Bush Defies The Left And Some Notice

In a conversation recently, I mentioned as an aside what a great president George Bush has been and my friend was surprised. I was surprised that he was surprised.

I generally don't write columns about the manifestly obvious, but, yes, the man responsible for keeping Americans safe from another terrorist attack on American soil for nearly seven years now will go down in history as one of America's greatest presidents.

Produce one person who believed, on Sept. 12, 2001, that there would not be another attack for seven years, and I'll consider downgrading Bush from "Great" to "Really Good."
(...)

We begin to forget what it was like to turn on the TV, see a tornado, a car chase or another Pamela Anderson marriage and think: Good -- another day without a terrorist attack.

But liberals have only blind hatred for Bush -- and for those brute American interrogators who do not supply extra helpings of béarnaise sauce to the little darlings at Guantanamo with sufficient alacrity.

The sheer repetition of lies about Bush is wearing people down. There is not a liberal in this country worthy of kissing Bush's rear end, but the weakest members of the herd run from Bush. Compared to the lickspittles denying and attacking him, Bush is a moral giant -- if that's not damning with faint praise. John McCain should be so lucky as to be running for Bush's third term. Then he might have a chance.

DKK
Ann Coulter -- BUSH'S AMERICA: 100 PERCENT AL-QAIDA FREE SINCE 2001

U.S. Life Expectancy Lengthens

Life expectancy in the United States lengthens to a new record:

White women continue to have the longest life expectancy, followed by African-American women, white men, and African-American men. Those patterns have held since 1976, though all groups have seen their life expectancy improve during that time.

Here are the 2006 life expectancy figures for each of those groups:

• White women: 81 years
• African-American women: 76.9 years
• White men: 76 years
• African-American men: 70 years

DKK
Just One Minute -- Live Long and Prosper

Perhaps The Democrats Will Support An Ally And American Workers And Consumers

Congress: Is the outlook improving on passing Colombia free trade? Apparently, yes. Monday, its trade minister noted a "good atmosphere" in Congress. If so, Democrats may finally be considering their own interests.
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Plata called Canada's passage of its own Colombia free trade pact — concluded last Saturday — "a factor" that was getting Democrats' attention. As we noted last week, Canadians will eat our lunch with their own tariff-free goods, while American companies sit on the sidelines paying $1 billion a year in levies and lose business.

Let's not even bring up that Colombian companies selling in the U.S. already don't pay tariffs at all due to prior agreements — it's another thorn Congress can correct with a vote right away.

Two-way trade between the U.S. and Colombia today is $18 billion. The same between Canada and Colombia is $1.14 billion.

But because the U.S. and Canadian economies export similar goods — chemicals, grains, cars, car parts, petroleum products, plastics, and machinery — it's a slam-dunk that tariff-free Canadian goods will be an easy switch for Colombian buyers, losing American companies their markets.

DKK
IBD -- Breaking A Logjam

Dem's Prevent Drilling -- Again

GOP Rep. John Peterson’s latest bid to lift domestic offshore drilling restrictions, which I blogged earlier today here, was killed this afternoon by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and the Environment. It was a straight, party line vote.

DKK
Michelle Malkin -- Ofshore drilling bill killed

Obama's Economic Advisor Disagrees With Most Of Obama's Rhetoric

So Barack Obama has named economist Jason Furman of the Brookings Institution as his top economic adviser. Very interesting pick. Already, liberal activists are in a tizzy because of his contrarian positions on some policy issues. Here is what I can tell you about Furman. (I have spoken with him on several occasions, and several conservative economists I know think highly of him.)
1) Furman is no protectionist. ...
2) Furman is also skeptical about a major pillar of economic thought in the Democratic Party, that the past three decades have been terrible for workers because of "stagnant wages." He sees it as intellectually dishonest to ignore healthcare and retirement benefits when doing that calculation, as well as the falling price of everything from computers to airline tickets. ...
3) Furman also sees the value in a low tax rate with few deductions and is in favor of Charlie Rangel's proposed corporate income tax cut. ...

Read the whole thing.
DKK
USNews -- The Jason Furman Saga: Has Obama His New Economic Adviser Yet?

House Votes To Remove A Tool To Defeat Our Enemies

The Democrats are angry. Despite investing enormous effort undermining the military, things are going fairly well in Iraq. General Petraeus and the surge have been a success, not that you would know that from the media coverage, which has been, to say the least, sparse. The anti-Bush themes of an "Iraqi quagmire" and "surge failure" were premature, and all the congressional show hearings, the choreographed Code Pink performance art and the MoveOn.org smears were for naught. The president and the military did it right, and the Democrats got it wrong.

The House passed Amendment 56 to the Defense Authorization Act for FY 2009 (384 to 23 in a voice vote), prohibiting the Department of Defense (DOD) from engaging in publicity or "propaganda" programs, banning funding for such programs and calling for an investigation by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) into the DOD Military Analyst Program. The justification is that Pentagon briefings on current operations presented to retired military pundits amounted to manipulating the media, and that it deceived the public with false information about the Iraq war.

