Here’s a video compilation of Obama’s scathing criticism of George W. Bush for the Katrina response. As you watch, ponder Obama’s indecisiveness about the oil spill from the deepwater British Petroleum well…

Blaming Bush, or associating the Republican candidate with Pres Bush, did not work in Massachusetts, New Jersey or Virginia. In fact, “blaming Bush” is a political loser unless you are talking to a crowd of “yes we can” screamers badly intoxicated with Bush Derangement Syndrome!

Bashing Bush does not work anymore. As they say, people are focused on the present and the kind of spending that the Obama administration is proposing.

POLITICO has the story:

Voters were more focused on the current administration or local political issues — and the one time Democratic magic formula seemed yesterday’s news.

Blaming Bush is way out of line on the deficits, too!

Veronique de Rugy has a great post about the limits of blaming Bush:

It is time for Obama to act like an adult, and as the president, and stop blaming his predecessor for the fiscal irresponsability in Washington.

Megan McCardle has a good post, too:

Deficits of the size Bush ran are basically sustainable indefinitely; deficits of the size that Obama is apparently planning to run, aren’t.

That’s exactly right!

As you can see from the chart above, Pres Bush’s deficits were within the range of deficits since 1960.

Running deficits in the 2-3% GDP range is indeed very sustainable, but running deficits at 10% of GDP is totally unsustainable.

We have a deficit problem and it is an Obama problem!

George Bush, his poll numbers almost as dismal as those for the US Congress, is not normally mentioned with Democratic icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Republican icon Abraham Lincoln. Arguably bashed as much as “the gangly ape” Lincoln was, Bush is thought to have little in common with them, except for presiding over a war. Could this week’s momentous legal decision change that? It could. But that would depend on George Bush.

According to Chief Justice John Roberts, the Boumediene v. Bush 5-4 decision marks a very dark day in Supreme Court history. To paraphrase Roberts, with a little help from FDR: This day will live in judicial infamy.

For the first time ever, alien prisoners captured on a battlefield are to be granted habeas corpus rights. The Mujahadeen are to get the Constitutional rights of a US citizen. A lawyer’s dream? A legal nightmare for the US military and court system? It’s certainly one giant step for turning warfare into lawfare. The American soldier, besides the national defense, must be ready to gather evidence for his own defense. His every action, including pulling a trigger, can be subject to subpoena. Judges now rule 300 million Americans?

Liberals and Democrats are grinning wide. They feel they have socked it to George Bush again and struck a blow for “human rights,” a progressive twofer. The SCOTUS decision was a case of five liberals (including a Bush pere appointee) against four conservatives.

Conservatives and Republicans are groaning that, for liberals, the desire to bash Bush and score points trumps common sense and national security every time.

Republicans say these Guantanamo prisoners, being held indefinitely, are very dangerous Islamic fanatics. (Monica Crowley, who visited there and saw them up close, concurs.) It’s been documented that some of those released have gone on to kill Americans. The Democrats counter that not all of them are dangerous, some are innocent, and therefore you need to put them all through the (already clogged) US court system, no matter how much time, money and chaos it takes.

The gringomanic response:

Of course the Democrats are transparent, increasingly partisan, increasingly “progressive.” To see them is to see through them.

But as for George Bush, how serious is he? Mildly? Very? Or what?

If Bush is deeply concerned, he doesn’t have to cite Franklin Roosevelt, who thought nothing of holding German prisoners in WW II, when no Democrat “progressive” would dare to squawk about their “human rights” and did not even complain when FDR and the military tribunal ordered them executed.

What is to stop George Bush from hearkening back to Abraham Lincoln, if he’s serious? In 1861 Lincoln suspended civil rights wherever he thought peaceniks and others endangered the war effort. There was no ACLU on the attack.If there had been, all indications are that Lincoln would have tossed it into prison without a second thought. In 1862 Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and had copperhead democrats arrested for interfering with the war effort. The ACLU wouldn’t have stood a chance against Lincoln.

George Bush would not have to go near as far as Honest Abe. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus nationally, and for U.S. citizens. Bush could be much milder. What is to stop him from suspending habeas corpus for any alien prisoner — who arguably does not have that right in the first place? Georgie could suspend it just for good measure, for anyone who believes that the five liberal activist Judges were acting Constitutionally.

There is precedent, as the legalists like to say. It is there for the President.

Would a globalist guy like George Bush, a “compassionate conservative,” never too fussy about borders, be inclined? Would he mind the full-court press of liberals barking and yelping at him for suspending a “global right” of these aliens — a “right” that never was until their Judges said it is?

