There's no way this guy can get re elected. It looks rosey now, but in 15 months, things could change. Has any american president ever been re elected after the economy was substantially worst off while he was in office? I doubt it. This re election talk is a pie in the sky pipe dream. His ratings will only get worst as the economy lingers and as the Iraqi rebuilding effort gets more and more drawn out.
more nonsense and word games. this one fails to describe why self-styled superiorty on the basis of "common sense" is any less snobbish than self-styled superiority on the basis of "being smarter."
The word "snob," which connotes a willingness to "snub," implies a rejection of all that is merely "common." While common sense is available to anyone with experience of the world, the intellectual and moral attainments of an elite typically have to be acquired - though education, particularly refined sensibilities, even through what used to be called "good breeding." The snob typically likes to show off his or her uncommon sense. It's not unusual in snobbish circles for the impracticality of one's insights to be taken as a virtue. There is nothing about Barone's statements that presumes that either self-perception is superior to the other, or even that there is any rigor or great validity to either on its own terms. He's merely speaking in general terms about the typical values and characteristics of broad constituencies as he observes them. Needless to say, there can be inverse snobbery, but Barone was writing, I believe, more to the common understandings of the various terms, hoping his readers might use common sense and a bit of intelligence in interpreting his statements.
I don't give Clinton credit for the economy, I don't give Reagan the credit for the fall of communism, etc. I do assign blame for Clinton lying, and if Bush lied about the WMD and terrorist connection, in order to push forth a war, I would blame him too. My point of parroting the article, was to show the nature of spin.
Now a good many arguments have been made accusing George W. Bush of being a pale aristocrat; a complacent, ill-governed man whose success was inherited. I leave that dreary question aside and say here just this; that when President Bush recently responded to a question about attacks on American troops in Iraq with the defiant goad, "bring 'em on," he was uttering as profoundly democratic a sentiment as has been uttered by a high official in recent memory. "Bring 'em on" is the foreign policy of an infuriated democracy; it embodies the feelings of ten million firemen and electricians and miners, especially firemen and electricians and miners who knew men that died on September 11; and George W. Bush's popularity rests on this embodiment. Naturally, the foreign policy oligarchy is appalled; because for it democracy is at best an annoyance, at worst a monster. The oligarchy likes to manage, cajole, maintain, occasionally adjust, but rarely disturb, the status quo; it is almost wholly dependent on the status quo, whereas democracy, once aroused, cares nothing for it. Likewise, the Democratic Party is genuinely horrified as well, for reasons which can be sufficiently suggested by asking how the Democrats can possibly secure the union vote when a Republican makes public statements of this nature. President Bush is popular with precisely the constituency that the Democrats claim to represent: the common man. And thus the democracy is happy; indeed it is grimly amused and even heartened. It hears, "bring 'em on," followed by a predictable round of hand-wringing and fatuous commentary, and it thinks, "He's one of us"; or at least, and perhaps equally appealing, "He's not one of them." And I think it is this naturally democratic camaraderie (and it is important to note that it is quite natural) conveyed by President Bush, which immunizes him to charges of aristocratic irresponsibility by his opponents. The charges are too discordant with reality. To believe that Mr. Bush is a foolish aristocrat, men have to almost believe that they themselves are foolish aristocrats; and if Mr. Bush is indeed irresponsible, which he may well be, it is far nearer to the truth to say that he is a foolish democrat. In any case, I confess that I feel some of this democratic sentiment myself: not because I want to see more American soldiers ambushed by barbarians, as the tone-deaf oligarchs seem to imagine Mr. Bush as saying, but because in some primeval recess of my male brain there is an idea of honor, and it includes smaller ideas about jeers and taunts and certainly about defiance. With greater sophistication, I also recognize that honor bulks very big on the human stage of the Arab world; and, casting my eye back toward that crematorium beneath the streets of New York of that dark autumn two years ago, I read "bring 'em on" to mean: "if the Arab street speaks only the language of blood and iron, then blood and iron it will have." I cannot simply switch off the primeval recess, no matter how many imbricated layers of "enlightenment" they have laid across my brain. Nor would I want to if I could, for Honor, like its relation Patriotism, unquestionably has its proper place. The above is certainly "justification" by giving into the lower impulses of our cave man history, but hardly a ringing endorsement of an evolved society striving for greater humanity. Bush appeals to the common man living in fear and needing to regain control after 9/11, a leader of a lynch mob mentality. Clinton appealed to the common man living with prosperity and thinking about expansion of wealth and freedom, a leader of a cocktail party. Both served the need of the common man in different historical times. The uncommon man on the other hand, is principled in his convictions on the basis of right and wrong during all times, expansive or contractive.
