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Title: Why Bush was a great President
Source:
Weekly Standard
URL Source: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conte ... /000/000/015/986rockt.asp?pg=1
Published: Jan 14, 2010
Author: Fred Barnes
Post Date: 2010-01-14 12:40:53 by rotgut
Keywords: None
Views: 557
Comments: 52
The postmortems on the presidency of George W. Bush are all wrong. The liberal line is that Bush dangerously weakened America's position in the world and rushed to the aid of the rich and powerful as income inequality worsened. That is twaddle. Conservatives--okay, not all of them--have only been a little bit kinder. They give Bush credit for the surge that saved Iraq, but not for much else. He deserves better. His presidency was far more successful than not. And there's an aspect of his decision-making that merits special recognition: his courage. Time and time again, Bush did what other presidents, even Ronald Reagan, would not have done and for which he was vilified and abused. That--defiantly doing the right thing--is what distinguished his presidency. Bush had ten great achievements (and maybe more) in his eight years in the White House, starting with his decision in 2001 to jettison the Kyoto global warming treaty so loved by Al Gore, the environmental lobby, elite opinion, and Europeans. The treaty was a disaster, with India and China exempted and economic decline the certain result. Everyone knew it. But only Bush said so and acted accordingly. He stood athwart mounting global warming hysteria and yelled, "Stop!" He slowed the movement toward a policy blunder of worldwide impact, providing time for facts to catch up with the dubious claims of alarmists. Thanks in part to Bush, the supposed consensus of scientists on global warming has now collapsed. The skeptics, who point to global cooling over the past decade, are now heard loud and clear. And a rational approach to the theory of manmade global warming is possible. Second, enhanced interrogation of terrorists. Along with use of secret prisons and wireless eavesdropping, this saved American lives. How many thousands of lives? We'll never know. But, as Charles Krauthammer said recently, "Those are precisely the elements which kept us safe and which have prevented a second attack." Crucial intelligence was obtained from captured al Qaeda leaders, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with the help of waterboarding. Whether this tactic--it creates a drowning sensation--is torture is a matter of debate. John McCain and many Democrats say it is. Bush and Vice President Cheney insist it isn't. In any case, it was necessary. Lincoln once made a similar point in defending his suspension of habeas corpus in direct defiance of Chief Justice Roger Taney. "Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?" Lincoln asked. Bush understood the answer in wartime had to be no. Bush's third achievement was the rebuilding of presidential authority, badly degraded in the era of Vietnam, Watergate, and Bill Clinton. He didn't hesitate to conduct wireless surveillance of terrorists without getting a federal judge's okay. He decided on his own how to treat terrorists and where they should be imprisoned. Those were legitimate decisions for which the president, as commander in chief, should feel no need to apologize. Defending, all the way to the Supreme Court, Cheney's refusal to disclose to Congress the names of people he'd consulted on energy policy was also enormously important. Democratic congressman Henry Waxman demanded the names, but the Court upheld Cheney, 7-2. Last week, Cheney defended his refusal, waspishly noting that Waxman "doesn't call me up and tell me who he's meeting with." Achievement number four was Bush's unswerving support for Israel. Reagan was once deemed Israel's best friend in the White House. Now Bush can claim the title. He ostracized Yasser Arafat as an impediment to peace in the Middle East. This infuriated the anti-Israel forces in Europe, the Third World, and the United Nations, and was criticized by champions of the "peace process" here at home. Bush was right. He was clever in his support. Bush announced that Ariel Sharon should withdraw the tanks he'd sent into the West Bank in 2002, then exerted zero pressure on Sharon to do so. And he backed the wall along Israel's eastern border without endorsing it as an official boundary, while knowing full well that it might eventually become exactly that. He was a loyal friend. His fifth success was No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the education reform bill cosponsored by America's most prominent liberal Democratic senator Edward Kennedy. The teachers' unions, school boards, the education establishment, conservatives adamant about local control of schools--they all loathed the measure and still do. It requires two things they ardently oppose, mandatory testing and accountability. Kennedy later turned against NCLB, saying Bush is shortchanging the program. In truth, federal education spending is at record levels. Another complaint is that it forces teachers to "teach to the test." The tests are on math and reading. They are tests worth teaching to. Sixth, Bush declared in his second inaugural address in 2005 that American foreign policy (at least his) would henceforth focus on promoting democracy around the world. This put him squarely in the Reagan camp, but he was lambasted as unrealistic, impractical, and a tool of wily neoconservatives. The new policy gave Bush credibility in pressing for democracy in the former Soviet republics and