Monthly ArchiveApril 2007
National / World Politics 29 Apr 2007 06:21 pm
The Independent Senator from Connecticut Speaks:
I’m reprinting the middle of Senator Lieberman’s speech on the senate floor before the war funding vote. Important stuff.
———
In sum, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t withdraw combat troops from Iraq and still fight Al Qaeda there. If you believe there is no hope of winning in Iraq, or that the costs of victory there are not worth it, then you should be for complete withdrawal as soon as possible.
There is another irony here as well. For most of the past four years, under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the United States did not try to establish basic security in Iraq. Rather than deploying enough troops necessary to protect the Iraqi people, the focus of our military has been on training and equipping Iraqi forces, protecting our own forces, and conducting targeted sweeps and raids—in other words, the very same missions proposed by the proponents of the legislation before us.
That strategy failed—and we know why it failed. It failed because we didn’t have enough troops to ensure security, which in turn created an opening for Al Qaeda and its allies to exploit. They stepped into this security vacuum and, through horrific violence, created a climate of fear and insecurity in which political and economic progress became impossible.
For years, many members of Congress recognized this. We talked about this. We called for more troops, and a new strategy, and—for that matter—a new secretary of defense. And yet, now, just as President Bush has come around—just as he has recognized the mistakes his administration has made, and the need to focus on basic security in Iraq, and to install a new secretary of defense and a new commander in Iraq—now his critics in Congress have changed their minds and decided that the old, failed strategy wasn’t so bad after all.
What is going on here? What has changed so that the strategy that we criticized and rejected in 2006 suddenly makes sense in 2007?
read his entire speech here.
Media Bias & National / World Politics 26 Apr 2007 05:23 pm
Must read the last paragraph (please!)
Best of the Web Today – April 26, 2007
- By JAMES TARANTO
I’m Not Being Defensive!
If an exchange between Rudy Giuliani and top Democrats is a preview of next year’s general election campaign, Republicans have reason to be a lot more confident than they have been these past few months. Fox News Channel’s Brit Hume reports:
Washington woke up [Wednesday] to morning headlines that Rudy Giuliani predicted a “new 9-11″ if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008. Barack Obama responded that Giuliani has “taken the politics of fear to a new low.” John Edwards said Giuliani’s comments were “divisive and plain wrong.” And Hillary Clinton called it “political rhetoric” that would not lessen the threat of terrorism.
The problem is Giuliani never said what the headlines claimed. It all started with a story in The Politico newspaper, which contained not a single quote to support its lead and headline. But it got picked up elsewhere nonetheless.
What Giuliani actually did say is what he has been saying for weeks, that Democrats would play defense instead of offense in the War on Terror, the same approach tried back before 9/11.
Late yesterday afternoon the Democratic National Committee sent an email bearing the signature of chairman Howard Dean (reproduced at Little Green Footballs), in which he misquotes Giuliani outright:
Rudy Giuliani should be ashamed.
The former New York City Mayor is politicizing September 11th in his 2008 presidential bid. Here’s what he said at a recent campaign stop in New Hampshire:
“If a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001… Never ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for (terrorists) to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”
I won’t let this wannabe Republican nominee get away with remarks like these.
In fact, the first sentence in the Giuliani “quote” was not something Giuliani said but something Roger Simon of The Politico wrote. The Democrat-friendly New York Times is more careful, but it manages to take Giuliani’s words out of context:
In his two months on the campaign trail, the central animating theme of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s presidential campaign has been that his performance as New York mayor on Sept. 11, 2001, makes him the best candidate to keep the United States safe from terrorists.
But when Mr. Giuliani broadened that message here on Tuesday night, saying that Democrats “do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us” and that if they were elected the United States would suffer “more losses,” the response from his Democratic rivals was swift and pointed.
Rush Limbaugh has the actual “more losses” quote, and, contrary to the impression the Times gives, it is substantive and not pointedly partisan:
The question is going to be, “How long does it take, and how many losses do we have along the way?” And I truly believe if we go back on defense for a period of time, we can ultimately have more losses and it’s going to go on much longer. The power of our ideas is so great we’ll eventually prevail. The real question is, “How do we get there?” Do we get there in a way in which it is as expeditious as possible and with as little loss of life as possible, or do we get there in some circuitous fashion.
This is just the latest example of one of the oddest rituals of American politics: Democrats try to smear Republicans as mean and dirty by falsely accusing them of saying terrible things about Democrats. The classic example, to which we devoted a 2004 essay, is the plaint: Stop questioning my patriotism! As we wrote then:
Democrats themselves raised the issue of patriotism by defensively denying that they lacked it. A cardinal rule of political communication is never to repeat an accusation in the course of denying it (“I am not a crook”). These candidates “repeated” a charge no one had even made.
It’s happening again. Now the claim that “if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11″ is part of the political debate–thanks to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
The Giuliani kerfuffle is an especially lovely example of the self-defeating nature of this Democratic tactic, if one can call it that. Giuliani’s criticism of Democrats was that their approach to terrorism is to go “on defense,” and the Democrats responded by getting all defensive. Kind of proves his point, doesn’t it?
Media Bias & National / World Politics 21 Apr 2007 10:47 pm
Important Message from IRAQ
READ AND SHARE THIS POST – PLEASE!
