NY Times: Bush middle east policy vindicated

Ok, they didn't put it that way. But I will.

What the Times said was Libyan Arms Pact Reduces Qaddafi’s Power

In late 2009, the Obama administration was leaning on Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his son Seif to allow the removal from Libya of the remnants of the country’s nuclear weapons program: casks of highly enriched uranium.

Meeting with the American ambassador, Gene A. Cretz, the younger Qaddafi complained that the United States had retained “an embargo on the purchase of lethal equipment” even though Libya had turned over more than $100 million in bomb-making technology in 2003. Libya was “fed up,” he told Mr. Cretz, at Washington’s slowness in doling out rewards for Libya’s cooperation, according to cables released by WikiLeaks.

Today, with father and son preparing for a siege of Tripoli, the success of a joint American-British effort to eliminate Libya’s capability to make nuclear and chemical weapons has never, in retrospect, looked more important.

And why was that effort successful? Does anyone else remember this?

It received little notice at the time, but in an interview with the British Spectator in September, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (search) said Qaddafi had told him in a phone conversation that "I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid."

I do. Libya is one of the collateral benefits of Iraq, and it's been obvious for a very long time. Back in 2005, when Chuck Hagel decided to hop on the "rush-to-defeat" bandwagon, I made this comment about what had happened in Iraq:

2 1/2 years ago, Saddam Hussein was in power in Baghdad. He was paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. He was providing a haven for some Al-quaeda members. He was shooting at US and British planes that were enforcing the UN no-fly zones. He had the largest army in the middle-east. He was taking UN Oil-for-Food money and preventing aid in the form of food and medicine from reaching his oppressed citizens. Now he's gone, his armies are gone, his sons are gone and the Iraqi people have elected a representative government that's making progress towards a democratic constitution. The influence of the actions in Iraq has caused changes in behavior - positive changes of behavior - in Syria and Lebanon and Libya.

So, yeah, I'm going to say "Bush policy vindicated."

"Miss me yet?"

This is apparently a real, non-photoshopped picture of a billboard in Wyoming, Minnesota.



How can you not? A year ago, I noted someone's comment that "there are two kinds of people in this country - those who remember the Carter years, and those who are about to learn." Not everyone learns at the same rate, and some people are just never going to learn, but more are learning every day...

"Ten years ago..."

Excellent, excellent post from Keith Hennessey

On Monday when releasing his budget the President said:

The fact is, 10 years ago, we had a budget surplus of more than $200 billion, with projected surpluses stretching out toward the horizon. Yet over the course of the past 10 years, the previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program, passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and funded two wars without paying for any of it -– all of which was compounded by recession and by rising health care costs. As a result, when I first walked through the door, the deficit stood at $1.3 trillion, with projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade.

This is a common refrain from the President and his team.

Keith then proceeds to examine this refrain, positing the arguments in support and then adressing those arguments with facts. For example:

Argument: As a result of these policies, when President Obama took office, the deficit stood at $1.3 trillion.

Response 1: The 2009 deficit President Obama inherited was large (CBO says $1.2 trillion rather than $1.3 trillion), but this is principally the result of a drop in revenues resulting from the severe recession beginning in September 2008, and from more than $400 B of projected 2009 spending for bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the big banks, and other large financial institutions. Before the recession and financial collapse of 2008, annual budget deficits during the Bush Administration averaged 2.0% of GDP (which would be about $290 B in 2009), including the higher spending and lower revenues from the drug benefit, Iraq and Afghanistan, and tax cuts. President Obama is using one horrible year to mischaracterize the other seven.

This is important stuff - read it all. The economic situation this country is in right now is dreadful, but it can be made worse if this President is allowed to mischaracterize the sources and causes of the situation. If we don't understand where the problems come from, we cannot fix them....

"deficits will not return to...sustainable levels over the next 10 years..."

Cato Institute:

The chart below shows federal spending in three component parts over the last five decades. It includes Obama’s proposed spending in 2011.

A little bit of debt isn't necessarily a horrible thing. An occasional deficit, under some circumstances, isn't cause for panic.

But this is not sustainable.

As even the New York Times recognizes:

By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 — years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms — they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product.

But it's all George W. Bush's fault...

"It was Bush's fault!"

As we all know from listening to the President, it was the budget in years 8-1 BB (Before Barack) that is the root of all of our problems. And those budgets were, of course, entirely the work of one George W. Bush and his evil minions (or, if you prefer, henchmen. Henchmen and henchwomen? Henchpersons...)

New York Times¹, June 5, 2008:

The Senate on Wednesday gave final approval to a $3 trillion budget blueprint that calls for more spending than President Bush requested for education, highway construction and other domestic programs.

