Pawlenty, Rubio Leading on Foreign Policy

If you’re bothered by how little time was devoted to foreign policy in the GOP New Hampshire debate, by how Republican candidates seem to be reading the polls showing public fatigue of foreign intervention, or by the president’s muddled and inconsistent foreign policy, then you must watch Tim Pawlenty’s speech this week (transcript here). In fact, watch it no matter what your view of foreign policy is. The Gipper is no longer with us, but he is probably smiling somewhere if he heard this speech.

There are times when leaders must lead, rather than just follow public opinion polls, especially when it comes to matters of national security. Politics say to focus less on foreign policy and more on the economy at home, despite being in multiple wars and facing significant national security risks and opportunities. Maybe it’s because Pawlenty is struggling in early primary polls and needs to generate attention, but regardless, he is stepping up to the plate with a message of peace through strength:

Our enemies in the War on Terror, just like our opponents in the Cold War, respect and respond to strength. Sometimes strength means military intervention.  Sometimes it means diplomatic pressure.  It always means moral clarity in word and deed.

Everything we know about the extremist enemies we face tells us that they will not be impressed by a lack of American resolve and clarity. Leaving Afghanistan before its people are ready and able to reject extremist “strong horses” would risk losing the gains we have made there in the past decade, and would embolden our enemies. Perhaps even worse, leaving too soon would send a discouraging message to those around the world who need help seeking freedom:

The leader of the United States should never leave those willing to sacrifice their lives in the cause of freedom wondering where America stands.  As President, I will not.

Standing up for our values and our interests isn’t warmongering, and doing so doesn’t have to make us less respected. We have tremendous opportunities to create allies and stability in the world today, despite having perhaps missed past chances to support the cause of freedom in the Middle East. There is no better time to be on the right side of history than now:

No one in this Administration predicted the events of the Arab spring – but the freedom deficit in the Arab world was no secret.  For 60 years, Western nations excused and accommodated the lack of freedom in the Middle East.  That could not last.  The days of comfortable private deals with dictators were coming to an end in the age of Twitter, You Tube, and Facebook.  And history teaches there is no such thing as stable oppression.

Freedom will trump oppression, and we should continue to help that happen.

It’s not just Afghanistan that is causing foreign policy concern. Almost everyone seems to have problems with our involvement with Libya, but agree with it or not, we are involved. Senator Rubio offered a serious reminder of that reality, and advocated confronting the situation as it is:

No matter how you may feel about the original decision, we must now deal with the situation as it now stands. And the bottom line here is that if we withdraw from our air war over Libya, it will lengthen the conflict, increase its cost to American taxpayers, and raise doubts about U.S. leadership among friends and foes alike.

There are a few outspoken leaders with the courage to take difficult positions right now. Hopefully there will be more, and hopefully people will at least consider what they are saying.

Democrats Playing Budget Debate Game to Return to 2009

A Washington Post piece this weekend was a reminder that Congresswoman Pelosi is angling to regain her Speaker seat in 2013. Her plan to make up for the historic defeat she led her party to in 2010: “Medicare, Medicare and Medicare.” She’s not talking about preserving the quickly sinking trust fund or reforming the problematic SGR Medicare payment formula that was left out of the massive ObamaCare law. Nope, she’s talking about opposing any attempt to reform Medicare so that the Democrats can present themselves as the heroes of seniors.

For example, Senators Lieberman and Coburn have developed a bipartisan Medicare reform plan that proposes changes so minimal that even seniors having nightmares about Paul Ryan after seeing misleading ads about his plan can sleep easy:

The senators’ plan would save an estimated $600 billion over ten years and extend Medicare’s solvencey by “at least 30 years” by instituting a number of cost-saving structural reforms. These include:

• “Streamlining” the program by combining the Part A and Part B deductibles.
• Raising the age of eligibility from 65 to 67 by the year 2025 (a rate of two months each year) to reflect the dramatic increase in life expectancy since Medicare was passed (from 70.2 in 1965 to 77.7 in 2006).
• Means-testing requiring wealthy individuals to cover a larger percentage of their premiums and pay higher out-of-pocket costs. “We simply do not believe that tax dollars should be used to pay premiums for those who can afford to pay on their own,” Lieberman said.

Senator Reid and Congresswoman Pelosi both denounced the plan, begging the question of what reforms they would consider if not something so simple. None. And they think this is a winning approach for 2012. The games don’t stop with Medicare either.

