No wonder they hate Karl Rove.
Today may have been the final masterstroke, the last, best misdirection play of his career. Judge Edith Clement was floated by “surrogates” of the administration this afternoon and everyone was aflutter. Drudge had the flashlight going. Breaking News everywhere. The liberals were pleasantly surprised. The media was thrilled. Bush listened to Laura, they said. A passable conservative woman in the mold of Sandra Day O’Connor. She sounded so good. Heck, even rumored candidate, Sen. John Cornyn, had an embargoed press release prasing the presidents pick, Edith Clement. It was a perfectly executed misdirection.
After the breathless afternoon coverage, and the anticipation for the evening press conference, it was as if the liberals were kicked in the stomach one last time by Rove.
Bush consulted with 30 Democrat Senators and he still didn’t choose one of their pre-approved nominees! He’s a divider not a uniter, I can hear it now. He went ahead and did what he has said he would since 1999. They simply can’t believe it.
The question should be, Why would you ever doubt Bush with this pick?
Still, that’s what many did, from both sides of the aisle. Once again, Bush was misunderestimated. It is always best when expectations are low and you surprise to the upside. John Roberts is 50 years old. He is a well regarded, mainstream conservative, Supreme Court veteran, who should be approved by any reasonable standard. If Ruth Bader Ginsberg can get 95+ votes, this should be an acceptable pick.
Liberal advocacy groups have their fax machines and emails cooking and that’s fine. Conservatves would do the same thing.
The trouble for Democrat politicians is that they will have to oppose him vigorously enough to satisfy their money interests without going too far and hurting themselves with independents and what’s left of conversative Democrats.
Can this line-up pull that off..Leahey, Schumer, Kennedy, Reid, Boxer, Durbin.
I’ve seen no evidence at all that they can. Good luck to them. They are a net positive for conservatives anyway.
Notes culled from the background noise…
Good exchange on Fox,
Fred Barnes, “This was the safe pick.”
Bill Kristol replies, “I disagree, this was a bold pick. The safe pick would have been a woman first and a minority second.”
Barnes later tried to explain his statement and came up empty, grasping at straws. Advantage Kristol. The boss wins again.
Keep talking Pat Leahey, keep talking.
Ken Starr gets lots of face time on TV as he was Solicitor General while Roberts was his First Deputy. Love it.
Hannity introduces former Senator John Breaux. Breaux congratulates Bush for “confusing everybody” and joking that he was originally “invited on the show to talk about Edith Clement”. The Democrats miss Breaux. He is a grown up.
Ed Meese is still sharp as a tack. He’s whipping Alan Colmes right now.
Susan Estrich, “This guy is the real thing.” It was not a compliment.
Greta Van Sustern to Estrich, “Will Rehnquist retire or go out with his boots on?”
The bad John Tierney is a back bench, empty suit, knee-jerk liberal congressman who most recently was seen seated at the head table during the House Dems mock impeachment hearings a few weeks ago.
The good John Tierney is the new guy on the New York Times editorial page. He is the Times token conservative columnist, the affirmative action position if you will, left vacant by the retiring William Safire.
Here is Tierney today on the Rove/Plame/Wilson/Novak story,
At the time her name was printed, her face was still not that familiar even to most Washington veterans, but that soon changed. When her husband received a “truth-telling” award at a Nation magazine luncheon, he wept as he told of his sorrow at his wife’s loss of anonymity. Then he introduced her to the crowd.
And then, for any enemy agents who missed seeing her face at the luncheon but had an Internet connection, she posed with her husband for a photograph in Vanity Fair.
The smeared whistle-blower Mr. Wilson accused the White House of willfully ignoring his report showing that Iraq had not been seeking nuclear material from Niger. But a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that his investigation had yielded little valuable information, hadn’t reached the White House and hadn’t disproved the Iraq-Niger link – in fact, in some ways it supported the link.
Mr. Wilson presented himself as a courageous truth-teller who was being attacked by lying partisans, but he himself became a Democratic partisan (working with the John Kerry presidential campaign) who had a problem with facts. He denied that his wife had anything to do with his assignment in Niger, but Senate investigators found a memo in which she recommended him.
Karl Rove’s version of events now looks less like a smear and more like the truth: Mr. Wilson’s investigation, far from being requested and then suppressed by a White House afraid of its contents, was a low-level report of not much interest to anyone outside the Wilson household.
So what exactly is this scandal about?
It’s because of guys like Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer.
