Scott Spiegel

George W. Bush’s memoir Decision Points is a surprisingly good read—not that I expected it to be terrible, as Bush-haters probably do.  (I rate his presidency middling, better than his father’s, and better than any Democrat’s since at least JFK’s.)

Given the sharp turn our nation has taken leftward—and downward—the memoir made me feel ridiculously nostalgic.

The chapter titles are short, punchy, to-the-point.  You can practically hear W reciting them into his mini-tape recorder: “Quitting.”  “Running.”  “Personnel.”  “Stem Cells.”

That would be “Quitting” as in drinking, and “Running” for political offices including governor of Texas and the presidency.  “Personnel” relates Bush’s decision-making process for nominating and/or firing staffers Dick Cheney, James Baker and Ted Olson (lawyers in Bush v. Gore), Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Bob Gates, Andrew Card, John Roberts, Harriet Miers, and Samuel Alito.

Not surprisingly, the longest chapter is “Iraq,” which outlines Bush’s decision to invade the country and take out Saddam Hussein.  Bush lays out the case for his decision to attack clearly, logically, and unimpeachably, including the overwhelming global consensus that Hussein was producing weapons of mass destruction.  Bush chronicles the support he received from steadfast allies Tony Blair, John Howard, and José Maria Avnar, and the backstabbing he encountered from treacherous weasels Gerhard Schroeder, Jacques Chirac, and Vladimir Putin.

The facts Bush provides on the lead-up to the Iraq War remind us that claims he “rushed to war,” “went it alone,” and had no plans for postwar Iraq are the fevered delusions of leftist lunatics.  (Just reading about the U.S.’s efforts to rope Security Council members into approving UN resolutions to deal with Hussein “diplomatically,” I grew six inches of facial hair.)

“Leading” describes Bush’s leadership on a variety of issues, including No Child Left Behind and the regrettable Medicare prescription drug benefit, as well as his heartbreaking second-term failure to pass Social Security reform and his (mostly solid) immigration reform.

Three chapters are stinkers; fortunately, they come near the end.  “Lazarus Effect” brags how generous Bush was with taxpayer money in starting an AIDS prevention program in Africa that constituted a drop in the bucket because it did nothing to address the corruption in Africa’s tyrannical regimes.  (Bizarre revelation: Upon landing in Tanzania, Bush writes, “[A] cluster of women danced to the festive beat of drums and horns.  As one rotated to the music, I saw my photo stretched across her backside.”)

“Freedom Agenda” boasts about Bush’s push for a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution over the objections of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Powell, and his support for free elections for Palestinians who ended up voting Hamas into power.  “Financial Crisis” justifies Bush’s backing of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and automobile industry bailout.  It’s not surprising that the “moderate,” “bipartisan” activity outlined in these three chapters was concentrated in Bush’s final two years, after the disastrous political events of 2005 (including the outcry over his response to Hurricane Katrina).

In the introduction, Bush explains that the book is structured thematically: rather than a straightforward chronological narrative, each chapter covers a choice point in his life.  The result can feel a bit postmodern at times.  For example, we make it through one chapter that ends with his decision to run for president, then are plopped back into his pre-governorship days.

Still, I applaud Bush’s decision to structure the book this way, because it emphasizes something important about the life of a political leader: namely, the importance of free will and personal responsibility.  Bush describes his thought process as he faced each momentous decision, and while he admits he didn’t always make the best decision, he insists he was the one who made the decisions, takes full responsibility for them, and learns from his mistakes.

Contrast the active title of Bush’s memoir with the passive title of Barack Obama’s premature first memoir, Dreams from My Father, which emphasizes the hereditary, environmental forces that swept Obama’s worldview into the twisted, collectivist wilderness it inhabits today.

Or contrast Bush’s willingness to take responsibility for his mistakes—and graceful post-presidency silence on Obama’s calamitous first two years—with Obama’s constant badmouthing of Bush and blaming him for everything bad in his administration.  As Rush Limbaugh noted last week in his interview with the former president, Bush didn’t spend eight years blaming President Bill Clinton for faulty, impotent foreign policy and failed efforts to prevent the spread of Islamic terrorist networks that attacked the West after 9/11.

Bush enjoys a certain satisfying revenge on his critics by laying out the facts and circumstances behind each decision and forcing them to judge whether they would have done differently.

