Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

It took him long enough

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has offered Articles of Impeachment in Congress against President Bush alleging that he lied to Congress and that he's guilty of war crimes. He's been promising to do this since 2006 and even before then.

But, did President Bush actually lie? Allegedly the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence released a report that tells us that he did. That's what I've been hearing for the last several days, and if it's true, then maybe Rep. Kucinich has a case. Still, from a cursory reading, the Washington Post (not exactly a beacon of conservative media bias) appears to have come to a different conclusion.

On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

Isn't it interesting that Sen. Rockefeller (the current chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) himself said in October of 2002…

There has been some debate over how 'imminent' a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can."

This from the man that's skewing the report's conclusion to take "issue with Bush's statements about Saddam Hussein's intentions and what the future might have held."

The minority dissent is full of statements from Democratic Senators that are similar to Sen. Rockefeller's statements in 2002.

The dissenters assert that they were cut out of the report's preparation, allowing for a great deal of skewing and partisanship, but that even so, "the reports essentially validate what we have been saying all along: that policymakers' statements were substantiated by the intelligence."

When will this tired old canard, this political myth that "Bush Lied" die? We may have to wait until Sen. Obama's hopes to win "Jimmy Carter's second term" go down to defeat in November. While you're waiting though... here's a bit of a blast from the past.

"There’s no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat… Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He’s had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001… He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn’t have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we."
— Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002

"I share the administration’s goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction."
– Dick Gephardt in September of 2002

"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed."
– Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002

"Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
– Al Gore, 2002

Ah, I hear you say. All of that is AFTER President Bush spoke to Congress, so maybe he lied after all? Maybe not... let's set the wayback machine a few years earlier shall we?

"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983"
– National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998

“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”
— From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998

“Saddam’s goal … is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.”
— Madeline Albright, 1998

“The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.”
— Bill Clinton in 1998

“Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people.”
— Tom Daschle in 1998

“As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”
— Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998

I think it's long past time that this canard was put to rest. George Bush wasn't even running for President in 1998. If he anticipated in 1998 that somehow he'd

• Run for President
• Lose the Popular Vote
• Have to counter-sue in Federal Court after the winner of a mere plurality of the Popular vote sued to have the results in Florida overturned.
• Take his case all the way to the Supreme Court and win - despite the 5-4 liberal majority of justices there.
• Become a "wartime" president after tricking the world into believing that Al Qaeda had destroyed the twin towers of the world trade center in New York, a field in Pennsylvania and part of the pentagon.
• Finally have the chance to "finish what his daddy started" in Iraq.

... if only he could somehow convince Democrats in 1998 that Saddam was a threat to world peace and then manipulate the intelligence that everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike were seeing so that he could "lie" his way into a war. If he anticipated that back in 1998 and carefully orchestrated things so that five years later he'd be able to do all that, then tell me...

... Why is it that a man who could pull off a complex five year plan like that, fooling the brightest minds on the left and in the intelligence community, is considered a gibbering idiot by his enemies on the left? And don't tell me it was some master plan of Karl Rove's.

Rep. Kucinich is an idiot. And so is anyone that still falls for the "Bush Lied" myth. That goes for certain presidential nominees too.

A few brief thoughts

Barack Obama is going to make the economy one of the central issues of the campaign from what I've heard. You know the old mantra "It's the economy stupid!"

… The national unemployment rate "jumped" to 5.5% last month. That's quite a jump. It's still a smaller rate than most European countries, but it's a fairly large rate compared to recent years. This is sure to be one of those "failed Bush policies" that Obama is going to harp on John McCain about perpetuating. Never mind that the jobless rate has been generally quite low after an initial post 9/11 surge in 2001, it's got to be "Bush's fault".

Personally, I think it's more likely the combination of a sudden influx of new job seekers into the summer job market after having schools release their students and the ill-advised jump in the minimum wage by close to 30%. Think about it. What part of the labor force actually earns minimum wage? Wouldn't that typically be the entry-level worker and the summer job seeker? Somehow I don't think it's the person that's been trying to earn a living for the past several years.

Now, suppose you own a small business. Your sales will be affected by a lot of things, primarily by the quality and availability of your product and the disposable income of your customers. Your costs will be affected by a lot of things too, such as the cost of materials and the cost of labor. Even assuming that the cost of materials stays fixed (and that's a big assumption with all the talk about inflation and higher fuel costs), if it now costs you a third more per entry level worker, you're probably only going to be able to hire three-quarters of the people you used to be able to hire for summer work. It's simple mathematics.

With 25% fewer job openings, is it any wonder that unemployment might take a summertime jump after a 30% increase in the minimum wage? Whose idea was that anyway? Is that really a "Bush" policy? Or can we thank our Democrat controlled congress for that one?

It's a fair bet that Senator Obama voted to raise the unemployment rate raise the minimum wage. After all, it was the humane thing to do. It was certainly the liberal thing to do.

