President Bush

There remain only a few hours left in the presidency of  George W. Bush. For eight years he has given us his best. There were some low points but there were fewer than the media and liberals would have you believe.

Katrina was a low point but even that, President Bush really can’t take all the blame for himself . But for liberals, President Bush was there scapegoat.

Hurricane Katrina ravaged Mississippi every bit as much as it did Louisiana, yet Mississippi, under the leadership of Republican Governor Haley Barbour, did not encounter the same long duration of recovery or mishandled evacuations that  Louisiana  did.

Mississippi’s local leaders did not decide to park their buses on low lying surfaces as did New Orleans’ Democrat Mayor, Ray Nagin.

No, Mississippi’s first line of defense in natural disasters, their local governments, the governments closest to the people, came through and were every bit as prepared as they told the federal government that they were. Not so in New Orleans though.

But a liberal bias from the media helped to make Hurricane Katrina President Bush’s fault.

Shortly after the events of Hurricane Katrina many left leaning conspiracy theorists also claimed that Hurricane Katrina and a few of its devastating predecessors were the product of Japan where the Japanese government was inventing a new weapon that increased the intensity of tropical storms into category 5 hurricanes and directed them to land masses that they targeted.

Many of the same people who made this claim gave blame to George Bush. That should tell you something.

Although Katrina may not have been Bush’s fault, the recovery effort in Louisiana does get blamed on him and to a degree that is acceptable. But I guess, on the other side of the coin, the successfully rapid recovery in Mississippi warrants some credit for President Bush?

Putting aside the blame game of Hurricane Katrina, there are two things that when grading this presidency, bring his average down.

The first is his delay in approving the surge that his own Secretary of State urged for a year before he finally accepted it.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice  had been advocating for more troops in Iraq. It was a strategy called “clear, hold and build”. It was also the same strategy that Senator John McCain called for.

Clear, hold and build was successfully used by Col. H.R. McMaster in the Iraqi city of Tal Afar. The strategy called for door to door operations that cleared insurgents from the city along with an ongoing troop presence in each neighborhood that was cleared. Once this was achieved residents felt secure, and U.S. troops were able to begin rebuilding there. Wherever this strategy was conducted, it worked. The resurgents were gone and our continued presence there, prevented them from returning. As a result, citizens no longer lived in fear and life began to flow unimpeded by terror and violence. To carry out clear, hold and build, more troops were required. But increasing the number of troops was not something the administration wanted to advocate for. Although it was required in order to successfully carry out clear, hold, build the administration was afraid of the reaction to such a call.

The President flinched in this area. It was one of the few instances where he allowed public perception to make him second guess his policy judgment. After Viet Nam, we should have learned that if you are going to enter into a fight, throw everything you have into it from the onset. Otherwise don’t get into the fight.

In the case of Iraq, we held back. Had we went along with the surge from the beginning, we would have avoided the upsurge in violence that led to the waning of support for the war effort.

The other area of deep negative impact on this administration was the financial collapse that brought on the current economic crisis.

President Bush does not get blamed for causing the collapse, but it happened under his watch and it should not have.

The President, through his advisers, should have seen this coming and helped to avoid it.

He should have aggressively turned back some of the policies which led to the overextended loan practices which ultimately tied up loans and the markets.

Many of the policies that brought us to this point were from Bill Clinton’s administration.

Clinton‘s National Homeowners Strategy was a financial scheme that promoted insanely low down payments and coerced lenders into giving mortgage loans to first-time buyers with unstable financing and incomes.

It was a way to increase home ownership. That is an admirable motive but as usual, the liberal mentality, forced government to do that which it should not have done. Essentially, the Clinton era initiatives that forced government action on private sector interests led to the need for government to take over FannieMae and FreddieMac. This is not to say that private sector greed and bad business practices did not add to the wrong minded government policy, it did, but what happened here is that government solutions to one problem, created another . Now, ironically, the government which helped to create this problem is having to solve it.As for George Bush, this all came to a head under his watch. For that he must be blamed.

So we have the recovery effort in Louisiana, delaying the surge in Iraq and not avoiding the economic crises that we are in, all helping to lower the average of this administrations grade.

I have two more things to add though.

One is immigration.

On immigration President Bush was most inept. On this issue his positions were no where near appropriate for the leader of a sovereign nation.

The Presidents refusal to accept that illegal immigrants are participating in illegal conduct that needs to be prosecuted was a horribly blundered policy and it is one that has not helped to solve our border security problem or alleviate the continued problem of illegal immigration.

The other issue I hold against President Bush is his administrations inability to articulate their cause in a way that appealed to the people convincingly.

The administration had been doing quite well in it’s first two years when the voice of the President came from then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Once Ari Fleischer left and Scott McClellan entered the picture, the White House lost any sway with the press or the public.

This President was great with messages when we were in crisis and he had the people’s attention, but in between crisis his message was jumbled and unconvincing. That, for this administration, was half of the battle and after Fleischer left they lost it.

