blogs.kxly.com

More people live in liberty around the world at this very moment than at any other time in human history. Whatever else you think about President George W. Bush, he is substantially responsible for that truth. A month before the 43rd President departs from the White House, polls show that a majority of Americans don’t think much of George W. Bush, but had his administration not done what was done in the wake of 9-11, how many more innocent American civilians would have been killed by terrorists?

President Bush says nobody could have predicted in the Fall of 2001 that the country would not be hit again for the rest of his presidency, and he says, “It was not a matter of luck.”
This week the President mentioned several plots that were disrupted since the 9-11 attacks including an attempt to bomb fuel tanks at a New York airport, and a plot to blow up jets bound for the East Coast. President Bush says no one knows how many lives may have been saved. He could’ve told of other plots, but chose to talk about only the ones that were widely reported.

How George W. Bush will be remembered after Barack Obama succeeds him next month remains to be seen. In the short term, he will be chastised for the current poor economy, and many critics will choose to overlook the success in Iraq. There’s “plenty to debate about the decisions President Bush has made in the last eight years, but that there can be no debate that on his watch, there wasn’t another terrorist attack on the United States after 9/11. I think history will treat the 43rd U.S. President much better than today’s media which largely has driven the widespread negative regard for George W. Bush.

In about a month, we will not only have a new President, but a new Vice President as well. The office of Vice President has been largely shaped by the person who occupied it in recent years. Incoming Vice President Joe Biden says he will not be the kind of Vice Presidenmt that Dick Cheney has been. Biden thinks Cheney had an overly expansive view of the role of the Vice President. Many have alleged that Cheney created a kind of shadow government inside the White House. Biden says he’s going to be an adviser to the president and a member of the president’s team, and that’s all.

When Franklin Roosevelt was President, he had three vice presidents. John Nance Garner, from 1933 to 1941, Henry Wallace from 1941-1945, and finally Harry S. Truman, who succeeded him upon FRD’s death. Roosevelt had little to do with any of these men. They were kept in the dark, and seldom were involved in decisions of state. Truman, for example, had no idea that the United States was developing an atomic weapon, until after Roosevelt died.

Dwight Eisenhower dispatched Richard Nixon as his administration’s chief political voice, and a primary ambassador abroad. John Kennedy didn’t like and didn’t trust Lyndon Johnson, so he kept him close at hand. Richard Nixon allowed Spiro Agnew to take on his enemies, and later Gerald Ford pardoned him when he resigned the presidency. There followed several vice presidents whose roles were fairly sedate. Dick Cheney was a very different kind of Vice President. Now Joe Biden plans to fade into the woodwork, playing behind Barack Obama. That’s probably a good thing. I think Joe Biden may well rival Dan Quayle when it comes to quotable gaffes. He may be a lesser power behind the throne, but he’s definitely going to be entertaining.

Did President Elect Barack Obama know or suspect anything pertaining to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s alleged scheme to enrich himself by selling Obama’s open Senate seat for cash or a lucrative job for himself? Did Obama have any idea at all that something like this was contemplated? Barack Obama says he never spoke to Blagojevich about any aspect of choosing his replacement. Yet his campaign chief David Axelrod, on November 23rd, said in a television interview that Obama had spoken to Blagojevich, and that the President Elect did not want to be seen as some kind of kingmaker, influencing his replacement in the Senate.

I know of no evidence that the President Elect had any connection with Blagojevich’s alleged “office for sale scheme”. Still, it is not only fair, but necessary, that we ask, and learn the answer about whether or not Barack Obama knew, or should have suspected that the Illinois governor might be corrupt. Everyone familiar with Chicago politics has suspected that for quite some time, and authorities have been looking into several matters of illegal dealings by Blagojevich.

What troubles me, once again, is how the mainstream media is handling this matter. It is as if there is a desire to protect the newly-elected Obama from any possible taint of scandal before he takes office.

Because Barack Obama is a product of the same checkered Chicago politics from which this latest scandal arises, and because it is his vacant seat that’s at the center of this investigation, in my judgment, the President Elect must not hesitate to clarify how, if at all, this might have involved him in any conceivable way. His denial of contact with Governor Blagojevich, contradicted by the comments of one of his closest advisors, is not a good start.

President Elect Barack Obama promised change. He was elected, apparently because voters had had enough of the Bush administration, and looked forward to a new direction that Obama said would come, if he were to occupy the White House.

So far, that new direction is hard to identify, since most of the president elect’s appointees to key positions in his new administration are just recycled Bill Clinton personnel.

