Posts by Richie

27

US Presidents

by roybatty in

jw
friends

.

who were the top three presidents over the last 100 years?

Richie

What Makes a President Great?
Scholars finally begin giving Reagan his due.
BY JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, June 10, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Ronald Reagan has had a hard time getting his due from scholars. In 1996 Arthur Schlesinger Jr. conducted a poll of historians asking them to rank the presidents, and Mr. Reagan came in 25th out of 39, putting him in the "low average" category. The Gipper had done only slightly better in a Siena College survey two years earlier, finishing 20th out of 41--below Bill Clinton (16th), who had been in office less than two years, and well below Lyndon B. Johnson (13th). It's hard to agree that the president who won the Cold War was less successful than the one who escalated the Vietnam War.

The flaw in these studies is obvious. Because academics tend to be far to the left of the general population, conservative presidents, especially recent ones, usually get short shrift. (A C-Span survey in 1999, which included "professional presidential experts" as well as historians, did rank Mr. Reagan 11th.)

Public opinion polls tell a different story. In February 2001 Gallup asked Americans who was the greatest president in history. Mr. Reagan finished first, with 18%. Yet while Gallup's results are ideologically balanced, they also reflect a lack of historical perspective. When the firm asked the same question in May 2003, 51% of respondents named a post-1960 president. Among Democrats, 46% picked either John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton, while 41% of Republicans chose either Mr. Reagan or George W. Bush. Whatever the merits of these four men, it seems premature at best to declare them greater than the likes of Washington and Lincoln.

In 2000 the Federalist Society came up with a way to remedy the flaws in both types of surveys. It asked 78 scholars in history, law and politics to rate the presidents on a five-point scale. "We tried to choose approximately equal numbers of scholars who lean to the left and to the right," explains Northwestern University's James Lindgren, who analyzed the data. "Another way to express this is that we sought to mirror what scholarly opinion might be on the counterfactual assumption that the academy was politically representative of the society in which we live and work."

Mr. Lindgren averaged the ratings for each of the 39 presidents (George W. Bush was not yet elected, and William Henry Harrison and James Garfield were omitted because they died shortly after taking office) and divided them into six categories: great, near great, above average, average, below average and failure. The results appeared in November 2000 on OpinionJournal.com and have just been published as a Wall Street Journal book, "Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House," which also includes an essay on each president and several thematic chapters on presidential leadership. (For excerpts, click here.) Some highlights:

? Eight presidents were judged "near great," including Mr. Reagan, who finished eighth. Among them only James K. Polk (10th) served just one term.

? Among recent presidents, only Mr. Reagan ranked as "near great." JFK (18th) and LBJ (17th) were "above average," George H.W. Bush (21st) and Bill Clinton (24th) "average," and Richard Nixon (33rd), Gerald Ford (28th) and Jimmy Carter (30th) "below average."

? Mr. Clinton was the most controversial president--that is, the scholars' rankings of him diverged more sharply than for anyone else. Woodrow Wilson, who finished 11th overall, was the second most controversial president, but the next three were all among the post-1960 group: Mr. Reagan, Nixon and LBJ.

? Four presidents rated as failures: Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, Warren Harding and James Buchanan. Buchanan finished dead last.

An obvious question is how the current President Bush would fare if such a survey were conducted today. Arguably, it's too early to take the measure of Mr. Bush's presidency, since its success or failure will largely be determined by what happens in Iraq and whether he is re-elected in November.

But if liberal and conservative scholars mirror the nation's partisan divide, one may surmise that he would be very controversial--perhaps even more so than his predecessor. His admirers and detractors would perhaps cancel each other out, leaving him somewhere near the middle of the pack. Yet partisan passions have a way of fading with time. Lincoln and FDR both today rank as great, even though both, like Mr. Bush, faced bitter partisan opposition while in office (and FDR still has his critics).

George W. Bush could eventually end up joining the ranks of the greats. The three great presidents have three things in common: All faced unprecedented challenges, all responded to them boldly, and all ultimately were successful. Mr. Bush so far meets two of these criteria: History dealt him an unprecedented challenge in the form of the 9/11 attacks, and no one can deny that he answered it with boldness. If he is able to overcome the current troubles in Iraq, and if he succeeds in his mission of combating Islamist terror by promoting democracy in the Middle East, history will be far kinder to him than are his contemporary critics.

Should this happen, the reputations of his predecessors are likely to suffer, for they will come to be seen as having failed to address the problems that came to a head on 9/11. Both Lincoln and FDR were preceded by a series of presidents who today are held in low esteem: Zachary Taylor (who ranks 31st), Millard Fillmore (35th), Franklin Pierce (37th) and James Buchanan (39th); and Warren Harding (37th, tied with Pierce), Calvin Coolidge (25th) and Herbert Hoover (29th). The former group allowed the issue of slavery to fester until it nearly destroyed the nation; the latter, fairly or not, are blamed for the Depression.

George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton are likely to bear the brunt for not dealing decisively with the gathering terrorist threat. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan can also be faulted here, but Mr. Reagan's reputation is probably secure, since it rests on other accomplishments, and Mr. Carter doesn't have much farther to fall.

