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July
Don’t get caught flat-footed in front of the press! Below is a quick rundown of today’s “must reads.” – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary
The Morning Murmur – Monday, July 17,
20062, 2006
1. Israel briefly sends troops into Lebanon - Associated Press
Israeli ground troops entered southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases on
the border, a government spokesman said Monday, but rapidly returned to
Israel after conducting their military operations.
2. Wrong Airport - New York Sun Op-ed
"Instead of shutting down Beirut airport, how about shutting down Damascus
airport?" Instead of making Syria feel pain for attacking Israel through its
Hezbollah proxy, Jerusalem seems to be letting Damascus get off with no
penalty.
3. A New Alliance Of Democrats Spreads Funding - Washington Post
A year after its founding, Democracy Alliance has followed up on its pledge to
become a major power in the liberal movement. It has lavished millions on
groups that have been willing to submit to its extensive screening process
and its demands for secrecy. Some Democratic political consultants privately
fear that the sums being spent by alliance donors will mean less money spent
on winning elections in 2006 and 2008.
4. Senate Bill Creates Terrorist Loophole - Human Events
Just when the county is starting to make progress in the war against
terrorism, the Senate has passed a bill that would unilaterally disarm the
men and women on the front line. The only power they would be left with is
the authority to write a speeding ticket and watch the terrorist drive away.
5. The Reagan Myth - Wall Street Journal Op-ed
The Gipper's record is
being distorted to make President Bush look bad.
For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov
FULL ARTICLES BELOW:
1. Israel briefly sends troops into
Lebanon - Associated Press
By HAMZA HENDAWI and LEE KEATH
Associated Press Writers
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli ground troops entered southern Lebanon to attack
Hezbollah bases on the border, a government spokesman said Monday, but
rapidly returned to Israel after conducting their military operations.
Israel's six-day-old offensive against Hezbollah following the capture of
two Israeli soldiers has been primarily an aerial campaign, but government
spokesman, Asaf Shariv, said the Israeli army chief of staff confirmed that
ground troops had gone into Lebanon, if only briefly.
A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the information, said that a small group of Israeli troops
had crossed into Lebanon overnight to attack a Hezbollah position, but then
returned to Israel.
"There was a small operation in a very limited area overnight," the source
said. "That is over."
Israel has been reluctant to send ground troops into southern Lebanon, an
area that officials say has been heavily mined by Hezbollah and could lead
to many Israeli casualties.
Israel would also want to quickly withdraw from the area, rather than get
involved in a prolonged conflict like its 18-year occupation of southern
Lebanon that ended in May 2000. The bloody nature of the fighting at the
that time and the high number of casualties finally forced the government to
cave into public pressure to withdraw from southern Lebanon and end the
contentious occupation
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LEBANON_ISRAEL?SITE=FLROC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
2. Wrong Airport - New York Sun Op-ed
July 17, 2006
We rang a wise veteran observer of the Middle East scene yesterday only to
find him in a state of distress that Israel's actions in Lebanon were
playing into the hands of the enemy. Instead of making Syria feel pain for
attacking Israel through its Hezbollah proxy, Jerusalem seems to be letting
Damascus get off with no penalty, while retaliating instead against Lebanon.
"Instead of shutting down Beirut airport, how about shutting down Damascus
airport?" our source said.
Syria is now in the position of being able to boast all over the region that
had the newly free Lebanon allied with Iran and Syria instead of with
America, it would have escaped retaliation the same way that Iran and Syria
have. "You wanted Syria out of Lebanon?" the Syrians can say. "We left, and
look what happened. The Israelis bombed you, but they are afraid to bomb
us."
Israel, this individual said, is in danger of losing the credibility of its
strategic deterrence against Syria and Iran. Hezbollah wouldn't have
launched a raid into Israel and kidnapped the two Israeli soldiers without
the approval of Iran or Damascus. But the Syrians and the Iranians have felt
no penalty for that action. It's the Damascus airport, not the Beirut
airport, that is used as a point for transshipment of Iranian weapons to
Hezbollah. The government in Jerusalem said yesterday that it was
Syrian-made weapons that landed in the Israel's northern port city of Haifa.
The Jewish State defends its attack on the Beirut airport, along with its
naval blockade of Lebanon, as a way of ensuring that the captured Israeli
soldiers aren't spirited out of Lebanon. But the likeliest route out of
Lebanon is over land, to Syria.
