Wednesday, April 29, 2009

100 Days

This article sums up Obama’s first 100 days rather well, but I will add my own opinion, highlighting the good and the bad.

First, the positives. Unfortunately, there are few:

- Killing 3 Somali pirates, putting one on trial, and freeing their American captive. Some would call this a no-brainer decision but Obama made the right decision nonetheless. Good for him. It sent the right message and hopefully that message will continue.
- More involvement in Latin America. This is our backyard and many politicians have ignored this area. I think that’s a mistake. Our influence must be apparent and must be constant. At least Obama appears headed in that direction, although his tactics are questionable.
- Wooing Arlen Specter. It’s about time this guy became a Democrat. He represents everything the grass roots people hate about Republicans. He switched to survive, but certainly Obama had a role in that and so I count it as a positive.
- Cutting spending in his cabinet. I had trouble counting this as a positive. After all, the money he’s talking about cutting is only a fraction of what needs to be cut. It would be the same as me cutting $6 out of my annual budget. But, hey, at least it’s a spending cut.

And the negatives. There are many but I highlight the whoppers – the ones I think are most damaging.

- Releasing CIA documents. Without a doubt this is his biggest mistake. He now owns the responsibility for any future terrorist attack because with this one move he has shown our enemies the battleplan. This is huge and I doubt he thought it out properly, or asked the right advice from the right people. 60% of Americans believe this made us less safe, which means that if we get hit again guess who takes the blame for it…
- Apologies and arrogance. No matter your political affiliation, no American wants to see our President apologizing for America and calling us arrogant. We don’t want dictators chastising America in the President’s presence. We don’t want our President to bow before a misogynistic king.
- Vetting. A tax cheat heads the IRS. A governor taking money from a no-questions-asked abortion doctor heads Health and Human Services. An abortion supporter appointed to the Vatican. The list goes on.
- Rush Limbaugh. Why would you target a radio commentator? This was petty and beneath the President of the United States. It made him look cheap and juvenile. He should have taken a lesson from W. and just ignored the guy.
- Partisanship. So much for promises. He refuses to take any Republican proposals, refuses to add any Republican ideas into his legislation, and then when he gets no Republican support he calls them obstructive. Hosting them for beer and Super Bowls does not equate to bipartisanship.
- Blame Bush. Enough already. Once again, it is beneath the President to blame others for the problems he faces. Did Bush ever once blame Clinton for 9/11?
- Spending. It is grotesque. He campaigned for two years telling voters that we needed a change in policy, and the voters agreed. Yet, Obama opted not to change the policy and instead multiply it exponentially. His victory came about mainly because Americans were fed up with high-spending Republicans, but somehow Obama didn’t get that memo. So he has tripled our debt, become the de facto CEO of General Motors, taken one more step towards nationalizing our banks, and wasted billions on bailouts that have yet to produce any results. He has threatened the future of the next generation who will be working to pay China for our debt. To top it off, he tells us all to show fiscal restraint while flying a mock Air Force One above the Statue of Liberty for a photo-op at a taxpayer cost of >$320,000, terrifying New York citizens in the process. Disgraceful.
- Education. He shuts down the D.C. voucher program, which had proven to be a success. This denied many inner city students a chance at a quality education and was a clear bow to the teachers unions and special interests. Then he enrolls his own kids in a top-notch private school.
- Discrepancy and Lies. He burns 9,000 gallons of fuel flying to speeches on Earth Day. He calls America arrogant and donates an autographed photo of himself to a school charity auction. He promises not to have lobbyists in his administration, and at last count there were 17. He speaks against earmarks while signing a bill containing 8,000 of them. He calls the Wall Street bonuses “the height if irresponsibility” but forgets to mention that his own Treasury Secretary brokered the deal that allowed those bonuses to be paid. He holds a town hall web meeting and calls on 5 people – all staunch Dem supporters and donors – to ask the only questions. He releases CIA memos on interrogation, but refuses to release the memos that detail what was learned in the interrogations; and then has the gall to tell the CIA that he supports them. He promises transparency in gov’t, then rams through a stimulus bill before any American, including those in Congress, have a chance to read it. He promises no new taxes on the middle class, then passes a tobacco tax-hike that affects mainly the middle and lower class; and pursues cap-and-trade policies that will substantially raise cost-of-living for the same folks. He promises to be “our” President, but doesn’t even acknowledge the tax day Tea Parties. He speaks against the “politics of fear” then tells us all that it will be catastrophic if his stimulus bill isn’t passed. There are more, but you get the point.

So far “our” President has been incredibly disappointing. I hope it’s part of the learning curve and I hope he gets it together. Otherwise, the next 600 or so days may be very difficult.

9 comments:

Dan Trabue said...

Releasing CIA documents. Without a doubt this is his biggest mistake. He now owns the responsibility for any future terrorist attack because with this one move he has shown our enemies the battleplan.

What "battleplan" has Obama shown? That we don't torture? Well, that's a given, or should be.

That we will prosecute our own people if it appears they have taken part in torture? Again, this should be a given.