Look at all the Democrats who worked for President Clinton. Note too, that many of these selections did not endorse Barack Obama in the primaries.

Obama’s Transition Chief is John Podesta, the former Clinton Chief of Staff. Representative Rahm Emanuel will be Obama’s White House chief of staff. He was a high level Clinton advisor and operative. Ron Klain, soon to be Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, held the same post under Al Gore. Hillary Rodham Clinton looks like the next Secretary of State. Word is she has accepted the appointment. Eric Holder was the number two lawyer in the Clinton Justice Department. Now he is going to be Attorney General. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is slated to become the next Commerce Secretary. He was U.N. Ambassador in Bill Clinton’s administration.

What is supposed to be a new and bold departure from politics as usual inside the beltway, looks an awful lot like politics as usual. Barack Obama’s new appointee acorns haven’t fallen far, it appears, from the Bill Clinton oak tree. So far, Barack Obama’s first term, filled will all these familiar faces, looks an awful lot like a third Bill Clinton term. So much for “change.”

What is that old saying about expecting a different outcome from doing the same old thing?

Here’s a sign of how far we’ve come from the days of FDR’s series of fireside chats. President-elect Barack Obama plans to take his weekly radio address to the nation online to the place where he’s assured of reaching the masses: YouTube.

Obama taking weekly presidential radio address to YouTube
CHICAGO (AP) — The presidential radio adress is coming to the Internet.
President-elect Barack Obama plans to tape a weekly address for YouTube Internet viewers. For years, presidents have recorded the addresses just for radio listeners.
A four-minute address from Obama will be posted tomorrow through a YouTube link on his transition Web site, www.change.gov. He’ll continue the videos when he takes office in January.
Obama won’t be the only one in his administration taking a starring role online. An Obama spokeswoman says transition leaders and policy advisers will also appear in videos on a regular basis. Other officials, such as Cabinet members, could also take part.

Of course, while you’re checking out the President-elect’s YouTube vids, you can always stop by and pay us at visit on KXLY’s YouTube channel.

Just returned from an interesting story to say the least.  Ken Germana recently posted a sign on his property in Bonner County that reads “Free Public Hanging.”  The sign, accompanied by a noose, lists the names of President elect Barack Obama, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Sharpton.  Germana says the sign is not racist and is not a threat to the political figures.  If so, then why the noose? Isn’t that a threat alone?  Germana says its a simple political statement and nothing more.  Even so, the US Secret Service is investigating.  What do you think about the sign?

U.S. troops in Iraq are quietly moving farther and farther away from the country’s population centers. It’s all by design and part of a preliminary security pact we signed with the Iraqi government concerning the future U.S. military presence.

When President Bush ordered the so-called “surge” in 2007, the plan called for U.S. troops to work along side Iraqi forces on the streets and in communities they were responsible to protect. Today, in accordance with a plan engineered by General David Patraeus, our troops are preparing to be out of all Iraqi cities by June of 2009. The risk remains that if the Iraqis aren’t ready to assume the security role our combined troops have performed to date, secular violence may break out again.

If that happens, will then-President Barack Obama ignore the set-back and proceed to remove troops from Iraq, or will he recognize that we must stay awhile longer?

When he takes office in January, Obama will be under tremendous pressure from the left to get out of Iraq as quickly as possible. The anti-war movement will want him to pay no attention to what happens if we just step away. They will insist that there’s nothing more we can do. They will not oppose placing more resources in Afghanistan, but they will not accept a longer occupation of Iraq.

What will Obama do?

Whether or not it accepts the reasons why the United States got into Iraq, the world will not accept our leaving that country in a festering mess that threatens the future stability of the Middle east region.

As much as Obama wants out, and as hard as his cronies pressure him to cut the cord, we have created irreversible obligations in Iraq, and even the anti-war president may not be able to duck them.

This country is remarkable.

Sure, there are alot of things wrong with it and we have heard about most of those things for the last several months.

There are real problems and they need fixing, however, this week I have marvelled at the greatness of our system, just think about it.

The American people voted in a President-elect that disagrees profoundly, on nearly every major issue, with the current President. However, President Bush wasted no time to A) call President-elect Obama and congratulate him B) pledge publicly to help him in every way possible to make the transition a smooth one and C) invite him and his family to the White House to do everything from talk about policies to measure for drapes.

At no point has Bush ever said “You know what I’m not leaving office.” You snicker, but it has happened and continues to happen in countries all over the world. At no point has he threatened to use the military to help him retain power or use the courts to cling to the power he now has. He is leaving office in January, period.