Those who believe that history runs in cycles will be interested to note that the three great presidents took office at 72-year intervals--Washington in 1789, Lincoln in 1861 and FDR in 1933--and that this November it will have been exactly 72 years since the election of our last great president.

Mr. Taranto is editor of OpinionJournal.com, author of its Best of the Web Today column, and co-editor, with Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, of "Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House," just out from Wall Street Journal Books and available from the OpinionJournal bookstore.

52

If You Could Have Had Bill Clinton As President For Another Term.....

by minimus in

would you have voted him in?

do you think we would be in iraq today??

?

Richie

Sorry, but I don't seem to be able to copy and paste the article from the NYT, even though I first pasted it on my Microsoft Word program. At any rate, I gave you the title on the book review and you can check it out if you wish....

Richie :*)

52

If You Could Have Had Bill Clinton As President For Another Term.....

by minimus in

would you have voted him in?

do you think we would be in iraq today??

?

Richie

LOL double edge! Ohhh, by the way, did you happen to read the review of Clinton's new book "My ~~Lie~~ Life"? It was written in the New York Times (a paper I usually don't read)? This is interesting, as it shows exactly what Bill Clinton accomplished.......... nothing.

The Pastiche of a Presidency, Imitating a Life, in 957 Pages

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

52

If You Could Have Had Bill Clinton As President For Another Term.....

by minimus in

would you have voted him in?

do you think we would be in iraq today??

?

Richie

24

Read These NEWS Headlines LOL IRAQ WWII ........

by ThiChi in

so many people think that we've never been through anything like this before.

"iraq is horrible and wrong.

" it's understandable when you look at the press coverage the democrats are getting, talking about this "micromanaging" every little thing that goes wrong.

Richie

What the liberal press would have said regarding WW2 and D-Day and compare that to Iraq and today:

"What our generation might have said" after Normandy that I just had to post part of it. Enjoy...

John Kerry: Let me just say as a veteran?and one with some experience in military affairs?that you don?t just pull up to a beach and expect to trot into Europe. And I will add as well, as I have on previous occasions, that this was the worst planned American operation in our entire history. As is the custom in this hallowed nation, someone now, some person, has to, must, and should be held accountable for this mess. In my capacity as a leader in foreign affairs in the Senate, I have with all candor tried to tell this administration to slow down and get the League of Nations back into the peace process. But as I have repeatedly warned, when you unilaterally go off to invade some continent, this is what you get.

This administration talks grandly of the ?Allies;? but as I have demonstrated on numerous occasions, what they are really talking about are just two countries on the beach with us, and as expected I have warned about just what we are seeing now, that those who die will be Americans and those who pay for it all will be us. As a humanitarian, of course, I agree that Hitler was a tyrant and has to go?but there are more subtle and sober ways to do just that than blindly landing on a stormy beach and sending Americans to their slaughter.

George Soros: Now after this mess maybe we can feel what the inferno of Hamburg was like a year ago. They?re about the same thing after all?only now they?re doing to us what we did to them.

Ted Koppel: Tonight I will read the names of the dead of the 101st Airborne, tomorrow the 82nd. Have patience with us. There really are thousands of American casualties?and this was just on the first day of what we know is more to come later this month. And while our leaders don?t wish to deal with it, we at ABC do?and think you do as well.

Moveon.org: Maybe now the American people will finally grow up when they see their children slaughtered on a French beach and huddled in hedgerows waiting to die. But what they don?t know is that thousands of poor conscripted Russians and eastern Europeans were innocent targets whom our boys killed on so-called D-Day. And does America want to deal with the five thousand French civilians who died in our secret bombing campaign before the invasion? Let those who said we?d be greeted with roses explain the charred bodies of women and children to the French public.

Noam Chomsky: It is well recognized that there is already a pipeline across the Channel. On good authority we know that petroleum is already flowing to this new captive European market. As leading scholars have pointed out, to understand the barbarism at Normandy one must learn about Standard Oil and British Petroleum?and the Rockefeller-Ford nexus.

Harper?s Magazine, June 1944:

?Our Canadian embedded reporter spends a year with the Waffen SS?why they fight and why we can?t do anything about them!

?The refugee Jews and how their intelligentsia diverted us from Japan?and are crafting a secret plan to turn Germany into a pastoral country.

?The werewolf movement to come!

NPR: Today we speak with Pierre Lang, a Normandy dairy farmer and once proud owner of four cows?until the morning of June 6.

Farmer Lang: ?The Germans? They never blew up my cows! No?only you did that. Look at the craters, the burned barn, the dead animals. Who are the real Nazis??

NPR: Perhaps you should ask Mr. Roosevelt that question, Mr. Lang.

The New York Times: The unfortunate slaughter of the last month and the present quagmire in the hedgerows are the unfortunate wages of a certain American arrogance? that we can always simply go where we wish, count on locals to admire us, and see the world in terms of black and white, of ?good? Americans and ?bad? Germans. As we saw last month, simplistic logic, leads to careless planning that in turn results in thousands of dead and wounded Americans on a stormy beach and the survivors huddled a few miles away in a hostile countryside that shows no desire to be ?liberated.?

