The Russians Never Change, US Presidents Do.

Anyone who follows this blog knows of my contempt for the way in which George W. Bush has diminished our country. Some presidencies have elevated the respect and power of America. I challenge anyone to identify a President that has done more to weaken the Great United States of America through sheer incompetence and dereliction of duty the George Bush, the lessor.

This article caught my attention and reminded me of a time the Russians tried to choke the Berliners from fuel in the winter of 1948. President Harry Truman was in a re-election campaign, presented with his lowest approval rating and the threat of World War III with the Soviet Union over a developing situation in Berlin. It started in the previous summer when The Soviets then cut all surface traffic to West Berlin on June 27.

American ambassador to Britain, John Winnant, stated the accepted Western view when he said that he believed "that the right to be in Berlin carried with it the right of access." The Soviets, however, did not agree. Shipments by rail and the autobahn came to a halt. A desperate Berlin, faced with starvation and in need of vital supplies, looked to the West for help.

The order to begin supplying West Berlin by air was approved later by U.S. General Lucius Clay on June 27. President Truman, wishing to avoid war or a humiliating retreat, supported the air campaign, against many advisors wishes.

Surviving a normally harsh German winter, the airlift carried over two million tons of supplies in 270,000 flights. C47s were used to carry coal.

The blockade of Berlin was finally lifted by the Soviets on May 12, 1949. Berlin became a symbol of the United States resolve to stand up to the Soviet threat without being forced into a direct conflict.

Does anyone believe that the Russians take George W. Bush seriously enough and that he could achieve anything of the same magnitude?

_____________________________
Russia prepares to halt gas supplies to Ukraine
Wed Dec 31, 2008 10:10pm GMT

By Vladimir Soldatkin and Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW/KIEV, Jan 1 (Reuters) -

Russia was preparing to turn off gas deliveries to neighbouring Ukraine on Thursday, raising the spectre of disruptions to European Union supplies.

European states are anxious to avoid a repeat of what happened in January 2006 when, during a similar row, Moscow cut off supplies to Ukraine, causing a brief fall in gas supplies passing through Ukraine on the way to the rest of Europe.

Moscow says it will honour its contracts to supply European customers with gas, and these have enough reserves to manage without Russian supplies for days, but not weeks.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko also gave assurances to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso that there would be no disruptions to supplies to the EU, the European Commission said in a brief statement.

Pipelines that cross Ukraine carry about one-fifth of the EU's gas needs. A new cut-off could tarnish Russia's reputation as a reliable energy supplier and further undermine Ukraine's crisis-battered economy.

Love Does Not Conquer all in Washington.

Young George Bush, the inarticulate, with mom and dad.

Tuesday's debacle was some 8 years in the making. Or more.

American Thinker

Consider: Eight years ago, George Bush rode into town from Texas with one thing on his mind: bringing a "new tone to Washington." He was going to use his Texas charm and drawl to end all of the partisan bickering. This was a tad dispiriting to t some of us who had supported him frankly. We were thinking more along the lines of some partisan victories in congress to roll back some liberalism. Actually, only Bush wanted a new tone. Neither his supporters nor his opponents had even the vaguest interest in it, dooming it from the start.

(What does this have to do with McCain v. Obama? Everything. Stick with me.)

Nontheless, with the new tone, its architect Karl Rove was going to fashion a "permanent Republican majority" governing coalition. We're not sure what this new permanent coalition was going to accomplish exactly, since the operational foundation of the new tone turned out to be giving in on your principles so as to be universally loved. Nontheless, Bush and Rove were confident it would work. To ensure it, they were quick to "reach across the aisle" to let ultra-liberals like Ted Kennedy and John Edwards from time to time.

