I think we need two good, strong parties to make our government work. Otherwise, you get what we have now, which isn’t pretty. So I don’t want to see a purer Democratic or Republican party, which is what party partisans are always calling for – I’d like to see two sane, responsible big tent parties vie for votes while taking a long term view of the election process. Instead, what we have is one party taking advantage of the fact that the other has become, well, deranged. And the fact that the national media has joined the one party in its madness and is doing it’s best to distort reality doesn’t help – which is how you get a majority of people supporting private Social Security accounts but a majority dissaproving President Bushes plan on Social Security, which consisted of a nebulous plan for private accounts.
Posts Tagged President Bush
Better Government
Jul 20
Katrina Ramblings 2
Sep 9
Complaints about FEMA are nothing new. I remember in the 1993 floods people were bitching about how slow, ackward, and bureaucratic the organization was. I don’t recall anyone claiming that the percieved poor response showed that President Clinton didn’t like poor white people, which was the group mostly affected by the flooding around here. There were complaints following every major disaster I can think of, and the larger the disaster, the more the complaints. And why not, FEMA the organization consists of bureaucrats at the top and then an ad hoc conglomeration of disparate parts put together for a particular mission. Of course it’s going to take time to get it’s act together, and the more resources it has to meld, the longer it takes. And we have come to believe that somehow because it ultimately has the full resources of the country at its disposal, it can do anything. Yes, but as Scotty would say if he were alive today, FEMA can’t change the laws of physics.
And yes, they are a part of the government, which means that they have to do all the stupid things we, the people, make government do. Like make sure everybody’s sexual harrassment training is up to date. Don’t you have to have some sort of sexual harrassment training at your place of employment? Hey, if we can dispense with it in an emergency, why do we need it all? Are you saying sexual harrassment is OK?
Micky Kaus is going on about the problems of Federalism, and sums up with: “When things screw up, these days, we hold the president and the federal government responsible. It follows that the president and the federal government should have the power to stop things from screwing up. … ” Hey Mickey, maybe we shouldn’t hold the president and federal government responsible (I know I don’t – so there’s one vote no). Should we forget about the separation of powers (which isn’t just between executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government BTW) in extreme situations? Would it be better in an emergency if we just had one man on a white horse who could simply order whatever needed to be done? How many tyrants have seized power under just such a pretext? Who decides how when it is just such an emergency? Such a move ignores the centuries of hardwon experience on why such a separation is ultimately a better way. Nor is it clear that a single edict issuer is better. If it’s better in an emergency, why isn’t it better all the time? You have to understand there are tradeoffs, and one system may be better one thing than another, but you have to pick what’s best overall. And that doesn’t even address the fact that every management study shows you’re better off pushing authority down, not concentrating it upward.
It reminds me of my aerodynamic days, and people would ask me to optimize the performance. I’d ask them back, “When you say performance, are you talking range or maneuverability?” Invariably I’d get the reply, “Both”. Then I’d have to get midieval on their heinies, because at that point it was obvious they didn’t have a clue about optimization.
I wonder if there would be so many complaints about FEMA if (1) Bush Derangement Syndrome didn’t infect so many media types (CNN needs to find a cure stat) and (2) the dunderheads in Louisiana concentrated two enourmous crowds of helpless people – one at the Superdome and one at the convention center. And then they wouldn’t let relief in, nor would they let the people out – and then they had to scrounge transportation since they let hurricane destroy all the local buses. How much more poignant could they have made the story?
Now is all this a defense of FEMA? No, not really. I suppose it’s a defense of FEMA for what it is, not what it should be. First, because after the two big screwups at the local level – no evacuation except self evacuation, and turning away the Red Cross and the Salvation Army from entering New Orleans, all you’re left with on FEMA is that it does what a Federal Agency does best – spend a hell of a lot of money to slowly do something while making damn sure it compleis with every law and every proceedure that has been set upon it in advance (otherwise known as “red tape”). And they aren’t first responders, they were an organization that plugs in resources to local leadership. Since the local leadership doesn’t have a clue as to what to do, FEMA couldn’t provide adequate resources. And that’s why you saw the announcement over the weekend that FEMA was now an equal partner, and the LANG would be closely coordinating with Gen Honore. So what happens when local leadership sucks (like this instance?) Well, the people who picked that leadership suffers. Isn’t that part of the accountablity politicians have to voters, and ultimately voters have to each other?
My Take
Jun 29
My impressions of the President’s speech:
His speech writers are much better at writing a speech than he is at delivering one.
