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Barack Obama: Paving The Way
September 17, 2008 | Permalink
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I was told by someone years ago that the first Woman and first African American presidents would be Republicans. I hope the person who told me that is still around to enjoy this.
Posted by: JCF | Sep 17, 2008 8:45:54 AM
One of your more prophetic ones. Let's hope.
Posted by: John Holton | Sep 17, 2008 1:19:11 PM
Condi? President? Ack! We've already had eight years of mediocrity under W, and are guaranteed no less than four more, regardless of who wins in November. Why would we want even more under her?
Posted by: Sparticus | Sep 17, 2008 11:12:44 PM
> We've already had eight years of mediocrity under W
No terrorist attacks on US soil in 7 years.
The longest run of increasing US GDP in US history.
Over 25 million people freed from under the thumb of a butcher and thug and future rule by his even more vile and reprehensible sons.
Still no recession (although the last couple days suggest one may be in the offing).
At least one religious dictatorship brought down for a time.
No inflation.
A "horrible, horrible increase" in unemployment which still provides the USA with the kind of unemployment stats that every single western European nation would drool to have.
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If that's "mediocrity", sign me up for another 20 years of it, hey?
Trust me -- you are *NOT* Sparticus.
That's just another one of your clearly plentiful and widely varied delusions.
Posted by: Obloodyhell | Sep 18, 2008 11:33:04 AM
First of all, I don't believe that either Gore or Kerry would have been better, and I know that W was once smart enough to be a pilot. However, he has been a lousy president--better than Carter, but definitely in the bottom quarter.
As for your points...
There have been numerous terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11. However, the FBI immediately claims that all attacks that might be seen as terrorism are not terrorism if they are carried out by individuals, rather than groups. Not a very useful rubric, as some terrorists are unaffiliated. Anyway, here's a wee list:
* 7.4.02: An Egyptian Moslem opens fire on the El Al counter in LAX, killing two and wounding four.
* Oct. 2002: Two American Moslem s kill ten and injure three in the Beltway Sniper Shootings.
* 3.3.06: An Iranian-born Moslem runs down 9 in his SUV on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.
* 6.15.06: A Moslem opens fire in a movie theatre in Maryland, killing one.
* 6.25.06: An American Moslem opens fire in a Denver Safeway, killing one and injuring five.
* 7.25.06: A Moslem M.D. shoots, without provocation, a bicyclist in Texas.
* 7.28.06: An American Moslem of Pakistani descent opened fire inside the Jewish Federation of Seattle, killing one and wounding four.
* 7.29.06: An Afghani Moslem runs down 19 with his SUV in the SF Bay area, killing one.
Let's say that there have been no terrorist attacks resulting in the deaths of thousands since 9/11, shall we?
Incidentally, since all of the 9/11 terrorists were Moslems, and since most modern terrorists are Moslems (though of course most Moslems are not terrorists), the no-brainer response after 9/11 would have been to stop Moslem access to the US: no immigrants, no tourists. We can't know which ones will go jihadi on us, so why risk American lives for political correctness? Instead, W started braying about the religion of "peace," when in fact Islam means "submission." Furthermore, Moslems are involved in a least one side of over 90% of all armed conflicts currently in progress. Religion of peace my @$$!
On to economics. The sitting president is given far, far more credit for US economic performance, positive or negative, than he deserves. I agree that his tax cuts were the right move, and that B. Hussein Obama's plans to raise taxes will be harmful. But most of the current prosperity is not W's responsibility, nor is the current financial mess his fault.
As for Iraq, yes, freeing Iraqis from the butcher Hussein had the potential to be a good thing--but what do the Iraqis have now? A civil war and thousands dead or displaced. Under Saddam, Iraq was a secular state at peace. What is Iraq now? A war-ravaged breeding ground for Islamic terrorists, including Al Qaeda. The Iraqis--and the US--would have been better off had we never invaded. However, I place much of the blame for this imbroglio on Rumsfeld, as well as the current liberal zeitgeist that armed conflicts should be stopped as soon as possible, rather than be allowed to run their course and achieve the one thing they are good for: peace. Idea swiped from here:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/011299.html).
No inflation? Are you NUTS? Or perhaps you walk everywhere and are self-sufficient so you never buy gas--or anything else. Inflation is currently just under 6%--not so high, but much higher than it was last year (about 4%) or two years ago (less than 3%).