On the upside President Bush has many, much wrongly maligned, initiatives to help bring his grade up.

Their was his “Faith Based Initiative” which allowed government to accept the involvement of religious institutions in helping out. Faith based initiatives were no longer penalized or denied by the federal government because of religion. It was something long over due in America, especially in an America where religion is not to persecuted against.

There was “No Child Left Behind”.

This policy was one which had universal support except for some extremist fringe players and teachers union.. But not willing to give credit where credit was due, liberals charged that President Bush backed out of his No Child Left Behind policy by under funding it.

Truth be told, federal education spending is at record levels so that argument doesn’t swim.

There are many other policies such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit, enacted in 2003. It triggered competition between drug companies and wound up costing less than expected.

The Bush tax policy is also to his credit. He didn’t ask for lips to read on this issue, he simply created no new taxes and when he did not reduce them he held the line on them. I only wish he could have added drastic spending cuts to that.

Another high point in this administration was the appointment of two supreme court justices, one being the chief justice.

The appointments of  John Roberts  and  Sam Alito  were remarkably good choices. Neither had any judicial or personal blemishes and neither see the role of the judiciary to be one that makes law but rather interprets it. Add to that their relative youthful ages and the Roberts and Alito appointments to the bench will have a profound on our great nation for decades to come.

The next greatest achievement of the administration was twofold. It involves The War On Terror and Iraq.

Despite charges that Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, the two are entwined together as violent threats.

Pre-Saddam Hussein Iraq did not send to us the pilots that took nearly 3,000 Americans in one day but it had intentions just as dire.

Saddam did not have any tangible links to 9/11 but he did have links to terrorist, including several who dabbled with Al Quaeda and he did continuously break and defy the cease fire agreement that he signed after the first Gulf War. Combine that with the fact that everyone from  Bill Clinton  and  Al Gore  to  John Kerry  and  Ted Kennedy  swore that Saddam was a threat and you had every reason in the world to eliminate Saddam Hussein.

After 9/11 George W. Bush realized that we must eliminate threats before they eliminate us and so he took out the threat known as Saddam Hussein.  In doing so not is democracy being brought to the Middle East but the power and richness of freedom is being delivered to a people that have long since forgotten what independence offers.

Add to that that you can say what you want, but we no longer have to worry about any threat Saddam intended, and for that I thank the President.

I also Thank him for the second part of this  War On Terror  effort.   Under his watch not another single attack occurred on mainland territory since 9/11.

Now if you want to blame Katrina on Bush because it happened during his watch you must also credit him for there being no more attacks under his watch. And when you think about, more attacks occurred under Bill Clinton then George Bush, so I thank President Bush for that as well.

The final most valuable thing brought to life under President Bush goes back to exactly four years ago.

In his inaugural address , after being sworn in for the second time, President Bush stated:

“America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home – the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.”

He went on to articulate a policy that directed the United States to end tyranny in the world as we know it.

Now some may have seen that as a declaration of war by him but most read it the right way.

He went on to say………“We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.”

“All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.:”

The speech has since been forgotten by most but it has not been forgotten by me and hopefully President Barack Obama will also remember it..

In its entirety, the address presented the essence of what it means to be an American and it captured the most important role that America must play in this world as its current, last remaining superpower.

For me it Bush’s second inaugural address was the foundation for our greatest doctrine ever, the doctrine to achieve and true freedom and peace.

When you have the time, click here and read the speech. You will be moved and you will understand our place in this world.

The bottom line…….

President Bush is a good man and was a good President. He will not go down in history ranked along side of Washington or Lincoln nor will he be lumped together with Franklin Pierce or Jimmy Carter.

Ultimately, I believe George W. Bush warrants a B-.

Many on the left will now assault me for giving that grade but I base George Bush’s presidency on the truth of reality not on the lies and distortions that they have spent the last eight years perpetuating and when you add that to the retrospect of history, I believe George W. Bush’s name  will slowly rise to its proper placement among American presidents.

That is something that will take time.

As President Bush recently put it, “they’re still debating and writing about how good or bad George Washington was, so I assume the same will happen to me”.

Once upon a time, in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers…

… that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.

He further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms.

The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. ‘Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.’

The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

Submitted by Dick, Williamsport, Md.

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With President-Elect Obama about to become President Obama I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the end of President George W. Bush’s time in office.  I do not want to reflect on his policies or his legacy; but, better yet the way people better Democrats have shown us how not to treat the person that holds the highest office in the land.  Over the past five years and especially during President Bush’s second term we have seen the President be ridiculed and downright disrespected. 

This disrespect was rarely geared towards his policies; but, more towards the individual.  Over the past four years you have heard the President be called a war monger, a fascist, a racist (thanks Kanye West), an idiot, and my personal favorite phrase “I am smarter than he is”.  Even now in the final days of his presidency there is an article in the Rolling Stone saying how the end cannot come quick enough.

