January 31, 2004

Send the Children of Politicians to the Front Lines?

by Stanley Kober

Stanley Kober is a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.

In recent speeches, President George Bush has proclaimed his desire to spread the blessings of freedom throughout the world, emphasizing that Americans pursued this objective throughout the 20th century. As he told the National Endowment for Democracy in November: "In the trenches of World War I, through a two-front war in the 1940s, the difficult battles of Korea and Vietnam, and in missions of rescue and liberation on nearly every continent, Americans have amply displayed our willingness to sacrifice for liberty."

Yes, we have, but we have not always been successful -- and our leaders have not always displayed their willingness to sacrifice themselves for liberty.

It is noteworthy that the president included Vietnam in his list. A generation of American leaders, haunted by the Anglo-French betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938, decided the United States had to honor its security guarantee to South Vietnam to prevent a repeat of history. They thought they were defending freedom. But the Vietnam War traumatized the American people, who ultimately decided they could not bear the sacrifice the war demanded.

A generation has passed, and approximately the same amount of time separates Iraq from Vietnam as separated Vietnam from Munich. Those two precedents define the paradox of intervention. Munich will forever exemplify the consequences of appeasement, but Vietnam serves as a reminder of the dangers of over-commitment.

Curiously, however, now that it has ascended to power, the generation that lived through Vietnam no longer seems to be influenced by it. President Bill Clinton was initially cautious about using military force. But by the end of his presidency he had initiated war in the Balkans. President Bush has been even more emphatic about the need to use military force. "In the new world we have entered," he argued in the September 2002 National Security Strategy, "the only path to peace and security is the path of action."

Yet for all his talk about sacrifice, Bush never served in Vietnam. He spent the war flying National Guard aircraft over Texas. "I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well placed ... managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units," Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote in his memoirs. "Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."

Powell's point is well taken. The draft was supposed to impose equality in military service, but it didn't. The volunteer service has worked well, but it is also much smaller than the armed forces of the Cold War years. Even so, by the late 1990s, recruitment was running into difficulty. All the services were able to meet their recruiting quotas for the past fiscal year, but that was attributable in large part to the economic downturn. "That's the driver, the economy," asserted Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, the head of the Army Recruiting Command.

But if the economy is driving recruitment, the inequality that plagued the draft might be returning. According to a study by retired University of Texas sociologist Robert Cushing, less populated rural counties in the U.S. are suffering casualties in Iraq at a higher rate than more suburban -- and presumably wealthier -- counties. "In the politically polarized America of today, there are unmistakably two planets," concluded Bill Bishop of the "Austin American-Statesman," who reported Cushing's findings. "There's the planet that watches the war on television and debates the merits of an $87 billion appropriation, and then there's the planet that sends its kids to Afghanistan and Iraq."

That disconnect is beginning to have an effect. "I noticed a long time ago that our policymakers often seem divorced from the men and women who serve in the armed forces," a woman whose brother serves in the Marines wrote in the Washington Post last January. Others with loved ones in the service are even more personal and bitter. "Would Bush be doing this if he were sending his daughters?" asked 22-year old Sally Brown, whose husband is in the Marines, shortly before the invasion of Iraq.

One of the great challenges facing a democracy -- indeed, any society -- is the connection between the military and civilian society. Any sense of inequality and inequity is bound to erode that connection. Thus, an all-volunteer military is the wisest policy. Yet it can best sustain itself when the politicians lead by example. If the political leadership does not demonstrate the courage of its convictions by risking its own flesh and blood, it cannot expect the professionals in the military to do so for long.

During the Vietnam War, people asked: What if they gave a war and nobody came? If the members of the armed forces feel betrayed by their leaders, we may find out.

:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 10:41 AM [+] ::
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Larry Downing / Reuters
Poll: Public’s trust
in Bush at low ebb
Many think he lied or
exaggerated on WMD

By Richard Morin and Dana Milbank
Updated: 7:59 a.m. ET Feb. 13, 2004

WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans believe President Bush either lied or deliberately exaggerated evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in order to justify war, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

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The survey results, which also show declining support for the war in Iraq and for Bush's leadership in general, indicate the public is increasingly questioning the president's truthfulness -- a concern for Bush's political advisers as his reelection bid gets underway.