Additionally, President-elect Obama has repeatedly stressed that, while he has to get his team in place, he is not the President yet. He was exceptionally careful in today’s news conference to avoid stepping on the President’s toes and reminded the world that America has only one President at a time, and right now it is not Barack Obama.

We take for granted the pictures we see every 4 or 8 years of the President and the President-elect talking, laughing and shaking hands at the White House. We think all nations have a peaceful transfer of power. Not so. When Washington handed his Presidency to Adams it was the first time ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, in the history of the world’s nations, that power had peacefully transferred from one man to a non-relative without a war, coup, conflict, or civil strife.

Hate politics or love them, at least realize this: a peaceful transfer of power is not only a rarity in a world history filled with civil wars and military coups, instead it is almost unheard of. And yet every few years it happens in America without a question, a problem, or even a hiccup.

Conservative talk radio hosts are wringing their hands with worry that under newly elected President Barack Obama, the liberal leaders in Congress may get frisky and seek to reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine. I think these talk radio folks are feeling a paranoia that isn’t worth the energy.

The former Federal Communications Commission regulation was introduced back in 1949 to ensure that radio listeners and television viewers would not be prevented from hearing an unrestricted array of viewpoints from broadcasters It was retracted in 1987.

Let’s be realistic here … the broadcast world has changed dramatically since 1949, and substantially since 1989. A proliferation of informational resources, an explosion of technology, a vast number of broadcast outlets including over-the-air radio and television, satellite radio and television, cable TV and the Internet are available to the public now. Few of these options were around in 1949, and many were not a part of our lives 20 years ago. In the present media environment the federal government has little reason to police the airwaves to ensure that differing viewpoints are heard.

Reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine is not proposed to meet a need to force broadcasters to offer more viewpoints. If majority Democrats in Congress bring it back, it will be for a narrow and much less noble purpose. They want to silence conservative talk radio. This proposal is about limiting, not expanding diversity of opinions on the air. It wouldn’t be the first time. The Kennedy administration used the Fairness Doctrine to intimidate broadcast licensees they considered enemies. Richard Nixon used it similarly. They both enjoyed cover from a broadcast spectrum that was puny compared to what exists today.

I would welcome a debate over whether government needs to muzzle conservative talk radio to protect them against conservative talkers on the air. Exhibit A against the Fairness Doctrine would be the federal election just completed. The few cases brought before the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the Fairness Doctrine demonstrate that the Court has trended away from the theory that broadcasters need to be restricted. I’m confident the Court would find reimposition of this obsolete concept a de facto restriction on free speech.

If Democrats want to use the Fairness Doctrine to silence the opposition, I say bring it on.

So, it seems every dog owner in America is now weighing in on probably the most important issue surrounding the election of Barack Obama: what kind of dog will the Obamas get? Typical America: this is definitely the crucial issue facing our country right now (I’m only half-kidding). I have bad news, though, for the Obama family. The best two dogs in America are already taken.

The country seems to be captivated right now by first dog fever! The American Kennel Club is weighing in, saying the Obamas should get a poodle. PETA launched an all-out campaign to convince the Obamas to adopt a shelter dog, rather than pay for a purebred pooch. He even took time out of his first news conference since the election to address the issue, saying the most email his website is getting right now are suggestions of what type of dog he should get. I think he needs to hear from one more voice: mine.

Here’s my advice to President-Elect Obama and his family: skip the breeders and the purebreds and get a shelter dog. Get the dog that’s been there awhile, not the adorable puppy that will have no problem attracting a family. Get a dog that’s a few months - or a few years - old, because they’re already “broken in” and, again, there’s less a chance they’ll be adopted by someone else. Get the dog who meets your gaze with yearning, rather than the adorable puppy that mesmerizes you with tricks and soft fur. In other words, get dogs like mine.

We got Chewy from a shelter just a day or two before he would have been put down. He was anti-social and terrified in the shelter - and, he was already four months old. He didn’t look like a puppy. But, turning that dog into the adorable, lovable mutt he is today is one of my life’s greatest accomplishments. I’ve never met a more loving dog. We got Roxie this summer at another local shelter. She’s five years old - and, her family just never claimed her. She had been there a couple weeks and probably did not have much time left. No dog kisses and loves like Roxie. She’s loving and caring to a fault. She’s also very smart and protective - and, we could not have asked for a better companion for Chewy. You can see the picture - these dogs are in love.

Sorry, Obamas. You may get a great dog to scratch up the floors and furniture in the White House. But, America’s best dogs are already taken.