Tag Archives: President Bush

Unflattering comparison

Posted on January 26, 2007 | Comments Off on Unflattering comparison

Don Suber, in his Charleston (WVA) Daily Mail column today, makes a good point: Bush is a poor wartime leader. Just about everyone who supports the Iraq campaign has compared the war on terror to World War II, but Bush apparently can’t see or feel the parallels. Elsewise he might have devoted his entire State of the Union speech to the campaigns, as FDR did to his war:

"President Roosevelt delivered a 4,588-word State of the Union on Jan. 7, 1943, that was on one topic alone: World War II. The war was that serious to FDR. He went through the battles. He went over the war production. He did not mention a single domestic program. He offered hope instead…In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Bush didn’t get around to the war until after 2,317 words in his 5,667-word speech. The people can hardly be expected to stay the course when the captain is not at the helm 24 hours a day."

Bush, whose approval rate average is hovering just two degrees above freezing, has kept most of the war’s details to himself, instead of sharing them with us, and we’re all paying the price for his shortsightedness.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War

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President Bush unfiltered

Posted on January 23, 2007 | Comments Off on President Bush unfiltered

Some conservative and libertarian bloggers, Bush supporters all though they wish he would fight harder, are calling it his best State of the Union message yet. While I agree that it’s doubtfull it will do him much good politically, it at least had the virtue of reinvigorating those of us who have supported him all along.

"Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers."

New Virginia Sen. Jim Webb’s rebuttal got less praise, particularly his claim that a majority of the military doesn’t support the "way this war is being fought." That’s a narrow enough claim that it might have some truth to it, since I suspect from all the milblogs that I’ve read that the military would, if anything, like to fight harder, eradicate Mookie and his gang, and hit Iran and Syria, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. But not, as Webb implied, that they’d sooner abandon Iraq.

Steve Green, the Vodkapundit who is struggling with what might be Graves Disease, concluded after live-blogging Bush’s effort that about all that seventh-year presidents have left to accomplish is foreigh policy. That would be a lot for Bush who staked his all on it after 9/11. Hopefully he will follow through on his words this time, and we’ll finally have a resolution to the trouble Iran and Syria are fomenting in Iraq and Lebanon, possibly through military action, or whatever it takes. We can hope so, anyway.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops

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President Bush

Posted on January 14, 2007 | Comments Off on President Bush

He’s grown old before my eyes. More wrinkled, grayer, doesn’t smile as much as the Texas governor who once elbowed me in the ribs as he circulated among state troopers after receiving an Austin briefing on a major flood in South Texas. I was there as a reporter. He didn’t know me from Adam. But he may have remembered me from the governor’s mansion’s Christmas party for the news media the previous December. If so, he had a good memory for faces and names. When he elbowed me, in a sort of happy-jock way, with a happy-jock grin on his face, I sort of half-smiled and, though I was there to write down whatever he said, I spent the rest of the time trying to stay out of his way. He still smiles easily in news conferences at the White House, but I can see that he’s tired. He spends too much time with the loved ones of dead soldiers and Marines, too much time with the wounded at Walter Reed, too much time with generals and advisers, and probably reads too much of the vitriol the media, the Dems, and the haters have thrown at him for six years now. I don’t hate him. I dislike some of his decisions, such as his refusal to control illegal immigration, to have (until lately) declined to increase the size of the fighting forces, and his apparent disinclination to follow through on some of his (I think) admirable aims after 9/11, such as taking on nations supporting terrorism. Saudi Arabia comes to mind. Yet, in the main, I still like him, and I’ve lost some friends over defending him. Bush haters all. Their slurs seem irrational to me. Also to House of Eratosthenes who (which?) has the best essay I’ve ever seen here on Bush Derangement Syndrome. Good luck, George, in your last two years. Try not to let the bastards get you down.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Texana, The War, Troops

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President Bush unfiltered

Posted on January 10, 2007 | Comments Off on President Bush unfiltered

I didn’t watch his speech. I rarely watch them anymore as his "performance" is largely irrelevant to me. I’m more interested in what he says, and for that I always await the transcript, which is here. It’s at CBS news, which I normally wouldn’t trust to send out for donuts, but it’s the only one I can find at the moment. When the White House has one up, I’ll switch the link to it. (I found the White House one and switched it.) The surge sounds workable, even logical, focused as it will be on Baghdad and al Anbar. And although he offered no specifics on Iran and Syria he at least said we’d be working (at last) to stop their interference. He only mentioned two carrier strike groups, although a third one is plainly to soon be on the way, but he did mention the security of the region and stopping Iran from getting nukes. All of which may be as pointed inuendo as he feels he is able to offer right now. I hope he has much more in mind.

UPDATE  Two days of furious battles in Baghdad show the fight has begun, re Iraq the Model here. 

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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A welcome and a warning

Posted on January 3, 2007 | Comments Off on A welcome and a warning

President Bush, who lately seems to be dithering, welcomes the new Congress in Opinion Journal, with a warning for the party most identified with retreat:

"If democracy fails and the extremists prevail in Iraq, America’s enemies will be stronger, more lethal, and emboldened by our defeat. Leaders in both parties understand the stakes in this struggle. We now have the opportunity to build a bipartisan consensus to fight and win the war."

He also notes that Republicans will get their say in anything the Dems seek to pass, and he has a veto to use, if necessary. Tough stuff.

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Posted in Iraq, The War

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President Bush, unfiltered

Posted on December 21, 2006 | Comments Off on President Bush, unfiltered

As usual, the MSM is presenting Bush’s press conference yesterday as discouraging for all concerned. No surprise there. What else have they done for the past six years? So it’s worth reading the transcript of the event, without the Bush-is-failing, the-war-is-lost, the sky-is-falling spin, to make up your own mind.

"I want the Iraqis to understand that we believe that if they stand up, step up and lead, and with our help we can accomplish the objective. And I want the enemy to understand that this is a tough task, but they can’t run us out of the Middle East, that they can’t intimidate America. They think they can. They think it’s just a matter of time before America grows weary and leaves, abandons the people of Iraq, for example. And that’s not going to happen."

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Posted in Iraq, The War

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Tet on the Tigris

Posted on October 20, 2006 | Comments Off on Tet on the Tigris

Bush’s political and media opponents are having a grand time with his remark that there may be some similarities between Tet, 1968, in Vietnam and Baghdad, in 2006–at least in the way that the enemy is trying to influence American politics. Poor man, he has no way to win with some people. If he says nothing, he’s uncommunicative. If he says something, he’s either blundered or engaging in spin. British military historian John Kagan says he blundered. At least Kagan’s numbers are instructive.

"By January 1968, total American casualties in Vietnam — killed, wounded and missing — had reached 80,000 and climbing…In a bad week in Vietnam, the US could suffer 2,000 casualties. Since 2003, American forces in Iraq have never suffered as many as 500 casualties a month…In any year of the Vietnam war, the communist party of North Vietnam sent 200,000 young men to the battlefields in the south, most of whom did not return. Vietnam was one of the largest and costliest wars in history. The insurgency in Iraq resembles one of the colonial disturbances of imperial history."

Via Instapundit 

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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