The Good Old Days of Bush... Hardly.

Apparently a poll actually showed that 44% of Americans would prefer to have Bush again versus Obama now, politico has mentioned.

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that's somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country's difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited.

The article goes on to mention how this might effect the 2010 elections, but those are practically a decade away in the accelerated lifespan of current political climates.

I wouldn't be surprised if that is a bit of number skewing in the sampling pool. While I am not supportive of Obama's policies in general, I certainly don't see a return to Bush as a step forward. Many destructive government practices begun during (or before) the Bush administration have been brought to painful light in this one. Many people don't like where they see our country going in the past year, but other than a few more abrupt changes wreaked or suggested by Obama's really very strange czars, much of what people dislike are things that had simply not been surfaced during the previous administration(s). The Tea Parties could have happened during the Bush administration with nearly equal validity. The difference is the "in your face" style of liberalism that Obama and his administration have been pursuing, which shocked enough people to get them out of their daily routines and into the streets.

The long game works nearly every time against the American people, our attention spans are too short to notice what's up. But when those who wish to transform our society to a form of their choosing smell victory, sometimes they show their hand too soon. That is exactly what has happened with Obama's victory and subsequent actions, and why there has been such a strong reaction against them. Had he kept a lower profile and simply continued to ram legislation through congress without fanfare, much more damage would already have been done.

The days of Bush were not the good old days, not for liberals or conservatives. Bush felt very strongly about certain issues and ideals, and was content to use the rest for bargaining. Conservatives loved the lip service he paid to their pet issues, but it was largely lip service, and little progress was made on those fronts, certainly very little that has not been quickly erased by the advent of a liberal administration. If we do not realize that "settling" for a Republican who talks the talk but who is errant or weak on the economy, dangerously uninformed in foreign policy issues, and willing to gamble with issues he touts during stump speeches but has not shown during his career in elected office to have taken action on, we will have done ourselves and our nation a huge disservice.

We can't go back to Reagan, and we can't go back to Bush. And we should want neither of those things. We should remember the lessons of the past, but use those to move forward and encounter the future from a position of strength and reality. Otherwise, we will become part of that past so quickly that our words of protest will hardly have stopped echoing before we realize we are irrelevant.

-()4k...

US Foreign Policy - Hope but no Change

With two entries in the works, I first wanted to bring to your attention this short but interesting tidbit from Der Spiegel:

"When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming."

I recommend you all go read it, it's fairly thoughtful and less influenced by domestic politics than most of what we get here. It's also indicative of a gradually-clarifying world opinion on Obama. The honeymoon appears to be over, and now the soft approach and "nice" rhetoric that got him the Peace Prize is being weighed in the scales and found wanting.

The highlight of the piece, as far as I am concerned, is the following statement (emphasis mine):

"Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik."

One might say, convinced that after eight years of Bush, the world was just waiting to be charmed, President Obama and his team are finding that charm only gets you a willing audience, the "Hope" if you will. But the "Change" only occurs after strong, realistic, and well-executed foreign policies are brought into play. Bush's policies were strong, and even occasionally well-executed, but often fatally rooted in personal idealism over practical realism. Obama's policies seem, like Bush's, to consist largely of optimistic idealism, but unlike Bush, his optimism is based not on the persuasive and positive effects of freedom, but on the universal goodness and reasonableness of mankind, an even shakier and less stable foundation.

One has to wonder whether his repeated failures to charm the world into a better place will result in his adoption of a different strategy, one more resembling Bush's aggressive and often preachy stance towards the world.

The Spiegel piece suggests this may already be occurring:

While in Asia, Obama mentioned "consequences" unless it followed his advice. This puts the president, in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in the bombers.

We are approaching a situation remarkably and dangerously similar to the one we occupied pre-WWII in the Pacific: lecturing Japan on its policies, while sending our forces to deal with conflicts elsewhere. Eventually militant forces in Japan gained the upper hand, and all the outraged blustering Washington could issue weighed little in the face of the new overwhelming Japanese naval supremacy in the region.

Fastforward to the 21st century: Lectures on human rights fall on deaf, unappreciative, and increasingly (and rightfully?) resentful ears in China when our irresponsible economic policies are agitating their own economy. Meanwhile their military is more or less openly stating that their immediate objectives are to deny us air and sea supremacy further and further out from their mainland.

One major difference between then and now: China has more than a handful of nukes. And, as the Spiegel article points out, nuclear disarmament is a non-issue there. Nukes = respect and leveraging power. Why on earth would they want to give them up?

Meanwhile, apparently Obama's playbook has only one entry for China: Demands for transparency, increasing debt, and more lectures on human rights.

The piece goes on to point out the similarities that are being drawn between Obama's foreign policy and that of Jimmy Carter. It might be worth noting that it was under Carter that we funded central asian terrorist groups (Al Qaeda, for example), and Osama Bin Laden.

From weak policy to funding our future enemies... We can hope that weak and misguided policy now does not lead to either of the two parallel situations later. A capable and realistic foreign policy might remember that history has a way of repeating itself...

-()4|<..

Badly Aiming Journalists

It seems that, with paper closures and bankruptcies exploding on the scene, journalists have been missing more than hitting these days. That was graphically illustrated in Iraq with a random shoe-throwing incident that clearly demonstrates their aim may be permanently off.

An Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes and an insult at George W. Bush, without hitting him, as the US president was shaking hands with the Iraqi premier at his Baghdad office on Sunday.