In the debt negotiation, it’s convenient that the Democrats are proposing tax increases that would force Republicans to choose between raises taxes in a sluggish economy or being subjected to attacks on supporting oil companies and the wealthy. Nevermind that such tax increases would barely make a dent in the debt, which might be worse than we think.

Writing in today’s WSJ, former Federal Reserve governor Lawrence B. Lindsey has a chilling reminder about how normalizing interest rates would raise our debt to levels that would dwarf any reductions considered in budget negotiations at this point:

First, a normalization of interest rates would upend any budgetary deal if and when one should occur. At present, the average cost of Treasury borrowing is 2.5%. The average over the last two decades was 5.7%. Should we ramp up to the higher number, annual interest expenses would be roughly $420 billion higher in 2014 and $700 billion higher in 2020.

 

The 10-year rise in interest expense would be $4.9 trillion higher under “normalized” rates than under the current cost of borrowing. Compare that to the $2 trillion estimate of what the current talks about long-term deficit reduction may produce, and it becomes obvious that the gains from the current deficit-reduction efforts could be wiped out by normalization in the bond market.

He also points out that missing the White House’s economic growth projections by just one percentage point for one year would result in $750 billion more in shortages (more than the tax revenue increases Democrats are proposing), and that if we remain on our current growth trend, we could add $4 trillion more in debt. His proposal: addressing long-term entitlement spending. Too bad the current Democrat leadership won’t allow it.

You may not like Congressman Ryan’s plan, and you might not even like the much smaller plan offered by Senators Lieberman and Coburn, but if you believe that we indeed need to address entitlement spending to avoid unsustainable debt, then you should remember that a vote for the Democrats in 2012 is a vote to return to 2009 and 2010 with Reid, Pelosi, and Obama in charge and without a plan to save entitlements.

Romney vs. the Anti-Romney?

The GOP race may shape up to be one between Romney (or maybe Huntsman) and the non-Romney candidate, the latter being the one who can win over the conservative base that Romney is struggling with. The two main contenders for the non-Romney spot right now are Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty, but as George Will writes, Texas Governor Rick Perry could contend for that spot if he jumps in the race.

George Will’s profile of Perry is a positive one that should encourage any Perry supporters. Will points to Texas’ stellar jobs record, downplays the chances of making him look extreme, and suggests that Perry can win the social conservative voters:

Social issues, especially abortion, are gateways to the Republican nominating electorate: In today’s climate of economic fear, a candidate’s positions on social issues will not be decisive with his electorate — but they can be disqualifying. Perry — an evangelical Christian, like most Republican participants in Iowa’s caucuses and the South Carolina primary — emphatically qualifies.

The surging Michele Bachmann might be the other top non-Romney contender, if she can beat out fellow Minnesota contestant Tim Pawlenty. Congresswoman Bachmann’s New Hampshire debate performance has had people buzzing. People who watched that debate and have paid attention to her are not seeing the caricature that her opponents have tried to create, but a serious, articulate conservative with a compelling story.

The Weekly Standard has just done a thorough profile of Congresswoman Bachmann that everyone should read. A former Jimmy Carter campaign volunteer, Bachmann felt she was no longer a Democrat once she read Gore Vidal’s fictional account of the Founding Fathers. She was disappointed in how President Carter performed in office, and she fears President Obama’s term has been too similar. She and her husband also have a heartwarming story to tell about how they have opened their doors to many foster children.

Michele Bachmann, like Rick Perry, is a Christian who connects with the social conservative voters of the Republican party. She is also an ardent and unapologetic supporter of Israel, as John Hinderaker notes at Power Line. Hinderaker and co-blogger Scott Johnson are both familiar with Bachmann’s career, and Johnson also thinks highly of her. She isn’t surprising the people who have followed her political career, but how her political career started may have been unforeseen by Bachmann herself:

In April 2000, as the fight to overturn the Profile of Learning continued, Bachmann attended her local nominating convention for state senate. The incumbent, moderate Republican Gary Laidig, had 28 years’ experience. But he was increasingly out of step with the conservative families pouring into the St. Paul suburbs. As the convention began, Bachmann conversed with her fellow activists. Laidig had to go, they said. Someone suggested Bachmann run against him.

She didn’t know what to do. She was wearing jeans and tennis shoes and a sweatshirt with a hole in it. She’d had no business leaving the house that morning, she said.

