Recently in Bush Category

THEY TOLD US A "VIRTUAL FENCE" was as good as a real fence.  Well, they lied.  The incompetence of the Bush government is a thing of marvels.

AN UNCLASSIFIED Rand report for the U.S. Army describes the poor judgment and professional mediocrity behind America's botched war in Iraq.  The report was produced in 2005, but the powers that be have keep the report from public eyes -- and the thing still isn't being released to you and I, but merely "leaked" to a reporter.  Franks, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, the President, each and every one of them performed unsatisfactorily in the face of the Iraqi challenge.  You come away believing the President was poorly served, but not strong enough or intelligent enough to know it or do anything about it.  There is no MacArthur here, no Truman, no Eisenhower, no Marshall, no FDR.  A sad chapter that didn't have to be.

GIVE CREDIT were credit is due -- the President notches another achievement on his Texas size belt:

"George Bush is in line to be the first president since World War II to preside over an economy in which federal government employment rose more rapidly than employment in the private sector.

STIMULATE THIS! The Bush stimulus package rushing through the House of Representatives will put a Federal check in the hands of millions of illegal aliens -- all of those with an IRS "taxpayer identification numbers".  Most of these illegals pay little or no taxes.  And yes, you heard that right.  In a typical politician's lie, millions of people who pay no taxes will get what President Bush and your Congressman are calling a "tax rebate", even when millions of those checks are going to people who are not taxpayers, and therefore have contributed nothing to the country which can be rebated.  Source -- CNN: "People who did not pay federal income taxes but who had earned income of more than $3,000 would get checks of $300 per individual or $600 per couple."

I can't tell you how sick I am of the Bush Presidency or how ready I am for it to end.  If we're going to get stupidity and dishonesty on this kind of scale, we might as well be getting it from a Democrat President who doesn't burden us with Bush's utterly bogus pretense of caring about the economic requirements of a successful functioning free society.

STEVE SAILER isn't satisfied learning that John McCain overwhelmingly attracts the large GOP "negative on Bush" vote.  He wants to know why.  Here are some suggestions:

1. As much as many Americans don't like war, even more of them don't like losing wars.  John McCain has been Bush's biggest critic on how to fight this war.  And the success of the surge and the firing of Rumsfeld seems to have proven him right.  Steve and others might not see it that way, but many GOP voters do.
2. McCain is winning the "fiscal conservative" vote by wide margins because he's the anti-Bush when it comes to spending and fiscal sanity with the budget.  The one thing that has been missing from the "fiscal conservatism" of the Bush / Club for Growth / WSJ / Sean Hannity "fiscal conservatives" has been, well, fiscal conservatism.  McCain has credibility on restraining spending, cutting pork, and closing the budget deficit gap.  Bush has a record on fiscal indiscipline that makes LBJ look like Calvin Coolidge.  In Florida, about half of all GOP voters believed controlling the budget deficit was more important to them than the promise of future tax cuts (a rather pie-in-the sky Bush-like promise if you look at the required spending outlays already on the books, including the millions of Baby Boomers now moving out of the tax producing workforce and onto the tax sucking Federal dole.)
   
3. Since December, when most people first started paying attention, John McCain has been running hard as the "secure the borders first" candidate.  This may seem bizarre to those who closely follow politics all year round, but polls clearly show he's fooling large segments of voting population, pulling in significant percentages of those who reject amnesty and want to control the border.

I'll add more later.

GIVE THE PRESIDENT credit for this.  It took some guts and some leadership to course correct midstream in the face of a partisan opposition and a stuck in the mud Joint Chiefs of Staff.  John McCain is saluted in this account for putting a fire under the President's chair:

If Bush was skeptical of the small footprint, he never expressed it. He accepted the assurance of his commanders that the strategy was working--until Samarra.

After the bombing, NSC officials were increasingly dubious. They weren't alone. General Keane kept in contact with retired and active Army officers, including Petraeus, who believed the war could be won with more troops and a population protection, or counterinsurgency, strategy--but not with a small footprint. At the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, a former West Point professor, Frederick Kagan, was putting together a detailed plan to secure Baghdad. But the loudest voice for a change in Iraq was Senator John McCain of Arizona. He and his sidekick, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, traveled repeatedly to Iraq. McCain badgered Bush and Hadley with phone calls urging more troops and a different strategy. Together, McCain, Keane, Petraeus, the network of Army officers, and Kagan provided a supportive backdrop for adopting a new strategy.

White House thinking about Iraq changed quickly, at least at the staff level. The reigning assumptions about the conflict were discarded. American troops weren't seen as targets and catalysts for violence anymore. Iraqis wanted their protection. Nor was the insurgency the biggest threat to stability. Sectarian violence, fueled by Al Qaeda in Iraq, was. To tamp it down, a new strategy was required.

I'm no military strategist, but from the beginning I didn't like Rumsfeld's "small footprint" theory, and his sister idea that rampant looting and lawlessness is no big deal.  It is a big deal.  Why Rumsfeld felt it necessary to go with the "small footprint" strategy has never been clear.  I have lots of guesses but I've not seen a straight explanation from Rumsfeld himself.  I have no idea either why we went with a near "open borders" policy in Iraq, letting arms and terrorists cross freely back and forth between Iraq and its neighbors. 

One thing I hate about news business today is that I can't count on getting a honest and informed answer to any of these questions from a journalist.  Reporters at, say, TIME or NEWSWEEK aren't objective enough, competent enough, or honest enough to be relied upon to give me the accurate story.  No doubt the story will eventually be told in books, unfortunately I likely won't have the time I need to read them.  I'm left dependent upon the best of the military and foreign policy bloggers to learn about these things as they come out.

"THIS NEEDS SAYING" I couldn't agree more:

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.

And this needs saying, because if you don't know what broke the elephant you can't put it together again. The party cannot re-find itself if it can't trace back the moment at which it became lost. It cannot heal an illness whose origin is kept obscure.

I believe that some of the ferocity of the pundit wars is due to a certain amount of self-censorship. It's not in human nature to enjoy self-censorship. The truth will out, like steam from a kettle. It hurts to say something you supported didn't work. I would know. But I would say of these men who are fighting one another as they resist naming the cause for the fight: Sack up, get serious, define. That's the way to help.

UPDATE:  There's a growing sense in the country that after 28 years we're right back to where we were with the Carter Presidency, just before Reagan swept the country with the conservative revolution:

the 2008 tax rebate brings us full circle back to 1980, as the final year of the Bush administration increasingly resembles the final year of the Carter administration -- including national malaise, getting tough on Israel but not on Palestinian terrorists, support for the DC handgun ban, the Olympics hosted by a communist regime with contempt for human rights, and a consensus that the current administration is lacking in competence.

Bush certainly reminds us of the pre-Reagan Presidents.  Massive Federal spending increases like Johnson.  Keynesian macroeconomic policies like Nixon, Ford and Carter.  A war without end fought under politicized rules of engagement like Johnson and Nixon.   Betrayals of the conservative Republican base like Nixon.  An utter disregard for the long term consequences of Federal programs and spending increases like Johnson and Nixon.  I could go on.

HERE COMES President Bush's "stimulus" package:  "the stipend of at least $300 would be paid to all workers receiving a paycheck, even those who did not earn enough to pay taxes last year."

Time to speed up the software running this:

The Gross National Debt:

Looks like we're fated to relive the 1970s.  Don't be surprised is by the end of the year George Bush isn't wearing flare pants and a "Whip Inflation Now" button.  The only explanation I can come up for all this is that Bush went through the 70s drunk (semi-confessed) or stoned on cocaine (rumored) and he thinks he's doing this for the first time.