I'm not sure what battleplan you fear has been released to the world. US laws are against torture. Us laws are against waterboarding (some Japanese were prosecuted after WWII for waterboarding - it's already acknowledged as torture and as a crime).

For my part, re-affirming that the US does not torture only makes us stronger. It is our best ideals that makes us strong.

Apologies and arrogance. No matter your political affiliation, no American wants to see our President apologizing for America and calling us arrogant. We don’t want dictators chastising America in the President’s presence.

Again, I am one proud American who DOES want us to apologize when we get things wrong. I don't mind being chastised (even by a leader who has their own set of character problems) for our misdeeds.

It is arrogant to presume that we have never done anything wrong. It is only wise to apologize for mistakes made in the past. And, of all places, we have MUCH MUCH MUCH to apologize for in Latin America.

Once again, it is our ideals that make the US great. By apologizing for when we shirked those ideals, Obama affirms America's strengths.

Tis a very good thing. One ought never mistake humility for weakness.

Dan Trabue said...

Blame Bush. Enough already. Once again, it is beneath the President to blame others for the problems he faces. Did Bush ever once blame Clinton for 9/11?

In the interest of fairness...

In fact, in a September 2006 interview with the New York Post editorial board, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received considerable attention for placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of President Clinton:

"Nobody organized this country or the international community to fight the terrorist threat that was upon us until 9/11. ... We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al-Qaida. For instance, big pieces were missing, like an approach to Pakistan that might work, because without Pakistan you weren’t going to get Afghanistan." ~C. Rice

In a speech on Aug. 30, 2005, Bush said that three out of his four predecessors -- excluding his father -- didn't respond sufficiently to crises, which emboldened terrorists and led to 9/11:

"They looked at our response after the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole. They concluded that free societies lacked the courage and character to defend themselves against a determined enemy. … After September the 11th, 2001, we’ve taught the terrorists a very different lesson: America will not run in defeat and we will not forget our responsibilities."
~GW Bush


ON THE ECONOMY:

"When I took office, our economy was beginning a recession." -- Bush, 8/7/02

"The president inherited a Clinton recession and turned it into the early stages of Bush prosperity." -- Secretary of Commerce Don Evans, 9/2/04

"In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession." -- Bush, 1/12/09

Dan Trabue said...

His victory came about mainly because Americans were fed up with high-spending Republicans, but somehow Obama didn’t get that memo.? Oh really? Someone should have sent that memo to all of us who were fed up with the Iraq War, with torture, with the war on the environment, etc. We wanted change on a lot of fronts. We wanted a change from the arrogance displayed by the Bush administration.

Those of us who voted for him for those reasons (and we are many) are not wholly dissatisfied thus far.

John Washburn said...

Dan,

I'm not sure how someone sees arrogance in the Bush administration and humility in Barack Obama. There are many words I could use to describe Obama, and humble would not be one of them. So I can't really respond to that particular comment.

I'll concede that on 3 occasions in 8 years Bush alluded to problems that he inherited. Although his comments about the previous 20 years and poor responses to terrorist attacks barely fit the mold of assigning blame. I think it's more along the lines of justifying his plan to do things a little differently. At any rate, Obama seems to blame Bush everytime there's a teleprompter running, and I think it's getting a bit old.

Regarding the change that you sought, I wonder how you feel about Obama essentially continuing the Bush strategy in Iraq? Even last night, he conceded that the withdrawal deadline isn't definite. So the "change" President is basically doubling down on Bush's economic policies - the very policies that helped create our financial mess - and he's continuing the Bush policy in Iraq. In addition, he's pouring more troops into Afghanistan when that country appears to no longer be strategically significant given the Taliban's apparent strategy of simply moving into Pakistan.

And the environment? I wonder what Bush policies you would categorize as "war" on the environment. If you're referring to his cautious approach to endorsing a controversial theory about human-induced climate change, then I would say that it's a bit drastic to call that "war on the environment".

It's true that Bush would have never allowed Ortega to rip the US the way he did without an appropriate response. It's true that Bush would never bow to a Saudi king, or apologize for American actions meant to free those from tyranny, or accept an insulting gift from a lunatic dictator without comment, or allow North Korea to fire an offensive weapon across Japan. You call this arrogance, I call it strength. The crazies of the world may have hated the guy, but at least they respected him, and that's how the crazies should feel about our President. Being liked does not take priority over being respected or even feared.

And for the CIA documents, it is obvious that many stringent Obama supporters, including yourself, don't understand the danger that Obama has put us in. I prefer to take the advice of many prior heads of CIA when they say this was not appropriate. Showing terrorists the absolute worst things we're willing to do to get information and then telling them that we're not even willing to do those things anymore essentialy tells them that they're plans aren't likely to be compromised. It emboldens them.

Those documents revealed that we waterboarded THREE people...THREE! And now we don't even have the guts to do that anymore. So the bad guys really don't have anything to fear do they? All they have to worry about is the army field manual which is nothing more than name (since rank and serial number don't apply to enemy non-military combatants). What information do you expect us to obtain with that kind of interrogation?

