Holes In Thoughts

Sunday, May 18, 2008

One last thought on Bush's comment...

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Why the hell would I want to take diplomatic advice from George W. Bush??

Labels: Bush, idiots

posted by Steve @ 12:28 PM 0 comments

Friday, May 16, 2008

On Hamas and negotiations

"We need the United States to lead rough-minded diplomacy, this includes direct engagement with Iran, similar to the meeting we conducted with the Soviets at the height of the Cold War"

- Barack Obama, 15 February, 2008

Aaand our boy George's rejoinder:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

- George W. Bush, 15 May, 2008

Ah, the difference between "appeasement and "engagement." Obama never said, "appeasement," and you can bet your life that Reagan "engaged" Russia. There were four Gorbachev/Reagan face-to-face summits around the world. Those meetings directly resulted in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Reagan is deified for this role in closing the Cold War peacefully, but his methods are, it seems, forgotten.

But to clarify: Hitler was appeased when the British and French gave him half of Czechoslovakia and hoped he'd stop. Russia and the U.S. entered talks to end the Cold War and agreed to reduce their nuclear weapons arsenal because both recognized that MAD wasn't a good situation for either nation.

I've been looking at the rhetoric between Obama and McCain, and at this point, I don't think either one will do anything differently from each other (regarding this question of diplomacy, anyway). In a way, all I see is McCain pandering a bit to the Republicans, and Obama pandering a bit to the Democrats. Both have said they’d only talk to Iran when they recognized Israel's legitimacy, but that we’ll have to eventually talk to Hama – they might support terrorists, but they won a democratic election in the region. They are, by our own measure, the rightful leaders of that area.

We also do have really good reasons to open relationships with both of those nations. Iran is at least as influential to Iraq as we are, whether we stay or go, whether we like it or not. Moreover, they're the ones getting open ceremonial greetings in the daytime. Cheney had to come unannounced, at night, with body guards. They are also in desperate need of humanitarian aid, need help getting their own country into shape, and Iran's population isn't as radical as its leader. We both have needs that we can help each other out with. The situation is not impossible, but can be made impossible when we dismiss the possibility of finding a mutually-beneficial arrangement. Same goes for Hamas, but even more so: Hamas supports terrorism abroad, and yet runs hospitals, feeds the poor, and takes care of its people. That's how they got elected. Israel also needs to have a good sit-down. They're our staunch ally, and are definitely a stabilizing force within the region, but they can make us pretty uncomfortable when they do land-grabs, or lob missiles into family homes, and Hamas says, "See? This is why they're evil."

None of that can be solved by ignoring the problem, or threatening to bomb everybody in the region that angers us at that particular moment (which was Iran, then Iraq, then Iran again, then it was Hamas, etc.).

Now, this is all just a general outline of course – the complexities that are the Middle East have made it nearly impossible to stabilize since… forever. I don’t know

From what I know about both candidates, their top priority for Iran is to keep them from developing and acquiring nuclear weapons. I know Obama played a part in this a few years ago while working with Republicans on the anti-nuclear weapons proliferation bill. Though I don't think McCain was part of that, I think it's pretty obvious he feels the same way about it.

For Hamas, if I remember right, I've heard both say they want Hamas to recognize Israel's legitimacy (which would be an obvious first step). Obama has, more candidly, noted that Israel is causing problems as well when Israel takes the same posture towards Hamas as Hamas takes towards Israel. He's been blasted for this, but it seems pretty fair to me. Even the Israeli Jewish press (Israelis are less convinced that Israel has flawless plans than the U.S. Jewish press, which seems convinced that any criticism of Israel is out-of-bounds) has generally agreed that Obama is about as "Pro-Israel" as any U.S. politician.

Anyway, like I said, this all strikes me as political buddying-up with each candidates' political base, but I see no daylight between their stances. Still, I don't think it helps McCain at all to defend Bush, the Least Popular U.S. President of All Time, Ever (really).

Here's a really good write up I found about the difference between appeasement and diplomacy here, by someone who was/is for the war, just to show I'm not just being a Loony Lefty, here.

Update: Boy, I'm really not alone. Obama actually went on the attack to denounce the remark (which is rare, though I can't decide if that's good or bad). Nancy Pelosi called it "beneath the dignity of the office of the president and unworthy of our representation at that observance in Israel." Keith Olbermann spent more than a few segments about it. Chris Matthews laid the best damn TV-interview smackdown I've seen since Jon Stewart's Crossfire hot-wiring.

