Earlier this week, noted Republican columnist George Will wrote an op-ed piece entitled "Republicans Need More Than Rhetoric on Defense," which appeared in the February 9 edition of the Washington Post. Among other topics, Mr. Will noted that - given the robust track record of President Obama's administration - it is becoming increasingly difficult to suggest that the current strategy has failed and that any of the suggestions made by Mitt Romney as to how he would manage foreign policy would improve our results in Afghanistan, Iran or any of a number of other areas.
Predictably, any praise for President Obama needed to be spun somehow into a negative by the right wing shepherds, lest the sheep rebel. Also predictably, one of the easiest places to find an anti-Obama retort was the Heritage Foundation's blog.heritage.org site.
In his response, "George Will Makes a Point on Defense", James Carafano concedes that Will is onto something (hence the title), but that the issue is that Republicans haven't explained (spun) the issue to Americans well enough. The issue? That the Obama administration has only kept the politically expedient portions of the Bush counterterrorism strategy and has let the rest lapse. You know, the old "Obama Hates America" rhetoric - he's going to make you think he's doing good to push his radical social agenda.
I could burn 5,000 words on a response to how idiotic this line of crap is, but many smarter and more well versed than me have said it much better than I ever could. However, Mr. Carafano decided to include a chart to illustrate just how great Bush foreign policy was and how the results under Obama are strictly because of procedures put in place by Bush & co. And naturally, the sheep ate it up.
Here's the thing....he missed something pretty damned interesting. Take a look at the chart below:
Click here for a larger image
Notice that the chart (as well as Carafano's article) indicate that from 1987-1991, there were substantially more terrorist attacks against the U.S. than at any other time. Actually, the entire 1980's was pretty damned bad, but the 1989 and 1991 peaks put those years over the top. Throughout the 1990's, it plummeted...dramatically, only to spike again in the early part of the next decade.
So, basically, anyone without a radical anti-Obama slant would interpret this chart as clearly illustrating that Reagan and Bush both really sucked at counterterrorism, only to see Clinton make nearly a 90% improvement from the peak of the HW Bush years. When W. Bush took office, we see a massive spike - over 200% in the first year alone, peaking in 2004 - the worst year for terrorist attacks since 1991.
Granted, the 2nd Bush presidency saw really low numbers for terrorist attacks, but only after he, Cheney and Rumsfeld stripped everyone's civil liberties to do it. Still, the chart suggests that Republican Presidents suck at preventing terrorism and Democrats - like with everything else - have had to come in and clean up the mess.
Again - the source was the Heritage Foundation. You can't make shit up like this....
As much as I wish I could take full credit for this gem, the blogging credit goes to my husband, Joel (Mr. Kel). He showed me the chart and told me his spin on it and I requested he put it into words for the Daily Hurricane readers.
Predictably, any praise for President Obama needed to be spun somehow into a negative by the right wing shepherds, lest the sheep rebel. Also predictably, one of the easiest places to find an anti-Obama retort was the Heritage Foundation's blog.heritage.org site.
In his response, "George Will Makes a Point on Defense", James Carafano concedes that Will is onto something (hence the title), but that the issue is that Republicans haven't explained (spun) the issue to Americans well enough. The issue? That the Obama administration has only kept the politically expedient portions of the Bush counterterrorism strategy and has let the rest lapse. You know, the old "Obama Hates America" rhetoric - he's going to make you think he's doing good to push his radical social agenda.
I could burn 5,000 words on a response to how idiotic this line of crap is, but many smarter and more well versed than me have said it much better than I ever could. However, Mr. Carafano decided to include a chart to illustrate just how great Bush foreign policy was and how the results under Obama are strictly because of procedures put in place by Bush & co. And naturally, the sheep ate it up.
Here's the thing....he missed something pretty damned interesting. Take a look at the chart below:
Click here for a larger image
Notice that the chart (as well as Carafano's article) indicate that from 1987-1991, there were substantially more terrorist attacks against the U.S. than at any other time. Actually, the entire 1980's was pretty damned bad, but the 1989 and 1991 peaks put those years over the top. Throughout the 1990's, it plummeted...dramatically, only to spike again in the early part of the next decade.
So, basically, anyone without a radical anti-Obama slant would interpret this chart as clearly illustrating that Reagan and Bush both really sucked at counterterrorism, only to see Clinton make nearly a 90% improvement from the peak of the HW Bush years. When W. Bush took office, we see a massive spike - over 200% in the first year alone, peaking in 2004 - the worst year for terrorist attacks since 1991.
Granted, the 2nd Bush presidency saw really low numbers for terrorist attacks, but only after he, Cheney and Rumsfeld stripped everyone's civil liberties to do it. Still, the chart suggests that Republican Presidents suck at preventing terrorism and Democrats - like with everything else - have had to come in and clean up the mess.
Again - the source was the Heritage Foundation. You can't make shit up like this....
As much as I wish I could take full credit for this gem, the blogging credit goes to my husband, Joel (Mr. Kel). He showed me the chart and told me his spin on it and I requested he put it into words for the Daily Hurricane readers.
Of course, it should be noted that this has become standard conservative strategy on every issue. Boil conservative rhetoric to its core and it sounds appealing. It's a lot like one of those late night infomercials. You look at that contraption you put on your head to cut your hair without the barber and you think "wow, that's cool!'. Then, you realize you are using a vacuum cleaner to cut your hair. Suddenly, it doesn't make as much sense as it once did.
Trickle down, hardass immigration policies, and the patriot act sound really good at first. It resonates with the asshole in all of us. Suddenly, you remember that these things never worked and never will work. Moreover, they don't jive with the better angels of our nature. There has always been an internal struggle within the collective soul of America between the realization that all of us our better off when most of our better off and the me, me, me, me mindset. All of these graphs and charts show us one thing. We are never better off when we focus on me. We are always better off when we focus on us. The right will continue to appeal to the selfish part of our soul and they will have to manipulate every piece of data to make it happen because we always lose when we are selfish. They know that deep down, but they have long given in to the selfish portion of their souls. We must not.
I'm in the camp that thinks this chart is probably meaningless. Does anybody else suspect anything that purports to measure terrorist attacks was probably highly political in the first place...? And as other commenters have mentioned, even if the data was accurate, it doesn't mean because we had a switch in the presidency, that CAUSED an increase or decrease in "terrorism", and that the effect was immediate. Just as Republicans shouldn't claim this chart means anything, Democrats shouldn't either.
The right could also argue a lag in policy effect but the chart is confounding.
Silly me. I keep forgetting that nowadays politics isn't about logic, reasoning, and what's best for the country. It's all about scoring points for the select few who can afford to play and to hell with the rest of us.
Meaningless isn't the same as ineffective, though.
(One rhetoric course under my belt :-\ )
Drawing conclusions from charts like this is a tricky business. Note that the authors do not define what was retained from the Bush policies, what was discarded by Obama and what may have been added by Obama. Heck, I can argue that the drop in terrorist activity is attributable to the elimination of waterboarding and other types of torture under the new policies and not from the retention of a Bush policy from just looking at a chart. You can even argue the drop is because of enhanced TSA searches of kids and little old ladies.
Without defining the issues, this chart is meaningless.
Then you AND Joel deserve applause.