That brings me to the point of how we as Republicans should treat President Obama.  We should treat him with respect and we should respect the office that he holds.  The office of the President has been slandered by so many over the past few years and we should not make the same mistake.

Now, I will bring this full circle.  We should all watch President Obama and make sure that when he does something that we disagree with we voice our opinions loud and clear.  We should make it known that we disagree with card check, the bail outs, the fairness doctrine, tax hikes, and anything else that should come along that we disagree with.  But, we should never slander the man or the office that he holds. 

We are better than that.

So, say a pray for him (he will need it) and then get ready to work against him in 2012. 

You just can't trust these lefties to tell the truth.  Having watched the technically well made video, one is left with the impression that all security and military people in the Israeli military and intelligence have strong positive feelings for Obama. While some actually do, others do not. Not one contrary voice is heard on this video.  Indeed some of them seem to have a positive impression of Obama, basically because Obama endorses no pre-condition talks with Iran.

Yossi Alpher, appearing in the video and tagged as a "former Mossad senior officer" (but the Jewish Council for Education & Research failed to associate Alpher with one of his other jobs, that of Senior Advisor to Ehud Barak at Camp David [where Barak tried to give away most of Yosh to Arafat who chose not to end the conflict]) appears in the video endorsing Obama as a negotiator and reinforces one of the themes of the video that Sen. McCain is essentially a second President Bush and that would no longer be helpful. 

More interesting is the assertion by Ret. Brig. Gen. Shaul Arieli in the video that the "Bush Doctrine" has intensified the fundamentalist Islamic threat and has strengthened Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Arieli is interviewed in the JPOST article and endorses Obama. Arieli is a member of the "Council for Peace and Security" which includes in its http://www.peace-security-council.org/about.us.asp#abGuiding Guiding Principles  these gems:

• PEACE IS ACHIEVED BY COMPROMISE  Peace and a strong army are the essential ingredients for Israel’s security.  The army must at all cost retain its deterrent ability.  It should however be borne in mind that peace is not achievable without compromise and willingness to make sacrifices.

• THE OCCUPATION IS CAUSING DAMAGE  Continued occupation of the Territories and control over the Palestinians is damaging the democratic character of the State of Israel.  It is weakening the army, undermining its ability and its preparedness to respond to military threats.

• A PALESTINIAN STATE IS NOT A THREAT  The establishment of a Palestinian State in the major part of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip – with necessary security provisions – does not constitute a threat to Israel.  On the contrary, it is essential in order to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel.  A realistic permanent boundary between Israel and a Palestinian State should be that of the Green Line (Israel’s provisional border before the Six Day War in 1967), with certain adjustments in Jerusalem and in other places.  The large Jewish settled domains on the eastern side of the Green Line should be annexed to Israel.</blockquote> I suppose giving away Gaza and offering to give away Yosh has had nothing to do with strengthening the more visible anti-Israel forces amongst the Pali population vis a vis the terrorists in suits. It is much easier to blame the American president than take responsibility for advocating failed policies which have brought increased bloodshed and rocket attacks. More of the same policies will leave a devastated Israel in its wake. A PA terrorist state will certainly NOT enhance Israel's security in any way.

 

Essentially, this video was constructed to be an Obama outreach to Jews and people close to Israel, made by lefties advocating the Obama way as the most effective method to preserve Israel's security. To what extent the Obama campaign assisted in its creation or advised the producers remains to be seen. That misleading and deceptive editing was needed to sell the message is something well worth noting. I wonder though if any of those appearing in the video actually are thinking that an inexperienced and naive Obama will be easier to manage from Jerusalem than someone else?

I also wonder what some of the desire for "change" in US policy is all about.  The Bush administration has, more than any previous Presidency supported the Palis politically all the while, not backing down in support for Israel in the issues that matter.  The Bush administration has publically called for a Pali state which was a game changing event. At the same time, the pretense of having free elections and at least some lip service to a commitment to "living in peace" with Israel by the PA has insulated the Bush team and prevented the forcing of any significant concessions.  Bush even sat quietly while watching Arafat rot in the Muqata. The Bush policy has certainly helped reveal a pali population that actually is more concerned with bringing on Jewish suffering than they are establishing a civil government by giving them a vote. Sen. 'say it ain't so' Joe Biden, speaking for the Obama camp during his VP debate with Governor Palin believed removing the veil of concealment covering the true intentions of the Pali population to be a negative. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017470356&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull  (Ex-generals misled by pro-Obama video)

Oct. 6, 2008
Matt Zalen and Shani Rosenfelder , THE JERUSALEM POST
A video released by the Jewish Council for Education & Research, which appeared to show several retired senior IDF and Mossad officials supporting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has proven to be misleading, with a number of officials who appeared in the video saying on Monday that their words were taken out of context.

The film's producers have stressed in response that the Obama campaign was not involved during any stage of the production.

