He's Not Reagan, He's Willkie

As World War II started there was a genuine debate in the country over isolationism vs. interventionism. Roosevelt wanted to maneuver us into the war. The America First movement wanted to stay out.

The watershed event was the stage-managed Republican nominating convention, where a "barefoot Wall Street lawyer" named Wendell Willkie, was nominated by acclimation. If you buy Gore Vidal's novelized history, the groundswell for Willkie was organized.

The defeat of Taft and Vandenberg meant that a consistent non-interventionism was not represented in the election, and afterward Willkie suppported Lend Lease and the other preludes to U.S. entry into the war.

Bush turns out not to be a Reagan, but a Willkie, as the SOTU speech showed. His initiatives on ethanol, health care (zzzzzzz . . .), education and other aspects of domestic policy are simply lite forms of Big Gummint. Big Gummint, Big Business, Big Education, and Big Law Enforcement, dumping America into a handbasket, and marching us to Hell.

Hillary will frog-march us there, but she doesn't lisp, and can pronounce "nuclear."

I will get into bonsai. I promise.