President Bush left office yesterday, replaced by incoming President Barack Obama. Congratulations to Mr. Obama, who I will respect as my president, as I would any other man, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. He won, and my guy lost, in a fair election. I'm not happy about it, but I love my country and want to see it continue to be the "shining city on the hill" for all.
What I definitely have not liked at any point in this election is the arrogance of the Obama campaign, with its phony presidential seals and over-the-top celebrations (e.g. at the DNC, at Grant Park, and at the inaugural); the starstruck mentality of his supporters, borderlining on cult-like; and the total lack of journalistic integrity by almost any of the mainstream media. These three factors, above all, have put this inexperienced young man in the seat of the most powerful man on the planet, where other more senior, more experienced and principled men or women fell short.
Election Debrief
Why the Republicans lost the election is not because, as many have asserted, conservatism is dead. As Mark Steyn put it last night on Dennis Miller's show, the conservatives didn't have a man running in this race. It's true: John McCain, as the most liberal of the Republican candidates, got fawning coverage by the media during the primaries, and pulled ahead of my pick, the relatively conservative and very experienced business leader Mitt Romney. The media loved him then, but we all said at the time, "they love you now, but just wait until the primaries are over." All our predictions came true: The media picked McCain to be the GOP candidate, then treated him like dirt once the primaries were over, fawning over Obama's every move. McCain didn't help himself, though, as he came up empty at every debate and appeared erratic when the fit hit the shan on the economic crisis and he suspended his campaign to go back and be a legislator for a couple days instead while Obama wondered aloud what the hell was going on.
McCain looked like a winner after Obama picked uber-loser Joe Biden to be his V.P., which gained him absolutely nothing, and McCain picked solid conservative governor Sarah Palin to be his. Then his handlers over-managed Palin, who is a natural politician, making her seem stiff and stilted, and ineffective. The result, as expected, was that Obama, who has never accomplished a single important thing in his career, was elected POTUS.
Back to Present-Day
So we now have a president who gets glowing media coverage constantly, who women routinely faint over a la Elvis Presley; who is ogled and sighed over as though he were Brad Pitt. Who has zero experience and must now learn on the job. This, at the most dangerous moment possible: We are at war on two fronts in the Middle East. The threat of domestic terror looms at all times. The economy is in the beginning of a deep recession and unemployment is creeping up. And to make matters worse, Congress is now completely controlled by his own party, headed by far-left idealogues Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Each of them has far more years of experience in cutting deals and dishing out pork, not to mention leftist pacifist ideals, than Obama and could probably railroad or manipulate him easily.
And this at the precise moment when Congress and President Bush, both of which have been fiscal liberals, enacted and have control over the $700 billion TARP fund. This fund was supposed to shore up financial intermediaries in the country (primarily banks), but has (as predicted by conservatives) morphed with amazing speed into the world's largest slush fund. And all the liberals mentioned above are committed to "saving the planet" by force-feeding our economy "green" technology, which is unproven, unnecessary, and very expensive. Things are getting so bad that even China, which has bought up so much of our debt over the years, is reconsidering the wisdom of continued investment in America. If they pull out, who will replace them? If no one does, will the Treasury simply start printing money instead?
Clearly, what we seem to have here is the Perfect Storm, Washington D.C. style. This was brought about by liberal fiscal policies and can only be corrected by conservative fiscal policies. Yet no conservative even survived the primaries, and we now have the most liberal POTUS in history. This is not an exaggeration and not intended as an insult, but simply as a fact.
Turning away from domestic problems and toward the war for a moment, Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq right away, at the rate of one less brigade per month. This would remove all troops in a little over a year. Is that sensible? We are winning at the moment, and commanders on the ground say, "No." But in this free country, the military is run by civilians, which means President Obama can do what he wants there. What about Afghanistan? Things are getting worse there. Will he pull us out of there, too? Remember, these are the folks that harbored the 9/11 terrorists: the Taliban.
