Posted on 09/19/2002 9:05:04 AM PDT by MadIvan
However, I would expect Steyn to get it. He is letting his emotional impatience for war override his observational skills.
If this was true, candidates like Thune and Cornyn would be miles ahead at this point. They're not. Nobody is connecting these races with who supports Bush or who controls the Senate. The fault lies with Bush. It's some kind of genetic inability to say anything explicitly political that Bushes have. They seems to have this need to appear "Presidential", which they equate with being non-political. Let's see how "Presidential" he seems the next two years with Democratic control of one or both houses of Congress as they dictate their entire agenda to Bush II just like they did to Bush I. I guess his Presidentiality then will consist of some lame request on his Saturday radio addresses to pwease pwease pass this bill as Daschle and Co. laugh their asses off.
Unusual? Two clunkers in a row is unheard of for Steyn. Oh well. I wanted to amplify your remarks by pointing out that conservatives also tend to make the perfect the enemy of the good. After reading Steyn's last column, I wondered about this issue of the house of Saud. Steyn is extremely interested in seeing them dealt with harshly, and that is not even on the horizon. I wonder if that is his frustration. What he wants goes well beyond just Saddam.
I know that mkaes if few and far between, but hey I vote and choices are as valid as any kool aid drinkers.
BTW did your thief not vote for his pay increase this year, did he vote to place himself under social security, did he vote to give us the same medical dental benifits as he has given veterans and military retirees.
I sure hope not.
Done. My thanks. ;)
Regards, Ivan
| It's some kind of genetic inability to say anything explicitly political that Bushes have. They seems to have this need to appear "Presidential", which they equate with being non-political.
My reading of Dubya is that he will see to it that they get squeezed, but he will not be seen doing it himself. The Democrats will be found on the floor, unconscious... but there will be no suspects or witnesses. |
Amazing how Daschle all of a sudden came around, isn't it?
Linda Chavez was on O'Reilly about 10 days ago with guest host John Kasich. Chavez said that Powell was calling the shots, blah, blah, usual anti-Powell division stuff.
Kasich interrupted her and said, "Wait a minute. I ran against this guy in the primaries and he is VERY tough. No one is driving policy except George Bush."
I thought this comment interesting because it indicated to me that Kasich gets whats going on and has a far better read on the President than many.
President Bush is very determined and tough, and does lots of arm twisting, but he doesn't do it in public. The object of his administration is to accomplish certain goals, but he isn't required to follow the preferred pundit play bookto do so. This is hard for a lot of Washington watchers because they are not used to it.
As I said the other day when Steyn's last column annoyed me, anyone who has Fox News knows that the President has been busy all summer. He has had constant meetings and public appearances. He also has been letting the democrats step into the lovely trap they made for themselves.
I recall right before he left for vacation in August of 2001, there was a lot of political talk about how everything was stalled in the Congress. Then presto! about 5 bills passed in 4 days and were ready for signature.
I suppose Steyn just thought that was a lucky coincidence as well. LOL!
I like your analogy very much, and it is a good way to look at events. Sort of a "Who was that masked man, anyway?" approach.
Excerpt:
Hang on, say the Dems, Bush only wants a war because it’s an election year. As Dick Cheney pointed out, ‘Every other year is an election year and you can’t take half the calendar and put it off-limits.’ But I’m sure even now the New York Times is commissioning Arthur Schlesinger Jr or some other venerable Ivy League Democrat flack to pen a learned essay arguing that the precedents of America’s entries into the first and second world wars suggest that it would be grossly unconstitutional to go into battle in an even-numbered year.
But, if that doesn’t stick, some congressional Democrats are saying they won’t be able to make a decision about Iraq until they hear what the United Nations thinks. The President had fun with that one: ‘It seems to me that if you’re representing the United States, you ought to be making a decision on what’s best for the United States,’ he said last Friday. ‘If I were running for office, I’m not sure how I’d explain to the American people saying, “Vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I’m going to wait for somebody else to act.”’
Okay, if delegating your responsibilities to Kofi Annan won’t fly, it’s time to fall back on a sure-fire favourite. ‘There was nothing new in President Bush’s speech today to the United Nations General Assembly,’ wrote William Saletan in Slate. ‘There was no compelling new evidence,’ wrote Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. Where have I heard that before? Oh, right: 1998/1999, the standard Clintonite’s defence of the impeachment era. ‘There’s nothing new here. We’ve heard it all before’ works well enough when it’s interns, cigars and semen, but it doesn’t play quite so well with chemical weapons facilities and nuclear capability. It’s true that much of what Bush says could have been said four years ago. In fact, President Clinton did say it four years ago. The difference is he didn’t want to do anything about it.
Meanwhile, every ten minutes or so, the funereal Senator Daschle pops up on TV and announces gloomily that he still has ‘a number of questions’ about Iraq that the President needs to answer. It must be quite a number, because, no matter how many answers the President gives, for Daschle there are always ‘a number of questions that still remain’. Actually, the only remaining question is how much longer the Democrats’ most visible spokesman can afford to go on making himself look like a total idiot. What question does he still need answered? ‘What’s the capital of Iraq?’? Daschle fancies himself presidential material. If so, he’s supposed to have answers, not just endless unspecified questions.
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy. 
I think you can count John Cornyn (R) in to replace Phil Gramm here in Texas! 
Hang in there. When our operation against Iraq begins, Steyn will be in his usual good form, imho....
Why is it that regime change in Iraq is such a desideratum? Supposedly, it's because Saddam sponsors terrorism and has WMD. I say has WMD, not will have: this is about Iraqi disarmament according to the White House, correct? And the WMD we are talking about are not nukes, right?
Why would he sponsor terrorism? To attack the United States and its allies behind a veil of deniability, correct?
What good would WMD do him -- inasmuch as he is not suicidal? Well, he could use them to blackmail the US from responding to such clandestine attacks.
So, what would a clandestine Iraqi-sponsored terrorist strike backed up with a threat to use WMD look like, exactly?
Figured it out yet?
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I think this is what Steyn and Halperin were trying to get at. I don't think they are criticising Bush so much as trying to goad him into taking full advantage of the position he's got them in. "C'mon, you've got them by the throats! Squeeze! Squeeze hard! Squeeze until they stop breathing!"