The Decency of George W Bush

Michael Gerson - The Decency of George W. Bush - washingtonpost.com

I know of nothing that Bush has done to warrant the hatred that has been heaped upon him from the left, the right, and the MSM. One would hope that a president can have some individual control over a decision to have oral sex with an intern in the oval office. It seems less understandable how one would control all the intelligence of the whole world on WMDs turning out to be wrong and the plans and results for initial action in Iraq turned out to be ineffective. Every leader has suffered because those relied upon to do their job failed to do so. Having never led, Obama awaits the learning of this most basic lesson of leadership.

Certainly a left that cares little as to the cost of gaining power is to be expected to react with glee at any situation that can be turned against a Republican. At one time, parts of the MSM would have had the honor to show some sort of even handedness in order to maintain some semblance of being "unbiased", but a major event of the last 8 years is that the days of the MSM having any connection with the truth are likely gone forever.

The right is a little harder to understand, but I believe that when the going got tough (as it inevitably does when one is doing something real), the right wing decided "we would rather have Reagan". The realization that the loonies of the right could in their own way be every bit as looney as those on the left was one of my "major life lessons" of the last 8 years. Unsurprisingly, neither Reagan or his ghost returned, and now we have Obama. May the right wing be ever happy, the "lesson" is being taught!

Here are a couple good quotes from here, it is all worth reading. I find that I am ever the iconoclast--the more Bush is reviled, the greater my respect for him. My highlight below is perhaps one of the finest testaments to his deep Christian faith. My guess is that "deeper decency" is something we will see very little of the next four years.

For years, critics of the Iraq war asked the mocking question: "What
would victory look like?" If progress continues, it might look
something like what we've seen.


But that humanity is precisely what I will remember. I have seen
President Bush show more loyalty than he has been given, more
generosity than he has received. I have seen his buoyancy under the
weight of malice and his forgiveness of faithless friends. Again and
again, I have seen the natural tug of his pride swiftly overcome by a
deeper decency -- a decency that is privately engaging and publicly
consequential.

Before the Group of Eight summit in 2005, the White House
senior staff overwhelmingly opposed a new initiative to fight malaria
in Africa for reasons of cost and ideology -- a measure designed to
save hundreds of thousands of lives, mainly of children under 5. In the
crucial policy meeting, one person supported it: the president of the
United States, shutting off debate with a moral certitude that others
have criticized. I saw how this moral framework led him to an immediate
identification with the dying African child, the Chinese dissident, the
Sudanese former slave, the Burmese women's advocate. It is one reason I
will never be cynical about government -- or about President Bush.
For some, this image of Bush is so detached from their own
conception that it must be rejected. That is, perhaps, understandable.
But it means little to me. Because I have seen the decency of George W.
Bush.

The Emerging Republican Minority

Harold Meyerson - A Real Realignment - washingtonpost.com

The MSM tends to hide "the real story", but sometimes they let the truth leak. I suspect that 90%+ of the lower income wards of the lefty sheep pen would think that "Doctors, Lawyers and other evil professionals" are all "a bunch of nasty Republicans". Yes, during the 50's, that was the truth. No longer -- I've seen the numbers, while not as Democrat as blacks (93%), the numbers for proffessionals are in the mid 70's% Democrat. Here is a truthful quote from this fine article:

Six years ago, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira argued in their book "The Emerging Democratic Majority" that the political transformation of professionals -- among the most Republican of voting blocs during the Eisenhower era, and today among the most Democratic -- was a decisive factor in pushing the nation toward the Democratic Party, as was the steady Democratic drift of female voters.

As Meyerson crows here, the little people are on the run--and soon to be confined to America's "rural backwaters". Ah yes, a confident Democrat telling the truth of what they believe, a lot like BO and his "bitterly clinging" comments. The sheep rarely get exposed to such things though, and it seems that these days they are so lost that they don't even know their enemies from their friends.

Indeed, eight years after Karl Rove stormed into Washington proclaiming that he would create a 21st-century version of the Republican realignment that emerged from William McKinley's victory over William Jennings Bryan in 1896, today's emerging Republican minority looks confined to Bryan's base in America's rural backwaters. The future in American politics belongs to the party that can win a more racially diverse, better
educated, more metropolitan electorate. It belongs to Barack Obama's Democrats.

See, the Democrats actually ARE a party of elites looking at those "rural backwater voters" that are "bitterly clinging to guns and religion". That is what they REALLY think ... but of course since that might not get them elected, the MSM does all it can to minimize their real views.