Barely half -- 52 percent -- now believe Bush is "honest and trustworthy," down 7 percentage points since late October and his worst showing since the question was first asked, in March 1999. At his best, in the summer of 2002, Bush was viewed as honest by 71 percent. The survey found that nearly seven in 10 think Bush "honestly believed" Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Even so, 54 percent thought Bush exaggerated or lied about prewar intelligence.

Honesty and credibility have been central to Bush's appeal since the 2000 campaign, when he benefited from disgust over President Bill Clinton's lies about the Monica S. Lewinsky affair and when Bush's campaign accused then-Vice President Al Gore of "saying one thing and doing another." But a number of factors, including the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq and the administration's underestimating of its Medicare prescription drug plan's costs, appear to have undermined perceptions of his credibility.

•More politics news
Bush's possible Democratic opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), has begun to talk about a "credibility gap." Even some Bush allies say they have been misled about Iraq's weapons, and the current Time magazine cover story asks: "Believe him or not -- does Bush have a credibility gap?"

Questions about Bush's use of prewar intelligence, in addition to feeding doubts about his honesty, have sent his performance rating plummeting. Fifty percent of Americans approve of the job he is doing, the lowest level of his presidency in Post-ABC polling and down 8 percentage points from January. The survey found that, for the first time since the war ended, fewer than half of Americans -- 48 percent -- believe the war was worth fighting, down 8 points from last month. Fifty percent said the war was not worth it.

Nine-point advantage for Kerry
These doubts have affected Bush's reelection prospects. In a head-to-head matchup, Kerry beat Bush by 52 percent to 43 percent among registered voters. Bush had more passionate support -- 83 percent of his backers said their support was strong, while 59 percent of Kerry supporters said so -- and retains an advantage over Kerry in dealing with Iraq and the war on terrorism. But the Democrat was seen as better able to handle the economy and jobs, education, and health care -- all top issues with voters this year.

The survey found a steep drop in public perceptions of Bush as a president and as an individual. In a sign that Bush has been set back by recent controversies over Iraqi weapons, his National Guard record and the federal budget, the number of Americans viewing him as a "strong leader" has slipped to 61 percent, down 6 points from December and the lowest level since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Bush's rating on handling the economy stood at 44 percent, down 7 percentage points, with nearly half of the public saying they are worse off now than they were when Bush became president three years ago. Six in 10 disapprove of the job Bush is doing creating jobs. On education, 47 percent said they approve of the job Bush is doing, down 8 points from January. And his rating on health care has also fallen.

But the president's declining ratings related to Iraq were most striking. Approval of his handling of the situation there has fallen to 47 percent, down 8 percentage points in the past three weeks. About half of Americans -- 51 percent -- said they would prefer a report evaluating the accuracy and use of prewar intelligence before the election, while 35 percent favor what Bush has ordered: a broader study of the overall accuracy of U.S. intelligence-gathering operations that reports its findings after the election.

While 21 percent believe that Bush lied about the threat posed by Iraq, a larger number -- 31 percent -- thought he exaggerated but did not lie. Indeed, six in 10 Americans believed, as Bush did, that Iraq had such weapons.

Three in four Democrats said Bush either lied or exaggerated about what was known about Iraq's weapons, while an equally large majority of Republicans said the president did neither. Slightly more than half of all independents believed Bush had misled the public about Iraq's weapons cache.

'He's manipulatable'
"I think he was believing what he wanted to believe," said one respondent, Ron Perholtz, an accountant from Jupiter, Fla. "I can't say he's dishonest. He heard what he wanted to hear. He's manipulatable by [Vice President] Cheney and others."

Many respondents expressed regrets about the Iraq war. For example, Mike Richcreek, 52, of Warner Robbins, Ga., believes Bush neither exaggerated nor lied. "He went by what the intelligence given to him showed," Richcreek said. But, at the same time, Richcreek said he has begun to doubt the merits of the war.

"I'm not sure now we should have gone to war in the first place," he said. "You think of all of our young kids getting killed. That's a problem. I'm glad I didn't have to make the decision."

