Bush Retrospective, Part 9

The Torch Passes…

My congratulations and best wishes go to the 44th President of the United States as he confronts his many challenges.

Overseas, there are still troops in harm’s way in two countries. While things in Iraq are looking up, Afghanistan – which is technically a NATO operation – continues to be problematic.

It is ironic that initially Afghanistan was a model of success precisely because the United States worked with local tribes and proxy forces, augmenting them with critical intelligence and fires capabilities. We should have applied more of this model to Iraq from the onset, rather than waiting for several years and suffering thousands of casualties. [snip] It is important to recognize that the relatively more peaceful areas of the country in the north are also the areas that have enjoyed the most local control. This is no coincidence.

Other nations represent threats or concerns that may escalate without warning. Iran continues to work on the bomb, Pakistan already has the bomb and an unstable government. North Korea has the bomb and a willingness to sell it for hard cash. Russia and Venezuela are increasingly belligerent; China has a huge, disproportionably male, population with growing material demands; the list goes on and on.

Terrorist organizations still want to do us harm. If President Obama is to continue Bush’s seven+ year record of preventing terror attacks on the homeland, he will gain a new-found respect for the surveillance and interrogation methods Bush emplaced. He will be supported by all the BDS sufferers who will be relieved now that the tools are in more trustworthy hands. He may even conclude that the detainees at Guantanamo are there for some very good reasons.

Gaza is a festering sore, just as it was in 2001 and 1993 and 1989 and all the way back to the partitioning of Palestine. There is a solution to the problem, but it requires the cooperation of the United Nations: “Stop funding a Palestinian youth bulge, and the fighting will stop too.”

On the domestic front, there is the 800 lb. gorilla of a financial crisis. We are not yet in a depression – unemployment, inflation and the stock market were worse during the Carter administration, for example – but there is a lack of confidence in our financial institutions and a disturbing tendency of attacking all problems by throwing money at them. That the money does not exist and must be conjured out of thin air is what lends a potential for permanence to the crisis.

At this point, President Obama’s financial strategy resembles that of Franklin Roosevelt. Recall that the Great Depression went on for eight years under FDR and only ended with World War II. There are other proposals, and the president did say he was open to other suggestions. He has a big decision to make as the day approaches when the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire.

Health care is a large part of the economy that Democrats have long hoped to take over. Obama campaigned on a promise to give Americans an additional choice beside employer paid plans, private insurance and going without. If you liked what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did for housing, you’ll love a public/private collaboration on health care. May the new administration move cautiously in this area.

Energy consumption and sources, particularly oil, affect a surprising number of our problems. The price and availability of oil have a multiplier effect on the economy. High oil prices mean high transportation costs which means everything costs more*. Oil shortages mean more revenue for the most despotic and troublesome foreign regimes. A tight world oil market literally puts a gun in the hand of oil producers which they can point at the heads of their customers. A healthy and growing domestic oil industry will be more necessary than ever considering who controls oil in the rest of the world.

President Obama campaigned on the promise of moving toward alternative energy sources. He would be well advised to listen to former Clinton advisor Dick Morris, who suggests he put an economist in charge of the Department of Energy. It would not promote the general welfare to replace 3 cent per kilowatt-hour electricity from coal with 10 cent/kwh from solar power.

President Obama faces a daunting task in so many areas, but he can call on 300,000,000 of the toughest, smartest, most creative and most industrious people in the world. Given the proper incentives, (such as keeping the fruits of their own labor) these people can solve any problem. Given the proper motivation, (such as expecting a better life for our children) we can outlast any adversary. Given support (such as the rule of law) for the can-do attitude that made America great for over 200 years, we certainly are good for another 200 years.

May God bless America and its new president, Barack Obama.


*Added a link I'd left out - sorry

Bush Retrospective, Part 8

The “Worst Crisis since the Great Depression”

With the economy already reeling from high gasoline prices, the resultant price inflation and slowing demand, there were increasing signs that the housing bubble was ready to pop. Subprime lenders such as giant Countrywide Financial had already collapsed. Bear Stearns was bought out for $2 per share in March of 2008 and only because the US government was willing to offer $30 billion in loan guarantees.

On June 26, Senator Schumer (D-NY) wrote a letter to IndyMac Bank, expressing concern about its viability. A copy of the letter went to Bloomberg News, and within eleven days, panicked depositors had pulled $1.3 billion worth of deposits out of the shaky bank, sealing its fate.

On September 7, the federal government officially took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These Government Sponsored Entities (GSE’s), a public/private amalgamation held or guaranteed about half of the $12 trillion American housing market. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are Ground Zero for the entire subprime meltdown.