I’ve posted before that this set of blogging brothers are amazing – right in the middle of Baghdad. They post 3,4 times a week and this post is Critical that everyone read, and post far and wide… Visit them often. below is the link and today’s plea for sanity.
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com
——–
End the war: Right message sent to the wrong address.
What did the last wave of terror attacks and the many crimes committed against our people all this time reveal?
If we look at how the media handles the situation we’ll find something like this almost everywhere;
Dozens killed, scores wounded in attacks suggest failure of security measures…
It’s as if the speaker here wants to only emphasize the defect in security measures in a way that honestly angers and disgusts me.
When shall they realize, if ever, that we are dealing with brutal crimes against humanity, a genocide against the people of Iraq? Why don’t people talk about the cruelty of the crimes and expose the obvious goals of the terrorists behind the crimes?
Isn’t it everyone’s duty to expose the criminals, describe their sick ways and purposes and alert the world about the danger?
Where are the media when terrorists use chlorine poisonous gas, acids, and ball bearings to kill and hurt more and more civilians in utter disregard to all written and unwritten laws, ethics and values?
I understand it’s the duty of the media to practice scrutiny over the work of governments but isn’t it equally their duty to expose criminals and their evil deeds?
It’s frustrating to see the media turn a blind eye to the nature of the crimes and open fire on an honest endeavor to restore peace to a bleeding nation. I’m sure the terrorists are pleased by the coverage. Why not, when their crimes are being portrayed as successful breakthroughs against the efforts of Iraq and America it’s likely motivating them to keep up the killing.
Would it be “hate speech” to expose the terrorists for what they are?
I think our hate for their crimes must not be hidden; there is no shame in hating those blood-thirsty monsters.
Even more appalling I see and hear some people who think the solution is to end the war from our end and I can’t find an argument more naïve than this—I’ve seen enough wars in my life that I can’t remember a day when there was peace and I hate wars more than they can imagine. But we didn’t start his war; it’s the terrorists who started this war against life.
Instead of telling us to stop fighting back, I’d like to see some people stand up and protest the crimes of the terrorists and tell them to stop the killing and destruction…turn the stop-the-war campaign against the terrorists, is that too much to ask for?
Tell the criminals to stop killing us and stop attacking the people who are risking their lives fighting for liberty and equality.
We’re not asking the media and the stop-the-war crowd to carry arms and shoot the terrorists; we just want them to stop shooting at us.
National / World Politics 21 Apr 2007 11:09 am
Reid, Democrats and Defeat
Harry Reid, Loser
Posted 04/20/2007 ET
Updated 04/20/2007 ET
Updated 04/20/2007 ET
The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, believes the war in Iraq is lost. There is nothing about that conclusion that bothers Reid: He is as blasé as he is certain, as resolute in pursuit of defeat as Churchill was in pursuit of victory.
Last November, the Democrats seized control of Congress on the pretense that they wanted to change our policy regarding Iraq but not — as they, to a man (and a woman) insisted — to merely cut and run. We knew they weren’t being truthful then, but too many people were taken in. Now all pretense is dispensed with: we can see the man behind the curtain.
On Thursday, Reid said: “I believe … that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week.” He said that in the middle of a week when some 146,000 Americans are serving in Iraq, and at least 6 have died. He said that at a time when the troop surge announced by President Bush has only managed to deliver three of five brigades — about 60% of the planned 21,000 additional troops — to Iraq.
The fact that the surge hasn’t had a chance to work is much less important to Reid and the Dems than the political mileage they may gain from declaring it a failure.How many times have we heard the Dems insist that they support the troops? It’s one of their mantras. If something isn’t “for the children”, it’s to “support the troops.” But it’s false, just as their insistence last fall that they wouldn’t cut and run was.
All of that pales in comparison to one single fact: Reid and the rest of the Democrats do not condemn defeat. They do not say they would have done better to win, because the words “win” and “victory” never pass their lips. They never propose an idea that might lead to quicker, more decisive victory in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the Horn of Africa, or Lebanon, or anywhere else. No. The Democratic pathology is the same now as it was forty years ago.
During the Vietnam War, Democrats were able to rally Americans around their anti-war banner because the draft brought the dangers of the war home to most families. But Vietnam was – in their terms — a “war of choice”: America didn’t have to fight in Vietnam to preserve itself. Iraq – and the rest: don’t forget the rest — are different on two counts.
First, President Bush began the counter-attack after 9-11 in Afghanistan against the regime that had harbored and aided bin Laden in the 9-11 attacks. No one (no serious person, at least, which eliminates every Dem with the exception of Joe Lieberman) thought that the war could — or would — end there.
The objective then, of which we have long since lost sight, was to end state sponsorship of terrorism.
Military analysts were uncertain whether the campaign to follow – against the other state sponsors of Islamic terrorism — should begin in Iraq or Iran or Syria. President Bush chose Iraq. Iraq is not a war of choice: it was, inarguably, a state sponsor of terrorism. Yes, Iraq wasn’t involved in 9-11: but it was involved in terrorism in a very big way. The only argument against Iraq was that it was not the next most urgent campaign. Had Iran been first, Iraq might have not been necessary.