We won WWII on the back of propaganda.

What this insane policy would do is put into law the indignation of the left anytime the military attempts to save lives by providing information about American victories. Victories that would demoralize our (can I still say) enemies, the ones shooting at us.

It is part of the new leftist philosophy starting after WWII that said complete victory was wrong and all war, even wars to protect America can be rationalized as unnecessary and evil.

All the while al Qaeda can and will continue their propaganda efforts.
DKK

American Thinker -- Losing the Information War with Amendment 56

USA Today -- Drill Now!

Alaska drilling is no quick fix, but it needs to happen

$4-a-gallon gas highlights need to tap into domestic oil reserves.

DKK
USA Today

Jimmy Carter -- "Obama Doea Not Have Substance Or Experience To Be President"

Jimmy Carter: "Obama Does Not Have Substance Or Experience to Be President"

Gateway Pundit has the video!
DKK

Obama's First Important Appointment Resigns -- Fabled Judgment ™ Shaky

Jim Johnson resigns Barack Obama's vice-presidential search committee.

Everyone and their brother expects the inevitable, "This isn't the Jim Johnson I once knew." Once again, we see that Obama's first instinct when encountering a skeptical questioner is to challenge the questioner; "no, you're wrong." Twenty-four hours ago, this was "a game" and Johnson didn't work for Obama. Once again, as with Wright, and the flag pin, and Trinity United, etc., the initial answer is now inoperative.

Bonus points to my campaign source who said yesterday "it's only a matter of time before Johnson's departure, because he costs the candidate a lot more than he benefits him."

UPDATE: A brilliant question from Campaign Spot reader Tim: "How do you accept the resignation of someone who doesn't work for you?"

DKK

The Campaign Spot On National Review

Al Qaeda Proves Bush Correct -- Again

Guardian UK provides quite an extensive list of al Qaeda defeats but remains dangerous.

Of course, after all that ink they couldn't get away without this parting shot from an expert on radical Islam:

"Just because the CIA says al-Qaida has been defeated it's not thanks to the efforts of the Americans. The al-Qaida idea will not die if American foreign policy remains the same in the Middle East and the Muslim world. If there is another administration like Bush in Iraq and a new war in Iran, it will get a new lease of life."

Guardian UK -- New front line with al-Qaida feared as terror switches focus from Iraq

Let me just add here that the title alone confirms a central premise of the Bush administrations Iraq policy, possibly including the Honey-pot Theory.
DKK

McCain To Pennsylvania

“We’re going to go to the small towns in Pennsylvania and I’m gonna to tell them I don’t agree with Senator Obama that they cling to their religion and the Constitution because they’re bitter.”

DKK
Via -- Hot Air -- McCain: Pennsylvanian small town voters patriotic, not bitter

More On That Intelligence Committee Report -- Supports Bush Administration

THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE has once again released a report claiming that the Bush administration hyped prewar intelligence. The so-called Phase Two report is supposed to investigate the Bush administration's handling of prewar intelligence. In reality, the report is little more than yet another attempt by partisan Democrats to make political hay out of flawed prewar intelligence. (The only Republicans to endorse the report were two of the Senate's most liberal GOP members.) The committee focused exclusively on prewar statements by Bush administration officials, ignoring similar statements by leading Democrats. Therefore, the report is intended to portray the Bush administration in the worst possible light. But even with this bias, the committee came to a noteworthy conclusion: The Bush administration was right to claim that Saddam's regime was harboring al Qaeda members.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's report includes this conclusion at the end of a terse section on the Bush administration's claims about Saddam's prewar terror ties:

Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al Qaeda-related terrorist members were substantiated by the intelligence assessments.

Intelligence assessments noted Zarqawi's presence in Iraq and his ability to travel and operate within the country. The intelligence community generally believed that Iraqi intelligence must have known about, and therefore at least tolerated, Zarqawi's presence in the country.

Regarding postwar information collected by the U.S. intelligence community, the report reads:

Postwar information supports prewar assessments and statements that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad and that al Qaeda was present in northern Iraq.

DKK
Weekly Standard -- Harboring al Qaeda

How's The World Dealing With Oil Prices? How Long Till Environmentalists Get Tarred and Feathered?

British pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes. European hauliers and fishermen whose livelihoods are under threat. Palestinians forced to fill up their cars with olive oil. Americans asked to go down to a four-day week.

All around the world, in a multitude of ways, the soaring price of oil is hurting rich and poor alike. For the lucky ones, it is simply a matter of changing their lifestyle. But those most vulnerable to the price of oil have been driven on to the streets in angry protests, which raise a fundamental question: what can we do to survive in a world where a barrel of oil costs $127 (£64).

DKK

The Independent -- Shocked! How the oil crisis has hit the world