As the bodies of dead mortgage companies and purchasers of bundled securities piled up, the economic crisis spread worldwide. In a desperate attempt to head off a complete collapse of the economy of the US and the entire world, Bush asked for and Congress passed legislation entitled “Troubled Assets Relief Program” (TARP) to enable Treasury Secretary Paulson to spend $700 billion to buy the so-called “toxic assets”. Nevertheless, the stock market which had lost 40 percent of its October, 2007 value, remained in the doldrums.

As of this writing, the government continues to be receptive to bailout requests from seemingly every area of the economy. Pledging $800 billion here and $350 billion there with money it doesn’t have there is no end in sight. It may well be that the economic devastation would have been worse without the bailouts, but the fallout from this incredible increase in US debt is incalculable and may inflict permanent damage.

The pertinent question for us here is, “How much of this is George Bush’s fault?” There are three areas where he has culpability for at least part of the problem. Thus far, all of the blame has been dumped on him, whether deserved or not.
1. He supported low interest rates and the concept of broadening home ownership widely.
2. He appointed Hank Paulson and others and followed their advice.
3. He failed to yell loudly enough when he believed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed regulatory overhaul, and to keep yelling when Congress refused to act.

There are some other culpable parties:
The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977
The 1995 revisions to the CRA
Cheap money policies by the Fed
ACORN
The concept of (GSE’s) joining private profit with public risk
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, such as Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick and James Johnson who pocketed millions in bonuses
Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Congressman Barnie Frank (D-MA)
Other members of congressional committees, who took big campaign contributions from, and blocked regulation of, Fannie and Freddie
Greedy lenders and mortgage bundlers such as Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, and the Sandlers, spoofed in that SNL skit that has been pulled down. (Kudos to those responsible lenders who maintained their standards.)

All in all, the evidence will show that neither George Bush nor de-regulation (i.e., Gramm-Leach-Bliley) is at the root of this crisis. The Democrats are up to their ears in this mess, and guess what. Now that they own the whole government, they get to fix it - or compound it. But don’t take just my word for it.

What I do blame the Bush administration for is not speaking out – in being so unifying and above the fray and classy that he wouldn’t try to defend himself. But it’s an old pattern, as Andy McCarthy documents here.

From the days of the Florida recount when Al Gore tried to steal the election from him, George Bush has responded to every smear and attack with class and good humor. “If you can’t speak well of someone, speak not at all,” is the credo of a gentleman. Unfortunately, it’s also the habit of a president with a 30% approval rating and a legacy in the hands of his opponents.

Neither Bush nor Republican presidential nominee John McCain sought to place any blame for the subprime collapse on the Democrats. If they had made an effort to defend free markets and limited government and explain how Big Government intervention distorted the housing market, the election might have turned out differently. For a brief period after the convention, and before he foolishly decided to suspend his campaign in an unsuccessful effort to persuade House Republicans to pass a bailout bill, John McCain was actually leading the presidential polls.

But maybe neither would defend limited government because they both believe in government intervention. “When someone is hurting, it’s up to government to help” is the definition of Compassionate conservatism.

That's capital ‘C’ compassionate; small ‘c’ conservative.

Bush Retrospective, Part 7

The Home Stretch

The devastating results of the 2006 election left President Bush with few options except to hoard his limited remaining political capital for the war effort. There would be no more quixotic attempts to save Social Security or to overhaul the education system. Nevertheless, there were some personnel matters to deal with.

Immediately after the election, Bush finally let go of Don Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense and Iraq War strategist. Many felt that if he had done it earlier, it might have saved a few House and Senate seats. But Bush was loyal to a longtime subordinate, and he said he didn’t want to appear to be playing politics with the election. Or it may be that after Democrats took control of Congress (and the committee chairs), Rumsfeld decided he didn’t need the job bad enough to put up with weekly trips to Capital Hill to be berated by a bunch of yammering publicity hounds.

In an unusual midterm move, the White House also approved firing seven US Attorneys in December. These seven, plus two others removed earlier became the basis of a contentious struggle between Congress and the White House over whether the firings were politically motivated. Ultimately, the fallout from the investigation was severe, even costing AG Alberto Gonzales his job.

Another damaging situation that arose at about this time was skyrocketing crude oil prices that led to gasoline prices reaching $4 per gallon by the summer of 2008. Many blame price speculation for the rapid run-up, and it does appear that enormous leverage can be gained by bidding up prices on a few types of crude. The hike in gasoline prices, though temporary, has inflicted severe, possibly fatal damage to the domestic automobile industry.

