Here's Kerry on Foreign Policy: If I Were President—Addressing the Democratic Deficit
Americans’ security depends on helping the people of the Middle East see and act on a legitimate vision of peace.
Yeah, we should have democracy in the middle east so that can happen! Oh, wait, that's Bush.
Continue reading "Fisking Kerry on Kerry's Foreign Policy" »
Positive Highlights:
“George W. Bush’s Foreign Policy Is Revolutionary”
No Bush’s goals of sustaining a democratic peace and disseminating America’s core values resonate with the most traditional themes in U.S. history.
“The Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War Is Unprecedented"
Wrong Preemptive strikes to eliminate threats are a strategy nearly as old as the United States.
“Bush’s Policies Are a Radical Departure from Clinton’s”
Lovely nostalgia. What is striking about President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy is that it actually increased U.S. military preponderance vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
Some negatives too, which I don't agree with, but still an interesting article.
Not as much fun as 11 percentage points, but still, its pretty significant. No wonder the Kerry camp is freaking out.
Hat tip to California Yankee
but not quite how they thought…
From The Corner:
Volunteering at the convention, I spoke with numerous police officers, one of whom spelled it out for me very succinctly. “I’m 16 hours deep in a 20 hour shift, and I spent the first half of it being harassed, cursed at, and attacked by protesters over on Eighth Ave. One of them bit me on my hand, so I got sent back here to wat ch over the delegates for the second half of my shift. Since I showed up, I’ve gotten nothing but smiles, thank yous, and salutes from these delegates. One of my friends just offered to relieve me, but I told him I didn’t mind staying around for a while longer. I voted for Gore last time, and Clinton before him, but I’m voting for Bush this time, without a doubt.” Hearing that made up for all of the vitriol I’ve had to deal with being a Conservative at NYU.
So over on Blogs for Bush a commenter writes:
I need some support here. I’ve been in a pretty heated argument with my girlfriend over this issue (Kerry and the Swift Vets) for the past couple days now. She’s been getting on my case about being so negative about Kerry all the time and not actually talking about issues.
Here’s my answer:
Yeah, I get that too from my wife, that’s why I started blogging about the election. That’s probably why I’m going to volunteer for Bush today, so I can have some fellow travelers to rag about Kerry to.
But I think you’re asking the wrong question. Here’s my take:
Net: 4 points.
So Kerry comes out ahead 4 points for me.
A candidate has to earn at least 25 points for me to consider voting for them, and Kerry hasn’t done that. I’ve tried very hard to find positive things about Kerry, I’ve read both his and bush’s web site, and I come up with zilch.
Bush has earned about 75 points in my book based on reading his agenda.
So stop being negative, start talking up Bush. Read Kessler’s book a matter of character, and start talking about the importance of phonics in reading education and NCLB.
You can read my take on No Child Left Behind here.
So this paragraph from this article pissed me off:
Bush is proposing a tax credit of no more than $1,000 to individuals and $3,000 to families to purchase health insurance, though the health care premiums for a family of four come to roughly $9,000 a year. A huge aggregate increase in opportunity, if you define opportunity as risk.
But I suppose its a chance to clear up something about Bush’s Health Insurance plan.
Bush's plan is twofold, and you have to put them together to see how they will work as a whole. Its a combination of a medical savings account, so that minor stuff is tax-free, and _catastrophic_ health insurance, which is much cheaper then the "We'll do everything for you, but badly." HMO insurance many people have now.
The catastrophic health insurance takes most of the risk out of health care for much smaller premiums. After that, you can save money away to pay for visits to the doctor, band aids, etc., but those are much smaller risks. You can get a catastrophic health plan for whatever level of risk you’re willing to take. Last time I researched this, it was $60/month for me to get a catastrophic insurance plan that would pay 100% after the first $2000 worth of expenses.
Since a medical savings account would carry over from year to year, that means that once I’ve saved up $2000, my insurance could drop to $720/year, for which I would get a tax credit!
Compare that to an HMO, which would charge me a bunch of money every year, but then they pay for the doctor visit, and catastrophic insurance can look like a pretty good deal. That combined with a tax-free savings account just makes sense.