As the decision to give the Beijing commissars the Olympics 2008 begins to look dumber with each new Tibet or “Torch Drama” headline, the Bush White House is in a quandary. Even Nicholas Sarkozy, the somewhat conservative President of France, says he might not attend The Games. However, our leader hurries to affirm that he, as POTUS, will attend.

Did Beijing do better buying, stealing or other-wise co-opting US technology and missile-guidance precision under eight years of Bush, or the preceding eight years under the Clintons? Perhaps only historians will tell. The Chinese General who boasted about now being able to ICBM Los Angeles is not saying. (The Campaign money trail does seem to indicate that Billary the Slick collected many golden egg rolls, the bankable kind.)

Bush has been quick to placate the comrade capitalists — a move quickly exploited by the Clintons whose Hillary half says he should not go to Beijing. Is the Bush hasty “I’ll go” just knee-jerk realpolitik? Does it simply boil down to the massive Free Trade imbalance? Debtors, as the Bible and history make clear, used to be sold into servitude or outright slavery. Of course, that was before our apostles of un-fettered globalism. Today, when its Creditor says “Come,” does the Debtor USA simply say, “When?”

At any rate Georgie Bush, in the twilight of his Presidency, must feel some obligation to a tyranny that is funding over a quarter trillion dollars in US debt. Tibetans riot in Lhasa against their Chinese overlords, making cable news and video, stirring the world. Yes, true, but he has to look at hard numbers. Debt-wise, the U.S. is now in hock to those same overlords. Call it the vagaries of Free Trade (to be ironed out in an indefinable future, say the business school apostles.)

The Olympic Committee was believed to know what it was doing. It wouldn’t be taken in by guarantees from Beijing, unsustainable, for a smooth operation, would it? They weren’t just naive or hustling careerists, were they, willing to ignore how tainted and adulterated many of the products and promises still are?

And so they gave 2008 to China, Inc., the hot new brand on the block. China, Inc. was clearly ambitious and proud enough. But was it free enough — enough for the glare of a world spotlight in today’s 24/7 telecom age?

Now, as the grand venture turns increasingly into a PR nightmare, even big corporate sponsors are getting nervous. Multi-nationals, finicky about China where they’ve found golden egg rolls? Not a good sign. The international uproar over China in Tibet — to cite just the most glaring example — will likely continue from Spring into Summer, especially if Beijing still thumbs its hard nose at the world and adamantly refuses some kind of accommodation with Tibetans and the Dalai Lama.

Meanwhile China, now emerging from its 5000-year-old shell, becoming Manufacturer to the World as the West sends its plants and know-how to cheap labor, makes multiple Olympic torches to forestall “incidents” around the world. A team of special commandos in track suits run, un-invited, through Paris and London, to “guard” the “sacred flame” and knock down anyone in the way, a technique not even used by the Nazis during peacetime outside of Germany.

No matter. Demonstrations turn the “Torch Drama” into TV farce. The hard-line commissars in Beijing, trying to blame the upheaval on the Dalai Lama exiled in India, sound increasingly ludicrous. Are these clever traders, some even trained in the West, ready for prime time?

But it’s not just Tibet. Athletes consider minimizing their time in Beijing due to the notorious air pollution. American athletes reportedly will avoid ingesting contaminants by bringing their own food, and certainly not brushing their teeth with toothpaste known for antifreeze additives. (Even the frozen dumplings from China have caused alarm in Japan recently, consumers rushed to the hospital.)

And so, will our border-busting Presidente, who has made much of “human rights” and “democracy,” really attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics on 08/08/08?

Of course he will, unless the Grand Event implodes into a black hole (once believed impossible, now simply, well, maybe “unlikely.”) How could he snub such a gigantic creditor? As a proper globalista with an MBA from Harvard Business School, he understands. Today’s USA owes. Of course he’ll go to the Free Trade commissar games. That’s bidness.

People understand too, even without the MBA.

Still, a question hangs in the polluted air: Could Georgie go to Beijing, doing the pro forma inevitable, but in a way that would mark him as truly bold? Assuming he must go, could he nevertheless do it in a way that would capture the world imagination? Could he go without it being just the predictably hack, or diplomatic, thing to do?

Sure he could. Here’s how….

Let our leader attend the Games in the robe of a Tibetan Buddhist monk.

