Democratic Senators Re-Create Vietnam's Climate of Defeat Over Iraq

Daniel Henninger's editorial in last week's Wall Street Journal about America's creeping defeatist attitude struck me as very astute. I believe he's right. Having lived through Vietnam and the politically paralyzed aftermath, as far as foreign policy was concerned, we are now seeing the Democrats trying to channel the spirit of American failure and cowardice over Vietnam into today's current events.

It surely is corrosive. These Senate resolutions which are vying for support among the upper chamber, in order to attempt to manage the war, are, per another Journal editorial, simply unconstitutional. Congress does not seem to have the power to forbid the sending of the troops for which Bush has planned, but they probably can cut off funding.

It seems that now, only Joe Lieberman is being candid and sane about this, among both parties' Senators. He almost appears to be a throwback to Henry "Scoop" Jackson, the hawkish Democratic Senator from Washington state in the late 1960s. Lieberman understands the damage America will sustain internationally if it cuts and runs in Iraq. The terrorist Muslims will follow our troops "home" and make our home soil a battleground.

Perhaps the low point was when John Kerry, at the Davos Forum, declared that America is now an "international pariah."

As I wrote here, earlier this week, Kerry is among those Democrats who simply cannot tolerate a strong American President when he's not of their party. Since when has America looked to others to lead its foreign policy, or, better yet, look after and protect its interests abroad?

We can only hope that this Senatorial foot shuffling and blame casting will result in the Democrats being called to account for their pure negativism on foreign policy, in both the Senate and White House races, come 2008.

Bush, Reagan, FDR and The Change of Parties

As I have been listening these past few years to liberals bash the current President Bush, as they did Reagan, I have reflected on what it is about these two Presidents which inspires and arouses such rage on the left. I think what sets them apart from, say, Ford or Bush 41, is their principled stances and determination to use the legitimate power of their office as it was designed. In that, they are merely in the mold of FDR, Truman, and even, to some extent, Johnson.

When I was growing up, an saying that was fairly common went something like,

"Elect a Democratic President, and go to war."

Republican Senators of the 1960s were largely pacifists and isolationists. Much like their forbearers in the 1930s, in the face of FDR's steady move toward international engagement.

Which more or less prompted Ronald Reagan to note, when this former union president (SAG) switched parties to run for Governor of California and, then, President, as a Republican, that he was an FDR Democrat, but the party had moved away from FDR, while he, Reagan, had not abandoned the icon. And I think, now that this is perhaps a most important facet of Reagan, and Bush 43.

Reagan governed as he spoke. Like FDR, confidently, decisively, and some would say, imperiously and without concern for criticism. So does the current president Bush.

I now think that either one, Reagan or the younger George Bush, would be completely comfortable in the Democratic party of FDR. They espoused serious concern for basic citizen welfare, engagement in the world at large, and legitimate use of the presidential power to push for necessary international action. I think it's Scoop Jackson who is turning in his grave right now, not Frank Church.

No, today's Democrats are the neo-isolationist Republicans of yesteryear. The worm has turned.

That, I believe, is why Democrats now scream that Bush is wrong, or arrogant, or obstinate. To the point of planning various witch hunts and hoped-for impeachments for the next two years. Exercise of office is now seen to be questionable, ex post, if the other party decides they didn't like the results. Ironically, though, those Presidential behaviors are the hallmarks of their modern former-icon, FDR. Remember the NRA, court-packing, and the bank holiday? You think a modern Congress would not threaten impeachment over such actions today?

Of course, today's Democrats don't mention FDR or Truman much, anymore. Johnson has never been acknowledged for his style- only for the immense gravy train he started rolling with his "Great Society." No, today's Democrats hail, of course, Clinton. Carter was too milquetoast and, honestly, failed in Iran.

It leaves the left to decry anyone who would be a strong President, because they have been on the outside for 8 straight years, and 20 of 28 (Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush 43, Bush 43). I'm not sure living Democrats can even remember as far back as Johnson, let alone Truman and FDR.

From this perspective, it's easy to see why the liberal Democrats so hate Bush 43. They simply have no stomach for a President who is confident of his stand on foreign affairs, or economic policy, and says so. It seems that such self-confidence is out of favor with the Democratic Party brought up on Clinton's endless public "triangulations."

Biden's "Clean" Remarks on YouTube

Here are the links to the two Biden clips regarding his most recent racial slurs.

This link is to the actual slur.

This link is a news piece repeating Biden's remarks while trying to extricate himself from the first slur. Frankly, his 'explanation' sounds totally lame and two-faced to me. The original remarks drip with condescension and minority pandering.

Enjoy!

Are We All "Clean" Now, Joe?

Biden's recent remark on Baracka Obama Bin Baden's being young and 'clean' is the latest in what is already proving to be a Presidential season of stunningly hilarious proportions.

Mind you, Biden is an already-failed candidate from some years back. I believe that was the year he was discovered to be, and acknowledged being, a plagarist.

Now, the narrow-minded Senator from Delaware is trying his hand at racial slurs. This YouTube clip, here, captures Biden slurring Indians, 7-11 and Dunkin' Donuts. It's hysterical.

I found it while searching for the Obama clip. I have yet to locate the latter, but will post a link when I find it. I'm curious as to exactly what the context was.

As I mentioned with Chris Dodd, I don't really fully understand why Biden is doing this again. Doesn't he remember John Glenn nearly declaring personal bankruptcy over his campaign debts in either 1976 or 1980? This is expensive, serious stuff. How can Dodd and Biden possibly hope to compete financially with the likes of Giuliani, Clinton and McCain?

So, we have Hillary and Biden off on the wrong foot within weeks of beginning their campaigns. You just have to love American Presidential politics, don't you?

Hillary's New Criteria for Presidential Actions

I thought I'd heard it all, until I heard Hillary's latest demand.

She insists that President Bush must 'clean up his own mess' by January 19, 2009. No ifs, ands or buts.

In Hillary's view, it now seems, all programs, problems, initiatives which a sitting President undertakes must be completed by his exit date. No exceptions.

Of course, she's not counting her husband's unfinished dalliances with early terrorism in the Mideast. Nor his passing along a fractured intelligence-gathering establishment and an ignored military.

But, no matter. The future begins today! And Hillary says that all issues currently open in the Bush administration must be closed and resolved before his successor sets foot off the rostrum on that January afternoon in 2009.

If this is what Hillary's spouting so early in the campaign, there's no limit to how inane and silly this election season/cycle is going to become. So, buckle in, grab the popcorn and a diet soda, and get ready for some primo free political entertainment from now until November, 2008.

Liberals, Conservatives, and Caring for the Poor

Last week, newly-elected Senator Webb of Virginia did a lot of damage with his Democratic 'response' to President's State of the Union address. Webb has it wrong when he says that we have economic problems. This sort of continued negative spin on reality will result in bad policy.

Specifically, Webb alleged, like John Edwards during the 2004 Presidential campaign, that America is now two different countries, economically. They allege that part of America is poor, and growing poorer, not participating in the nation's healthy economic growth.

A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal by Arthur Brooks suggests why these Democrats view the situation in this manner. To wit, Brooks wrote,

"While just about everybody -- left and right -- agrees that poverty is unacceptable (although policy makers disagree as to whether a minimum wage hike would help or hurt the working poor), conservatives do not share liberals' concern about income inequality. According to the 2005 Maxwell Poll on Civic Engagement and Inequality, self-described liberals are more than twice as likely as conservatives to say income inequality in America is a "serious problem." And while 84% of liberals think the government should do more to reduce inequality, only 25% of conservatives agree.

This is empirical substantiation for the old cliché that conservatives just don't care about the poor, right? Wrong. In fact, the data do not tell us that conservatives are uncaring; they actually tell us that conservatives are optimists. Conservatives are relatively untroubled by inequality, and unsupportive of government income redistribution, because they believe the American economy provides private opportunities to succeed. Liberals are far more pessimistic than conservatives about the possibility of a better future for Americans of modest means.

Consider the evidence. While 92% of conservatives believe that hard work and perseverance can help a person overcome disadvantage, only 65% of liberals think so. This difference of opinion, contrary to the convention, is not because conservatives earn more money. In fact, lower-income conservatives are about twice as likely as upper-income liberals to say they think there's "a lot" of upward mobility in America. If a liberal and a conservative are exactly identical in income, education, sex, family situation, and race, the conservative will be 20 percentage points more likely than the liberal to say that hard work leads to success among the disadvantaged."

The data that Brooks cites matter profoundly. Both Webb and Edwards, and their ilk, are already biased to believe the worst about the economy and our society. They believe that income inequality is a major problem, and that nobody's individual efforts on their own behalf will lift them out of poverty.

Yet, we know from other studies, the exact ones which I do not have at hand to cite at the moment, that the income inequality numbers frequently cited by liberals are static, not dynamic. That is, they do not follow the same people for years, and find continued low incomes. Rather, they observe the lowest category of incomes, and, then, some years later, observe, 'yep, lookie there...some people are still poor." They simply assume the same people stayed in the same categories. In a word, pessimistic, as Brooks notes.

Nevermind that he Reagan revolution led to a broad middle group of politically-left-leaning voters to experience the economic fruits of lower taxes and healthy, low-inflation economic growth. It's as if those years never occurred, Reagan's recovery never happened, and nobody ever gets wealthier in America from hard work and diligence.

Conservatives do care about the poor. We simply feel that low tax rates, robust, low-inflationary growth, and fairness for all maximize everyone's opportunity for self-improvement and wealth-enhancement.