The House is expected to approve the measure later this week. It will not be submitted to the president for his approval and will not become law, but creates a framework for action by Congress on spending and taxes in the coming year.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois joined other Democrats in voting for the budget, which was approved 48 to 45. Senators from both parties embraced Mr. Obama and congratulated him when he showed up on the Senate floor, hours after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination.

His chief rival for the nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, was not present and did not vote, but she was in town for a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The budget was written almost exclusively by Democrats.

"We have passed a fiscally responsible budget, and that is a major accomplishment," said Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee. "It provides tax relief for the middle class. It invests in energy, education and infrastructure. It will expand health coverage for kids."

Of course, you can't believe anything in the NY Times, right?


By the way, the budget deficit for fiscal 2007, the last budget passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President, was $162 Billion. President Obama yesterday proposed a budget for fiscal 2011 with a $1.56 Trillion deficit. Keep that in mind the next time you hear him blame George W. Bush and the Republican Congress for the massive deficits.



¹ - Robert Pear. (2008, June 5). Senate Approves Framework for Spending in Coming Year :[National Desk]. New York Times (Late Edition (east Coast)), p. A.27. Retrieved February 2, 2010, from Banking Information Source. (Document ID: 1489864351).

Some thoughts on disaster relief logistics

The Associated Press addresses an important issue in the continuing response to the earthquake in Haiti.

More than a week after an earthquake leveled swaths of the Haitian capital, the recriminations are circulating faster than clean water. From CNN's Anderson Cooper to blogs and social networks, questions echo: Why is help taking so long? Why can't the relief process be streamlined? Can't this thing go any faster?

"What on Earth has gone wrong?" the Arab News, an English-language newspaper in the Middle East, wondered in a sharp editorial this week.

But take a step back. While the difficulties of negotiating the decimated Haitian infrastructure are clear and the logistical and administrative problems formidable, could a perception gap be at play, too? Are the expectations of the virtual world colliding with the realities of the physical one?

In the space of a single generation, ours has become a world of live video chats, one-click online ordering, overnight delivery, on-demand movies and instantaneous electronic fund transfers — including sending aid to Haiti via your cell phone. It becomes only natural, in such a society, to bristle at any delays.

Trouble is, the physical world can't move as fast as the virtual one and, barring the invention of a "Star Trek"-style transporter, probably never will. Unlike medicine and food and water, information no longer has to travel via plane and boat and road and foot. News can arrive immediately. But doing something about it? That's another thing entirely.

I don't disagree with any of that. I think it is correct and perceptive.

I thought so in September of 2005, too, though I seemed to be pretty much the only one:

. But there is a huge amount of bad faith mixed in with legitimate questions about FEMA's performance. People are assuming that things are possible without taking into account what has happened, the full scale and scope of the efforts that a) are needed and b) are underway. The logistics involved with the number of people, the amount of water, the size of the area, are all staggering. There are huge areas, hundreds of square miles, that cannot be reached by car, truck or boat. How long and how many helicopters would it take to evacuate 100,000 people from a 300 square mile area, people that are bunched in 10s and 20s? As I write this, it has been approximately 96 hours since Katrina hit the Gulf coast. What, realistically has not been done which should have been done?

And contrary to the "Bush doesn't care" nonsense, he actually declared disaster areas before the storm even arrived to expedite the federal response. FEMA's been there since before the storm arrived. The Navy is moving the hospital ship USNS Comfort to New Orleans. But it takes time to travel from Baltimore to New Orleans by sea. Likewise with all of the different units that the President outlined on Wednesday, 48 hours after the catastrophe. I know that the New York Times wants him to bite his lip and "feel your pain" but what he was doing instead was making sure that actual rescue efforts were taking place.

I understand that this is an instant gratification nation. We want what we want, and we want it now. But sometimes the real world gets in the way. The laws of physics prevent everything from happening at the same time, and prevent multiple vehicles from operating in the same space simultaneously. Everyone stranded in the middle of the flood knows that a helicopter could rescue them in the next hour, but again, how many helicopters are there? Pilots? How much area is there to search? It takes time. Time while crews open roads, while work crews remove downed power lines and trees, while flood waters recede. Has FEMA reacted appropriately and fast enough? Are there enough National Guard troops to do what needs to be done?

I have no idea. Neither do the people criticizing the relief efforts.

Among that group criticizing the relief efforts in the aftermath of Katrina was...the Associated Press.

One would love to think that a media organization made up of fine impartial journalists wouldn't cover similar stories differently just because of the party identification of the President of the United States at the time the story was taking place. But, of course, there's no reason whatsoever to think that the Associated Press actually is made up of fine impartial journalists...

(H/T: Mark D. Roberts)

History can take a while to get it right...

