“Bush is a stubborn man,” columnist David Brooks wrote. “Well, without that stubbornness, that unwillingness to accept defeat on his watch, he never would have bucked the opposition to the surge.
“Bush is an outrageously self-confident man. Well, without that self-confidence, he never would have overruled his generals.
“The fact is that Bush, who made such bad calls early in the war, made a courageous and astute decision in 2006. More than a year on, the surge has produced large, if tenuous, gains. Violence is down sharply. Daily life has improved. The Iraqi military has been given time to become a more effective fighting force. The Iraqi government is showing signs of strength and even glimmers of impartiality. Iraq has moved from being a failed state to merely a fragile one, as Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations has put it.
“The whole episode is a reminder that history is a complicated thing. The traits that lead to disaster in certain circumstances are the very ones that come in handy in others.”
Democrats are trying hard to paint John McCain as a continuation of President Bush, or “McBush.†How fair is that? Here is an excerpt of a New York Times article on how McCain and Bush compare:
“A look at Mr. McCain’s 25-year record in the House and Senate, his 2008 campaign positions and his major speeches over the last three months indicates that on big-ticket issues — the economy, support for continuing the Iraq war, health care — his stances are indeed similar to Mr. Bush’s brand of conservatism. Mr. McCain’s positions are nearly identical to the president’s on abortion and the types of judges he says he would appoint to the courts.
“On the environment, American diplomacy and nuclear proliferation, Mr. McCain has strikingly different views from Mr. Bush, and while he shares the president’s goals in Iraq, he was at times an outspoken critic of the way the war was managed.
“. . . While it would be hard to categorize him as a doctrinaire Republican or conservative, Mr. McCain appears to have ceded some of his carefully cultivated reputation as a maverick.
“In a CBS News poll two weeks ago, 43 percent of registered voters said they believed he would continue Mr. Bush’s policies, and 21 percent said he would be more conservative in his policies than Mr. Bush. Twenty-eight percent said he would be less conservative than Mr. Bush.â€
Both President Bush and John McCain called this week for more offshore oil drilling, which they previously opposed. “If congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act,” Bush said.
The United States does need to expand its energy production, but don’t be fooled into believing this would significantly lower gasoline prices. The federal Energy Information Administration estimates only about 16 billion barrels of oil exist in the area covered by the offshore moratorium - a drop in the bucket of the world oil supply. Even drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Bush supports but McCain opposes, would have little impact on prices. According to the EIA, any benefits from drilling in ANWR wouldn’t be seen for five to 10 years and would amount to savings of only about 7 cents a gallon by 2027 if oil prices remain high.
Also, Bush is a bit disingenuous in blaming Democrats for the ban on offshore drilling. Though many Democrats have and do oppose the drilling, it was his father who issued a presidential executive order in 1990 banning coastal oil exploration, and Bush could rescind that order today if he chose to.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ leadership continues to stand out, especially in the context of the Bush administration. The Wichita native’s latest praise has come for his unprecedented decision to fire the Air Force secretary and chief of staff over, among other matters, last year’s flight of a B-52 carrying armed nuclear weapons from North Dakota to Louisiana. Last year, Gates rightly sacked the Army secretary over the conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Regarding the Air Force firings, the New York Times applauded “Gates’ quick and decisive action.” The Boston Globe said he’d earned his wings. The Dallas Morning News called him “Mr. Accountability,” declaring “this is the kind of leadership that the American people deserve.” Gates’ approach will be further tested as he prepares the Pentagon for the first change of presidents during wartime in 40 years.
Columnist Peggy Noonan came away from former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s book neither admiring nor liking him — which still leaves his number of defenders at zero — but believing him. “What matters is if it’s true. Let the debate on the issues commence,†Noonan wrote. “What’s needed now? More memoirs, more data, more information, more testimony. More serious books, like Doug Feith’s. More ‘this is what I saw’ and ‘this is what is true.’ Feed history.â€
Current and former Bush administration officials have their talking points down in responding to Scott McClellan’s new book. Actually, they have the talking word down: “puzzled.” It seems they are all “puzzled.”
“Of course, nobody’s really puzzled about anything,” Dana Milbank wrote for the Washington Post. “They’re peeved and perturbed. But they can’t admit that, so they have retreated to the practice — time-honored in the Bush White House — of discrediting your opponents by labeling their actions confusing and irrational.” McClellan shouldn’t be surprised. Milbank noted that McClellan regularly used the p-word when he was press secretary.
“I guess President Bush must think Defense Secretary Robert Gates is an appeaser of terrorists. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, too. And U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker,” wrote columnist Trudy Rubin. She noted that all three support having direct talks with Iran, as Barack Obama does. “What makes the president’s remarks even more hypocritical is the abject failure of his own Iran policy,” she wrote. “No one has strengthened Iran’s hand more in the Mideast region than George W. Bush.”