The crucial passage from the excellent “Surge” chapter—and maybe from the whole book—is this: “Years from now, historians may look back and see the surge as a foregone conclusion, an inevitable bridge between the years of violence that followed liberation and the democracy that emerged.  Nothing about the surge felt inevitable at the time.  Public opinion ran strongly against it.  Congress tried to block it.  The enemy fought relentlessly to break our will.”  Beneficial outcomes aren’t inevitable or immediate, Bush reminds us—they are the hard-won product of courage displayed at crucial decision points.

One thing supporters and detractors agree on is that Bush’s unpopularity by the end of his second term was the result of choices he had made.  His unpopularity was not proof he had made good choices, but it was evidence he had made tough ones.



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During President Obama’s recent 10-day Asia Fantasia expedition, the leaders of the G-20 seemed to demonstrate a modified version of the Golden Rule: Don’t do unto Obama what he never had the courtesy to do unto you.

Namely, don’t adopt his crackpot ideas on economic policy—pumping billions more in currency into your economies—in the same way he didn’t stop the Federal Reserve from enacting similar measures when the world warned him not to the first year-and-a-half of his presidency.

Also, don’t jump on the Obama bandwagon of loudly scolding China for its currency manipulation, when the U.S. is doing the same or worse via cockamamie quantitative easing and currency devaluation schemes.

You know your president’s “progressive” ideas are behind the times when the Communist Chinese Foreign Minister rebukes him for relying on “outmoded central planning.”

On his mega-expensive trip to India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan last week (which didn’t cost $200 million a day, no way!), Obama failed to achieve a free trade agreement with South Korea, which was supposed to be one of the highlights of his trip.

Kind of reminds you of how Obama’s excursions to Copenhagen were supposed to hand Chicago the 2016 Olympics and the U.S. an international climate change summit, and his jaunts to New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts were supposed to produce electoral wins for John Corzine, Creigh Deeds, and Martha Coakley.

But at least Obama got to dance awkwardly on camera with Indian toddlers!  Also, he had time to thank Indonesia for the sacrifices of their “great nation” on Veteran’s Day.

The San Francisco Examiner’s headline says it all: “Diplomatic success and economic failure on Asian trip show limits for Obama on global stage”—or, “Once again, Obama flashes his pearly whites, charms the pants off people who don’t know better, and fails miserably to get what he wants.”

Cranky Fed officials shot back at international criticism of Reserve policies, arguing that QE2 and inflation-promoting measures are necessary to get the economy going.  How many times have we heard that one before?

These days the Fed isn’t even pretending their latest round of mad experimentation won’t be their last.  Charles Evans, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, mused that the Fed’s recent decision to buy $600 billion of government debt was a “good place to start” but “I would continue to want to apply accommodative monetary policy until I had some confidence that that situation was changing.”  Eric Rosengren, head of the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, hints, “[I]f the economy were to weaken and we were to get further disinflation and a higher unemployment rate, then we would have to reflect on whether we should take additional action.”

This week, Obama will be attending economic summits held by members of NATO and the European Union, where he will be lucky not to have his policy ideas served back to him via a swift palm to the cheek.

Obama’s fiscal and monetary policies aren’t popular in Asia, but they’re certainly even more detested in Europe, where the economies of Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Iceland have already tanked and others are on the brink of ruin.

To summarize our president’s recent forays onto the global stage: Obama is off to Europe for another shot at redeeming his image after failing to redeem his image in Asia, which he attempted after failing to redeem his image as a popular leader in the midterm elections.  Where’s he going to go after he fails in Europe—where is there a place where residents don’t already hate him and haven’t been materially harmed by his policies?  Mars?

As Reuters put it, “If President Barack Obama is not yet convinced that his international star power has faded, his next round of transatlantic summitry should clear up any lingering doubts.”  As I put it, “If Reuters thinks that Obama’s next round of transatlantic summitry will have a humbling effect on the president, they haven’t met Obama.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have already sent out advance notice to Obama that Western Europe is not about to go the way of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  So all-in-all I think it’s going to be a big success.

The world supposedly once hated President George W. Bush for his “cowboy diplomacy.”  What’s the appropriate metaphor for Obama—a sleazy, destructive friend who encourages you to blow all your money in Vegas?



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In a NewsRealBlog post last week, I wrote about the top 10 excuses Democrats will make for why they were destroyed in Tuesday’s historic midterm elections.  Apparently I gave Democrats too much credit.  I was assuming they would accept the fact that they had been defeated.

Any self-respecting coach who boasted a season average loss of 65 points would consider letting someone else take charge.  As Michael Tomasky observes of midterm elections, “[Y]ou lose 65 seats, you resign.  Period.  There should not be a question.”  But Congressional Democrats have expressed so little interest in replacing House Majority (soon to be Minority) Leader Nancy Pelosi that you might be forgiven for thinking she were a Republican plant.

