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Of late, President George W. Bush seems to be interested in his legacy or how history will see his Presidency. Since it might be a little bit early to be writing the actual history, I thought it might be a great opportunity to write the history that could have been. So, here goes.
As former President George W. Bush flies back to Crawford, XYZ News has decided to examine the legacy he will leave to the 44th President of the United States, President-Elect, Rudolph W. Giuliani. Part of that legacy must include the landslide election of Giuliani. He rose to prominence during the attacks of 911 and continued to win the hearts and minds of the American people when he was sent by the administration to broker a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians as a part of the larger Bush “Middle East Marshal Plan”. Bush’s Marshal Plan capitalized on the world wide outpouring of support after the attacks of 911. Giuliani, widely touted as the wrong man for the job because of his lack of foreign policy experience, used his common sense approach to broker a successful deal between Hamas, Fatah and Israel.
That deal began a period of unparalleled investment in Gaza and the West Bank that continues today. The investment was originally a part of Bush’s Marshal Plan. However, the U. S. investment shamed many other rich Arab countries to address the squalor that was Gaza and poorer areas of the West Bank. To date, the original 100 billion dollar American investment has spurred over trillion dollars in infrastructure and housing investments which have almost eliminated the need for any of the Palestinian refugee camps. That investment has also blunted desire for Palestinian right of return negotiated in the Giuliani Accords. Additionally, as part of the accords, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has presided over more than six months of “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” style hearings. The hearings have now become more about rooting out corruption among Palestinian politicians than actual atrocities committed by either side.
On the other side of the Middle East, American dollars were also followed by Arab dollars. Miles and miles of roads have been built in Afghanistan. Water and electricity have come to areas for the first time in history. Another first for the Afghans is the replacement of poppies by food crops. Wahhabi clerics should take part of the credit for this change as they have begun to call drug production a sin against Islam. Many clerics have moved from terrorist watch lists to welcomed guests.
A guest in Iran, Muqtada Al-Sadr, has used his new clout from overthrowing the Saddam Hussein Regime to call for free and fair elections in Iran. Democratic elections have become an old game for Al-Sadr. He successfully used democratic elections after Hussein’s ouster to consolidate Shiite power while blunting western criticism.
After criticizing the Russians publicly, the Bush Administration privately negotiated the largest treaty since first strategic arms limitation agreements of the seventies. A French, American and Russian consortium has agreed to sell commercial nuclear technology and equipment to India, Iran and others to be determined. The genius of the agreement is how the Russians realize the sale of high tech nuclear technology while the rest of the world is allowed the opportunity to fully monitor the programs.
Ok, wake up from this fantasy. I hear Hamas is back to humming rockets into Israel.
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Tonight, I was about to write about how the GM bailout made our Christmas a little better. I thought I might tell you how my wife’s non-union automotive manufacturing supplier company might now survive. I was about to tell how our Christmas was still impacted by week long furloughs that had come at Thanksgiving, coming during Christmas and sure to come in January or February. I wanted to expose my Senators Shelby and Sessions for the hypocrisy of their political winger stance and how it was to effect non-union entrepreneurs in their state.
I decided to write something else tonight.
I want to stop wining long enough to honor the season. It just so happens we have a Christian household. We believe this season represents God’s ultimate gift to mankind. We think it is a season of hope. A man was born incarnate from the Virgin Mary. This man, Jesus, allowed everyone new hope and a possibility to begin again. However, you don’t have to be a Christian to have new hope for a possibility to begin again. You might think he was a prophet or you might only believe the Bible is a very good piece of literature. A piece a literature that tells the story of a man who is much like someone we might aspire to be. You might hope to be a better father, a better mother, get a job, pay off crushing bills or even hope to love better. The modern Christmas season has become a brutal mortal creation. If you look for the brutality, you will find it. You can also see extraordinary acts of love and kindness. You might see one of those little miracles of kindness and try to duplicate one yourself. You might see nothing but grief, sorrow hopelessness. You might see these things and say to yourself, “hopelessness stops here.” I will make the world better. I will decide to be a light in a dark world.
Times are tough and we need the light. As I think my world teeters on the brink, I know others have it worse. I should be a light. Call it what ever you like. Call it Christmas, Hanukah or even I won’t be a jackass day. Think a happy thought and do something nice. Minimal acts of kindness at a critical time can mean all the difference. To an unemployed mom whose daughter loves tater tots, a bag of tater tots might be a miracle. We just never know when a miracle will strike.
Let this be the season of miracles and new beginnings. Let’s try to be less critical and more critical at the same time. Instead of telling ourselves they brought it on themselves, let’s help them anyway. Let’s try for that critical miracle. Our bad decisions might land us in their position next Christmas.