Middle East and in zinging various dictators and kleptocrats. It will do the same for President Obama, if he's wise enough to hang onto it. The seventh achievement is the Medicare prescription drug benefit, enacted in 2003. It's not only wildly popular; it has cost less than expected by triggering competition among drug companies. Conservatives have deep reservations about the program. But they shouldn't have been surprised. Bush advocated the drug benefit in the 2000 campaign. And if he hadn't acted, Democrats would have, with a much less attractive result. Then there were John Roberts and Sam Alito. In putting them on the Supreme Court and naming Roberts chief justice, Bush achieved what had eluded Richard Nixon, Reagan, and his own father. Roberts and Alito made the Court indisputably more conservative. And the good news is Roberts, 53, and Alito, 58, should be justices for decades to come. Bush's ninth achievement has been widely ignored. He strengthened relations with east Asian democracies (Japan, South Korea, Australia) without causing a rift with China. On top of that, he forged strong ties with India. An important factor was their common enemy, Islamic jihadists. After 9/11, Bush made the most of this, and Indian leaders were receptive. His state dinner for Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 was a lovefest. Finally, a no-brainer: the surge. Bush prompted nearly unanimous disapproval in January 2007 when he announced he was sending more troops to Iraq and adopting a new counterinsurgency strategy. His opponents initially included the State Department, the Pentagon, most of Congress, the media, the foreign policy establishment, indeed the whole world. This makes his decision a profile in courage. Best of all, the surge worked. Iraq is now a fragile but functioning democracy. How does Bush rank as a president? We won't know until he's judged from the perspective of two or three decades. Hindsight forced a sharp upgrading of the presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Given his achievements, it may have the same effect for Bush.
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#1. To: rotgut (#0)
LOL
I have ESP. I have proven it to myself. I KNEW when I saw the headline that this was posted by rotgut. My powers of clairvoyance also tell me that you have multiple handles in at least two forums..... :-P
If this Globe gets any Warmer, I'll fucking freeze to death!!
Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" Source: White House cabinet meeting to discuss the renewal of the Patriot Act, in response to GOP leaders presenting a valid case that the Patriot Act undermined the Constitution. Doug Thompson, Capital Hill Blue, Dec 5, 2005 http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml says it all...just like Poppy when he said "If the American people ever knew...they'd string us up..."
Bush. Worst. President. Ever. harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002804 After all, 81 percent of Americans, according to a recent New York Times poll, believe Bush took the country on the wrong track. That’s the highest number ever registered. The same poll also says 28 percent have a favorable view of his performance in office, which is also in Nixon-in-the-darkest-days-of-Watergate territory.
Fred Barnes calling someone a liberal is the perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black. That you and the Washington elite actually consider him a conservative is also proof of how out of touch you are with the rest of America and how ignorant you are of the history of American conservatism. Barnes is at best a milquetoast moderate and at worst liberal neocon.
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Director, CIA 1973–1976 The purpose of the legal system is to protect the elites from the wrath of those they plunder.- Elliott Jackalope "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it." - Frederic Bastiat
LOL
"W" nose how to pick em !!
Doing what's right isn't always easy but it's always right.
he said it all with that bushism.
Worked out fine for Obubba !!!
Doing what's right isn't always easy but it's always right.
Bush heard you laugh and stumbled out onto his front porch, whereupon he flung his favorite shot-glass south towards Austin in a drunken rage.
_________________________________________________________________________
Utter bullshit. Practicing torture makes us no better than the dictatorships we've villified over the past hundred years or so. On top of that, not ONE credible piece of information can be extracted through torture, as a torture victim will say ANYTHING to make the torture stop. One extra "benefit" of practicing torture, along with being seen by the world as a monsterous society who condones it, is that when and if any US troops are captured by an enemy force, they will ALSO be tortured, and since we have condoned it and actually perform those horrific acts, we don't have a moralistic leg to stand on to oppose such acts against our own troops OR citizens. Another "benefit" of all this is that inflicting horrendous pain and suffering to civilians, be it men, women, or children, CREATES more "terrorists" in that family members of the victims and others who are appalled and enraged by these acts of cruelty and inhumanity WILL strike back. Thus it guarantees more "enemies" in order to keep the war machine in gear, making huge profits at not only US taxpayer expense, but upon the blood, pain, and suffering of innocent people. How do you profit from all this 50 screen names? Do you get a check in the mail, or direct deposit?
