Posts filed under 'President Bush'
Barack Obama, after a disastrous appearance on Rick Warren’s forum, decided to step up criticisms of John McCain, saying the U.S. economy is a disaster thanks to “John McCain’s president, George W. Bush.”
First, let’s correct señor Obama, on the economy. The economy was enjoying record growth until the Democrats took over Congress. Since Barack Obama’s party took over, gas prices have skyrocketed, and that has had the most significant impact on the economy. The Democrats promised to lower gas prices. They didn’t deliver. The Democrats fought for an increase in the minimum wage. Those of us who understand economics said it would cost jobs. Guess what? We were right. The economy has started losing jobs thanks to the Democrats minimum wage hike.
Sorry Obama, the poor state of the current economy belongs to you and your party.
Second, President George W. Bush is our president, not just John McCain’s. He’s our president and commander-in-chief. I am a proud supporter of President Bush. I donated to his reelection campaign. I started a pro-Bush blog in 2003 that became one of the most successful political blogs of the 2004 campaign season. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. He’s my president, and yours, and he’s the president of every single American citizen who reads these words I’m writing.
I don’t agree with everything President Bush has done, but he’s been a greater President than Barack Obama could ever dream to be. Obama is nothing without a teleprompter and a speechwriter.
Tags: President Bush
August 17th, 2008
Still waiting for the liberal, Bush-hating, anti-war left to admit that we’ve won:
After traveling more than 7,000 miles, two Bengal tiger cubs have finally settled into their new home in Iraq. Amid much fanfare and excitement, Hope and Riley were introduced to the Baghdad Zoo on Aug. 8.
The tigers were a goodwill gesture from the North Carolina Conservators’ Center, a breeding sanctuary for endangered species.
“We are building trust with America,” said Dr. Adel Salman Mousa, the zoo’s director. “We’re building trust with a society that trusted us to care for these animals.”
The cubs are just under 2 years old and weigh more than 150 pounds each. The Bengal tiger is an endangered species, with less than 3,000 worldwide.
“We hope to bring smiles back to the people and the children,” Mousa said. “We want to put smiles back on their faces after years of misery. In addition to the enjoyment people will get from watching them, they will present opportunities for students and the public to learn about this and other endangered species.”
Iraq is still not a bed of roses and there remains fighting to be done - but given all the news we’ve seen out of Iraq over the past month or two, it is incontrovertible that we - and the Iraqis - have won this fight…and that President Bush’s vision for a liberated Iraq building up an alternative worldview in the Arab/Moslem world has been vindicated…and, of course, that McCain’s courageous advocacy of the surge has proven far more valid than Obama’s “cut and run” approach from 2007.
Tags: Global War on Terrorism, Iraq Campaign, liberal lies
August 13th, 2008
This is getting rather threatening:
Russia sent forces into Georgia on Friday to repel a Georgian assault on the breakaway South Ossetia region and Georgia’s pro-Western president said the two countries were at war.
South Ossetia’s rebel leader Eduard Kokoity said there were “hundreds of dead civilians” in the main town Tskhinvali, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
A senior Russian military commander said parts of Russia’s 58th army were approaching the rebel capital, where fighting raged between Russian-backed separatists and Georgian forces sent in on Friday to seize it.
A senior Georgian security official said Russian jets had bombed the Vaziani military airbase outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi, and President Mikheil Saakashvili said 150 Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles had entered South Ossetia from neighboring Russia.
“Russia is fighting a war with us in our own territory,” Saakashvili told CNN, calling on Washington to help.
Given that Russia is a dying nation, you’d think that Russian imperialism would be a dead letter - but the effects of Putin are far reaching and disasterous in the extreme. Russia, for Lord only knows what reason, seems to have imperial ambitions in the tiny, insignificant territory of South Ossetia and thus has backed a rebel movement in the area - the Georgian government, which is backed by the United States, has had enough of this and has moved agains the rebels, and now the Russians are moving in. Does Russia want war? Or is it that the Russian leadership doesn’t realise the level of contempt Russia’s military is held in (couldn’t even take Grozny without levelling the town) and thus they don’t realise that the world isn’t over-awed by Russian units on the move?
It is to be hoped that Russia will come to its senses soon as this is the sort of idiotic, blind but typical Russian move which in the past has led to large wars.
UPDATE: McCain weighs in with the exact right policy - from NRO’s The Corner:
Today, news reports indicate that Russian military forces crossed an internationally-recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia. Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory. What is most critical now is to avoid further confrontation between Russian and Georgian military forces. The consequences for Euro-Atlantic stability and security are grave.