To all, I wish you a Merry Christmas, Season’s Greetings, happy day off or any other label that makes your heart warm.
Writer’s Note; Articles might be sparse for a few days as I try to enjoy my wife’s time off. You know, making lemon aid out of lemons.
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The right wing crowd holds out hope for President-Elect Obama to get the hook on inauguration day. The same whack-jobs that brought you fake birth certificates from the grassy knoll are now calling for full investigation into any communications between anyone associated with the President-Elect and Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois. Do they have any idea how much time it would require of the Obama Transition Team to truthfully answer that question? Of course there were communications. It was Obama’s seat for Pete’s sake. Republicans need to listen to their former nominee, Senator John McCain, when he tells them the Obama people need to be doing something else. People inciting this move toward a Blagogate must also understand they may not get answers to these questions until the trial of U. S. versus Rod R. Blagojevich. In the end, pursuing Blagogate might help set free one of the biggest crooks to ever enter politics and prove to leave the United States vulnerable to a rapidly deteriorating security and economic situation.
Politics seems to be the only thing on the mind of right wing radio and some of the mainstream press. It’s a sort of country last mentality that puts political brinksmanship above all else. Laura Ingraham and even PBS’s Gwen Ifill seem to want a scandal to develop. Ifill asks “what does we mean, what is involvement” of David Axelrod, one of the President-Elect’s closest advisors. Apparently, his statement, “we were not involved,” was not good enough. Laura Ingraham, a right-wing talk radio host, posts on her website:
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’m not going to say a word to you. I’m going to do this with my children. Don’t do that. I’m a father. I have two kids. I’m not going to do it.”
-Rahm Emanuel, ducking reporters’ Seat-gate questions outside his children’s music performance.
Is she mad because he wants to spend some time with his kids? Last I checked, that would qualify as an example of family values. I’m sure he has worked 24/7 since Obama named him chief of staff. Her website says she is a lawyer. Doesn’t she understand how the Obama Transition Team could torpedo the case against Blagojevich by publicly telling what they knew? Maybe smearing and hobbling the Obama administration trumps seeing Blagojevich go free.
One man who absolutely does not want Blagojevich going free is the U. S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is the Republican Bush Appointee who made the decision to indict Blagojevich before he could fraudulently appoint someone to Obama’s senate seat. By all accounts, his case is dicey. By moving so soon for indictments, he may not have the smoking gun evidence he needs to put a real political crook in jail. Instead of keeping quiet, his potential witnesses are being asked to lay out his case for Blagojevich’s defense lawyers. Congressman Jessie Jackson, Jr., David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and others could all be needed to give testimony in court. Fitzgerald obviously does not believe his witnesses are involved. His public statement tells us they are completely innocent. Can’t the purveyors of Blagogate take Patrick Fitzgerald’s word for it?
One person who seems to have taken Fitzgerald’s at his word is Senator John McCain. McCain appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulos today for his first interview since the Presidential election. Politics seem to be the last thing on John McCain’s mind. His “country first” mentality leads him down a different path than the right-wingers in his party. Instead of hobbling the new administration, he seems to believe the world is a very dangerous place and Obama’s team need more focus than ever.
Again, I’m not playing Paul Revere, OK? But I am saying that there are enormous challenges throughout the world. We have the situation in Afghanistan. The situation in Iraq is still dangerous. There are efforts by Al Qaida to continue to cause difficulties and launch attacks in different areas of the world. So — the Israeli situation is certainly unsettled, as they go through a new election period of uncertainty. So there is — there’s incredible national security challenges, which mandates — doesn’t argue for but mandates that we all work together as much as possible.
To John McCain, working together doesn’t seem to include blagogate. McCain may feel Blagogate is not only wrong but, dangerous too.
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It has been funny seeing Eric Holder labeled as a partisan hack for his apparent involvement in the pardon of Marc Rich. Holder is President-Elect Barack Obama’s nominee for Attorney General. The media attention only serves to remind some Democrats about another truly partisan AG, Mr. Alberto Gonzales.
Gonzales represented the beginning of a new cynical chapter in American politics. Some Democrats believe President Bush allowed (instructed) Karl Rove to use the Justice Department as a sort of political Gestapo. There are really three incidents those Democrats point to when they level this charge. The first is the federal prosecution of former Alabama Governor, Don Siegelman. Some Republican operatives have made sworn statements saying Rove directly instructed one of Alabama’s United States Attorneys to “take care of” Siegelman. The firing of eight other U.S. Attorneys is the second thing mentioned by many Democrats. They believe those attorneys were fired because they were not partisan enough to pursue other Democrat witch hunts in other states. Finally, those Democrats point to a recruitment policy which clearly had a partisan and ideological litmus test as condition of employment. They say the Bush Administration dreamed of a day when the permanent career officers of the Justice Department would all be conservative ideologues.
