Tag Archives: George W. Bush

International news, national news

Come clean with hacking info, Mr. President-elect

Oh, that Donald J. Trump.

He just cannot keep his trap shut. He now says he has information about the infamous election hacking that “others don’t know.”

I cannot stop thinking about the president-elect’s assertion a number of years ago that he had information about President Barack Obama’s place of birth that others didn’t know.

The birther in chief led the rumor monger parade in asserting that Barack Obama’s presidency was illegitimate. He said he had dispatched teams of spooks to Hawaii to learn the “truth” about the president’s place of birth; it wasn’t in Hawaii, the then-reality TV celebrity said.

It turned out that Trump had nothing. Zero. He was full of bull corn.

Now he has information about whether Russians hacked into our election system? That he knows things others don’t know? That our professional spies and intelligence officials don’t have the goods on the Russians?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-he-has-hacking-information-others-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-know%e2%80%99/ar-BBxLW3t?li=BBnb7Kz

Trump keeps expressing skepticism about the CIA analysis, citing bogus intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction prior to the start of the Iraq War in 2003. Hmm. Has anyone suggested to Trump that the WMD “analysis” might have been forwarded by the neocons who comprised President Bush’s inner circle of advisers, that it didn’t come necessarily from the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency?

Stop teasing us, Mr. President-elect, with nutty notions that you’re smarter than the intelligence officers who are charged with keeping us safe from our adversaries.

national news, political news

Obama and Trump: no longer BFFs

That didn’t last long.

President Barack Obama pledged to do all he could to ensure a “smooth transition” to the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

Now we hear that the men are at each other’s throats. They’re sniping from lecture podiums and over social media.

Trump has been sniping at the president over his decision to forgo a U.N. Security Council veto of a resolution that condemns Israel for its construction of settlements on the West Bank. The president, meanwhile, is talking out loud about the dangers of isolating the United States from the rest of the world.

How will all of this — and more — affect the transition? No one can yet determine how the men’s staffs will work together. Indeed, that’s where the transition must occur without a hitch. Chiefs of staff need to talk constructively to each other, along with other White House staffers. National security experts need to talk candidly about the threats to the nation.

Even though I shouldn’t give a damn how this affects the two men’s personal relationship, I feel compelled to recall an anecdotal story I heard some years ago about two earlier presidents.

Harry Truman left the presidency after Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952. The two partisans despised each other. Truman, the Democrat, couldn’t stomach the idea that Eisenhower, the Republican, would occupy the Oval Office. They barely spoke to each other during the transition.

The men reportedly set aside their personal antipathy at the funeral of another president a decade later. President Kennedy was gunned down and Give ‘Em Hell Harry and Ike managed to patch up their personal relations as they joined the rest of the country in bidding farewell to JFK. Did they realize at that time that life, indeed, is too short to harbor grudges? Perhaps.

No one really expects Obama and Trump to become BFFs. Given the mercurial temperament that Trump exhibits — describing his meetings with Obama as “terrific” and “terrible” in the same week — one cannot predict how the president-elect is going to respond.

President Obama has spoken eloquently about the graciousness extended to him and his staff by President George W. Bush’s team in 2009. The transition from President Clinton to Bush in 2001, as we have learned, wasn’t quite so smooth with reports of keyboards missing the letter “W” and other pranks being pulled.

The stakes are much greater, of course, when rocky transitions involve heads of state instructing their staffs to undermine the other guy in this troubling and unsettled time.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump have three more weeks to put this campaign behind them. Let’s get busy, gentlemen.

International news, national news, political news

We still have only one POTUS at a time

Decorum matters. So does protocol. Say whatever you wish about a politician’s flouting of them both — whether you agree or disagree with him — they matter greatly in the conduct of foreign policy.

It is that backdrop, then, that compels me to say that Donald J. Trump is acting disgracefully during this transition period as he prepares to become the U.S. head of state and head of government.

The president-elect’s continual carping while President Obama conducts the affairs of state serves only to undermine the one president we have in power.

The recent decision by the United States to decline to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel over its building of settlements in the West Bank is the No. 1 example of how Trump doesn’t come close to understanding the meaning of protocol and decorum.

He launches routinely into his Twitter tirades, blasting the president’s decision, saying that Israel will have a true friend when the Trump administration takes over.

Consider, too, that another president-elect, Barack H. Obama, called a press conference shortly after being elected in 2008 to declare his intention to let President Bush conduct his policies the way he saw fit. President-elect Obama said he would wait until Jan. 20, 2009, the day he would take office, before weighing in with his own policy pronouncements. Indeed, presidents-elect going back many decades have honored that tradition.

What about that kind of behavior is lost on Trump? Why doesn’t this guy get it? Why can’t he resist the temptation to meddle in foreign policy before it’s his turn?

Trump has less than a month to go before he takes his oath of office, bids goodbye to his predecessor and then settles into the big chair in the Oval Office. This tweet storm he keeps launching is unbecoming of the office he is about to assume — and it damn sure is disrespectful of the man he is about to succeed.

