Tag Archives: Bush 43

Remember the Biden Plan?

Way back in 2006, Joe Biden said we should carve up Iraq into three parts — Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd.

That’s what’s happening on the ground right now.  If Maliki can hold Baghdad and the Shia provinces in the south (a huge if), how is he going to dislodge ISIS from the Sunni areas, how is he going to dislodge the Kurds from Kirkuk, which they’ve long claimed as their “capital,” and now completely control.

The Biden plan is being implemented de facto, if not de iure.

On his 90th birthday, let’s remember that George H. W. Bush kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, but refused to kick him out of Baghdad.  Bush knew Saddam was a monster, but he was a bulwark against Iran who ran a secular regime with a strong, educated middle class.  Bush 41 knew that we were better off keeping Saddam, so long as that meant keeping him from expanding his borders and from gassing the Kurds.

What’s happening right this minute is the fault of Bush 43 for going in, not of Obama for getting out.

God, She’s Become Annoying

Here’s Peggy Noonan* at the opening of the Bush library:

“President Obama was more formal than the other speakers and less confident than usual, as if he knew he was surrounded by people who have something he doesn’t.”

Carter, Clinton, Bush 41, and Bush 43 are all so different from one another.  You know, Peggy, the only thing I think they all have that Obama doesn’t is white skin.

Whenever she writes about the President, she really turns into a nasty piece of work.

*  “The Presidential Wheel Turns,” WSJ

What Do You Get When You Cross a Hawk and a Dove? Maybe Some Sane Policy.

From “Why Chuck Hagel Is Obama’s Pentagon Pick,” Bob Woodward, WaPo:

“The two [Obama and Hagel] share similar views and philosophies as the Obama administration attempts to define the role of the United States in the transition to a post-superpower world.

“This worldview is part hawk and part dove.  It amounts, in part, to a challenge to the wars of President George W. Bush.  It holds that the Afghanistan war has been mismanaged and the Iraq was unnecessary.  War is an option, but very much a last resort.

“So, this thinking goes, the U. S. role in the world must be carefully scaled back — this is not a matter of choice but of facing reality; the military needs to be treated with deep skepticism; lots of strategic military and foreign policy thinking is out of date; and quagmires like Afghanistan should be avoided.

“The bottom line:  The United States must get out of these massive land wards — Iraq and Afghanistan — and, if possible, avoid future large-scale war.

“Although much discussion of the Hagel nomination has centered on his attitudes about Iran, Israel and the defense budget, Hagel’s broader agreement with Obama on overall philosophy is probably more consequential.”

I am hopeful that Obama/Kerry/Hagel will spend the next four years devising foreign and military policy that protects our power by getting the best bang for the buck and then uses that power wisely.  Applying our power conservatively — that would make them the neo-neo-cons.

After 9/11, we knew the world had changed, but it’s taken us over a decade to figure out how to change with it.

I would say the Iraq war wasn’t just unnecessary, but was very harmful to our interests because it took Iraq away as a counter-weight to Iran and upset the balance of power in the region.  Saddam Hussein was a bastard, but he was a useful bastard.  Bush 41 recognized this when he freed Kuwait, but didn’t march to Baghdad.

And the idea that we were going to change Afghanistan was always absurd.  No one changes Afghanistan — they just bang their heads against a wall and eventually leave.

 

Senator Rubbers

With all the controversy about Planned Parenthood heading into the election, it’s worth recalling that Prescott Bush, Bush 41’s father and Bush 43’s grandfather, chaired Planned Parenthood’s first national fundraising drive in 1947.

When he became a Republican senator from Connecticut, his nickname was Senator Rubbers.  It wasn’t because of his footwear.

Like Mitt, Bush 41 was pro-choice before he ran for president.  His wife Barbara was and is pro-choice, as is Laura Bush.

Mitt Is Bush 41

I keep reading comparisons between Mitt and Bob Dole.  Historically, that makes sense because Dole ran in 1996 against an incumbent Dem, Bill Clinton, who had suffered major losses in the preceding congressional races of 1994.

But I think personality-wise, Mitt is more like Bush 41 and comes with his out-of-touch, rich guy, patrician liabilities.  Bush won in 1988 because the country wanted a third Reagan term.  When he ran in 1992, no longer wrapped in the Reagan mantle, voters didn’t like him.

Bush was distrusted by conservatives in his second run because he’d broken his “Read my lips, no new taxes” pledge.  Mitt suffers from that same mistrust because of his flip-flops and prior support for abortion and gay rights when he ran in Massachusetts.  He’s also the father of the individual health care mandate that conservatives used to support, but now believe is unconstitutional.

Less ideological voters turned against Bush in 1992 because his preppie persona contrasted poorly with Clinton’s warmth and folkiness.  The tax thing didn’t bother them as much as Bush himself did.

My theory of presidential elections is that the less preppie-seeming guy always wins.

Both Mitt and President Obama went to very fancy prep schools (the President got a scholarship), but Mitt has led a much more privileged, sheltered life, and it shows.  He can’t manage to sound convincing when he proclaims his concern for the middle class.  He’s never spent a day of his life as an actual member of the middle class.

What happens when two preppies run against each other?  Al Gore and Bush 43 both went to very elite prep schools.  But Bush managed to come across as more down-home Texas than high-flown Andover.

The less preppie guy wins — Obama beats Mitt.