But for all his problems, Bush did manage to push through authorization for a “surge” of additional troops to Iraq. Between January and May of 2007, more than 20,000 additional soldiers were sent to Iraq, and 4000 Marines had their tour of duty extended. In addition to the new troops, the Surge included changes in relations with the Iraqi Army and civilians. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had earlier made a number of recommendations that became part of the plan.

The chiefs also want to see a new push on political and economic issues, especially employment programs, reconstruction and political reconciliation, to help quell the problems that have fueled both the Sunni insurgency and Shiite-Sunni sectarian strife, say defense officials and U.S. military officers in Iraq. A new jobs program is considered key to pulling young men from the burgeoning militias.
Pentagon chiefs think that there is no purely military solution for Iraq and that, without major progress on the political and economic fronts, the U.S. intervention is simply buying time, the sources said.

They recognized that the insurgency would die out when the people had jobs, and dependable electricity and could see their lives improving.

Also, General David Petraeus, who would take over the Iraq War, had experience in developing close relations with tribal leaders. This led to the crucial “Anbar Awakening” in which the Sunni tribes that had been fighting against us changed sides.

And, finally the long-ongoing recruiting and training of the Iraqi military began to bear fruit as the Iraqis became capable of more independent operations.

Without these improvements, it is doubtful the Surge would have succeeded on increased troop strength alone. Through the first nine months of 2007, American troop deaths averaged nearly 90 per month. In September, General Petraeus made his report to Congress on the progress of the Surge. His report was preceded by the infamous General Betray-us MoveOn.org ad in the New York Times. The ad was so outrageous that the Senate voted to condemn it by a vote of 72-25.

That vote may have signaled the end of overt organized opposition to the Iraq War in this country. The last three months of 2007 saw combat related American deaths drop abruptly to an average of 33 per month.

There are still suicide bombers in Iraq and the toll on Iraqi civilians, military and police continues. Iraq needs further economic progress and the government must learn better how to attend to all its citizens in order to prevent sectarian violence. It can still go bad.

But, as Iraq improved, the president may have thought things were looking up for his last months in office, and that the Republicans might have a chance in the 2008 election. My next installment will deal with the financial crisis.

Bush Retrospective, Part 6

Plummeting Approval Ratings & the 2006 Election

Iraqi WMD’s, which media revisionism had accepted as the only reason for the war, were not found in anything like the dangerous quantities that had been expected. As the war dragged on with no end in sight, Bush’s approval rating steadily fell. It stood at about 50% when he was narrowly re-elected in 2004.

He decided that the key program of his second term would be to put Social Security on a secure financial footing. He campaigned around the country for his new plan, but Democrats derided its personal accounts feature as being dangerous privatization. Republicans chose not to get on board and the attempt eventually died.

In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina blew ashore near New Orleans. In a disaster scenario long feared, the storm surge overtopped and broke levees and flooded massive areas of the city in a few hours. The national news media descended on the city and broadcast tales of horror as if they were fact. The mayor and police chief were glad to add to the rumor mill. To this day, the image the nation has of the disaster is one of chaos and anarchy, while an unresponsive federal government sat by.

Actually, the government’s response was massive, as this lengthy report details:

More than 1.5 million people were directly affected and more than 800,000 citizens were forced to live outside of their homes – the largest displacement of people since the great Dust Bowl migrations of the 1930s.
[snip]
In the immediate aftermath of the storms, FEMA provided 85 million liters of water (three liters per person per day), 176 million pounds of ice (eight pounds per person per day) and 46.5 million meals (two meals per person per day) -- more meals, water and ice were provided for Hurricane Katrina victims than the combined total of all four major Florida hurricanes in 2004.

[Years later, following the President’s final press conference, I listened to some of the commentary on various networks. Bush showed some real passion during parts of the P.C., something I wish he had done sooner and more often – but the opinionators were having none of it. On Anderson Cooper’s show, one pundit complained that Bush had chosen to defend the federal government’s Katrina response by noting the Coast Guard had rescued 30,000 people off rooftops in the first three days, but he ignored those thousands stuck in the Superdome. This is an example of the seldom-told story of Katrina. The Coast Guard was solely under the control of the feds. The other relief efforts had to come through state and local authorities headed up by inept state and local officials.]

Another major issue the president tackled - and got his nose bloodied for his trouble – was immigration reform. Bush favored a comprehensive approach which would include some sort of legalization process for those already here. Most of the country called that approach ‘amnesty’ and preferred to secure the border first. Bush lost more of his base support because of popular sympathy for Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two Border Patrol agents tried and convicted of shooting an alleged drug smuggler.