Labels: Bush, idiots, Obama, politics, TV

posted by Steve @ 11:31 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

G.W. Bush: 30% Approval

George W. Bush's approval ratings are, on a historical scale, pretty abysmal. He's in second place, behind Nixon (who ended his term at 24%), and ahead of Carter (34%). Of course, we've only had this since the mid-50's, so it's hard to say how historically bad that is. I suspect Harding and Grant would have had similar numbers.

That said, I'm a bit appalled that the number is as high as 30%. What does Bush have to do in order to gain people's disapproval? His own party doesn't want him anywhere near their presidential candidate. His presidency has been an abysmal failure on almost every metric that could be imagined: the economy, the war, Katrina, scandals galore, corruption, the debt; the list goes on forever.

So how is it that one in three Americans still approve? What does he have to do to gain their disapproval? Teabag their mother? Should he go on tour to do this, just to see if it would work?

Either way, it looks like most historians will be skewering has one of, if not the worst Presidents in all of American history. An informal poll found 61% of historians rating him as the worst. Not as "really bad" but as "worst ever."

So maybe he doesn't have to punch a nun on CNN after all.

Labels: Bush, history, idiots, politics

posted by Steve @ 9:47 AM 0 comments

Monday, December 31, 2007

Vacation days!

Today and tomorrow, I have off. I'll be playing music with John (and looking into exactly how to record an album), and possibly going to a party.

Tomorrow I'll get some random chores done. I'm so excited to have a whole two weeks of paid vacation this year, plus sick time.

Of course, if two weeks is luxurious, imagine what it would be like to have a job where you can take two months of paid vacation time every year. You know - like the President (so far he's spent about 435 days on vacation).

More info is here, but they don't do the math:

2922 presidency total days
-527 from 12 Aug 07 to 20 Jan 08
----
2395 days as president as of 12 Aug 07

418 vacation days as of August / 2395 = 17.453% of total

17.453% of 1 year is 64 days or ~2 months per year.

He's definitely going to beat Reagan's record of

Labels: Bush, vacation

posted by Steve @ 11:15 AM 0 comments

Thursday, June 28, 2007

I think I'm a Republican.

I'm going to visit my in-laws this weekend. I love my in-laws. But I'm a great deal more liberal than they are, and more to the point, much more casually religious. The reason I still like them, though, is because they're very much the kind of Christians I think the country lacks: the ones that recognize that Jesus was a humble, kind, hard-working person that didn't judge needlessly or haughtily. He absolutely knew where he stood on issues, but didn't run around knocking people's heads together when they disagreed with him.

Regardless, I'm going to be there a week, and I'm sure that politics is going to come up at some point or another; after a discussion about how torture is bad with her brother, my wife got an email from her Mom about the war in Iraq.

I don't mind. Being pressed on my beliefs forces me to inspect them.

Thankfully, my belief that the Bush administration is incompetent, unjust and shameful got an amazing proof yesterday: Scooter Libby, who was convicted of conspiracy and then perjury to cover it up, got bailed out of jail by Bush by having his sentence commuted. Bush hasn't used the Presidential (or even gubernatorial) power to pardon or commute a person's sentence pre-mortem almost at all - including an oft-criticized decision not to pardon a born-again Christian her death penalty. He even, in his own book, said that he didn't think it was his job to alter the rulings of the court; he then signed the death sentences.

Labels: Bush, family, in-laws, politics, rant

posted by Steve @ 10:18 AM 0 comments

Sunday, September 17, 2006

If I Ran for President

I literally had a dream last night that I had been nominated for President of the USA by the people that knew me. For no other reason but to make me feel better about my country, I'll probably write a few blogs about what I'd do in the interminable distance between now and January 20, 2009.

My main concerns are tax efficiency. medicare, military efficiency, educational inflation, good-will terror fighting, and Social Security. I'll tackle them in that order.

I also hope that now, with my life going the way I more-or-less like it, I can consistently update this blog and things like it (such as my car's blog), take care of my own finances, and have a consistent schedule.

Currently listening :
12/Loup EP
By The Notwist

Labels: Bush, insurance, military, poliics, school, Social Security

posted by Steve @ 9:04 PM 0 comments

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Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
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