One of President Obama's first acts in office was to immediately halt all military tribunals and begin preparations to close down the prisoner detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. As this article points out, this did not sit well with some families that had traveled there to sit through the military trials of those terrorists accused of murdering their loved ones. But the bigger question is, is this the beginning of the implementation of his biggest campaign promises, that he will pull our forces out of the Middle East and/or import these terrorists from Gitmo into the U.S. mainland, treating them like criminals instead of enemy combatants? (Opinion piece here) If it is, and he is serious about this (it was beginning to look, once he got elected, that he was going to backtrack on these insane promises), what will this do to our standing in the world and to the morale of our enemies? How serious is he about protecting us from Islamic terrorism?
Add to that the little-commented-on appointment of Leon Panetta as head of the CIA, and you really start scratching your head. This man has (like his boss) ZERO experience doing this type of job. He's never been in the spy business at all, and Obama passes over senior guys already at the CIA in favor of Panetta? Again, how serious does he take these threats against our country? Isn't it important to have an experienced hand on this wheel right now?
So already it looks really bad for us on the economic front, and on the war and national security front. It's all very scary and depressing if you're a conservative. If you're a liberal then you probably haven't thought this far ahead and "feel" that all these moves are good ones. God help you.
Bush Leaves Town
President Bush left office a despised, hated man by the left. They booed and taunted him from the crowd when he came out to the inaugural platform yesterday, just as they had for years prior, every chance they got. The Left in this country has become a despicable mob, unworthy of respect as they show absolutely none to anyone they disagree with. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, but being on the Left, as Dennis Prager says, means never having to say you're sorry.
I disagreed with President Bush many, many times during his tenure. I was very angry with him on a number of positions, such as on illegal immigration. I didn't want him to send troops in to Iraq at the time, and I agreed with Robert Byrd, of all people. But never, ever did I come close to hating the man the way the Left so easily does. I always felt he was humble, had a deep relationship with God, and tried as best as he knew how to do the right thing every day. Whether you agree or disagree with his actions, you have to respect the man for having the courage of his convictions alongside the humility to be a good Christian. He was an absolute rock on important social issues like embryonic stem cell research and abortion. He said to supporters in Texas yesterday afternoon that he never took an opinion poll to decide what to do. Good for him.
Personally, I wish he had listened to the public a bit more, not so much for their opinions (though we did sway him on his Supreme Court pick of Harriet Myers); but just so he could learn to communicate better his intentions. The single biggest failure of his administration was its lack of effective communication to the people. Too many times, he went off and did something strange or controversial, and did not bother to explain his thought process to the people. To try and sell it. It was certainly his right to do so, but it wasn't smart and it was very aggravating to the public, and to his supporters in particular. I believe it was a key reason his popularity numbers were so low by the time he left office.
But he is, in fact, a good and decent man, as is his V.P. Dick Cheney. I recently read the biography of Mr. Cheney, and if you understand who he is and his walk to this point in his life, you "get" just how fortunate we've been to have him at the highest levels of power for so long. He will be missed.
Summary
So that's what I see when I look at this transition. I think President Bush, while wrong on a number of occasions, did a respectable and valiant job keeping this country safe at a very dangerous time, and I worry that his successor, President Obama, while smart, will be too naive to think it's perfectly fine to pull out of these fights, and/or too cowardly to stand up to his party leaders in the Congress as they try to get their own leftist agendas enacted. I fear that the results may be disastrous.
In all this, I have not even reiterated my longstanding complaint that the new president is on the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to critical social issues like stem cell research and abortion. Many vacancies are about to appear in the U.S. Supreme Court, starting probably with the feeble John Paul Stevens, who looked about 100 years old when he administered the oath to V.P. Joe Biden yesterday. We have certainly lost the fight against abortion vis-a-vis "Roe vs. Wade" with the election of President Obama. May God forgive us - our sinfulness in this regard, as a nation responsible for enacting just laws, is about to get a whole lot worse.
As I and other Christians around the world have done the past few days, we pray for President Obama to find wisdom and exercise strength as he struggles to understand the right things to do going forward, and for his safety and that of his family. They have acted until now as though the presidency was a prize they were in a contest to win, like a new car. All I can say is, "be careful what you wish for...."
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