"It's not only misleading, it was an interview about what the next president was going to have to deal with," former deputy chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan told The Jerusalem Post. "And to know that they used this interview and took five seconds, and put me in a list of people praising Barack Obama…

"It wasn't about the campaign, it was about the political and security issues of the Middle East that the next president should be involved in," he continued. "Nothing was said about Obama or [Republican presidential candidate John] McCain."

"I don't want other people to interfere in my elections, and I must not interfere with the elections in the United States," he said, adding that to do so would be neither "ethical nor smart."

In the video, the senior Israeli officials appear to support Obama's stated policy that dialogue with Iran would be the best way of confronting the current nuclear crisis. Dayan said that his position is just the opposite.

"I don't think that we - either the United States or Israel - should be engaged with Iran, because the Iranians will take advantage of that," the former deputy chief of staff said. "Our issue is to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capability."

"We need more powerful, effective sanctions to delegitimize [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad," he continued. "A military option should be prepared, but used only as a last resort."

Former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy, who appeared in the video praising the Democratic candidate, also said that he was misled.

"I was interviewed for a documentary dealing with what issues the new American president must deal with regarding the Middle East," Halevy told the Post. "I was asked about the candidates, and was complimentary to both."

But when asked about his opinion on who was more qualified to be president, Halevy said that he had rejected the question.

"I said that I thought it was inappropriate for an Israeli to advise Americans on who they should vote for, as it would be for them to advise Israelis on who they should vote for prime minister," he said.

Halevy added that it would be irresponsible to comment on the positions of any US presidential candidates before an election, as those positions may change once the new president takes office.

Both Halevy and Dayan said that representatives of the Jewish Council for Education & Research had been in contact with them, and promised to deal with the matter.

According to Israel Radio, Maj.-Gen. (Ret.) Amram Mitzna and Brig.-Gen. (res.) Giora Inbar, a former IDF commander in south Lebanon, both said that they were also unaware of the true nature of the video. However, Inbar said he did not have a problem with the clip because it represents his views.

In the video, Mitzna had said that another four years of indecision, stagnancy and a lack of intense US involvement in the Middle East peace process would be bad for Israel. He claimed Obama would achieve a greater involvement and that he "brings many hopes."

For his part, Inbar was filmed saying that he would personally vote for Obama to help Israel. Inbar said he was not convinced that the Bush method was the right way to deal with the axis of evil and that he would welcome anyone who chose to handle it differently.

Revised Films, the independent film company that produced the clip, issued the following response:

"Our firm is an independent company that created a clip that was composed of interviews with senior Israeli security officials, and whose subject was the American policy regarding Israel, in light of the upcoming elections in the United States, while focusing on the two central candidates for president, and Barack Obama.

"The Obama campaign was not involved during any stage of the production, or [the film's] distribution. After the film was completed, the Jewish Council for Education & Research, took charge of the film and used it."

A response by The Jewish Council for Education & Research has yet to be obtained due to the time difference between Israel and the US.
 

VIDEO LINK

http://vimeo.com?pg=embed&amp;sec=1882159

Any questions about Governor Palin's ability to be in the big time spot light were put to rest last night. Gov. Palin succeeded in turning the tables on the main stream media's assault on her qualifications. Moderator Gwen Ifill, with wary eyes on her for not disclosing to the debate commission her forthcoming Obama book conflict of interest, behaved herself.

As I was watching the much heralded debate which was supposed to end the presidential election, at least according to many in the Obama camp, I wondered, is Sarah Palin's television appearance going to matter so much? After all, this would be the VP not the Presidential candidates debating. With all the hype though, I knew that the left was just waiting to pounce all over a potentially tongue twisted and uncertain, nervous looking new comer to the political arena. The Olbermans and Matthews and Couric crowd had already written their talking points. "She's unqualified" "Biden looked Presidential" "No comparison" "The Senator demonstrated his experience and she her lack of experience" "She didn't seem knowledgeable".

Thankfully, all those notes went into the shredder after the first few questions. It was obvious that after the Governor's first answer the debate was not going to resemble the scenario the Obama camp had prognosticated.

PALIN: Thank you, Gwen. And I thank the commission, also. I appreciate this privilege of being able to be here and speak with Americans.

You know, I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out has this been a good time or a bad time in America's economy, is go to a kid's soccer game on Saturday, and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, "How are you feeling about the economy?"

And I'll bet you, you're going to hear some fear in that parent's voice, fear regarding the few investments that some of us have in the stock market. Did we just take a major hit with those investments?

Fear about, how are we going to afford to send our kids to college? A fear, as small-business owners, perhaps, how we're going to borrow any money to increase inventory or hire more people.

The barometer there, I think, is going to be resounding that our economy is hurting and the federal government has not provided the sound oversight that we need and that we deserve, and we need reform to that end.

Now, John McCain thankfully has been one representing reform. Two years ago, remember, it was John McCain who pushed so hard with the Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) reform measures. He sounded that warning bell.