Well damned if Bush didn't pull it off after all, in a Bizzaro-world fashion. There is indeed a new governing coalition in Washington as of Wednesday, and they are determined to make it permanent. They have the numbers to give it a good shot, too. And that new tone? That is the clanking of widespread hatred of a President who was, above all else, determined to be loved. There is little partisan bickering on this issue, since his approval ratings prove most are in agreement on his performance. This is sad and unjust, since his tax cuts, the Surge and the war on terror are all vitally important successes.

Even last night, this new tone President who was almost nowhere to be found during the entire campaign, could peer out his window at the White House and see how well his eight year capitulation had worked. He had not thrown a single elbow in this entire election cycle, yet the hatred was running thick. This was a classic “in your face” demonstration against Bush. Forget the vapor in Chicago, there was red meat in D.C. These folks have no idea that his terror policies perhaps saved some of their lives.

The man from Texas is profoundly hated by the left. But that is not the point. The man from Texas is not hated alone.. The left has projected their hatred of him onto us. His refusal to fight back for his principals was not the personal individual "falling on the sword" that he has convinced himself it was. When he refused to fight, he let us all down.

The result has been a directionless party with no effective titular head. Too much liberalism crept into policy and caused problems. Those problems, with a new tone leader not willing to point fingers, got laid right at the undeserving doorstep of the Bush Administration. That is our doorstep too, however, and Bush never seemed to understand this.

(We are getting to McCain v Obama, I promise)

Remember that the attacks of 9-11 were dreamed up, planned, staffed, financed, practiced and set into motion during the Clinton Administration, but it was deemed to have "happened on Bush's watch." Hurricane Katrina exposed decades of corrupt and inefficient Democrat control of New Orleans, but Bush (and by extension, all Republicans) took the blame. Thirty years of liberal energy policy came crashing down on us this year with four dollar gas, yet Bush, Big Oil and free enterprise took the hit. Two decades of liberal political correctness, fraud and crony capitalism in the form of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed and took an over-leveraged economy with it. Again, Bush and free enterprise took the fall even though Bush actively fought the bad energy and lending policies. Interestingly McCain was at times quick to help this negative inertia with his public "straight talk."

Conversely, the Bush tax cuts have done a great job of undergirding the economy for nearly eight years and bringing us out of the tech bubble and 9-11. Bush and conservatism, however, received no credit for this. There had not been another terror attack on this nation since 9-11 -- an amazing feat no one thought possible -- yet Bush and his hawkish efforts were not recognized as the reasons for this success.

You see, all the new tone did was ensure that Bush received no credit when he deserved it, and he deserved it often. Yet, he often took all the blame when he did not deserve it. This led to a candidate like John McCain for the 2008 race.

Bush lavished his "a new tone" on the Republican left, supporting moderates in their primaries against upstart conservatives. But they would never return the favor when they got to Washington. Led by maverick John McCain, this wing of the party worked against Bush on almost every major legislative initiative. Some even say McCain took great satisfaction bashing Bush in the press, in retaliation for the 2000 primary season.

The result has been almost a total lack of conservative leadership anywhere. On the few occasions when Bush actually tried to practice conservatism, McCain and various permutations of the "gang of 14" were always there to torpedo the efforts. Meanwhile, the inarticulate Bush would often trot out some lightweight like Scott McClellan to occupy the bully pulpit, at least until the too-brief tenure of Tony Snow. There was no message, no leadership, no cohesion. There was, however, a 25% approval rating. Thus, when McCain emerged from the primary pack as the pundits' candidate of choice for the GOP, a run against Bush himself was the natural inclination.

This amounts to one of the great political ironies of all time, since in practice there is not that much difference between Bush's "new tone" and McCain's incessant need to "reach across the aisle." You can make the case that Bush's low approval numbers were to a degree the natural result of McCain's Bush-bashing plus Bush's new tone refusal to state his own case.

As we know, McCain made his willingness to work with Democrats a centerpiece of his campaign. He made a big issue of numerous pieces of legislation where he did so, and some of them are unmitigated disasters, chief among them is Campaign Finance Reform, which was going to take the money out of politics. Perhaps that did not go exactly as planned.