24

Read These NEWS Headlines LOL IRAQ WWII ........

by ThiChi in

so many people think that we've never been through anything like this before.

"iraq is horrible and wrong.

" it's understandable when you look at the press coverage the democrats are getting, talking about this "micromanaging" every little thing that goes wrong.

Richie

And now some in-depth analysis on the aftermath of American help in Europe during and especially after WW2:

June 18, 2004, 8:42 a.m.
Let Europe be Europe
You won?t be our friends? Fine, protect yourselves and at least be neutral. B eware of punditry now assuring us that, because we have seen the error of our ways and are now penitent, Europe is back on board. A contrite Mr. Bush ? his critics imply ? now seeks to smile more like Reagan and bite his lip like Clinton, and drop the old, scary "dead or alive," "Old Europe," and "smoke 'em out" lingo.

All this spin hides the real problem, which has nothing to do with Bush. The ethicists of Europe don't want to see success in Iraq, since it might be interpreted as a moral refutation of their own opposition to Saddam's removal. So let us in turn stop begging old Europe, NATO, and the EU to participate in the rebuilding or policing of the country. To join or help, in the collective European mind, would be to suggest that an emerging democracy far away was worth our own sacrifice to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. Liberating Iraq, shutting down Baathist terror, and establishing consensual rule, after all, was a dangerous ? and mostly Anglo-American ? idea, antithetical to all the Europeans have become.

Understandably, they do not want to be lumped in with the "missionaries of democracy" who evoke the ire of terrorists or the disdain of oil-producing grandees. They do not wish to forgive the debts run up by Saddam Hussein for their overpriced junk. And they most certainly are not willing to do any favors for Texas-twanged George W. Bush, whom they hope will be gone in less than six months. All this is not their world, which operates on self-interest gussied up with the elevated rhetoric of the utopian EU ? appealing to an Al Gore's Earth-in-the-Balance mindset rather than to serious folk who worry about genocide and mass murder.

So there are reasons our alliances cannot simply be glued back together again, and they transcend neo-con zeal and Bush as el Loco cowboy. Europeans, aside from a few tiny brave countries and courageous individuals, will no more participate in the "illegal" action in Iraq than they did in the "approved" and "legal" Afghanistan intervention, where about 7,000 NATO troops now help a postbellum liberated population of 26 million. Even if we sent Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and Jesse Jackson as an obsequious trio, the Euros would not act in a resolute, muscular way.

To the small degree Mr. Bush supposedly encountered a more conciliatory attitude from Europeans, it was likely because wiser heads in Germany finally saw that their animus had nearly succeeded in generating an American consensus to end the free defense of Europe ? not because of a new remorseful "multilateralism" by the president. A quarter of Americans now see France as an enemy ? not an ally or even a neutral ? and the number is growing. Any sane person who carefully examined America's relationship to Europe over the last 60 years would have advised the Germans and French not to throw away something so advantageous to their own national interests. But they did, and now we must move on.

It was moving to commemorate the Normandy invasion on its 60th anniversary, but politely left unsaid amid the French-hosted celebrations was the real story of 1944 and 1945. We owe it to the dead, not just the living, to remember it with some integrity and honesty. Most of the Nazis' own European subjects did little to stop their mass murdering. There was no popular civilian uprising inside Germany or out. Most Germans were hostile to the onslaught of American armies in their country, preferring Hitler and the Nazis even by 1945 to so-called American liberators. When they did slur the Fuhrer it was because he brought them ruin, not the blood of millions on their hands. When they did stop fighting the Americans, it was because the thought of surrendering to the Russians was far worse.

Most Frenchmen either refused to resolutely fight the Germans or passively collaborated. The idea of a broad resistance was mostly a postwar Gallic nationalist myth. Those who spearheaded a few attacks on German occupiers were more likely led by Communists than by allied sympathizers, and thus fought in hope more of an eventual Soviet victory over the Nazis than an American one.

Meanwhile, those born after World War II in these two countries either know nothing about the American sacrifice or chalk the invasion up to the insanity of war in general. I won't even speak of a sense of gratitude, because that is an emotion almost as archaic to the contemporary European mind as patriotism. Nearly 30 percent of all Frenchmen polled last year wished Saddam to defeat the United States in Iraq.

Of course, Europe and America are both democratic and Western ? and will and should remain friends and partners. That said, we should also agree that our differences had been buried in the aftermath of World War II, the subsequent Marshall Plan, and American efforts to organize the defense of the continent against Soviet aggression.

But with European war, massive American aid, and Communism no longer present realities, the Atlantic world reverted to its natural tensions. Along with the Berlin wall, our NATO-inspired alliances also had a great fall. Well before George W. Bush assumed office, America and the Europeans split over differing ideas about liberty, free markets, class, race, and religion. And these shards are not going to be simply glued back into their proper places to reconstitute the fragile trans-Atlantic whole. As Europe addresses its demographic time bomb ? with ever-increasing entitlements, less and less defense spending, and ever greater schizophrenia as it vacillates between paranoid repression and dangerous laxity ? its angst about the freewheeling and upbeat United States will only grow.