Too much for our Presidente? But wait. Think again. Recall how he once wore traditional Chinese garb on a state visit — Georgie as the Cowboy Confucius? (See foto.) Along with Vladimir Putin, he was a cultural cross-dresser for the occasion.

Conclusion: It can be done. Yes, it can. Where there’s a will there is a Tibetan robe, complete with blouse, vest, even skirt, and available in cotton or fine Indian wool.

And note the more esoteric symbolism our Presidente would be conveying at the Games, wearing something like Dalai Lama garb (or just common monk attire.) Note how it would address the tired cliche about “sport” and “politics” and not mixing the two (as if Beijing was doing anything but that in show-casing China, Inc.). Or another way of putting it: note how it relates to the famous passage (MATTHEW 22:20 - 22) where Jesus is asked to decide between the worldly and the divine. Jesus was challenged by the Pharisees to choose between Caesar (paying the Roman tax, the worldly) and God (ignoring the Romans, refusing to pay their tax, remaining only with the divine).

Georgie in Beijing could not be expected to repeat the famous reply of Jesus, but could he manage to paraphrase it in his own way? Could he respond dramatically to the “impossible” challenge of siding with the commissars (attending The Games) or with world opinion (not attending The Games)?

Yes, he could.

In Beijing POTUS could be rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, (by attending the Games) and unto The Spirit what is The Spirit’s (by his surprising couture).

As for whether a Christian, or any non-Buddhist, could wear a saffrom robe (the color sacred to Buddhists), we assume that President Bush could reach an understanding with the Dalai Lama, should he wish to. Special dispensation, if needed from the Buddhists or from his own church, could be attainable. Details, details. What are details between men of good will?

You want to talk legacy, and shaking the world for a moment, even soaring over Harvard Business School and the Iraq dilemna?

Is Georgie up to it?

Update 6:58PM — related reference from The Caucus: Obama on Boycott: Wait, Then Decide

President George W. Bush has been the recipient of the most concerted, hate-filled propaganda campaign ever launched against a sitting President. Washington’s bureaucracy has aided and abetted this outrageous Democrat offensive by conducting a deliberate intelligence misinformation and sabotage war. The mantras have been repeated so many times, they have insinuated themselves into our daily jargon. “There were no WMD,” Bush’s “misadventure in Iraq,” or “The President’s failed Iraq policy.” Or as someone recently said to me: “I just think he’s so stupid.”

Mention the name “Bush” and people bow and shake their heads. It is as though no one even wants to acknowledge we have a President by that name. Bumper stickers declare: “I Can’t Wait for 2008.” Many conservative pundits have participated in this pile-on. That the Bush presidency is an unmitigated disaster is a given even among conservatives who should know better.

There is nothing new in the pattern, except for its nonstop intensity. All recent Republican Presidents have faced overt hostility from the press and popular culture. And as their time got short, the vitriol always intensified. Reagan capitulated early, handing up sacrificial lambs during Iran/Contra and offering little support for one of the most qualified Judicial Nominees in our nation’s history, Robert Bork, who was forced to face an unprecedented wave of personal attacks without the support of the President who nominated him. In recalling the Reagan years, this is often overlooked.

In typical fashion, the Republican establishment has once again capitulated and completely surrendered the argument to its enemies. Many Republican Washington insiders see this as an act of self preservation. The cacophony of negative press stories drowns out any voice that does not follow their script. One becomes self-conscious and intimidated. Why say anything if to do so risks the mass media turning their merciless invective on you?

Also, Washington insiders live in Washington. They are trying to live dual lives: supporting a Party that stands for American values in a city that doesn’t want them, while simultaneously attending cocktail parties, joining clubs and sending their children to school with these same people. But what do they expect? Republicans, whether they earn it or not, represent the Party of principle, and are thus a threat to Washington’s deeply embedded culture of corruption. They will never have an easy time of it.

Recall the experience of liberal Senator Bob Packwood (R-OR). He was hailed by feminists for supporting their causes — until he made the mistake of groping one or two of them. Then the harpy brigade descended. For all the invective one would have thought he murdered babies. But lecherous Teddy keeps on groping while Bill Clinton gets a pass on rape. Packwood’s real error: he became a vulnerable Republican, and Democrats will always use the opportunity to rid themselves even of Republicans who vote their way — much better to have an always reliable fellow Democrat.

Every President has had his failings, and President Bush is no different, from his incomprehensible defense of illegal immigrants, the Medicare prescription drug program and his frustratingly suicidal habit of neither articulating nor defending his positions. But despite it all, I suggest to you that he deserves much more credit than he has been getting, even from those who should know better.