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. enhanced interrogation is not torture
who will come along to remind us how great obamalamadingdong's selected term(s) went ??
LOL, well at least he can't send in the grunts himself anymore...
And you believe what tortured prisoners confess to? It is a process the NWO uses to obtain their desired results!
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. You would confess to shooting the Pope and that you are a Martian, if that is what they wanted you to say, in less than one minute of waterboarding.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. LOL
They weren't looking for a confession. They were looking for verifiable information, and they got it.
One of Shirley Q's best. Glad you liked it.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. So if I stick a needle in your dick, and connect alligator clips to your balls, then connect some AC power to those electrodes, that's not torture, just "enhanced interrogation". Or perhaps a few weeks naked in a 40 degree concrete room with no furnishings, and no blanket. An hourly splash of ice water on you just for good measure. Then just to sooth you with music and make you feel loved, you can be blindfolded and have headphones put on and strapped to a chair for a week, with some nice high volume rap music blasting in your ears 24/7. If you get the extra special loving treatment, perhaps you'll get to enjoy some LSD during your musical experience. Perhaps handcuffing you by your ankles and hanging you upside down and having your legs and ribs beat with nightsticks and baseball bats will get your juices flowing after all that wonderful music. Oh, and forget about a lawyer, someone accused you of being a terrorist, so you don't get a trial. I REALLY hope you get a taste of what it's like, just to make you think about all the kids it's been done to with YOUR approval.
Tortured Patsies “Confess” To 9/11 And it has nothing to do with the waterboarding, cattle prods or sleep deprivation – they just wanted to get it off their chest
I bet rotgot would admit to fellating Barack Obama and taking it up the rear porthole by Dick Cheney if he were even THREATENED to be "interrogated using enhanced techniques".
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times in one month, and “confessed” to murdering the journalist Daniel Pearl, which he did not. There could hardly be more compelling evidence that such techniques are neither swift, nor efficient, nor reliable.
Tough-as-nails Navy Seals usually become hysterical when waterboarded once in training sessions. After 183 waterboarding sessions in a month, I wouldn't be surprised if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also confessed to murdering Lincoln and Kennedy.
They would get some from you too. You would verify that you can't think beyond how one establishment whore is better than another one. You would verify that you get banned numerous times from at least two boards and have no respect for private property because you keep returning with a new screen name. You would verify that folks like you suck and blow at the same time.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. BS.
What you described was torture; what was done to the prisoners at Guantanamo was not.
He would tell them whatever he thought they wanted to hear because he knows that "enhanced interrogation techniques" is just a euphemism for torture.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. I would imagine he would confess to any and all unsolved crimes that had been committed since he was ten years old if they happened anywhere near him, maybe even if he had never been where they happened.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Why Torture Doesn't Work | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet Remarkably, of the nation's major newspapers, only the Wall Street Journal has editorialized in support of torture as a useful tool of American intelligence policy. Regrettably, that position does a huge disservice to the nation and its soldiers. There are really only three issues in this debate, and the Journal carefully turned a blind eye to all three: (1) is torture reliable, (2) is it consistent with America's values and Constitution, and (3) does it best serve our national interests? No one has yet offered any validated evidence that torture produces reliable intelligence. While torture apologists frequently make the claim that torture saves lives, that assertion is directly contradicted by many Army, FBI, and CIA professionals who have actually interrogated al Qaeda captives
It was done at Bagram Airbase to "detainees", and at Abu Ghraib, besides all the secret prisons we don't know about, according to victims who were later released. In fact, there have been at LEAST a few "detainee deaths" over at Bagram. At Gitmo, they DO in fact use the "musical experience" and "cold concrete room" treatment BTW...
Bush Approved Use of Insects in al-Qaeda Interrogations - TIME The Bush Administration approved the use of "insects placed in a confinement box" during the interrogation of top Al Qaeda official Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2002 document that President Obama declassified for release Thursday. The legal memorandum for the CIA, prepared by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, reviewed 10 enhanced techniques for interrogating Zubaydah, and determined that none of them constituted torture under U.S. criminal law. The techniques were: attention grasp, walling (hitting a detainee against a flexible wall), facial hold, facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation, insects placed in a confinement box, and waterboarding.