Vocal supporters of the old Atlantic-American alliance are only half right in their bromides for putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. Yes, they are correct that we should speak more softly and listen more. But if America had once done to NATO what the French or Germans did to us last year, the pretense of an alliance would now be long over. Imagine what would have happened if Paris or Berlin had mobilized to preempt Milosevic while the United States refused ? claiming with Russia in the Security Council that such unilateral, non-U.N. approved action was brinksmanship of the worst sort ? and then strong-armed other NATO countries to oppose European efforts.

Let us publicly hope for the miraculous reconstitution of NATO's shattered fragments into a real alliance; and then accept its quiet and permanent dismemberment on the pavement after a job well done. Meanwhile, seek bilateral partnerships with willing European countries, continue to unilaterally withdraw troops from Germany, and then start reducing elsewhere our unnecessary military presence ? perhaps first in Spain. Of course, there will be difficulties ? initial higher costs in redeployment, hurt Euro feelings, and hysteria from trans-Atlantic pundits ? but scaling back from Europe is long overdue.

We seek not to punish Europe by our departure, but to save it from itself. The problem is not just that our troops are doing nothing in places like Germany, or merely that they are more needed elsewhere ? they do real damage by their presence in enabling an increasingly strident and opportunistic pacifism and an anti-Americanism fueled by dependency and ignited by resentment.

The continent is now the repository of Western heritage ? a beautiful museum or amusement park, if you will, of caretakers and custodians. Unless that changes, we should no more expect Europeans to participate in the slogging in Iraq or Afghanistan than we should count on Disneyland guides venturing into nearby South Central to adjudicate gang violence, or Smithsonian docents to keep the piece in D.C. neighborhoods. Barring a 9/11-like event at the Parthenon or Louvre, one cannot ? and should not ? ask people to do what they simply cannot and will not do.

But isn't the Atlantic Alliance critical to American security? Sadly, no. Right now it de facto does not exist and we are in no greater danger due to its absence. Instead, the key is not to force Europe to be an ally, but to ensure by our absence that it is a friend ? or at least a Swiss-like neutral ? in the present fight against terrorists and their sponsors. Shared intelligence and mutual encouragement against terrorists do not require NATO. Perhaps Mr. Powell needs to give up on expecting Europeans to do anything real in the present war, and Mr. Rumsfeld needs to praise them far more for doing nothing.

I fear that we should expect over the next 50 years some pretty scary things coming out of Europe as its impossible postmodern utopian dreams turn undemocratic and then ugly ? once its statism and entitlement economy falter; Jews leave as Arabs stream in; its shaky German-French axis unravels; its next vision of an EU mare nostrum encompassing North Africa and Turkey begins to terrify Old Europe; and its pacifism brings it real humiliation from the likes of an Iran or China. Indeed, despite Europe's noble efforts to incorporate the former Warsaw Pact, we are already seeing such tensions in the most recent EU elections.

We all like the Europeans and wish them well in their efforts to create heaven on earth. But in the end I still think we Americans are on the right side of history in Iraq ? while they are on no side at all.

? Victor Davis Hanson, an NRO contributor, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of The Soul of Battle

and Carnage and Culture, among other books. His website is www.victorhanson.com.

15

Ban on torture overruled in Pentagon

by ignored_one in

from the telegraph.co.uk but you have to register.. ban on torture overruled in pentagon.

by david rennie in washington.

(filed: 08/06/2004) .

Richie

Partisan Media Ignores Saddam's Atrocities

June 16, 2004

(...challenge the press, and the left, to confront the horrors we ended in Iraq)

RUSH: Deborah Orin has a piece today in the New York Post that is going to make you mad. Made me mad. Even though it doesn't surprise me, it made me mad. Permit me to read excerpts. The column title is, "Reporting For the Enemy." Deborah Orrin of the New York Post. "The video only lasts four minutes or so ? gruesome scenes of torture from the days when Saddam Hussein's thugs ruled Abu Ghraib prison. I couldn't bear to watch, so I walked out until it was over. Some who stayed wished they hadn't. They told of savage scenes of decapitation, fingers chopped off one by one, tongues hacked out with a razor blade ? all while victims shriek in pain and the thugs chant Saddam's praises.

American Enterprise Institute think tank, which says it got the video via the Pentagon. Fewer wrote about it. No surprise, since no newscast would air the videos of Nick Berg and Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl getting decapitated, or of U.S. contractors in Fallujah getting torn limb from limb by al Qaeda operatives. But every TV network has endlessly shown photos of the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib. Why?

