Communities of Character

Since our press seems to lack long term memory, let's bring us back to those sweet sweet days of September 2001. Bush was fresh off a month of clearing brush in Crawford, and the tee-ball season was about to begin. The White House had already announced what the fall offensive would be. Al Qaeda? No. "Communities of Character." Let's let Byron York do the talking...

It was simple and heartfelt and . . . corny, in a way not often heard in official Washington. And Bush seemed to love it; during the game he appeared as engaged and happy as at any time during his six months in the White House. For Bush, tee ball is not only a way to nurture a game he loves - he often frets that not enough kids are playing Little League ball - but a way to do precisely what some of his liberal critics feared he would do: promote a return to 1950s values in America. Much more than his upcoming values initiative called "Communities of Character" - a grab bag of politically popular mini-programs devoted to topics like good citizenship and teenage sexual abstinence -- Bush's South Lawn gatherings are the real thing. If you want to see the real Bush values agenda at work, watch him at the tee-ball games.

....ah, the 50s... (thanks to Magnum) (okay, this is fake but I've seen real things which were identical)


...such chaste times...


...such values...


...an easier time...