Already, New Friends for BO

The Associated Press: Iran leader offers Obama landmark congratulations

Hey, "I'm A Dinner Jacket" (Ahmadinejad) has offered congrats to BO! First time since '79 that one of our new Presidents has received such an honor from the great state of Iran! Change!

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday
congratulated Barack Obama on his election win — the first time an
Iranian leader has offered such wishes to a U.S. president-elect since
the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

"Liberal" Attached to a Democrat is a Sham and a Shame

Lieberman may have day of reckoning with Democrats - CNN.com

How many times have you heard Democrats and the MSM decry "partisanship" and "ideology" in Republicans? Basically all the time. Is John McCain my favorite Republican? Certainly not -- I absolutely decry his supposed "bi-partisan" campaign finance reform, and it actually serves him right to have Obama be the first candidate since Watergate to opt out of public election financing in the general election and thus have completely unrestrained money raised and spent. McCain was outspent 5 to 1 or worse, and NOBODY knows where all the BO money came from or went -- nor will they ever. There isn't such a thing as a "principled Democrat" -- if there were, they would be a Republican. No principled person that talked about "excess money in politics" or "the need for campaign finance support" could stand by while BO made a mockery of every attempt to control excesses of campaign money from all sources that has been made in the last 30 years!! If anyone ever needed any more proof that "principled Democrat" was an oxymoron, this election provided it.

The picture of Lieberman and McCain embracing tells a story however. There are no more moderate Democrats (only LEFT Democrats) and very few actual Conservative Republicans. Bush Sr and Jr were both moderate Republicans, and McCain is even more moderate. Lieberman WAS a moderate Democrat before they drummed him out of their party.

Here is a telling quote from the supposedly "new kind of cross the isle politician" BO camp:

During the speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, Lieberman
said, "Sen. Barack Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who I think
can do great things for our country in the years ahead, but, my
friends, eloquence is no substitute for a record, not in these tough
times for America."

After his speech, Obama adviser Robert Gibbs
said that "Joe Lieberman ought to be ashamed of himself for some of the
things he said tonight, not as a Democrat but as an American."

Let me get this straight. Democrats who have uttered any slur that comes to their mind about a Republican President or Vice President during war are OUTRAGED if anyone questions them in any way, but the Democrat nominee for VP in 2000 should be ashamed AS AN AMERICAN for claiming that a candidate for President ought to have some leadership experience? 

"Liberal" used to mean someone with the intellectual capacity to at least hold a couple opposing ideas in their head at the same time and still function without exploding. The left in this country is the farthest thing there is from intellectually "liberal". They can't stomach someone that believes that the highest job in the land might require some leadership experience. The other meaning of "liberal" is allowing INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM ... of thought, finance, speech, association and property. The current Democrat party wants to regulate political speech with the "Fairness Doctrine" and remove the indidual right to a secret ballot with union "card check". Those bills are FASCIST, and the farthest thing in the world from "liberal".

RhamBO

Power Line - No more Mr. Nice Guy?


So BO picks Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, a man "affectionately" referred to as "RahmBo". Extremely partisan, extremely profane. I love the description by Paul Begala (a Slick Willie hatchet man) of his style as "a cross between a hemorrhoid and a toothache".

Much like the Powerline guys, this isn't a surprise since I never bought the "new kind of politician" rhetoric anyway. BO plays old fashioned politics--"Just Win Baby"!!! The MSM of course is just very happy when his kind of politics wins, so it seems fine to them.

Happy Days, Hail BO!

It is fun to watch the media enjoy the Obama victory. I couldn't help but wonder if Colin Powell had ever run as a Republican and won, what kind of attitude would the MSM have had? I suspect it would have been a long way from the unadultrated joy they were able to feel today. They would have found it "ironic" that the first black elected was a Republican, although Lincoln and the Republican party risked it all to fight the Civil War and the Democrats presided over Jim Crow and all the lynching for 100 years. A KKK recruiter (Robert Byrd) still sits in the Senate today, however, to the MSM, it would be "ironic" if a black Republican had been the first elected!

The reality of a 400+ point Dow sell-off the day after the election was little reported. Perhaps investors didn't get the memo of how good BO is going to be for the economy?

I was glad to not hear of any conservatives thinking they would leave the country because he was elected, nor really very little in the way of ill will at all. A far cry from the attitude of a Paul Wellstone that refused to shake VP Dan Quayle's hand at a Washington function. I hope all conservatives are civil, and I expect them to generally be.

