Activism Works

Wind Advisory

I take no solace at all in Joe Biden. What difference does it make whether he’s Vice President? Does anybody in Washington not know Joe Biden’s opinion on any subject? But more importantly, advisors don’t make the President, the President makes the advisors. I wonder if people remember that the odious Dick Cheney served brilliantly as Defense Secretary in Desert Storm under the first President Bush. I didn’t vote for Bush I, but he was qualified for the job: former U.N. Ambassador (part of Nixon’s advance team to China), CIA chief, businessman, congressman and Vice President. The gifted Cheney has been a disaster serving under an unqualified President. So has Rumsfeld, whom I don’t recall disgracing himself as Gerald Ford’s SECDEF.

Reagan ‘chief operating officer’ James Baker of the Iraq Study Group spoke with Charlie Rose last year, contrasting the successful Reagan and Bush I advisory teams with the disastrous Bush II foreign policy team. Backstabbing, disunity, distrust, confusion, hallmarks of the Bush II fiasco team according to Baker, are rampant in the DNC. Look at Kennedy, Edwards, Brazille, Dean, and Obama himself. I do not believe this party can put together a coherent team behind a weak figurehead president?

Baker avoided the fiasco administration because he didn’t have the relationship with W. he had with his father and Reagan. Baker also spoke of Colin Powell, another Desert Storm superstar who flopped under W. Baker knew his (and Powell’s) extraordinary skills would be for nought under this particular C-in-C. One of the keys to Nixon’s foreign policy success was his ability to harness the talents of the diabolical psychopath Henry Kissinger, a liar and a backstabbing egomaniac who likely would have self-destructed under another President. That’s basically the President’s job: not to have advisors, but to handle the advisors.

Contrasting Cheney I under Bush I with Cheney II (blechhh!) under Bush II pretty much deep-sixes the theory that Biden makes up for Obama’s comely, cotton-tail allure to Putin, Germany, and other international predators.

This is the Executive Branch, not Congress. Many liberals profess love for our Constitution, but by the Constitution they mean the Bill of Rights. But the Bill of Rights is just one part of it. Our Constitution calls for a strong Chief Executive, subject to checks and balances, yes, but the Presidency was designed to be strong. A ‘Peter Pan’ figurehead setting some vague ’ vision’ for competitive, egotistical advisors, each with their own agenda and conflicts--the mess in the fiasco administration that Baker describes--that’s not the Founder’s design for our government. It’s not true to the spirit of our Constitution.

Labels: biden, bush, cheney, election, foreign policy, james baker, obama

posted by 10-K @ 1:29 PM (permalink)