But Bachmann went on stage and delivered a five minute speech on freedom. Then she sat down. “I’m sitting there, and I had to be neutral,” former Minnesota state GOP chairman Ron Eibensteiner told me in 2009. “But I’m thinking to myself, boy, would I love to have her run.” Laidig gave a speech, and the convention took a vote. Bachmann won a supermajority on the first ballot.

Bachmann, Pawlenty, and Perry (should he run), are all contenders to occupy the primary space to Romney’s right and could all challenge him for a piece of the center. One of those three could end up in a two-way contest with Mitt, and that would make for an exciting primary.

Obama’s Legacy: Exposing Fraudulent Bush Criticism

Victor Davis Hanson has an interesting post at the NRO Corner on the legacy of our current president. The hypocrisy of this and any other administration is well-known, and for this administration, the hypocrisy is particularly outrageous on war policies. One of the most significant outcomes of this administration’s hypocrisy is exposing the Bush-era criticism for what it really was:

Second, Obama has utterly embarrassed the entire liberal attack on the Bush’s administration’s efforts in Iraq and against terrorism. The venom between 2003 and 2008 was both cruel and nasty, and yet it was always presented as principled rather than partisan, not a grasp for power but the product of deeper respect for the American civic traditions. Now we see that entire era as a complete fraud — on matters of dissent, skepticism of the War Powers Act, Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, preventive detention, wiretaps, intercepts, Iraq, and predator targeted assassination. The hysterical commentary was never based on the merits of those acts, but simply because George Bush, a political opponent, embraced them. …

Some critics of George W. Bush made serious accusations of him based on his war policies, and many concluded prematurely that he was one of the worst presidents ever. It’s already clear what the hyperbolic charges against the former president were largely about.

Politics Drive Afghanistan Withdrawal

Apparently it’s not just the top lawyers who President Obama is overruling. General Petraeus reportedly wanted Afghanistan counterinsurgency troops to stay until the end of 2012, but the Commander-in-Chief announced last night that he would remove those troops a few months earlier, just in time for the 2012 election. Perhaps the president has a good argument for this, but instead of a national security one, he made it clear what his priority is:

Above all, we are a nation whose strength abroad has been anchored in opportunity for our citizens here at home. Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times. Now, we must invest in America’s greatest resource — our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industries, while living within our means. We must rebuild our infrastructure and find new and clean sources of energy. And most of all, after a decade of passionate debate, we must recapture the common purpose that we shared at the beginning of this time of war. For our nation draws strength from our differences, and when our union is strong no hill is too steep, no horizon is beyond our reach.

America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.

That probably sounds good to many people, considering the polls showing waning public support for the continued mission in Afghanistan. A lot of people might also agree with statements like the Afghan people are responsible for their own security, but imagine Reagan having said something similar to the people of Poland or the Philippines. The world might be a very different place had the United States had that attitude at such crucial times.

Politics won this time. The Afghanistan decision is not surprising, considering the president is in trouble heading towards an election year, and that he has wanted to be a domestic policy president from the beginning. Bob Woodward made it clear in his book about President Obama as a war president that the president was never particularly invested in the war he has led. Maybe some people are okay with that, but Peter Wehner sure isn’t. His reaction is a must-read [warning: language]:

For a wartime president to hold the mindset Obama does, which has resulted in a half-assed prosecution of the war, is among the more unsettling things I have seen in my career in politics. And so, I might add, is the transparent political calculation in Obama’s decision.

During the process leading up to the original Afghan surge, former National Security Advisor James Jones criticized the role of the “campaign set,” which he also dubbed the “Politburo” and the “mafia.” An Obama adviser told  the New York Times’  Peter Baker, “Our Afghan policy was focused as much as anything on domestic politics. [Obama] would not risk losing the moderate to centrist Democrats in the middle of health insurance reform, and he viewed that legislation as the make-or-break legislation for his administration.” And then there was Obama’s admission to Senator Lindsey Graham that the outcome of the review was based on partisan considerations. “I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party,” he reportedly told Graham.

Wehner’s expectations may not be fair, however, as he served for a president who was willing to go against his own party and public opinion to do what was necessary in a war. President Obama is not willing to go against the politics, especially when he has wanted to focus on domestic policy anyway. But sometimes, as President Bush proved with his Iraq surge and Reagan with his tough stances against the Soviet Union, we need a Commander-in-Chief who will make the difficult cases and decisions, particularly when it comes to protecting the country.

The good news is that there are candidates who are willing to make that case.