Gen Franks now says we could be in Iraq for another 4 years (gasp!). The economy and the Iraqi rebuilding effort will catch up with W. I don't think it matters who the Democrats put on the ticket. Why the Democrats aren't playing up the economy more is beyond me. The litany of statistics they could come out with is mind boggling. A few million jobs lost in the last few years. Massive govt deficits. Trillions of dollars wiped out in the stock market. The idea that Clinton should get blamed for the economy is silly. You could argue the Regan crash of '87 partially caused the early 90's recession. But that didn't let W senior get re elected. Does anyone truely believe that a few hundred in tax credits to each person will turn around a debt laden/savings poor/financially strapped economy?
hmmmm I think the best person that the democrats could come up with is Hillary Clinton. Now, this is not saying much. Martha Stewart would be a great VP for her.
A) Clinton was acquitted precisely because he did NOT commit "high crimes" while in office. B) First of all, Hillary Clinton is not "sitting in NY Senate"...She is a member of the United States Senate. But I know what you meant (which was not what you said). So, while it is clear your personal feelings are not favorable toward Hillary Clinton, even the majority of Republican Senators openly express their respect for her and the job she is doing as Senator from NY. If you are a hater of Bill Clinton, for having lied under oath, why would that make you a Hillary hater as well? If anyone was betrayed by Clinton's lies, Hillary was betrayed the most. Did you think Robert Kennedy was an ineffective NY Senator because he too was not a native New Yorker? (Yeah, I know, you weren't alive, but you can read about it). C) How do you know he is "upset"? Did he tell you this personally? Or did he tell someone you know? Where did you hear this? Peace Aphie, RS
From Best of the Web Today - July 10, 2003 By JAMES TARANTO Iran-Contra Redux Surely the nadir of Ronald Reagan's presidency came on Nov. 13, 1986. His party had lost its Senate majority nine days earlier, and now President Reagan was forced to admit that his administration had secretly sold arms to the mad mullahs who ran Iran--and whose attack on the American Embassy in Tehran was instrumental in Reagan's victory. Suddenly Reagan looked as ineffectual as his predecessor. This could have been a gold mine for the Democrats looking ahead to the 1988 election. But then a funny thing happened. On Nov. 25, the White House revealed that members of the administration had been involved in diverting money from the Iran arms sales to the contras, Nicaragua's anticommunist freedom-fighters. The president impaneled a commission to investigate, Attorney General Ed Meese requested the appointment of an independent counsel (who would be on the job until 1993), and Congress held heavily publicized hearings in the summer of 1987. The political fallout of all this was pretty much nil. Michael Dukakis tried to make Iran-contra an issue against Vice President Bush in the 1988 campaign, but Bush won 40 states and a majority of the popular votes--both feats that have not been duplicated since. Watergate brought down a president, Monicagate arguably brought down Bill Clinton's vice president, but Iran-contra didn't stop the elder George Bush from becoming the first sitting vice president since Martin Van Buren to be elected president. What went wrong for the Democrats? They made a strategic error in emphasizing the contra part of the scandal at the expense of the Iran part. Most Americans were indifferent to the Nicaraguan conflict, but the fashionable left--the same sort of people who are now supporting Howard Dean--romanticized the communist Sandinistas and were outraged at the Reagan administration's attempt to overthrow them. (The Nicaraguan people disagreed, turning out dictator Daniel Ortega when he held elections in 1989.) The Democrats thus fixated on the possibility that the Reagan administration had violated a pettifogging law called the Boland Amendment, which barred U.S. aid to the contras. America yawned. The Democrats might have been able to make some hay of Iran-contra if they'd resisted their pro-Sandinista urges and instead emphasized the Reagan administration's dealing with the ayatollahs. The Iranian regime was (and remains) a avowed enemy of America, and in 1986-88 memories were still fresh of the Jimmy Carter hostage humiliation. For normal Americans, going soft on Iran was a much worse sin than helping the anticommunist side in a war in far-off Central America. Democrats seem to be just as out of touch today. Rather than celebrate the overthrow of a tyrant and enemy of America, they are trying to discredit it by retrospectively niggling over the nuances of the argument for war. It's as if they were defense lawyers arguing an appeal on behalf of Saddam, trying to get him off on a technicality. The Washington Times quotes Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as explaining to a Senate committee yesterday: "The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder. We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light, through the prism of our experience on September 11." Rumsfeld is exactly right, and the Democrats will self-destruct unless they grasp the political ramifications of the national epiphany that was Sept. 11. The response that "Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11," though possibly accurate, is beside the point--the equivalent of arguing in 1942 that Germany had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. FDR and Truman knew who America's enemies were, but many of their heirs seem not to.