You say waterboarding is torture. I disagree. We can go on and on about this. If it's torture, then why do our own special forces go through it during training?

I say torture is anything that inflicts physical pain. Simple enough. Coerced interrogation works on fear, not physical pain. You scare them into talking, you don't force them to talk via pain. Fear is not torture.

Ron Russell said...

You are far to kind to Obama in regard to Latin America. His actions toward the few real friends of the U.S. in that region are simply a reflection of his true leftest agenda. Its quite obvious he favors Chavez in his conflict with Columbia. We are in danger of losing on of our last reminding allies in that part of the world--we need another Ollie North.

Dan Trabue said...

Oliver North is a rightly convicted war criminal. He broke US law and gave money and support to terrorists. Interesting choice of heroes, there.

You say waterboarding is torture. I disagree. We can go on and on about this. If it's torture, then why do our own special forces go through it during training?

It's not so much that I say waterboarding is torture, it's that it IS torture according to our laws. We convicted Japanese soldiers of war crimes for using waterboarding techniques during WWII.

So, you are free to debate whether or not waterboarding OUGHT to be considered torture, but in the meantime, it IS considered torture by our laws and we WILL push for investigations and prosecutions where appropriate.

You can take the advice of others if you wish, but that does not change the facts.

Again I say: It is our ideals which make us strong.

(Just curious: Are you supportive of overturning the WWII convictions of those who used waterboarding against us?)

Dan Trabue said...

John said:

I wonder what Bush policies you would categorize as "war" on the environment.

I refer to many things, including...

A. Instead of cleaning up power plants as Candidate Bush promised, the Bush administration allowed the polluters themselves to re-write the clean air regulations. Two months after being sworn in, then President Bush;

1. Delayed the deadlines for reducing ozone smog
2. Delayed the deadlines for removing fine particulates from the air
3. Delayed action to reduce haze from National parks
4. Delayed by more than a decade, real reductions in toxic mercury emissions from power plants and
5. Allowed up to 7 times more mercury emissions than current law permits.

B. Bush repeatedly hired fossil fuel industry (coal, oil, etc) people to be the "watchdogs" of those industries. That's hiring the fox to guard the chicken house.

C. Bush's distrust of science and rejection of his own scientists recommendations in favor of industry preferences.

I could go on, but you wouldn't trust my positions to be accurate, anyway, right?

John Washburn said...

Ron,
Point well taken. I’m trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. Many Presidents have not paid much attention to Latin America which allows other countries, like China, to establish and increase their influence there. But, yes, you are right about alienating Columbia. That’s a friendship that Bush developed effectively and Obama has failed to maintain.

Dan,
I don’t doubt your facts about Bush’s environmental policies. But I do question your hyperbole that it amounts to “war on the environment”. I feel that Bush was concerned about protecting the environment but would not take measures that would threaten our economic infrastructure in the name of being environmentally friendly. There are other ways to protect the environment without damaging the economy. This is why he opposed Kyoto. It is a fine line that must be walked between sound environmental policy and healthy economic policy and I think Bush walked it rather well. A healthy environment doesn’t matter much with a crappy economy, since crappy economies tend to be bad for the environment, ie third world countries.

As far as waterboarding, I am wondering what US laws have banned this practice? Bush had a strong legal team around him and none of them could find a law that banned it, unless you believe that Bush knowingly and willingly committed war crimes. In that case, I would suggest you seek help for your lingering case of BDS. You point to the prosecution of Japanese soldiers. Were they prosecuted ONLY for waterboarding? I’d like to see more. I’m familiar with how the Japanese treated POWs in WWII and I seriously doubt that these soldiers were only guilty of waterboarding. Chances are it was the mildest thing they did. I don’t understand how you draw a parallel between privileged combatants like US POWs and unprivileged combatants like mercenaries and civilian terrorists, but I guess that gets at the heart of the entire argument between Bush supporters and critics. In your eyes, there is no difference in the two. In mine, the difference is clear. The argument will never be decided.

SNAKE HUNTERS said...

An interesting debate, gentlemen; substantive clear thinking from Washburn & Russell; fuzzy, boring remarks from Tradue.
>
It's curious that almost nobody will mention the 'King-maker' that endorsed, and provided huge sums of money for Gore (2000), Kerry (2004), then Hillary (2006-07) then suddenly switched his campaign strategy (and money) to Obama on Feb 1, 2008. (Poor Hillary, and Billy thought she was entitled!)

He's been well-known for decades as THE Master-manipulator in Europe, and even in remote Thailand, but is nearly unknown to most citizens here, be they Left, Right, or Independent!

Now, the above named politicians must face the realities of a cruel war in Pakistan & Afganistan, and David Petraeus will be asked to pull off a latter-days miracle for these clowns!
>
I have a thick dossier on Uncle Georgie Soros, and below that dour face on the front cover...

"International Monster-Man".

reb - (print, file) May 1, 2009
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