For example, we take for granted the fact that he hasn’t backpedaled on taxes. But why should we take it for granted? Reagan backpedaled. Bush’s father did in a big way. We forget that Bush was the first president with the guts to discard the insane Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, by which we were prevented from developing any effective missile defense for thirty years, while the Soviets blatantly cheated as they have on every other treaty we ever signed with them, and developed quite a sophisticated one.

We also discount the huge effect of his appointments to the federal bench. Supreme Court judges Samuel Alito and John Roberts will be with us for a while. A Newsmax article recently reported that, according to the Court’s Federal Judicial Center, Republican judicial appointments now outnumber Democrats’ 463 to 350. Bush has appointed 258 appellate judges, and unlike some Republican appointments in the past, most of his are solid conservatives. Seven of ten sitting judges on the crucial DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which recently overturned DC’s onerous handgun ban, are Republican appointments, three of those by G.W. Bush.

He regularly sidetracks harmful legislation, despite his supposed “lame duck” status. He vetoed the Democrats “SCHIP” bill, (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) which would have granted free health inusrance to “children” over 21 years of age and increased coverage for people earning three times the poverty level. It was correctly identified as “back-door socialized medicine.” He got the worst parts of an ill-conceived Democrat energy bill removed by threatening a veto. And there are countless other similar actions that we either don’t notice or take for granted.

George W. Bush and the current crop of Congressional Republicans have been branded as “big spenders.” While they sadly have earned this label, don’t pin any hopes on Democrats for reversing the trend. For a good laugh, read my earlier article on Democrats much-ballyhooed and completely disingenuous restoration of PAYGO (Pay-As-You-Go) spending restrictions. Moreover, while Democrats vociferously harp on Bush deficits, by historical standards the deficit is small and declining. At $163 billion, the deficit now absorbs a mere 1.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), significantly lower than the historical average. But even at its 2004 high water mark, the deficit absorbed only 3.6 percent of GDP — less than the highest deficit of the Clinton presidency, 1993, which consumed 3.9 percent of GDP.

This is because, thanks partially to his tax cuts, we have had a robust economy for most of G.W. Bush’s two terms, despite the enormously recessionary impacts of the 9-11 attacks and the Dot-Com-driven stock market collapse in 1999. You wouldn’t know this to listen to the gloom and doom economic reporting by the mass media, however.

But Bush’s greatest failure, according to the partisan naysayers and a few hapless Republican fools, is his record on Iraq. I submit to you that his leadership as Commander in Chief, while imperfect, has been head and shoulders over any other President in recent history. Think back.

Lyndon Johnson’s disgracefully timid and incompetent micromanaging of the Vietnam War needlessly cost tens of thousands of young American lives. Rather than admit it and change, Johnson took his marbles and went home, resigning in disgrace. Following the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, Reagan impotently withdrew all U.S. forces, rather than face off the terrorist supporting states responsible: Syria and Iran. George H.W. Bush’s unwillingness to finish the job in Iraq further encouraged the world’s thugs to believe that they had nothing to fear from the United States.

Clinton’s ignoble blundering in Somalia and impotent gestures toward Iraq further cemented the reputation of American political leaders as feckless cowards. It was discovered in after action analysis that Clinton’s much ballyhooed air campaign against Yugoslavia, where a 30,000 ft. altitude insured pilot safety, destroyed only about 5 or 6 tanks, not the hundreds initially reported. (The rest were decoys.) Was Clinton really concerned about pilot safety, or did he just want to spare his communist friends any serious damage? Given his publicized contempt for the military and his many communist connections, I suspect the latter. In either case, his much vaunted air campaign was in fact an abject failure.

While George W. Bush has clearly made mistakes in his prosecution of the War in Iraq, he has, unlike other leaders, had the courage to admit and correct many of those mistakes. Halting the attack on Fallujah in the spring of 2004 was a mistake — corrected. Allowing the Madhi Army free rein was a mistake — corrected. The pre-Petraeus conventional approach, a mistake — corrected. Few political leaders in recent times have been willing to do this in any circumstance, let alone during a shooting war. And Bush’s unflinching determination to prosecute this war in the face of a relentless, overwhelmingly hostile, even seditious Western media campaign to discredit the entire effort, and treacherous, underhanded bureaucratic sabotage, may yet see this conflict to a successful conclusion.