So this paragraph from this article pissed me off:
So, too, with a privatization of Social Security, which is a generational transfer of income from workers to retirees. If workers divert, say, one-sixth of their Social Security savings into private accounts, then retirees’ incomes will be diminished, unless the government cares for deficit spending to the tune of, say, a half-trillion dollars. And those private accounts themselves could very well go south: It’s been known to happen; it’s called a slump, a recession, the occasional breakdown of a sector of the U.S. economy. Call it opportunity, properly defined.
Which is missing the point. Right now, the best retirement deal is a 401K, but in practice, only employees of large corporations can really participate, such as the reporter at the Washington Post who wrote this. IRAs are supposed to be the alternative, but since you’re severely limited in the amount you can donate put into an IRA, its not really worth it compared to a 401K plan.
So the government takes 15% of my salary to put it in a shoddy retirement plan. If I try to be responsible and supplement that plan, the government won’t let me.
That’s just stupid.
What President Bush has proposed is basically a 401K for everyone, that you can take from job to job, and manage yourself. It just makes sense. Any risk after that is a personal choice, there’s no reason you couldn’t choose a private account consisting of only T bills.
Do you believe in evil? I do.
Nope, you're not reading ScrappleFace. Here's a quote from the Bill O' Reilly Interview from last night:
PRESIDENT BUSH: That’s when you’re supposed to vote. You’ve got to stand tough with these terrorists. You cannot allow the terrorists to dictate whether or not a society can be free or not. Do you remember what happened in Afghanistan when the Taliban pulled the four women off the bus and killed them because they had voter registration cards? I think there had been about three million Afghan citizens who had registered at this point in time. A lot of people said, well, the elections look like they’ve got to be over in Afghanistan, because the Taliban is, too violent to allow the elections to go forward. Today ten million citizens in that country have registered to vote, forty percent of whom are women, which is a powerful statistic.
O’REILLY: The South Vietnamese didn’t fight for their freedom, which is why they don’t have it today.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah.
See, we didn't lose the Vietnam war, the Vietnamese were just pussies.
(Yeah, Yeah, I know, I'm a pro Bush website, but this is just politics don't take live so seriously. Besides, its not President Bush who said it really, its Bill O'Reilly.)
In reality, President Bush has learned a lot from the Vietnam war. and one of the biggest lessons is that we've turned over as much as possible to the Iraqis as soon as possible, if not earlier. I think the benefits have been obvious.
More evil:
34 Children Massacred by Multiple Car Bombs
As I said before, I'm voting for Bush because I believe in evil.
Yes, I'm writing a post kind of defending Kerry. I think it dramatically illustrates the differences between the two candidates.
In the debate, Kerry proposed:
I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes.
Now most people, especially conservatives, reaction was something like: Give Iran nuclear material? Are you insane? They definitely have a point, because the fact is, we don't really want Iran to have any nuclear material at all with their current government. For one thing, we don't want terrorists to be able to build a dirty bomb, that is, a conventional bomb tied to some sort of radioactive material. From my wife's experience with a recent train accident attests, radiation seriously freaks people out. (read here and here).
That's not quite the point. The issue with Iran has always been that they claim that they want to build a nuclear reactor for "peaceful" purposes. Its just that no one believes them. What Kerry is proposing is calling their bluff by offering them nuclear fuel for free, which they could use only in their nuclear reactor.
Here's where we get to the difference between Senator Kerry and President Bush. Kerry needs this proof in order to keep the granola and Birkenstocks crowd quiet in his own party. This faction in his party is going to seriously cripple his foreign policy, because they insist on being beaten over the head with the obvious. No one seriously believed even before the recent announcements by Iran that they wanted a nuclear reactor to more cheaply make electricity. For one thing, they produce oil. Its ten times cheaper for them to produce electricity using that then it every would be for them to use nuclear energy. It's never made any sense for them to have a nuclear reactor, so its always been obvious that it was part of a weapons program. They have a name for people who believe Iran wanted a nuclear reactor for "electricity": morons.
So while Kerry feels its important to call this non-existent bluff to keep the bland pacifism in his own party at bay, President Bush has never really bothered. Everyone already knows, that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons, and at some point, the US (or hopefully Russia) will have to shut them down.
