george w bush

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Visiting the Reagan Presidential Library over a year ago impressed upon me the Gipper’s charm and cordiality toward Gorbachev.  Yet Reagan was also fiercely resolute in his conviction that people desire to forge their own destinies.  It was the two Cold War leaders riding horses together as much as it was Reagan’s defiance at the Brandenburg Gate that ended the threat of communism in Europe.

It was a fine example of the “neo-noblesse oblige” that had been the template since World War II.  Countless perished in that conflict due in no small amount to the failure of “gentleman diplomacy” on the part of the upper crust.  But for its time, that was sanity.  And then a new sanity dawned with the rising of a false sun over Hiroshima.

Yet Ronald Reagan… was insane.  Or so we were told by pundits and academics.

Speaking of peace while drastically building up the ...

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George W. Bush is the worst President in American history.  In less lucid moments (mostly when hopped-up on allergy medicine) I would write that Barack Obama has been far far worse.  But there would have not been Barack Obama in the White House had Bush the Lesser been a competent leader.

I spent more time than I cared to during the Bush years chronicling and commenting upon that maladministration’s screw-ups, and I sure don’t want to spend any more time on it than I absolutely must (some readers of this blog have commented that I’m too hard on Obama, even “hateful”.  Where were they during this site’s first several years?!).  All I will say for now is this: in regards to the Department of Homeland Security: I told y’all so.  Way back in 2001 even, I wrote in a few places that Bush was giving us something in Homeland Security ...

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I did not watch President Obama’s inauguration today. There is nothing particularly interesting about a leader with no real vision. Sadly that’s a trait that has been shared by every president since Reagan. But I digress…

It does interest me this afternoon however that President Obama continued the tradition established by former president George W. Bush of having a “free speech zone” marked off for the event…

Freedom Plaza is the site of one of the only authorized demonstration zones, where a strip of the plaza is designated a free speech zone.

The “free speech zones” were a routine and chronic practice of George W. Bush. Nobody who protested his policies was allowed anywhere close to him when he was president and out in public. There were many instances when protestors were limited to an area nearly a mile away from Bush.

The “free speech zones” were wrong then. They ...

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Students at Wright State University who were protesting against Joseph Biden when he visited the campus last week were quarantined a quarter-mile away from the Vice President by the Secret Service. This happened not once, but twice. The rationale given by the Secret Service: they “didn’t want the protesters to be too close to the motorcade.”

Before any Republicans or Romney supporters cry “foul” about this, it would be well to remember that this exact same thing was routine policy during the presidency of George W. Bush! But that fact hasn’t deterred a number of people on “conservative” websites from claiming that the Secret Service is violating the First Amendment, that Obama is violating the Constitution ad nauseum… when Obama’s predecessor, a Republican president, was also insulating himself from public dissent with the very same methods, and on a much more chronic basis. Very many of Bush’s ...

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Louisiana College, a private Baptist school, is suing the federal government over the requirement that religious-affiliated hospitals and organizations must fund contraceptives as part of health care, even in spite of strong beliefs against such measures. Louisiana College and other religious organizations are quick to note that Obama’s “healthcare” mandate violates their constitutional rights.

Doug Powers notes that the mainstream media is giving President Obama a “free ride” about the ridiculous price of gasoline, when it blamed George W. Bush for it at every opportunity.

(Longtime readers will know that I have never been a fan of either Obama or Bush. They’re the two worst Presidents in American history, in my book…)

I juxtapose these two seemingly unrelated items before you, good readers, because I remember plenty of times during Bush’s presidency when too many Christians simply “rolled over and took it” when he and his administration violated ...

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So it’s coming out that a bunch of Republicans, including senators Orrin Hatch and Mitch McConnell, are expressing concern about President Obama making recess appointments when the Senate was not in session. Former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese is saying that Obama is committing “a breathtaking violation of the separation of powers.”

Oh please…

The Justice Department headed by Eric Holder is defending the appointments as legal. Y’know, just like the Justice Department under President George W. Bush defended his firing of the United States attorneys as being legal. Just like John Yoo went out of his way to argue why his boss Bush should be given powers of a dictator in everything but name. Just like Samuel Alito sought to increase the power of the President by means of redefining so-called “signing statements”.

But now the shoe is on the other foot. It’s a Democrat in ...

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I hate to say “I told you so” buuuuuuut…

For quite a long time now and most recently five days ago, I have argued that going to war in Iraq would have disastrous long-term consequences and chief among those is that without a “strongman” to hold that country together, Iraq will tear itself apart into sectarian strife. The classic model for my thesis is Yugoslavia: a “nation” that much like Iraq was cobbled together from leftover realms in the aftermath of World War I. And just as Marshal Tito kept the various factions like the Croats, the Bosnians, the Serbs etc. from killing each other, so did Saddam Hussein put a lid on the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Kurds and everyone else from destroying Iraq from within.

That’s NOT any justification for Saddam Hussein, mind you. The man was an evil bastard. It’s just the peculiar dynamic of ...

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On this day, the Iraq War has officially drawn to a close. It began in March of 2003, lasting nearly nine years (more than twice as long as the United States took to fight and win World War II across both the Pacific and European theaters).

The Iraq war cost our own country nearly one trillion dollars. It also cost the lives of more than 4,500 American military personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis (many of whom were innocent civilians not attached to Saddam Hussein’s army).

Now… can anyone finally tell me why it is that we went to war in Iraq in the first place? “Enforcing sanctions” won’t cut it. We lost too many lives and wasted way too much money on this fiasco. What has come of it? An Iraq which will sooner than later tear itself apart across ethnic and religious lines (specifically Sunni, Shiite and ...

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Feelin’ extra cynical and disgusted about some things this morning…

So the Republican party thinks it can “win back” control of Congress from the Democrats in this year’s election.

How does that matter? Really… how does that matter?

I have been observing politics for most of my life. I’ll admit that once upon a time I did believe that there were fundamental differences between the Democrats and Republicans and that those were “the only” parties that seriously existed. So I was in the same mindset as the vast majority of Americans.

Then I grew out of it. Woke up. Came to my senses. Saw things for how they really are…

Saw too much of what’s running this country as one big damned fabrication. Not a government of enlightened individuals but a glorified puppet show entertaining the masses with smoke and mirrors.

And now, now… it doesn’t bother me one whit ...

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Last week President Barack Obama met with Akihito, the titular Emperor of Japan. You might have heard about it: Obama made a ceremonial bow to Akihito and it’s purportedly caused a lot of his political enemies to seethe with outrage…

Interestingly, many if not most of these same critics defended George W. Bush when in April 2008 (when he was still President) Bush not only held hands with but also gave a big fat slobbering fat kiss right on the lips to the visiting king of Saudi Arabia…

Bush’s supporters at the time claimed that Bush was just “following protocol”, exactly as Obama’s defenders are doing now.

Me? I can’t see a difference between what either of these two Presidents have done. And regardless of who’s doing it, it sickens me to no end.

If either Bush or Obama had acted like this as private citizens, that would have been ...

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