You Want Change?

George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years. The first six the economy was fine.

A little over a year and a half ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2-1/2 year high;

2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;

3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

4) The DOW JONES hit a record high -- 14,000+

5) American's were buying new cars, taking cruises and vacations overseas, living large!

But American's wanted 'CHANGE'! So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress & yep -- we got 'CHANGE' all right!

1) Consumer confidence has plummeted;

2) Gasoline is now over $3.75 a gallon & climbing;

3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);

4) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 trillion dollars & prices are still dropping;

5) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

6) THE DOW is probing another low ~11,300 -- $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS EVAPORATED FROM THEIR STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS!

YEP, IN 2006 AMERICA VOTED FOR CHANGE! AND WE GOT IT! A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS, NANCY PELOSI. HARRY REID.

Now the Democrats' candidate for president -- claims he's gonna really give us change! Just how much more 'change' do you think you can stand?

Charlie Gibson's Gaffe

By Charles Krauthammer
Saturday, September 13, 2008; Page A17 "At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' "

-- New York Times, Sept. 12
Informed her? Rubbish.
The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.

There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.

He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?" She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"

Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense." Wrong.

I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.

Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine.

Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.

It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points. If I were in any public foreign policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume -- unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise -- that he was speaking about the grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda of the Bush administration. Not the Gibson doctrine of preemption.

Not the "with us or against us" no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days.

Not the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration.

Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents. Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine.

Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.

Governor Sarah Trumps Obama

HOW THE SARAH PALIN PICK TRUMPS
OBAMA-BIDEN


On August 29, 2008, Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain, announced Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska as his VP running mate. That selection has trumped and checkmated the Obama-Biden ticket.

Coming the day after Obama's historic acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, which speech and Obama's earlier pick of Joe Biden as his own VP running mate, were expected to be the top news item leading into the Republican convention the following week, McCain's pick of Sarah Palin however completely eclipsed those events.

In less than 24 hours, Obama's day in the sun had been come under a cloud of shadow and was relegated to history being completely upstaged by the Palin choice. The news cycles have talked about nothing else since in terms of the presidential politics. The choice by McCain has stunningly energized the conservative base of the Republican party, an important segment McCain had his own problems with. But by choosing Palin, a staunch conservative, he has revitalized his commitment and perception in that area. Many conservatives who had relegated themselves to simply voting against Obama, are now more than willing to for 'for' Palin.

The choice also reached out directly to independents and disaffected Democratic voters, particularly women, who were so sorely disappointed by Hillary Clinton's narrow loss and the way they had been treated since Obama sealed the nomination. Particularly in overlooking Hillary Clinton, who won 18 million votes in the primaries, and actually had more votes than Obama, those disaffected women are also excited about Palin, and indicating by the tens of thousands on blogs and disaffected Hillary voter sites on the web that they intend to cross over and vote for her and McCain.

The Obama campaign and DNC, curiously, have already launched all out attacks against the choice and Palin herself, indicating that she does not have enough executive or national experience.

Excuse me? She does not have enough executive experience?

A simple analysis of the relative experience levels of Sarah Palin compared to either Democratic candidate puts this to rest. For over the past decade, Sarah Palin has been involved in executive decision making at increasing levels of elected positions of public trust. Obama has no executive experience, Biden has no executive experience. During that time, Palin left off running an actual private business in Alaska, a commercial fishing business and was elected to her city council and then, in quick order to be Mayor of her home town. She did so well there that she was ultimately elected to be Governor of the State of Alaska, managing 17,000 personnel and a 9 billion dollar budget. Obama and Biden have absolutely no comparable experience at all, neither of them.

Mayor Sarah Palin executing her duties as Mayor.

Sarah Palin being sworn in as Governor

Governor Sarah Palin executing her duties as Governor, signing legislation.

Governor Sarah Palin acting in her capacity as the executive of the State. In Alaska, as Governor, Sarah is also the Commander in Chief (CINC) for the Alaskan National Guard. This is a critical national assignment as Alaska sits on the border with Russia where Air National Guard aircraft intercept Russian Bear aircraft. Sarah Palin has taken her role as the Commander seriously, regularly visiting the units and coming to understand their duties and capabilities.

Governor Sarah Palin meeting in the field with Guard Units.

Governor Sarah Palin, an avid shooter herself, learns the operation of equipment of guard units (She's manning the gun). As Governor, Sarah has helped devise and push through a project for the largest natural gas line in the history of the US...taking on entrenched politicians (on both sides of the aisle), lobby groups, and large corporations in the process. Her involvement with, and her understanding of, the Energy issue is unmatched by either Democratic candidate.

Outside of her direct role as Governor and speaking more to her personal values and commitment to them, Sarah walks the walk on the pro-life issue. Having found out well in advance of delivery that her youngest child would have downs syndrome, she and her husband thanked God for the blessing and brought the baby into a loving home. (By contrast, Obama has stated publically that he doesn't want his children 'punished' with a baby).

As Governor, Palin actually visited the wounded soldiers in Germany, while Obama, when given the same opportunity in Europe, refused to comply with Defense Department guidelines regarding his entourage, and skipped that part of his schedule.

Beyond all of this, there is also a part of Sarah Palin that most hard working, patriotic, and committed Americans are coming to adore about her. She is real. She is authentic. Not only has she stood up to corrupt politics and the old networks that have produced so much waste, fraud, and 'bridges to nowhere', she is also a regular person, and authentic all-American girl, wife, mother, and citizen. She has actually walked the walk of reform and change instead of just talking about it. She does not come from privilege, did not aspire to it, or become placed in it. She did not attend the Ivy League or prestigious schools. She has gotten to where she is by pure honesty, integrity, and strength of charachter and has been raising five kids and enjoying life while doing so.

Sarah Palin loves to Four-wheel and fly with her family in Alaska.

Sarah Palin loves to fish in Alaska.

Sarah Palin loves to hunt in Alaska.

and, oh, did I mention? Sarah Palin loves to shoot.

All of this drives the leftist and anti-American crowd mad. Sarah Palin is the real deal. Young, refreshing, committed wife, mother, American citizen. She is the real deal when it comes to the change that is so much needed in American politics, particularly in Washington. John McCain must be congratulated for vetting her, seeing this, and putting her on the national stage.

She represents in fact, and in her own actions, what so many others (including Obama and the entrenched Biden) only talk about, and then go on with business as usual.

Obama, in his own actions and positions as a State Senator (voted merely present so many time in the State Senate, but voted no defending the Born Alive Abortion Protection Act there), in his own actions and positions as a US Senator (spent only 144 days on the job before beginning his campaign for the President, but in those short days was recognized as the Senator with the furthest left record), and particularly in his own willful associations of long standing with hateful, racists individuals like Jeremiah Wright (who preached 'Not God bless American, No, No, No, God Damn America!) to Obama and his children, and with the likes of Bill Ayers, the unrepentant, arrogant, and militantly anti-American political connection where Obama kicked off his own political career, who bombed the US Pentagon, the US Capitol, and NY City Police Headquarters and then claimed in an interview published on 911 that his only regret was that he had not done enough...no with such actions and such associations (not to mention Tony Rezco, Pleger, and others), Obama has proven that his change is precisely the type we do not want or need in Washington.


CHOOSING THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES NOBAMA MOVEMENT SPREADS ACROSS THE NATION