Quite frankly, I'm not sure Kerry (or any other Democrat) is up to the task, because foreign policy means dealing with uncomfortable truths. President Bush may be a bit of a cowboy, and he may piss off our allies sometimes, but he's actually been pretty effective.
But this time, before the VP debate. Maybe someone can send this to Karl Rove. :-) I really like the "mashed potatoes" line...
Edwards: Blah, blah, Halliburton.
Cheney: You know, I'm glad you brought that up. I've been quiet up until now, because I felt that the country had more important things to talk about then me. But since you brought it up, here goes.
Mary Beth Cahill said he looked "mean".
That's the devastating criticism of the head of the Kerry campaign? Cheney looked mean?
Anyone speak Yiddish? Can women be putzes?
Just go read his latest. He doesn't blog very often, but when he does, WHAMMO!
Over the last week.
Kerry’s Blog: 45 Negative entries 52 Positive entries. That’s 46% negative. Kerry’s actually usually even more negative, but this week had lots of “Kerry won the debate” entries.
Bush’s Blog: 17 Negative 44 Positive. That’s 28% negative.
In general, I find Kerry’s blog, negative and whiny. It’s not as bad as Atrios but its not much better, and has the same sort of factual errors and logical errors that Atrios shows. Bush’s blog on the other hand tends to be more focused on making positive statements about Bush. Unlike the whining on the Kerry blog, the negative pieces tend to be better reasoned and presented. He’s a little more negative this week with 3 ad announcements that were negative ads.
So this week, Bush was more more negative, but still predominantly positive, while Kerry was more positive, but still hugely negative.
I find this interesting, because one rule of marketing is to never mention the competition, yet Kerry is doing it constantly. Of course, marketing isn’t politics. If it were, you wouldn’t be seeing President Bush repeating Kerry’s line about “wrong war, etc.”
Overall, President Bush did much better. If you ask me he won, but I’m a pretty informed voter so most of what Kerry said just made me scream at the TV.
In no particular order:
Bottom line:
You could have replaced Kerry with a tape recorder to playback his canned responses, it would have been the same.
All he has to say is: “Yeah, I didn’t do so well in the first debate, because I spent the day traveling around Florida talking to the hurricane victims.”
There is a clear difference between the two candidates.
After September 11th, President Bush had a choice. Did he focus on Al Queda, or did he focus on all terrorists organizations. In other words, was the enemy Al Queda, or was it terrorism as a whole?
President Bush decided that terrorism as a whole was the enemy. It was a tough decisions, one with far reaching consequences.
Senator Kerry thinks differently. To Senator Kerry, we were attacked only by Al Queda, so we should only go after Al Queda.
Senator Kerry is wrong.
Osama’s organization was dedicated not just to promoting and training their own terrorists, but training and funding terrorism all over the world. Some of the Chechyen terrorists were trained by Al Queda. Not because they were particularly followers of Osama, but because that’s what Al Queda did. Osama’s true ideology was hatred, not any particular cause. To fight Al Queda, we really have to fight against all terrorism.
I used to be one of those people who felt that the Presidential candidates were almost identical. Now I feel that our decision in November is one of the most important choices we’ve ever had as voters. It is our chance to make the same choice that President Bush made. Its important for us to choose correctly, because if we don’t, more Americans will die.
On September 11th, we were attacked not by Al Queda, but by terrorism. So we must fight not just Al Queda, but terrorism and the hatred shared by terrorists. If Senator Kerry would acknowledge this fact, perhaps it wouldn’t matter who we voted for this election. Since he has chosen not to, I can only conclude that he cannot make the tough decisions a President must make.
I plan to vote for Bush.
I call it the “Bush Plan”.
On the Arizona for Bush mailing list I participate in, I’m often the one who goes after the Kerry trolls. Despite my blog name, I’ve gotten a reputation for being the most civil responder. So here’s my guidelines for how to have a civil discussion with a Kerry voter.
Continue reading "Here's my guide to how to talk to a Kerry voter." »
We have a clear choice this November. Last time I talked about the President’s choice that terrorism was the enemy, not just Al Queda, this time I’m going to talk about how the world has changed, and how the President’s domestic policy reflects that.
