The Poll They Don’t Want You To See

Captain Ed finds a revealing Gallup poll that has gone curiously unreported in the mainstream media:

Gallup announced yesterday that it had taken a snap poll after the speech given by George Bush on the war in Iraq from Fort Bragg. The poll showed some movement bolstering support for the war. In fact, it showed Bush picking up ten points on whether we are winning in Iraq (up to 54%), twelve points on keeping troops in Iraq until the situation improves as opposed to setting an exit date for their evacuation (now at 70%/25%), and seven points on whether Bush has a clear plan for handling the war in Iraq (up to 63%/35%).

Odd that Gallup’s partners (CNN and USA Today) didn’t mention these results… then again, it’s isn’t that surprising. The media despises Bush, and their relentlessly partisan and skewed reporting makes that abundantly clear. The media is one of the most singularly distrusted organizations in America today, and there’s good reason for that. From the forged ANG memos, to al-QaaQaa, to CNN burying its own polling, it’s quite clear that the vast majority of the media is putting their ideological agenda above the truth.

The media likes to crow about how it’s an important watchdog that preserves the public interest – but when it’s an attack dog to one side and a lapdog to another the only interest they care about is their own. If the media wants to be a propaganda outlet for the Democratic Party, fine, but they should at least have the guts to admit it.

Thank heavens for the blogosphere so that their distortions and buried stories have a chance to get pulled from the memory hole — and major kudos to Captain Ed for picking up on this story.

Petulance Over Policy

The Wall Street Journal asks where’s the constructive opposition from the Democrats on Iraq?

Americans have a long and honorable tradition of taking exception with their governments, even during wartime. After Mr. Bush’s speech, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid described Iraq policy as “adrift, disconnected from the reality on the ground and in need of major mid-course corrections.” Surely anyone offering such a biting critique won’t object if we examine precisely what “corrections” the loyal opposition has in mind.

Let’s see: As best we can tell, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s main suggestion Tuesday night was that we spend more on veterans benefits. Former General Wesley Clark–a man who should have something valuable to say on the subject of waging modern war (he wrote a book with that title)–lamented that Iraq has become a recruiting and training ground for terrorists, as if Abu Musab al-Zarqawi only entered his current profession in April 2003. And as if jihadists aren’t also still hitting us in Afghanistan, which is a campaign General Clark says he supports.

By the logic of Mr. Clark’s critique, the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq immediately because the terrorists will then leave us alone. But when Fox’s Brit Hume pursued the question, Mr. Clark backed away. As for helpful policy alternatives, we didn’t hear any.

The problem with the Democrats is that they have an irrational hatred of Bush, and that’s about it. The only thing the American public gets from the Democrats is a long laundry list of gripes and compliants, and absolutely nothing else. Even when a Democrat like John Kerry tries to offer something of the way in a plan it comes out to be a combination of things that are already being done and poorly-thought out plans that demonstrate a shocking ignorance of the reality of the conflict.

There are plenty of critiques that can be made of President Bush’s handling of the war. Except that almost all the intelligent ones are coming from the right. When nearly all the meaningful debate on the war is coming from the Republican Party, is it any wonder that the Democrats are once again being rightly perceived as the party that’s clueless on national defense?

If the Democrats want to ever be treated as a party that’s even remotely serious on issues of defense, it’s time for the Democratic leadership to rebuff the pro-defeat lobby and stand with the President in calling for a free Iraq. Instead of taking potshots, they need to offer concrete and reasonable policies. However, that requires the Democrats to stand up to the left-wing Michael Moore/MoveOn axis that has a stranglehold on the Democratic Party. Despite some sensible comments from some Democrats, it’s clear that the Democratic Party remains in thrall to the radical Bush-hating minority, and until it can break that dependency they will remain a minority party.