If Israel bombs Lebanon to smithereens without defeating Syria or Iran,
there's a risk that Lebanon will be rebuilt after the war with Iranian
petrodollars, instead of by the funds that were starting to be generated by
a recovering free Lebanese economy. That, in turn, could put Lebanon under
greater Iranian domination and influence, in the same way that the West
Bank, Gaza, and Iraq are under Iranian sway.
Israel has plenty of experience dealing with Lebanon, and there are
officials within the Israeli government who understand the need to choke off
Hezbollah in Damascus rather than merely in Lebanon. Here's hoping Prime
Minister Olmert listens to them. Certainly the American government has
declared that Syria and Iran bear responsibility for the actions of
Hezbollah and Hamas. It is Damascus that is the strategic fulcrum between
Iran and Southern Lebanon. Any truce that is reached without solving the
problems in Damascus and Tehran will be merely a temporary ceasefire, not a
true peace.
http://www.nysun.com/article/36114
3. A New Alliance Of Democrats Spreads
Funding - Washington Post
But Some in Party Bristle At Secrecy and Liberal Tilt
By Jim VandeHei and Chris Cillizza
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 17, 2006; A01
An alliance of nearly a hundred of the nation's wealthiest donors is roiling
Democratic political circles, directing more than $50 million in the past
nine months to liberal think tanks and advocacy groups in what organizers
say is the first installment of a long-term campaign to compete more
aggressively against conservatives.
A year after its founding, Democracy Alliance has followed up on its pledge
to become a major power in the liberal movement. It has lavished millions on
groups that have been willing to submit to its extensive screening process
and its demands for secrecy.
These include the Center for American Progress, a think tank with an
unabashed partisan edge, as well as Media Matters for America, which tracks
what it sees as conservative bias in the news media. Several alliance donors
are negotiating a major investment in Air America, a liberal talk-radio
network.
But the large checks and demanding style wielded by Democracy Alliance
organizers in recent months have caused unease among Washington's community
of Democratic-linked organizations. The alliance has required organizations
that receive its endorsement to sign agreements shielding the identity of
donors. Public interest groups said the alliance represents a large source
of undisclosed and unaccountable political influence.
Democracy Alliance also has left some Washington political activists
concerned about what they perceive as a distinctly liberal tilt to the
group's funding decisions. Some activists said they worry that the
alliance's new clout may lead to groups with a more centrist ideology
becoming starved for resources.
Democracy Alliance was formed last year with major backing from billionaires
such as financier George Soros and Colorado software entrepreneur Tim Gill.
The inspiration, according to founders, was a belief that Democrats became
the minority party in part because liberals do not have a well-funded
network of policy shops, watchdog groups and training centers for activists
equivalent to what has existed for years on the right.
But the alliance's early months have been marked by occasional turmoil,
according to several people who are now or have recently been affiliated
with the group. Made up of billionaires and millionaires who are accustomed
to calling the shots, the group at times has gotten bogged down in disputes
about its funding priorities and mission, participants said.
Democracy Alliance organizers say early disagreements are first-year growing
pains for an organization that has decades-long goals. Judy Wade, managing
director of the alliance, said fewer than 10 percent of its initial donors
have left, a figure she called lower than would be expected for a new
venture. And she said the group's funding priorities are a work in progress,
as organizers try to determine what will have the most influence in
revitalizing what she called the "center-left" movement.
"Everything we invest in should have not just short-term impact but
long-term impact and sustainability," she said. The group requires
nondisclosure agreements because many donors prefer anonymity, Wade added.
Some donors expressed concern about being attacked on the Web or elsewhere
for their political stance; others did not want to be targeted by
fundraisers.
"Like a lot of elite groups, we fly beneath the radar," said Guy Saperstein,
an Oakland lawyer and alliance donor. But "we are not so stupid though," he
said, to think "we can deny our existence."
This article is based on interviews with more than two dozen Democrats who
are members of the alliance, recipients of their money or familiar with the
group's operations. None would speak on the record about financial details,
but all such details were confirmed by multiple sources.
Democracy Alliance works essentially as a cooperative for donors, allowing
them to coordinate their giving so that it has more influence.