In my view, in their gut, too many Americans simply don't think 9/11 was all that bad! My suspicions started shortly after 9/11 in New York, the city hardest hit. Nobody said it with these exact words and melody, but what I distinctly heard from so many New Yorkers was: "Oh, it was awful. Brutal. Treacherous. Cruel. But, WOW, how ABOUT all that!" Breathtaking spectacle triumphed over dastardly deed. Strange! When Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany, did Poles say to each other: "Awful. Brutal. Treacherous. Cruel. But, WOW, did you see the speed of those German Tiger tanks? And how those Stuka dive bombers leveled off at not much more than treetop high?" When South Korea was invaded by North Korea, did South Koreans say to each other: "Awful. Brutal. Treacherous. Cruel. But, WOW, look how they cut through our pitiful defenses like a hot knife through butter!" Football may help explain this better. Imagine the quarterback faking a pass and, with the flair of a good stage magician, handing off to a running back, who darts through a gaping hole for 26 yards. Would the defensive players smile and say, "Man, he really faked us out of our jocks, didn't he"? No way. They'd frown and vow to go charging in and sack him for a 10-yard loss on the very next play. Grudging admiration of the atrocity suggests insufficient outrage on the part of the victim. Consider the complaints battering President Bush: "Where are the weapons of mass destruction?" "Where's the connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda?" "They're picking our troops off one by one and two by two." "Afghanistan is a mess." "We're making a hash out of building democracy in Iraq." "What exactly was the threat Saddam posed to the United States?" Even the great Arthur Schlesinger, no Republican, to be sure, but brilliant and usually well worth reading, comes across like a junior speechwriter for Howard Dean, kvetching about Bush "manipulating" America into war. Consider what all those lamentations have in common. They would all be reasonable. They would all be valid. I would have agreed with every one of them â PROVIDED THERE HAD NEVER BEEN A 9/11! If so many Americans amplified by so much media can perseverate endlessly on those issues AFTER 9/11, then I'm convinced we're not, in our gut, at "war." We're at "foreign policy." When a population is at war they coagulate together. When they're at foreign policy, it's business as usual for every opportunistic dart aimed at the administration. A radio talk host who invited me on his show to heckle me about my last column, which called for an American attitude similar to that of World War II, zeroed in on my line about having been raised on "Remember the Alamo!" "Remember the Maine!" and "Remember Pearl Harbor!" I asked in that screed, "When's the last time you were exhorted to 'Remember 9/11?' " "Our historians have done a pretty good job," he said, "discrediting any remembrance of the Alamo and the Maine. Those are bad examples." "Right you are," I said. "Let me give you some better ones. How about 'Remember Khobar Towers!' 'Remember the Cole!' 'Remember the East African embassies!' Have you heard much of that, before or since 9/11?" His guns fell silent. Things are NOT going as well as we planned, hoped or expected in Iraq. But things are blessedly and mercifully far from disastrous, too! During World War II when the Nazis stormed through Belgium, outflanking France's famous Maginot Line defenses and threatening to expose all of Britain's forces fighting Hitler on the continent of Europe to annihilation or capture, England's Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the British people (I hope you can imagine his accent!), "The news from France is verry baaaad tonight!" How could Churchill get away with that? Because the British people were united into one clenched fist. There weren't nine or 10 prime minister wannabes with blood in their breath saying to themselves: "Hot dog! Disaster! Now, how can I best use that disaster to further my campaign?" President Bush does not have that Churchill luxury. If Bush were to say "Look, my fellow Americans, we are experiencing difficulties in Iraq we did not anticipate," the ceiling would collapse upon his war effort, his re-election effort and his administration. And that's because 9/11 did not really GET to us the way Pearl Harbor did. An outstanding California Republican, Bruce Hershenson, said: "Too many people think 9/11 is past tense. 9/11 is NOT past tense. 