(Perhaps liberal columnist Susan Estrich is also a Republican plant; see her hilarious but non-satirical column, “Nancy Pelosi, Superhero.”)

Pelosi plans to celebrate the wild success of the 111^th Congress with a swanky soiree in the Cannon House Office Building.

Let’s catalogue the damage from Tuesday’s elections.  Approximately 40% of incoming House GOP freshmen are affiliated with the Tea Party, and five (six if Joe Miller wins) of the seven Senate pickups are for Tea Party candidates.  This is to say nothing of reelected incumbents who are already Tea Party luminaries, such as Representative Michele Bachmann and Senator Jim DeMint.

Not only did Republicans net more than 60 House seats, 7 Senate seats, 7 governorships, and dozens of state legislatures—which should be a strong enough signal to Democrats that America is sick of their policies—but these candidates are on average more conservative and less likely to vote for Democratic legislation than Republicans in the current Congress.  Reelected incumbent Tea Party Congressmen are also more likely to pick up key chairmanships and leadership posts and exert greater influence over Congress.

But of the incoming GOP freshman class, the website ThinkProgress.com cries, “91% have sworn to never allow an income tax increase on any individual or business… 79% have pledged to permanently repeal the estate tax… 48% are pushing for a balanced budget amendment”—as though the American people weren’t wildly in favor of all of these proposals.

Paul Krugman hasn’t stopped his wailing for more federal stimulus spending and currency manipulation.  His latest diatribe, one week after the election, is indistinguishable from his diatribes from one week or even three months ago.  On Monday he proposed “weakening the dollar” and “leading people to believe that we will have somewhat above-normal inflation over the next few years,” citing as supporters of his crazy policies “many economists, some regional Fed presidents and the International Monetary Fund”—by which he means “discredited Keynesians, the people responsible for the mess we’re in, and the organization that has destroyed economies worldwide from Indonesia to Ireland.”

Apparently liberal commentators don’t just want surviving Congressional Democrats to commit suicide again.  Evidently they’d also like it if our Commander in Chief did so as well.  Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich advises President Obama to dig in like FDR in 1936, rather than move to the center like Clinton in 1994.  Frank Rich recommends that Obama dare Republicans to enact the tax and spending cuts they propose, and suggests that if the GOP does this, the Democratic Party will come roaring back in 2012 like Harry Truman in 1948.

Dan Froomkin of the Huffington Post muses, “[T]he big question will be what lesson Obama takes from Tuesday’s election results.  If he and his advisors are finally ready to acknowledge that the source of voter unhappiness was government ineffectiveness—rather than government overreach… then there’s plenty of room for him to maneuver on his own.”  Wrong lesson!  Try again.

Froomkin continues: “Indeed, progressives are urging him to seize the opportunity to take a more muscular approach with his executive powers…  They also hope Obama will use his regulatory authority, his enforcement powers, and his prerogatives as commander in chief to make decisive moves that can’t be sabotaged by Congressional Republicans.”  Wow—it’s as though Froomkin is directly channeling the collective will of American voters!

DeWayne Wickham of USA Today declares, “Don’t wave a white flag; hoist the battle flag.  That’s what Barack Obama should do…  The lesson to be learned… is not that Democrats should surrender to the right wing.  It is that they should put up a better fight to move their agenda.”  These cute sentiments are almost excusable in the waning weeks and days before an election—who doesn’t like an optimist, a persistent fighter, an underdog—but a week after the Democrats were destroyed?  Reality hasn’t sunk in for these people yet?

Sensible Toby Harnden of the UK Telegraph predicts, “Obama is not about to move to the centre…  Nothing in his career indicates he is ready to cut deals with political opponents.  He is sure what he believes is right; if you don’t agree with him, he pities you for being so slow to understand…  Last Tuesday was a setback like nothing else he had experienced in life and it appears to have left his enormous sense of self-assurance undiminished.”

And Wesley Pruden notes, “President Obama thinks nobody is really mad about what he’s done—they just want a little soothing syrup on it.  He promises better speeches to describe the same old soggy dish the dogs won’t touch.”

Please note that all of this Democratic blindness is occurring despite a marked absence of gloating on the part of the GOP, who recognize that the Tea Party threw them a lifeline and that they had better hold onto it tight if they want to survive the next election cycle.  Democrats are arguably no less triumphant about their performance last Tuesday than Republicans.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week, “[T]he White House has a choice: they can change course, or they can double down on a vision of government that the American people have roundly rejected.”  Alas, it appears that Democrats are choosing the latter.

