His scare tactics having failed, Ronald Kessler uses his post-election Nov. 8 NewsMax column doing what he does best: fluffing President Bush and comparing him to Abraham Lincoln, Warren Buffett, and Harry Truman:
Like Warren Buffett, Bush keeps his eyes on the horizon. Buffett invests in companies he believes have long-term growth potential and holds on to those stocks regardless of short-term price fluctuations, negative media coverage, and downgrades by stock analysts. Today, Buffett is the second richest American with $40 billion in assets.
Bush isn’t particularly interested in his place in history, either. Like any good CEO, he simply wants results and views challenges as opportunities. But he is also aware of how transitory opinion polls can be.
When Truman left office, his approval rating stood at 25 percent. Yet today, because of his firm approach to national security, Truman — whom the press portrayed as a simpleton — is viewed as one of the great presidents.
Similarly, the media have portrayed Bush as a buffoon, a religious fanatic, or a monster with the temerity to topple a man who had killed 300,000 people, not to mention liberating 50 million people.
In the same way, Democratic papers and critics disparaged Abraham Lincoln as a “dictator, ridiculed him as a baboon, damned him as stupid and incompetent . . .” according to Stephen B. Oates’ book, “With Malice Toward None.”
This is the thing to remember about Kessler’s work for NewsMax: He’s not doing “reporting,” he’s creating Bush hagiography.