Second, whether Iraq should have been invaded is not the issue. The war against Islamic terrorism and the nations that sponsor it cannot be won there, but it can be lost. If we lose it — unlike the Vietnam War — we lose America. Vietnam wasn’t an existential war: this war is. And it is a great mistake to say this is “the war in Iraq.
President Bush has failed in some ways, but his most important failure is in the leadership in the prosecution of this war. He hasn’t – since that memorable speech a week after 9-11 — performed the role of a war president. He hasn’t defined the enemy, how he must be defeated, and how we will even know if we have won.
Let’s be plain: we are at war with those who adhere to radical Islam. It is an ideology, not a religion. Our goal is not — cannot — be to implant democracy in the Middle East. Democracy is a system of government not, as the neocons say, a weapon. We must defeat the enemy by defeating his ideology and compelling — by violent means as may be necessary — those nations who support the terrorist to stop doing so. When that task is done, the war is won. And not one moment before.
What, then, is the import of what Sen. Reid said?
First, Reid and his ilk do not support the troops. When Reid says the war is lost, the troops hear. They understand that they are still risking their lives every day for a war the Democrats are content to lose. There can be no more destructive assault on their morale. It is only because of their inherent quality — much higher than the draftees of Vietnam — that they don’t abandon the field.
On April 23, 1971 John Kerry told a Senate Committee, “We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” In those years, the morale of our troops was destroyed piecemeal by Kerry and his cohorts. Reid is merely a new manifestation of the Democrats’ pathology. He, like the rest, don’t give a damn about our troops. They care only about their path to greater political power.
Harry Reid’s statement compels one more conclusion: that the Democrats are incapable of leading this nation to victory against this existential threat.
Conservatives have begun to think that the import of the 2008 presidential election is that the winner will decide how the Supreme Court’s balance will tilt for the next two decades. True enough. But more important, by far, is how the next president will prosecute the war.
The fate of democracy in Iraq will not be determinative of victory or defeat in the larger, long war. Will some Republican pursue real victory? Or will the Democrats just declare defeat and come home, bringing defeat with them?
Personal Favorites 21 Apr 2007 10:21 am
Noonan on VT shooting
Cold Standard (where were the adults?)
By PEGGY NOONAN
April 21, 2007
April 21, 2007
I saw an old friend on the Acela on the way to Washington, and he told me of the glum, grim faces at the station he’d left, all the commuters with newspapers in their hands and under their arms. This was the day after Virginia Tech. We talked about what was different this time, in this tragedy. I told him I felt people were stricken because they weren’t stricken. When Columbine happened, it was weird and terrible, and now there have been some incidents since, and now it’s not weird anymore. And that is what’s so terrible. It’s the difference between “That doesn’t happen!” and “That happens.”
![[Noonan]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/PT-AF266_noonan_20070420160936.jpg)
Actually I thought of Thoreau. He said he didn’t have to read newspapers because if you’re familiar with a principle you don’t have to be familiar with its numerous applications. If you know lightning hits trees, you don’t have to know every time a tree is struck by lightning.
In terms of school shootings, we are now familiar with the principle.
Dennis Miller the other night said something compassionate and sensible on TV. Invited to criticize some famous person’s stupid response to a past tragedy, he said he sort of applied a 48 hour grace period after a tragedy and didn’t hold anyone to the things they’d said. People get rattled and say things that are extreme.
But more than 48 hours have passed. So: some impressions.
There seems to me a sort of broad national diminution of common sense in our country that we don’t notice in the day-to-day but that become obvious after a story like this. Common sense says a person like Cho Seung-hui, who was obviously dangerous and unstable, should have been separated from the college population. Common sense says someone should have stepped in like an adult, like a person in authority, and taken him away. It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous. Common sense says that won’t help.
And all those big cops, scores of them, hundreds, with the latest, heaviest, most sophisticated gear, all the weapons and helmets and safety vests and belts. It looked like the brute force of the state coming up against uncontrollable human will.
But it also looked muscle bound. And the schools themselves more and more look muscle bound, weighed down with laws and legal assumptions and strange prohibitions.
The school officials I saw, especially the head of the campus psychological services, seemed to me endearing losers. But endearing is too strong. I mean “not obviously and vividly offensive.” The school officials who gave all the highly competent, almost smooth and practiced news conferences seemed to me like white, bearded people who were educated in softness. Cho was “troubled”; he clearly had “issues”; it would have been good if someone had “reached out”; it’s too bad America doesn’t have better “support services.” They don’t use direct, clear words, because if they’re blunt, they’re implicated.
The literally white-bearded academic who was head of the campus counseling center was on Paula Zahn Wednesday night suggesting the utter incompetence of officials to stop a man who had stalked two women, set a fire in his room, written morbid and violent plays and poems, been expelled from one class, and been declared by a judge to be “mentally ill” was due to the lack of a government “safety net.” In a news conference, he decried inadequate “funding for mental health services in the United States.” Way to take responsibility. Way to show the kids how to dodge.
The anxiety of our politicians that there may be an issue that goes unexploited was almost — almost — comic. They mean to seem sensitive, and yet wind up only stroking their supporters. I believe Rep. Jim Moran was first out of the gate with the charge that what Cho did was President Bush’s fault. I believe Sen. Barack Obama was second, equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness. Wednesday there was Sen. Barbara Boxer equating the violence of the shootings with the “global warming challenge” and “today’s Supreme Court decision” upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion.
