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January 25, 2009
The Mistakes of President Bush
While I think that on some big issues the former President Bush was correct, on many issues, Bush was wrong, or did things very poorly. I believe his tax cuts, especially for the very wealthy were pointless. His expansion of drug benefits added a huge and cumbersome element to the large Federal deficit. His effort to privatize social security was dead as soon as he proposed it and yet he wasted the first 8 months of his second term stupidly flogging this dead horse.
When it was clear in May of 2004 that Bush was going to push this social security reform in the face of massive opposition I told my spouse "I think it likely that Bush will accomplish nothing in domestic policy during his second term". I was nearly correct. Sad.
The biggest problem with the Bush presidency was his lack of engagement with the people who were attacking his administration and policies. Powerline has a very good assessment of the Bush presidency and its failures here. This is a quote from them:
Bush's great failing was that his focus was almost exclusively on policy, and he was unwilling to pay adequate attention to politics. This failing manifested itself repeatedly throughout his term in office. With hindsight, the beginning of the end for Bush was his unwillingness to defend himself when he was attacked for the "sixteen words" in his State of the Union address--words that were indisputably true. The same thing happened after Hurricane Katrina, the event that got his second term off on the wrong foot. In truth, the federal response to Katrina was both the largest and the fastest response to any natural disaster in world history. Yet Bush was never willing to stand up to his critics and make the case in his own defense.That tendency to turn the other cheek was, in the end, fatal. Bush never cared much about politics. He was almost contemptuous of political leadership, willing to engage in politics on a sustained basis only in his two successful election campaigns. But he was a politician, and the job of a politician, as President, is to use political skills to lead the American people. Bush's unwillingness or inability to do what it would take to be an effective political leader, in the end undid his administration.
It always amazed me how bloggers were capable of punching 10 foot holes in the arguments of the Bush haters - yet President Bush refused to actually use his Bully Pulpit to do the same. This really was a huge failure of political will on the President's part. The Vice President was out trying to convince people but Dick Cheney never had much traction with the public.
There are lots of problems with the Bush administration, he is hardly our worst president but there were many things he could have done better.
Posted by rakhier at 08:56 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2009
Iraq - 2009 - Bush was right
For years (really since mid-2002) I've been defending the Bush presidency and its foreign policy goals regarding Iraq. Six long years of argument and criticism from just about everyone I know. I remain defiant and unshaken in my analysis. (Here let me extend a grateful hand to Steven Den Beste for providing so much clear-headed analysis during the early months of this debate).
Bush was right.
Bush will be vindicated in history.
We had to respond to the 9/11 terror attacks. We had to strike at the very core of the Islamic world and convince them that attacks against the U.S. were the worst mistake they could ever make. For a myriad of reasons, Iraq was the best available target for a U.S. attack.
We won that war with just 2 and 1/2 divisions against an army that was five time larger. We destroyed Saddam's government and captured him and then set about the arduous task of rebuilding Iraq on totally new ground. We set about proving to the Islamic world that democracy was not incompatible for people just because they were Arabs, or because they were Moslem. We challenged Al Qaeda, not in some minor country like Afghanistan, but in the very heart of the Islamic world. They had to come and fight us there, Afghanistan they could flee from, Somalia they could leave any time but Iraq, no Iraq was a country that had to be fought for.
And they lost.
The effort of rebuilding Iraq is far from over but I believe we have won. Iraq may very well become what the Bush administration dreamed of: a stable, peaceful, prosperous and democratic country sitting right in the middle of the Islamic world. A constant, daily affront to the dictators in the Islamic world who always tell their people "you aren't ready to choose your government" or "Democracy is Unislamic". Bush tried to change the world and I think he has wrenched machinery of history from a terrible direction to a new and better pathway, better for them, better for all of us.
Things can still go badly. The future is unwritten and not always for the best. But as former President Bush flies home to Texas, I salute him for daring to do the hard, difficult, dangerous thing. And for standing up to the whole weight of opinion from the rest of the country and the rest of world who just wanted to let things stew in the Islamic world.
He was right. The Bush administration did the right thing. Iraq is a better country, and the world is better place thanks to the U.S. invasion and occupation in 2003.
To all the brave men and women who served in the U.S. Army and Marines and Air Force, I salute you. You fought under nearly impossible conditions and you won. Counter-insurgency is hard but our enemies were fools and our goals - peace and freedom for the Iraqi people - were noble.
Let me close with the immortal words of President Kennedy, spoken 48 years ago, and still true
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
To President George W. Bush, champion of liberty!
Posted by rakhier at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
An Historic Day
First American born outside the continental U.S. to become president. The first clearly mixed race American to become president. The first man my age to become president. Barack Obama (born just a few months after me) is clearly "of my generation". Many people have describe Obama as a post racial candidate and I think there is some truth to that. I think that many of us, growing up at that time of social ferment were determined to see race in a new way, at least in a new way for this country. As something that was incidental to our identity - not essential. An accident of birth that would (or should) play no role in defining who we were, who we wanted to be.
America is said to always be reinventing itself. We Americans believe in the real possibility of change, of improvement. Obama, growing up in Indonesia, then Hawaii, and later California, was clearly not willing to see himself defined by his racial background.
I didn't vote for Mr. Obama though I fully expected him to win my state and (by mid-September) the election. That said, I wish him the best of luck in his coming term of office. I hope that he can accomplish at least some of his goals and I hope that he can make some progress on fixing the very real problems this country faces.
I'm proud to be an American, and I'm happy and guardedly confident in the future under the Obama administration.
Posted by rakhier at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)