And neither did the flawed notion that McCain would swoop into the White House on this great wave of bi-partisan fever on the part of "independents." This is one of the great tea leaf misreads of all time. In my view, there is no great clamor for bi-partisanship, there is only the conceit that there is such a clamour. Surely, if such a public hunger existed, McCain would have won by double digits. He did not. He did not even win the moderates themselves. He lost them by 21 points. He also lost notable moderates like Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel and Lincoln Chaffee.

Reagan, on the other hand, carried the independents by convincing them he was right, not that he was one of them. Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America Congress won them by exposing the liberal Democrats as the corrupt political animals they were. There was no reaching across any aisle or any new tone with those successes. There was simply unabashed constitutional conservatism, proclaimed boldly and repeatedly (and at times with humor), and it resonated. You might even call it partisan.

Conversely, McCain would rarely mention conservatism or Reagan without quickly reminding us of times when he fought against them. Well no wonder it didn't sell. The salesman doesn't even like it!

Conservatism did not lose last night, as it was not on the ballot. The big winner was ignorance and the biggest loser was the Bush-Rove-McCain brand of watered down Republicanism. Yes, the Bush-Rove-McCain brand. They gave us each other. Much as the two men cannot stand each other, they are ironically much the same. And the result is indeed a new tone in Washington, and it is a scary dreary leftist tone.

We will never beat it back until the watered down bi-partisans are flushed from the system. Thomas Jefferson loved partisanship. Hugo Chavez does not. That should tell us all we need to know about this flawed path our party has been on for many years. Tuesday, our aisle reaching chickens came home to roost.

The Bush Legacy: Obama-Pelosi-Reid

October 28, 2008
Obama's First 100 Days
By Patrick Buchanan

Undeniably, a powerful tide is running for the Democratic Party, with one week left to Election Day.

Bush's approval rating is 27 percent, just above Richard Nixon's Watergate nadir and almost down to Carter-Truman lows. After each of those presidents reached their floors -- in 1952, 1974, 1980 -- the opposition party captured the White House.

Moreover, 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans think the nation is on the wrong course, and since mid-September, when McCain was still slightly ahead, the Dow has lost 4,000 points -- $5 trillion to $6 trillion in value.


Leading now by eight points in an average of national polls, Barack Obama has other advantages.

Not a single blue state is regarded as imperiled or even a toss-up, while Obama leads in six crucial red states: Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri and Colorado. Should McCain lose one of the six, he would have to win Pennsylvania to compensate for the lost electoral votes. But the latest Pennsylvania polls show Barack with a double-digit lead.

Lately moving into the toss-up category are Nevada, North Dakota, Montana and Indiana. All voted twice for George W. Bush.

Not only is Obama ahead in the state and national polls, he has more money, is running far more ads, has a superior organization on the ground, attracts larger crowds, and has greater enthusiasm and more media in camp. And new voter registrations heavily favor the Democrats.

Though Congress is regarded by Americans with a disdain bordering on disgust -- five of six Americans think it has done a poor job -- Democratic majorities are certain to grow. Indeed, with Democrats favored by 10 points over Republicans, Nancy Pelosi's majority could grow by 25 seats and Harry Reid could find himself with a filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators.

Democrats already have 49, plus two independents: Socialist Bernie Sanders and Independent Joe Lieberman. Their challengers are now ahead in New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon and Colorado, with a chance of picking up Georgia, Alaska, Kentucky and Mississippi.

We may be looking at a reverse of 1980, when Reagan won a 10-point victory over Jimmy Carter, and Republicans took the Senate and, working with Boll Weevil Democrats, effective control of the House.

With his tax cuts, defense buildup and rollback policy against the "Evil Empire," Reagan gave us some of the best years of our lives, culminating in America's epochal victory in the Cold War.

What does the triumvirate of Obama-Pelosi-Reid offer?

Rep. Barney Frank is calling for new tax hikes on the most successful and a 25 percent across-the-board slash in national defense. Sen. John Kerry is talking up new and massive federal spending, a la FDR's New Deal. Specifically, we can almost surely expect:

• Swift amnesty for 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens and a drive to make them citizens and register them, as in the Bill Clinton years. This will mean that Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona will soon move out of reach for GOP presidential candidates, as has California.
• Border security will go on the backburner, and America will have a virtual open border with a Mexico of 110 million.
• Taxes will be raised on the top 5 percent of wage-earners, who now carry 60 percent of the U.S. income tax burden, and tens of millions of checks will be sent out to the 40 percent of wage-earners who pay no federal income tax. Like the man said, redistribute the wealth, spread it around.
• Social Security taxes will be raised on the most successful among us, and capital gains taxes will be raised from 15 percent to 20 percent. The Bush tax cuts will be repealed, and death taxes reimposed.
• Two or three more liberal activists of the Ruth Bader Ginsberg-John Paul Stevens stripe will be named to the Supreme Court. U.S. district and appellate courts will be stacked with "progressives."
• Special protections for homosexuals will be written into all civil rights laws, and gays and lesbians in the military will be invited to come out of the closet. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dead.
• The homosexual marriages that state judges have forced California, Massachusetts and Connecticut to recognize, an Obama Congress or Obama court will require all 50 states to recognize.
• A "Freedom of Choice Act" nullifying all state restrictions on abortions will be enacted. America will become the most pro-abortion nation on earth.
• Affirmative action -- hiring and promotions based on race, sex and sexual orientation until specified quotas are reached -- will be rigorously enforced throughout the U.S. government and private sector.
• Universal health insurance will be enacted, covering legal and illegal immigrants, providing another powerful magnet for the world to come to America, if necessary by breaching her borders.
• A federal bailout of states and municipalities to keep state and local governments spending up could come in December or early next year.
• The first trillion-dollar deficit will be run in the first year of an Obama presidency. It will be the first of many.
  

Welcome to Obamaland!

I wonder how Obama came so far? Lest we forget.

ABOARD THE STRAIGHT TALK AIR — Sen. John McCain on Wednesday blasted President Bush for building a mountain of debt for future generations, failing to pay for expanding Medicare and abusing executive powers, leveling his strongest criticism to date of an administration whose unpopularity may be dragging the Republican Party to the brink of a massive electoral defeat.

"We just let things get completely out of hand," he said of his own party's rule in the past eight years.

In an interview with The Washington Times, Mr. McCain lashed out at a litany of Bush policies and issues that he said he would have handled differently as president, days after a poll showed that he began making up ground on Sen. Barack Obama since he emphatically sought to distance himself from Mr. Bush in the final debate.

more Washington Times

The problem is that Petraeus has not yet found his President Lincoln.

The War Was Right, the President Was Wrong
Looking back on the decision to go to Iraq.

Jonathan Rauch | October 19, 2007 Reason Magazine

Five years ago, Congress and President Bush made the most consequential and, as now seems more likely than not, unfortunate decision of this country's still young century. On October 16, 2002, Bush signed a resolution authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Should war supporters apologize?

Democrats certainly think so. In the five years since then, many of them have said "I told you so" -- many more, in fact, than told us so. In a recent paper, Gary C. Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California (San Diego), unearthed figures suggesting that some Democrats have edited their memories. Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 46 percent of them favored the war, according to an average of a dozen surveys. In 2006, only 21 percent of them said they had favored the war. Hmm. Do the math.

Those 25 percent of Democrats who were for the war until they had always been against it were probably not dissembling. They were just being human. "Memory is a self-justifying historian," says Carol Tavris, a social psychologist and a co-author (with Elliot Aronson) of the recent book Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. "Our memories are a better indication of what we believe and how we see ourselves today than of what actually happened."

I believe her, because I was not above a little memory repair myself. Recently, after a book review of mine appeared in The Washington Post, an angry reader wrote, "It will come as no surprise that Rauch was an advocate of invading Iraq." Who, me? I recalled myself as an agonized fence-sitter, more anti-anti-war than pro-war (an important distinction, you understand), maybe marginally in favor but more worried than convinced.

Just double-checking, I reread my columns from the period and promptly found one, from February 2004, in which I described myself as an, er, "advocate of the war." Gee. Imagine that.

So let me say for the record: I was wrong. Like most Americans, I have long since come to believe that the Iraq war was a strategic mistake -- with luck. (Without luck, it will be a strategic calamity.) But let me also say what I was wrong about.

In that February 2004 article, I called the war a "justified mistake." When a cop shoots a robber who has murdered in the past and who brandishes what looks like a gun, we blame the robber, not the cop -- even if it turns out that the robber was brandishing a toy or a cellphone. The robber was asking for it, and so was Saddam Hussein.

That answer, although still reasonable, no longer seems as convincing. Since 2004, it has become clearer that the Bush administration's prewar hype portrayed the intelligence on Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction as solider and starker than it really was. Not enough people, including people in the media, asked enough hard questions. I should have been more skeptical of the WMD hard sell. That was mistake No. 1.

Mistake No. 2 was forgetting the difference between experts and poseurs. Over the past few years, it has become clearer that the hazards of the U.S. occupation of Iraq were not unforeseeable. In fact, quite a few people foresaw them. And warned about them. And went unheeded. Partly that was because the Bush administration wasn't interested, but partly it was because a lot of us in the media gave a lot of ink and airtime to pontificators who had never been to Iraq, who had never fought in a war or served in an embassy or worked on a reconstruction team, and who did not know Iraq's language, culture, people, leaders, history, or region. Other than that, they were experts.

In 2002 and 2003, of course, there was no way of knowing which of countless forecasts and opinions would prove correct. The experts were divided; sometimes fresh-eyed amateurs see what jaded experts miss; the previous U.S. Iraq policy was no big success. All true. Still, the fact that so many of the war's sturdiest proponents were journalists and pundits -- in other words, hacks, like me -- should have rung more alarm bells. That was mistake No. 2.

Those, however, were small mistakes compared with the fundamental one. It was not, really, a mistake about the war at all. It was a mistake about the president.

Fool me twice, shame on me. In 1990, I was fooled once. In the prelude to the Persian Gulf War, I misjudged President George H.W. Bush. In those days, America's most resounding recent military triumphs had been against the Lilliputian forces of Panama and Grenada, against which weighed the 1975 defeat in Vietnam, the 1980 fiasco of Desert One (President Carter's failed hostage-rescue attempt in Iran), and the 1983 humiliation in Lebanon (where U.S. forces turned tail after losing more than 200 marines to a Hezbollah truck bomb). Saddam Hussein's forces looked formidable and well entrenched in 1990. The sandstorms looked forbidding. And President George H.W. Bush looked hapless. I opposed the war.

The U.S. military proved virtuosic, the Iraqi military proved worthless, the desert proved tractable, and, much the most important, the elder Bush proved dazzling. He marshaled an unprecedented coalition. He won decisively in hours. He quit while he was ahead. He even got other countries to pay. He should not have stood by as Saddam savagely put down postwar rebellions; but otherwise his performance was masterly, not least in its realism and restraint.

As I came to the 2002-2003 Iraq debate, I was determined not to make the same mistake twice. Another Bush was president, and the younger one looked as decisive as his father had once seemed dotty. This, after all, was the George W. Bush who had impressively rallied the nation and the world after September 11.

His foreign-policy team looked easily the equal of his father's, or anybody's. Vice President Cheney was the wise man of Washington and the elder Bush's successful Defense secretary. Secretary of State Colin Powell was the magisterial architect of the Gulf War. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was the man whose plan had worked like a charm in Afghanistan. If Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, was not the equal of her 1990 predecessor, Brent Scowcroft, she was no lightweight. Surely if any war Cabinet could inspire confidence, this was it.

Wrong again. Zero for two.

George W. Bush had more than his share of bad luck in Iraq. He bet that Saddam would have an active nuclear or at least biological-weapons program; that Iraq's social and physical infrastructure would be functional; that the war would be short. None of those bets was crazy, but he lost all three.

Still, a good gambler never bets more than he can afford to lose; he scrubs the odds with a sharp eye on the worst case; he hedges to give himself options. Above all, he keeps abreast of the game.

Bush placed too large a bet, padded the odds, and didn't hedge. Worst of all, he never caught up with the state of play. Again and again, he and his team were too slow in understanding and reacting to events, if they reacted at all. They were late to react to wholesale looting; late to understand the scale of the effort and to commit sufficient forces (arguably they still haven't); late to recognize they confronted an insurgency and to fight it with proven counterinsurgency tactics; late to recognize the emergence of a Shiite-Sunni civil war. Today, almost five years on, they are still behind the curve: As Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., plausibly argues, Bush clings to an insistence on a strong central government in Baghdad, despite that strategy's failure and signs that regionalism would work better.

Some optimists say that in Army Gen. David Petraeus, Bush has finally found his Gen. Grant. That may or may not be true, but it is beside the point. The problem is that Petraeus has not yet found his President Lincoln.

Judging presidents' wartime performance before the war starts is hard. No one could have known in 1860 that Lincoln, a lawyer and military novice, would develop into a commander-in-chief of genius. As lessons go, "Don't misjudge the president before committing to a war" is roughly as useful as "Buy low, sell high."

It does, however, provide some insight into the key mistake of five years ago. In February, asked for the umpteenth time to recant her war vote, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., for the umpteenth time refused. "The mistakes were made by the president," she said. In 2004, she said, "I do not regret giving the president authority.... What I regret is the way the president used the authority."

She had a fair point. She might have sharpened it by saying what I have come to say: I do not regret giving the president authority; I regret giving this president authority. I am sorry. I made a mistake five years ago. But not about the vote. About the leader.

Wondering Why Republicans are Having a Problem?

Crushing Leadership

Lou Dobbs says President Bush has diminished a great nation and may diminish it further.

Dobbs: Beware the lame duck

By Lou Dobbs
CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Diehard GOP faithful, the dwindling number of Bush loyalists and political pundits of every stripe and medium seem obsessed these days with defining or discerning the "legacy of George W. Bush."


Lou Dobbs says President Bush has diminished a great nation and may diminish it further.

Frankly, I spend more time worrying about whether or not the United States can survive the remaining 15 months of his ebbing presidency.

There is little mystery about what future historians will consider to be the legacy of the 43rd president of the United States. Those historians are certain to describe the first presidential administration of the 21st century with terms such as dissipation and perversion.

Bush campaigned for the Republican Party's nomination eight years ago, styling himself as a compassionate conservative. He's amply demonstrated that he is neither.

Although many conservatives refuse to accept the reality, George W. Bush is a one-world neo-liberal who drove budget and trade deficits to record heights while embracing faith-based economic policies that perversely require only blind allegiance to free markets and free trade, without regard for consequence.

This president pursues a war without demanding of his generals either success or victory and accepts the sacrifice of our brave young men and women in uniform while asking nothing of our people or the nation at a time of war.

Sadly, this president has diminished a great nation and may diminish it further.

President Bush has pressed hard for the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the first step toward a North American Union that will threaten our sovereignty. This administration has permitted American businesses to hire illegal aliens, encouraged the invasion of 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens and has given Mexico and corporate America dominion over our borders and our immigration policy.

Were it not for an outraged public, the Bush administration would have been happy to cede control of our ports to a Dubai government-owned company.

The assault on our national sovereignty continues: At a time when public approval of the White House and Congress is near historic lows, the president is urging the Senate to act favorably on our accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

One hundred fifty-five nations have ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty, which essentially codifies into law detailed rules about freedom of the seas and the extent of territorial waters. The treaty also establishes an international bureaucracy to regulate deep-sea mining.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently heard arguments on the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty, which President Ronald Reagan rejected but President Bill Clinton submitted to the Senate in 1994. A vote is likely in the weeks ahead, and this Democratic-controlled Senate is the same institution whose leadership sought passage of the disastrous comprehensive immigration overhaul legislation.

And just as this administration trotted out an Army general to support the Dubai Ports World fiasco and a Marine Corps general to support the administration's immigration proposal, it's now pressured the U.S. Navy to support this treaty.

Bush says the treaty "will secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain." The president could not be more wrong.

This treaty will submit the United States to international tribunals largely adverse to our interests, and the dispute resolution mechanisms are stacked against the United States. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, astutely argues that nearly all the signatories "have voted against the United States over half the time [at the United Nations]."

This administration can do nothing straightforwardly and perverts language at every turn. Take, for example, the words of Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arguing in support of the treaty. "As a non-party," he argues, "We are not currently in a position to maximize U.S. sovereign rights over the shelf in the Arctic or elsewhere."

Negroponte's tortured reasoning is entirely consistent with this administration's intellectual performance over almost two terms in office, but it serves neither the truth nor the national interest.

The Law of the Sea Treaty would undermine our national sovereignty and act as a back door for global environmental activists to direct U.S. policy.

It would hold the United States to yet another unaccountable international bureaucracy and constrain our national prerogatives. Aside from that, the treaty is wholly unnecessary. The U.S. Navy already enjoys international navigation rights by customary practice.

Our elected officials in both political parties and the national media should worry less about the legacy of this lame-duck president and far more about the future of a great nation and people debilitated by his ruinous leadership.

A Glimmer of Hope from The President. More Murder in Iraq.

A Murdered Man of Peace

We seem to have a situation in Iraq. It comes down to a situation of a return on investment. What can be the best outcome and how much will it cost? A reasonable prudent person would examine the anticipated expectations of the most likely outcome. Seeking the best scenario is not planning, it is dreaming. Dreams are good things, pursuing them at any cost is not. My dilemma with Iraq is a calculation that the most likely outcome will be far short of the President's dream.

The President, like most liberals, is an idealist. He really believes that Islam is a hijacked religion. He believes that eliminating the bad guys will create a new Aquarian Islamic Era. I do not. Nothing will change in the Islamic wars until the Muslims resolve it themselves. Mr. President, Islam is the problem. As Aquarians used to say, "Sorry about that."



Key ally: Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha was assassinated only ten days after President Bush praised him as an ally against terrorists The Daily Mail

U.S suffers fresh blow in Iraq after key ally is assassinated by terrorists
Last updated at 21:00pm on 13th September 2007

A US-backed Iraqi warlord who met President Bush just ten days ago was killed in a terrorist bombing.

The killing of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha is a fresh blow to U.S forces, as he was seen as a key ally in the fight against al-Qaida.

During a visit this month to Iraq, Bush hailed the courage of Abu Risha and others "who have made a decision to reject violence and murder in return for moderation and peace."


Abu Risha was blown up by a bomb, suspected to be planted by al-Qaida, near his home in the Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

He was the Sunni leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, also known as the Anbar Awakening - an alliance of clans backing the Iraqi government and U.S. forces.

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Bush leads the "Way forward"

George Bush took a bold step when he tripped into Iraq. Like a hapless tourist with Frodo’s Guide, the Bush Administration had a plan to rid Iraq of Saddam, hand the keys of democracy to a grateful nation and watch the dominoes of Syria, Iran and others fall. A quick plan, to be self-funded with Iraqi oil soon morphed into a desert mirage. American “know how” and “can do” melted down to a policy of staying the course. Mission creep crept to a crawl. Now someone else will have to clean up the mess. Bush does not have the time or an idea on how to do it. He does not even know what it is. Therein lies the problem.

911 was an attack on United States territory by a vicious psychopathic cult of Islamic fiends. It was sponsored by financiers from Saudi Arabia, tolerated by Pakistan and hatched in the shithole, Afghanistan, and the Islamic intellectual ghettos of Western Europe, by mainstream educated Muslims. Part of the incubation process was conducted by our own CIA in the arming and supporting of Islamic fanatics against the Soviet Union in Soviet occupied Afghanistan. Mistakes were made up to 911 and bigger mistakes were made thereafter.

Ramadan in the White House and the unholy horseshit of “The Religion of Peace” were top on the list. An honest appraisal, instead of wishful thinking would have clearly defined the enemy. That enemy was broad and bold. It would have been foolhardy to take it on in every place and unnecessary. It would have sufficed to go after the head and to have mercilessly destroyed Al-Qaeda wherever it was found. The Islamic world needed clarity about US resolve in the face of Islamic terror against the US. We missed the perfect opportunity to give it at Tora Bora.

No place, no time and no event called out for the use of a tactical nuclear weapon than at Tora Bora and then again in the non-cooperating tribal regions of Pakistan if needed. Cookies did not need baking in The White House. I am not calling for the use of nuclear weapons as a solution. I am saying that at that time and place, they would have been appropriate.

That opportunity has passed. The threat today is worse. The enemy is bolder and the US is weaker in political and military terms. The shocked and awed are renewed and emboldened. The Islamic Waffen-SS has suicide bombers in brigade numbers and we have a president with bad knees, political shin splints and a wheeze in his lungs.

The Islamic world is never going to change. With luck, it will cease to be Islamic. That will be there problem until they make it ours. The US has to do two things and fast. It needs to regroup and end the fool’s errand in Iraq. I honestly do not know how it is to be done, but it must be and very very soon. And it must be accompanied by a vicious demonstration of American resolve to destroy Islamic enemies when and where they appear. No boundaries, no asylum, no safe houses in cemeteries, holy places, mosques, nothing. Afghanistan or Iraq or Iran is fine with me. Other than that we leave them alone. They will soon get the message. The President however, and as always has his own changing ideas:


April 28, 2007
The White House Scales Back Talk of Iraq Progress

By DAVID E. SANGER, NYT
WASHINGTON, April 27 —

The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.

In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of President Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year.

That prospect would entail a dramatically longer commitment of frontline troops, patrolling the most dangerous neighborhoods of Baghdad, than the one envisioned in legislation that passed the House and Senate this week. That vote, largely symbolic because Democrats do not have the votes to override the promised presidential veto, set deadlines that would lead to the withdrawal of combat troops by the end of March 2008.

On Friday, during an appearance with Japan’s prime minister at Camp David, President Bush said that he would invite congressional leaders to the White House on Wednesday, immediately after his expected veto message, to talk about a “way forward.”

Several American officials who have spoken recently with Mr. Maliki say they believe that he would like to achieve the kind of political reconciliation that Mr. Bush outlined in January as the ultimate goal of the troop increase. But they say the Iraqi prime minister appears to have little ability to manage the required legislation, including bills requiring fair distribution of oil revenues among Iraq’s Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, and reversing the American-led de-Baathification that barred many Sunnis from participation in the new government...

The Vanishing Leadership of GWB.

Bill Clinton, when he was President, was everywhere. Troubled or not, shameless and audacious, Clinton was always present. George Bush, although not reduced in grade, has certainly been reduced in stature, and it shows. His recent pronouncements are weak, tepid and uninspiring. No more carrier deck bounces or even bounces in step. The President has succumbed to the stress, demands, and criticism of his leadership. It shows. His presidency is broken and perhaps, so is he.

It is dangerous for a leader to be such. Understandable, but still dangerous.