Matt from Blackfive, our guest last weekend on Pundit Review Radio, pointed us to this,
(Army Times) During a routine patrol in Baghdad June 2, Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, hiding in a van just 75 yards away. The incident was filmed by the insurgents.
Tschiderer, with E Troop, 101st â??Saberâ? Cavalry Division, attached to 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, 256th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, was knocked to the ground from the impact, but he popped right back up, took cover and located the enemyâ??s position.
After tracking down the now-wounded sniper with a team from B Company, 4th Battalion, 1st Iraqi Army Brigade, Tschiderer secured the terrorist with a pair of handcuffs and gave medical aid to the terrorist whoâ??d tried to kill him just minutes before.
Click here for the video
This story reminds me of another from the early days of the invasion,
Military blogger L.T. Smash recounts a televised vignette that requires no further comment:
Martin Savidge of CNN, embedded with the 1st Marine battalion, was talking with 4 young Marines near his foxhole this morning live on CNN. He had been telling the story of how well the Marines had been looking out for and taking care of him since the war started. He went on to tell about the many hardships the Marines had endured since the war began and how they all look after one another.
He turned to the four and said he had cleared it with their commanders and they could use his video phone to call home.
The 19 year old Marine next to him asked Martin if he would allow his platoon sergeant to use his call to call his pregnant wife back home whom he had not been able to talk to in three months. A stunned Savidge who was visibly moved by the request shook his head and the young Marine ran off to get the sergeant.
Savidge recovered after a few seconds and turned back to the three young Marines still sitting with him and asked which one of them would like to call home first, the Marine closest to him responded with out a moments hesitation “Sir, if is all the same to you we would like to call the parents of a buddy of ours, Lance Cpl Brian Buesing of Cedar Key, Florida who was killed on 3-23-03 near Nasiriya to see how they are doing.”
At that Martin Savidge totally broke down and was unable to speak. All he could get out before signing off was “Where do they get young men like this?”
Who:
Don Luskin, Smart Money and National Review Online columnist, blogger (poorandstupid.com) and chief investment officer, Trend Macrolytics LLC, an independent economics and investment consulting firm serving institutional investors.
When:
Sunday evening, 9PM EST
Where:
WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station
Streaming Live @ WRKO
Call us toll free @ 877-469-4322
Why:
Don is and old friend of the show, a leading conservative commentator and political economist who brings a unique perspective to the discussion. Plus, he’s relentless when it comes to fact checking Paul Krugman. This is a valuable public service made possible by the blogsphere. We certainly appreciate his tireless effort to correct the record.
There was a great deal happening on the economic front this week. We will be asking Don about CNOOC’s offer to buy UNOCAL. What are the implications if we let a Chinese, government controlled oil company take over a US oil company? There was good news on inflation and the deficit this week yet Hillary and Krugman were out sharply criticizing the Bush tax cuts. What is the Democrat strategy on the economy heading into 2006 mid-term elections?
We will also highlight economic and investing blog resourses.
Charles Krauthammer writing in Time Magazine,
…Why That’s Ridiculous
On 9/11, the U.S. was rudely injected into a Muslim civil war–the jihadists are intent on conquering the entire region and re-establishing an ancient caliphate–except that only the jihadist side was really fighting. By taking the fight to the Arab/ Islamic heartland, the U.S. has forced Muslims to commit. The most remarkable effect of the wars to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq is that, whereas on 9/11 we stood alone against the terrorists, today there are two large and energized Muslim populations–with legitimate governments building armed forces–engaged in the same struggle against jihadism as we are.
It is those allies who are critical in ultimately winning the war on terrorism. The terrorists may have recruited their new Atta, now splattered on the walls of the Baghdad mosque he has suicide-bombed. We have recruited tens of millions of Afghan and Iraqi Muslims–with Lebanese and others to follow–opposing that Atta as they attempt to build decent, moderate, tolerant societies.
I’ll take our recruits.
So how does the US economy stack up?
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- Japan, 2004, 2.9 percent
- France, 2004, 2.1 percent
- Germany, 2004, 1.7 percent.
- Italy, 2004, 1.3 percent
- European Union, 2004 1.3 percent
- United States, 2004: 4.4 percent
Unemployment
- Japan, 4.7 percent
- France, 10.1 percent
- Germany, 11.7 percent
- Italy, 8.6 percent
- European Union, 9.5 percent
- United States Unemployment Rate: 5 percent
It seems to me like the Bush economic plan is working just fine, especially the tax cuts. What were Democrats saying about the Bush economic plan?