One watches all of this and wonders: Where are the grown-ups?
I wondered about the emptiness of the phrases used by the media and by political figures, and how pro forma and lifeless and cold they are. The formalized language of loss hasn’t kept up with the number of tragedies. “A nation mourns.” “Our prayers are with you.” The latter is both self-complimenting and of dubious believability. Did you really pray? Or is it just a phrase?
And this as opposed to the honest things normal people say: “Oh no.” “I am so sorry.” “I’m sad.” “It’s horrible.”
With all the therapy in our great therapized nation, with all our devotion to emotions and feelings, one senses we are becoming a colder culture, and a colder country. We purport to be compassionate — we must respect Mr. Cho’s privacy rights and personal autonomy — but of course it is cold not to have protected others from him. It is cold not to have protected him from himself.
The last testament Cho sent to NBC seemed more clear evidence of mental illness — posing with his pistols, big tough gangsta gonna take you out. What is it evidence of when NBC News, a great pillar of the mainstream media, runs the videos and pictures on the nightly news? Brian Williams introduced the Cho collection as “what can only be described as a multi-media manifesto.” But it can be described in other ways. “The self-serving meanderings of a crazy, self-indulgent narcissist” is one. But if you called it that, you couldn’t lead with it. You couldn’t rationalize the decision.
Such pictures are inspiring to the unstable. The minute you saw them, you probably thought what I did: We’ll be seeing more of that.
The most common-sensical thing I heard said came Thursday morning, in a hospital interview with a student who’d been shot and was recovering. Garrett Evans said of the man who’d shot him, “An evil spirit was going through that boy, I could feel it.” It was one of the few things I heard the past few days that sounded completely true. Whatever else Cho was, he was also a walking infestation of evil. Too bad nobody stopped him.
Media Bias & National / World Politics 20 Apr 2007 04:56 pm
In the News
WSJ Best of the Web March 19, 2007
Latter-Day Copperhead
“I believe . . . that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week.”
–Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, April 19, 2007
—————–
“Resolved, that this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of military necessity, or war power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the federal Union of the States.”
Letters from the military posted on Michelle Malkin’s site are posted here re: the Reid Retreat/Defeat.
Click here to read an article on Saddams WMDs, yes it’s still a good topic of documentation, if not conversation. I will archive it in my Saddam files pages on the right hand side of this blog page.
Personal Favorites 20 Apr 2007 01:00 pm
What I Believe
(Rudy Now!)
I have been asked by Democrats, Independents and Republicans why I am writing this blog and why I support Rudy Giuliani for President. Actually it’s pretty simple. I agree with Rudy on almost every philosophical point, but let me sort through them.
This is what I believe.
Prosecution of the Global War on Terror. Democrats and now the UK (did ya’ read that?) want to ban the use of that phrase; I think they are nuts. I believe they (most of the rest of the political world) are in some type of denial. I defined “they” as the “political world” because I don’t believe the majority of the people in the world believe in their political leaders. They live in fear and nuclear family insulation from the real world (isolation is almost impossible in today’s world).
If America loses its WILL to be a world leader; America will stop BEING a world leader. The fact that our Democrat leaders think our military is only the poor “children” from urban areas that have no other job prospects and are fighting against their will, is just plain nuts. Rudy Giuliani is a leader, and believes in a strong volunteer military. Rudy also understands America needs to be on offense.
Most of the world thinks this war will go away if we just wish it so.
Strong economy. Rudy understands lower taxes stimulates growth. He’s practiced what he preaches – ‘nuf said.
Limited role of government. Strictly speaking our founding fathers wanted the national government ONLY to provide for the “common good” related to national defense infrastructure (roads, etc) and some management of commerce between the states. A good logic model is the tragedy at Virginia Tech. “Gun Grabbers” think that removing all guns from citizens will eliminate the crazy things that happen like Columbine, the University of Iowa in 1991 and Virginia Tech this week. nonsense. There is sound evidence that our legal system failed us in the case of the latest tragedy. Several professionals sounded a loud call of concern about this student but they were ignored. Our legal system protects the intruder into our civil liberties more than our law enforcement can protect us from that intruder. You can link this issue to the Global War on Terror as well as 2nd amendment rights.
States Rights. I believe in States Rights. I believe the national government has taken too much power from the states. I believe keeping the presidential electoral system (which protects the voice of the smaller states) is critical for this republic. When this country was founded, there were large and small states, manufacturing and agricultural states. Each state deserves a level of independence in judging what is good “For the People, By the People”. The national government has become a burden on it’s citizens. Rudy believes in smaller government as well as fiscal responsibility and understands what works in one state may not work in another.
Right to Life. This has been a horribly divisive issue since the 1960s. At some level it’s tearing the country apart, and keeping focus off real priorities like health care. The vitriol has diminished the message. I believe abortion is wrong, but I don’t believe the government should legislate these types of personal issues. The people who use the phrase incendiary phrase “baby killer” associated with those who support limited government intrusion in personal affairs, miss the larger point. Rudy believes creating a national referendum on Roe v Wade is not useful or practical legally.