To become a "partner," as the members are referred to internally, requires a
$25,000 entry fee and annual dues of $30,000 to cover alliance operations as
well as some of its contributions to start-up liberal groups. Beyond this,
partners also agree to spend at least $200,000 annually on organizations
that have been endorsed by the alliance. Essentially, the alliance serves as
an accreditation agency for political advocacy groups.
This accreditation process is the root of Democracy Alliance's influence. If
a group does not receive the alliance's blessing, dozens of the nation's
wealthiest political contributors as a practical matter become off-limits
for fundraising purposes.
Many of these contributors give away far more than the $200,000 requirement.
Soros, Gill and insurance magnate Peter Lewis are among the biggest
contributors, but 45 percent of the 95 partners gave $300,000 or better in
the initial round of grants last October, according to a source familiar
with the organization.
Democracy Alliance organizers say they are trying to bring principles of
accountability and capital investment that are common in business to the
world of political advocacy, where they believe such principles have often
been missing.
Wade declined to discuss the donors or the groups they fund. But, in an
interview, she described how the groups were chosen. Alliance officials
initially reviewed about 600 liberal and Democratic-leaning organizations.
Then, about 40 of those groups were invited to apply for an endorsement --
with a requirement that they submit detailed business plans and internal
financial information. Those groups were then screened by a panel of
alliance staff members, donors and outside experts, including some with
expertise in philanthropy rather than politics. So far, according to people
familiar with the alliance, 25 groups have received its blessing.
The goal was to invest in groups that could be influential in building what
activists call "political infrastructure" -- institutions that can support
Democratic causes not simply in the next election but for years to come.
Those who make the cut have prospered. The Center for American Progress
(CAP), which is led by former Clinton White House chief of staff John
Podesta, received $5 million in the first round because it was seen as a
liberal version of the Heritage Foundation, which blossomed as a
conservative idea shop in the Reagan years, said one person closely familiar
with alliance operations. CAP officials declined to comment.
Likewise, a Democracy Alliance blessing effectively jump-started Citizens
for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). It bills itself as a
nonpartisan watchdog group committed to targeting "government officials who
sacrifice the common good to special interests." Alliance officials see CREW
as a possible counterweight to conservative-leaning Judicial Watch, which
filed numerous lawsuits against Clinton administration officials in the
1990s. A CREW spokesman declined to comment.
The Center for Progressive Leadership and its president, Peter Murray, are
getting funding from the alliance and are seen by some as a potential leader
in training young activists on the left. While the center is still dwarfed
by conservative groups such as the Leadership Institute, alliance donors
have helped increase Murray's budget to $2.3 million, compared with $1
million one year ago, he said.
But Democracy Alliance's decisions not to back some prominent groups have
stirred resentment. Among the groups that did not receive backing in early
rounds were such well-known centrist groups as the Democratic Leadership
Council and the Truman National Security Project.
Funding for these groups was "rejected purely because of their ideologies,"
said one Democrat familiar with internal Democracy Alliance funding
discussions.
Officials with numerous policy and political groups in Washington said they
have reservations about the group's influence. Several declined to talk on
the record for fear of alienating a funding source.
But Matt Bennett, a vice president at Third Way, a centrist group that did
not receive funding in the first wave of endorsements, said he believes that
Democracy Alliance has merit. "It will enable progressives, for the first
time ever, to build a permanent infrastructure to beat the conservative
machine," he said.
Philanthropist David Friedman, an alliance partner and self-described
centrist, said that "as our portfolio grows, we will fund a broader range of
groups."
But some consider Democracy Alliance's hidden influence troubling,
regardless of its ideological orientation. Unlike election campaigns, which
must detail contributions and spending, most of the think tanks and
not-for-profit groups funded by the alliance are exempt from public
disclosure laws.
"It is a huge problem," said Sheila Krumholz, the acting executive director
of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. She noted that for
decades "all kinds of Democrats and liberals were complaining that
corporations and individuals were carrying on these stealth campaigns to
fund right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups. Just as it was then, it is
a problem today."
The exclusive donor club includes millionaires such as Susie Tompkins Buell
and her husband, Mark Buell, major backers of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
(D-N.Y.), and Chris Gabrieli, an investment banker running for the
Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Massachusetts this September. Mark
Buell estimated that about 70 percent of alliance partners built their own
wealth, while 30 percent became wealthy through inheritances.
Bernard L. Schwartz, retired chief executive of Loral Space & Communications
Inc. and an alliance donor, said the group offers partners "an array of
opportunities that have passed their smell test." This is most helpful, he
said, for big donors who lack the time to closely examine their political
investment options.