W's greatest mediocrity is his complete lack of critical thinking. He goes by his gut to decide what's "right," and then never changes his mind.
W's not our worst president, but he is far, far from our best.
Posted by: Sparticus | Sep 18, 2008 11:58:18 PM
* 7.4.02: An Egyptian Moslem opens fire on the El Al counter in LAX, killing two and wounding four.
* Oct. 2002: Two American Moslem s kill ten and injure three in the Beltway Sniper Shootings.
* 3.3.06: An Iranian-born Moslem runs down 9 in his SUV on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.
* 6.15.06: A Moslem opens fire in a movie theatre in Maryland, killing one.
* 6.25.06: An American Moslem opens fire in a Denver Safeway, killing one and injuring five.
* 7.25.06: A Moslem M.D. shoots, without provocation, a bicyclist in Texas.
* 7.28.06: An American Moslem of Pakistani descent opened fire inside the Jewish Federation of Seattle, killing one and wounding four.
* 7.29.06: An Afghani Moslem runs down 19 with his SUV in the SF Bay area, killing one.
So, anytime that a Muslim commits a crime you're going to call it terrorism? Ahh... the compassion and tolerance of the Left shines through again.
Posted by: Fuzz Martin | Sep 19, 2008 6:25:13 AM
(the above asterisked points in my reply were from spah-ti-cus! but apparently the blockquote tags don't work here)
Posted by: Fuzz Martin | Sep 19, 2008 6:27:22 AM
Sorry for the length, but it needs to be long to address your points.
=================================
> However, he has been a lousy president--better than Carter, but definitely in the bottom quarter.
I believe history will demonstrate you wrong -- especially if Obama gives him a point of comparison.
> Let's say that there have been no terrorist attacks resulting in the deaths of thousands since 9/11, shall we?
First, I challenge you to show that these were
a) Organized in any way. A random isolated "nutjob" is not the same as a concerted effort by multiple individuals to create so-called "terror".
b) Motivated in each case by nothing other than Islamic fundamentalism (esp. "jihad"), or at least some other political cause, vs. some personal vendetta or slight which really had nothing to do with Islamic political issues, per se (i.e., "Honor killings" don't count)
> Instead, W started braying about the religion of "peace," when in fact Islam means "submission."
Look, there are certain things which are simply not politically possible. Acting as you suggest is such an example. Such a position as you suggest would probably have had substantial backlash on almost every front -- judicial, legislative, and PR. That there is merit in what you say I won't argue. But it simply could not be done, even after 9/11.
> But most of the current prosperity is not W's responsibility, nor is the current financial mess his fault.
Correct and correct. The PotUS generally isn't the one responsible for the fact that the economy is or has done well, in terms of his actions. He can, however, totally screw it up. He did not. He's made most of the right moves within the limits of presidential power (I do believe he should have put much, much more pressure on Congress, when it was in GOP hands, to both ratify his judicial nominees and to pass several basic measures such as School Vouchers and SSec Reform). And he probably should have made a lot more noise about the fact that the Dem-controlled Congress since 2006 has been utterly ignoring rational steps to neutralize the slowly building credit problem.
> As for Iraq, yes, freeing Iraqis from the butcher Hussein had the potential to be a good thing--but what do the Iraqis have now? A civil war and thousands dead or displaced. Under Saddam, Iraq was a secular state at peace. What is Iraq now?
A place where people can hope for a lot better for their children. And, you might notice the utter dearth of bad news from Iraq (likely to change as the election approaches, and they try to "Madrid" the elections). This is because most areas of Iraq are quite livable, and have been for as much as two or more years in many places (I suggest you search for a map, readily available, of the state of the different provinces vis-a-vis inner turmoil and acts of violence. Even the one in 2006, when it was at its worst, was not all that bad for a place which was supposedly going to be a true "bloodbath" only a year or two before.
If you look for it, you will also find stories of open market fairs, something which isn't possible if the place is halfway as under seige as the MSMs paint it.