More Good News On The Economy

Analysts have upgraded the 1Q performance of the US economy to a fantastic growth rate of 3.8%. Oil prices may hamper 2Q economic growth, but the new GDP figures show that the US economy is chugging along excellently. With the recent figures showing a slight decrease in the debt, the growth aspect of the US economy is doing quite well.

Of course, the costs of regulation in the US are still too high, and labor costs continue to boom at an accelerating rate. In order to maintain our high rate of economic growth, we need to keep the size of government low, reform Social Security and Medicare, and make the Bush tax cuts permanent. So far the President has shown very little strength when it comes to standing by his domestic agenda, which is deeply troubling. Our rates of economic growth and unemployment are both doing quite well, but Bush doesn’t have the political savvy to capitalize on these numbers, and the media has been doing their best to talk down a booming economy. The White House needs to use these numbers to not only show the successes of their pro-growth policies, but ensure that those policies are continued in the future.

Bush Speech Reaction

Ideally, I’d love to hear some soaring Churchillian oratory, but that just isn’t President Bush’s style. However, this was exactly what Bush needed to say. He needed to remind the American people of why we are fighting, and why we need to finish the job. Bush was determined, strong, confident, and full of resolve. That alone is critically important – a wartime leader must show resolve.

Not a brilliant speech, but certainly passable, and I have a feeling that this will do the job. The media won’t give him a shred of credit, but the American people have lost so much faith in the media that it won’t matter in the long run. Iraq most certainly is critical to the war on terrorism now, and if we pull out we hand al-Qaeda the biggest victory they’ve ever had. President Bush won’t allow that to happen, and I have a feeling the American people won’t allow it either.

Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review says that Bush accomplished his mission tonight.

Hugh Hewitt hated the speech and thought that Bush sucked. Well, not really. He thought that Bush had the clarity needed to make this speech work.

My Red State colleague Josh Trevino, who has been one of Bush’s strongest critics on the right gives Bush’s speech a very positive review.

Bush Speaks On Iraq

President Bush is speaking at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina tonight, reassuring a skittish nation about the progress in the war in Iraq. He has a tough job tonight.

7:04PM CST: Bush begins by laying out the stakes in the war on terror and reaffirming the Bush Doctrine. I’d like to see him more strongly put Iraq in context – we’re fighting in iraq because the only way to defeat the terrorists is to end the systems of oppression that allow these groups to flourish – not just al-Qaeda, but the next terrorist group that may follow in its place. It isn’t enough to just “go after al-Qaeda” – they’re a symptom of a larger problem.

7:06PM CST: The question Bush must answer – “is our sacrifice worth it?” Bush must answer this question.

7:07PM CST: Bush quotes bin Laden himself – an interesting choice.

7:09PM CST: Bush is good when he has a mission – and he has a mission tonight. I think this speech, while not yet great, helps remind the American people of what we’re fighting, why we’re fighting, and how far we’ve gone. However, Bush can’t quite muster that Chuchillian eloquence I’d really wish we’d see tonight. But then again, he still has time.

7:13PM CST: Bush is speaking about the Iraqi security forces. I think it’s important that he stresses that this isn’t a war between the United States and Iraq, this is a war in which the people of Iraq and the United States are working together to defeat terrorism. They’re our allies, and we should recognize that they’re making immense sacrifices to defeat terrorism.

7:16PM CST: Bush speech has one of the things I dislike about modern political oratory – a laundry list of facts and figures. We don’t need the details about this war. We need to understand why we’re fighting and why we must win. This is more of a policy address than a great piece of wartime oratory.

I’d also like to see Bush address two groups directly: the American people, and the Iraqi people. We’re in this war together, and both groups need some reassurance and some courage to get through the next few months and years.

7:19PM CST: Bush won’t set a deadline. Good for him — the idea of a deadline for withdrawal is a completely idiotic idea, and Bush does a good job of making this clear.