I vacillate on his giving it before a military audience: On the one hand, it smacks of using them as props, on the other, they’re the people who are actually being killed and wounded. I would rather he gave the speech direct into the camera and then privately schmoozed the soldiers, but team Bush may have decided he does much better in front of a live audience.
As long as it was a live audience, I’m glad they were under orders not to applaud because I hate how much longer that makes a political speech and how that destroys the pacing.
I was disturbed by that proto-smile on his face during a lot of the speech – but I guess that was his thinking to himself “How many times do I have to explain this to you.”
I found the irony rich: the smirky Bushitler having a clear grasp of a winning strategy, both for the war on terror as well as the battle for Iraq, while his oh so much smarter opponents keep mewling about how Saddam didn’t have anything to do with 9/11 and whose strategy seems to be if we ignore it, it will just go away striking.
Since I was already persuaded by the arguments advanced, I can’t tell if anyone was persuaded for or against by the speech. I do think the strategy and rationale was clearly layed out and I’m dismayed by how many people don’t seem to get it.
I did find the end of the speech effective. Yes, choked by emotion can all too easily be overdone, but I do think it was genuine, and came across as such. He could barely get out the “May God Bless You All”.
On a side note, who would you rather write about politics, this guy or this guy? I don’t know what Mr. Maguire does for a living, but I much prefer to reading his slyly cogent take on matters than Mr. Millbank’s snarky superficiality.
I’m not a fan of political reporting these days. It’s by and large stupid, and it seems that the writers try to make up for a lack of any real content with snark. When I hit Google News today to see what was happening, the lede of the New York Times article on the President’s Bus Tour caught my eye with one of the all time great combinations of stupidity and snark:
“The dirty little secret of President Bush’s bus tour is that he didn’t spend much time on the bus.”
As the great Forest Gump used to opine, “stupid is as stupid does”.
Bush Confesses
Apr 15
Apparently President Bush has finally decided on what the worst mistakes of his presidency were. Scott Ott has the story.
About time, I say.
A little History
Jan 24
The Midwest Conservative Journal is smoking on Iraq today. The only thing I have to add takes off from the remarks of John Howard (Australia’s Prime Minister for those of us who aren’t Al Gore) who said NATO’s attack on Serbian troops in Kosovo showed that UN approval was not a necessity for Allied troops to begin a military attack:
“Look at Kosovo. There was no UN resolution on Kosovo,” he said. “I don’t remember too many people at the time saying that’s outrageous. I don’t remember it. I’m not saying Kosovo is a model for what might happen here. I’m not suggesting that. I’m using that as illustration that people who look for a black and white outcome from the UN could be mistaken. In the end we could have a grey outcome from the UN and you then have to make a judgment on merits.”
Let me go a little bit further. On Kosovo, not only was there no U.N. resolution, there was no congressional authorization. The short history was there was a cold civil war in Kosovo, with atrocities being committed by both Albanians and Serbians – in fact it was the Albanians in Kosovo who originated the use of rape as a means of war in the modern Balkans, and you were more likely to be victimized as a Serb than an Albanian in Kosovo. President Clinton demanded that Yugoslavia sign the Rambouillet Accord or else, with a deadline after which force would be used. This is typically known as issuing an ultimatum. We knew Yugoslavia wouldn’t, couldn’t accept this Accord — Kosovo was not only going to be autonomous, it was going to be under NATO control and occupation, and under appendix B Yugoslavia itself could be occupied by NATO. Didn’t anybody remember that WWI started with an ultimatum issued to Serbia – again one that couldn’t be accepted? So when the deadline passed, NATO ministers voted for war, and President Clinton ordered bombing to commence, without any congressional debate or vote. That’s right the United States of America went to war, not on a U.N. resolution, not on a Congressional Declaration of War, but on the vote of NATO. Where were the cries of give diplomacy a chance?
And did we confine ourselves to military targets? No. Not only did we bomb civilian infrastructure – power plants, bridges, car factories, that could be argued were valid because of their use to the military, we bombed a Serbian TV studio because we didn’t like what they were saying on it. We targeted and killed civilians not because of their possible military value, but because we didn’t like their version of events. Where was the outcry? What would have happened if in the Gulf War we would have targeted Peter Arnett (like blowing up his hotel room at night) because we didn’t like how the Iraqi’s were using him for propaganda purposes? Don’t think too hard about that, instead, wonder why when the litany of why America is considered an arrogant cowboy country, we hear about Kyoto and not Kosovo.
So please, don’t tell me that Bush is a warmonger, or that an attack on Iraq without UN approval is illegal unless you said the same thing about Clinton and Kosovo.