Additionally, I quote Bill Whittle, from Eject Eject Eject:
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Iraqi TV has a version of American Idol. Did you know that? They produce hundreds of hours of comedies, game shows -- all that stuff. Sounds a little arcane for Iraq, you say? A little normal? That�s because people who believe they are smarter than you have decided that such stories of hope and success do not fit the narrative needed to teach you poor ignorant slobs the lesson that you are supposed to be learning, and that lesson is that George Bush is a murderer while Saddam was a statesman, and that Iraq is a failure fueled by the blood of poor, innocent, child-like soldiers too stupid to realize that they are dying to line the pockets of Halliburton.
===============================
It's rather telling that, as of Cindy Sheehan's whining time, Bush had met ONE IN SEVEN of the families of the servicemen and women who had been killed in Iraq. No other PotUS had met with better than "one-in-triple-digits" for any major conflict while in office.
In short, for all the "massive flaws" of the conduct of this war, it's been one of the **least deadly** ones in human history as a percentage of the populations involved.
> A war-ravaged breeding ground for Islamic terrorists, including Al Qaeda.
This is a standard, mush-mouthed Dem talking point which is clearly a load of utter crap if you even THINK about the implications that follow from it. I'd call you an idiot for even stating it, if you hadn't shown some rational sense in your response. As such, I'll deal with it:
1) If Iraq is breeding terrorists like flies, then why are the flies disappearing? More critically (since they could just be changing location) why are they not at the least popping up in other places? We are WINNING IN IRAQ.
2) The insurgents in Iraq started targetting soldiers. They lost too much that way. So they started targetting convoys. Not enough success there, either. So they started targetting **Iraqi Police and officials and their families**. With some training and help, this, too, failed. ***So, as a desperate measure, they began to target random Iraqi civilians***
... and that's where they both lost the war, and proved this irrational point utterly *wrong*:
They treated the Iraqi people as enemies -- and turned them into exactly that -- the enemies of the terrorists.
Again, I'm going to quote Whittle -- not because I don't have my own arguments, but because he makes his point so well I doubt if I could do any better:
=============================
Are we beating these terrorist scumbags and child-targeting insurgent bastards? Are we winning?
Well, let's see if we want to switch sides with them. Let's imagine the war where the insurgents have our cards and we hold theirs.
Imagine the US completely occupied by Al Qaeda forces, subject to Sharia law. We are able to take pot shots at a few of them, and we manage to murder a few dozen of our own people every day in an attempt to stop the population from collaborating with the hated invader. But more and more Americans seem to be turning to Sharia and want to get on with their lives. We find sixty percent of the population wants Al-Qaeda to leave, but hatred for the US insurgent forces -- the Wolverines -- is at about 98%. The people hate the occupiers, but they despise the Wolverines.
Now imagine that a year into the occupation of America, George Bush's two daughters were killed in a firefight with the enemy, which had surrounded the college sorority house where they were hiding. A year after that, President Bush was pulled out of a septic tank in Crawford by the Fedayeen, then put on trial and sentenced to hang, which he did on national television to widespread cheering. Condi Rice, captured in an early morning raid several years ago, has been a great source of useful information to target the American resistance, and Donald Rumsfeld was killed by a suicide bomber this last summer.
Everywhere you turn -- in every street and every city in America -- Al Qaeda forces run security patrols, training Americans to do this for themselves. The only way to stop this is by killing our own people, which further alienates us from a populace that already despises us.
Does that feel like winning to you? Me neither. Welcome to the insurgency.
=============================
Iraq is not a "breeding ground for terrorists". That doesn't mean there are no Iraqi terrorists, but the vast majority of Iraqis almost certainly have a good opinion of America and Americans. And I think that is justified by the lack of "Yanqui Go Home!!" protests, all by itself. If we are so hated, so reviled, where are the protesters? YOU know DAMNED WELL that the media would show such protests WITH chortling GLEE. Keith Olbermann would have a recognizable on-screen extended orgasm showing such a video.
Do the Iraqis WANT us there? Oh, hell, no, that's not what I am claiming.
Do the realize that, if we weren't there, things would be far, far worse? YES -- *that* is what I claim.
Do they grasp that we are being as considerate and caring of their interests as reasonably possible, even to our own detriment, and far, far beyond that of any other experience in their history? YES, this, too, I claim.
---------------------------
Now, on to the economy:
> No inflation? Are you NUTS?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122169336538749851.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
====================================
While headline CPI inflation over the past year was above 5%, core CPI inflation was around 2.5% (about the same as the 2.4% average since 1994, see top chart above). With the sharp decline in oil prices from over $140 per barrel to below $100 now, and the decline in other commodity prices, headline inflation should fairly quickly move back towards core inflation.