Liberal ideologues have been disappointed in the President-Elect’s cabinet choices so far. They cover their disappointment by saying Obama was the candidate of change and his appointments didn’t look a lot like Obama planned to change anything. Many of these liberal thinkers refuse to give Obama points for pragmatism in the face of extraordinary times. They want a voice in a government they feel has been too right too long.
So, is the nomination of Holder just another pragmatic appointment of a person with the experience to do the job in very trying times or is Obama sending the liberals a message? What is that message? Should Karl Rove find a nice home in a country with no extradition treaty? Is Holder considered partisan enough to do the job? If the democrats who want to continue a war they feel the Bush Administration started they might feel Rove’s involvement is Blood in the water.
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A co-worker of mine and I were talking about a “bailout” for the Big Three American auto makers. His stance was similar to the senator from Alabama, Richard Shelby. Shelby asked the Big Three CEOs, “Why should we believe your firms are capable of restructuring now when you weren’t able to do it under more begin conditions?” Now, I am not sure if CNN Money got the quote wrong or if the senator from Alabama continues to be as inarticulate and embarrassing as usual. My friend was also embarrassed. I admit I had been prepared for his right-wing stance. However, after reflection, we quickly determined three members of his immediate family could lose their jobs if the American automakers failed. The problem my friend didn’t understand was that Shelby and the state government had been doling out money to the auto industry for years. But the money was for foreign car makers.
I tried to find a quick and dirty amount of money we had spent attracting foreign carmakers to the United States. If you consider Industry Week’s average incentive of about $100,000.00 per job and multiply it by the Federal Trade Commission’s estimate of 35,000 jobs, you quickly get to about three and a half billion dollars. As an engineer, I usually have to give you a statistically based analysis on how confident I am about the three and a half billion dollars. I won’t do that. However, I bet you a nice bottle of single malt I didn’t include a third of the money we have spent on incentives for foreign car makers.
So, Senator Shelby, if you want use rhetoric to make points with your right-wing free market worshiping constituents, go ahead and be a hypocrite. Remember you helped spend 300 million on one foreign plant in Alabama at a cost of $150,000.00 per job. Spending 35 billion on 240,000 American auto maker jobs totals about $145,000 per job. After all, even my right-wing buddy at the water cooler has decided to give it another look.
POST SCRIPT:
It has been pointed out that the incentive money most of the foreign car manufacturers receive is not a loan. Those monies are grants or gifts. The American carmakers are asking for loans.
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During Charlie Gibson’s interview of President George W. Bush tonight I was shocked to hear him take some responsibility for the current economic mess. Republicans who continue to sacrifice virgins at the alter of the laissez-faire free market might take a cue from the guy who will lead their party until January.
Those free-marketeers who want to dismiss ole W might want to remind themselves why he is still the leader of their party. Bush’s admissions in his weird sort of legacy quest might be instructive to a party infiltrated at all levels by right-wingnuts. The wingnuts are saying Republicans were not conservative enough. But, many conservatives are comical in their lack of a plan for the economy. They sound like the Kenny Chesney song, “No bailout, no unemployment, no problem.” The scariest part for center right Republicans may be that some still believe the words which lost Senator John McCain the election. When McCain told the country, ”The fundamentals of the economy are strong,” Americans knew it was a lie. When the wingnuts tell the party, “for Pete’s sake, lets not regulate,” the center-right knows it will kill the party. Many thinkers in the party wonder what part of this banking and mortgage collapse the wingnuts fail to understand. I guess a little depression every hundred years or so is a good and natural correction.
Liberals on the other hand were salivating. That is, they were until today. See, they were anticipating regulating the markets into oblivion. Unfortunately, President-Elect, Barack Obama seems to be under the impression experience and moderation is the way out of a full blown depression. Liberal wingnuts berated Larry Summers and Tim Geithner for not being agents of change.
Competence might be the “change we need.” As the new administration considers what might be the biggest economic stimulus since the New Deal, I would prefer having the best minds in the room. Hank Paulson et al. seem to be any thing but. So far the current establishment can only give a few mysteriously selected banks some of my money to buy other banks. Those sweetheart deals have served to pile more cars on the train wreck they call a credit market.
Markets, at the end of the day, will have to be regulated. Unregulated cancers like credit default swaps which threaten the entire financial system will have to become subject to oversight. Regulations will also have to include some early warning system for new threats which Wall Street is sure to invent. But, absolutes are never absolute and Wall Street innovation is not a threat on its face. The trick is to be aware while not impeding progress. If Barack Obama’s appointments to his economic team are any indication, I imagine we will finally get some balance to our economic policy. I just hope my wife and I still have a job when that balance arrives.