High fuel prices? I wonder where those came from. Congress is all over the oil companies for being profiteers. It's my understanding from statistics I've heard on the radio that the oil companies make a 4% profit on a gallon of gasoline, and that the government (federal, state, and local together) pulls in a 15% tax on a gallon of gasoline. I've heard other numbers bandied about, with the oil companies making as much as 8% profit. The government still takes a significant cut, and they also tax the profit the oil companies make in the form of corporate income taxes.

Whether those numbers are accurate isn't the real question though. John McCain suggested a summertime moratorium on the federal gasoline tax. That's a nice idea, but of course once summertime is over the tax would be back. It's a very short-term thing, and not very meaningful either. I paid $4.29 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline (87 octane and 10% ethanol) today for gas. I put over 11 gallons in my tank, for a total bill of just under $50.00. Getting rid of the federal gasoline tax would have saved me a whopping $2.00.

The price of a barrel of crude oil topped $130.00 within the last couple of days. And that's before refining it into heating oil, motor oil, tar, gasoline, kerosene and a host of other products. Most of our oil comes from countries that allegedly hate us. Congress — on both sides of the aisle — is upset about the cost of gasoline, and also wants to end our dependence on foreign oil.

Of course, the Democrats want to end our dependence on foreign oil, by forcing us to consume less of it. But they don't want to give us any viable replacements for it, like nuclear power. They want to force us to stop using hydro-electric power because fish can't swim over dams very easily. They don't want us to use wind power — well, actually they do, as long as the wind farms aren't in their neighborhoods. They want us to stop using coal. They want us to stop using natural gas. A lot has been said about "renewable" sources of energy, particularly biofuels. The thing is, it seems as if the Democrats don't want us to develop any domestic energy sources using technology that already exists, they don't want us to develop our own supply of oil using domestic sources. Instead we have to develop new energy sources using new technology.

We're told that it could be ten years before domestic oil supplies come online (assuming we start drilling today), and that's an argument for not bothering to develop domestic supplies, increasing our dependence on the largesse of "nations that hate us". But fusion power (touted as a clean alternative to nuclear energy?) is decades away, a hydrogen economy still has to have an infusion of energy from other sources, and other technologies are also decades away — so we must start developing them now.

Why not do both? Why not develop our domestic supplies AND encourage alternative energy technologies? Chances are pretty good that the oil will be ready before the pie-in-the-sky technologies that haven't even become glimmers in the engineer's eyes yet. It's estimated that there's over a 200 year supply of oil under our own red-white-and-blue clad feet. That would give us plenty of time to develop the technologies to become totally independent of oil, both foreign and domestic.

And if we had our own oil supply, the notion of a "war for oil" would be laughable. Hugo Chavez would be a lot less arrogant if we weren't buying his product. The oil in the middle East would be a lot less valuable as a strategic weapon too. Maybe, just maybe, world oil prices would actually go down if the supply went up?

Oh that's right. Economics isn't exactly Congress' strong suit. After all, they honestly think you can end poverty by punishing industry and rewarding sloth. That's why we take more and more from those who earn and invest to give it away with no strings attached to those who haven't got a clue what to do with it in the first place, except maybe buy another "40" or toss it all into another scratch ticket.

I actually watched that happen not too long ago. A homeless man that I had become familiar with a few years ago (he's always making the rounds in the same neighborhoods) had been given a few bucks — ostensibly for food. Did he buy food? No. He spent it all on scratch tickets. And not one of them was a winner. Needless to say, he left the store hungry and muttering about how bad his luck was. It was sad. Especially when he could have gotten a meal with the money instead.

Venezuela is in the news again too. It seems that the economy there, which had a brief surge thanks to oil revenues is going back into the tank. It's horrible what socialism does to a nation's economy. Take away the fruit of a man's labor and keep it for the government, or trample it and give the dross to the poor and what do you get? Fewer people willing to labor for nothing, and more people going without.

But back to Mr. Obama…

“We did not arrive at the doorstep of our current economic crisis by some accident of history,” Mr. Obama said here to 900 invited guests, a relatively small audience for him. “This was not an inevitable part of the business cycle that was beyond our power to avoid. It was the logical conclusion of a tired and misguided philosophy that has dominated Washington for far too long.”

He's right about the tired and misguided philosophy that has dominated Washington for far too long. He just hasn't figured out what the name of that philosophy is…

Hey, Senator Obama! I'll give you a hint. That tired, misguided philosophy's initials are…

DEMOCRATIC LIBERALISM!

That's right. The socialist philosophy of the Democratic party is the one responsible for the current economic crisis. And, no matter how they try to place the blame at President Bush's feet, or to tar John McCain with the brush of continuing the president's "failed economic policies", they can't change it. After all, the President may propose a budget, but only the Congress can enact one. It seems that Senator Obama should be indicting himself and his peers when he talks about the economy. After all, he and they made the crisis.

Senator Obama urges "change". He speaks of a tired and misguided philosophy dominating Washington for too long.

Vote for Change this November. Vote for ANYBODY BUT Barack Obama.