People in the Senate with him, his colleagues, didn't want to listen to him and wouldn't go towards that reform that was needed then. I think that the alarm has been heard, though, and there will be that greater oversight, again thanks to John McCain's bipartisan efforts that he was so instrumental in bringing folks together over this past week, even suspending his own campaign to make sure he was putting excessive politics aside and putting the country first.

APRPEH wrote about the Palin factor in http://aprpeh.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-second-guessing-israel-sarah-palin.html No Second Guessing Israel - Sarah Palin and  http://aprpeh.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-09-11T10%3A50%3A00-06%3A00&max-results=7" Desperate Times Call for Desperate Democrats. The APRPEH posts discuss the connection Gov. Palin makes with the American heart and soul. Gov. Palin made a point to speak to America last night. Her words were directed to the folks who never will be on a stage in a national debate but who nonetheless have the common sense and decency to serve in the highest offices of the land. This common sense is what is being vied for in this election. Obama is trying to sell the American people that their common sense is what permits him to offer socialistic policies crowned with the righteousness of fairness. This is the core of the argument that Biden was trying to make. Gov. Palin was offering no none sense, traditional American values. She connected with the people at home. Gov. Palin unleashed her inner barracuda. Gov. Palin's last few weeks had been difficult ones. Her positive media and polling was reversed. People were questioning her. But like a serious athelete after a couple of bad games, innings, or quarters, Saracuda came fighting back, shaking off the negativity and rising to the occassion. As as the oft quoted Gen. George Patton supposedly said 'true Americans love a winner and hate a loser', Saracuda ignored the press and came started the debate with every intention to win. Yes, Americans do love a winner but will not tolerate fake claims winning. Gov. Palin's debate performance was the real thing, the real Sarah Palin, the real barracuda.

Despite Senator Biden's attempt to appear down home mentioning bars in Wilmington, an impossible to make case after three decades in the Senate, Palin looked straight at the camera and talked to the American people as if she were sitting at their kitchen table, neighbor to neighbor. Americans will respond favorably when they perceive that someone has been attacked unfairly. This is possibly why Frank Luntz's focus group and CNN's post debate poll both concur that Gov. Palin beat expectations. But to conclude she merely beat expectations does not do justice to the fact she stood on stage with a very seasoned US Senator, on an internationally broadcast VP debate, and not only held her own but went toe to toe with the Senator and landed a few really good jabs at him too. Gov. Palin was able to through direct contradiction and implied remarks make legitimate criticisms of Sen. Biden's career without looking angry and dis-respectful. Sen. Biden despite his efforts was not able to respond decisively or convincingly to this criticism. He is a career politician and looked the part. What Gov. Palin was able to accomplish was to represent a broad sweep of Americans who would like to say the same things to their Congressmen but never have the chance to say them. Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, did not represent the nation's governors, she represented Main Street, USA. This will resonate strongly over the next few weeks.

Some of Gov. Palin's best lines include:

• And the American workforce is the greatest in this world, with the ingenuity and the work ethic that is just entrenched in our workforce. That's a positive. That's encouragement. And that's what John McCain meant.
• Now, Barack Obama, of course, he's pretty much only voted along his party lines. In fact, 96 percent of his votes have been solely along party line, not having that proof for the American people to know that his commitment, too, is, you know, put the partisanship, put the special interests aside, and get down to getting business done for the people of America.
• Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. There was deception there, and there was greed and there is corruption on Wall Street. And we need to stop that.
• One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars.
• We do need the private sector to be able to keep more of what we earn and produce. Government is going to have to learn to be more efficient and live with less if that's what it takes to reign in the government growth that we've seen today.
• And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also. As mayor, every year I was in office I did reduce taxes. I eliminated personal property taxes and eliminated small business inventory taxes and as governor we suspended our state fuel tax. We did all of those things knowing that that is how our economy would be heated up.
• Now you said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that's not patriotic. Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you're not always the solution. In fact, too often you're the problem so, government, lessen the tax burden and on our families and get out of the way and let the private sector and our families grow and thrive and prosper. An increased tax formula that Barack Obama is proposing in addition to nearly a trillion dollars in new spending that he's proposing is the backwards way of trying to grow our economy.
• He's proposing a $5,000 tax credit for families so that they can get out there and they can purchase their own health care coverage. That's a smart thing to do. That's budget neutral. That doesn't cost the government anything as opposed to Barack Obama's plan to mandate health care coverage and have universal government run program and unless you're pleased with the way the federal government has been running anything lately, I don't think that it's going to be real pleasing for Americans to consider health care being taken over by the feds.
• And that's why Tillerson at Exxon and Mulva at ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) , bless their hearts, they're doing what they need to do, as corporate CEOs, but they're not my biggest fans, because what I had to do up there in Alaska was to break up a monopoly up there and say, you know, the people are going to come first and we're going to make sure that we have value given to the people of Alaska with those resources.
• There is not. And how long have I been at this, like five weeks? So there hasn't been a whole lot that I've promised, except to do what is right for the American people, put government back on the side of the American people, stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street. {turning a potential liability into an asset}
• It's a nonsensical position that we are in when we have domestic supplies of energy all over this great land. And East Coast politicians who don't allow energy-producing states like Alaska to produce these, to tap into them, and instead we're relying on foreign countries to produce for us.
• Barack Obama and Senator Biden, you've said no to everything in trying to find a domestic solution to the energy crisis that we're in. You even called drilling -- safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore as raping the outer continental shelf.
• Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq and that is not what our troops need to hear today, that's for sure. And it's not what our nation needs to be able to count on. You guys opposed the surge. The surge worked. Barack Obama still can't admit the surge works.
• Now, you said regarding Senator McCain's military policies there, Senator Biden, that you supported a lot of these things. In fact, you said in fact that you wanted to run, you'd be honored to run with him on the ticket. That's an indication I think of some of the support that you had at least until you became the VP pick here.
• You also said that Barack Obama was not ready to be commander in chief. And I know again that you opposed the move he made to try to cut off funding for the troops and I respect you for that. I don't know how you can defend that position now but I know that you know especially with your son in the National Guard and I have great respect for your family also and the honor that you show our military. Barack Obama though, another story there. Anyone I think who can cut off funding for the troops after promising not to is another story. {talk of cutting off troop funding is homerun rhetoric}
• Israel is in jeopardy of course when we're dealing with Ahmadinejad as a leader of Iran. Iran claiming that Israel as he termed it, a stinking corpse, a country that should be wiped off the face of the earth. Now a leader like Ahmadinejad who is not sane or stable when he says things like that is not one whom we can allow to acquire nuclear energy, nuclear weapons.
• No and Dr. Henry Kissinger especially. I had a good conversation with him recently. And he shared with me his passion for diplomacy. And that's what John McCain and I would engage in also. But again, with some of these dictators who hate America and hate what we stand for, with our freedoms, our democracy, our tolerance, our respect for women's rights, those who would try to destroy what we stand for cannot be met with just sitting down on a presidential level as Barack Obama had said he would be willing to do. That is beyond bad judgment. That is dangerous.
• That's not what we're doing there. We're fighting terrorists, and we're securing democracy, and we're building schools for children there so that there is opportunity in that country, also. There will be a big difference there, and we will win in -- in Afghanistan, also.
• Oh, yeah, it's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider. And someone just not used to the way you guys operate. Because here you voted for the war and now you oppose the war. You're one who says, as so many politicians do, I was for it before I was against it or vice- versa. Americans are craving that straight talk and just want to know, hey, if you voted for it, tell us why you voted for it and it was a war resolution.
• And you had supported John McCain's military strategies pretty adamantly until this race and you had opposed very adamantly Barack Obama's military strategy, including cutting off funding for the troops that attempt all through the primary.
• Just everyday working class Americans saying, you know, government, just get out of my way. If you're going to do any harm and mandate more things on me and take more of my money and income tax and business taxes, you're going to have a choice in just a few weeks here on either supporting a ticket that wants to create jobs and bolster our economy and win the war or you're going to be supporting a ticket that wants to increase taxes, which ultimately kills jobs, and is going to hurt our economy.
• Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? I say, too, with education, America needs to be putting a lot more focus on that and our schools have got to be really ramped up in terms of the funding that they are deserving. Teachers needed to be paid more. I come from a house full of school teachers. My grandma was, my dad who is in the audience today, he's a schoolteacher, had been for many years. My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate.
• Education credit in American has been in some sense in some of our states just accepted to be a little bit lax and we have got to increase the standards. No Child Left Behind was implemented. It's not doing the job though. We need flexibility in No Child Left Behind. We need to put more of an emphasis on the profession of teaching. We need to make sure that education in either one of our agendas, I think, absolute top of the line. My kids as public school participants right now, it's near and dear to my heart. I'm very, very concerned about where we're going with education and we have got to ramp it up and put more attention in that arena.
• But it wasn't just that experience tapped into, it was my connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills? About times and Todd and our marriage in our past where we didn't have health insurance and we know what other Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care? We've been there also so that connection was important.
• And we are to be that shining city on a hill, as President Reagan so beautifully said, that we are a beacon of hope and that we are unapologetic here. We are not perfect as a nation. But together, we represent a perfect ideal. And that is democracy and tolerance and freedom and equal rights. Those things that we stand for that can be put to good use as a force for good in this world.
• We have got to win the wars. We have got to get our economy back on track. We have got to not allow the greed and corruption on Wall Street anymore.
• And we have not got to allow the partisanship that has really been entrenched in Washington, D.C., no matter who's been in charge. When the Republicans were in charge, I didn't see a lot of progress there, either. When the Democrats, either, though, this last go- around for the last two years.
• Change is coming. And John McCain is the leader of that reform.
• You do what I did as governor, and you appoint people regardless of party affiliation, Democrats, independents, Republicans. You -- you walk the walk; you don't just talk the talk.
• And even in my own family, it's a very diverse family. And we have folks of all political persuasion in there, also, so I've grown up just knowing that, you know, at the end of the day, as long as we're all working together for the greater good, it's going to be OK.
• But the policies and the proposals have got to speak for themselves, also. And, again, voters on November 4th are going to have that choice to either support a ticket that supports policies that create jobs.
• You do that by lowering taxes on American workers and on our businesses. And you build up infrastructure, and you rein in government spending, and you make our -- our nation energy independent.
• Or you support a ticket that supports policies that will kill jobs by increasing taxes. And that's what the track record shows, is a desire to increase taxes, increase spending, a trillion-dollar spending proposal that's on the table. That's going to hurt our country, and saying no to energy independence. Clear choices on November 4th.
• I want to assure you that John McCain and I, we're going to fight for America. We're going to fight for the middle-class, average, everyday American family like mine.
• I've been there. I know what the hurts are. I know what the challenges are. And, thank God, I know what the joys are, too, of living in America. We are so blessed. And I've always been proud to be an American. And so has John McCain.
• We have to fight for our freedoms, also, economic and our national security freedoms.
• It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.
• We will fight for it, and there is only one man in this race who has really ever fought for you, and that's Senator John McCain.