This dialog does not belong in courtrooms or congress, or most especially the Supreme Court. A phrase I’ve used for years is “you can’t legislate morality”. I understand the hopes and prayers of those who believe they are fighting the good fight; but I also believe this fight has not served their cause well. What has this vitriol accomplished? I feel the same way about gay issues; it’s not my concern. But, committed couples deserve the same insurance protection, etc. as married couples. Rudy is about results and he cares about human life in all forms. Glass Houses…. stones…. think…
2nd Amendment Rights. Our Founding Fathers were smarter than us, of that I am sure. If you read any books on the writing of the founding documents that still guide us today, you will marvel at their foresight and prescience. The second amendment was written by a group of men who where used to handling guns and saw a time when a larger government may want to control its population militarily. These protection issues bothered our founding fathers. Now, I’m not as much for guns as I am against legislation to control people’s lives. The government’s message seems to be that they need to protect us from ourselves. nonsense. Rudy believes in strict gun control in New York City. Rudy has stated publicly that he would not be the “gun grabber” some people accuse him of being as President. He recognizes “what is right for New York City would not be right for Montana”. Rudy thinks this a states rights issue, has a track record of reducing crime and that is a good thing.
School vouchers, yes (Rudy too) “Parents should be able to pick the school their child attends”. (Rudy quote in DM on 4/14/07)
Health Care. Rudy spoke a lot about health care when he was in Des Moines last week. He thinks our system is the best in the world but has a lot of weaknesses, mostly caused by the government’s stifling (catching a consistent thread here?) good business practices. It is lunacy to look at the failing or failed systems in western Europe and Canada and want to emulate them. Haven’t we already proven to thinking people that socialism does not work? So why do we want to socialize medicine. That said, we do need a plan to provide more and better heath benefits for those who do not have insurance. One thing we know, the free market place works, let it work; stop tying it up with red tape.
Global Climate Change. read my blog. Where he agrees there is a climate change happening he does not buy into the hype.
Immigration. THIS is quite possibly our toughest issue after the GWoT and it can be connected to each issue above in some way. We’re going to have to be creative here. Rules of the 20th century will not work in the 21st. In this country of entitlements that stifle business growth and burden taxpayers, noncitizens should not get a free ride. Is it not fascinating to you that as much as people across the globe think America is an evil country – very few leave our country (even when they threaten to, as during the 2004 election – yes you Alec) and more people pour into this “evil” country today than we can handle? Evil, my fat Aunt Harriet.
Constructionist Judges. Rudy is a lawyer. He’s fought corruption in government and he’s fought organized crime and won. He says Alito and Roberts are exactly he type of judges he would nominate, not judges who will interpret (read – rewrite) the law of the land.
Rudy has had a history of working with both of those men. This is where the conservative right needs to keep their faith. Without good judges all is lost – and I don’t believe this statement is too strong. Democrats will elect judges that will legislate from the bench and that could be very scary.
So there you have it. Rudy’s my guy.
Now you might say, look at the baggage he’s bringing with him with the dysfunctional family and three marriages. I have two answers – 1) let’s see what a good campaign housecleaning turns up for all the candidate’s before we start isolating Rudy as unfit for the Presidency. 2) I want him as the leader of the free world; he’s not running for Pope.
And about his fitness because he was only a city mayor? New York City would be the 10th biggest state by population and the 11th biggest state when measured by economy (gross state product)… you’ll find that sourced in a Rudy post on this blog somewhere.
Democrats like to claim a mandate with the 2006 election results. I think that’s wrong. I think people voted against republicans not for democrats. I think Republicans did dumb things like perpetuate big government and they had their share of scandals, with Mark Foley and more. I blame media bias on a lot of this (compare treatments of Senators William Jefferson versus Tom Delay and Sandy Berger versus Scooter Libby for biased treatments) and you can find that also documented throughout this blog. I would like to see conservatives that continue to create litmus tests for candidates related to social issues take their energy outside national politics.
I liked the President’s “Faith Based Initiatives” early in his first term. I’m not sure why that lost steam other than the Democrats dogging a perceived problem with separation of church and state. I thought there were good controls in place to use Christian Fellowship and support without trying to convert people. I think stronger religious organizations reaching out in communities helping build a strong family base, accountability with a support system, would see better results than picketing an abortion clinic or creating divisions in the Republican Party. Morality isn’t Catholic, Jewish, Protestant or Muslim, etc. Again, look toward where results CAN be achieved apply energy there.
I believe in the politics of personal responsibility with understanding that we will all be accountable for our actions to a higher authority some day. We have a great opportunity and responsibility to nurture the next generation of Americans and to show we are not the evil people the rest of the world seems to believe we are. (oh yeah, not relying on foreign energy sources needs to be a national defense policy – high priority! but for now? Drill ANWAR damn it!)
I believe Rudy is the best man out there that I’ve seen to lead the way.
National / World Politics 15 Apr 2007 09:48 am
This Week in the News
Holocaust Rememberance Days April 15-22, 2007 (Yom HaShoah)
MensNewsDaily.Com ^ | 04/15/2007 | Ze’ev Haas
Iran says it never happened. Most of the Arab/Islamic Population says it’s a lie.
On Sunday night the State of Israel and Jews worldwide will commemorate the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis by marking the start of Holocaust Remembrance Day or also called Yom HaShoah יום השואה
How do you forget images of 6 million people, Jewish people who were murdered simply for being of the Jewish Faith?