9/11 is PRESENT tense." Bravo, Bruce! Where is the gut awareness that we are under attack by relentless and resourceful forces that hate us â just as we were in 1941? And as in 1941, we will survive only by removing from those killer forces everything they require for victory. In August 1942, American Navy ships shelled the Solomon Island of Guadalcanal and U.S. Marines stormed ashore, taking the almost-completed Japanese airfield and eventually the whole island. Nobody said or even DREAMED of saying: "Those Solomon Islanders didn't attack us at Pearl Harbor. Why are we bombing them and destroying their island?" And that's because, at that time, we accepted the message of Pearl Harbor in a way that we do NOT today accept the message of 9/11. We knew that the Japanese were building that airfield on Guadalcanal preparatory to an invasion of Australia. We were weak. The Japanese were strong. Unless we could wrest that airfield from them, they might successfully invade Australia before Gen. Douglas MacArthur could build enough of a force there for a comeback. The question was never "Did those pleasant Pacific Islanders aid our enemy in attacking us?" The only question was "Does Guadalcanal have what our enemy needs to destroy us?" The answer was yes. In we went. Conquer we did. War we won. Regarding Iraq today, we should ask NOT "Did Iraq help al-Qaeda pull off 9/11?" but rather, "Is Saddam our friend, a neutral or our foe?" (Saddam had more reason to be our enemy than Osama did. We ARMED Osama against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We destroyed Saddam's army after we chased it out of Kuwait in 1991.) We should ask NOT "Where are Saddam's weapons of mass destruction?" but rather, "Has Saddam over his career shown an appetite and aptitude for developing and USING weapons of mass destruction, or is he a conventional and small-arms man?" (Raise your hand if you remember Israeli planes destroying his NUCLEAR WEAPONS plant in 1981!) We ask NOT "Does Saddam threaten America?" but rather, "Will those who DO threaten America have a harder time of it with Saddam in power; or with a U. S./British-OCCUPIED Iraq?" Fires need oxygen. Terrorism needs STATES, actual countries with embassies and sanctuaries and training camps and supportive police and national treasuries with easy ATM codes and opportunity to phony-up whatever documents are necessary for their kill-Americans operations. We have already deprived terrorism of two nation states: Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran, whose freedom-starved youth are in the streets against the mullahs, may not be a haven for terrorism much longer. And when that blessed event happens, make sure our Afghanistan and Iraq policy gets its due credit. If you were little Syria right now, would you clench your little fist and say, "America can't intimidate ME?" Or would you more likely smile, clear your throat and seek out a new national hobby other than supporting world terror? So, you say Afghanistan's new chief hardly controls everything within the capital's city limits and nothing outside? And you say the situation with Iraq's water, electricity, etc., was better off under Saddam Hussein. You're correct. And I'm sorry about that and I hope it improves rapidly. But the overwhelmingly important point, though it hardly gets whispered, is that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is controlled any longer by forces eager and able to harm the United States of America. My first adventure with this argument against an American leftist was fascinating. When I proposed that Americans aren't really gut-wise embroiled in 9/11 in the way that Poles were against the Nazi invasion or that South Koreans were against the invasion from the north in June 1950, he suggested: "Well, when Poland and South Korea were invaded, that was kind of permanent. Nine-eleven was a hit that left us free and functioning and, therefore, wasn't really all that bad!" In other words, that gentleman assumes Osama bin Laden's word to his forces preparatory to 9/11 was "Let's hit America real good one more time, and then we'll go back to the mosque and stay there!" The hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center towers just before 9 a.m. on 9/11. Do you believe Osama bin Laden told his suicide killers: "Look. Try to book planes that will let you slam into the twin towers around 8:45 a.m. Americans work 9 to 5, so if we hit before 9 a.m. we'll kill about 3,000 Americans there, which is about what we have in mind. If we hit half an hour later, when everybody's at work; we may kill 50,000, and that's a bit much!" Who was the famous poet who said, "The flea, the lowly flea does not kill, but it does as much damage as it can arrange to do?" During World War II, a field hand on a farm in South Carolina got his draft notice. His boss asked, "Mose, are you ready to go?" "No, sir," answered Mose. "But I'm willing to go unready." I ask all of you who hate Bush, crave regime change here, despise militarism in general, lament everything military from shooting to saluting: "Are you ready to join America's war on terrorism?" I'd love â but do not expect â to hear the reply: "No. But I'm willing to join unready." Barry Farber ____________________________________________