The President Overruled Two Top Lawyers on Libya

The New York Times reported this weekend that President Obama overruled his Pentagon general counsel and head of the Office of Legal Counsel in deciding his Libya policy. There had been questions about OLC’s counsel on Libya, and this story reveals an interesting process used by the president. To put the decision into perspective, see Jack Goldsmith’s commentary:

As Savage notes, the President has the authority under Article II to make legal determinations for the Executive branch.  The process by which he reached this decision, however, was very unusual.  The typical (and in my view best) process is for OLC to solicit the views of interested agencies and then offer its interpretation in a written opinion; then the President can, if he wishes, reject that considered OLC interpretation based on his independent judgment.  This process has the virtue of placing the presumptive legal decision in the office – OLC – that is institutionally best suited to provide relatively detached legal advice to the President as well as the advice most consonant with Executive branch precedents and traditions. …

Glenn Greenwald compares this decision to the Bush administration’s handling of wiretapping. It appears that both administrations were trying to establish a principle:

There’s another significant and telling parallel between Obama’s illegal war and the Bush eavesdropping scandal.  One of the questions frequently asked about the NSA scandal was why Bush and Cheney decided to eavesdrop in violation of the law rather than having Congress approve their program; in the wake of 9/11, both parties in Congress were as subservient as could be, and would have offered zero resistance to requests by the administration for increased eavesdropping powers (the same question was asked of Bush’s refusal to seek Congressional approval for the detention and military commissions regime at Guantanamo).  The answer to that question ultimately became clear:  they did not want to seek Congressional approval, even though they easily could have obtained it, because they wanted to establish the “principle” that the President is omnipotent in these areas and needs nobody’s permission (neither from Congress nor the courts) to do what the President wants.

It is less clear what principle the Obama administration is going for, and one must wonder what the Libya decision means for the lawyers who were overruled. Hugh Hewitt wonders if those lawyers will resign. Lawyers in the Nixon administration who were overruled left their posts, and the aforementioned Jack Goldsmith left the Bush administration over respectful disagreements, so it’s reasonable to wonder what will happen in the Obama administration as a result of the president’s handling of counsel on Libya.

Bachmann Shines, Romney Mostly Steady in New Hampshire Debate

With an expanded field of candidates that included Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann, the New Hampshire debate was stronger and more interesting than the prior one in South Carolina. While Mitt Romney maintained his strong contender status with a steady performance and without many attacks from other candidates, it was Michele Bachmann who stood out the most. And it wasn’t attacks from the right that separated Congresswoman Bachmann from most of the pack.

She was positive and articulate, especially about how her conservative views connect with a broad spectrum of voters. Her answer to a question about mainstream Republicans may have been the best of the debate:

[Question] Well, my question is that I am a New Hampshire native and I’ve been an active Republican for years from a town committee chairman, Republican chairman, Merrimack County , vice chairman, all the way up to

2004 delegate for President Bush.

My question is, how will you convince myself?  I’m not a libertarian Republican, I’m not a Tea Party Republican.  I’m just a mainstream Republican.  And we need both — the independents and mainstream Republicans to win in November.

How can you convince me and assure me that you’ll bring a balance and you won’t be torn to one side or the other for many factions within the party?  You have to have a balanced approach to governing to solve our serious problems.

…

BACHMANN: Terry, what I’ve seen in the Tea Party — I’m the chairman of the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives.  And what I’ve seen is unlike how the media has tried to wrongly and grossly portray the Tea Party, the Tea Party is really made up of disaffected Democrats, independents, people who’ve never been political a day in their life.

People who are libertarians, Republicans.  It’s a wide swath of America coming together.  I think that’s why the left fears it so much.  Because they’re people who simply want to take the country back.  They want the country to work again.

And I think there’s no question, Terry, this election will be about economics.  It will be about how will we create jobs, how will we turn the economy around, how will we have a pro-growth economy.

That’s a great story for Republicans to tell.  President Obama can’t tell that story.  His report card right now has a big failing grade on it, but Republicans have an awesome story to tell.

We need every one of us in a three-legged stool.  We need the peace through strength of Republicans, we need the fiscal conservatives, we need the social conservatives.  We need everybody to come together because we’re going to win.  Just make no mistake about it.

I want to announce tonight.  President Obama is a one-term president.

Congresswoman Bachmann has Tea Party and conservative credibility. No one doubts that. The question for her in a national race is if she can bring together her base with some of the centrists who may not normally gravitate to a strong conservative like her. The above answer and her overall performance in New Hampshire suggest she might, as she hit the nail on the head about the Tea Party and bringing together voters from the entire spectrum.