The government of Georgia has called for a cease-fire and for a resumption of direct talks on South Ossetia with international mediators. The U.S. should immediately convene an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to call on Russia to reverse course. The U.S. should immediately work with the EU and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course it has chosen. We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia’s security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation. Finally, the international community needs to establish a truly independent and neutral peacekeeping force in South Ossetia.
UPDATE: Russia is acting entirely insane:
Georgia demanded a cease-fire Saturday in the separatist province of South Ossetia, with the Georgian leader calling Russian attacks there “annihilation of a democracy on their borders.”
“This is 100 percent, unprovoked brutal Russian invasion,” Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili told the BBC. “We on our own cannot fight with Russia. We want immediate cease-fire, immediate cessation of hostilities, separation of Russia and Georgia and international mediation.”
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s office said Saturday evening that Russia had not received the Georgian cease-fire proposal.
A defiant Russia is defending its actions in South Ossetia as fighting there threatens to escalate into a full-scale war between Russian and its fellow former Soviet republic, with at least 1,500 people reported dead.
Russia, which has close ties with South Ossetia, has sent hundreds of tanks and troops into the separatist province and bombed Georgian towns Saturday in a major escalation of the conflict, while Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally, has fought to regain control of the province.
This is the authentic Muscovite of old - demanding, brusque and determined to get his way regardless of the justice of his cause. That a dying Russia would try this indicates a level of desperation and paranoia in Moscow - South Ossetia is nothing to a Russia in terms of territory or wealth and certainly Russia could by international pressure get a lot for the South Ossetians in terms of automony, if that is really what Russia was after here. The worst thing about this is that Russia might not even know what it wants - this might just be an insane lashing out.
The world teeters on the brink of a large war, and I hope we can defuse this quickly - but Russia must leave Georgia.
UPDATE: It just gets worse and worse. At this point, I think that its time for NATO to present a demand to Russia to case forthwith their attacks on Georgia. There is no need for Russia to be bombing anything outside Ossetia, and no reason to be in Ossetia as the Georgian troops have withdrawn. This is now becoming a crime, pure and simple, on the part of Russia.
UPDATE: President Bush weighs in:
BEIJING (AP) - President Bush on Monday sharply criticized Moscow’s harsh military crackdown in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, saying the violence is unacceptable and Russia’s response is disproportionate.
The United States is waging an all-out campaign to get Russia to halt its retaliation against Georgia for trying to take control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Bush, in an interview with NBC Sports, said, “I’ve expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia.” He said he did so directly to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who’s here for the Olympics, and by phone to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.
On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney told Georgia’s pro-American president that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States,” Cheney’s office reported.
While Georgia said its troops have retreated from South Ossetia and are honoring a cease-fire, Russia disputed the claim, and U.S. officials said Moscow was only expanding its blitz into new areas.
“I was very firm with Vladimir Putin,” Bush said. “Hopefully this will get resolved peacefully.”
Cheney spoke Sunday afternoon with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Cheney press secretary Lee Ann McBride said. “The vice president expressed the United States’ solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” McBride said.
Tags: Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia
August 11th, 2008
This is what gets serious discussion on the left, as NRO’s The Corner points out:
At the Netroots Nation gathering in Austin, Texas last month — that is the successor to YearlyKos — Dahlia Lithwick, of the Washington-Post-owned website Slate, did an interview with the Talking Points Memo site in which she described a panel discussion she had just taken part in on what is known as the “first 100 days of accountability.” Among Lithwick’s observations:
We’re already falling into this trap of either positing Nuremberg-style war crimes tribunals, or nothing, immunizing everyone from John Yoo up and down…but everybody says there’s a lot of gray area in between that, and that accountability doesn’t necessarily mean Nuremberg, it doesn’t necessarily mean nothing, it means possibly a truth commission, possibly appointing a special prosecutor to look at it…
Lithwick recommended a massive retrospective investigation of the Bush administration, going through every piece of paper, before moving forward:
Certainly long before we make a decision to do what Stuart Taylor suggested this week, which was immunize everybody in advance, or alternatively make a decision to trot them out before a war crimes tribunal before the whole world, we should really find out what happened…
But Lithwick recognized that there are those who argue such an action might be divisive:
We talked a lot about this notion that it’s bad for America, that it will rip America apart if we have hearings or we have criminal trials or if we have war crimes tribunals. And I think it’s really worse for America if we don’t…
The level of insanity here is breathtaking - and while one can attempt to dismiss this as the paranoid ravings of screwball lefties, the problem is that these screwball lefties will have a large say in any potential Obama Administration. These people appear to be quite serious in thinking of President Bush and his Administration (a moderate, center-right, constitutional American government) as akin to Nazi Germany. And do keep in mind that by implication those of us who support President Bush are criminals, too - at least in the minds of the left. These are not people who view me as a fellow American - they view me as a pestilence to be at least thwarted, and destroyed if possible.