Much like Hitler, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad has made it no secret that he wishes to “Wipe Israel off the map”. Israel is a Jewish State formed after World War 2 so that Jews would have a homeland to feel welcomed and safe in.
Alexander Kimel, a Shoah survivor wrote this prayer for the Six Million Jews who were killed.
Almighty God, remember the six million people that were gassed, killed, drowned, burned alive, tortured, beaten or frozen to death. For the sake of one man, a whole nation was crucified, while the world looked on in silence. In our hearts, their sacred memory will last forever and ever. Amen.
God of Our Fathers, let the ashes of the children incinerated in Auschwitz, the rivers of blood spilled at Babbi Yar or Majdanek, be a warning to mankind that hatred is destructive, violence is contagious, while man has an unlimited capacity to cruelty. Almighty God, fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares . . . nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Amen.
National / World Politics 15 Apr 2007 03:05 am
Comparing Clinton and Bush Economies
Comparing Bush and Clinton Economies
By Alan Reynolds
Town Hall
Thursday, April 12, 2007
A recent Gallup poll found that only 41 percent of respondents approved of Bush’s handling of the economy, compared to 55 percent who disapproved. Such a question would make sense, of course, only if the United States were a centrally planned dictatorship. In a free society, the less the president handles the economy the better off we are.
Because polls reflect perception rather than reality, the suspicion arises that many people wrongly believe the U.S. economy is in bad shape because that is what they keep hearing on TV or reading in the newspapers. And because there is a presidential election looming, partisans are sure to exaggerate the economic performance of the Clinton years in order to stir up discontent with the present.
Politics being what it is (a spectator sport), partisans can’t resist attributing economic outcomes to the White House, rather than to the efforts of millions of business managers, workers and investors responding to incentives. In this spirit, Bill Sammon, a frequent guest on Fox News, set up a provocative duel at examiner.com between White House spokesman Tony Fratto and Gene Sperling, former economic adviser to President Bill Clinton and current adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton. As might be expected, both contestants were not entirely candid.
Fratto plausibly complained that the mainstream media have displayed a “double standard” by ignoring or denying visible economic progress under Bush while puffing-up the economic conditions during Clinton’s presidency. “If you go back to this point in the Clinton expansion,” Fratto said, “they would have loved to have seen the numbers that we have right now. On the unemployment rate, we’re a full percentage point below where they were at the same point in the expansion — 60 or 61 months in.”
“That’s a rather absurd claim,” replied Sperling. “In terms of job creation, in terms of wage growth, in terms of business investment, in terms of poverty, there’s absolutely no comparison.” There is a comparison, though he may not want it to be made.
The article listed “dueling data points” from the Bush Camp and Clinton Camp. The Bush Camp said: “Real wages rose 1.8 percent over the 12 months through February. This is substantially faster than the average rate of wage growth in the late 1990s.” How does the past 12 months relate to some unspecified years during the late 1990s? Would it not be more honest to compare several years at a similar stage of the expansion?
What years should we compare? It would be dishonest to include the 2001 recession in this duel, because Clinton’s first term began two years after a recession had ended. Yet the Clinton Camp does just that by boasting that “under Clinton, the economy created 3.5 times more jobs after 74 months than it did over the same period of time under Bush.”
The umpire calls a foul. A recession that began in March 2001 had nothing to do with Bush taking office the previous month, but it had a lot to do with job growth in 2001 and 2002. President Clinton took office two years after the previous recession ended in February 1991. The economy grew 3.2 percent in 1992.
The Bush Camp boasts that “since the first quarter of 2001, productivity growth has averaged 2.8 percent.” Starting with early 2001 is still unfair, regardless of which camp does it. Cyclical weakness in employment growth from 2001 through mid-2003 resulted in more output relative to the few hours worked, otherwise known as increased productivity.
Were it not for the political spin, it would be more reasonable to compare the first year of recovery in 2002 with the first year of recovery in 1992. Fratto thus compared “this point in the Clinton expansion” to a period that began 60 months ago — in early 2002. But such a comparable starting point in the Clinton expansion would actually have begun in late 1991, when Clinton was not in office.
In terms of equivalent starting points, it makes sense to compare 1993-1996 with 2003-2006 — two cyclically similar periods of equal duration.
Growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) in those periods was identical, at 3.23 percent a year. That’s a tie. Nearly all other measures favor the past four years over Clinton’s first term. Unemployment was 5.3 percent from 2003 to 2006, but 6 percent from 1993 to 1996. Sperling mentioned business investment to avoid mentioning housing investment. Yet business fixed investment was 10.9 percent of GDP from 2003 to 2006, compared with 9.2 percent of GDP from 1993 to 1996.
When it comes to inflation, Bush faced a huge increase in worldwide oil prices, but Clinton did not. In the consumer price index that excludes energy prices, inflation averaged 2.1 percent in the past four years, down from 2.9 percent in 1993-96.
When calculating real incomes, however, nominal increases in wage and benefits are reduced by total inflation, including higher energy prices. This would seem to put the past four years at a big disadvantage, given the spike in energy prices. Yet it turns out that “wage growth” in the first Clinton term was nothing to brag about.