As the two leaders met in Nuri al-Maliki's private office, a journalist sitting in the third row jumped up, shouting: "It is the farewell kiss, you dog," and threw his shoes one after the other towards Bush.

Maliki made a protective gesture towards the US president, who ducked and was not hit.

Clearly, this journalist needs work on both his pitch and his delivery, as the President nimbly avoided his bombardment and shrugged off the incident. And notice that the Premier moved to protect the President, and didn't dive off the stage to save himself. (in Iraq, shoes may be a huge insult, but they're probably the least destructive thing you're likely to have thrown at you.) This may actually be proof of how safe Iraq has gotten: the most dangerous thing being thrown now are size 10 loafers.

An alternate account, involving more dialogue on the part of the shoe-chucker, (not to say shoe-bomber...) can be found here. In this version, his dialogue is even worse:

"This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog," the journalist shouted (in Arabic), Steven Lee Myers of The New York Times reported in a pool report to the White House press corps.

Myers reported that the man threw the second shoe and added: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

On a more serious note, the situation is sadly ironic. Here is power being peacefully transitioned over. (to what will sadly not be a particularly efficient or corruption-free ruling party, but at least they're not abducting, raping, torturing, and gassing their citizens now) Iraqis now have some say in their own government. Untold numbers of terrorists have been wiped out. Whether or not you agree with our reasons for going in, this event should be at least a moderately happy one for everyone but Al-Sadr and Al-Qaeda, setting the stage for some troop withdrawals in the near future.

Had this man thrown shoes at a visiting leader while Saddam was in power, he probably would have been thrown in a pit somewhere and starved to death. The very freedom of this man to doff his footwear and toss it at the leader of the most powerful nation on earth (and subsequently -not- be beaten to a pulp by his security force, to whom Bush signalled to stand down as the man was subdued) demonstrates that, contrary to his apparent views, victory in Iraq really is a reality. It seems the wait is over; the other shoe really has dropped.

-()4|<.

Nuclear Angst

Alabama honor: Bush visits first new reactor to open for decades

We may be thanking God for Mississippi in most state comparison rankings, but Alabama is currently leading the way in the quest for sane and efficient power generation. President Bush will be visiting the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant in Athens on Thursday, where the Unit 1 reactor has recently been restarted. While this may not sound significant, it is the first reactor to be started in the US in 20 years.

You may be asking yourself why this is, considering that nuclear power is the most efficient power generation means available to us by far. The only by-products are hot water and small amounts of very radioactive but containable material. (Yes, this material poses an obvious and enduring health hazard until it's safely under Yucca Mtn., but not nearly as much as the lack of power infrastructure will cause in the event of a national emergency, or even just an over-stressed power grid.) Those situations involving mishaps and the threat of radiation leaks, most notably Three Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in the Ukraine, are irrelevant at this point: Chernobyl is a nightmarish scenario that is not possible with modern US reactors, and the lessons of Three Mile Island have been well-learned and taken into consideration.

I have noted that Browns Ferry Unit 1 is the first reactor to be started in the US in 20 years, making it unit number 103 in the US as a whole. Contrast this to nuclear efforts in China:
(info from http://www.world-nuclear.org)

* Mainland China has nine nuclear power reactors in commercial operation, a further two units grid connected, four more under construction, and at least four more about to start constuction in 2007.
* Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world's most advanced, to give a fivefold increase in nuclear capacity to 40 GWe by 2020 and then a further three to fourfold increase to 120-160 GWe by 2030.
* The country aims to become self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as other aspects of the fuel cycle.

To summarize, China has plans to increase their nuclear power capacity by 15-20x its current level in the next 27 years.
By contrast, in the past 20 years, we have only shut down or paused the construction of plants, not opened any.
Now, lest I be accused of sinophobia, I will call attention to the fact that China only has 11 working reactors at this point, so it will take some time for them to catch up, even at the rate they are building.

However, my point is not to worry lest we be overtaken in numbers by any specific country, but that we have irresponsibly neglected to keep a robust power infrastructure in place. Remember the rolling blackouts in California? They were at least partially responsible for the referendum that kicked Gray Davis out the door and ushered in the era of the Govinator.

And it's not as if we can solve the nation's energy crunch with the ongoing boom in windmill construction either. Though they may alleviate problems in some areas, as a whole you're not going to help lighten the load on the nation without a veritable sea of them covering vast sections of the Midwest, and the energy required to create and construct said sea of windmills would make such an effort counterproductive.

In the end, nuclear power is the only option that makes sense. There are no coal-based clouds of smoke, no swirling windy blades of death, no acres of solar cells with meager power returns. Though these (coal-powered, wind-powered, solar-powered) solutions make sense in certain locations and contexts, the only technology that makes sense to use as the backbone of a heavily loaded power infrastructure in great need of shoring up is nuclear power. Even France has figured this out.

(That, or we can wait for the even cleaner and more efficient process of nuclear fusion to be perfected. But even setting aside the fact that it is the technology of the future and probably always will be, why do I have this sneaking suspicion that the drinkers of Gore-aid would find some reason to scream out against them too?)

If we continue to allow regulatory dead-locks and people who oppose the idea of power plants on principle (often the same people who think the fewer humans living and disturbing nature's tranquility the better) to prevent the responsible and practical process of increasing our grid capacity, the problems will only get more severe. Let those who complain of global warming go without air conditioning for a summer, and then decide if a few more reactors aren't worth it...


-Oak