The "Bush Doctrine"

When journalists chide politicians--in particular Republican politicians--for not being able to satisfactorily articulate just what the "Bush Doctrine" is or is not, they reveal little more than their own monumental insularity, narcissism, and hubris.

Consider: the term was not actually coined by the Bush Administration, but by editorial writers at the New York Times and Time magazine; it is almost universally used derisively by opponents of the "War on Terror," the administration's foreign policy principles, and the president himself; it is rarely ever clearly defined beyond a handful of broad ideological categories, catch-phrases, epithets, and accusations; many of the concepts supposedly contained in the "doctrine" have been forthrightly denied and rejected by administration officials and their defenders. So, since the Bush Administration does not claim to have a "Bush Doctrine" per se, which "Bush Doctrine" are we to discuss when the subject comes up? The "Bush Doctrine" of Charles Krauthammer, of Ben Wattenberg, of Anderson Cooper, of Charlie Gibson, of Robert Kaufman, or of the constantly-barking Move-On blog-dogs?

The bottom line is that the whole concept of the "Bush Doctrine" has become little more than a liberal media-fabricated exercise in intellectual-insider-trading.

Now, to be sure, someone like Sarah Palin probably ought to be up to snuff on the latest prog-left logomorphing jabberwocky--if only to point out its preening self-absorption and soaring egotism.