It is imposisble for us to reach these people, but we can rest completely assured that we must stop them from gaining power - the plans they have, the lunatic assumptions they hold, are the stuff with which civil wars are made. Essentially, the left wishes to criminalise non-leftist actions and ideas, and as we on the right won’t ever agree to that, push may very well come to shove if the left gains power and seeks to prosecute us for what they consider to be crimes. I wish never to see anyone who is a fellow citizen of the United States as an enemy - but anyone who thinks putting President Bush et al up on war crimes charges - or even attempting to set up a truth commission - is someone who has definitively set themselves up as my enemy. Not a fellow citizen with ideas I think wrong, but an enemy I’ll fight.
Tags: Afghan Campaign, conservative truth, FISA, Global War on Terrorism, Iraq Campaign, liberal lies, political ideology
August 7th, 2008
President Bush was welcomed in South Korea with a large crowd of well-wishers and a pathetic band of kook lefty protestors, as Amy Proctor notes.
So, the headline? Well from al-Reuters it was:
Bush arrives in Seoul, faces large anti-US protest
But then reality broke in and the large anti-US protests failed to materialise, and large pro-US demonstrations happened. So, what did al-Reuters do? Keep lying as best you can, of course:
Bush arrives in Seoul, anti-U.S. protest fizzles
The headline should have read, “Bush arrives in Seoul to warm welcome”, but that would be to defy the MSM’s meme about President Bush - supposedly the whole world hates us, now, and only Obamessiah can retrieve our national honor from the Bush gutter. The facts, once again, appear to be in defiance of what the MSM wants to report - and my bet is that the entire meme of “Bush hated” is overblown. Sure, there are plenty of anti-Americans out there (and, heck, in America, too) and you’ll not lack for people who can be quoted at length being disgusted with America under Bush and gushing hopeful about how wonderful America will be under Obama…but does this mean the world hates us and that we need to rebuild our reputation?
Well, we certainly don’t need to in Afghanistan, Iraq, Djibouti, Georgia, Israel, India, Phillipines, Japan, South Korea, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Eithiopia, Tanzania….heck, even our relations with China are pretty good (all things considered) and getting on good with Japan and China should be next to impossible. Who really hates us? Well, the Islamists do…and so do those global leftists who will hate us even if Obama is President because they don’t really hate President Bush so much as hate the United States, period…and not for what we do, but for what we are (free, Judeo-Christian, that sort of thing).
As I’ve said before, we live in the Age of Lies, and the main thing which has caused President Bush trouble has been his inability to join in with the lies…a few lies here and there stroking the egos of the left and President Bush would be in a lot better shape as far as elite opinion is concerned, but President Bush couldn’t do it…and God bless him for it; for being, that is, one of those rare people in politics who really doesn’t give a darn what people think of him and who is thus able to do the right thing no matter what.
Tags: media bias, President Bush
August 6th, 2008
Interesting opinion piece over at Opinion Journal:
A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .
Oh, wait a minute. That’s not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a “W.”
There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.
And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society — in which people sometimes make the wrong choices — and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell…
…Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense — values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right — only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like “300,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Narnia,” “Spiderman 3″ and now “The Dark Knight”?
The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?
The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of “The Dark Knight” itself: Doing what’s right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified…
…When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, “He has to run away — because we have to chase him.”
Being a coward is, pro-tempore, easier than being a hero - being a coward only requires that one do nothing; being a hero requires that one act. Of course, failure to act can land you, eventually, in much worse trouble than the immediate risk of acting, but a coward can always rationalise away future risks if it gets him out of the particular spot he’s in. While those who act are those who make things happen (good or bad, depending on the actor), it is only those who act nobly who are subjected to the calumny of the cowards. To insult the efforts of a wicked man, you see, is to take a brave stance - so much easier to call Marines in Haditha cold-blooded killers than to take on the cold-blooded killers the Marines are fighting.