Bush also suffered from a lack of support from Republicans in Congress during this time period. Senator Voinovich (R-OH) pulled the rug out from under the nomination of John Bolton to be UN ambassador. Bolton, a take-no-prisoners kind of tough guy (exactly what we need at the UN, IMHO), was accused of making an underling cry in one of his earlier assignments. Voinovich demonstrated his sympathy with the underling by crying at the confirmation hearing and saying he couldn’t support such a meanie. Eventually, Bush gave Bolton a recess appointment and he did fine work at the UN in the short time he was there.

As the mid-term election approached, the odds were that the Republicans would lose big. It was a foregone conclusion that the House would go to the Democrats, and if the Democrats won most of the close Senate races, they could control the Senate too. Bush’s approval rating was around forty by this time and Republican candidates were openly keeping away from him. The Washington Post beat George Allen (R-VA) over the head mercilessly for his macaca comment, Jim Talent (R-MO) got outfoxed by the stem cell issue and it was a Democrat tidal wave forming.

Election Day was every bit as bad as the Republicans feared, leaving George Bush to contemplate the final two years of his presidency unpopular and facing Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress.

My next installment will be The Home Stretch.

Bush Retrospective, Part 5

The Iraq War

It is likely that history will judge President Bush on the ultimate outcome of the Iraqi and Afghan fronts of the War on Terror. If stable and non-hostile governments remain in place after American troops have gone home, the effort will probably be considered a success.

The criterion that Bush appears to have selected is the continuation and expansion of democracy, as shown by having periodic elections. Granted, the photos of all the purple-fingered Iraqis that appeared on their election day was a rare public relations coup for the White House, but Bush might have done better by reminding us of the reasons our troops were sent to war.

And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

and

States like[North Korea, Iran and Iraq], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.

It is difficult to make the case that America has a compelling interest in bringing democracy to parts of the world that may not be ready for it. There’s a better case for removing threats to our peaceful way of life. But while President Bush repeatedly tried to explain our war effort as bringing freedom to 50 million people, and the need to eliminate terrorists because they were evil, that argument stopped resonating about the time our casualty count hit 1,000.

Americans no longer seem to have the stomach for a protracted war. Newspapers raced to call Iraq a quagmire, and even before Saddam and his statues were toppled, the New York Times was complaining (4/17) that museums were being pillaged. Imaginative media criticisms of things that have occurred in wartime since time began became the norm during this war effort.

In April of ’04, Sixty Minutes II broke the Abu Ghraib story and the backstory became that this one example of a few MP’s engaging in what has been described as ‘recreational sadism’ was the norm for how prisoners were tortured. In May of ’05, Newsweek published a story (later discredited) of a guard flushing a Koran down a toilet at Gitmo. In December of that year, the NYT told the world that the NSA was listening in on enemy communications.

The most underreported story to come out of media coverage of the Iraq war is that no one from Sixty Minutes II, the NYT or Newsweek was hanged for treason.

Granted, bad things happen in war, but our military and our spy agencies, God bless them, make an incredible effort to see that they stay within the boundaries of civilized and legal behavior. No prior war effort has ever been second-guessed to the extent that this one has been.

Our politicians, especially those on the left, have been all too happy to join in the condemnation of the war effort. Since it began in March of ’03, 4206 of our best and bravest have died. That works out to 60 per month, on average, or about two per day, but the toll seems to be higher following anti-war news out of New York or Washington.

Eighty died the month after the Abu Ghraib story broke. In early January, ’05 the Senate held hearings on harsh interrogation techniques and 107 died. The Koran in the toilet story of May 9 was followed by 80 deaths in May and 78 in June. On April 20 of ’07, Senate majority leader Harry Reid announced that the war is lost. That month 104 died, followed by 126 deaths in May and 101 in June.

Obviously, there are many reasons for the variation in casualty rates during the fighting, such as the high numbers during Fallujah 1 and 2. I certainly don’t claim that what some politician or newsman says is the controlling variable, but we know the terrorists/insurgents pay attention to our media and they know how to use propaganda. We also know the citizenry of Iraq and Afghanistan want to be on the winning side, so is it hard to believe that the enemy fights a little harder and kills a few more when the news out of America gives them hope that they can win?

There were two flaws in the Bush approach to the Iraq war. One was corrected in the Surge, and I’ll talk about that later. The other flaw was the lack of an effective strategy to convince the enemy that this was not Viet Nam and they could not win. The reason for that was that Bush was unable to convince the nay-sayers here in America we could and would win this war.

