same about many of the deal's critics. Whatever their concerns may be, whatever their fears, they would not have had them, expressed them or seen them in print had the middle name of the United Arab Emirates been something else. After all, no one goes nuts over Germany, the country where some of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists lived and attended school. To overlook the xenophobic element in this controversy is to overlook the obvious. It is what propelled the squabble and what sustains it. Bush put his finger on it right away. "What I find interesting is that it's okay for a British company to manage some ports, but not okay for a company from a country that is a valuable ally in the war on terror," he said last week.

And what about China running most of our ports on the West Coast. After 9/11, the UAE has been a MUCH better ally than China ever could be.

"The UAE has been a valuable partner in fighting the war on terror." It is a long way from a terrorist haven.

Somewhere in the White House, a political operative -- maybe the storied Karl Rove -- must have slapped his head in consternation as Bush made that remark. The politic thing for a president with a dismal approval rating (about 40 percent)

A Democratic President, like Clinton, might have looked at the polls, and said what he thought was the "politic" thing to say; Bush is honest, and he tells the truth, regardless of what the polls say.

would have been to join with the critics, get ahead of the anti-Arab wave

That is the way Democrats "lead". They see what public opinion is, and then they run around to be at the front of the group, and say "Lets go this way", once they understand the way the people are going anyway.

and announce that he, too, was concerned about the deal, which was the fault, now that he thought about it, of pointy-headed bureaucrats, Democrats and the occasional atheist. Instead, the White House stuck to its guns, ordering a symbolic retreat -- more study -- but continuing to back the deal.

That Bush has done this should come as no surprise. As a bigot he leaves a lot to be desired. He has refused to pander to anti-immigration forces, and shortly after Sept. 11, if you will remember, he visited Washington's Islamic Center. He reassured American Muslims and the worldwide Islamic community that neither America nor its government were waging war on an entire people.

"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam," Bush said back then -- and he has since repeated this message over and over again. That very year -- in November 2001 -- Bush invited 52 Muslim diplomats to a traditional Iftar dinner,

I think it is good that he invites truly moderate Muslims. I question some of the people that he has invited, like the people from CAIR.

breaking the daily Ramadan fast, and he has occasionally cited purported racism as the reason some people doubt the Muslim world will, as Bush so fervently wishes, make progress toward democracy. They think people whose skin is "a different color than white" are incapable of self-government, he has said.

That is absolutely true, and in fact he has done a lot to help Blacks that want to achieve, do so, yet organizations like the NAACP can't see the good he has done.