AEI scholar Michael Ledeen says, "Because most [journalists] want Bush to lose." "The Pentagon has lots of Saddam atrocity footage ? but is loathe to release it, possibly for fear it would be taken as a crude attempt to blunt criticism of Abu Ghraib. So the world sees photos of U.S. interrogators using dogs to scare prisoners at Abu Ghraib. But not the footage of Saddam's prisoners getting fed ? alive ? to Doberman pinschers on Saddam's watch. (That video's been described by former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.) Former Pentagon official Richard Perle raps 'faint hearts in the administration,' saying they've bought into the idea that it's 'politically incorrect' to show the horrors of Saddam's regime.

"But he also faults the media ? after all, AEI's briefings on Iraq have been standing-room-only, but the room was half empty for the screening of the Saddam torture video. But part of the issue is simply that Saddam's tortures, like al Qaedas tactics, are so awful that they're unbearable to watch. If I couldn't watch them myself, I'm hardly arguing that others should have to. Yet it raises a very complex problem in the War on Terror. It's worse than creating moral equivalence between Saddam's tortures and prisoner abuse by U.S. troops. It's that we do far more to highlight our own wrongdoings precisely because they are less appalling.'" (Italics in original)

We are able to show the videos and pictures out of Abu Ghraib because they are "not that bad." I mean, they're not unwatchable, but we can't show what happened under Saddam's watch because that would repulse us and make us sick. So, we can watch and show videos and beat ourselves to shreds, but we can't see what we got rid of. (Orrin:) "In this era, a photo is everything. We highlight U.S. prisoner abuse because the photos aren't too offensive to show. We downplay Saddam's abuse precisely because it's far worse ? so we can't use the photos. And that sets the stage for remarks like Sen. Ted Kennedy's claim that Saddam's torture chambers have reopened under 'U.S. management.' Terrorism is sometimes called asymmetric warfare ? America had to adjust to new tactics to deal with small bands of terrorists who were able to turn our airplanes into weapons against us. Now it turns out that we also face asymmetric propaganda ? where the terrorists gain a p.r. advantage precisely because what they do is so horrific that our media aren't able to deal with it. The U.S. military hasn't figured out a strategic way to deal with this problem. But neither has the press."

Her column goes on a little bit more, but the reason I'm juxtaposing this story along with the president's sound bite is that I think that there is a lot that the administration -- and I don't mean just the White House, but the Pentagon, the CIA -- could be doing that would more adequately, properly explain our actions; what we are encountering; how we're overcoming it, and the absolute sheer horror and terror that we dispatched and got rid of. You know, they're finding weapons of mass destruction all over the Middle East now. (story | story | story | story) They're finding remnants of Saddam's weapons.

Factories that were dismantled and moved and shipped to Jordan, Syria and other places, and it's another story that the media is not really onto, just as they are not paying much attention to what went on in Saddam's prison when this American Enterprise Institute has this little newsreel of footage yesterday. Normally they get standing O's. There are only four or five journalists who showed up for this one and fewer than those four or five reported on it. Look it, yesterday I went back. I went on my website last night which I always do. I always check the website, and I relived the Bill Schneider segment from Judy Woodruff. I'm sitting there laughing myself silly. It was one of the funniest things.
Bill Schneider, he's a member of the media, and he's doing a story on how a media analyst company has discovered the media is not reported the truth about the economy, (story) and I'm saying, "Here's a guy in the media who can't look at what he's doing to judge whether something's being done or not. He has to wait for some analyst group to tell you what the media is doing." Yes, Judy, the economy's recovery is a big secret, and you know why? It's not being reported! Well, this is one thing if they were saying it at a homeless shelter in San Francisco, but this is Bill Schneider the political guru at CNN saying it. It's the same thing going on with the weapons of mass destruction find. (story) The World Tribune and others are writing all about this. It just doesn't seem to interest the large elite media right now, because it just doesn't fit the agenda.

story by, an interview with, Dan Rather. There's an interview with Dan Rather about his interview with Clinton on their website, and Rather says, I've never read a memoir like this. Why, this is great! Who knew he could write this well? He was so forthcoming and honest. I tell you what, in a five-star rating system, I'm giving this five stars. Dan Rather, reviewing Bill Clinton's book. So that's the partisan media's agenda for the summer here, and meanwhile, there's some interesting developments and news and evidence about the war with Iraq that is just being ignored -- just like the economy (story | story | story)-- is not being ignored but it's being pushed aside and not really highlighted. We all know why. Andrew in Flint, Michigan. I'm glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush? I wanted to comment a little bit on the article that you were reading just a few minutes ago, the crux of it being that why -- why aren't the photos of Saddam Hussein torturing Americans [sic] being pushed as much as the --

RUSH: No, no, no. Not "torturing." Hold it. Hold it. Hold it -- not "torturing Americans." Torturing Iraqis.

CALLER: I'm sorry, Iraqis. My fault.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: There's a simple reason for it. The reason is, it's expected from Saddam Hussein. That's not news. The news is: we aren't supposed to do what we did. That is news. We report on the news. You don't report on everyday happenings. That's the biggest difference.

good thing. We have liberated a people, and that is what these photos and movies of Saddam's torture indicate, and it proves that we are not the bad guys and we're not horrible and we're not rotten. We had some people who made a mistake. In fact, Rich Lowry had a great piece at NRO, National Review Online, about this guy. Garner, I think his name. The fiancé and father of Lynndie England, the woman in these photos. The two perps. This guy apparently has a long history of abuse. He's been a prison guard for a long time. He's got a long history of abusing other people, human beings who are in captivity, and it appears that in much of these, the first batch of Abu Ghraib photos we got this guy was the ringleader and may have been acting is an independent contractor.