The dichotomy between President Bush and the man who wants to replace him cannot be more stark - Obama is lauded for doing nothing; Bush is condemned for doing something. What did Obama do to garner support which eventually awarded him the Democratic nomination? He spoke out against liberating Iraq before the liberation was attempted. What did President Bush do to earn the hatred of the left? He ordered the liberation not of Iraq, but of Afghanistan. Oh, I know - we’ve spent so much time on Iraq that it seems that Iraq triggered leftwing hatred of Bush…but if you think back on it, you’ll remember that the first “anti-war” campaign post-9/11 was to keep us out of Afghanistan…because the Taliban hadn’t attacked us, because we shouldn’t get into the middle of a civil war, because it is impossible to defeat a terrorist enemy on his own ground, because it would be a humanitarian catastrophe. It wasn’t Iraq; it was the fact that President Bush proposed to do something - that is the source of the hatred.
Had President Bush made a few heart-rending speeches and merely promised the full weight of American law enforcement, he would still be disliked on the left for various reasons, but the hatred wouldn’t be there because in such a response there is no challenge to the cowardly. The coward, being able to look at a mere indictment of Osama bin Laden, can take all sorts of exception with what President Bush did…heck, the coward could even say that invading would be better…but there is no challenge; no forcing of a choice. No contrast between right and wrong. Obama doesn’t challenge - he tells the cowards that they were right, that we shouldn’t have acted - that being afraid to confront evil is the smart thing to do. He tells the coward that he never has to shoulder a heavy burden - that the UN, EU and everyone else on God’s earth will take care of it, but he’ll never be asked to sacrifice, save perhaps in a higher tax bill.
President Bush looked at the rubble of the Pentagon and WTC and was filled with a terrible resolve - that this shall not stand, and that those who did it will be made incapable of doing it again. For a while there, the overwhelming majority was with him - but as hard decision followed hard decision the siren song of defeatism and cowardice took its toll until, now, President Bush is in many ways the most unpopular man in the United States. All too many just wish he’d go away and stop demanding of us a hard courage to face the difficult tasks. Millions who hate President Bush will want him again, if we’re ever attacked like 9/11 again…but for now, they just want him get out, and allow a coward to stroke the ego of cowards.
And the only thing which may prevent this unhappy outcome? Another man of courage - John McCain. We’ll see in November if there is a majority of Americans still in favor of doing what is right, rather than talking about what is right and acting like talking is doing.
Tags: Afghan Campaign, Defeaticrats, Iraq Campaign, liberal lies
July 25th, 2008
While I’ve admired President Bush for many reasons, what I could never understand was the President’s reluctance to answer the many unfounded, over-the-top criticisms and out-and-out attacks that were foisted upon him by the left of this nation.
Paul Kengor addresses this in a must-read piece at the American Thinker. For all of the Bush Administration’s successes, most notably his success via perseverance of his Iraq war policy, President Bush’s “new tone” policy set the stage for the relentless, unanswered barrages of assaults by the leftists of this nation and around the world.
The “feel-good” language espoused by many democrats regarding “getting along” and their supposed pining to end the “politics of personal destruction,” in the end, of course, was so much political puffery. On the other hand, George Bush’s “new tone” was not only a buzzword, but S.O.P. for his administration. As with nearly every aspect of his administration (and what those on the left could never fathom nor abide), Bush actually meant what he said and said what he meant when he proclaimed that he would establish “a new tone” in Washington.
Paul Kengor asserts that Bush’s “new tone” was a spinoff of his adherence to his evangelical Christian roots; specifically with regard to the principle of “turning the other cheek (Luke 6:29).”
While a president’s abiding by principle is certainly to be lauded, the application of this principle to Bush’s leftist detractors during his administration yielded disastrous, and yes, even dangerous results. Turning the other cheek allowed the leftists to set the agenda for debate, and allowed them relatively free rein in their efforts to dangerously damage the morale of this country with carte-blanche levels of seditious rhetoric and out-and-out falsehoods. Bush’s “new tone” allowed the leftist elements of this country to give licentious aid and comfort to America’s enemies during a time when our sons and daughters were in harm’s way, giving our enemies encouragement to climb out of their caves and kill another day. Bush’s “new tone” has made it much easier for democrats and other leftist elements to continue relatively unabated on a roll of propaganda based on contrivances that continues to this day, on every issue from energy to foreign policy.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration’s failure to utilize the bully pulpit to answer unjust criticism and attacks from detractors has left those of us on the right side of the aisle to do all the heavy lifting; which was all well and good, but not enough.
President Bush has many legislative and policy accomplishments for which to be proud. But public opinion and debate in the arena of ideas are also matters of import.
It is my opinion that President Bush’s “new tone” policy is a virtual handbook of how not to play the game.
