Tag Archives: George W. Bush

political news, State news

Farewell, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst

David Dewhurst has bid the Texas Senate farewell after serving 12 years as lieutenant governor and presiding officer of the 31-member legislative chamber.

It was an emotional good bye.

I’m glad the Senate approved the resolution honoring him for his service. Dewhurst did serve the state well.

That is until he got outflanked on his right by Ted Cruz in their campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2012. Then the lieutenant governor became someone that many of us no longer recognized. He got outflanked once more this past year as he lost the Republican primary to Dan Patrick.

The cause of good government has lost a one-time champion.

***

I recall when Dewhurst splashed onto the state political scene in 1998 when he ran for land commissioner. I’d never heard of this wealthy guy from Houston. He’d been a political insider downstate and was well-connected.

But he became land commissioner and did a great job expanding veterans home loan benefits, which is one of the office’s key duties.

Dewhurst was an occasional visitor to the Panhandle while serving in that office and later as lieutenant governor. He always seemed quite appreciative of the time we spent visiting about the issues of the day. And I think we forged a nice professional relationship over the years.

Dewhurst could talk forever about the tiniest details of legislation, which he did often either on the phone or in person. Indeed, I often heard from my sources in Austin that Dewhurst might have been the hardest-working state official in Texas.

He was elected lieutenant governor in 2002, succeeding Bill Ratliff who was appointed by the Senate to fill the term vacated when Rick Perry became governor — after George W. Bush was elected president.

Dewhurst ran the Senate the way most of his predecessors did, with a flair for bipartisan cooperation. He was unafraid to appoint Democratic senator as committee chairs, sharing the power with senators from the other party.

I always appreciated his adherence to Senate tradition.

Then came his failed bid to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Ted Cruz battered him for being too moderate. Dewhurst fought back — uncomfortably, it appeared to me — by saying in effect, “I’m no moderate. I’m as conservative as you are, Mr. Cruz.”

He didn’t wear the TEA party label well. Cruz beat him in the 2012 GOP primary.

Then came Patrick in 2014 to do the same thing to Dewhurst: painting him as some sort of squishy moderate Republican In Name Only. There’s nothing worse in the Texas GOP than to be called a RINO.

They fought through the primary. Patrick defeated Dewhurst in the runoff.

Now the new guy is set to take over. The Senate won’t be the same. Dewhurst has said farewell.

I am glad to have gotten to know Lt. Gov. Dewhurst. I wish him well in whatever future awaits him.

 

International news

'This is not a war against Islam'

George W. Bush said it with crystal clarity.

Barack Obama has repeated it with equal amounts of force and conviction.

The United States of America, both presidents have stated, is not waging a war against Islam. The enemy, they have proclaimed repeatedly, is the radical fringe of a great religion that has perverted its holy word and misinterpreted it for its own evil intentions.

Sadly and tragically, the other side — the enemy — doesn’t see it that way. The enemy has declared a religious war against the West. Should our side follow that lead? Absolutely, categorically not.

The attack in Paris has produced some chilling aftershocks. The massacre at the Charlie Hebdo offices — where gunmen attacked staffers at the satirical magazine for publishing unflattering images of Mohammed — has led to real fear that more terror cells have been activated in Europe.

More mayhem is on its way.

But the United States and our allies must stand firm in the belief that their war isn’t against Islam.

The 9/11 attacks against the United States were not carried out by mainstream Muslims. They occurred because a monstrous terror cell decided to kill innocent victims, which is prohibited explicitly in the Quran. The leader of that cell, Osama bin Laden, had done this deed before. U.S. and allied intelligence officials knew of this individual’s evil ways, sought to kill him before 9/11, failed, leaving those victims vulnerable to paying a terrible price on that bright morning more than 13 years ago.

Did the president at the time declare all Muslims to be evil? No. President Bush laid down the marker clearly and succinctly: We are going to take the fight to the evil elements that brought to us.

The president left office in January 2009, handing the war plans over to a new commander in chief, Barack Obama. President Obama has said it time and again: This war must be fought against vicious rogue elements.

U.S. commandos finally brought justice to bin Laden in the middle of a moonless night in May 2011, killing him on sight and then burying him at sea.

Did we kill an Islamic cleric? Did this man command a religious following? He was a monster.

And other monsters must remain in our sights as we pursue this global war on terror.

The Paris attack will prompt more violence from more monsters. Yes, they belong ostensibly to the religion of Islam and they technically are “Muslim terrorists.” But the war we fight is not against the peaceful mainstream.

As for the enemy, let the other side declare a religious war. We must remain focused on the real enemy.

The terrorists.

 

 

business news, national news, political news

Recovery bigger than presidency or Congress

1 Comment

Barack Obama gets a lot of blame and takes a lot of credit.

The president deserves some of the blame and much of the credit.