Decorum and protocol, Mr. President-elect? You’ll learn soon enough how much it really matters.

national news, political news

Will the next president replicate this show of unity, grace?

This is an amazing video I felt like sharing on this blog.

It shows how one president can honor a predecessor with class and grace and how that predecessor can speak with amazing self-deprecating humor.

At some point during his presidential term, Donald J. Trump will get to invite his predecessor, Barack Obama, back to the White House for the unveiling of two portraits: of the president and the first lady, Michelle Obama.

President Obama and the first lady did that very thing when the portraits of President Bush and first lady Laura Bush.

This video presents a wonderful study in collegiality and comity.

I do hope the next president and the current president can set aside their intense personal and political differences when the Obamas return to the White House to unveil their own portraits.

International news

Islamophobe to lead national security team

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President Bush declared it in 2001.

President Obama reaffirmed it in 2009.

“We are not at war with Islam,” both men said. The enemy, they asserted, comprises individuals who have “perverted” a great religion for some decidedly unholy causes. They are murderers, terrorists, thugs, goons … you name it.

So, who does the next president select as his national security adviser? A retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who calls Islam a “cancer.” Michael Flynn has said repeatedly over the years that the fight, indeed, is against those who adhere to a certain religious faith.

The attack at the Berlin Christmas market allegedly by an Islamic State agent, according to Donald J. Trump, underscores the hatred that Muslims harbor against Christians. Gen. Flynn shares that view and he will have the new president’s ear when the administration takes over on Jan. 20.

This is a dangerous situation that we’re about to enflame with the expected rhetoric that will come from Trump’s national security adviser.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/report-nsc-facing-staff-exodus-over-michael-flynn.html

Now we’re hearing reports of career security analysts leaving the National Security Council rather than serving under Gen. Flynn. There apparently is little contact between the NSC staff and the incoming team. What’s more, there are questions emerging about whether Flynn shared sensitive information with foreign military officers while he was serving in Afghanistan.

I don’t doubt for an instant that Gen. Flynn is a top-flight military tactician. He once ran the Defense Intelligence Agency and apparently did so with great competence. However, I do question his temperament — not to mention the temperament of the man who has selected him to lead the NSC.

Do we really need someone operating at the right hand of the commander in chief who has this nutty view that we’re fighting a war against more than 1 billion Muslims around the world?

We are at war with terrorists who do not represent the overwhelming majority of people who want to live in peace alongside the rest of the world.

The doctrine to which we have adhered since 9/11 has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of terrorists. We’ve eliminated the mastermind behind the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. We have blown other terrorist leaders to bits and have decimated the terrorists’ ability to sustain combat on the battlefield.

Have we eliminated the threat? No. The Berlin attack, the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey and the shooting this past week at the Swiss mosque show us that the fight continues.

It’s a fight against terrorists. It’s not a fight against a religion.

national news

Still waiting to turn the corner on the new president

1 Comment

I believe I need counseling.

Here’s my dilemma. I have declared my willingness to “accept” that Donald J. Trump has been elected president of the United States. I can count electoral votes as well as the next guy; Trump got more than enough of them to win. He’s likely to sew up the victory today as the Electoral College votes for president.

However — and this is where the dilemma gets really serious, in my view — I cannot yet write the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively. (Take note that I have just avoided doing so.)

I intend to comment frequently on the new president. I’ll be watching him closely. I won’t be alone, quite obviously. I cannot speak for others bloggers/writers/commentators out there. I only can speak for myself.

It has become something of an obstacle for me to refer to the 45th president the way I have been used to referring to every single one of his predecessors. I routinely type the words “President Obama,” or “President (George W. or George H.W.) Bush,” or “President Clinton,” or “President Reagan” and so forth. I didn’t vote for all of those men to whom I refer in that fashion.

This new guy who will take office on Jan. 20? That’s somehow different. I cannot quite get to the root of it.

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Perhaps it is Trump’s singularly repulsive temperament. It might well be the endless litany of insults he hurled along the way to winning the highest office in the land. Maybe it’s the way he denigrated so many individuals and groups of people. It well could be the notion that he has presented himself — brazenly — as the smartest man ever to inhabit Planet Earth.

I’ll be careful in the future always to refer to Trump as the president. I accept the outcome of the election. However, my instinct — or perhaps it’s the latent childishness that I cannot let go — instructs me to avoid attaching the man’s title directly to his last name.

I cannot go there. I might not ever get there.

Help!

International news, national news, political news

Anti-Iraq War president picks pro-war team

john-bolton-very-large

I am pretty sure I heard Donald J. Trump call the Iraq War a “disaster,” a “mistake,” a “terrible decision.”

It’s not clear to me, though, whether the president-elect actually opposed the war from its beginning, or during the period leading up to the first shots being fired in March 2003.