A total of 1,003 randomly selected adults were interviewed Feb. 10 to 11. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Assistant polling director Claudia Deane contributed to this report.
 © 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Republicans turn into Democrats

Dale McFeatters
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

February 13, 2004

What happened to the Republicans of our childhood? Blue-suited white males espousing balanced budgets, deregulation, less government, all suffused with a general reluctance to get involved abroad or tell the states what to do.

The blue suits are still there and mostly they still cover white males, but everything else is unrecognizable in President Bush's Washington.

The Republicans once solemnly vowed to eliminate three Cabinet departments – Education, Commerce and Energy. Instead, the new-look Republicans created a new Cabinet department, Homeland Security, which is the third-largest bureaucracy in government.

The other three departments not only survived but thrived. Commerce is headed by one of the president's best friends. Energy has a pending welfare bill for its corporate clients that Congress has pared down to a lean $14 billion. And Education was rewarded with the greatest increase ever in education spending in the No Child Left Behind bill.

That bill's federal mandates are so onerous that Utah's Republican legislature – Utah! – rebelled and opted out of the law. Apparently the GOP hasn't gotten the word yet out there in Salt Lake City. Out-of-touch Republicans. Bad Republicans.

Forget deregulation. The Federal Communications Commission, headed by Michael Powell, the son of Republican icon Colin Powell, was so entranced by the trashy Super Bowl halftime show that it has set out to regulate bad taste. The agency seems to have forgotten altogether about deregulating the telecom industry.

The only deregulating the Bush White House has shown any interest in is at the Environmental Protection Agency. But the EPA and the clean-air and clean-water laws are signature achievements of the Nixon administration. Remember Richard Nixon? Republican president and vice president? Old Republican. Bad Republican.

Republicans today like to cite the salutary benefits of Democratic President John Kennedy's tax cut. But back in those days, Republicans opposed that tax cut. Said they at the time, "A tax cut of more than $11 billion with no hope of a balanced budget for the foreseeable future is both morally and fiscally wrong."

The Republican-run Congresses of the 1990s bequeathed Bush a balanced budget. But those were old Republicans. Bad Republicans. The budget will go a half-trillion in the red this year; there is no hope of a balanced budget in the foreseeable future; and Bush is asking the Republican Congress to enact tax cuts in which $11 billion would be a rounding error – $2.2 trillion over the next 10 years.

And spend! My, how this new breed of Republicans spends. In Bush's first three years in office, federal spending went up almost 24 percent, more than in all eight of Bill Clinton's years.

Bush is the biggest spender since President Lyndon "Great Society" Johnson and his high-octane liberal vice president, Hubert "A 13-point Program for Every Problem" Humphrey. And Bush and the new Republicans have created the largest and most costly government entitlement program since Johnson's Medicare, the new prescription-drug law. The drug benefit was to have cost $395 billion over five years, but now the Bush administration says it underestimated that cost by, oh, say $140 billion.

The old Republicans, if not entirely isolationist, were at least inclined to stay on these shores. Bob Dole – Republican presidential and vice presidential candidate, party chairman – got in a lot of trouble for observing that wars always seemed to break out when Democrats had the White House. It was true – World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam – but impolitic to say so. Old Republican. Bad Republican.

Now, if you haven't had a war, you're not a real Republican. The first President Bush started one, and his son has started two – and it's still only his first term.

Perhaps at the GOP convention this summer we'll hear thousands of the new, improved Republicans thundering out that old Democratic anthem to government largesse, "Happy Days Are Here Again!"

It would be appropriate. To paraphrase an old Washington expression, these new Republicans came to do good and stayed to be New Deal Democrats.

McFeatters can be reached via e-mail at McFeattersD@SHNS.com .

 

 

 

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/fri/opinion/news_mz1e13mcfeat.html

 
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 8:07 AM [+] ::
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BLOGGER - Knowledge Base?-?How To Network With Blogger: "
Back To: Knowledge Base > Creative Tutorials How To Network With Blogger
Answer:
How To Network With Blogger
By Biz Stone

In 1973 a guy named Mark Granovetter wrote an article called The Strength of Weak Ties. The thing was lousy with brilliance and included the idea that you're more likely to get a job through a friend of a friend than a close friend. I think he even had pie charts backing him up. Very scientific, but it's not the seventies any more.