He doesn’t deserve all of what he gets or what he takes.

Politico has published a fascinating analysis of the economic recovery that is under way and wonders whether the president is taking too much credit for it. Its answer is “yes.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/does-obama-deserve-credit-for-economy-114107.html?hp=t1_r

I’ve been generous in my praise of Barack Obama’s handling of the financial meltdown that was occurring when he took office. He was bold and brash when he launched efforts to stimulate the economy with cash and when he persuaded Congress to enact bailout legislation that helped the automobile and banking industries.

Those efforts have paid off. Indeed, the auto industry has paid back the money it got and the Treasury is fatter because of it.

The latest job-creation numbers continue to show improvement in the economy, but as Politico points out, an $18 trillion economic machine — which is what the U.S. Gross Domestic Product is — is too big for a mere president or Congress to control.

As Politico reports: “Republicans say the economy is finally – and only partially – shaking off the impact of Obama policies like the Affordable Care Act, tax hikes and financial reform, all of which they contend slowed down growth. And they point to paltry wage gains once again evident in the December jobs report. Democrats say that’s sour grapes from partisans whose warnings of a disastrous ‘Obama economy’ look increasingly ridiculous.”

Furthermore, writes Politico: “Economists – on the left and right and in the middle – say the facts suggest a vastly more complex middle ground. Obama deserves significant credit for some shrewd and politically difficult moves early on his presidency, economists say, including the stimulus and the automobile and Wall Street bailouts.”

Congressional Republicans are now trying wrestle some of the economic recovery credit away from the president. Some have joked that the GOP has taken control of the full Congress only since Monday, noting that Democrats have run the Senate while the House has been in GOP hands only since 2011.

I’ve also noted that credit for the recovery can be shared, just as blame can be found on both sides for the collapse that occurred in the final years of George W. Bush’s presidency.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/01/01/how-about-sharing-the-credit/

The bottom line is that the economy is too huge, too complicated and contains too many traps for a single set of policies to manipulate.

 

environmental news, State news

Perry builds wind energy in Texas

Let it never be said that I am such a blind partisan that I fail to recognize the good things that politicians of the “other party” have accomplished.

Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry is about to leave office and the Texas Tribune is doing a great job of looking back at the governor’s huge legacy.

All those wind turbines one sees turning along the High Plains or along the South Plains and the Rolling Plains down yonder? They’re a big part of the Perry legacy, to which I will provide high praise.

http://apps.texastribune.org/perry-legacy/energy/

The Tribune notes that most of the turbines didn’t exist when Perry took his initial oath of office in December 2000. They do now, in a big way.

As the Tribune notes: “In 2000, wind farms composed just 116 megawatts of capacity on the state’s main electric grid. That number has since soared to more than 11,000 megawatts, while wind fuels about 10 percent of all generation. (On average, one megawatt-hour of wind energy can power 260 typical Texas homes for an hour.)

“’His legacy on the fossil side of things is very sound, but on the wind side, he’s done tremendous things to move the state forward,’ said Jeff Clark, executive director of the Austin-based Wind Coalition, an advocacy group. ‘Under Rick Perry, wind in Texas has moved from alternative energy to being a mainstream component of our power supply.’”

Think of how vast this supply of energy is in Texas, particularly along the Caprock, where the wind blows incessantly — and where it will blow for as long as Planet Earth exists. I reckon that’ll be a good while, agreed?

Texas has become the nation’s No. 1 wind-energy-producing state, supplanting California at the top of the heap.

Perry’s predecessor as governor, George W. Bush, signed a bill in 1999 that deregulated the electric sector, opening the door for the development of wind energy. Perry would later sign legislation mandating an increase in wind energy production. The state has delivered in a big way.

Here’s the Tribune: “’That we were able to build thousands of miles of high-capacity transmission from West Texas to the Panhandle without landowners marching on the Capitol with pitchforks, it’s pretty remarkable,’ said Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman, whom Perry appointed to the Public Utility Commission in 2004 and reappointed in 2007. ‘And the governor had our back on that.’”

Rick Perry isn’t known as an environmentalist, but the wind energy that has developed on his watch has gone a long way toward conserving fossil fuels. It’s also producing arguably the cleanest energy possible.

Well done, governor.

 

political news

'Candidate' Jeb quits boards

Jeb Bush sure looks like a presidential candidate to me.

The former Florida governor has announced he is quitting all the for-profit boards on which he is a member in preparation for his now-expected run for the presidency in 2016.

Smart move, Jeb.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/jeb-bush-quits-all-private-sector-non-profit-boards-113914.html?hp=l1_3

Another possible Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, has expressed concern about Bush’s financial dealings. Hey, if anyone knows something about personal financial controversy, it’s Mitt — with his own Bain Capital history serving as something of a drag on his own 2012 presidential campaign.