Even after including benefits, real compensation per hour fell by 0.5 percent in 1993, by 0.4 percent in 1994 and by another 0.3 percent in 1995. Real hourly wages and benefits increased by 1.2 percent a year from 2003 to 2006, but fell by 0.1 percent a year from 1993 to 1996.
The Clinton Camp should be as reluctant to mention poverty rates as it was foolish to mention wage growth. Yet its dueling data point dares to say, “During the Bush years, the number of Americans below the poverty line has increased by 5.37 million, while under Clinton the number fell by 7.68 million.” That blames Bush for the 2001 recession, compares eight years with six and measures poverty in terms of change rather than levels. Despite such tricks, it still doesn’t work.
The percentage of families below the poverty line was reduced from 12.3 percent in 1993 to 11 percent in 1996, which was progress of sorts. Yet fewer than 10 percent of families were poor from 2002 to 2005 (the latest available). Unless more poverty is better than less, this was another masochistic debating point.
The economy during the Clinton years became much stronger after 1997, when Al Gore or Netscape invented the Internet and the president signed a cut in the capital gains tax. Trying to use Clinton’s first four years to denigrate the past four years is a foolhardy game. People who live in glass houses should be more careful when tossing around big, bad economics statistics.
Federal Budget Deficit as % of GDP:
1970s 2.1%
1980s 3.0%
1990s 2.2%
2006 1.9%
Top Federal Tax Rate
1965 70%
1975 70%
1985 31%
1995 40%
2005 35%
Home Ownership Percentage
1965 63%
1975 68%
1985 64%
1995 65%
2005 69%
National / World Politics 14 Apr 2007 09:42 pm
Rudy Visits Iowa
Sorry but this is the best picture I have of Rudy’s visit to Iowa today.
He was in Des Moines for about 5 hours, first speaking to a group of about 50 for over 30 minutes at Noah’s Ark (an Italian Restaurant) in Des Moines then later (below) at the Lincoln Day Dinner at the Des Moines Convention Center. I think he also went to a coffee between these two events.
In the afternoon talk Rudy mentioned building a fence between the US and Mexico and requiring IDs for all currently undocumented aliens and searching out those who were not documented. I thought that might go over well with the evening crowd but he didn’t mention it and there is nothing on his website on his stance on Illegal Aliens in the USA, so that was new to me.
Rudy’s talk in the small group was better; for obvious reasons his message was more measured at the Convention Center. Since I drove by myself and Rudy was the first speaker, I only listened to the first three then left before dinner. (Mitt Romney was next and John Cox after him). Cox was pretty funny, I don’t remember hearing of him before but he’s a Chicago Republican, almost as rare a breed as a New York City Republican.
Rudy spoke about the WoT, smaller government, reduced taxes, reworking the health care system and education as well as dependence on foreign oil. Fair day for Rudy, he was received well by what could be his toughest crowd in Iowa. Both Romney and Cox were better speakers. I just don’t think he has a script down yet. He didn’t try to differentiate himself, and made several efforts at enforcing his Republican roots by saying he would support “any of these 9 other candidates over Hillary, Senator Obama or Edwards”. Setting the standard for the debates, he evoked Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment, not to speak ill of any fellow Republican.
Mitt, in what I felt was an obvious dig at Rudy, brought his wife and one son (of five) who were traveling with him up on the stage to be with him for the first minute of his talk.
I left as Hucklebee took the stage then stopped to watch Paul Shanklin be introduced as “the other” Arkansas Governor – that got a few laughs, but the crowd seemed tired. Romney said there were 1000 Republican’s there but I don’t think there were more than 750. Seemed to me that there were a lot of empty seats.
Duncan Hunter did not make it to Iowa because of transportation problems.
IOWA Politics 13 Apr 2007 05:59 pm
Iowa Legislature Friday the 13th
Reading the Association of Business and Industry newsletter today – I learned Iowa had a “Grape and Wine Development Commission”. Who knew?
In other business:
House votes to keep “fair share” legislation alive DRATS
On Thursday, the House voted to keep SF 413 alive for the remainder of the legislative session by voting to place it on the Unfinished Business calendar.
A usually routine course of business in the legislature turned controversial late Thursday afternoon when a bipartisan group of legislators sought to remove SF 413 – the “fair share” bill – from the list of bills eligible for debate. If successful, the move would have prevented the bill from being considered for the remainder of the session.
House Republicans, along with three House Democrats – Representatives Dawn Pettengill, Dolores Mertz, and Brian Quirk – all voted to block SF 413 from further debate this session.
Unfortunately, a majority of the legislators present chose to keep the legislation alive. This disappointing move means that SF 413 may still come up for debate. While we continue to believe that we have the necessary votes to prevent its passage, it is vital that you continue to contact your legislators urging them to oppose SF 413.
Thank you Dawn, Dolores and Brian for standing firm for Iowa’s future.
Media Bias & National / World Politics 07 Apr 2007 06:17 pm
I can’t say it better
I brought home some work and have some Blogging for Rudy to do tomorrow so I’m going to do my own best of the WEB today. These links are REALLY good, please read and enjoy.
Here is a link from Powerlineblog today. In this blogpost one of the Powerline lawyer/bloggers dissects an AP article on Global Warming to show media (AP) bias. One of the world’s leading weather experts was interviewed about global warming, and he says it’s a crock. Read the article on how the reporter twists the story.
