Wednesday, April 14, 2004

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.  The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.  The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."   .... John Stuart Mill.

BUSH'S PRESS CONFERENCE LAST NIGHT

President Bush came out swinging last night at his nationally televised press conference, and as usual, the media made a bunch of idiots out of themselves. But that's par for the course, I suppose. Bush began with a 17-minute address to the nation that focused entirely on the situation in Iraq. Throughout the course of his remarks, he shot down just about every argument the Democrats and the media have been making about Iraq.  Don't expect to see that analysis in the press reports of his news conference today however.

The president said that the violence in Iraq is neither a civil war, nor an uprising, but rather a power grab by Islamic militants.  This fact is clear to anyone who takes a rational view of the situation.  So much for the Vietnam comparison.  He also stood by the June 30th deadline for handing over power to the Iraqis, much to the consternation of the left and Democrats in Congress.  He correctly pointed out that if the Coalition steps back from that pledge, the Iraqis will feel betrayed, something he is not going to let happen.  In other words, he wants the word of the United States to actually mean something. Imagine that. If some previous presidents, both Republican and Democrat, had felt the same way we might not be in this fix today.

Then it was send in the clowns time as the media started asking their questions.  It wasn't so much a question and answer period as it was an interrogation. First question? How could Bush be so wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and how could he take us to war on false premises?  Straight out of the liberal playbook.  At the beginning of the war in Iraq John Kerry had the same view on WMDs as did George Bush; ditto for the United Nations and most of Europe.  To hear the media tell it there was only one person in the world last March who felt that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of WMDs, and that person was George Bush.

Then, we had the question that Bush would not answer...and it was priceless, because they tried more than once.  Does the president feel any personal responsibility for 9/11?  The first question that comes to mind is whether or not it is even appropriate for a reporter to demand apologies from the president at a presidential news conference?  But ... ask the question they did.

Look ... he didn't do it.  They did it.  Osama bin Laden and his assortment of Islamic maniacs.  The president's job is not to apologize.  His job is to react; to pursue  the people who did this thing ... and permanently remove them as a threat to our security and interests. 

We started this orgy of apologies during the Clintonista era.  They are little more than moral exhibitionism.  The reason this reporter was pressing Bush for this apology is because he realizes that an apology would be a de facto acceptance of culpability.  Maybe Clinton should apologize.

Then someone asked him if he ever admits any mistakes.  He couldn't think of any.  The liberals in the media must be seething over that one. Then came the question about the PDB, and they couldn't get him on that either. The underlying premise of many of the questions is the standard liberal mantra these days: that President Bush knew about the attacks on 9/11 before they happened and did nothing.  To them, it's all a big conspiracy.

Liberals believe in virtually every conspiracy under the sun, except the one true and obvious conspiracy; the media is liberally biased.  

Bush was also repeatedly questioned on his "plan" to resolve the situation in Iraq and bring our troops home.  What do they want, an hour-by-hour timetable?  The plan stands to turn over Iraqi sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30th.  American troops will stay to protect against insurrection.  Following the transfer of power there will be free elections.  What do they expect from Bush, the names of the candidates?

ASHCROFT ROASTS THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION

If there is one man the Bush-haters hate more than Bush, it's John Ashcroft.  To the left, he might as well be the devil himself.  Anyway, Attorney General John Ashcroft testified yesterday before the 9/11 Blame Commission and dropped a bombshell.  And it's about time somebody said it...these "hearings" have turned into a partisan debacle, so the Bush administration is fighting back.

Ashcroft blamed the Clinton administration for leaving America open to attack, saying that the attacks of 9/11 happened because "for nearly a decade our government had blinded itself to our enemies."  The Democrats on this commission and their buddies in the media want to start assigning blame, then let's put it where it belongs.  Ashcroft went on to say that once in office, he moved to overturn a failed policy that was restricting American agents from killing Osama Bin Laden, allowing only capture.  For eight long years, that was the Democratic approach...treating terrorism as a law enforcement problem.  "Even if they could have penetrated Bin Laden's training camps, they would have needed a battery of lawyers" to take action, he said.  This hits the nail right on the head folks.  The media is roasting the Bush administration over some vague memo before 9/11 when the Clinton administration had Bin Laden in their sites on several occasions?  Spare me.

If these people want to pin the 9/11 attacks on somebody, they're talking to the wrong administration.  

PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE: BUSH vs. KERRY

So here we are the day before April 15th, the drop dead date to have your income tax return filed.  Chances are if you've waited this long, it's probably because you owe money.  Why write the check early?  So with that in mind, I am sure you're just dying to know if the two candidates for president in the fall have paid theirs.