To paraphrase an oft-cited definition of insanity: being a Democrat means doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different electoral results.



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My, what a difference two years make!

Namely, a 50% jump in the unemployment rate, a tripling of the federal budget, and a tenfold increase in the annual deficit.  But who’s counting?

Behold the 10 most remarkable outcomes from yesterday’s historic midterm elections:

1. Illinois Senate:

This one says it all.  Amidst allegations of corrupt and incompetent business dealings and public program administration, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias couldn’t stave off the GOP tsunami and retain Senator Barack Obama’s former seat.  Fiscally conservative, socially moderate Representative Mark Kirk ran on his votes against the stimulus bill and ObamaCare and eked out the most important symbolic victory of the evening.

2. Florida Senate:

George Hamilton lookalike and lizard descendent Charlie Crist disingenuously switched parties in May to become an Independent, rather than risk facing a primary loss, and after the primaries promised to caucus with Senate Democrats.  Marco Rubio was an early Tea Party darling the mainstream media labeled unelectable; Rubio overcame a last-minute race-baiting dirty trick by Bill Clinton and received nearly as many votes as his Independent and Democratic opponents combined.

3. Kentucky Senate:

Jack Conway stooped almost as low as Florida’s Alan Grayson by cutting last-minute ads implying his opponent wasn’t a true Christian because of a college prank 27 years ago.  Rand Paul unapologetically espoused radically libertarian, small-government positions, wisely endorsed more aggressive and active foreign policy positions than his isolationist father Ron Paul, and was brave enough not to back down from saying government should not interfere with private hiring decisions.

4. Pennsylvania Senate:

Arlen Specter swayed back and forth with the political winds for two years until he was uprooted like a weed and blown into disgraced retirement.  Democrat Joe Sestak not only didn’t hide from his embarrassing support for the lethal Big Three signature Obama policies—the stimulus bill, cap-and-trade, and ObamaCare—but argued all should have been bigger and more government-heavy.  In contrast, Club for Growth President Pat Toomey was an unabashed fiscal conservative and Tea Party favorite who won despite an unfavorable blue-state climate.

5. Wisconsin Senate:

Russ Feingold was a long-term incumbent and influential, far-left scourge of conservatives in the Senate, due to his cosponsorship of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act and solitary losing vote in the Senate’s initial 98-1 vote on the PATRIOT Act.  Businessman Ron Johnson was a Tea Party conservative, unapologetic global warming skeptic, and ardent offshore drilling supporter who fought long odds and an opponent with a massive campaign war chest to achieve another important symbolic victory.

6. Ohio Governor:

Six-term former Representative and incumbent two-term governor Ted Strickland couldn’t hold his seat due to his support for Obama policies and his role in Ohio’s miserable economic conditions.  Former Representative and House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich ran on his conservative record in Congress and took over an office that will be crucial in managing campaign finance operations in the 2012 presidential election.

7. Arkansas Senate:

Blanche Lincoln paid for her support for ObamaCare and couldn’t extend her long-term incumbency despite her Blue Dog Democrat status.  John Boozman hammered home his opponent’s ideological similarity to Obama, reiterated his opposition to ObamaCare and cap-and-trade legislation, and destroyed Lincoln by a whopping 20 points.

8. Florida House 22:

Ron Klein defeated Republican Colonel Allen West in 2008 and voted with Democrats 98% of the time in the 111^th Congress.  This year West got his revenge by defending himself against smears about his service in the Iraq War and fearlessly fighting back claims of Uncle Tomism to become the nation’s most prominent black Tea Party elected official.

9. South Carolina Governor:

State Senator Vincent Sheheen tried to hide his liberal record but couldn’t sway South Carolina voters, even after Governor Mark Sanford’s sex scandal.  Nikki Haley came back from last place in the Republican primary, fought disgusting allegations of extramarital affairs, and rode the Sarah Palin/Jim DeMint/Tea Party wave to become the nation’s second Indian American governor.

10. Colorado House 4:

Incumbent Representative Betsy Markey floundered after her support for ObamaCare, cap-and-trade, and the stimulus bill.  “Young Gun” State Representative Cory Gardner defeated Markey due to his vocal support of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan’s radical, fiscally austere Roadmap for America.

As for dear Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, Linda McMahon, John Raese, Carly Fiorina, Carl Paladino, Meg Whitman, Charles Baker, and Sean Bielat: Better luck next time!



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