Rubin argued that John McCain is hypocritical, too. “There is no way Iraq can be stabilized and U.S. troops withdrawn safely without the cooperation of Tehran,” she wrote. “McCain is fooling himself and the public if he thinks he can avoid the issue of talks.”
FYI: In case you haven’t seen it, here is the video of “Hardball” host Chris Matthews trying to get talk-radio host Kevin James to explain what former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain did wrong.
Apparently today is the day to make extraordinarily optimistic predictions.
John McCain declared that by the end of his first term as president, the war in Iraq would be won, most U.S. troops would be home, Iraq would be a functioning democracy, Osama bin Laden would be captured, and the United States would have had several years of robust economic growth. Asked afterward if his outlook was a “magic carpet ride,” McCain responded: “I don’t think it has anything to do with fantasy. I think it has everything to do with setting goals and achieving.”
Meanwhile, President Bush, speaking today to the Israeli parliament, made even rosier projections for what the Middle East would be like in 60 years. He foresees “free and independent societies” across the region; that Iran and Syria “will be peaceful nations”; that al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas “will be defeated”; and that “overall, the Middle East will be characterized by a new period of integration and tolerance.”
President Bush took his last turn at the mike at a White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday, also conducting the Marine Band. Noting his daughter Jenna is getting married in two weeks, he said: “Please excuse me if I’m a little sleepy. At 3 a.m. this morning, the red phone rang. It was the damn wedding planner.”
Other highlights:
- “Sen. McCain is not here. He probably wanted to distance himself from me a little bit. You know, he’s not alone. Jenna is moving out, too. The two Democratic candidates aren’t here either. Sen. Clinton couldn’t get into the building because of sniper fire, and Sen. Obama is at church.”
- “It’s an interesting crowd. You know, just think: Pamela Anderson and Mitt Romney in the same room. Isn’t that one of the signs of the apocalypse?”
President Bush believes that history will support his decision to invade Iraq. But early reviews of his presidency by historians certainly aren’t favorable. For what it’s worth, an informal survey of 109 historians by the History News Network found that 98.2 percent of them considered Bush’s presidency a failure. What’s more, 61 percent of the historians ranked Bush as the worst U.S. president ever, while another 35 percent put him in the bottom fourth of presidents.
“In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism,†President Bush told Pope Benedict XVI this week. But as Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post noted, Bush’s presidency has been fraught with moral relativism. In addition to the pre-emptive war with Iraq, Bush defends torture by arguing that the ends justify the means.
It’s shameful that the United States has become, under the Bush administration, a country that tortures prisoners, we argue in today’s editorial.
This is a dark stain on our country’s honor and ideals.And it’s disturbing, although not surprising, to learn this week that top White House officials, from Vice President Dick Cheney on down, were deeply involved in shaping and approving a torture policy — including giving assent to specific harsh techniques such as waterboarding, according to Associated Press.Â
It’s great that President Bush will return to Greensburg to deliver the high school commencement address on May 4. The event should be a memorable experience for students and families on the one-year anniversary of the tornado that destroyed their town. Bush’s presence also will put Greensburg back in the national news, which should help its rebuilding efforts.
It may not have been George W. Bush’s supermarket-scanner moment, but it was remarkable: Near the end of Thursday’s news conference, the president reacted to a question about soaring pump prices with apparent cluelessness:
“Wait, what did you just say?†Bush interrupted. “You’re predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?â€
“A number of analysts are predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline,†responded CBS New Radio’s Peter Maer.
“Oh, yeah?†Bush said. “That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that.†(Never mind that the forecast had been all over the media in recent days and his press secretary had been questioned about it a week earlier.)
He added: “You just said the price of gasoline may be up to $4 a gallon — or some expert told you that. That creates a lot of uncertainty.†At least Bush recovered quickly, seizing the opportunity to call for his tax cuts to be made permanent and for more oil drilling.
Even the 27 percent of Americans who, according to a recent CBS News survey, approve of President Bush’s job performance should be concerned that millions of his administration’s e-mails are missing. The Presidential Records Act requires the White House to preserve its records, including e-mails. But testimony in a House hearing this week told of how, despite repeated warnings by technology experts and National Archives officials, the Bush administration installed a system for backing up e-mails that was “primitive†and had serious security flaws. Did it do so out of incompetence or to intentionally hide information? Unfortunately, that’s not an unreasonable question, given that former White House adviser Karl Rove and several other officials also used e-mail accounts at the Republican National Committee in an apparent attempt to circumvent record-keeping laws.
The meddling federal measure about needle-exchange programs is undead — the one once pushed by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, and declared dead last year. President Bush’s proposed 2009 budget revives the measure, which prohibits the District of Columbia from using its own money to fund such programs. It sticks the feds’ noses where it doesn’t belong and disregards the District’s alarming AIDS rate and the 210 proven needle-exchange programs in 36 states. “That Mr. Bush would do this in a budget that will take effect after he’s left Washington strikes us as gratuitous and shortsighted,†editorialized the Washington Post.