Do we have enough troops in Iraq? Bush says that the commanders in the field say we do not. I’d be curious to know if this is true. I don’t believe that more troops are the panacea that some would say, but I think there are many in the military who would argue that we need more boots on the ground – we certainly did earlier on when the Sh’ia uprising of April of 2004 stretched our forces to the limit.

7:22PM CST: Bush is putting a lot of weight on an Iraqi constitution. It is important, but it’s going to be a long process in getting there.

7:23PM CST: Bush is right to point out that the events in Iraq have emboldened democratic change in other regions, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I would have also liked him to mention that Kuwaiti women now have the right to vote – in large part because their Iraqi neighbors do now.

7:24PM CST: Don’t mess with Texas, and don’t mess with the US when there’s a Texan in the White House. There’s no doubt about Bush’s determination, but will the American people follow. The left certainly won’t, but Bush needs to appeal to the people who are uneasy about this war.

7:26PM CST: “We will stand and fight until this fight is won.” Damn straight.

7:27PM CST: Bush is speaking to our military, and he always has a clear respect and admiration for our fighting men and women. It comes through in his speech, which is why the mllitary respects him as they do.

7:29PM CST: Bush finished this speech with some real emotion. He said most of the things he needed to say, and while this wasn’t a speech for the ages, it was a reminder that our Commander in Chief is one tough SOB, and we won’t let a bunch of terrorist thugs win and extinguish the hopes of freedom for Iraq and security for us.

That was quintessential Bush. Not necessarily eloquent, but determined and principled. Bush isn’t a great orator, but he speaks to the common man. That common touch makes a big difference.

Karl Rove Is Right

Erick Erickson notes Karl Rove’s brilliant political jujitsu with his recent comments at the New York Conservative Party dinner. Here’s what Rove said:

Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies.

Note what Rove didn’t say. The word “Democrat” isn’t in that statement. By responding so vociferously, the Democratic Party is admitting that they are the party of the liberal left. Not a particularly shocking revelation, but critical nonetheless.

The other facet of this is that the Democrats have been saying much worse about the Republicans for years. And there’s a wealth of evidence to attest to it. The fact that the Democrats are getting their collective panties in a knot over a criticism of liberal idiocy over 9/11 is both a case of typically Democratic selective outrage and exactly what Rove wants. Dick Durbin accuses our soldiers of being Nazis, and the Democrats barely bat an eyelash (with the notable and welcome exception of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley). Karl Rove accuses liberals as being weak on terrorism, a critique which is both substantive and accurate, and the Democrats go ballistic.

As military blogger Baldilocks so very astutely notes:

Soldiers get their lives endangered but no one is supposed to say jack. Liberals get their feelings hurt and scream bloody murder.

It’s enough to make you a bit cynical.

And that about sums it up — Rove’s comments may have been impolitic, but they were right on the money. For the left, the truth hurts.

Here’s a hint: if you don’t want to be seen as weak on defense, stop trying to argue for us to withdraw from Iraq on an arbitrary timeline that would instantly hand the advantage to al-Qaeda. Stop spending all your time bitching about Gitmo and start demanding that Syria stop funneling head-chopping fanatics across the Euphrates corridor. Stop giving VIP status to anti-American gasbags like Michael Moore. Stop putting pissant partisan politics above winning this war.

In short, if the Democrtas don’t want to be accused of being weak on defense, perhaps they should stop being weak on defense for a change.

Unfriendly Fire

Glenn Reynolds has a large compendium of links on Gitmo. He links to a Russmussen poll showing that only 20% of the American people thnik prisoners at Gitmo are being mistreated.

The Democrats have a problem with looking weak on terrorism. So what do they do? Raise a stink about supposed instances of “torture” and put themselves squarely on the side of the very terrorists we’re trying to fight — slandering our troops along the way. That isn’t just politically tone deaf, it’s like the Democratic Party changing it’s slogan to “No Terrorist Left Behind.” It reinforces the view that the Democratic Party is profoundly unserious about this war, and that’s going to cost them politically.