Bush critics say that he won the war but lost the peace because he wasn’t prepared for the insurgency. Do they mean the insurgency here in America?

Bush Retrospective, Part 4

Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame

Through June of 2003, President Bush was still enjoying approval ratings near 70 percent. The War on Terrorism was going relatively well. Bin Ladin was hiding in a cave somewhere, Saddam Hussein had been deposed, and casualties in Iraq were still fairly low. Bush had gained a reputation for candor, and though his words and syntax were frequently mangled, listeners could understand what he had said, and know that he meant it.

Democrats feared that they would have little chance in the election less than 18 months away if his integrity were not brought into question. Their chance arose when a former ambassador named Joe Wilson published an op-ed in the New York Times asking, “Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?”

In the flap that followed, Wilson ratcheted up his rhetoric to the point that he accused the administration of outright lies. “I would remind you that had Mr. Cheney taken into consideration my report as well as 2 others submitted on this subject, rather than the forgeries the lie would never have been in President Bush's State of the Union address…” To reach this conclusion, Wilson had to conflate at least two different intelligence reports as well as ignore the fact that Niger is not the only African nation that produces uranium.

Eventually, the White House began falling all over itself to apologize for the inclusion of the infamous sixteen words in the SOTU, even though the British Intelligence services continued to defend the claim. The phrase that Wilson and others disputed is this: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Note the operative verb is ‘sought’. Wilson spent his op-ed and many TV appearances denying that Iraq had obtained yellowcake, but in fact he himself had provided some of the evidence that Iraq had tried.

The controversy soon took on a life of its own when conservative columnist Robert Novak wrote his answer to the question of “Who is this Wilson guy and how did he get sent to Niger?” Novak was told by a source he declined to publicly name until years later that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame worked at the CIA and she had suggested her husband be sent to find out what he could about reports of an Iraqi-Niger connection. The White House was immediately accused of trying to punish Wilson, and Novak was attacked for outing a CIA agent. By October enough of a stink had been raised that a special prosecutor was named to investigate.

Now, it seems to my untrained legal mind that Patrick Fitzgerald’s ‘investigation’ should have taken about ten minutes; five minutes with Novak –
Fitzgerald: “Tell me who told you Wilson’s wife works at the CIA or I’m sending you to jail.”
Novak: “It was Dick Armitage over at the State Department.”
And five minutes with the CIA –
Fitzgerald: “Was Plame undercover?”
CIA: “Not for ten years.”
Fitzgerald: “I’m outa here.”

It’s never been definitively determined whether or not Plame was covert or had been in the recent past, but the CIA certainly didn’t act like it when Novak called them. If she was undercover, it was the strangest sort of hide-it-in-plain-sight covert operation you could imagine. In fact, Andy McCarthy, himself a former US Attorney writes, “Have you heard that the CIA is actually the source responsible for exposing Plame's covert status?”

But Fitzgerald didn’t wrap up his investigation in ten minutes. He dragged it out for more than two years before indicting and convicting ‘Scooter’ Libby for failing to remember what he had told reporters. His sentence was later commuted by President Bush.

In summary, Democrat partisans got more out of the story than they could ever have hoped for. Bush’s credibility took on its first major damage, the media endlessly repeated innuendo and false speculation for years and top figures in Bush’s and VP Cheney’s offices were kept from doing their jobs while being punished with huge legal bills. All this was over sixteen words that were true when they were spoken, and according to investigations by both the Brits and the US Senate are still true: British Intelligence has learned of Saddam’s efforts to obtain nuclear material.

Bush Retrospective, Part 3

9/11 and Intelligence Gathering

Whatever the president’s plans were when he took office, they were completely reprogrammed one Tuesday morning in September, 2001. Four hijacked passenger airplanes took out the World Trade Center, one wall of the Pentagon and, when Americans fought back, a vacant field in Pennsylvania.

The nation quickly rallied behind the president’s leadership. His remarks through a bullhorn in the rubble of the WTC – “… the people who did this will hear from us real soon.” – became an iconic moment. He laid out his general plan in a speech on September 20 to an enthusiastic reception.

Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.
[snip]
Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.

At the time he was not certain who was behind the attack, but he knew it was not a government of a specific nation. He recognized that when fighting a borderless enemy, the most vital weapon is intelligence into who the enemy is and how it is funded. Intelligence gathering was at the heart of this war effort, and it had let us down on 9/11. A commission empaneled to explore the reasons for the intel failure issued its report in July of 2004. Its report is here, and critics of the report have filed their objections here, here and here.