Trial lawyer Fred Baron, a member of the alliance and longtime Democratic
donor, agreed: "The piece that has always been lacking in our giving is
long-term infrastructure investments."
There also are a few "institutional investors" such as the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) that pay a $50,000 annual fee and agree to spend
$1 million on alliance-backed efforts.
Some Democratic political consultants privately fear that the sums being
spent by alliance donors will mean less money spent on winning elections in
2006 and 2008.
But Rob Stein, co-founder of Democracy Alliance, said the party will become
ascendant only if it thinks beyond the next election cycle.
Stein has closely studied the conservative movement -- often with envy.
Armed with a PowerPoint presentation for potential donors, he argues that
Republicans dominate the federal and many state governments because they
methodically made investments in groups that could generate new ideas, shape
public opinion, train conservative activists and elected officials, and
boost voter turnout among conservatives -- aware that there was no near-term
payoff. Liberals have done nothing comparable, he said.
"It is not possible in the 21st century to promote a coherent belief system
and maintain political influence without a robust, enduring local, state and
national institutional infrastructure," Stein said. "Currently, the
center-left is comparatively less strategic, coordinated and well financed
than the conservative-right. These comparative disadvantages are
debilitating."
Cillizza is a staff writer for washingtonpost.com.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/16/AR2006071600882.html
4. Senate Bill Creates Terrorist Loophole
- Human Events
by Kris W. Kobach
Posted Jul 17, 2006
One important lesson our country learned on Sept. 11, 2001, is that state
and local police can make the difference between an unsuccessful terrorist
plot and an attack that kills nearly 3,000 people. But some in Washington,
D.C., still have not absorbed this lesson.
The immigration bill (S. 2611) approved by the Senate last month strips
local police officers of arrest authority that could have been used to stop
the 9/11 attacks.
In the aftermath of 9/11, we learned that five of the 19 hijackers had
violated federal immigration laws while they were in the United States. In
other words, they were illegal aliens. Amazingly, in the months before the
attack, four of those five terrorists were stopped by local police for
speeding. All four could have been arrested-if the police officers had
realized that they were illegal aliens.
These were missed opportunities of breathtaking dimension. They demonstrate
the crucial role local police can play in the war on terrorism.
The first case is that of Saudi national Nawaf al Hazmi. Hazmi entered the
U.S. through Los Angeles International Airport with a B2 tourist visa on
Jan. 15, 2000. He rented an apartment with fellow hijacker Khalid al Mihdhar
in San Diego and lived there for more than a year. In almost every instance,
however, the authorized period of stay for B2 visas is only six months.
After July 15, 2000, Hazmi was in the U.S. illegally.
Traffic Tickets
For nearly a year, he managed to avoid contact with law enforcement. Then,
on April 1, 2001, he was stopped for speeding in Oklahoma while traveling
cross country with fellow hijacker Hani Hanjour. Had the officer making the
stop asked a few questions and determined that Hazmi was in violation of
U.S. immigration law at the time, he could have arrested him.
Mohammed Atta, the Egyptian ringleader of the 9/11 attacks who was at the
controls of American Airlines Flight 11 when it crashed into the World Trade
Center, provides the second case.
Atta entered the U.S. on numerous occasions, using B1 and B2 visas, which
are for temporary visits for business purposes and for tourism,
respectively. His first entry was on June 3, 2000, through Newark Airport.
He, too, was unable to avoid contact with local law enforcement.
On April 26, 2001, a police officer in Broward County, Florida, stopped Atta
for a traffic violation and ticketed him for possessing an invalid driver's
license. The officer did not know Atta had overstayed his visa on a prior
visit to the U.S. Within days of this stop, Atta obtained a valid Florida
driver's license, despite his prior illegal presence in the country. He
failed to appear in court for the April 26 ticket, however, and a bench
warrant was issued for his arrest.
On July 5, 2001, Atta was pulled over for another traffic violation in
Florida-this time in Palm Beach County. The police officer was unaware of
the bench warrant issued by the neighboring jurisdiction. He issued a
warning to Atta, then let him drive away.
The third case is Hani Hanjour, the Saudi who was at the flight controls of
American Airlines Flight 77 when it hit the Pentagon. Hanjour entered the
U.S. on an F1 student visa on Dec. 8, 2000, through the Cincinnati airport.