The Democrats have already lost two consecutive elections largely because they were rightly perceived as being weak on national defense. This flap over Gitmo is only going to further cement that idea in the minds of the American electorate.

And that’s the issue — the Democrats didn’t have a security policy in 2002. They didn’t have one in 2004 — and now the closest thing they have to a security policy is hoping that maybe we can make ourselves look good enough that Islamic fanatics will stop sawing off heads and join us in an international chorus of Kumbaya. The Democratic policy on Iraq is one of constantly sniping at the Administration. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq now, and we have to defeat them. You don’t defeat an enemy by telling him exactly when you intend to leave, ensuring that all they need to do is wait us out. Yet we still have many Democrats calling for withdrawal in Iraq, which would hand al-Qaeda its greatest victory yet.

The Democrats don’t understand this war, they don’t understand the stakes, and their policies would hand al-Qaeda a major victory. The only rhetoric on the war coming from the vast majority of Democratic politicians is defeatism and odious comparisons to gulags and death camps.

It would be nice to have a principled opposition party. Sadly, the only principled and cogent critiques of the war are coming from other Republicans like John McCain. Until the Democrats get it through their heads that the enemy that knocked down the Twin Towers is a better target than the Bush Administration, the Democrats will continue to be rightly regarded as the party that is unacceptably weak on national security.

The Kudzu State

Michelle Malkin notes the explosive growth of government under the Republican Party in the last decade. The GOP has always prided itself in being the party of smaller government — at least when they’re not in power. Once they are, the natural Washingtonian instinct for using the federal teat to

Of course, we’re as addicted to pork as they are, which is why the situation is unlikely to get much better. Unless we hold our elected officials to cutting spending, our elected officials won’t cut spending on their own. When reelection often hinges on how much federal pork can be doled out to a particular state or district, political expediency will wear down even the most adament supporter of limited government.

There’s a direct relationship between economic performance and economic freedom. If we continue to tie ourselves up in a sea of red tape, we’ll soon fall behind. Big spending is expected of the Democrats, but the GOP needs to hold itself to a higher standard. It’s easy to put the needs of one’s constituency above concerns about the fiscal health of our nation, but to paraphrase Burke, our representatives owe us not just their industry, but their judgment; and they betray instead of serve us if they sacrifice it to our opinions.

A Failure Of Leadership

I’ve long been a strong supporter of President Bush on this war. Under his leadership, the United States has deposed two tyrannical regimes, dismantled the dangerous nuclear proliferation network of Dr. A.Q. Khan in Pakistan, ended Libya’s WMD program, and helped foster a new culture of democratic change in the Middle East.

The American Enterprise‘s Karl Zinsmeister writes from Iraq that the war in Iraq is over, and we won. Austin Bay, also in Iraq, writes that he finds visible signs of progress all over Baghdad.

Yet why is it that the majority of Americans polled now say the war wasn’t worth it?

The reason is simple: the media has driven the story in Iraq. The only message that the vast majority of the American population gets is the anti-war party line of the mainstream media. President Bush needs to set the record straight. He needs to control the message about Iraq, and unless he does those numbers will continue to slip.

President Reagan was a master communicator and knew how to inspire the American people. President Clinton was the most media-savvy President this nation has ever known and was able to control his messages on every issue so that they benefitted him politically. President Bush needs the message control of President Clinton and the rhetoric of President Reagan. He needs to remind the American people of why we’re fighting and what we’re fighting for.

The issue of WMDs and DSMs and the runup to the war is academic and irrelevant. The issue of whether Iraq and al-Qaeda were linked before March of 2003 is equally irrelevant. The fact is that we’re in Iraq, and so is al-Qaeda. If we leave Iraq without securing the future of that country, we hand Osama bin Laden the greatest victory he’s attained yet. Bin Laden noted America’s ignominous withdrawal from Mogadishu and determined that a small but fanatical group of insurgents could bring the world’s strongest military to its knees. Were we to do the same in Iraq it would ensure that al-Qaeda would become even more powerful and dangerous. For better or for worse, the war on terror now indisputably lies with victory in Iraq.