James Taranto:

the 44% who say they'd prefer Bush to Obama is twice Bush's approval rating in the final CBS News poll during his term. With Bush out of office less than a year, it seems unlikely that a revisionist view of his presidency has already taken hold. Thus these results almost surely represent a backlash against Obama and Congress's Democrats. Their insistence on pushing ahead and forcing on the country a health-care scheme that by now is almost as unpopular as it is monstrous is without a doubt a major factor here.

It has long been my position that history will be far kinder to the Presidency of George W. Bush than the media coverage of him in office was. I see no reason to change that assessment.

And, while I'm still very scared that they're going to manage to push this health care debacle through, I'm starting to think it possible that the Democrats are committing the worst kind of party suicide - pushing hard enough to convince everyone that they cannot be trusted, and paying that price in a losing effort.

The Bush Presidency - stunning success?

Here's one major reason why even progressives should be able to agree that the administration of George W. Bush represented a golden moment in American history:

• In 2000, with Bill Clinton still holding the Presidency of the United States, the New York Yankees won the World Series.


• In 2009, with Barack Obama in office, the New York Yankees won the World Series.


• In the eight years in between, the Presidency of George W. Bush, the New York Yankees won zero (0) World Series.

Case closed.

Media coverage of economic issues

I don't know who Frank is, but this is a great video on the differences in media coverage of the economy depending on the party of the President...

The level playing field, yet again

Mary Katherine Ham notes another verbal blunder by the orator-in-chief. And once again, we are faced with a question in the form of "how would the media have played it if George W. Bush had wished the Mexican Ambassador a happy 'fifth of fourth'? Twice."

Obama joked that it was "Cinco de Cuatro," botching a play on the Spanish word for "four" when he meant to say "Cuatro de Mayo," or the Fourth of May. He tried again, but he still did not get it right.

Again, this doesn't necessarily reflect all that badly on President Obama - even smart people¹ can make verbal mistakes, and will, if speaking often enough. But we know that, had Bush said that, it would be the May 4th entry on the next "Bushisms" calendar, and the occasion for much derision on the part of the elite media, and when Obama says it, it gently fades into the mists of time. Because the mainstream media in this country, contrary to their self-image and protestations, is not about reporting news. The mainstream media in this country is about storylines, storylines which promote the people and ideas of which they approve, and tear down the people and ideas of which they disapprove. And the evidence in support of that is overwhelming and undeniable².



¹ - I don't necessarily think that President Obama's anything special in the intellect department, but this doesn't prove otherwise.

² - OK, it's deniable, but not convincingly. The denials are as "unbiased" as the news itself...

Inauguration 2009

I did not vote for Barack Obama. I did not want him to be elected President. His vision of the role of the federal government is, I fear, radically different from my own.

That said, today was a marvelous day. It is deeply satisfying to watch the orderly transition of power from executive to another, even if you do not personally agree with it. Today's transition carries with it a further benefit. I have never felt, in my adult lifetime, that race was a disqualifying factor in political life, and whether or not it was true earlier, it is no longer debatable. This is good and right.


Odds and ends...

• I avoided much of the media coverage. What I didn't avoid made me wish that I'd avoided more. It was utterly appalling.


• While on the treadmill at the 'Y', I watched the closed-caption of ABC's coverage for a while, and witnessed a brilliant discussion about the speech, and how it was all Obama's, because, you know, he's a writer. Oh, he talked about it with his speechwriter in December, and worked with several historians, and then worked on it with his speechwriter again in January, but it's all Obama's.


• On NBC, I heard a brief discussion about the superior moral character of the Obama family, the wondrous job that Barack and Michelle are doing raising their daughters because they're going to have to make their own beds in the White House.


• Memo to all members of the mainstream press: He's a man. Period. The sycophancy and hagiographic coverage is nauseating.


• I watched the inaugural address. I read the text. I saw and heard people raving about the speech, so I went back and watched it again. I don't get it. I honestly don't. I don't see the brilliance, I don't find any splendid rhetoric. When he delivers a speech, I see him using speech-delivery tricks and techniques. I mean obviously using them, like when someone on stage or in a movie is obviously acting rather than embodying a character. That's what I see when I watch Obama. I find absolutely nothing memorable about the speech or the delivery, and that's what I've seen everytime I've seen him. I honestly feel that his reputation as a speechmaker results in part from what George Bush called the "soft bigotry of low expectations," and in part from a subconcious recognition on the part of the assessors that the charge of racism lurks in the wings. I was profoundly unimpressed with that inaugural address.


• I found this line - "our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed" - to be offensive. Whatever one feels about George W. Bush, there is no argument to be made that he "put off unpleasant decisions." One can disagree with his take on stem cell research, or going to war in Iraq, or attempting to head off the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or addressing the looming crisis with Social Security, but one cannot argue that he "put off unpleasant decisions" about those things. That line in the speech is ungracious at best.