====================================
With Ike screwing with oil, that's probably going to be delayed a bit, but, as noted -- CORE Inflation (that is, the price of things other than food and oil) is not budging much. Food and oil are critically relevant, yes, but both have been driven up a lot not by cause but by damnfoolishness -- the refusal of the Dems to drill for oil, and the idiotic push for biofuels (I predicted that crap was going to happen over five years ago when they started pushing for ethanol development). And yes, those things will probably drive inflation up, somewhat, over the next year or so.
By "no inflation" I mean "not caused by poor economic decisions of the admin" (granted, not clearly specified) -- not things completely outside the control of the admin -- again, the point here is that this was a discussion of the strengths and failures of the Bush II admin, not merely things which happened on his watch which had little or nothing to do with Bush II decisions.
> W's greatest mediocrity is his complete lack of critical thinking. He goes by his gut to decide what's "right," and then never changes his mind.
This claim is so overblown by the Left it's pitiful. No, he's not like Clinton, looking every morning at the polls to see which way he should point the prow of his ship of state, no. But he's changed his mind in a large number of cases... and usually gets pilloried for doing so.
> W's not our worst president, but he is far, far from our best.
I'm not claiming he's our best, either, but I was around in the 80s, and my bet is that, 20 years from now, his reputation will have flowered just as Reagans has. People will see that, in the long run, much of what he did was, in fact, *Correct*.
Posted by: Obloodyhell | Sep 20, 2008 12:59:06 AM
Uh, just for the record, I'm much further to the *right* than most people. From that perspective, one can see that W is a liberal.
Blog comments are not the best place for extended discussion. Also, I don't really have the time or motivation to continue this discussion, which will not change your mind--or mine.
I will briefly cover the basics, though.
Most people are too ignorant of even the most basic tenets of Islam to have any basis for judging whether any specific act of violence by a Moslem was a crime or an act of terrorism. I refer you to this Wikipedia article about one of the attacks mentioned above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Reza_Taheri-azar_SUV_attack
This attack was clearly motivated by Islam, and Islam does promote what we would call terrorism against non-believers (whom Islam labels "infidels"). QED.
Had W used the presidential bully pulpit after 9/11, he could have shown that Islam was, in fact, the motivator for the terrorists, and could have stopped Islamic immigration to the US. He could have done much, much more to protect us from Islam, rather than maintain the status quo. Don't tell me that the majority of people wouldn't have gone along with it, because US opinion was unified in a way it hasn't been in ages.
Iraq: yes, the news is getting better, and no, the biased MSM aren't covering that. However, it is still a mess, and worse from a US security perspective than before the invasion. I also challenge the notion that it is a war, because the point of a war is to destroy your enemy's will and ability to fight. At no point in this conflict have we fought a total war, and at no point have the Iraqi people been made to feel defeated. So the conflict continues. As Edward Luttwak said, "give war a chance":
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/011299.html
It's precisely because "it's been one of the **least deadly** [conflicts] in human history" that it has been such a failure.
Removing Saddam: good, though not the highest priority in the viper's nest of the Middle East. Prosecution of the intervention in Iraq: terrible. This is mainly Rumsfeld's fault, though part of the blame is W's, too. The milquetoast response can be traced back to Bush I's cowardly failure to invade Iraq when we had half a million troops on their doorstep (see the Luttwak article for the principles underlying why we should have invaded).
W is still an unreflective mediocrity. He has told us that he makes "decisions" by going with his gut and then praying on it to confirm his first notion. While I am a believer in the power of prayer, in this case, it doesn't help. It also doesn't help that his "brain" is Condi Rice, a vain woman who can hardly open her mouth without putting down the US (her constant harping about how "bad" the US was with slavery and a lack of full political rights for women are ways to make us look worse so that the "progress" in Iraq can look better.)
You and I probably agree on more than we disagree on. You just got the wrong notion when I criticized W.
Posted by: Sparticus | Sep 21, 2008 7:57:27 PM
> because US opinion was unified in a way it hasn't been in ages.
For about 16 minutes, me boyo. The unity rather rapidly frayed after that. Such a call would have lasted about 2 months before some idiot group like CAIR filed a court motion and got the full force of the libtards behind them.