He said that he intended to take classes at the ELS Language Center in
Oakland, Calif. His immigration violation commenced when he failed to show
up for classes. Thereafter, he was in the country illegally.
On Aug. 1, 2001, Hanjour was pulled over for speeding in Arlington County,
Virginia. The police officer who stopped him was unaware that Hanjour had
violated his immigration status. He issued the hijacker a ticket and let him
drive away.
The fourth case is Ziad Jarrah, the Lebanese man at the controls of United
Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
Jarrah entered the U.S. on June 27, 2000, through the Atlanta Airport on a
B2 tourist visa. He immediately violated his immigration status by going
directly to the Florida Flight Training Center in Venice, Fla. He never
applied to change his immigration status from tourist to student. He was
therefore detainable and removable from the U.S. almost from the moment he
entered the country.
Jarrah successfully avoided contact with state and local police for more
than 14 months. Then at 12:09 a.m. on Sept. 9, 2001, two days before the
attack, he was clocked doing 90 miles per hour on Interstate 95 in Maryland.
He was traveling from Baltimore to Newark to rendezvous with the other
members of his terrorist team.
The Maryland trooper did not know Jarrah had been attending classes in
violation of his immigration status. He also did not know Jarrah's visa had
expired more than a year earlier, a second violation of immigration law that
rendered him detainable and removable from the U.S. The trooper issued
Jarrah a speeding ticket carrying a $270 fine and let him go. The ticket
would be found in the glove compartment of the car, left at Newark Airport
two days later.
Civil, Not Criminal
In each of these cases, the police officers who stopped the 9/11 terrorists
could have easily determined their immigration status by calling the Law
Enforcement Support Center (LESC)-a facility run by the then-Immigration and
Naturalization Service in Williston, Vt. The LESC, which is open 24 hours a
day, seven days a week, is designed to let local police officers know if a
particular alien is legally or illegally present in the U.S.
Adding even greater poignancy to these missed opportunities is the fact that
they involved three of the four terrorist pilots of 9/11. Had the police
officers detained Atta, Hanjour, and Jarrah, they would have been out of the
picture. Moreover, Atta and Hazmi were the operation leader and the second
in command, respectively. It is difficult to imagine the attacks taking
place with three pilots and the leadership of the 9/11 cohort in custody.
However, if even one of the terrorists had been arrested, the plot might
have unraveled.
Importantly, all of these transgressions were civil, not criminal,
violations of federal immigration law.
In the wake of the attacks, the Department of Justice in 2002 announced an
Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion: State and local police officers have
the inherent legal authority to arrest any deportable illegal alien,
regardless of whether the underlying immigration offense is criminal or
civil. This conclusion had already been confirmed by the 10th and 5th
Circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeals.
Section 240D
Moreover, the OLC recognized that this authority had never been "preempted"
or displaced by Congress. The 10th Circuit held in the 2001 case of United
States v. Santana-Garcia that federal law "evinces a clear invitation from
Congress for state and local agencies to participate in the process of
enforcing federal immigration laws." Liberal interest groups such as the
ACLU fumed, but the legal authority was clear.
This Department of Justice announcement did not create any new authority-the
police had possessed it all along. But it did remind local law enforcement
agencies of the crucial role they could-and should-play in the war against
terrorism by making immigration arrests.
Police departments across the country responded by exercising their inherent
arrest authority with renewed determination. The number of calls to the LESC
by police officers who had arrested illegal aliens nearly doubled in the
next three years, to over 504,678 in fiscal year 2005. That was an average
of 1,383 calls a day.
Local police have beome a crucial force multiplier in the enforcement of
federal immigration laws.
Unfortunately, the Senate immigration bill would change all of this. Buried
deep in its 800 pages is a provision that most Senators probably did not
read. Section 240D would restrict local police to arresting aliens for
criminal violations of immigration law only, not civil violations. In other
words, if the Senate bill became law, Congress would exercise its power to
"preempt" state and local action and strip police officers of arrest
authority for civil violations of immigration law.
If the Senate bill had been in effect in 2001, none of the hijackers who had
violated immigration law could have been arrested by local police because
all of the hijackers had committed civil violations.