Now, I do have some concerns, ones which pale in comparison to Obama-Biden, but concerns still.

A two-state solution is the solution. And Secretary Rice, having recently met with leaders on one side or the other there, also, still in these waning days of the Bush administration, trying to forge that peace, and that needs to be done, and that will be top of an agenda item, also, under a McCain-Palin administration.

Israel is our strongest and best ally in the Middle East. We have got to assure them that we will never allow a second Holocaust, despite, again, warnings from Iran and any other country that would seek to destroy Israel, that that is what they would like to see.

We will support Israel. A two-state solution, building our embassy, also, in Jerusalem, those things that we look forward to being able to accomplish, with this peace-seeking nation, and they have a track record of being able to forge these peace agreements.

They succeeded with Jordan. They succeeded with Egypt. I'm sure that we're going to see more success there, also.

It's got to be a commitment of the United States of America, though. And I can promise you, in a McCain-Palin administration, that commitment is there to work with our friends in Israel.

Our "friends in Israel" are those that know that negotiating with a terrorist in a suit is no different than negotiating with a terrorist in a keifiah. This 'two state solution' talk and wink and nod to Condi Rice does not make me happy. And while this is a debate and Sen. McCain is officially on record supporting a 'two state solution', this talk must be measured against the remarks Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin have previously made concerning the so-called 'peace process'. And this logic goes back to the APRPEH post which examined the two Presidential candidates and their opinions of why they believe Israel is important and why McCain discussing 'two states' and Obama discussing 'two states' is a very different thing. The short version is that Sen. McCain and President Bush justify their support for Israel because it is the morally right thing to do, and religiously correct thing to do. For Obama its about expediency http://aprpeh.blogspot.com/2008/05/mccain-redeemed-rubin-exposed-obama.html McCain Redeemed, Rubin Exposed, Obama Still the Favorite of Terrorists and http://aprpeh.blogspot.com/2008/05/two-campaigns-two-candidates-one-israel.html  Two Campaigns, Two Candidates, One Israel

More debate coverage links below:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWY5NTRkYjFlZWIwZDBlNWRiMzhjZTQyY2Y0MDZlMWQ= Palin’s Triumph editors-NRO

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10032008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_veep_debate__shes_back__131933.htm 
THE VEEP DEBATE: SHE'S BACK! Rich Lowry-NY Post

http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=2150  transcript and video link here

Figures - President Bush denies House GOP special session.

I doubt this will have any affect on the House GOP leaders who are continuing their efforts this week from the House floor, but it is somewhat disheartening. The White House claims that there is no point in calling Congress back into session for a bill that the Democrats won't allow an up-down vote on.

The White House is wrong.

The point would be to force televised debate on an issue and shine a light on Pelosi's roadblocking. The point would be to support conservatives in Congress when they need it most. The point would be to align this White House with conservatives and give a badly needed boost to sagging conservative confidence in the Republican Party. The point would be to gain momentum for drilling - just serious discussion about drilling has made oil prices drop slightly, putting us on the road to easing the deathgrip high gas prices have on the nation's economy.

We're fooling ourselves if we don't believe that gas prices have been one of the primary causes for economic worry. And as we enter hurricane season in full force, with tropical storms already aiming dead-on at platforms and refineries in the Gulf, we need to do everything possible to give relief before the worst befalls us once again.

Incidentally, John McCain supports bringing Congress back into session.

While the Associated Press spends their days worrying about how much they should charge bloggers for the privilege of quoting their articles (Note to AP, bloggers should charge you for providing traffic to your website), they have curiously missed what would otherwise be considered a very newsworthy story. On Monday, President Bush announced the withdrawal of 30,000 troops by July.