Tags: Leftwing Alternate Universe, President Bush, The Fifth Column
July 21st, 2008
The ACLU is screaming that there are a million names on it and that we all must tremble in fear for our liberties due to the very existence of this list. John Stephenson at Pajamas Media notes the few good points the ACLU makes (notably that the list needs to be better managed - something, of course, the government freely acknowledges), and then goes on to indicate why the leftwing fear-mongering over this is a bit strained, to say the least:
I have given the ACLU credit on this issue; now I will give reasons to be skeptical. The claim that there are one million individuals on the terror watch list is a myth created through the exaggerated “estimations” of the ACLU. The truth is there are less than 400,000 individuals on the consolidated terrorist watch list, and less than 50,000 on the no-fly and selectee lists.
Assumptions by the ACLU were probably based on a 2007 report claiming the estimate of 700,000 possible records on the watch list and growing by an average of 20,000 per month. Apparently, they didn’t take into account that the numbers do not necessarily represent actual individuals. A new “record” is created for every alias, date-of-birth, passport, spelling variations, and other identifying information for watch listed suspects. Furthermore, they did not take into account the name-by-name scrub that took place in 2007. Notably, 95 percent of those on the consolidated watch list are not American citizens and the majority are not even in the U.S. The shocking numbers the ACLU is broadcasting are simply inflated and dishonest figures.
Which conclusion anyone who thinks about it would come to - the operational word here being “think”, and thus we can see why the ACLU and the larger left is up in arms over this. The last time a lefty had a thought he was writing the Communist Manifesto at the British Museum…its been all downhill since then.
The tremors of fear the left tries to generate with this story is just part and parcel with the leftwing fairytale about President Bush - given that the left is living in an Alternate Universe where facts are subordinate to intentions, it is no surprise that each and every action of the Executive branch - no matter how routine - is cast in the darkest terms possible. Its also part of the leftist’s personal worldview - they see themselves as the pure-hearted battlers for truth, and as they are fighting for truth, anyone who opposes them must be fightig for lies…and liars, of course, will do anything to win, including spying on some obscure leftwing writer because he tells “the truth” about President Bush.
Just for fun, someone at DHS should slip into the list the names of a few liberal bloggers…so they can be found and really scare the bejabbers out of these professional hand-wringers. Heck, they believe a massive, nefarious, PNCA/Likud conspiracy is afoot, lets not disabuse them of the notion. We can have some fun with this, ya know?
Tags: FISA, Global War on Terrorism, liberal lies, Terrorist Watch List
July 21st, 2008
I mean, for crying out loud, these people are just nuts:
During Jane Mayer’s event today at New America promoting her penetrating new book, The Dark Side, a topic came up during the Q & A that I’d like to expand on–the possibility of establishing a truth commission for the Bush administration’s transgressions. The idea has been getting some play recently, both from Nick Kristof in the NYT and scattered across some lefty blogs (a funny parody here, another suggestion here). The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is generally held up as the model for such bodies, which don’t have formal judicial power but instead serve primarily as instruments for the discovery of past wrongdoings by governments.
So far, when each instance of misconduct has been revealed — from the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes and waterboarding to extraordinary renditions and habeas-corpus-free detention of prisoners at Guantanamo — individual solutions have been sought and some individual actors have been put forth to be held accountable. But this approach is piecemeal at best and does not get at the connective tissue and the systematization of abuses.
A truth commission, however, would provide a more holistic approach to the violations that have been committed or ordered by individuals and agencies within the government. A commission would serve as an opportunity to look back and expose where the administration started to go wrong in its decision-making process; allow those whose rights have been violated to be heard; and give Americans on the whole a chance to cleanse our national conscience–and our image abroad.
I guess they really believe their own press releases - these people haven’t entirely been playing a political game (though there’s a huge amount of that in this); they seem to actually believe that we’re out there violating the constitution, torturing prisoners, randomly wiretapping innocent Americans, and generally acting like the worst people, ever. This is what they think about a center/right GOP President who regularly ticked off his own conservative base by reaching across the aisle to work with Democrats. Can you imagine what they’d feel like with a completely conservative President who was determined to fight it out tooth and nail on each issue?
This insanity on the left really has got to stop - this is the stuff with which civil wars are made. You keep talking yourself into thinking that you’re boxed in with no way out, and you’ll then start thinking of turning to violence. I think the only thing keeping the lid on these kooks is the fact they are convinced that Obama will win…but what if Obama loses? People who think we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission simply will not accept an Obama defeat…they will very swiftly convince themselves that they have been robbed…and thus be convinced that there is no way to work within the normal political framework.