Meanwhile, President Bush adopted an aggressive policy of enemy communications interception and interrogation of captured terrorists after combat operations began in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Knowing that some of the measures needed for effective intel gathering pushed against constraints and interpretations enacted dating back to the Church Committee of 1975, the president requested numerous legal opinions from the Departments of Justice and Defense. These opinions (memos), intended to ensure that war-fighting activities were on firm legal ground later were used as fodder by numerous muck-raking congressional committees.

As the Iraq war dragged on and popular support eroded, the administration walked a fine line in trying to maximize intel gathering despite growing criticism from enemies in Congress and the media. Numerous leaks developed from sources inside government agencies, apparently including the CIA – the chief spy-catcher itself, in theory – that hurt the war effort. The issues that developed are too numerous to cover here, but some of the major ones are as follows:

NSA wireless intercepts – terrorist surveillance or warrantless searches?
FISA constraints on wiretaps – workable or outdated?
Torture – how is torture defined ( is waterboarding torture?) and is it ever justified?
Geneva Convention – who is entitled to its protections?

I have written about some of these earlier, apparently not convincingly, so I’m not going to go into the specifics of all of them again. Let me just lay out a few general principles:

1. If the president fails to do everything in his power to protect the nation he leads, he should be impeached.
2. We elect our leaders to make tough decisions and when national security is at stake, they may not be able to tell everything they know. Sometimes we just have to trust them.
3. We’re a helluva lot more humane in our treatment of our enemies than they are of their own citizens, let alone anybody they capture.
4. I have to question the motives of anybody leaking info that might hurt our war effort
5. I have to question the integrity and character of anybody who denigrates our war effort for political gain.

A few days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush had laid out his plan for defeating our terrorist enemies. This plan relied heavily on interrogation of captured suspects and interception of their communications. He did what he had said he would do, while keeping Congressional leaders in the loop and making every effort to stay within the letter of the law. These efforts didn’t satisfy his political opponents who didn’t trust his use of wireless surveillance methods.

A counter example of old-fashioned spying is that of Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger to check up on Saddam’s nuclear weapon ambitions. The most notorious spy team since Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 will be the subject of my next installment.

Cappucino machines. That's what some folks with the Chicago schools got caught purchasing for the school. Oh, and they bought them for several different schools so that they could avoid certain purchasing rules.

Nice.

And the story in the Chicago Sun Times gets the appropriate quotes about one of the involved purchasers getting fired, and two others getting otherwise disciplined for improperly making the purchase in a manner that sought to avoid the competive bidding rules. But my favorite quote is the following:

"We also look at it as a waste of money because the schools didn't even know they were getting the equipment, schools didn't know how to use the machines and weren't prepared to implement them into the curriculum," Sullivan said.

Huh? Weren't prepared to implement them into the curriculum?

WTF?

So, this wasn't just some kind of fluff purchase for the teacher's lounges or the administration offices?

Okay, apparently the Chicago schools have absolutely every necessary teaching device. Books? They have thirteen copies for each kid of each book. Miscropes for biology labs? Must be fully stocked. Measuring cups in the home-ec room? Got'em overflowing the cabinets. Number 2 pencils? Paper? Scantron sheets? Dry-erase markers? Check. Check. Check. And, yep, stocked by the great gross in a warehouse in Aurora. It must be that way. Because if someone is even considering purchasing cappucinno machines it means that they already more than enough of absolutely everything related to, you know, actually educating students.

Bush Retrospective, Part 2

First Term Domestic Agenda

Candidate Bush had campaigned on general themes such as restoring dignity to the Oval Office, healing the ideological rifts between segments of the country and being a “compassionate conservative”. He had not had a stake in the Clinton impeachment ordeal and he had shown an ability to work with Democrats while governor of Texas. Legislation he signed during his first term reflected these goals, but unifying the nation remained elusive.

No Child Left Behind:
Bush had said during the campaign that he intended to be ‘the education president’ and the No Child Left Behind bill was to be his landmark achievement in this area. For the sake of unity, Senator Ted Kennedy was heavily involved in writing the bill, but this did little to mollify critics such as NEA members. They claimed that its reliance on standardized testing resulted in ‘teaching to the test’ and a reduction in the overall educational experience. While the bill had provision for much new spending, critics claimed that the administration was not actually releasing the money, so that the bill became an ‘unfunded mandate’.