U.S. President George Bush on Monday announced the withdrawal of 30,000 troops by July, highlighting that any further withdrawal of the troops will depend on the security conditions in the country.

This came during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London.

The U.S. president linked any further withdrawal of U.S. forces with the improvement of Iraqi forces’ capabilities and their abilities to bear more responsibilities, as well as the economic improvement and more progress regarding political reconciliation.

“This strategy aims at handing Iraqis more responsibilities,” Bush said.
For his part, Brown denied any impact of the political argument on his government’s stance.

“There is a work to do in Iraq and we will continue our work,” Brown added, stressing that he would not outline any time table for British forces withdrawal.

The media silence on this story is deafening as I had to go all the way to an Iraqi news source to find the story (via GatewayPundit). The silence however was predictable as many media outlets were anticipating a withdrawal of troops due to failure in Iraq, yet the reason for the reduction in troops is actually due to their success. In fact the media coverage of Iraq has declined 92% from the same time last year, indicating that the more progress is made, the less the media consider it an issue.

If John McCain expects to contend in this election it is imperative he remind the American people of these successes. He should be reminding Americans every week of the progress being made in Iraq, and the Congressionally set benchmarks which have already been met.

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A recently released Senate Select Intelligence Committee report has accused President Bush and Vice President Cheney of knowingly making untrue statements leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

“Before taking the country to war, this administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” said committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D- W. Va.

Among the reports conclusions:

• Claims by President Bush that Iraq and al Qaida had a partnership “were not substantiated by the intelligence.”
• The president and vice president misrepresented what was known about Iraq’s chemical weapons capabilities.
• Rumsfeld misrepresented what the intelligence community knew when he said Iraq’s weapons productions facilities were buried deeply underground.
• Cheney’s claim that the intelligence community had confirmed that lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 was not true.

Curiously, although the report does mention Iraq’s chemical weapons capabilities, it does not appear to say anything with regard to their nuclear capabilities which were of much more concern. I can only assume that Rockefeller left this out of the report to avoid having to answer for his own comments made on October 10, 2002:

“There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years … We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.”

It is true what they say that hindsight is always 20/20, but I believe if Senator Rockefeller wishes to condemn the Bush administration for making statements that were not supported by intelligence, he must also explain why he chose the words “unmistakable evidence” although there clearly was not.

Ed Morrissey has more on the claims laid out by the committee, most notably on the meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001.

The last claim comes from Czech intelligence, which they have repeatedly defended. The 9/11 Commission reported concluded that it was unlikely, given the pattern of use from Atta’s cell phone, but (a) no one can put Atta in the US outside of that data, and (b) it ignores the possibility that Atta loaned his phone to an associate while he traveled abroad. With the Czechs standing behind that intelligence before and during the war, it’s nothing more than a political cheap shot to call it a “deception”.

The article he references had this to say:

The CIA is convinced that Atta’s terrorist group must have been led by professionals from an intelligence service, perhaps Iraq’s. U.S. experts believe that during the two aforementioned Prague visits, the execution of the terrorist action was to be confirmed. Atta was to visit Prague a third time in April 2001. The Czech secret service received from one of its informers a warning that Al-Ani, the Iraqi consul, was to meet with a “distinguished Arab student” from Hamburg—this is information that up until now was top secret. BIS monitored the meeting: The men met in a Prague restaurant on the evening of April 8. To this day, it remains unclear whether this “Hamburg student” was Atta. Yet again, three days after that meeting, $100,000 arrived in Atta’s Florida account.

Responding to the conclusion of this report that “Claims by President Bush that Iraq and al Qaida had a partnership “were not substantiated by the intelligence”, Captain Ed reminds us of a Pentagon report release just 3 months ago the Senate Committee must have overlooked. The New York Sun wrote about the report:

A Pentagon review of about 600,000 documents captured in the Iraq war attests to Saddam Hussein’s willingness to use terrorism to target Americans and work closely with jihadist organizations throughout the Middle East

The report, released this week by the Institute for Defense Analyses, says it found no “smoking gun” linking Iraq operationally to Al Qaeda. But it does say Saddam collaborated with known Al Qaeda affiliates and a wider constellation of Islamist terror groups.

The report concludes that Saddam until the final months of his regime was willing to attack America. Its conclusion asks “Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against the United States?” It goes on, “Judging from Saddam’s statements before the 1991 Gulf War with the United States, the answer is yes.”

It is also important to remember that it was not Bush or Cheney who first made the connection of Al Qaeda and Iraq. As early as 1998 the Clinton administration was making those same assertions:

The Clinton administration talked about firm evidence linking Saddam Hussein’s regime to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network years before President Bush made the same statements.

In fact, during President Clinton’s eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton’s defense secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.

While it is true that intelligence was flawed leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the intelligence appears to be less flawed than this Senate report.

 I personally believe while there is lots of competition, Bush's hiring of  Scott McClellan as press secretary will go down as his worst blunder as President.