Tom Daschle, Dec, 2002
“So all of the economic indicators would point to reasons for serious concern. Their trickle-down economic theories have been a miserable failure, and this is an admission of that miserable failure today. So in addition to changing the players, they’ve got to change the play. And I don’t know that there is any evidence to suggest that they understand that today,”
Terry McAullife, Aug. 2001
“We believe this is a defining moment for President Bush. The bills for Bush’s irresponsible fiscal policies are coming due. We are determined to take every measure to ensure that the American people know what is at stake in the upcoming budget battle.”
John Edwards, Aug, 2004
“There is nothing compassionate about leaving millions of hardworking families behind, and there is nothing conservative about a fiscal policy that turns record surpluses into record deficits by combining an ill-planned war with reckless tax cuts for the wealthy,” Edwards said. “Will we next hear that his economic plan was a catastrophic success?”
Joe Lieberman, May 2002
“His economic plan could fit on the back of a shampoo bottle: ‘Cut taxes, increase spending, borrow, repeat. If he keeps repeating that plan, he will surely endanger Social Security benefits and slow our economy to a halt, just when we need the most economic strength we can muster to fight and win the war on terrorism.”
Ted Kennedy, January, 2002
“The doubts that many of us had before the nation was attacked about the affordability of those tax cuts have become certainties in the wake of September 11,” Kennedy said in a speech at the National Press Club. “Future additional tax breaks for the wealthy do not deserve a higher priority than strengthening education or covering prescription drugs under Medicare or protecting Social Security or meeting other urgent national priorities,” Kennedy said.
Jon Corzine, Jan. 2003
“In the most basic analysis, I don’t see how this plan drives economic growth now-when we need it.”
Charles Rangel, May 2003
“You say that this tax bill will create jobs. Why don�??t we pull the record and find what you said last time you came with a trillion dollar tax bill and find out where the jobs are that you promised then? We know that there is a philosophical difference between Democrats and Republicans. We believe that the people should be served and not just our investor class. Is it a class warfare? You bet your life! And you have declared it against the working people!”
“I sometimes feel that Alfred E Neuman is in charge in Washington,” she said,
referring to MAD’s gap-toothed mascot and raising laughs when she reminded the
audience of his catchphrase: “What, me worry?”‘-Hillary Clinton
When it comes to double standards, hypocrisy and unparalleled chutzpah, Hillary Clinton is a living legend. She, as a victim of the vast right wing conspiracy, is always among the first to decry the ‘tone’ in Washington, DC. Funny, but I never hear Bush making crude personal jokes about, oh I don’t know, Hillary’s thunder thighs, for example.
One thing the Clinton White House perfected was decrying the very tactics they were using. Remember the ‘politics of personal destruction’ that they were whining about as they destroyed Ken Starr and all of the women who came forward against Bubba.
Let’s put aside her personal insults to the President, which played very well in Europe by the way, thanks for that senator.
London Telegraph: Bush is like comic book idiot, says Mrs Clinton
Let’s focus instead on the substance of her remarks.
As Clinton gears up for a Senate re-election race in New York next year and a possible White House presidential bid in 2008, her attacks on Bush have become sharper.
In her speech Sunday, she accused the president of damaging the economy by overspending while giving tax cuts to the rich.
“There has not yet been one net job created in the last four years,” she continued
In order to have a ‘sharp attach’, don’t you need the facts on your side? Damage to the economy? Hello? We have the most vibrant, steady economy anywhere in the industrialized world. The ‘one net job’ line is an outright lie. Sure lots of jobs were lost during Bush’s first term, he inhereted a burst stock market bubble, a recession and a fully formed, fat and happy global terrorist network that was coiled and ready to strike. Oh yeah, and September 11th happened. Despite all that, enough jobs were created by November 2004 so that Bush was not, as John Kerry and the Dems claimed daily, the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs on his watch. Ms. Clinton is off by more than a half million jobs, at least. Sigh.
Here are the facts,
- Unemployment is at 5%, a four year low
- New jobs are being added at a rate of 160,000 per month so far this year
- The economy is growing at 3.5-4.5% clip, perfect for steady growth
- Defecit is shrinking faster than expected
- Tax receipts into the Treasury are up 15% over a year ago, thanks to the tax cuts
- Interest rates are at all time lows
- Inflation is low
- Home ownership is at record high levels