Home fires

Victor Davis Hanson asks “if the president is willing to take risks abroad, why won’t he do it at home?” The question is rhetorical, and Hanson thinks that Bush’s alleged aversion to risk taking when it comes to domestic polilcy explains why his approval ratings have dipped slightly even as our situation abroad has improved.
I may be the victim of inside the beltway thinking, but Bush’s domestic agenda seems pretty bold to me. He’s trying radically to reform social security years before it will experience a crisis; proposing reforms that will make immigration easier at a time when many in his party want a more restrictive policy; and taking on the trial lawyers while refusing to yield on his unsuccessful judicial nominees. In addition, he apparently will propose radical tax reform.
Bush’s problem domestically is that, whereas abroad he only has to contend with armies, insurgents, terrorists, and the likes of Mubarak, Putin and Chirac, at home he must contend with Democrats and the MSM.