I know they're trying to make the case that (sinister voice) "the orders came from the top," but believe me, this guy was doing this kind of stuff long before he ever got sent to Iraq and long before he was an MP -- you know, contractor, MP, prison guard -- in Iraq. But aside from that, the sense of proportion is being lost. You know, we have some people over there that have made some mistakes and gone way beyond the bounds that we Americans consider as right. But we're using this, some are using this to try to destroy the entire effort we've undertaken and to defeat the mission by saying we're not worthy as a country, and that's what I resent -- and if there is a way to show that what happened over there has been far worse than what's taking place now, then it's worth it to me. I don't have an innate disgust with my own country, and I'm not looking, therefore, for evidence that we ought to hate America.

51

One more victory for the Christians and it sucks!!!

by Atilla in

i saw that today the supreme court threw out the case with the atheist father arguing that the under god phrase in the pledge of allegiance was unconstitutional.

i guess the case was thrown out on a technicality because the daughter does not live with her father but with her christian mother thus making the father's case invalid.

i knew about this case but i did not realize that is was dubbie prez.

Richie

Well said ThiChi! - I echo the same sentiments!

36

Ronald Reagan - Too good for the toadies of the international community

by Richie in

it is quite remarkable how people who've done nothing to really further the cause of peace seem to win the nobel peace prize.

the most glowing insult to the integrity of what this prize should stand for, was best demonstrated with its awarding to yasser arafat, the father of modern day terrorism.. .

although i've never heard of one instant where arafat purposefully placed his life or well being on the line in face to face combat, he has literally sent thousands to their horrible deaths.

Richie

Talesin, tks for your post - about the Cato institute, I will copy some of the answers to your question:

http://www.cato.org/about/about.html

The Cato Institute was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane. It is a non-profit public policy research foundation headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Institute is named for Cato's Letters, a series of libertarian pamphlets that helped lay the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution.

Cato's Mission

The Cato Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Toward that goal, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government.

Cato's Publications and Events

The Cato Institute undertakes an extensive publications program dealing with the complete spectrum of public policy issues. Books, monographs, briefing papers and shorter studies are commissioned to examine issues in nearly every corner of the public policy debate. Policy forums and book forums are held regularly, as are major policy conferences, which Cato hosts throughout the year, and from which papers are published thrice yearly in the Cato Journal. All of these events are taped and archived on Cato's Web site. Additionally, Cato has held major conferences in London, Moscow, Shanghai, and Mexico City. The Institute also publishes the quarterly magazine Regulation and a bimonthly newsletter, Cato Policy Report.

How Cato Is Funded

In order to maintain an independent posture, the Cato Institute accepts no government funding or endowments. Contributions are received from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Other revenue is generated from the sale of publications. The Cato Institute is a nonprofit, tax-exempt educational foundation under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. Cato's 2000 revenues were just under $13 million, and it has approximately 90 full-time employees, 60 adjunct scholars, and 16 fellows, plus interns.

How to Label Cato

Today, those who subscribe to the principles of the American Revolution--individual liberty, limited government, the free market, and the rule of law--call themselves by a variety of terms, including conservative, libertarian, classical liberal, and liberal. We see problems with all of those terms. "Conservative" smacks of an unwillingness to change, of a desire to preserve the status quo. Only in America do people seem to refer to free-market capitalism--the most progressive, dynamic, and ever-changing system the world has ever known--as conservative. Additionally, many contemporary American conservatives favor state intervention in some areas, most notably in trade and into our private lives.

"Classical liberal" is a bit closer to the mark, but the word "classical" connotes a backward-looking philosophy.

Finally, "liberal" may well be the perfect word in most of the world--the liberals in societies from China to Iran to South Africa to Argentina are supporters of human rights and free markets--but its meaning has clearly been corrupted by contemporary American liberals.

The Jeffersonian philosophy that animates Cato's work has increasingly come to be called "libertarianism" or "market liberalism." It combines an appreciation for entrepreneurship, the market process, and lower taxes with strict respect for civil liberties and skepticism about the benefits of both the welfare state and foreign military adventurism.

The market-liberal vision brings the wisdom of the American Founders to bear on the problems of today. As did the Founders, it looks to the future with optimism and excitement, eager to discover what great things women and men will do in the coming century. Market liberals appreciate the complexity of a great society, they recognize that socialism and government planning are just too clumsy for the modern world. It is--or used to be--the conventional wisdom that a more complex society needs more government, but the truth is just the opposite. The simpler the society, the less damage government planning does. Planning is cumbersome in an agricultural society, costly in an industrial economy, and impossible in the information age. Today collectivism and planning are outmoded and backward, a drag on social progress.