It was good to hear President Bush speak out forcefully this week against noose displays and lynching jokes that have been the subject of recent national controversies. “The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice,†he said. “Displaying one is not a harmless prank. ‘Lynching’ is not a word to be mentioned in jest.†He called such references and displays “deeply offensive†and out of place in America today.
They also reflect a gross ignorance of recent history.
Bush noted that not so long ago in this country, “Fathers were dragged from their homes in the dark of night before the eyes of their terrified children. Summary executions were held by torchlight in front of hateful crowds. In many cases, law enforcement officers responsible for protecting the victims were complicit in their deaths.â€
Asked on “Fox News Sunday†by host Chris Wallace about what he might write in a note to his successor, President Bush dictated: “Dear Republican President . . . . Occupying the White House is a huge honor. Savor every minute. Stay focused on your beliefs. Rely upon a higher power to help you through the day.â€
Nice sentiment, especially the “huge honor†part. But many historians would suggest that Bush’s focus on his beliefs — at all costs, and to the exclusion of evidence to the contrary — has been the root of his administration’s failings.
Bush told Wallace it’s too early to say how history will regard his presidency. (Who knows? Maybe it will look better in the rearview mirror.)
Bush also defended John McCain’s conservative credentials (while not endorsing him or Mike Huckabee). “I know his convictions,†Bush said. “I know the principles that drive him and no doubt in my mind that he is a true conservative.â€
Back in October 2004, President Bush touted an “ownership society†in which “more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, ‘Welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property.’†It sounded good.
But Naomi Klein argues that Bush’s attempt to turn working-class people into property and stock owners (and Republicans) was based on reckless economics. In 2002, she points out, Bush called on Fannie Mae and the private sector “to unlock millions of dollars, to make it available for the purchase of a home,†a direct encouragement of the subprime lending trend.
With 2 million Americans now facing foreclosure, the home ownership society looks like it was built on sand.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius did a fine job in delivering the Democratic response to the State of the Union address, in our view. But she got some bad reviews in the political blogosphere, especially peeving liberals looking to kick President Bush when he was down and on his way out the door.
The 23/6 blog, which is affiliated with the Huffington Post news hub, called her response lackluster and worse: “Bush’s parting speech was a perfect chance for the Democrats to hit back and provide a harsh but necessary criticism of the past seven years. Instead, they sent out Stepford Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, who in the spirit of bipartisanship urged the president to ‘join us’ and ‘get to work.’ Unfortunately, by then the president was already in his jammies and sound asleep.â€
For those who watched both the State of the Union address and the Democratic response, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius likely connected with more viewers than President Bush did. While Bush went through a list of issues he wants Congress to work on, several of which have no chance for progress before he leaves office, Sebelius appealed to a “new American majority†that is tired of leaders who ask nothing of us. Sebelius called for a focus on the common good and repeatedly urged everyone to “get to work.†Sebelius isn’t an exciting orator, but she did well this time.
Here’s the take of former Reagan and Bush I speechwriter Peggy Noonan on the GOP woes: “Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, ‘I’m here to tell you, if either of these two guys (John McCain or Mike Huckabee) get the nomination, it’s going to destroy the Republican Party. It’s going to change it forever, be the end of it!’
“This is absurd,†she wrote. “George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.
“Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.â€
Under a court-ordered disclosure, the Bush White House revealed this week that it destroyed e-mail backup tapes for a period of time before October 2003 — a possible violation of federal laws requiring preservation of presidential documents.
The revelation came amid a lawsuit by citizen groups trying to find out what happened to millions of allegedly missing White House e-mails.
Because of the recycling, “there may be no way to recover the missing e-mails from a period in which the U.S. decided to go to war with Iraq, White House officials leaked the identity of Valerie Plame and the Justice Department started a criminal investigation of the White House,†said Anne Weismann, a lawyer for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The most secretive administration in history is working hard to cover its tracks. What does the Bush team have to hide? Apparently a lot.
President Bush has received his lowest start-of-the-new-year approval rating – 32 percent. That’s a point lower than last January. He started his presidency with a 55 percent rating, then climbed to 83 percent in January 2002, then dropped below 50 percent starting in January 2006. Now, the Americans who strongly disapprove of Bush’s job performance outnumber those who strongly approve of it by a 3-1 majority.
Americans still don’t know much about George Bush’s wild and crazy days. The president said a bit more this week in an ABC News interview, explaining that he hasn’t had a drink since 1986 and, “I wasn’t a knee-walking drunk. It’s a difficult thing to do, which is to kick an addiction.â€
He said he’s a “better man†for having quit cold turkey.
“I doubt I’d be standing here if I hadn’t quit drinking whiskey, and beer and wine and all that,†he said.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
“Bush is a stubborn man,” columnist David Brooks wrote. “Well, without that stubbornness, that unwillingness to accept defeat on his watch, he never would have bucked the opposition to the surge.