Well, President Bush filed his taxes. Of course, being president, these things are always made public.  George and Laura Bush reported federal adjusted gross income of $822,126 and paid $227,490 in federal income taxes, or about 28%.  Fairly straightforward, and nothing out of the ordinary. So what about sKerry's taxes?  This is where it gets good.

Now, remember..the Bushes filed their taxes together.  With much fanfare, the Kerry campaign  released his 2003 return, and it showed $395,000 in taxable income with $90,575 in federal income taxes paid, or about 23% of his income.  Senator Kerry filed all by his lonesome.  Now, obviously all of the mansions that Kerry routinely inhabits around the world aren't coming his way on $395,000 a year.  The big money comes from his wife, who is worth millions.  But what did she pay? What about her fair share? That we don't know.

It's certainly Kerry's right to file separately, but can you imagine the howls of protest if Bush had done the same thing?  People would be demanding to know what he was hiding.  But once again, the Democrats get a pass.

IMAGINE IF THOSE HATE-FILLED REPUBLICANS DID THIS!

The St. Petersburg (Fl.) Democratic Club paid for an ad in a local newspaper this week.  That ad, which was a general diatribe against George Bush, contained the following line:

"Rumsfeld [has] said of Iraq, 'We have our good days and our bad days.'  We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger."

This is old news to those of you who listen to talk radio, but there are millions of Americans who don't listen to talk radio, and who don't visit the Drudge Report on the Internet, who will never learn of the ad. 

I bring this up again today for one reason.  What if it had been a Republican group that placed the ad?  What if the ad had called for the assassination of a prominent Democrat?  Do you think that there is a chance in hell that you wouldn't have heard about it on virtually every network newscast yesterday?  Do you think that there is one front page of a major newspaper that wouldn't have carried the story? 

Just wondering.

THE 9/11 COMMISSION --- A POLITICAL PANEL

Look at these guys ... they're rushing to get in front of the cameras to put their own spin on the testimony they've heard.  All these people want to do is score points for their side.  They're not interested in the truth ... just in the spin.  If the 9/11 Commission was actually serious about gathering information and presenting a cogent report there would be no appearances by commission members on television or before reporters, and there would have been no televised hearings.  Partisan grandstanding ... leading to little more than nothing.

THE ECONOMY ... GROWTH BAD ... NO GROWTH BAD

More bad news for Democrats today.  You can follow the links in the reading assignments to discover that college seniors and graduate students face much brighter job prospects now than they have in many years.  You will also read that some economists are raising their forecasts for economic growth in the US.  We have a surge in consumer spending and rising factory orders.  Consumer confidence is building, and so is the confidence of business leaders. 

And what about jobs?  A recent poll showed that 34% of Americans now think the time is right to go look for a high-quality job.  That doesn't sound like much until you learn that the figure last August was 15%.

The really pathetic thing here is that all of this good economic news is bad news for Democrats.  The Democratic Party, thriving on bad news while Americans thrive on the good.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

I'm sure glad someone else is saying this:  People are starting to get just a bit weary of the professional 9/11 widows.

The St. Petersburg Democratic club placed an ad in a newspaper calling for the assassination of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Need I say more?

I guess the Democrats are going to have to find a way to make this bad news too.  It seems that the jobs market for college seniors and graduate students is picking up.  Quite a lousy economy we have, isn't it?

And the bad news for Democrats keeps coming ... though it's good news for the rest of us.  Economists are actually raising their forecasts for economic growth.

Can the United Nations finish the job in Iraq?  Hint:  Has it ever finished the job anywhere else?

Here is the full text of President Bush's press conference last night.

Thomas Sowell continues with part two of his 'Titanic Irresponsibility' series about fighting terrorism. For those that missed it, here is part one.

Walter E. Williams looks at political correctness at today's colleges and universities. It's worse than you think.

Kathleen Parker writes about the hysteria surrounding the August 6, 2001 PDB memo.  She writes about what was actually in it, not what everyone thinks is there.

Paul Greenberg says people are doing their best to find Vietnam inside Iraq, even though it's not there.

Joel Mowbray chronicles the smear campaign underway at the New York Times to discredit President Bush.

Jonah Goldberg says the Clinton Administration, not Bush, is to blame for the intelligence failures leading up to 9/11.

Michelle Malkin notes that the same liberals who are now complaining that the Bush administration didn't do enough to prevent 9/11 are also the same liberals that complain when something is actually done about terrorism.

Terence Jeffrey looks at two terrorists that didn't get away, along with how they were caught.

Brent Bozell talks about the absurdities of the 9/11 Commission....what exactly is the point? Good column.

Ben Shapiro gives a brief excerpt of what the screenplay for Richard Clarke's new movie might look like.

Linda Chavez writes about the enormous conflict of interest one of the members of the 9/11 Commission, Jamie Gorelick has.

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