President Bush needs to make this absolutely clear to the American people. He needs to remind us of who and what we are fighting. As Mr. Bay writes:

It seems America wants to get on with its Electra-Glide life, that Sept. 10 sense of freedom and security, without finishing the job. The military is fighting, the Iraqi people are fighting, but where is the US political class? The Bush administration has yet to ask the American people — correction, has yet to demand of the American people — the sustained, shared sacrifice it takes to win this long, intricate war of bullets, ballots and bricks.

Mr. Bay is correct. America’s martial spirit smashed Hitler and Tojo. America’s martial spirit destroyed the Hussein regime. America’s martial spirit can send al-Qaeda into the dustbin of history and remake the Middle East into a more democratic and stable region.

But America’s martial spirit is also fickle. We’re a restless culture, and while that is a source of our dynamism and strength, it is also a source of our weakness. Contrary to the idea of American “empire” we’ve neither the patience nor the will for imperial pursuits. It simply isn’t in the American spirit.

President Bush has to remind us that we are still at war with an implacable enemy that will do whatever it can to destroy us totally, and the threat of attack means that we can never go back to the days of September 10, 2001. Our dynamic culture causes us to often forget our own history, even the events of just under four years ago. We need to be reminded that outside our insular and insignificant world of American Idols and spoiled wealthy heiresses there is a dangerous and deadly ideology that splits the world into the House of Submission and the House of War.

We have been fortunate so far that the American homeland has not been hit again. Part of that is luck, but much of it is due to our willingness to be proactive in fighting this war. We cannot lose our resolve.

The President is more than just the Commander in Chief of our armed forces, he is the leader of this country. It is time for President Bush to lead once again and continue to remind the American people why we’re fighting and why our future depends on our ability to win. President Bush is allowing the media to become a tool for the enemy, and when that happens the victories won by our soldiers are rapidly spun into defeats by a media whose mantra is “if it bleeds, it leads.” We already lost a war not on the battlefield, but in the minds of an American public fed a steady diet of enemy propaganda. We dare not allow the same to happen when the stakes are as high as they are now.

One of the most difficult battles in this war may not be on the streets of Fallujah or the mountains of the Hindu Kush, but right here at home. It is a battle that the President must be willing to fight and willing to win, because the success or failure of this war hinges upon it.

Senate Apologizes For Lynching

The Senate has issued a resolution formally apologizing for not passing anti-lynching laws.

The Washington Post editorial makes an interesting note:

The principal sponsors of the resolution, Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and George Allen (R-Va.), rightly contend that the nation must ensure that this history is never forgotten or repeated. The Senate was in a position to protect the victims of lynching, and it did nothing. Rather than stand up for constitutional protections accorded all Americans, it bowed to the will of a southern minority that argued it was forcing greater deliberation in the Senate, that it was holding in check the power of the majority, and that they, the filibusterers, were reflecting the vision of the Founding Fathers — all while Americans far from the Senate chamber were being deprived of life, human dignity and the protection of law. It was that aspect of the human calamity that the Senate considered but failed to act on, and for which the Senate has now apologized.

I understand the Senate’s motivations here, but I fail to see the point. How would passing anti-lynching laws have changed the situation? It would have still required someone to enforce those laws, and the problem was not with a lack of laws (murder, of course, being illegal) but by the unwillingness to enforce the law. Could the Senate have done more? Certainly. Should they have? Absolutely. Would it have made a great deal of difference? I’m not so sure.

Of course, it’s interesting to note that a certain Senator who was a former member of the Klu Klux Klan still has quite the affinity for the tyranny of the minority when it comes to other issues, proving that those who fail to learn from history are damned to repeat it.