Tonight, President Bush put forward one of the more memorable State of the Union jokes in recent times:
Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized.
This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq.
The laughter kicked in a few names through the list.
I’ve touched on this aspect of a false unilateralism before. But with the claims of some Democrats, most recently found in the Democrats’ rebuttal following Bush’s State of the Union, it must be repeated ad nauseam.
Democrats have an unwavering commitment to ensure that America’s armed forces remain the best trained, best led, best equipped force for peace the world has ever known. Never before have we been more powerful militarily. But even the most powerful nation in history must bring other nations to our side to meet common dangers.
The President’s policies do not reflect that. He has pursued a go-it-alone foreign policy.
Obviously, the Democrats’ response was written before Bush’s speech. Else they would have taken it out for fear of looking so silly.