Look, lefties, President Bush really isn’t evil…and he really isn’t dumb…and he really didn’t deceive us into liberating Iraq. All of that BS was cooked up by the leftwing ANSWER right after 9/11…the typical lies communists put together about anything America does. Think about it - President Bush is being accused of the very same crimes as Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan were accused of. Unless you want to believe that all of these men were criminals, you should grow a little suspicious that every time since WWII (ie, since we stopped being allied with communism) that we’ve engaged in any sort of warfare, the US President is accused of using chemical warfare, torturing prisoners, fighting for money, spying on Americans…its all a bunch of nonsense, people. The most transparant and stupid anti-American propganda…garbage even Goebbles would be embarrassed to use. Stop buying it - understand that the people we elevate to the White House are generally decent human beings who sincerely want to do whats best…and the servants of your goverment, especially those in the military, are so honor-bound and professional that they just wouldn’t do the sort of acts they are accused of doing.
Wake up. Stop being kooks. Get a grip on reality.
Tags: FISA, Global War on Terrorism, Iraq Campaign
July 19th, 2008
So says this Newsmax report:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has dropped a bombshell by reversing course and suggesting that the Judiciary Committee might take up the issue of impeaching President Bush.
Pelosi’s change of heart comes after Rep. Dennis Kucinich moved a “privileged resolution” to force the House to consider whether Bush should be impeached for, according to the Ohio Democrat, lying to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq.
Pelosi had previously declared impeachment to be “off the table” before the 2006 election. But she now believes hearings on the impeachment issue are “a distinct possibility,” according to The Nation magazine.
Pelosi told reporters on Thursday: “My expectation is that there will be some review of that in the committee. This is a Judiciary Committee matter, and I believe we will see some attention being paid to it by the Judiciary Committee.”
Rep. John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the committee, has said he is reviewing the articles of impeachment Kucinich has proposed. Previously he had felt constrained by the Speaker’s “off the table” comment.
This is either a sop to the kook left - a means of keeping them occupied by smoke and mirrors (they are rather gullible, after all) while Obama shifts right for the fall election…or its a desperate attempt to make people hate President Bush enough to carry Obama over the finish line in November (this would be the case if internal Democratic polling shows that only a tremendously and continuously unpopular Bush gives Obama an edge over McCain). In either case, its a dishonorable thing to do…and, of course, real hearings will never happen, nor will articles of impeachment be passed by the House, because a trial in the Senate would expose that each and every criticism of President Bush vis a vis Iraq is massively overstated, at best, or an outright lie, at worst. The last thing Democrats want is a full airing of the Iraq issue prior to the November election.
Tags: Defeaticrats, Dennis Kucinich, Extremism, Iraq Campaign, John Conyers, Nancy Pelosi
July 12th, 2008
Seems to be more and more the case that while Obama will outspend McCain, the overall battle between Democrat and Republican will be more equal:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain raised more than $22 million in June, his best fundraising performance of the year, and ended the month with nearly $27 million cash on hand.
Campaign manager Rick Davis said Thursday that McCain and the national Republican Party together entered July with about $95 million in the bank. The Republican National Committee, which has been raising money jointly with McCain, collected nearly $26 million in June and had nearly $69 million on hand, officials said.
The campaign’s fundraising has given McCain the ability to spend more on television advertising than Democrat Barack Obama in key battleground states. Davis said about half of its income had been spent on television advertising.
Obama has not revealed his June fundraising.
In announcing McCain’s fundraising, Davis portrayed the campaign’s financial position as far brighter than ever before. He said the joint RNC-McCain fundraising through direct mail is now exceeding President Bush’s direct mail fundraising in 2004.
“We will have significant resources to prosecute a campaign that is very robust,” Davis said.
I wonder why Obama hasn’t released his June totals yet? I guess he doesn’t have to - but you’d think that if he were greatly outpacing McCain, he’d want to trumpet that…hey, just askin’….
The really crucial thing here for the GOP is the $69 million the RNC has - McCain is taking public financing, so all the money McCain raises must be spent by the end of August. That $69 million (which is likely to rise) will be used on party efforts to help McCain - and down-ballot GOPers (where we are trying to turn expected losses at least into holding our own). Meanwhile, the DNC is effectively broke, the Democrats can’t raise enough to pay for their convention and while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a good sized bank account, it seems that Obama is sucking up all the rest of leftwing money, which opens the question about how down-ballot Democrats will fare even if Obama wins.