In the unlikely event that my little blog ever got famous, I'd give up the BO schtick over the President. The main reason I do it is a lot like Rush Limbaugh poking fun at how the MSM treats Republicans every day. "Dubya", "Ronnie Raygun", "Shrub", "F*** Bush", etc. BO would not want to be "BHO" since it is considered an "affront" to use his middle name. I wonder if Chief Justice Roberts will be able to say "Hussein" when he swears him in? Potentially he will have to change back to his real name "Barry Sottero" which he had for most of his childhood. Then he would be "BS", which may end up being more appropriate.

Why do conservatives tend to wish the new president well even though we suspect he will declare war on all that makes America exceptional? Simply because we are usually Christians first, Family people 2nd and Americans 3rd ... with a close 4th being some sort of profession or career that serves both our country and provides the finances so we can be responsible for ourselves and contributing members of society. Our fervent hope is that Obama and the Democrats will be successful in getting the economy growing again, even though every piece of evidence we see says that they will not be.

It is fun to watch the media. They are positively giddy. I remember so well '92 when they were beside themselves with the pure joy of a Clinton election and a Democrat majority in both houses of congress, but this is even better. I suspect it harkens back to '64 when LBJ whacked Goldwater.

How different from when I turned on NPR the morning after the '94 election and they were playing Johnny Cash ... I didn't really need to hear the results to know what happened! They were on the verge of tears -- and there was positive fear that the evil Newt Gingrich was to be Speaker of the House!

Gee, I wonder if the "sanctity of the fillibuster" might kind of change now? Remember how HORRIBLE it was that Republicans were talking about "the nuclear option" for appointments? I 'm sure the "unbiased" MSM will be 100% supportive of a Republican fillibuster now! Kind of like how big an issue campaign finance was this year. NOT!

Oh well, being in the opposition is kind of fun. Now Saint BO will need to actually deliver on some of his brilliance--that is often a bit harder than reading a teleprompter smoothly!

View From the Top

Took my Max up to the top of the big hill behind the house that lets me look over the whole city and thought a bit about 30 years ago on election day. My recollection is that I didn't vote, nor did I watch anything on TV. I'd voted for Carter in '76, but by 1978 it was already pretty obvious that he wasn't a good president and that the future of the US wasn't looking very bright under his policies. I still didn't care much about politics though, but I probably had picked up my first National Review and started to consider that maybe there were "other views" than the MSM, standard man in the street outlook.

So, 30 years later on a nice warm evening with a stiff breeze from the south I sat and looked back at city lights of which a large majority would not have existed in '78. The two years that followed '78 proved that Carter was a REALLY bad choice. Reagan was elected in '80, the direction of the country changed and we went through the longest and largest piece of growth in American history. It was a great time to have a career, get married and raise a family. I'm very thankful to Ronald Reagan.

In '33 the Dems took over big, the market tanked shortly and it never got back to it's '29 highs until '53. They similarly took over in '65, the last market peak in '66 was not exceeded until '83. So does anybody expect the Democrats to do better this time around? My guess is that most of the voters either don't know the history or don't care. I think a lot of folks have simply bought the MSM view that "Bush has been a disaster and we need change"--they weren't in any mood to look any deeper than that. I also suspect that a significant number of folks at least think that they are now "anti-business" or "anti-market". They apparently believe that America can somehow have "prosperity without productivity", or that we can somehow have productivity wihtout business, markets and profits. I believe they are horribly wrong, but we will get a chance to see if I learn something .

10 Reasons to Vote For McCain

David Frum: 10 reasons to vote for John McCain - Full Comment

Nice article, I suspect that in two years we will wish we had another shot at this vote. I loved his #1 reason, but the whole list is well thought.

1) John McCain is white, the son and grandson of admirals, married
to a wealthy heiress – and yet he has experienced degrees of suffering,
despair, and defeat that not one in a million of us can imagine. Barack
Obama wears a black skin and carries an exotic name. In the United
States, people of darker color have faced oppression and discrimination
for centuries. But in Barack Obama's own life, he has known nothing but
an easy and welcoming path to success since he was 18 years old.
Privileged John McCain has known more absolute degradation than any man
ever to contest the presidency. Obama was born in adversity, but he has
smoothly risen to a place where he is most comfortable with those for
whom things are most easy.