Actual interrogation experts say that ANY information extracted by torture is worthless, thus it would be impossible to get "verifiable information" that way. No, they wanted some "confessions" to "prove" that their story about 9/11 is true, and that we NEED to blow up countries in the Middle East and kill those people before they do it again.
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#2. To: rotgut (#0)
fred barnes
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams 
#3. To: Rotara (#2)
Click Bushie
#4. To: rotgut (#0)
#5. To: Jethro Tull, George W Bush and the Constitution (#3)
"I don't give a goddamn. I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way. ...
George W. Bush November 2005
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/George.Bush.Quote.AA91
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
#6. To: rotgut, Rotara (#0)
#7. To: rotgut (#0)
#8. To: rotgut (#0)
#9. To: rotgut (#0)
Second, enhanced interrogation of terrorists. Along with use of secret prisons and wireless eavesdropping, this saved American lives. How many thousands of lives? We'll never know. But, as Charles Krauthammer said recently, "Those are precisely the elements which kept us safe and which have prevented a second attack."
#10. To: Rotara (#2)
#11. To: Jethro Tull (#3)
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we, They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." George W. Bush, 8/05/2004
#12. To: TwentyTwelve (#6)
Bush. Worst. President. Ever.
#13. To: christine (#9)
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?”
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#14. To: rotgut (#0)
..enhanced interrogation of terrorists..
#15. To: rotgut (#0)
Second, enhanced interrogation of terrorists. Along with use of secret prisons and wireless eavesdropping, this saved American lives. How many thousands of lives? We'll never know. But, as Charles Krauthammer said recently, "Those are precisely the elements which kept us safe and which have prevented a second attack."
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#16. To: FormerLurker, rotgut (#15)
Practicing torture makes us no better than the dictatorships we've villified over the past hundred years or so.
#17. To: irishthatcherite (#4)
I have ESP. I have proven it to myself. I KNEW when I saw the headline that this was posted by rotgut. My powers of clairvoyance also tell me that you have multiple handles in at least two forums.....
Lord Acton
#18. To: FormerLurker (#15)
#19. To: noone222 (#10)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
#20. To: X-15 (#13)
Bush heard you laugh and stumbled out onto his front porch, whereupon he flung his favorite shot-glass south towards Austin in a drunken rage.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
#21. To: rotgut, FormerLurker (#18)
enhanced interrogation is not torture
#22. To: TwentyTwelve (#16)
Lord Acton
#23. To: rotgut (#18)
enhanced interrogation is not torture
Lord Acton
#24. To: James Deffenbach (#22)
#25. To: James Deffenbach (#23)
#26. To: TwentyTwelve (#24)
Lord Acton
#27. To: rotgut (#18)
enhanced interrogation is not torture
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#28. To: rotgut (#18)
enhanced interrogation is not torture
#29. To: James Deffenbach, rotgot (#23)
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#30. To: rotgut (#18)
enhanced interrogation is not torture
#31. To: FormerLurker, James Deffenbach, rotgot (#29)
I bet rotgot would admit to fellating Barack Obama and taking it up the rear porthole by Dick Cheney if he were even THREATENED to be "interrogated using enhanced techniques"
#32. To: rotgut (#25)
They weren't looking for a confession. They were looking for verifiable information, and they got it.
Lord Acton
#33. To: rotgut, James Deffenbach (#25)
They weren't looking for a confession. They were looking for verifiable information
#34. To: FormerLurker (#27)
#35. To: FormerLurker (#29)
I bet rotgot would admit to fellating Barack Obama and taking it up the rear porthole by Dick Cheney if he were even THREATENED to be "interrogated using enhanced techniques".
Lord Acton
#36. To: TwentyTwelve (#31)
Tough-as-nails Navy Seals usually become hysterical when waterboarded once in training sessions. After 183 waterboarding sessions in a month, I wouldn't be surprised if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also confessed to murdering Lincoln and Kennedy.
Lord Acton
#37. To: rotgut (#18)
enhanced interrogation is not torture
#38. To: rotgut (#34)
What you described was torture; what was done to the prisoners at Guantanamo was not.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#39. To: rotgut (#18)
enhanced interrogation is not torture
#40. To: rotgut (#25)
They were looking for verifiable information, and they got it.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
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