When President Bush talks about the jobs of the 21st century, he’s referring to some sweeping changes that have happened to America and the world. It used to be that people had one job with one company. Now, the average person works for 3-7 companies in their life. Because of this, its important that your retirement plan and your health insurance be with you, not with the company you work for. When President Bush talks about ownership, he’s talking about making sure that when you change jobs, that you don’t have to change everything else in your life as well.
The second thing that it happening in this century is that it used to be that one guy worked at one machine making something. Now, one guy works at a computer, that talks to ten machines, that make ten things. That’s just progress, but because of that, manufacturing jobs all over the world have declined. We work smarter these days, not harder. That makes education even more important. America’s dominance in the world has always been because we have the smartest, most flexible workers in the world. We need to continue that in a more difficult world. That means better schools for kids, grants for people to upgrade their skills at community colleges so they can get better jobs, and tax credits for people going to school.
The world didn’t change overnight, it changed slowly. But the President is the only candidate who realizes that the government has to change when the world changes. Its a “big picture” viewpoint that Kerry doesn’t seem to have.
From the Times UK. The most interesting part for me is where she talks about having met the leaders of Hamas:
On arrival in Gaza I was disturbed that the Hamas leaders I met would never look me in the eye. To them, it was indecent even to glance at a member of the inferior sex. All their answers were directed at my boyfriend, who was taking pictures. But they were co-operative and eager for publicity.
We were taken upstairs in a mosque and, to my shock, were introduced to a dozen or more would-be suicide bombers in their mid-teens, who declared their fervent wish to martyr themselves for their cause.
At the time, there had been no suicide bombs in Israel. Some Hezbollah members in Lebanon had blown themselves up, but they were Shi’ite Muslims: Palestinian Sunnis were not supposed to go in for that sort of thing. Yet here I was, looking at a bunch of boys with kaffirs masking their faces, brandishing knives and practising karate in a place of worship. These weren’t boy scouts in a church hall; they were being trained to become fanatical killers by their religious elders.
When I heard the other week that Cat Stevens had been refused entry to America, I thought good riddance.
When mosques are raided by US forces, I am not surprised. I know mosques are used as terrorist bases. I expect most of the young men I talked to are now either dead or sitting in an Israeli jail. They were triumphalist about the global spread of Islam and confident that it would one day dominate the planet. They hated the West, they wanted to kill Jews, and none of them had ever heard of George W Bush.
So has Bush inflamed hatred in the Arab world? Yes and no: he certainly did not start it. One of the most unconvincing arguments advanced by the Democrats is that the jihadists favour a Bush-Cheney victory. I don’t buy it. Their leaders are on the run and no government will afford them safe haven. They have not yet managed to pull off another attack on America. It is hard for Bush to boast about this, lest he tempt fate, but he deserves some credit.
From Froggy Ruminations:
As a SEAL Reservist, I have tried to maintain contact with my friends in the Teams who have remained on active duty. This President has authorized SOF operations that were unthinkable with the prior administration. If I told you the places my friends have been, you would be shocked. President Bush’s risk tolerance for operations in support of the GWOT is satisfyingly high. While John Kerry promises to double SOF which is impossible, the President has shown a detailed understanding of what the SEALs are up to and how they are getting it done. The President has mandated the creation of 2 additional SEAL Teams, but he told our top Admiral that he would not abide the degradation of training and selection of men. This is music to the ears of a Navy SEAL who places his life in the hands of his comrades in training and war.
Hat tip: Blogs of War
From this article in the NYT:
All of these stories would be getting more play right now if it weren’t for the Al Qaqaa mess. Still, one can understand why the right is so upset.
After all, Al Qaqaa illustrates in a particularly graphic way the failures of Mr. Bush’s national security leadership. U.S. soldiers passed through Al Qaqaa, a crucial munitions dump, but were never told that it was important to secure the site. If administration officials object that they couldn’t have spared enough troops to guard the site, they’re admitting that they went in without enough troops. And the fact that these explosives fell into unknown hands is a perfect example of how the Iraq war has worsened the terrorist threat.
To which I wrote this idiot back:
You need to read something beyond your own newspaper:
Al Qaqaa wasn’t marked “critical” there were other more critical dumps. It was on the “medium” list if I remember correctly.
Out of 1,000,000 tons of explosives, you’re talking about 377? No, wait, 143, no wait, 3 tons?