Now it's the future and we have lots of social networking web sites that show us our weak ties. So many in fact that people are getting overwhelmed. Folks, you don't need a hired hand to manage your social networking duties. If you're a Blogger user, then you're already signed up to the ultimate networking tool--one that plugs you into a world blind to height, weight, and eye color; where your thoughts, opinions, and ideas represent who you are.

I invite you to join me in an only slightly different dimension. A dimension in which Blogger exists as 'Push Button Networking for the People.' In this version of reality, Blogger does not change, just our perception of it. Let's tour some crazy features to see how blogging doubles as social networking of a different color.

Your Sense of Style

When you're setting up a social networking account, you often have to pick a fashion or style that best describes you. The same can be said of Blogger except that we take it even further. We apply your choice visually. The visual appearance of your blog is a window on your personality. So when we ask you to choose your template ask yourself, 'What creature best describes my style? Sand Dollar, Jellyfish, or Bluebird?'

See: How Do I Switch My Template?
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:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 5:20 PM [+] ::
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Gore Says Bush Betrayed the U.S. by Using 9/11 as a Reason for War in Iraq
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

ASHVILLE, Feb. 8 — In a withering critique of the Bush administration, former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday accused the president of betraying the country by using the Sept. 11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq.

"He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."

The speech had several hundred Democrats roaring their approval for Mr. Gore, the party's 2000 standard-bearer.

Mr. Gore was one of three Tennessee Democrats, along with former Gov. Ned McWherter and former Senator James Sasser, being honored by the state party two days before the state's Democratic primary on Tuesday.

The event served as a neutral platform for this season's candidates. Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Senator John Edwards addressed the crowd, but it was Mr. Gore who fired it up.

While the other honorees and party officials gave a nod to all of the candidates, Mr. Gore, who has endorsed Howard Dean , referred to his candidate in a nonpartisan manner.

He said he appreciated that Dr. Dean "spoke forthrightly" against the war in Iraq, brought new people into the party and inspired the grass roots over the Internet. But Mr. Gore told the crowd that at an earlier reception for Dr. Dean, who was in Maine, he had said that no matter who won Tennessee on Tuesday, "any one of these candidates is far better than George W. Bush ."

But his appreciation of Dr. Dean was tucked in passing into a fiery meditation on his own political history, including a recollection of the tactics used by the Republicans against his father, a longtime populist senator from Tennessee, in his last, losing election in 1970.

He recalled that President Richard M. Nixon had used "the politics of fear" to make his father, Albert Gore Sr., out to be unpatriotic and an atheist. And when his father lost, Mr. Gore said, his father said: "The truth shall rise again."

He said he recalled that defeat because "the last three years we've seen the politics of fear rear its ugly head again." Like the Nixon administration, Mr. Gore said, the Bush administration is not committed to principle but is obsessed with its re-election.

"The American people recognize that there's a lot of politics going on," said Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, in reference to Mr. Gore's comments.

Mr. Gore said he was ready to break his silence about his disagreements with the Bush administration before the Sept. 11 attacks, but afterward he threw his speech in the trash.

But then the war in Iraq came, and he felt betrayed. "It is not a minor matter to take the loyalty and deep patriotic feelings of the American people and trifle with them," he declared, adding with a shout: "The truth shall rise again."

General Clark followed Mr. Gore with a notably tamer speech. But he honored Mr. Gore, saying, "The 2000 election was stolen from the Democratic Party," and that Mr. Gore "would have been and should have been a great president."

Mr. Edwards arrived long after Mr. Gore spoke and apparently had little idea of what had occurred inside the room. He invoked his Southern roots and was greeted with cheers.

Earlier, on the ABC program "This Week," he seemed to leave the door open just a crack to the possibility of being the vice-presidential nominee if he does not win the nomination.

While reiterating that he was not interested in being vice president and did not see a circumstance where he would change his mind, he was less unequivocal when asked why he would not accept the nomination "if your party needs you."

"You don't know what's going to happen a month, three months, six months from now," Mr. Edwards said. "As I sit here today, I intend to fight with everything I've got to be the nominee. I think I am the alternative in the Democratic Party to Senator Kerry ."


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