Market liberals have a cosmopolitan, inclusive vision for society. We reject the bashing of gays, Japan, rich people, and immigrants that contemporary liberals and conservatives seem to think addresses society's problems. We applaud the liberation of blacks and women from the statist restrictions that for so long kept them out of the economic mainstream. Our greatest challenge today is to extend the promise of political freedom and economic opportunity to those who are still denied it, in our own country and around the world.

I hope you'll enjoy their reports, as I find that they do not have a liberal or conservative agenda per se, but you could say they are neutral and stay on an independant course, which is refreshing.....

Richie :*)

36

Ronald Reagan - Too good for the toadies of the international community

by Richie in

it is quite remarkable how people who've done nothing to really further the cause of peace seem to win the nobel peace prize.

the most glowing insult to the integrity of what this prize should stand for, was best demonstrated with its awarding to yasser arafat, the father of modern day terrorism.. .

although i've never heard of one instant where arafat purposefully placed his life or well being on the line in face to face combat, he has literally sent thousands to their horrible deaths.

Richie

Simon, I hope that you'll read the policy analysis in my previous post, which is completely unbiased and informative to the discussion.

You stated categorically that "one cannot credit a non-right wing leader with something", that it is against Yeru's religion etc....Well, let me show you a commentary on a report written in the New York Times ( a "well respected" left wing liberalist newspaper) about the "accuracies" of President Reagan's policies...There you see an elitist (Paul Krugman) spitting out utter distortions, lies, and economic errors.....and we in turn have to just believe this nonsense? No, what Yeru and others try to show you is an impartial commentary of facts on economic and political issues, whether they be positive or negative, but at least bring you a balanced array of opinions without the heavy load of emotions attached to it. As an example, just read this article and you'll get my drift.....:

O ne awaited Paul Krugman?s New York Times column commemorating the death of Ronald Reagan with all the joy of watching a hoodlum approach the Mona Lisa with a can of spray paint. Of course, America?s most dangerous liberal pundit did not disappoint. In his Tuesday column , before the Gipper is even laid to rest, Krugman vandalizes the memory of a great president with his standard repertoire of distortions, lies, and sloppy economic errors.

Krugman begins his column by dismissing as ?false? various hyperbolic claims that, according to Krugman, others in the media are making about Reagan. About the claim that Reagan was ?the most popular president of modern times,? Krugman writes, ?In fact, though ? Bill Clinton had a slightly higher average Gallup approval rating, and a much higher rating during his last two years in office.?

Like the economics professor he is, Krugman acts as though the concept of popularity were the same as the numerical measurement of average approval. He misses the fact that Reagan was more than popular ? he was beloved and respected.

Need statistics on that? How about the Gallup poll last November that had Reagan rated the third ?greatest United States President? ever ? ranked only behind John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. Krugman should be careful about citing average Gallup approval ratings. Someone is likely to remind him of the inconvenient fact that George W. Bush has the highest one of all .

Krugman also disputes the claim that Reagan ?presided over an unmatched economic boom.? Again trying to put Bill Clinton on top, Krugman writes, ?not true: the economy grew slightly faster under President Clinton.?

It?s a fact that during the Reagan presidency GDP grew at an annualized rate of 3.5 percent, while it grew at 3.6 percent during the Clinton presidency. No problem ? Reagan admirers should be delighted to acknowledge that growth under both presidents was excellent. But Krugman himself once acknowledged that there is a better way to judge the performance of a president?s economic policies. In a New York Times Magazine article last year he wrote, ?The test of tax cuts as a spur to economic growth is whether they produced more than an ordinary business cycle recovery.? In other words, you have to look at the whole business cycle ? the good times of the expansion as well as the bad times of the recession that follows.

Okay, it?s a deal. Let?s judge Reagan?s and Clinton?s business cycles side by side. Throughout, we?ll use standard business-cycle beginning and ending dates from the National Bureau of Economic Research (and no cheating ? unlike Krugman , we?re not going to make up our own cycle dates to ensure the results come out the way we want).

Reagan?s business cycle began in the recession bottom of November 1982. This durable expansion didn?t peak until July 1990, when Reagan had already left office. The subsequent recession bottomed in March 1991. From end to end, through good times and bad, real GDP growth averaged 3.9 percent.

Now it?s Clinton?s turn. He came into office with the recovery from the March 1991 bottom already underway. The expansion on Clinton?s watch proved to be even more durable, not peaking until March 2001, after Clinton had left office. The subsequent recession bottomed in November 2001, scoring an average real GDP growth rate considerably lower than Reagan?s ? only 3.2 percent.

Just as with the matter of Reagan?s popularity, there?s more to it than the numbers. Reagan is remembered as the architect of an unusually powerful prosperity because he conquered economic challenges more severe than anything the country has experienced since the Great Depression. He took on an economy that was choked by confiscatory tax rates that were not even indexed to inflation, threatened by oil prices equivalent in today?s dollars to over $90 a barrel, throttled by pervasive over-regulation, and undermined by the obsolescence of America?s core manufacturing base. What came to be known under Clinton as the ?New Economy? was, in fact, the economy Reagan forged in the crucible of those challenges.