Bush has been out of public life for more than a decade. He’s got that “Bush brand” with which he must contend. Not the one set by his father, George H.W. Bush, the 41st president, but the one of his brother, George Dubya, the 43rd president.

Is the nation ready for yet another Bush in the White House? I think not.

But Jeb is doing what he needs to do to start setting the stage for another Bush candidacy.

Actually, he’s a pretty good Republican wannabe-candidate, particularly on immigration. He’s a moderate on that issue, presenting a far different approach to immigration reform than his TEA party rivals within the GOP.

My hunch is that he’s going to run. Will he be nominated? I won’t predict that outcome.

If nominated, can he beat the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton? I most assuredly won’t go there, either.

Stay tuned.

 

business news, national news, political news

How about sharing the credit?

1 Comment

Grover Norquist just cracks me up.

The anti-tax Republican activist wants the GOP to seize the credit for the nation’s economic recovery from those pesky Democrats, led by President Barack Obama.

It’s Republican policies, not Democratic policies, that have ignited the nation’s recovery from near-disaster, Norquist told The Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/30/grover-norquist-economy_n_6396682.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

Hey, here’s an idea, Mr. Tax Cutter: How about sharing it?

In a way, Norquist does make a salient point — more or less — about Republicans’ insistence that the economy still stinks. He says they should shut their trap about that and take credit for the good news we’re hearing.

According to The Huffington Post: “‘There were outside voices advising Republicans on what to do. They missed both calls,’ Norquist said in an interview with The Huffington Post. ‘I object as much as some of the guys on the right who are never satisfied in the moment. I’m never satisfied over time. But they go, ‘This was a disaster.’ No it wasn’t. We played our hand as well as you could and better than we had any reason to expect we would be able to.'”

If my own memory remains intact, I do believe the president gave in to Republican demands to keep the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration. He could have dug in his heels and demanded repeal of the “Bush tax cuts” for business and big income earners, but he didn’t.

As some have noted as well, the oil boom has driven the nation’s economic revival. Nothing else. It’s just oil, they say. Presidential policies have nothing to do with that.

If that’s the case, then do Republican congressional policies play a role here? I’m thinking, well, maybe not.

Whatever the case, the nation’s economic health is far better than it was when Barack Obama took the presidential oath in January 2009. He pushed through a bold stimulus package with the help of a Democratic-controlled Congress. The auto industry bounced back, thanks to that stimulus — and then repaid the federal Treasury in full.

The labor market has been restored to where it was prior to the crash of late 2008.

Who deserves credit? I’ve been glad to give the president some of the credit. I’ll give credit as well to that other co-equal branch of government, Congress.

The only problem with Norquist’s call for less belly-aching and more bragging is that the GOP will have to concede that its Democratic “friends” had a hand in it as well.

Didn’t they?

 

national news, political news, Uncategorized

Get well, '41'

The nightstand next to the bed is piling up with books I am fixin’ to read.

One of them just arrived there. It’s titled simply, “41: A Portrait of My Father.” “41” is George H.W. Bush. The author is “43,” George W. Bush.

The 43rd president of the United States makes no bones about his intentions in writing this book. He calls it a “love story” about the greatest man he’s ever known. “43” wants to share with the world the qualities that have lifted his father to greatness.

I wanted to mention this book in the wake of news that George H.W. Bush was hospitalized the other day after complaining of shortness of breath.

The man is 90 years of age. His health isn’t good. President Bush suffers from Parkinson’s disease. He no longer is able to walk. His speech sounds a bit labored these days.

But oh, yes. He jumps out of airplanes, which he did on his latest birthday.

President “43” recounts that event in the prologue to his book.

I happened to be in New Orleans the night in 1988 when then-Vice President Bush accepted his party’s nomination for the presidency. The Superdome was packed with cheering convention delegates running around the floor wearing goofy elephant hats and their clothing festooned with campaign pins.

The nominee called for a “kinder, gentler” nation and pledged to govern that way if elected president. He was elected handily that year over the man for whom I voted, Michael Dukakis. I’ll concede that Bush didn’t conduct a kinder and gentler campaign.

Still, the president governed with a spirit of bipartisanship that, um, has been missing of late.

I’ve long held a great appreciation for this man’s background that, in my view, prepared him handsomely for the job he earned in that 1988 election. I continue to believe that, on paper, George H.W. Bush was the most qualified man ever to serve as president. Think about it: World War II combat veteran and aviator; businessman, congressman from Houston, CIA director, U.N. ambassador, special envoy to China, Republican Party chairman, vice president of the United States.

I am grateful that I was able to express my thanks and appreciation to him for all he has done for his country. I attended an event here in Amarillo in 2007 in which President Bush was the keynote speaker. I got an invitation to a luncheon that day and then got to shake his hand in one of those “grip and grin” reception lines.