But during the 2016 presidential campaign Trump did criticize the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq.

Why, then, is he going to send a deputy secretary of state before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for confirmation?

John Bolton is a serious war hawk. He believes in regime change. He supported the Iraq War. He bought into the notion that the late Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. He has called for going to war with Iran. At least one key Republican committee member, Rand Paul of Kentucky, says he’ll vote automatically against Bolton’s confirmation.

Bolton is hoping to join a State Department team headed by a designated secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, whose confirmation itself isn’t a sure thing. He’ll have to answer many questions about his friendship with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, who Sen. John McCain has labeled a “butcher” and “murderer.”

But this Bolton character, a former U.N. ambassador, brings a serious dichotomy into play.

The president-elect opposed the Iraq War — he says — and yet he’s going to bring the hawkiest of hawks into his foreign-policy team?

I do not understand any of this.

My head is spinning.

International news, national news, political news

Who decides Trump ‘needs’ briefing?

aalqppl

Donald J. Trump says he doesn’t need to be briefed daily on national security issues because “like, I’m a smart person.”

The president-elect also says he gets the briefings when “I need it.”

My question is this: Who determines whether Trump “needs” the briefing, the president-elect or the national security team assigned to provide the intelligence information to him?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-says-no-to-daily-redundant-intel-briefings-because-hes-a-smart-person/ar-AAlqP05?li=BBnb7Kz

What appears to be emerging here is an enormous responsibility for Mike Pence, the vice president-elect who happens to have actual government experience as governor of Indiana and before that as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Pence gets the briefings far more frequently than Trump, according to the president-elect. This suggests to me that Pence is preparing to the Trump administrations’ go-to guy on issues relating to national security.

Fighting the Islamic State? Dealing with geopolitical threats in Europe, Asia and Latin America?

Let Mike deal with it. The president is too busy making America great again.

And I bet you thought no vice president could wield the clout that Dick Cheney did during the George W. Bush administration.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Get rid of Flynn as national security adviser

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flynn

President George W. Bush was quite adamant when we went to war in 2001 against radical Islamic terrorists that we were not going to war against Islam.

President Barack Obama has echoed that mantra ever since.

So, who does the president-elect bring in as national security adviser, the guy who’ll advise him on how to fight groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State? A retired Army three-star general who calls Islam a “cancer” and says Americans’ fear of Islam is “rational.”

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, moreover, apparently has ties with multiple foreign governments.

Flynn is now the target of groups asking Donald J. Trump to rescind Flynn’s appointment as national security adviser. They cite concerns over Flynn’s statements about Islam, Iran and whether his views would jeopardize a hoped-for peaceful settlement of the ongoing dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/michael-flynn-trump-appointment-advocacy-groups-232208

I don’t expect the president-elect to heed their call.

Indeed, Flynn is a noted hothead. He’s a brilliant military tactician. He also has the kind of personality that would clash immediately and often with the likes of retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who is Trump’s pick to be the secretary of defense; I will add that Gen. Mattis is a well-chronicled hothead himself, someone known to speak his mind freely.

The issue, though, is Flynn and whether he’s a good fit to become national security adviser.

The advocacy groups asking Trump to rethink his appointment believe he is a terrible fit.

I happen to agree.

The national security adviser is a staff position and, thus, is not subject to Senate confirmation. Gen. Flynn’s status rests solely with the president he would serve.

Get rid of him, Mr. President-elect.

national news, political news

Yep, Trump is ‘my president’ … for better or worse

trump-wins

I’m hearing some troubling notions from those who voted on the losing side of a presidential election.

Donald J. Trump, some of them are saying, “is not my president. I didn’t vote the guy and he ain’t my president.”

At the risk of sounding sanctimonious and self-righteous, I’d like to offer a rebuke to that sentiment.

I didn’t vote for him, either. I detest the notion that he is about to become the 45th president of the United States. My visceral loathing of him is deeper than anything I’ve felt for any of his predecessors.

He is my president, though.

Why? Because as president he will offer policy prescriptions that affect every American. I’m one of ’em.

I intend to fight him whenever I can through this blog. It’s my right as an American to speak my mind and to protest what my government is doing. I will do so vigorously when the moment presents itself — and so far, those moments are coming with stunning frequency.

Trump is my president, nevertheless.

This “ain’t my president” mantra is far from new. Republicans/conservatives yapped the same nonsense when Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. Democrats/liberals yammered the same lame refrain when George W. Bush was elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2004. You can go back as far as you want in history and dig up statements from those who said the very same thing about past presidents.

Me? My inclination — no matter the outcome — has been to accept the result. I might not endorse it. Sure, I’ve swallowed hard plenty since the Nov. 8 election. I’ve done so before.

I won’t, though, accept the idea that the man who’s about to take the oath of office isn’t my president.

I detest the notion of Trump having the word “President” stated and/or written with his name. I also reserve the right to be critical — even harshly so — of my president.