All we really know is that there were IAEA seals, we don’t know if there was anything there for sure…
Contrast that with some actual physical facts:
380 tons would take 76 5 ton truckloads to “loot”. That would have been somewhat obvious seeing as how the road to the facility went through the 3rd ID. There’s no way the explosives were there when we invaded.
So if you consider these explosives truly important rather then just something to beat up President Bush about, then this really argues President Bush’s case. The US had asked the IAEA to destroy the explosives: no go. Then we stalled the invasion to try to get more world support. Meanwhile, the explosives get moved.
What’s your argument exactly? That Kerry would have dicked around with the UN longer before he got a no from the coalition of the bribed so that even more explosives would be missing?
But I’m going to do it anyways.
Megan McArdle of Jane Galt writes a very thoughtful piece on who she’s going to vote for. I didn’t agree with everything in it, but I definitely understood her point of view.
Here’s the conclusion, but as InstaPundit says: read the whole thing.
Ultimately, I’ve decided to take the advice of a friend’s grandmother, who told me, on her wedding day, that I should never, ever marry a man thinking he’d change. “If you can’t live with him exactly the way he is,” she told me, “then don’t marry him, because he’ll say he’s going to change, and he might even try to change, but it’s one in a million that he actually will.”
Kerry’s record for the first fifteen years in the senate, before he knew what he needed to say in order to get elected, is not the record of anyone I want within spitting distance of the White House war room. For all the administration’s screw -ups — and there have been many — I’m sticking with the devil I know. George Bush in 2004.
In what could be read as a bizarre endorsement of Bush’s Democratic challenger John Kerry, bin Laden, addressing the American people, said “best way to avoid another disaster” was to avoid provoking Arab anger. “Liberals do not neglect their security, contradicting Bush, who says that we hate freedom,” bin Laden said.
Yeah, even Osama won’t endorse Kerry, he’s just a member of the Anybody but Bush crowd.
Piss off Osama, Vote Bush!
When I read this MSNBC article, I thought Kerry was going to be smart enough to take the high road:
Bush was informed of the tape aboard Air Force One late Friday morning by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. “Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country,” he told reporters at the airport in Toledo, Ohio. “I’m sure Senator Kerry will agree with me.”
“I also want to say we are at war with these terrorists,” said Bush, who added that he was “confident we will prevail.”
Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, was informed by his senior foreign policy adviser, Rand Beers, who was briefed by the administration.
“As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists,” Kerry said as he boarded a campaign plane in West Palm Beach, Fla. “They’re barbarians, and I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes, period.”
Then I read the WaPo version:
“Let me make this very clear,” Bush said in Toledo, Ohio, standing next to Air Force One. “Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I’m sure Senator Kerry agrees with this.”
Kerry, too, said, “My reaction is that all of us in this city are completely united.” But he criticized Bush for not capturing bin Laden earlier, and he added pointedly, “I believe I can run a more effective war on terror than George Bush.”
Effing weasel. What’s wrong with saying, “no matter who gets elected, we’re coming for you!”? Why couldn’t Kerry have just said that. I’m going to start calling him Weasel-Boy.
Well, at least the people on his campaign are a little smarter then Kerry. Here’s his official statement:
In response to this tape from Osama bin Laden, let me make it clear, crystal clear. As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. They are barbarians. And I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes. Period.
So I’m still annoyed at him, because I think he’s going to turn this into an election issue based on the quotes in the Washington Post when President Bush tried to avoid that, but maybe he will take the high road.
Bush made all the big decisions correctly in the Global War on Terror. While he’s flubbed some of the details, his opponent seems to indicate that he would have made all the big decisions incorrectly in the GWOT. Given that, I must choose Bush.
From InstaPundit:
I too am worried about what Matthew Yglesias calls Bush Unleashed, at least so far as spending and social legislation goes. Democratic hopes that Bush would somehow be compelled to govern like a Democrat, for no clear reason that I can see, were always destined to be dashed, but the pickups in the house and Senate mean he’ll have a freer hand than I was expecting when I endorsed him.
Jeesh Glenn, you’re being a pessimist. I thought you were a small-l libertarian?
What if Bush used his “mandate” to:
That’s what I’m hoping for…to hell with moving to the right socially, what if Bush moved way over to the right fiscally? Wouldn’t that be cool?
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