> at no point have the Iraqi people been made to feel defeated.
That is based on the presumption that the Iraqi people were really at all the problem. Sorry, this claim has no relevance or merit. It's the government that was the problem. It's been resolved. The remainder of the problem (far from small, I grant) is the old guard trying to re-assert itself, Al-Queda attempting to show off defeating The Great Satan (Bin Laden's early speeches were colored by comments about the cut-and-run nature of our response to what happened in Rwanda), and a lot of past resentments coming to the fore with Saddam gone.
I don't think that "defeat", in the classical sense you use it, is called for.
Iran is not dissimilar -- I don't think that the Iranians are all that happy with their government, but I don't think they believe that they change it without help, and they aren't about to take the steps to change things and ask for help because, hey, if Obama wins, they'd be completely screwed. He'd fall all over himself using soft power to resolve a hard power situation.
> He has told us that he makes "decisions" by going with his gut
That does not mean he doesn't pay attention to what is being told to him by his advisers. It means he listens to them and then makes a decision. He's been right more often than wrong.
And as far as Condi goes, I got news -- SHE was the one arguing in favor of the Surge -- not Rumsfeld or Cheney. She's not stupid.
Posted by: Obloodyhell | Sep 22, 2008 5:55:36 PM
Which leads us back to the prosecution of the invasion. Either you go in to utterly defeat the enemy (which we didn't), or you go in just long enough to topple their leader and then get out (which we also didn't do). What we have is the half-@$$ed compromise position which gets US troops killed FOR NO GOOD REASON AT ALL. They're there to do what the natives either can't or won't do for themselves. The surge worked because more boots on the ground is what was needed in the first place--and as soon as we bring troop levels down, the violence will resume, showing that the natives either can't or won't do what is needed to quell the violence, and US troops will have to stay there--FOREVER--to do what the Iraqis should be doing for themselves: ruling Iraq.
The whole point of war is to prepare for a future peace. If we had gone in with all our might and made the Iraqis feel themselves defeated, then they would have know the consequences of resistance--and not resisted (three relevant examples: WWII Germany, WWII Japan, the American South in the Civil War). They would have gone along with the orders of the occupation, and they would be much further along the route to self-governance (inasmuch as that is possible in the Arab/Islamic world; only dictatorship, or variations on the theme, like a kingdom, seem to work for them).
On the other hand, we could have gone in, toppled Saddam, and gotten out; this would have taken just a few weeks. In this case, we would not have even needed to capture him ourselves (though we might have stayed just to do that). In this scenario, the purpose is to take out the leadership, and just the leadership, which threatens our interests, and to then install someone to replace Saddam--with the understanding that if the new Iraqi government threatens our interests again, we'll be back for another 2-3 week adventure in dictator-toppling.
The first option would cost far, far more in both treasure and lives, without a real guarantee of success (the reason that the occupations of Germany and Japan worked is that, unlike Arabs, Germans and Japanese will do what you tell them). The second option would be cheaper, leaves most everyone and everything in place, and, most important of all, leaves governing of Iraq to the Iraqis--who are really the ones who are supposed to be doing it, now aren't they? Future dictators know that as long as they don't threaten us or our interests, they're safe from us, so they have external motivation to behave.
As for the "success" of our current policy: if we're really "winning," then why are Iraqis fleeing their country as refugees? If the situation has truly improved, then why have we already accepted more than 12,000 Iraqi refugees, and why are we scheduled to take at least 17,000 more in fiscal 2009? Doesn't the very fact that *tens of thousands* of people are fleeing Iraq prove that the claims of "victory" in Iraq are either woefully premature or just plain lies? (It also shows that those who opposed intervention in Iraq on the grounds that it would only entangle us further in the intractable morass of the Islamic were right: we're now importing thousand of jihadis and potential jihadis to our homeland--not the best way to keep ourselves safe.)
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1244292520080912
Finally, as for the "genius" Condi Rice, the Russia specialist: has her alleged knowledge of Russia been of any use whatsoever in the Russia-Georgia situation?
Posted by: Sparticus | Sep 22, 2008 11:52:30 PM
Your complacence is disgusting, Tom McMahon.
Posted by: Daniel FR | Sep 23, 2008 6:13:05 PM