Thanking Bush

RealClearPolitics - Articles - An Election Day Note: Thanks, President Bush

Andy Brietbart gets my vote as the most courageous words for election day. Like Andy, I too still like Bush. I think Bush has honestly done what he thought was right to the best of his ability at every step, and I believe his ability is far superior to what the vast majority think it is. I have long argued that if Al Gore had been elected and by some miracle had done exactly what Bush has done, he would be viewed as a heroic and excellent President by the MSM. For one thing, they would have HAILED the perscription drug legislation as a hugely wonderful thing!

Nice Buck!

Once-in-a-lifetime shot - JSOnline

Goofball For President

Unfortunately, it is probably too late for you to change your mind by the time you see this.

Talk About Timely!

Palin didn't violate ethics law, 2nd probe finds - CNN.com

Golly, they completed the investigation the night BEFORE the election! How timely! I have to give them credit for not doing the day after the election. Now, we must remember, Democrats never do "dirty politics" -- Bush's DWI showed up the Friday before the 2K election, and just last week there was a lawsuit against Norm Coleman's wife in MN. Both were COMPLETELY UNRELATED to "Democrats or politics"! Now I'm not sure who "proved this" or how they did it, but it must be a fact since the MSM has never indicated that either had anything to do with politics or the Democrats, so I'm sure they didn't!!

A Positive Spin On the BO Presidency!

OBAMA 2012: HIS TRIUMPHS ABROAD - New York Post

It really needs to be read to be appreciated, but it does the heart of someone who listens to a lot of NPR good. I suspect that we will be able to listen to this kind of "insight" in ALL media in the next couple of years -- heck, they have a really good start already! 

Our relations with the Muslim world have rarely, if ever, been better.
The current $320 per barrel price of oil allows long-oppressed states
to develop themselves without the yoke of neo-colonialism or invasive
efforts to force democracy upon their populations. As UN Ambassador
Ayers noted, "We can state with pride that the US not only respects,
but embraces cultural differences."

All Saints Day Scare

Anne Rice comes to Jesus - CNN.com

One doesn't need to read this with much care to see how non-serious the journalist and reviewers see a noted vampire author turning Christian. The idea of "redemption" so goes against the popular culture; "You are what you are", the best you can do is "be authentic". How the random universe managed to somehow give each person this "are" is not explained, but randomness is very witty in in the popular view.

Christianity is not popular with the elite -- believers are fools, they don't "get it", and the secular intelligentsia in every age KNOW that THEY have "got it". The "it" of that age is always "the latest it"--so therefore it must be "best". Even though evolution for example says NOTHING at all about "perpetual improvement", and we well know that natural systems in which something that at least WE currently "explain" as "randomness" is at work are just as happy to kill as to cure. To the random system as a whole, even "survival" would only be "it happens to work as long as it works" kind of thing--a random universe has no "desire" or "bias" for there to be life at all, let alone our assumed individual "random self to be true to".

The idea that there are no guarantees whatsoever that "the latest knowledge is best" doesn't fit very well-the fact that we are "here now" seems like it OUGHT to mean that this is the best time we could have been here! The idea of any "discoverable transcendence" or even worse, the idea that lives could be changed by this "thing that doesn't exist" is especially scary to the vast secular world. I still argue that one of the core hatreds of Bush is that a late bloomer with a drinking problem could find Jesus, change, and become President. Right off, it hits most secular folks as "phony and simple minded". If such redemption is possible, wouldn't we have a better secular pill or procedure to pull it off without resorting to the messiness of God?

Maybe Ann Rice sought out Jesus because she "had hard times"--her husband died and she got diabetes. Well, maybe so--I suspect that even the most secular of reporters will note that all humans face the "hard times" of death. Some of us need something to make us realize that and some of us don't. Life is very short and death is very long, whatever the circumstances that help one realize that fact, it seems that it is worth giving some thought. You will be dead much longer than your career, marriage or how long you live in your current home. Probably you spent some time thinking about those decisions, some people never own a home, get married, or have a job, but I gaurantee you that death will not be avoided.

Arrogance and Inexperience

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Ego and Mouth

Thomas Sowell on what we are getting into.

Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by running any kind of enterprise-- whether economic or academic, or even just managing a sports team-- is likely at some point to be chastened by either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipate

The kind of self-righteous self-confidence that has become Obama's trademark is usually found in sophomores in Ivy League colleges-- very bright and articulate students, utterly untempered by experience in real world.

The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents.