George Bush never attacked Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, or other voices of the rabid Left by name. If he ever went on the attack against the left-wing media, he kept the attack general and broad, rather than specific. Bush may not have been the most media-savvy of our modern presidents — in fact, he may have been the worst at it since Nixon — but he knew enough about his office to understand that part of its strength would keep him somewhat above the partisan-pundit fray. Obama hasn’t figured that much out yet.
Over at The Volokh Conspiracy: Nick Gillespie offers a highly critical assessment of the Bush presidency in yesterday's WSJ. As Gillespie shows, Bush was a "big government" conservative, and even conservatives who supported the Bush Administration's foreign policy and counter-terror measures should be disappointed with other aspects of his legacy.
If increases in government spending matter, then Mr. Bush is worse than any president in recent history. During his first four years in office -- a period during which his party controlled Congress -- he added a whopping $345 billion (in constant dollars) to the federal budget. The only other presidential term that comes close? Mr. Bush's second term. As of November 2008, he had added at least an additional $287 billion on top of that (and the months since then will add significantly to the bill). To put that in perspective, consider that the spendthrift LBJ added a mere $223 billion in total additional outlays in his one full term.
If spending under Mr. Bush was a disaster, regulation was even worse. The number of pages in the Federal Registry is a rough proxy for the swollen expanse of the regulatory state. In 2001, some 64,438 pages of regulations were added to it. In 2007, more than 78,000 new pages were added. Worse still, argues the Mercatus Center economist Veronique deRugy, Mr. Bush is the unparalleled master of "economically significant regulations" that cost the economy more than $100 million a year. Since 2001, he jacked that number by more than 70%. Since June 2008 alone, he introduced more than 100 economically significant regulations. . . .
Mr. Bush's legacy is thus a bizarro version of Ronald Reagan's. Reagan entered office declaring that government was not the solution to our problems, it was the problem. Ironically, he demonstrated that government could do some important things right -- he helped tame inflation and masterfully drew the Cold War to a nonviolent triumph for the Free World. By contrast, Mr. Bush has massively expanded the government along with the sense that government is incompetent.
That is no small accomplishment -- and its pernicious effects will last long after Mr. Bush has moved back to Texas.
My biggest disappointments with Bush were: #1 spending, #2 illegal immigration. And #1 was far up there on my disappointment scale, especially once the Medicare expansion took place. Sigh...
if you are in the ACLU or a law professor, or a liberal in good standing who swore that George Bush from Texas, with strut and twang and mangled vocabulary, destroyed your liberties with FISA, with the Patriot Act, and with Iraq, then please extend that outrage to Barack Obama, for whom all such shredding of the Constitution suddenly has become merely complex and problematic rather than fascistic. Please list, cite, name just one instance from 2002-8 in which you lost your freedom, or you were censored on the library internet, or you were followed around by the FBI, or your letter to the editor earned a wiretap, or even one instance of the loss of any freedom under Bush-- and if so, just one example of how the election of Obama has once again restored your lost liberty. Nothing in the abstract, please-- something concrete, an example both real and personal. -Works and Days - An Uneasy Feeling
In less than five minutes after Barack Obama took over as the next president, the White House web site changed from pro-life to pro-abortion. The previous site, which touted the pro-life proclamation President Bush signed late last week, now includes Obama's agenda for women, which calls for promoting abortion.
For at least six years, the liberal and MSM narrative on executive power has been fixed -- President Bush sought too much of it and, because the courts consistently rejected his claims, Bush's power grab ultimately proved destructive of presidential power.
Later:
But with the ascension of Barack Obama, the narrative has shifted dramatically. The shift is evident in this front-page Washington Post story by Barton Gellman. Gellman has been a critic of the Bush-Cheney approach to executive power, and the quotes from Bellinger and Goldsmith cited above both appear in today's story. However, they now receive a gloss. Both Bellinger and Goldsmith, Gellman tells us, believe that in disputes about presidential power "the president usually emerged the victor in practice." And leftist law professor Geoffrey Stone believes basically the same thing. He informed Gellman that "the limits that have placed [on presidential power] have not come close to the powers that have been concentrated."
Isn't it funny how fast a tune can change? Take for example the MSM's gushing, fawning over Obama, and their persistent calls to "unify!" "Be a citizen of the United States, not a Democrat or Republican." Funny how that was missing for the last 8 years. It's like a we moved to another planet with sand dunes and big worms and "the sleeper has awakened!" Case in point, Mitch Albom's show yesterday evening:
Driving home from classes yesterday, I was listening to "The Mitch Albom" show (760AM in Detroit). I had lots to say about Mitch, his columns, and his show yesterday morning. As is probably obvious to everyone, there was only one topic of interest (the inauguration) with tangential conversations here and there. A few things that Mitch said struck me about as well as fingernails running along a chalkboard. But let's start out with the congenial:
Mitch called for unity on this day. (and that was about it for congenial) He blasted Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity for not "coming together" on this day. Because Rush and Sean apparently didn't agree with any Obama policy on inauguration day, Mitch excoriated both for being "merchants of hate." (Disclaimer: I'm paraphrasing here as I cannot find an official transcript of the show online) Mitch claimed that Rush and Sean were "just following the money" by "spewing their hate." He accused Sean of switching from being a liberal to being a conservative just so he can make more money. I could hold back no longer. The words left my mouth (I was alone in my car): "Mitch you ignorant liberal!" (Think SNL with Dan Akroyd and Jane Curtin: "Jane you ignorant slut!") At that point in his program, who was spewing hate? I didn't listen to Rush or Sean that day (I had to teach after all), but whenever I do, I do not hear them "spewing hate." I hear policy disagreements. In any case, since Mitch railed against conservatives for not uniting with the Omamamaniacs (legions of glazed-eye people walking around aimlessly chanting oh-ba-ma, oh-ba-ma) and therefore showing disrespect on this inauguration day.
Let me show you an example of disrespect:
I know what you're saying, "Where is the respect? Where is the unity here?" How incredibly disrespectful was it to chant "nananana, nananana, hey, heyyy, good bye"??? Well, in liberal la-la land, unity means you have to do what THEY want (unify with ME!). If they have to unify with US, then, all of a sudden, dissent becomes the highest form of patriotism (as I touched on yesterday).
Further, Mitch stated that he thought that on this day, that the radio station (760 AM) should have only run live inauguration events on inauguration day. No Rush commentary. No Sean commentary. (760 AM also broadcasts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity before Mitch) This must be Mitch's idea of the fairness doctrine as he thought Rush and Sean ought to be silenced on this day while he got to do HIS commentary. Of course, since HE wasn't showing any disrespect (I disagree because of the above), it's OK. Good grief!
To top it all off, there was a "prayer" (if you can call it that) by Rev. Lowry which Mitch broadcast on his show. All I heard was "and when white will embrace what is right." What the...!!!! What WAS THAT! And Mitch and his sidekick thought it was funny and cute! Mitch said that Lowry was in the middle of the civil rights struggle, so "he should know best." (I'm paraphrasing again) Excuse me, but isn't this the example of "spewing hate" that Mitch accused others of? Is there a better example of having liberal blinders on? How can Mitch simply not see this as anything but offensive? I was shocked that it was said! Is this unity? Hope? Change? Here's the video: Rick Warren's prayer, by the way, can be heard in full here. Note the lack of racist demagoguery in the latter that was clear in the former. One note on Rick Warren - I was pleased that he invoked the name of Jesus in the prayer. These days, with Christianity under unprecedented attack from liberals and their allies, it seems like public prayers use the generic 'God' rather than invoking the name of Jesus, unlike Muslim prayers that have no problem invoking "Allah."
For my part, I will continue to pray for Obama. My church as a body will continue to pray for him. We are commanded to do so. I will pray that he becomes a wise leader. That God bestows upon him great wisdom to make correct decisions. What I will not pray for is that somehow I unify with the policies that Obama espoused in the run up to the election. Abortion on demand. Card check and union thuggery. Losing the war on terror. Taking the assets of some to be distributed to others. Grow government which necessarily takes away some freedom and liberty from all. These things are anathema to Biblical principles. If that makes me a "spewer of hate" in Mitch's world, so be it.
Well, I've got an answer to that question: work on the arms, Barack. They're looking a bit thin and effeminate. Take a look at the picture near the bottom. I don't see chiseled abs. In fact, all I can make out is the outside boundary of the rectusabdominus muscle (no visible individual abdominal muscles). Barely. (granted it's better than the 'average' American, but that ain't sayin' much, is it now?) If you saw a pic of the arms by themselves, you'd be hard-pressed to know whether they belonged to a man or a woman. If this pic of Obama is the epitome of a masculine physique, I'm just going to have to say "no thanks."
Now, if I remember correctly, didn't the MSM everywhere blast W for working out so much? Why yes. Yes they did. From that LA Times article:
"Am I the only person who finds this (W's exercise program) disturbing? ...What I mean is the fact that Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy."
Really? I'm still waiting for the LA Times to write a followup about Obama (crickets chirping. Somewhere in the distance a dog barks. Etc.). More on this here (HT: MM) . ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) at it's best (the guy really can do no wrong!). So I guess the moral of this story is, if you're going to be fit, make sure to be a democrat. More:
"Since the election in November, he has continued to work out with an intensity that betrays almost an addiction. "
I guess no creepiness there, eh MSM? Obsession in the Bush article (bad), addiction here (good). It should be noted that they probably shouldn't use the word 'addiction' with a guy that was using cocaine and other drugs for an extended time, but I digress.
""He's definitely well-toned and you only get that through resistance training when you work at between 65 and 75 per cent of your maximum heart rate," Ransom says"
I can't help critiquing faults in knowledge, so here is just one: note to Ransom - resistance training is done to increase muscular protein synthesis, not increase heart rate. In fact, heart rate (HR) is important mostly in cardiovascular exercise, not in lifting weights. In weights, it's load (have to increase weight you lift over time), time under tension (TUT), volume (how many sets, reps), and frequency (how often each body part is worked). That's the basics. No HR fluff. That, coupled with a diet rich in protein, does the body good.
In any case, the article goes on:
"Dr Michael Roizen, an American doctor who has assessed the medical records of presidents as far back as Theodore Roosevelt, believes one year in the White House equals two in the rest of the world when it comes to stress."
When did Obama release his medical records? I thought he just released a 1-page summary? Where's the MSM on this? Where have they been (if anyone should ever pry their heads out of Obama's behind, maybe someone can ask them)? Here's where they've been:
"No presidential candidate should get to the point that he has locked up his party’s nomination without public vetting of his health," wrote the NYT (questioning McCain's health)
No comparable statement on Obama. Anywhere in the MSM. Only conservative blogs and talkshows (that are under threat of censure from the FCC via the un'fairnessdoctine').
One final shot:
"Obama is in a different league to the tennis-playing Tony Blair, and he makes Vladimir Putin's bare-chested fishing shots look embarrassing. "
So let's see the frontal comparison:
Honestly, Obama is looking a bit puny to me. Especially in the lanky, thin arms (leg conditioning unknown for either). Both have moobs, and an equivalent body fat percentage (about 18% I'd say, albeit it's hard to tell from only a single picture as individual vs vary in where their major fat stores reside). Putin has 10 years on Obama. So I have to give the edge to Vlad from the KGB. How is this comparison embarrassing for Putin?
"What happened last week was that the Bush administration formally declared a federal emergency in the District of Columbia.
So what was it? An ice storm? A hurricane?
No, it's the inauguration of his successor. The inauguration is scheduled to make landfall on Tuesday and wreak havoc all night long, as Category Five conga lines buckle highways round town, and emergency busboy crews find themselves overwhelmed as they struggle to clear drained champagne flutes. So the mayor, Adrian M. Fenty, put in a request for more federal money, and, apparently, the easiest way to sluice the cash to him no questions asked was for the president to declare a state of emergency in the District and funnel however many extra gazillions he wants through FEMA – the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"I don't know if anybody's ever done that," said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary."
This is what the military calls "mission creep." You start out with a goal in mind and end up doing something completely different. In this case, declaring a 'federal emergency' was supposed to be just that. An emergency. Incoming hurricane! Terrorist attack! Human sacrifice! Cats and dogs living together! In short, something worthy of being called an 'emergency' at all. But then again, maybe I'm overreacting. Clinton did the same thing for W in 2000. Uh, didn't he? Oh, never mind...
"We're now told that the problem with the last New Deal is that it was too small, so Obama's new New Deal has to be even bigger. That's like telling New Orleans that the problem is they're not far enough below sea level so they need to dig deeper. If Washington is now a federal disaster area, it would be nice to think of Barney Frank and the gang waving from the roof of the Capitol until they can be evacuated somewhere safe, like one of the outlying South Sandwich Islands or Charley Rangel's vacation property in the Dominican Republic. But, alas, Washington is one of those disaster relief cases, where they get the relief, and the rest of us get the disaster. As the incoming president has said, this is the worst crisis since …oh, at least the great Vernon, Conn., snowfall of 1996. To facilitate the stimulus, I urge him to declare every American his own individual federal disaster area."
"Obama flayed Bush over the Iraq war, accused him of taking his eye off the ball in Afghanistan and accused him of favoring the rich and ruining the US economy." (emphasis mine)
So for Bush to have ruined the US economy, he would have had to cause the housing bubble. How did this happen? How did we get here? Let's start with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two democrat inventions (FDR the former, LBJ the latter) known as GSEs (government sponsored enterprises). In a nutshell, a GSE is "capitalist profits, socialist losses; " that is, when profits are made, the executives make huge bonuses. When bad, the taxpayer is on the hook for the losses (and the executives still make huge bonuses!). When Fannie and Freddie went down, the entire housing market went down with it. These two inventions got absolutely ginormous in the last decade, mostly on subprime loans. But let's back up just a bit.
Before Freddie and Fannie became ridiculously large, there was the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 (Jimmy Carter). It was designed to make sure low-income residents of downtrodden neighborhoods received bank loans. Now the CRA by itself is not to blame for the current meltdown (although it was the beginning of government encouraging 'risky loans'). It had no teeth. It was a bunch of arm-twisting of financial institutions. And back in 1977 and so forth, there were no subprime loans advertised in papers (my parents bought a house then, and it was definitely not subprime). So how did the subprime loan business get so big?
Fast forward to 1995. Bill Clinton gave the CRA teeth (basically made affirmative action a banking requirement). The Glass-Stengal Act of the 1930s, designed to keep banks out of the speculation business following the bank failures during the Great Depression, was repealed. Banks no longer mitigated risky loans with savings deposits (so more risk, and less to back it up - read here). ACORN (yes, THAT ACORN) then launched campaign after campaign of intimidation coupled with protest to force banks to lower credit standards, which they subsequently did (a little). At the same time, Fannie and Freddie lowered credit standards (A LOT. They were pushed to do so by democrats in Congress at the urging of ACORN. yes, THAT ACORN again). Fannie and Freddie began to buy subprime mortgages on the secondary mortgage market while holding just 3% (or less) capital to back up the loans. This encouraged banks to offer more subprime loans, which they did. These loans were subsequently bought up by Freddie and Fannie. More were offered (greed begets greed). You can see where this goes. By 2006, subprime loans made up a full 30% of total loans (they were 2% back in 2002). By 2007, Fannie and Freddie guaranteed half the U.S. mortgage market (12+ Trillion (!) dollars). During this time, Fannie and Freddie were also cooking their books. Once caught, the entire deck of cards came tumbling down (see a good roundup here). These dots are not hard to connect (Ace Ventura would lay out the exact same case and say this).
And the Bush administration's role in this? The Bush administration warned of the danger in letting Fannie and Freddie get too big as early as 2002. See the report here. The administration called for more regulation (aren't dems blaming Bush for not enough, even though they fought all regulation on Freddie and Fannie?). They were blocked at every single turn by Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, and the like. Hey, don't trust me on this. Hear it right from the mouths of the democrats responsible for oversight:
For the record, Obama's chief-of-staff-in-waiting, Rahm Emanuel, was a board member at Freddie Mac (appointed by Bill Clinton) during the book-cooking phase. And Fannie Mae's CEO during this time? Franklin Reines, Obama advisor. Freddie Mac's CEO? Jim Johnson, Obama advisor. By the way, Fannie and Freddie gave political contributions to politicians. #1 recipient? Chris Dodd. #2 recipient? Barack Obama.
The fact that the democrats, and their allies in the mainstream media, have somehow hung this debacle around the neck of George W. Bush is a masterpiece of politics and deception. I somehow hold out hope that, someday, history will tell the true story of the out-of-control government influence responsible for this mess. Sure there's enough blame to go around, but the bulk has to reside at the feet of the democrats for introducing social engineering into the banking system.
An article I saw on Brietbart(via Drudge) had two sentences that stuck out to me. Here's the first:
"When he is sworn in on Tuesday, Obama will inherit two foreign wars and the worst economy since the 1930s Great Depression with the budget deficit forecast to hit more than a trillion dollars this year."
Why is the 'worst economy since the Great Depression' canard out there like this (I know, it's to pin everything on Bush)? Did everyone forget the Carter Presidency? The stagflation (the inflation rate was 12% in 1980!)? Double-digit unemployment (it was around 10% then, 7% now)? Interest rates at 21 percent (home mortgage rates were at 18% then, 5% now)? And forget the foreign policy front (Iran? 444 days? Defense budget cuts?). I distinctly remember as a child waiting in gas lines with my dad. He wasn't happy. There was this one time when, after waiting in the gas line for about 30 minutes, a guy came out of the garage and put a barrel in front of my dad's car. No more gas. I learned about every curse word I would ever know that day, right then and there (he got laid off in the prior weeks as well). So how is it that on the way back in time the great speed-bump of the Carter era is somehow unseen these days? And that trillion dollar deficit will look small when the 'stimulus' plan gets underway.
All opinions in this personal blog are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer, companies that I consult for, family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances or my pets.
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