Another bit of Krugman vandalism in his Tuesday column is his characterization of Reagan as ?The Great Taxer.? Dismissing Reagan?s titanic accomplishments as a tax-cutter, Krugman says, ?no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people.?

How can Krugman make such a claim? Here?s how: Out of the nine tax bills passed during the Reagan years, Krugman points out two that raised taxes. According to the U.S. Treasury (with thanks to colleague Bruce Bartlett for sourcing this information), Reagan?s 1981 tax cuts represented 2.89 percent of GDP ? which is what Reagan is properly remembered for in the Tax-Cutter?s Hall of Fame. But Krugman devotes his column to the tax increase of 1982, which represented only 0.98 percent of GDP, and the 1983 hike in Social Security taxes, which represented only 0.21 percent of GDP.

Put all nine bills together and cumulatively Reagan cut taxes by 1.23 percent of GDP. Against all that, those two tax-hikes are supposed to make Reagan ?The Great Taxer?? That?s like naming Bill Clinton the Model Husband of the Year because he remembered to send Hillary a Mother?s Day card.

And on the matter of Reagan?s raising Social Security taxes, Krugman notes that the targeted purpose of this tax hike was ?securing the system?s future. Thanks to the 1983 act, current projections show that under current rules, Social Security is good for at least 38 more years.? So who, then, really ?raised taxes so much on so many people?? Reagan? Or was it Franklin D. Roosevelt, who in 1935 invented a system so unrealistic and so unsustainable that it required Ronald Reagan to clean it up almost 50 years later? Apparently some future president will have to enact more tax increases on behalf of FDR in ?at least 38 more years.?

Except that it?s not ?at least 38 more years.? Ex-officio Krugman Truth Squad member David Skurnick pointed out to me in an e-mail that the latest Report of the Trustees of the Social Security System cites 38 years as the middle assumption out of three. The ?at least? assumption, in fact, shows that the Social Security system is only sound for 27 more years. It?s rare to see Krugman over-optimistic about anything ? but apparently he?ll make an exception for the centerpiece program of his beloved welfare state.

Also, by mixing the apples of income taxes with the oranges of Social Security taxes, Krugman tries to create the impression that for the average American, the Reagan years were a wash ? the income-tax savings were eaten up by the Social Security tax increase. He writes,

In 1980, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, middle-income families with children paid 8.2 percent of their income in income taxes, and 9.5 percent in payroll taxes. By 1988 the income tax share was down to 6.6 percent ? but the payroll tax share was up to 11.8 percent, and the combined burden was up, not down.

Put all those numbers together, and it seems as though middle-income families with children ended up paying 0.7 percent more in taxes, on net, at the end of the Reagan years than they had at the beginning.

But no. One of Krugman?s numbers is simply wrong. Inspecting a report from the Congressional Budget Office , whom Krugman cites as his source, we find that in 1980 the income-tax rate was 8.7 percent, not 8.2 percent. Krugman read the wrong column (8.2 percent was for 1979). He screwed up, plain and simple. This makes the net tax increase between income and Social Security taxes 0.2 percent, not the 0.7 percent Krugman?s numbers suggest. Krugman is therefore wrong by a factor of 350 percent. Think the Times will run a correction? Yeah, right.

But Krugman?s deception is two levels deeper than this error. First, Krugman deliberately chose to examine the case of middle-income families with children. Why? Because he happens to love children? No, it?s because, according to the same CBO report, middle-income families overall ? including those with and without children ? enjoyed a net tax decrease of 0.9 percent, not an increase of 0.2 percent. To make the argument work, Krugman had to focus on a subset of the population.

Second, Krugman ignores the fact that the Social Security tax hike was, essentially, pre-ordained back in 1935. Instead of faulting Reagan?s tax-cutting bona fides by saying Social Security tax hikes wiped out income-tax cuts, we should thank Reagan for having the good sense to buffer the inevitable hikes with offsetting cuts. Would you want to live in a world ? Krugman?s world ? in which Reagan had not done so?

And one more thing. As new ex-officio Krugman Truth Squad member Jim Glass pointed out in an e-mail, if it?s such a virtue for the combined income and Social Security tax rate on middle-income families to be low, then Krugman should sing the praises of George W. Bush. At 13.1 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center (a favorite source of Krugman?s), it?s lower now than at any time during or since the Reagan years.

For all this mischief visited upon the memory of a great man, there?s one act of vandalism Krugman forgot to administer. He could have pointed to the one really bad error that Ronald Reagan made during his presidency. To his everlasting shame, Reagan once hired Paul Krugman .

That?s right. In 1982, Krugman was called to Washington to work for Reagan, as a staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers in charge of international economics. How can Krugman not have mentioned this? Well, as we know from the matter of Krugman?s role as a paid advisor to Enron , he can be rather relaxed about disclosing his former ties.

? Donald Luskin is chief investment officer of Trend Macrolytics LLC, an independent economics and investment-research firm. He welcomes your comments at [email protected].