We must stop and recognize that this tidal wave of negativity is manufactured relentlessly by our almost uniformly leftist, anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-American mass media (with a few notable exceptions), in collusion with the leftist Washington political establishment. Nothing any Republican does will ever satisfy them. Like the Iranians or North Koreans, they welcome Republican attempts at conciliation as a ripe opportunity to take further advantage. They will never like or agree with them. They want to destroy them. And they may well succeed in the upcoming election cycle if we don’t come to our senses.

And while some may be breathing easier with Hillary’s slide in the polls, I wouldn’t hold my breath. She is still the candidate to beat, and I have said since the beginning, as far as her electability is concerned, she is not even thinking about getting a majority of voters. Like her husband before her, she is counting on the entrance of a third party candidate to split the republican vote. As I predicted early on, I believe this will be New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Despite his earlier denials, Bloomberg is now making rumblings that he will, in fact, run.

Get it through your head and get over it! The next election cycle is critical to the survival of our Constitutional Republic. Whatever failings you see in our government and leaders, Republicans must come together and reassert the values they stand for: a strong America, lower taxes, limited government, individual rights, individual responsibility and a healthy, mature, decent culture — American values.

With all its failings the Republican Party is yet America’s last hope. We American citizens may not be able to rescue America from the un-Americans, but we should at least stop assisting them in our own defeat. We can start by acknowledging and defending the record of this American President and reaffirm our support for the Republican Party — no matter who the candidate is.

A variety of folk from different walks of life comment on their choices for the upcoming presidential election:

Voting For Kerry:

Among my friends there is a lovely couple who have a long-lived and devoted marriage, but the husband is a committed life-long Democrat who will vote the party ticket under any circumstances, and the wife is a reasoning individual who is planning to vote the Republican ticket in the coming election.

As the husband was describing the situation to me, he put it this way,

“My wife is very enthusiastic about George Bush. I’m going to hold my nose and vote for John Kerry.”

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Voting for Bush:

I have some very dear African American friends who are in the construction business. They are also devout Christians who believe in honest rewards for hard work well done.

During a recent visit, one explained why they had always voted the Democratic ticket without question. He described it as a family tradition handed down by their grandmothers. Across the board, no questions asked. He said that as he left the polling place four years ago, he had a heavy heart, feeling in his gut that he had done the wrong thing.

This year he prayed about it, and felt empowered to decide for himself. He and most of his friends intend to vote for Bush. They feel that the Democrats were very helpful in advancing the opportunities of their community in the past, and are appreciative of that. But they do not feel any rapport with the Democrats as they are now.

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Still Undecided:

One very well educated and professionally prominent friend is still undecided. He doesn’t think much of either presidential candidate. He described the way he sees the choice as:

Bush–less than competent

Kerry–lacking conviction

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Plainspoken Observer:

Kerry is like a dog chasing cars. He wouldn’t know what to do with the presidency if he got it.

Dr. Sanity comments on Gallup Poll results following third debate:

Bush – 52%
Kerry – 44%
Nader – 1 %

Gee! The mainstream media claimed that Kerry won the debates?

Perhaps we can change the old adage “he won the battle but lost the war” to “he won the debate but lost the election”….

Our friends the “good guys” over at Give War A Chance are doing some great blogging. There is a terrific photo-comparison between the Bush and Kerry candidacies–Our Guy/Their Guy. And the fellows are taking it to a new level by offering download audios of the major campaign speeches. They are really starting to max out on the power of the Internet for information sharing. Good show, Djeepp, spotter, WarPig, and Halcyon!!!

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Check out this Opinion Journal article.

Orlando’s fracas was mirrored in Miami, where police reported that more than 100 union protestors stormed the Bush-Cheney office and shoved volunteers aside. No one was charged because most of the protestors left before the police arrived. In Tampa, about 35 protestors filled the local GOP office and intimidated the elderly volunteers working there.

The assault on campaign headquarters was not an isolated incident as there have been three already just in Florida alone. What will happen when the “thousands” arrive at their destination? Why are the FEC and the FBI not putting a stop to this disgusting display of intimidation? Are we living in Nazi Germany or America? If the unions and DNC have their way, looks like the former. This terrorizing of campaign workers is one of the worst displays I have ever witnessed. This is the post-Clinton “win at any cost” new America the left has in mind for us all.

The fellows at Give War a Chance have posted the entire audio of last night’s debate. The sound quality is very good.

Look for more interesting interactive opportunities from these fellows in the coming weeks. They really understand what the networking opportunities of the Internet and the Blogosphere can be used to accomplish.

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