Bipartisan Americanism

Dallas Morning News: How will “The Daily Show” survive without George W. Bush to kick around? We got a preview Tuesday night, when Comedy Central’s popular satirical news program had fun with its Inaugural Day report, comparing and contrasting lines from Barack Obama’s speech with phrases from the much-mocked Bush speeches.

Funny thing was, some of the new president’s sentiments, and even word usage, sounded a lot like the old president’s — especially when they both spoke about the sacrosanct American way of life, of the democratic imperative abroad and their plans for defending America. “The Daily Show” jokesters cracked that they hope Obama doesn’t really mean it.

National-security ideology

In fact, for better or worse, he almost certainly does. The sentiments expressed by the 43rd and the 44th presidents are the foundation of bipartisan U.S. national-security ideology. According to Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and a fierce critic of this worldview, its core convictions are: History’s abiding theme is freedom, to which all humanity aspires; the United States embodies freedom; providence summons America to assume freedom’s ultimate triumph.

Agree or disagree with some or all, it’s hard to argue that these beliefs aren’t widely shared among the American political establishment — and indeed by the American people. As conservative political analyst Daniel Larison put it this week, if Obama didn’t believe these things, he probably couldn’t have gotten elected.

Rightly or wrongly, there will be far more continuity between Bush and Obama on foreign policy and national security than strong partisans of the left and right anticipate.