Moreover, as a practical matter, the bill would discourage police
departments from playing any role in immigration enforcement. Most police
officers (indeed, most lawyers) do not know which immigration violations are
criminal and which are civil. There is no particular logic to the
distinctions. Overstaying a visa (something hijackers from the Middle East
are more likely to do) is a civil violation, but marriage fraud is a
criminal violation. Which is more dangerous to national security?
Fearful of arresting the wrong type of illegal alien-and getting sued as a
result-many police departments would stop helping the federal government
altogether. And that is precisely what the ACLU and the American Immigration
Lawyers Association have wanted for years. The Senate bill gave them the
vehicle they needed.
Hidden Time Bomb
Section 240D is a hidden time bomb. The provision is not labeled "stripping
of local police arrest authority." Indeed, Section 240D is worded so that a
person reading the first few lines actually might think that the provision
enhanced, rather than diminished, the arrest authority of local police.
However, the wording of Section 240D sends an unmistakable message to the
courts: making arrests for criminal provisions of immigration law "has never
been displaced ... by Federal law," therefore making arrests for civil
provisions has been displaced. No other conclusion can be drawn from Section
240D's limitation of this authority to criminal violations only.
I recently testified about this terrorist loophole at the field hearings
held in San Diego, Calif., by the House Subcommittee on International
Terrorism. Articles in HUMAN EVENTS and other publications have also exposed
Section 240D for what it is.
So what do the drafters of the Senate bill have to say in defense of this
pernicious provision? Nothing intelligible. Asked about Section 240D by
HUMAN EVENTS Editor Terence Jeffrey, one Senate Judiciary Committee aide
tried to sell this line: "The committee provided a statutory basis for state
and local authority on criminal violations. The committee did not address
the issue of civil violations, thus maintaining current law."
Rubbish. The first hole in the aide's argument is that no "statutory basis"
is necessary for state arrest authority in criminal cases. The states'
arrest authority is inherent authority-it comes from the states' status as
sovereign entities. Moreover, the states' authority to make criminal arrests
in the immigration context has never been seriously contested.
The second, and more damning, problem with the aide's story is that it does
not reflect the way the courts have interpreted federal immigration law. A
fundamental principle of statutory interpretation, one routinely applied by
all courts, is "Inclusio unius est exclusion alterius." (The inclusion of
one is the exclusion of another.) Where a statute expressly describes a
particular situation in which it applies (i.e., criminal violations of
immigration law), an irrefutable inference must be drawn that what is
omitted was intentionally omitted (i.e., civil violations). Section 240D
would be interpreted by any court as stripping arrest authority from the
police in cases of civil violations. The Senate staffer was either ignorant
of this principle or he was attempting to mislead.
A basic rule for all terrorists is to avoid contact with law enforcement
officers. Each contact presents an opportunity for the officer to make an
arrest and derail the terrorist plot. If the Senate bill were to become law,
the power of police to take advantage of those opportunities would be
stripped away. Just when the county is starting to make progress in the war
against terrorism, the Senate has passed a bill that would unilaterally
disarm the men and women on the front line. The only power they would be
left with is the authority to write a speeding ticket and watch the
terrorist drive away.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=16048
5. The Reagan Myth - Wall Street Journal
Op-ed
The Gipper's record is being distorted to make President Bush look bad.
BY FRED BARNES
Monday, July 17, 2006 12:01 a.m.
I was recently asked about President Bush's chances of a political
resurgence. Might Mr. Bush be able to recover as strongly as President
Reagan did from a slump in his second term in the 1980s? My response was,
Reagan recovery? What Reagan recovery?
Though he continued his ultimately successful fight to win the Cold War,
Reagan achieved nothing new--practically nothing--after the Iran-contra
scandal broke in 1986. His presidency was crippled. The Republicans had lost
the Senate. His nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987 was
defeated, partly because of feeble White House support. His veto of a
transportation bill was overridden.
The question was innocent enough, but it reflected a broader pattern of
misrepresentation of Ronald Reagan's record in the White House that has
become not only widespread but widely accepted. Reagan was, I believe, one
of the greatest presidents of the 20th century, but many of the things that
both liberals and conservatives now credit to his presidency simply never
were. And there's a political purpose behind this Reagan revisionism. He is
cited mostly to criticize Mr. Bush and congressional Republicans for falling
short of some mythical Reagan standard.
