Bush Supporters Flail

I'm still shocked that neo-con Bush supporters are poo-pooing the Iranian uprising and claiming that somehow Obama has messed this whole thing up. During the entire eight years of the Bush administration, they were trying to promote a civil uprising against the government in Iran. Now that we have a full blown one going on right now, they seem annoyed by it.

I was listening to Dennis Miller Show yesterday and he was interviewing Mark Steyn. They both had a dour tone, that the situation is a bad thing. I don't have a transcript, but I wrote down some of the things they said. (Please note these are not exact quotes, but transcribed as best I can.)

Miller: The world seems like a much more fragile place, because the bus driver up front, President Obama doesn't have a stern look on his face.

(...)

Steyn: Iran has been to emboldened to act much more like a thug state such as Egypt and Syria. [Because of Obama's perceived weakness.]

(...)

Steyn: Iran has concluded that the US are no longer serious... They are pastsies, dupes, pushovers.

There's a civilian uprising against Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs! This is a dream scenario. What the hell are they talking about? The government got panicky and rigged the election, and the people are fighting back.

Today I was listening to Hugh Hewitt who had on the number one Bush apologist, Victor Davis Hanson. (Recorded from yesterday.) Again the tone was dour. VDH gets going:

Well now, we have the political correct version of that, which says we have no right to judge another culture, multiculturalism taken to the Nth degree. So we’re not judging, we’re not making any moral judgments. We’re just keeping out of it, and this thug is going to kill a lot of people, and then we’ll deal with him. This is, if anybody else did it, it would be considered heartless realism. But when Obama does it, it’s sort of a postmodern, ‘who are we to say what’s good and bad’?

Is that what Obama is saying? Who believes this shit? You can see the mind-set though. VDH can't seem to grasp that the President of the USA has the option of keeping out of a foreign country's business.

Warning, prepare the vomit bags, Hugh wants to talk about what their hero would do in this situation:

HH: I asked the question last hour, I’ll ask it of you, what WWWD, what would W. do? What do you think George Bush would have done by now?

VDH: Well, he would have given a statement like he did in Iraq, and like he said about Iran earlier. He would have said our hearts are with people who yearn for universal freedom, and then say it’s not predicated on any particular culture. It’s something we all share. And he would have come out, I think, pretty strongly. But you know, once you’ve apologized to a dictatorship, and you’ve said that we don’t meddle in the affairs of a dictatorship, and we’re sorry for what happened in the past, then you’ve sort of self-censored yourself. And that’s what Obama’s done, that he’s already predicated that he wouldn’t make, exercise moral judgment, and he wouldn’t meddle. He only meddles in democracies. So if it’s a democracy like Iraq, or it’s Uribe in Colombia, or if it’s Israel, then he will meddle and dictate and tell them what he thinks of them, but not an autocracy.

Good grief. Obama didn't apologize to a dictatorship. Speaking to the people, he acknowledged the hand of the US in a coup to overthrow the Iranian government in 1953. It's a universal grievance among Iranians. He was throwing them a bone. It's called diplomacy.

Bush's phony platitudes mixed with military threats didn't win over the people. The Bush supporters still can't get over that the people of the Middle East didn't hold him up as THE champion of freedom and democracy. It's killing them that: a) Maybe the people are running toward freedom without US help and b) Maybe Obama inspired them.

There was a time that I actually bought the neo-con program. I'm still kicking myself.

UPDATE: Allow me to qualify: I think Obamas running of the economy is terrible. However, I think this diplomatic initiative he began is worth a try.

UPDATE II: The neo-cons want Obama to start screaming about it, this is why it's better to keep a low profile.

IRAN ACCUSES US OF MEDDLING AFTER DISPUTED ELECTION

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of "intolerable" meddling in its internal affairs, alleging for the first time that Washington has fueled a bitter postelection dispute. Opposition supporters marched in huge numbers through Tehran's streets for a third straight day to protest the outcome of the balloting.

Green Collar Jobs Bust

I've said on this site many times that politicians and environmentalists are full of it when they tout all the "green collar jobs" boom that are going to come with new environmental regulations. The results will end up being the opposite. Bloomberg news has a case study with Spain:

The premiums paid for solar, biomass, wave and wind power - - which are charged to consumers in their bills -- translated into a $774,000 cost for each Spanish “green job” created since 2000, said Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at the university and author of the report.

“The loss of jobs could be greater if you account for the amount of lost industry that moves out of the country due to higher energy prices,” he said in an interview.

Spain’s Acerinox SA, the nation’s largest stainless-steel producer, blamed domestic
energy costs for deciding to expand in South Africa and the U.S., according to the study.

“Microsoft and Google moved their servers up to the Canadian border because they benefited from cheaper energy there,” said the professor of applied environmental economics.

The environmentalists have to be honest with this debate. I would have much more respect for them if they came clean and said, 'we want a cleaner environment, but it's going to cost us.' Instead they say the opposite.

Any layman knows that cheap energy fuels industry.

On a semi-related note: Dennis Miller made a good point on his radio show when he was interviewing Global Warming skeptic Steven Milloy this week. To paraphrase: Al Gore has invested his very life, and self-esteem into this issue. No matter what evidence is given, he simply can't give in because his entire life would crumble.

He's right. The madness will be going on for a long time, because it's more than just an issue to people, their essence of being depends on it. Like a religion. Try to point out inconsistencies in the Bible to religious people? It's pointless. They won't hear it.