Things like the money totals; the continued ability of the military to secure recruits; the ability of President Bush to win on FISA and on war funding; the abysmal Congressional approval ratings….all fo this indicates that while Obama is still the favorite to win in November, he’s only marginally so and, meanwhile, the overall left - and the Democratic party - can’t figure itself a shoo-in (though, of course, they do believe that…and I hope they keep on believing they’ve got it in the bag).
My view is that the American people are worn out - tired out Iraq, true (but not so tired they are willing to lose in order to get out), but also tired of Congressional scandals (and, Donks, William Jefferson - you forced him to resign, yet?), tired of political back-biting, tired of heated rhetoric on energy while gas prices continue to rise, tired of shrinking home equity…change is, indeed, wanted and that is the whole point of Obama…but if specific change is proposed, which way will the electorate go? McCain is offering concrete proposals, while Obama keeps things as vague as he can. Which will actually resonate come November?
Tags: Defeaticrats, fundraising, oil price, RNC
July 11th, 2008
Getting to be really old hat:
The Senate easily approved legislation to overhaul government eavesdropping rules in terrorism and espionage cases and effectively granted immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in a secret domestic spying program, ending a contentious debate that has raged for more than two years.
The vote was 69 to 28; not even close. And, as I’m sure everyone knows, even Despserately-Seeking-Triangulation Obama voted in favor. Each time we get to one of these major issues the Democrats shout about how they’ve finally got President Bush where they want ‘im…only to fold like a house of cards when push comes to shove. This is, I think, simply because President Bush doesn’t back down when vital issues are at stake and, additionally, he’s just a much better politician than the Democrats are. Democrats are good at bribery and log rolling, but they’ve really got nothing in their bag of tricks when confronted by someone who is determined to do the right thing.
Tags: FISA, Global War on Terrorism
July 10th, 2008
In spite of what you might have heard from the left, under President Bush’s leadership, we have vastly improved our ability to track terrorists and keep America safe:
In the six-and-a-half years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said. They have criminal arrest records in the United States.
There was the suspected militant fleeing Somalia who had been arrested on a drug charge in New Jersey. And the man stopped at a checkpoint in Tikrit who claimed to be a dirt farmer but had 11 felony charges in the United States, including assault with a deadly weapon.
The records suggest that potential enemies abroad know a great deal about the United States because many of them have lived here, officials said. The matches also reflect the power of sharing data across agencies and even countries, data that links an identity to a distinguishing human characteristic such as a fingerprint.
“I found the number stunning,” said Frances Fragos Townsend, a security consultant and former assistant to the president for homeland security. “It suggested to me that this was going to give us far greater insight into the relationships between individuals fighting against U.S. forces in the theater and potential U.S. cells or support networks here in the United States.”
The fingerprinting of detainees overseas began as ad-hoc FBI and U.S. military efforts shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It has since grown into a government-wide push to build the world’s largest database of known or suspected terrorist fingerprints. The effort is being boosted by a presidential directive signed June 5, which gave the U.S. attorney general and other cabinet officials 90 days to come up with a plan to expand the use of biometrics by, among other things, recommending categories of people to be screened beyond “known or suspected” terrorists.
Fingerprints are being beamed in via satellite from places as far-flung as the jungles of Zamboanga in the southern Philippines; Bogota, Colombia; Iraq; and Afghanistan. Other allies, such as Sweden, have contributed prints. The database can be queried by U.S. government agencies and by other countries through Interpol, the international police agency.
Couple points:
1. The “dirt farmer” in Tikrit who turned out to be wanted in the US: all through this post-liberation battle in Iraq we’ve heard endlessly from the left that those fighting us are just Iraqis who want us out…and how do they know this? Because it was reported in the news…as if a western MSMer who spends most of his time in the Green Zone can tell the difference between an Arab from Tikrit and an Arab from Damascus. Certainly, plenty of Iraqis - for a while - joined the fight against us and the Iraqi government, but the vital leaven in the enemy forces, the thing which kept the fight hot, was the foreigners who came in with money, expertise (its not like Saddam actually trained his people to defend themselves, ya know?) and the will to fight. One wonders how many “Iraqis” in the news voicing opposition to the US were really Iraqis…
2. The fact that many of these people have turned out to be wanted in the US for various crimes gives one pause about claims of innocent people winding up in Gitmo - once again, how would an MSMer really be able to find out that the “innocent detainee” he’s interviewing is really someone innocent? Obviously, if someone is wanted in the US but is out and about in, say Somalia, then he’s already tangled with the law and got out of it by one means or another. Unless one wants to subscribe to the theory that our soldiers and intelligence agents are stupid thugs, one must give the benefit of the doubt to our side and discount media stories about allegedly innocent detainees. Not that an innocent person cannot have been picked up, but that the chances of a completely innocent person winding up in Gitmo are very small and would be the exception proving the rule.