Liberals pretend the Reagan years--in contrast to the Bush years--were a
golden idyll of collaboration between congressional Democrats and a
not-so-conservative president. When Reagan died in 2004, John Kerry recalled
having admired his political skills and liked him personally. "I had quite a
few meetings with him," Mr. Kerry told reporters. "I met with Reagan a lot
more than I've met with this president."
Of course, that wasn't Mr. Kerry's take on Reagan during his presidency: In
1988, he condemned the "moral darkness of the Reagan-Bush administration." A
chief complaint of liberals and the media in those days was that Mr. Reagan
was a "detached" president, not one easily accessible to Democratic members
of Congress or anyone outside his inner circle of aides. But Reagan had to
talk to Democrats on occasion since they controlled at least half of
Congress. Mr. Bush rarely consults them for the simple reason that
Republicans run all of Capitol Hill; so he talks frequently with Republican
congressional leaders.
Liberals today talk about Reagan as if the hallmark of his administration
was a lack of partisanship--again in contrast with Mr. Bush. Mr. Kerry noted
in 2004 that Mr. Reagan "taught us that there is a big difference between
strong beliefs and bitter partisanship." Mr. Bush, naturally, is the bitter
partisan. Of course that's what liberals then thought of Reagan--and they
were partially right: While never bitter, Reagan was in fact a partisan
Republican.
On foreign policy, some liberals peddle the notion that Reagan wasn't the
hardliner he might have seemed. Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New
York Times, has argued that Reagan, having won the Cold War, was ready to
rely on international organizations to police the world. Mr. Bush, on the
other hand, is impugned as the enemy of the U.N. and multilateralism.
Reagan a moderate in foreign affairs? It strains credulity to imagine the
president--who supported wars of national liberation in Nicaragua, Angola
and Afghanistan, who bombed Libya to punish Gadhafi, who defiantly installed
Pershing missiles in Europe, who invaded Grenada--as anything but a
hardliner. He was a hawk for whom defeating the Soviet Union was the
essential priority.
It's on foreign policy that liberals and conservatives find common cause.
Patrick Buchanan, rehearsing the pieties of the political left, argues that
Mr. Bush has turned the world against America. The "endless bellicosity" of
Mr. Bush and his neoconservative advisers, he recently argued, "has produced
nothing but ill will against us. This was surely not the way of the tough
but gracious and genial Ronald Reagan."
Of all people, Mr. Buchanan ought to know better, having served as Reagan's
communications director from 1984 to 1986. Reagan generated massive antiwar
and anti-American demonstrations around the world, far larger and more
numerous protests than those Mr. Bush has occasioned. He famously denounced
the Soviet "evil empire" headed for "the ash-heap of history." He was
treated by the press as a cowboy warmonger, just as Mr. Bush has been. Ill
will? Reagan produced plenty--all in a noble cause.
Conservatives attack Mr. Bush most vehemently on excessive government
spending, and there they have a point. He could have been more frugal,
despite the exigent circumstances, especially in his first term. But it's
also on the spending issue that the Reagan myth--Reagan as the relentless
swashbuckler against spending--is most pronounced. He won an estimated $35
billion in spending cuts in 1981, his first year in office. After that,
spending soared, so much so that his budget director David Stockman, who
found himself on the losing end of spending arguments, wrote a White House
memoir with the subtitle, "Why the Reagan Revolution Failed."
With Reagan in the White House, spending reached 23.5% of GDP in 1984, the
peak year of the military buildup. Under Mr. Bush, the top spending year is
2005 at 20.1% of GDP, though it is expected to rise as high as 20.7% this
year, driven upward by Iraq and hurricane relief.
Mr. Reagan was a small government conservative, but he found it impossible
to govern that way. He made tradeoffs. He gave up the fight to curb domestic
spending in exchange for congressional approval of increased defense
spending. He cut taxes deeply but signed three smaller tax hikes. Rather
than try to reform Social Security, he agreed to increase payroll taxes.
The myth would have it that Reagan was tireless in shrinking the size of
government, a weak partisan always ready to deal with Democrats, and not the
hardliner we thought he was. The opposite is true. Reagan compromised, as
even the most conservative politicians often do, to save his political
strength for what mattered most--defeating the Soviet empire and keeping
taxes low. Today, the latter still remains imperative, and the former has
been superseded by a faceless death cult. We can't understand George Bush if
we distort the real Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and author of "Rebel
in Chief" (Crown Forum, 2006).
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008665
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