A reader warns that we shouldn’t be too hard on Bush lest we face the alternative:

Jonah,
I am a 25 year old medical student (4th year) at Penn, and have followed your writing over the last three years. I greatly appreciate your ability to communicate fundamental (but often unspoken) arguments, and your advice on challenging cliches has helped me make sense of much of the intellectual mush I’ve been fed over the last several years.
With all this in mind, I am honestly very frightened when I hear key
conservative voices talking about President Bush in this way. I understand that many of his policies are nearly anathema to our viewpoints (steel tarriffs, campaign finance reform, unwillingness to fight for his conservative judicial nominees, the early suggstions for illegal immigrant amnesty). However, I am not sure if we appreciate how truly dangerous the alternatives are. Here in the halls of the nation’s first school of medicine (founded by, among others, Benjamin Rush, Washington’s physician, and signer of the Declaration of Independence) I hear otherwise rational, logical people become so choked with rage and indignation when they hear the name of GWB. Their positions are so far away from where we are now, it is unbelieveable. Forget the Medicare drug benefit – they would not be satisfied until we have developed full NHS-style socialized medicine (this is the example I am most familiar with). The ideas on defense and law enforcement would leave us more vulnerable than ever to those who would just as gladly kill us as look at us.
I understand that many are disappointed by policies and positions of our President. That’s OK – it will happen, regardless of who occupies the office. It just seems that those who talk about the president “losing his base” are displaying the mentality of a toddler who can’t play the game he wants to: I’m taking my toys and going home; the rest of you are on your own.
The president is in a position that I do not, and never would, envy. The war he has to lead will last the remainder of our lives (I hope they are long) and I am certain that there are compromises that must be made to reach the final objective. Let’s not lose sight of that, and let’s not cut the president down over peripheral issues, at the expense of the crux of the matter: Keeping us alive, and preserving our civilization. If he does that, he has certainly not “jumped the shark”.
Sincerely,
John Cafardi
Philadelphia