Bush had hoped that the bill’s new emphasis on standards and accountability would lead to better educational opportunities for all students, but even several years into the program, results are inconclusive. Clearly, the federal government has a role to play in encouraging public education – the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 made provision for it even prior to the writing of the Constitution – and taxpayers are entitled to better results for our investment.

NCLB may not be the right approach, but that is likely to be a moot point. The incoming administration’s educational philosophy is geared toward universal pre-kindergarten, and NCLB will probably be seriously modified, or simply forgotten to death.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research:
A controversial directive of the early Bush years was that which forbade federal funding of embryonic stem cell research except on existing lines which would not result in further destruction of human embryos. There is much confusion about what this directive actually did. Bush’s detractors managed to conflate embryonic stem cells with stem cells from other sources so that many in the general public and some Hollywood types thought that all stem cell research was banned.

IMHO, the president got it exactly right on this one. He left the option open for private funding of embryonic stem cell research and, of course many other countries allow and/or support research on embryonic stem cells. If these were the stem cells with the greatest potential, money would be flowing into that area of research. However, the breakthroughs and exciting discoveries all seem to be coming from adult and other non-embryonic stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells frequently lead to tumors, and while that factor is worthy of study for cancer research, it appears at this time that more results can be expected by putting the bulk of research funds into non-embryonic stem cells. In 2006, the president issued his first(!) veto in rejecting a new bill that would have made federal taxpayer funds available for embryonic stem cell research. P-EOTUS Obama has indicated he would sign such a bill after he takes office.

Tax Cuts:
The fact that George Bush waited until his fifth year in office to veto his first bill says a lot about his presidency. He was able to push through, with the aid of a Republican congress, significant tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, but there were never any matching spending cuts. The tax cuts contributed to a booming economy but eventually increased spending coupled with a weakening dollar caught up with us.

Congress was happy to go on a spending spree with a wide-open checkbook for pork-laden highway and farm bills, a new drug entitlement for seniors, emergency spending for Hurricane Katrina when that hit and, always, the war in the middle East. President Bush willingly went along with every request for money, possibly because he felt it would lead to disunity to say ‘no’. Spending a little extra for this interest group or that one may have been part of a Rovian strategy to pick up a few percentage points with different voting blocs to help in the next election.

Unfortunately, the targets of that strategy were Democrat congressmen and senators in conservative leaning districts, precisely the ones that were called upon when Democrat party help was needed with an issue. Of course, this is always part of politics and though no one should have been surprised, it led to hard feelings from some who felt they were owed something for helping out. Meanwhile no effort was made to discipline big-spending and/or liberal-leaning Republicans. And, of course, no attempt was ever made to fight back against the most virulent anti-Bush Democrats - those on the Senate Judiciary committee, for example. Eventually it became apparent that there was no penalty for being a Bush enemy, and not much reward for being a friend.

Tax cuts are a great stimulus for an economy and one of the most American of Revolutionary War virtues. But without commensurate spending restraint, they are unsustainable. Most of the tax cuts are scheduled to expire in 2010.

PEPFAR:
The President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Research is one of Bush’s proudest achievements in that it directly attacks the AIDS pandemic, primarily in Africa. He has been very interested in and sympathetic to the suffering caused by this disease. The $15 billion authorized in 2003, later increased to $48 billion by the 2008 reauthorization, dwarfed spending efforts prior to that time.

Other than some publicity from Bono, Bush doesn’t get much credit in this country for his effort. In Africa it may make a big difference and reap some needed positive feelings toward America.

I believe it was President James Madison who said, in vetoing a proposal to spend taxpayer money on charitable purposes, “I can’t endeavor to put my finger on the part of the Constitution that authorizes me to spend this money on charity.” I tend to agree with that, especially when the money is being spent on foreign aid. However, in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t that much money and it may do some good, being spent from the bottom up rather than passing through some dictator’s hands for dispersal as he sees fit. But I’m not sure I can endorse the increase in funds in the 2008 bill without seeing some genuine evidence of value received.

McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform:
Failing to veto this landmark campaign finance legislation may have been the president’s biggest mistake in the early years of his administration. By restricting who can say what about political candidates as an election approaches, it must surely violate everything the founders had in mind when they proposed and ratified the first amendment. There are reports that Bush also thought that it was unconstitutional, but decided to leave it up to the Supreme Court to sort out.

But by acceding to the legislature’s desire to limit political speech in the form of money and advertising, the bill actually decreased control over where that money was going and the transparency of where it was coming from. It remains to be seen how campaign finance will be worked out in the future, but McCain-Feingold doesn’t appear to be the answer.