3. What a good idea, huh? Everyone who is detained by us is fingerprinted and we gather forensic data from terrorist attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere and slowly build up a picture of who is doing what to whom. Over time this would give us a very good picture of what we’re up against (in terms of numbers, skills, effectiveness, etc) and allow us to subvert the terrorist groups from the outside and derail their efforts through misdirection.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama and his Democrats are saying that we have to get out of Iraq - at least, they’re saying it “pre-refinement”; we’ll probably see a changed tune soon, however - because Iraq has distracted us from the “real” war on terrorism…thing is, under President Bush we’ve managed to win in Iraq, win in Afghanistan, kill or capture many thousands of terrorists, build up a data base on global terrorism, de-fang Libya, end Pakistan’s “Nukes R Us” market, secure a growing alliance with India, Eritrea, Djibouti, Georgia and Poland, watch as France, Germany and other European States figure out that we’re doing the right thing in the War on Terrorism, increase the size of our military, re-equip our forces with the most modern weapons and materiel available, beef up our intelligence agencies, start to secure the border…and this is just the stuff we know about; there’s probably a lot which is still classified and we might not find out about for 50 years. Not a bad job for the man the left considers to be an evil idiot.
HAT TIP: NRO’s The Corner
Tags: Afghan Campaign, border security, Defeaticrats, intelligence, Iraq Campaign
July 7th, 2008
Which was totally harmless and, naturally, Saddam and his peaceful, secularist country would never, ever have dreamed of using the stuff for a WMD:
The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.
The removal of 550 metric tons of “yellowcake” — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.
What’s now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.
“Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq,” said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called “dirty bomb” — a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material — it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.
Prior to the left deciding that the whole WMD argument was a lie (and part of the larger BUSH LIED!!! meme), there was this 2003 news report:
In the suburbs about 18 miles south of the capital’s suburbs, this city comprises nearly 100 buildings — workshops, laboratories, cooling towers, nuclear reactors, libraries and barracks — that belong to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.
Investigators Tuesday discovered that Al-Tuwaitha hides another city. This underground nexus of labs, warehouses, and bomb-proof offices was hidden from the public and, perhaps, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who combed the site just two months ago, until the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Engineers discovered it three days ago…
…Yesterday, Hamza expressed great surprise that the underground site could even exist. The ground there is muddy and composed of clay, he said. The water table is barely a foot and a half below the surface of the ground. During construction of one of the former nuclear reactors there, French engineers spent a fortune pumping water from the foundation area, only to see buildings crumble when the water was removed.
Hamza said the French built a reactor at Al-Tuwaitha that Israel destroyed in 1981. The Russians built a reactor that was destroyed during the Gulf War. Both had the muddy ground to contend with.
So the Marine’s discovery makes the former atomic inspector wonder if the Iraqis went to the colossal expense of pumping enough water to build the underground city because no reasonable inspector would think anything might be built underground there.
Nobody would expect it,” Hamza said. “Nobody would think twice about going back there.”
Despite being destroyed twice by bombings, Al-Tuwaitha nevertheless grew to become headquarters of the Iraqi nuclear program, with several research reactors, plutonium processors and uranium enrichment facilities bustling, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
“The plutonium processing was dispersed on-site by the bombing in 1991,” said Michael Levi, the Federation’s director. “But the Iraqis started to rebuild it. And they continued building there after 1998, when the Iraqis ended the inspections.
Lots of people have lied about Iraq. Saddam lied. The French, German, Russian and UN bureaucrats who were bribed by Saddam lied. Plame lied. Wilson lied. The anti-war movement lied. President Bush, though, didn’t lie - not even once, and not even slightly. Remember: Saddam wasn’t supposed to have anything which could be used as part of a WMD program…but, amongst other banned things, he had 550 tons of yellowcake and post-Gulf War nuclear facilities undetected by the agencies charged with keeping tabs on him. Unless you want to assert - against all evidence - that Saddam was hiding entirely innocent and peaceful programs, the only logical conclusion is that he was, indeed, violating the 1991 cease fire vis a vis WMDs. Added to all the other justifications for liberating Iraq what we have here is that back in 2003 the only logical course of events for us once Saddam had re-thumbed his nose at the UN inspectors was to remove him from power.
The anti-Bush effort vis a vis Iraq has been a sick combination of stupidity, deception and cowardice…all
