60,000 PEOPLE TURNED OUT TO HEAR THE PRESIDENT IN GEORGIA
This must be incredibly galling to the moonbats:
President Bush, before a cheering crowd of tens of thousands of people, said Tuesday that the former Soviet republic of Georgia is proving to the world that determined people can rise up and claim their freedom from oppressive rulers.“Your courage is inspiring democratic reformers and sending a message that echoes across the world: Freedom will be the future of every nation and every people on Earth,” Bush said in speech from the Freedom Square that symbolizes the city’s democratic pursuits.
“You gathered here armed with nothing but roses and the power of your convictions and you claimed your liberty. And because you acted, Georgia is today both sovereign and free and a beacon of liberty for this region and the world.”
Why is it that the people in countries that until just a few short years ago were groaning under the yoke of communist dictatorships seem to be the only ones who truly understand what Bush is fighting for in Iraq and around the world?
Are people in France, Germany, Scandanavia and elsewhere in the increasingly apt term “old Europe” smarter than their cousins in eastern Europe? Are they more resistant to American propaganda? Are they nuts?
I think it’s pretty clear that the people in the newly freed republics of eastern and central Europe see a kindred soul when they look and listen to George Bush. What sounds like empty rhetoric when the President speaks of freedom to the cynical mountebanks and dilletantes of western Europe and our own home-grown moonbats, those words have extraordinary meaning and resonate deeply among peoples who only recently experienced only oppression and brutality.
Bush spoke to a massive crowd that filled the square — known as Lenin Square during Soviet rule — and spilled out into the roads that feed into the plaza. The buildings around the square were freshly painted for Bush’s visit, the first from a U.S. president, and hundreds of people dressed in red, white and blue stood in a human formation of the U.S. flag, with another group forming the red and white Georgian flag.“When Georgians gathered here 16 years ago, this square had a different name,” Bush said. “Under Lenin’s steely gaze, thousands of Georgians prayed and sang and demanded their independence. The Soviet army crushed that day of protest, but they could not crush the spirit of the Georgian people.”
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who led the “Rose Revolution” in 2003 that overthrew a corrupt government, praised Bush as “a leader who has contributed as much to the cause of freedom as any man of our time. ... We welcome a freedom fighter.”
Well and truly said.
It may be a large part of the Bush legacy that he be reviled as an American devil in the capitals of western Europe, a caricature of an American cowboy whose fast on the draw foreign policy and plain unvarnished speaking style grated on the ears of the sophisticates in the salons and drawing rooms of old, tired, elitist continental society.
But there will always be the Bush legacy in Georgia and other newly freed nations where he’ll be seen as freedom’s prophet, carrying the Good News of liberty and democracy to every corner of the earth.
Not a bad legacy at that.
Cross Posted at Blogger News Network
3:40 pm
Mr. Bush’s favorable legacy exists only in Eastern Block countries. Those countries which only recently won freedom from repression. The citizens of those countries see Bush as a rebel. Citizens of Western countries that have enjoyed repressive-free status see Bush for what he really has done—-repressing his own citizenry in the name of his straw men, diminishing freedom, prevaricating to achieve his agenda, surrounding himself with thugs and bullies, crippling the US economy, and promoting terrorism.
4:52 pm
Bush as rebel? Wha? Who?
“repressing his own citizrenry”...Not one shred of proof.
“Diminishing freedom”...not one shred of proof.
“prevaricating to achieve his agenda”...not one shred of proof.
“Surrounding himself with thugs”...yah, that Condi just needs to stop pickin’ on us…
“Promoting terrorism”...You’re a lying moonbat whose stupidity I would ordinarily leave alone except I just can’t resist an easy target.
No proof of anything…just empty charges devoid of meaning or thought…typical Democrat.
5:47 pm
I can’t see how someone can say they know how a whole half of a continent feels about a certain individual without actually knowing or speaking to anyone from that continent. Obviously Ed Jay knows much of the eastern side of Europe personally.
7:31 pm
I don’t mean to be offensive but I think that everyone here has drawn a conclusion about Europe. The truth is that these countries in EE, to which I’ve actually traveled on occasion, view the USA itself as the symbol of Democracy and the President of it as the head of that symbol. For years, they wished that the USA would do something to help them break the Soviet yoke and now that we are “helping” other countries they see it as a boon. While I think we ARE doing some good in the world, we are doing a lot of terrible things for peace and freedom. For one thing, he is all but ignoring Africa, which has many nations suffering from civil wars, disease and famine (Bush actually has cut aid in many areas there). He is supporting leftist (semi-Communist) regimes in Central and South American as long as they agree to his trade proposals. He is allowing, and even promoting, trade with China which is one of the least free countries in the world. Last and biggest spike in the Republican eye is the fact that the way he was misleading about the Iraq invasion has proven to many Iraqis that what the terrorists say about the USA is true, hence the anti-American fighters in that country that are as powerful today as two years ago. While he has done and stumbled on a few things that helped Freedom, he has done much evil as well. My conclusion is that if the people in Eastern Europe knew all the facts about Bush, they would be scared to have him in their country. It’s easier to overlook bad things about someone when you don’t have to live with them and deal with them all the time.