Conclusions:
Much of the Bush domestic agenda seems destined for early retirement. The Medicare Drug Entitlement, like all entitlements is probably with us forever, and we appear to be stuck with McCain-Feingold, which will likely metastasize into something even worse.

Good intentions are not enough to sustain a legacy, and the Bush legacy is long on compassion, short on conservatism.

My next installment will be about 9/11.

A Bush Retrospective: Part 1

His Finest Achievement
On September 12 of 2001, the chances that President Bush could guide the country through the remainder of two terms in office without another attack were considered very slim. The fact that it appears that he will pull it off is a remarkable and praiseworthy achievement. It is however, one that could change without warning and over which he will have no control after he leaves office. I’m grateful that he kept America safe for seven years and counting, but a bigger achievement is what he did to keep America safe and strong for decades into the future.

His appointment and the successful confirmation of two relatively young conservative justices – John Roberts and Samuel Alito - to the Supreme Court will influence judicial philosophy long after Bush retires. The court has increasingly sought to arrogate decision-making power the Constitution gave to the other branches, and it desperately needs a new dose of originalist thinking.*

One example is the Boumediene decision, which followed the Hamdan case in which the court ruled that the Executive branch lacked the authority to set up military commissions to try prisoners captured in the War on Terror and that such authority lies with the Congress. Congress subsequently passed the Military Commissions Act to try such prisoners. The court then ruled in Boumediene, a decision written by Anthony Kennedy, that it was kidding about Congress needing to be involved and the Court would make all necessary rulings on a case-by-case basis. Having determined that the president wasn’t authorized to fight a war, it likewise ruled that Congress was not authorized to write laws. Honestly, I don’t know what we’re paying all these other people to do when the Supreme Court can handle it all.

Currently, the court is composed of two blocks of four justices with conflicting philosophies, and one justice, Kennedy, who decides most of the controversial cases. Kennedy may make his decision on the basis of what he had for breakfast that morning. If he had bacon and eggs with American fries, he goes with the originalists. If it was Belgian waffles or French toast, chalk up another case for the “living constitution”. Scratch my conclusion from the last paragraph. All we need is Kennedy.

Before Roberts and Alito were named to the court, there were two loose cannons, both of whom had to agree with Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas in order to render a sensible verdict. Replacing Sandra Day O’Connor with Alito doubled the likelihood of an outcome consistent with the principles that have made this country good and prosperous for over 200 years. The Living Constitution proponents on the other hand, believe all the historical development and centuries of prior experience can be tossed out by their superior understanding of the way they would like things to be. Incidentally, why do the liberals think the intent of the Constitution can be altered on a whim, but under stare decisis, a Supreme Court decision is cast in concrete forever?

It is true that Bush’s two new justices are not sufficient to shift the balance of power in every case, but we are better off with them than without them. No president is ever able to accomplish everything he wants to; it’s usually the best they can do to move a few things in the right direction. I submit that Roberts and Alito are a large step in the right direction.

Consider the achievements of Franklin Roosevelt. He instituted New Deal programs such as Social Security and the Tennessee Valley Authority as well as successfully prosecuting the Second World War. While we had to destroy our totalitarian enemies in that war to ensure the continuance of our liberty, other threats have since risen to challenge our freedom. From Soviets to Islamofascists to individual crackpot dictators, there are always new threats to be faced and defeated.

Wars come and go, but government programs such as social security and the TVA are with us forever. (Readers may discuss among themselves whether these programs represent steps in the right direction.) The Iraq war and the struggle to keep war from American shores may determine Bush’s place in history, but his appointment of two justices is his longest-lasting positive achievement.



*When Matt originally replied (link no longer working) to my post about why I still support President Bush he admitted that he was amused by my preference for justices who “base their rulings on the constitution rather than their personal prejudices”. I wasn’t trying to be funny, so I finally realized that the cause of his mirthful reaction must be that conservatives always say we want judges who can read the plain meaning of the document and not just make it up as they go along.

Here’s an example of what I mean. One collection of justices thought they saw an indication of a shadow around our right to be secure in our persons and papers, and in that shadow there was something that might be an all-inclusive right to have an abortion. (I can’t see it myself, but then, I’m not a lawyer. My best guess is that this thinking is related to a day long since gone when people, especially women preferred that nobody knew they were having s*x. Being visibly pregnant made that hard to maintain, so, therefore women had to be able to have abortions to maintain the illusion that they are all virgins.)

The Constitution doesn’t include the word ‘abortion’. Doesn’t mention it a single time, but here are some words that are in there: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Surely that means there are some things the federal government doesn’t get to decide.