“Mr. President, I just want to thank you for your service to the country,” I told him as we shook hands. He nodded and offered what I think was a heartfelt “thank you for saying that” to me.

He’s done it all. I look forward to plowing into George W. Bush’s account of his father’s great life.

Get well, Mr. President.

 

 

 

national news

Vacation for first family; POTUS will need the rest

President Obama has jetted off to his home state of Hawaii for some R&R with his family.

I’ll be interested now for the next several days whether we’re going to hear any carping about the golf being played, or whether the first lady is spending a lot of money on shopping excursions, or whether the first daughters are behaving themselves.

This kind of carping goes with the territory, I guess, and I am hoping that now — six years into the job — that the president and his family have grown used to it.

Social media being what they are, criticism hits cyberspace in swarms. It’s immediate, quite often mistaken and misplaced and also quite cruel.

I recall a couple of other notable presidents who’d take lengthy vacations.

* President Ronald Reagan would get holed up in his ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif., uttering hardly a peep in public. He’d come back down from his Rancho del Cielo refreshed and ready to take on the challenges of the day. You’d hear the occasional gripes from the media about the president’s lengthy hiatus, but hardly none of the nitpicking one hears today.

* President George W. Bush liked to “clear brush” at his own ranch in Central Texas, near Crawford — which is near Waco. Again, the media would gripe about that time off, although my hunch is that they disliked hanging out in rural Texas, which I’m guessing lacks some of the creature comforts to which those big-city media hounds had grown accustomed.

In both instances — and regarding vacations other presidents have taken — such criticism is unfounded and ridiculous.

Barack Obama doesn’t have any planned public events while he’s enjoying Christmas with his clan in Hawaii. He’ll get his usual daily national security briefings and updates on other matters way back east in Washington.

For now, enjoy your time in the sunshine, Mr. President. A new Congress controlled by the “other party” awaits you when you return for the home stretch of your time in office. You’ll need all the rest you can get.

 

political news

'Officially exploring' means Jeb is in

1 Comment

Take this to the bank. It’s a lock. Done.

Jeb Bush is running for president of the United States in 2016.

Yes, another Bush is, um, beating the bushes for votes. He wants to become the third member of his immediate family to occupy the White House. George H.W. “Poppy” Bush served from 1989 until 1993; big bro George W. served from 2001 to 2009.

The Bush “brand” is well established, correct?

And what do the first two Bushes have in common? They presided over an economy that tanked.

It Poppy’s case, the economy cost him re-election in 1992. As for W, the “Great Recession” caused untold grief for millions of Americans who watched their retirement investments vanish into thin air.

OK, were either recessions the direct result of the men’s presidencies? As I’ve noted before, presidents don’t deserve all the blame when things go wrong any more than they deserve all the credit for when things go right.

But these events happened on their respective watches.

And that is the “brand” that Jeb will have to overcome.

Voters’ memories are long, you know?

But Jeb Bush has a record of his own as a former Florida governor. It’s a decent one at that. The state ran well under his governorship. And I do like his moderate stand on immigration reform, which is natural, given that he’s married to a Mexican woman.

He shouldn’t take too seriously the notion that a Republican moderate is doomed to lose the next election. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said as much. But hey, the Cruz Missile is considering a presidential run as well and no one with an ounce of sanity ever is going to suggest Cruz is a moderate on anything.

Bush is yet another old shoe set to run for president. The Democrats have their own in Hillary Rodham Clinton.

My own GOP preference remains Mitt Romney, who’s now sounding as though he, too, will start “actively exploring” a campaign of his own.

This will be fun to watch, yes?

 

International news, national news

Bush tossed under the bus?

This likely is a minority opinion, but I’ll suggest it anyway: It’s sounding to me as though former President Bush’s inner circle is trying to toss the commander in chief under the bus on this Senate report dealing with how the CIA treated suspected terrorists.

The Senate Intelligence Committee summary report issued by the Democratic members blames the CIA for misleading the president and the public over the “enhanced interrogation techniques” being employed to glean intelligence from terror suspects immediately after 9/11.

The implication is that President Bush was kept in the dark. It’s the CIA’s fault that this went on.

Then here comes former Vice President Cheney and former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden to say, “Oh, no. The president was made aware of what the CIA was doing.” Cheney talked to Fox News about it; Hayden spoke to MSNBC. They both said the president was kept in the loop during all of it.

Interesting, yes?

I haven’t read the entire summary. I have seen excerpts. Some of it is quite grotesque, detailing how interrogators injected suspects with pureed food through what was described as “rectal feeding.”

Did the president know that was occurring?

This debate will continue likely well past the foreseeable future. It’s the next top story du jour.

If the president was unaware of what the CIA was doing, then the former VP and the ex-CIA boss haven’t done him any favors by blabbing about what he knew and when he knew it.

Might there be some backside-covering going on here? I’m just asking.