President Bush and 1776

Diane Carman is so clever. It's been awhile since she wrote anything worth commenting on. She used her 4th of July column to help us remember why the Founders declared independence from King George and England. A reminder would be great, except that the column is really about President Bush and Carman's grievances with him.

I wonder how long she has been waiting to write this column and how convenient it must have been for her that our president shares a common first name with the King of England in 1776?

Now, you might say, "C'mon, you're paranoid and reading too much into it." But her use of modern terms - national security, cut and run, flip-flop, suspected terrorists, activist judges - brings the historical events into parallel with current liberal rhetoric.

The problem with her whole argument is that today's political world is completely different from 1776. Without even considering 2000, George Bush was re-elected in 2004. His party added to its congressional majorities in 2002 and 2004. These elections were referendums on his presidency. If the country is so fed up and tired of his abuses, why wasn't he beaten in 2004? Why haven't the democrats won enough contests to get majorities in the House and Senate to move forward with impeachment?

In 1776, the colonists were dealing with an unelected King and had no possibility of removing him or his policies, except through declaration of independence and open war. The result of which was a republic where we elect our leaders and remove them, through elections, when the majority disagrees with them.

When the minority wants to do things differently, they can try to leave the Union. However, the majority will most likely try to preserve the Union as President Lincoln did during the Civil War. Maybe the Civil War would be a more appropriate conflict from which Carman could draw a parallel to her dissatisfaction.

UPDATE: Along the same lines, see why GWB is NOT a dictator, from the Boston Globe.

Diane Carman
King George
Declaration of Independence