The reason drug use during the 1970s should be a disqualifier for President is because the 1970s was the great period of economic education for the American people,  the golden moment in time when people learned that price controls don't work, Keynesian economics doesn't work, welfare doesn't work -- and the only thing that does work is the American economy when the shackles are taken off, as they were in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the transportation and energy sectors.  The only current candidates we have good reason to believe didn't use drugs during the 1970s are Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and  John McCain.

DONALD BOUDREAUX -- the chairman of the George Mason U. economics department -- weighs in on the foolishness of economic "stimulus".  I particularly liked this quote attributed to Warren Buffett, "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked."

And this is even better.  Another George Mason economist -- Russ Roberts -- debunks GOP spin about the magical powers of the Bush "tax cuts" in the face of Bush's massive government spending increases.  Roberts writes,

"Bottom line: [Federal income tax] revenue in 2006 was still below 2000 in real terms ..

[And] Government's share of the pie has grown dramatically under Bush II. You can argue it was worthwhile. You can argue that he had no choice. (I think you'd be wrong on both counts, but never mind.) But you can't argue that Bush has cut our taxes. Our taxes are higher and they've been shifted into the future via debt."

For details, read the whole thing.

YOUR MUST READ of the day --  Amity Shlaes gives Bush and Bernanke a richly deserved spanking.

THIS IS SURPRISING. But I guess not that much of a surprise. David Brooks has taken the temperature of the Bush insiders on the contest for the Presidency and he reveals a strong preference in the race. "They like Hillary Clinton," says Brooks.  "The people in the Bush White House .. would trust their legacy to Hillary Clinton more than to Obama, and more frankly than to a lot of the Republican candidates."

BYRON YORK ON MCCAIN, South Carolina and the do-over vote.  Of course, if you're a regular PrestoPundit reader, you've been aware of this factor for some time now.

Romney's New Voice -- Running Against Bush's Washington When you're running on change you're implicitly running for the opportunity to say "so long" to what came before.  Tell me this isn't a shot over the bow of USS George W. Bush:

America now understands that Washington is broken, and we're going to do something about it. America understands that Washington has promised that they'd secure our borders, but they haven't. Washington told us that they would live by high ethical standards, but they haven't. Washington told us that they'd fix Social Security, but they haven't. Washington told us they'd get us better health care and better education, but they haven't. Washington told us they'd get us a tax break for middle income Americans, but they haven't. Washington told us that they'd cut back on the earmarks and the pork-barrel spending, but they haven't. And Washington told us they'd reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but they haven't. And who's going to get the job done? We are!

And this:

I take my inspiration from Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush, who took their inspiration from the American people - hard-working American people, people who believed in opportunity, who loved education, God-fearing people, people who also love their families, people deeply patriotic. It is that characteristic of the American people that makes us the most powerful nation on Earth. Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush said we are a great and good people, it's exactly what we are. It's why we will always be the most powerful nation on Earth.

And finally this:

"I have a couple of questions for you. Is Washington, D.C., broken?"  Crowd: "Yes!" Governor Romney: "Can it be fixed?" Crowd: "Yes!" Governor Romney: "Are we the team that's going to get the job done?" Crowd: "Yes!"

(Watch the video here.)

When Mitt Romney says "I take my inspiration from Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush" what pops out is who he doesn't take his inspiration from -- Georg W. Bush.  And when he asks (expecting a "yes" answer) "Is Washington, D.C broken?",  he's  talking about a Washington that was governed by George Bush and a Congress that was Republican for most of the last decade -- and Washington that they could have fixed, but didn't.

What's important about all this is that Romney is finally sending the message of change he failed to send in Iowa or New Hampshire -- if you are repeatedly the one candidate who seems to spend most of his time defending and promising to continue Bush policies (e.g. Bush's tax cuts), the one thing you certainly aren't is the candidate of change.  And Romney's failure in Iowa and New Hampshire reflected that failure to inspire folks disenchanted with the Bush Presidency and Bush's Washington -- Romney lost in New Hampshire to McCain in large part because he lost to McCain among the majority of voters who were unsatisfied or angry with the Bush Presidency.