• One of the things that struck me as the day wore on was how much affection I feel for George Bush. I thought he was a good and decent man when he took office, and I still think it today. I was surprised to choke up when he mounted the steps of the helicopter, and again when he went up the ramp onto the plane for the flight back to Texas. I don't agree with everything that he did in office, not by any stretch of the imagination. But I think that he is a good man, and I think that we'll have reason to be thankful for John Roberts and Samuel Alito in the future, and I think that the big things (tax cuts, the war) he got right. I'm sorry to see him go.

Dubya to the UN?

KLo thinks it would be a great idea - Dubya for secretary general!

At the very least, that would stop the appeals to the authority of the UN from the American left!

Does the data really support the story?

Betsy Newmark links to a Washington Post story this morning about the potential drag on Congressional Candidates from either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. And the takeaway seems to be that maybe Hillary is going to hurt Democratic congressional candidates. As Betsy says,

Of course a poll a year out from the election without the name of their Republican challengers is very iffy. But the trend invites that sort of campaigning. The Democrats will probably respond with ads tying the Republican to George W. Bush. But Bush isn't on the ticket.

On the last part of that, hey, no question. The Democrats are clearly going to campaign against Bush. And he's clearly not running. (As I noted two years ago ["certainly sounds disturbing, or at least it would if he were running for anything again"], and which El Rushbo actually read on the air.)

And I agree that the Republicans will run against Hillary all the way up and down the ticket. Frankly, they would be foolish not to. And I have never been of the opinion that the Republicans are actually big underdogs in the presidential race. They aren't going to nominate anyone who is a part of this currently unpopular administration, I expect that Iraq will not be a big drag next year, and they aren't going to nominate anyone whose negatives are as high as Hillary's. She's won in New York, she's winning among Democratic partisans - I remain convinced that she is NOT a great candidate for a general election, and that the more people see of her, the more likely they are to decide that they don't want her on their television sets and radios every day for the next four years.

All that said, the fact is that what the Post did is essentially a push-poll. It's one thing to say "Some people say [your Democratic incumbent] is a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton," and something completely different to say, as the Post's poll said, "some people say [your Democratic incumbent] is a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton and will support her liberal agenda of big government and higher taxes if she becomes president." Not that the Republicans won't do just that, but the story is focused on the name dragging down the results. The point is "Clinton and Obama ...even potentially serving as a drag." Given the additional pejorative language that the question is loaded with, it's not clear at all that the data actually supports that. People could easily be responding to the "higher taxes" as opposed to the "Hillary..." And the fact is, Republicans are going to talk about "big government and higher taxes" no matter who the Democratic candidate is, as they've done in every single national election since at least 1980...

why has al Qaeda turned to killing "innocent Muslims"?

Instapundit linked to a fantastic piece from TigerHawk about Al Quaeda and the "Arab Street." And it underscores, once again, how important it is that we win in Iraq, and how damaging the Democratic policy of "whatever hurts Bush is a good thing and whatever helps him is bad" has been, and continues to be, to the security of the region.

...why has al Qaeda turned to killing "innocent Muslims"? ... The best answer, or at least the answer that will best withstand the scrutiny of history, is that the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, wittingly or not, put al Qaeda in an almost impossible position. We invaded and occupied a country in the heart of the Arab Middle East. If al Qaeda had railed against the mere presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the invasion and occupation of Mesopotamia was both intolerable -- al Qaeda's image and self-image could not suffer such a grave indignity -- and a tempting opportunity to humiliate the only remaining "superpower." Al Qaeda had to declare its objective to be the defeat of the United States in Iraq. (This is, by the way, why the characterization of the eventual withdrawal of American troops from Iraq is of strategic importance in and of itself, but that is the subject of another post.)

Of course, Al Qaeda clearly believed that it could drive the United States from Iraq just as Osama bin Laden believed that we would not have the stomach to invade Afghanistan, or that he and his mujahideen could push Saddam's armies out of Kuwait without the help of the Americans. Unfortunately, the army and Marines of the United States and its allies proved to be much harder targets than al Qaeda imagined, and George W. Bush and Tony Blair were more able to withstand domestic political opposition than just about anybody expected they would be. Soon, it became clear that al Qaeda would not be able to drive the Coalition from Iraq no matter how many Sunni Ba'athists it recruited.

...

It remains to be seen whether, when the dust literally and figuratively settles, al Qaeda will have succeeded either in rendering Iraq ungovernable under Western norms or in persuading a sufficient number of Americans that we have "lost." It is clear, though, that however much the Arab world may hate the United States for bringing the war into its midst, it is increasingly lining up against al Qaeda in the waging of that war. In the fullness of time history will reveal that the polarization of the Arab and Muslim world against al Qaeda is essential for victory against the transnational jihad, and that it was the direct result of the forward foreign policy of Bush and Blair.

Read the whole thing...