Many people who don’t know the Tea Party seem to believe some of the misconceptions about it, but it is indeed a “wide swath of America.” The Tea Party itself encompasses all three legs of the conservative stool, and that is potentially an advantage that Bachmann has in this race. If she can add some of the centrist voters to her conservative base, she could be a force to be reckoned with (and don’t look now, but Rasmussen shows that she could surprise with the independents).

The other candidate in his first 2012 debate appearance was Mitt Romney. Because Tim Pawlenty and others mostly avoided attacking Romney from the right, Mitt was able to keep the focus on Obama. Romney was stable with no major slip-ups, and he sounded both articulate and statesmanlike. The only answer that Romney provided that was of concern may have been this exchange on Afghanistan:

VOTER: Osama bin Laden is dead. We’ve been in Afghanistan for ten years. Isn’t it time to bring our combat troops home from Afghanistan?

…

ROMNEY: It’s time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can, consistent with the word that comes to our generals that we can hand the country over to the Taliban military in a way that they’re able to defend themselves. Excuse me, the Afghan military to defend themselves from the Taliban. That’s an important distinction.

I want to say, first of all, thank you to you for the sacrifice of your family and your sons in defending the liberty that we have and our friends around the world. Thank you for what you’ve done.

…

ROMNEY: Let me — let me continue. That is I think we’ve learned some important lessons in our experience in Afghanistan. I want those troops to come home based upon not politics, not based upon economics, but instead based upon the conditions on the ground determined by the generals.

But I also think we’ve learned that our troops shouldn’t go off and try and fight a war of independence for another nation. Only the Afghanis can win Afghanistan’s independence from the Taliban. Thank you.

First of all, other than CNN’s moderation of the debate, one of the few downsides was the very limited time given to foreign policy. That said, with the economy being the main focus for most voters right now, polls indicate a weak public stomach for continued military engagement in Afghanistan. Romney’s answer seems to reflect the national mood, but we need to be cautious.

Mitt spoke very well in the 2008 campaign about the wars, and he has demonstrated a strong understanding for the nature of the threats we face. While we all want to be able to reduce our military presence in Afghanistan, the situation there may require a longer presence than the public will tolerate right now, and a leader who is willing to point that out. Even with a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan similar to the successful one in Iraq, the circumstances in Afghanistan aren’t the same as they were in Iraq. Books like Lee Smith’s The Strong Horse suggest that it could take a while for a significant cultural change to occur there. Mitt seems to know this, but we should hope that he doesn’t simply play to the polls.

Otherwise, no one performed particularly poorly, but there is still room for another serious candidate or two in the field. If Governor Perry of Texas was watching, he has to be thinking that he could bring together the various constituencies of the center-right in a way that perhaps none of the other candidates can. For now, however, there is no reason for Republican and independent voters to feel disappointed about the GOP field.

Rick Perry: A Conservative Walking the Walk

With efforts to convince Chris Christie and Paul Ryan to run for the Republican nomination, and with President Obama playing the budget blame game, voters may be looking for someone who they can trust to actually get results. There are some accomplished GOP candidates, but here is one more potential candidate to consider: Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Not only is Governor Perry’s state leading the nation in job creation while the nation is looking for jobs, but the state is also cutting its budget under Perry’s watch. In healthcare, we’ve talked about tort reform that wasn’t included in ObamaCare; Governor Perry just added “loser pays” reform in Texas. Texas also has no state income tax and hasn’t added one during the recession. It seems like a lot of big economic reforms the country is looking for are happening at the state level in Texas.

Each major GOP presidential candidate has something to offer, but there are reasons for conservatives to be concerned about each. Surely there must be a reason for conservatives to stay away from Perry, right?  Immigration? Perry supports an immigration enforcement bill in Texas. Abortion? He recently signed a bill requiring sonograms for women seeking an abortion. More taxes? He just vetoed an online sales tax bill (Democrats in the Senate are pushing an online sales tax). He is hitting a lot of the right notes for conservatives. The only audible complaints about Perry right now are that his voice may sound like George W. Bush’s, and that he made some hyperbolic comments about state secession.

Governor Perry should run if he’s up for the challenge. He is doing what a lot of candidates are promising – walking the walk – and he has had success as a conservative governor of a large state. I suspect that if Governor Perry jumps in, he will be a serious contender for 2012.