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I am supporting Rudy for President because we need a strong, proven leader in these difficult times. The last two elections have shown us to be a nation divided 50/50 Left and Right. Because of the drum beat of a biased press, and IMO biased polling questions, Republicans have lost some of their “base” who now call themselves Independent. Democrats are beating their chests to get us out of a war that I believe is a just cause.
Right wing Blogs are vilifying Rudy Giuliani saying he should run as a democrat. But I believe Rudy is the only Republican that can win in 2008. If there is a better person, I would support them.
They call him a “gun grabber” and that he wants to remove all guns from owners across the United States and he doesn’t support the 2nd Amendment.
They say he’s in favor of Partial Birth Abortion. These are some of dilemma you can get into when try to legislate everything. Rudy is a strong believer in States Rights.
Here is some information copied from Rudy’s website Join Rudy 2008
Abortion
Rudy Giuliani supports reasonable restrictions on abortion such as parental notification with a judicial bypass and a ban on partial birth abortion – except when the life of the mother is at stake. He’s proud that adoptions increased 66% while abortions decreased over 16% in New York City when he was Mayor. But Rudy understands that this is a deeply personal moral dilemma, and people of good conscience can disagree respectfully. Ultimately he believes that it is a decision between a woman, her doctor, her family, and her God.
Second Amendment
Rudy Giuliani is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. When he was Mayor of a city suffering an average of almost 2000 murders a year, he protected people by getting illegal handguns out of the hands of criminals. As a result, shootings fell by 72% and the murder rate was cut by two-thirds. But Rudy understands that what works in New York doesn’t necessarily work in Mississippi or Montana.
IOWA Politics & National / World Politics 07 Apr 2007 08:22 am
From the RUDY Organization in IOWA
In case you haven’t heard, Rudy will be coming back to Iowa on Saturday, April 14th for the IA GOP’s Lincoln Day Dinner (please check out their website for the details – http://www.iowagop.org/Calendar/ ).
I also wanted to share with you a recap of Rudy’s first visit to Iowa this past week in cased you missed it. Thank you to everyone who made it out to the event in Des Moines, as well as anyone who got a chance to see him at the Hy-Vee Deli in Cedar Rapids.
They were both great events and I hope you get a chance to check out some of the news clips, TV clips and pictures from the events by copying and pasting the links below into a web browser:
Pictures:
Des Moines Register pictures (slide show)
News clips:
TV clips:
www.woi-tv.com
iowavotes2008 (you may need to find the Rudy clip)
National / World Politics 06 Apr 2007 08:02 pm
Rudy on tape
Rudy 30 second campaign ad – why you should consider him Rudy on Rudy
Rudy is a Margaret Thatcher Conservative. Margaret was known to have said she could not walk past a Government insitution without swatting it with her handbag. George Will introduces Rudy
Peace through Strength CPAC talk
Dennis Miller introduces Rudy Dennis Miller
Fractured, in trouble, but the best in the world – Health care must be private, market driven and motivated… Rudy on Health Care
more Rudy videos here at RudyGiuliani HQ
National / World Politics 02 Apr 2007 05:47 pm
Dichotomy – thy name is Nancy (or is that Dichotomous?)
Dichotomy – Etymology: Greek dichotomia, from dichotomos
1 : a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities
as in — Nancy’s words against her actions create a dichotomy. I guess her statements don’t drive her actions; therefore, I can only believe that she does not mean what she says.
Read today’s Best of the Web
Best of the Web Today – April 2, 2007
- By JAMES TARANTO
Pelosi’s Road to Damascus
Before Congress left town last week, the Senate passed a resolution denouncing the Iranian regime “in the strongest possible terms” for its illegal capture and imprisonment of 15 British sailors and marines. The House, however, demurred, because Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t want to do anything rash, as the Associated Press reports:
Pelosi’s spokesman Brendan Daly said the speaker was reluctant to weigh in on the incident without knowing that such a message would do more good than harm. Daly said the British government had not asked Congress to try to pressure Tehran.
“The leadership discussed it and agreed that inserting Congress into an international crisis while ongoing would not be helpful,” Daly said.
Pelosi is traveling in the Middle East, where she plans to visit Syria, Israel and the West Bank.
If she doesn’t want to insert Congress into an international crisis, why in the world is she going to Syria, whose regime is waging war against America in Iraq? As Bloomberg reports, the White House advised her against the trip on precisely the same grounds her spokesman cited for avoiding a meaningless resolution:
Pelosi’s outreach to a state sponsor of terrorism is a “really bad idea,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said at a briefing in Washington. “Someone should take a step back and think about the message that it sends and the message that it sends to our allies.”
Bloomberg notes that a group of Republican congressmen also are visiting Syria. It’s not clear whether the White House cares.
But maybe Pelosi won’t make it to Damascus. As blogress Karol Sheinin notes, the Syrian regime has a strict policy of refusing entry to anyone who has visited Israel–as Pelosi did, last week. She probably avoided getting the Israeli stamp in her passport, but we’re sure the Syrians must’ve heard about her visit anyway, since it was in all the papers (well, maybe not the Syrian ones). So, will she get turned back at the airport? Or will the Alawite Entity tacitly recognize Israel, if only for a moment, for whatever propaganda value Pelosi’s visit may yield?
