The President Rediscovers His Mojo

The swagger is back! The George W. Bush that seemed to disappear right after last year's election returned today with a vengeance, directly confronting the nattering nabobs of negativism that have endlessly accused him & his administration of all kinds of nefarious acts regarding the Iraq war.

In a 50-minute Veteran's Day speech in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, the President reminded his critics of the body of knowledge that existed in the fall of 2002 and the need to bring freedom and representative government to the Middle East to drain the swamp that is the breeding ground for the terrorism we see today. Rush carried the final half hour of this speech live on his show. Many of the same Democrats who today allege the prewar intelligence was politically manipulated and accuse the Administration of--in the words of Teddy K, the hero of Chappiquiddick--telling us "lie after lie after lie after lie." This president is a man of honor and integrity and at least 2 independent investigations have already proven no dishonestly was committed on the part of the Administration relative to the Iraq war.

It is well worth remembering that the reasons for ousting Saddam Hussein were not limited to weapons of mass destruction. Every major intelligence service in the world independently concluded Iraq was actively pursuing WMD programs and, given the efforts Iraq was undertaking to impede UN weapons inspectors, had to be presumed to be hiding something. However, as Don Surber rightly remind us, the greatest reason for removing the Butcher of Baghdad was to install a representative government that honors the freedom & human rights of the Iraqi people and does not do the barbarous things Hussein did for years.

Now, Mr. President, have an epiphany on immigration & spending. Endorse tough border & job site immigration enforcement and call for the enactment of the Balanced Budget Amendment (HJR 58) and the Line Item Veto Amendment (HJR 71, SJR 25) to the Constitution. In 1995, the Balanced Budget Amendment passed the House of Representatives but fell one vote short of passing the Senate and being sent to the states for ratification.

2005 Election Recap

California: A basically liberal state rejected conservative ballot propositions. The good news is that in defeating these propositions, the public employee unions drove themselves to the brink of bankruptcy and will not have such plentiful coffers next year. The teachers' union mortgaged its headquarters and imposed a $60 per month dues surcharge on all members for the next several years to pay this debt.

New Jersey: Jon Corzine will invert the usual political order in the Mafia State by becoming a governor who buys off all the political bosses, union bosses, and party hacks, rather than selling out to them.

Ohio: Buckeyes, I am proud of you. (Now please learn to keep to the right on the road and stop blocking the left lane.) You saw through the Moveon.org and George Soros spin machine & delivered a spanking to a quartet of ballot initiatives that would have destroyed the Ohio GOP. Not one of those issues passed in a single county--not Cuyahoga, not Lucas, not Franklin, not Mahoning, not even Athens, the lone county to reject the marriage amendment last year. Issue 2 would have allowed unrestricted absentee voting by mail for 5 weeks before Election Day and would have generated massive fraud. Issue 3 would have severely limited campaign contributions with a labor union loophole the size of Lake Erie. Issues 4 and 5 would have established "independent" bipartisan commissions to draw legislative & congressional districts and run elections, which are currently run by the elected Secretary of State and bipartisan local election boards.

Texas: Proposition 2, protecting the traditional definition of marriage passed easily, receiving over 3/4 of the vote. Travis County--home of Ronnie Earle--was the only county to not support keeping marriage between a man and a woman.

Virginia: I will write in depth separately on the Old Dominion. However, one must ask, "What's happened to ole Virginny?" Even Loudon County, Prince William County, and the cities of Lynchburg & Virginia Beach voted for Tim Kaine!

Washington State: Libs in Seattle--probably more than a few posthumously given the irregularities in voting we saw in last year's election--showed up to vote, driven by a hotly contested King County Executive race. Bucking recent trends, voters rejected limits on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases and rejected an initiative to repeal a 9.5 cent per gallon gas tax hike to fund road projects. I-901, a statewide Clean Indoor Air Act banning smoking in all indoor public places & workplaces and within 25 feet of any door or air intake for such places, passed. Had I had a vote, my votes would have been with the winners on all of these issues except I-330, the noneconomic damages measure. Complete WA election results are here.