California Conservative

I wasn’t able to watch the SOTU but I liked a number of things that I read in the President’s speech. Here’s the first thing that I really liked:

First, we must balance the federal budget. We can do so without raising taxes. What we need to do is impose spending discipline in Washington, D.C. We set a goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, and met that goal three years ahead of schedule. Now let us take the next step. In the coming weeks, I will submit a budget that eliminates the federal deficit within the next five years. I ask you to make the same commitment. Together, we can restrain the spending appetite of the federal government, and balance the federal budget.

There’s no other way to word this than say that it’s a shot across the Democrats’ bow. He says that we can balance the budget without increasing taxes but it will require spending restraint. I especially liked the part about setting the goal of cutting the annual deficit in half by 2009 and meeting that goal three years ahead of schedule. With tax revenues increasing and nonmilitary discretionary spending flat-lining, there isn’t a reason why we can’t balance the budget shortly after a new president is sworn in.

Next, there is the matter of earmarks. These special interest items are often slipped into bills at the last hour, when not even C-SPAN is watching. In 2005 alone, the number of earmarks grew to over 13,000 and totaled nearly $18 billion. Even worse, over 90 percent of earmarks never make it to the floor of the House and Senate – they are dropped into Committee reports that are not even part of the bill that arrives on my desk. You did not vote them into law. I did not sign them into law. Yet they are treated as if they have the force of law. The time has come to end this practice. So let us work together to reform the budget process…expose every earmark to the light of day and to a vote in Congress…and cut the number and cost of earmarks at least in half by the end of this session.

I’m all for ending anonymous earmarks but I wish President Bush had vetoed some of the earmark-laden bills, especially the Transportation bill a couple years back. If he’d vetoed that Transportation bill, we wouldn’t be dealing with Speaker Pelosi. Oh well. I hope they achieve the President’s goal of cutting earmarks in half by his next SOTU Address. Of course, I’d rather they be eliminated altogether but…

A future of hope and opportunity requires a fair, impartial system of justice. The lives of citizens across our Nation are affected by the outcome of cases pending in our federal courts. And we have a shared obligation to ensure that the federal courts have enough judges to hear those cases and deliver timely rulings. As President, I have a duty to nominate qualified men and women to vacancies on the federal bench. And the United States Senate has a duty as well: to give those nominees a fair hearing, and a prompt up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

Thank you, President Bush, for putting the heat on scoundrels like Sens. Leahy, Kennedy and Schumer. They’re in the majority but that doesn’t mean that they’re beyond the spotlight that a president can shine on their cheap political stunts. It’s time that this gang of scoundrels paid a price for their ultrapartisanship. I don’t kid myself into thinking that they’ll get defeated electorally. My wish is that President Bush shines the spotlight on them and makes their party pay a steep political price in 2008.

From the start, America and our allies have protected our people by staying on the offense. The enemy knows that the days of comfortable sanctuary, easy movement, steady financing, and free flowing communications are long over. For the terrorists, life since Nine-Eleven has never been the same.

TRANSLATION: I formulated a plan that’s protected us from additional terrorist attacks. My plan has brought distress and death to the terrorists’ pre-9/11 way of life.

Our success in this war is often measured by the things that did not happen. We cannot know the full extent of the attacks that we and our allies have prevented, but here is some of what we do know: We stopped an al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast. We broke up a Southeast Asian terrorist cell grooming operatives for attacks inside the United States. We uncovered an al Qaeda cell developing anthrax to be used in attacks against America. And just last August, British authorities uncovered a plot to blow up passenger planes bound for America over the Atlantic Ocean. For each life saved, we owe a debt of gratitude to the brave public servants who devote their lives to finding the terrorists and stopping them.

The list of our successes hasn’t gotten the publicity that it deserves but the list is lengthy. The wisdom of President Bush’s plan is beyond question, even though the radical left still attempts to debate its wisdom. This doesn’t radically alter the debate. It merely serves as another ‘tool’ in exposing the Left’s foolishness.

Every success against the terrorists is a reminder of the shoreless ambitions of this enemy. The evil that inspired and rejoiced in Nine-Eleven is still at work in the world. And so long as that is the case, America is still a Nation at war.

I said earlier that I didn’t watch the speech but I’d be surprised if Democrats didn’t frown when President Bush said that America is a nation at war. Fools like Speaker Pelosi, John Murtha, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama act as though America isn’t at war. They’ve told us that we should move out of Iraq as though there aren’t serious national and homeland security repercussions to quitting in Iraq when there are clearly troubles that would arise from their quitting.

In the minds of the terrorists, this war began well before September 11th, and will not end until their radical vision is fulfilled. And these past five years have given us a much clearer view of the nature of this enemy. Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists, possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology. Take almost any principle of civilization, and their goal is the opposite. They preach with threats…instruct with bullets and bombs…and promise paradise for the murder of the innocent.

TRANSLATION: Democrats can deny it all they want but ignored the threat Islamic jihadists posed throughout the 1990’s. Now President Bush is confronting the jihadists militarily and with the use of intelligence programs. President Bush is taking this responsibility seriously because he refuses to repeat the mistakes of the Bill’s and Hillary’s administration.

This is where matters stand tonight, in the here and now. I have spoken with many of you in person. I respect you and the arguments you have made. We went into this largely united, in our assumptions, and in our convictions. And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq, and I ask you to give it a chance to work. And I ask you to support our troops in the field, and those on their way.

Democrats didn’t vote for failure then but they’re invested in failure now because their hopes in 2008 are contingent on military failure in Iraq. If Iraq stabilizes, then Democratic presidential hopes will be dashed.

UPDATE: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee just approved a non-binding resolution by a 12-9 margin. It now goes to the full Senate to be debated.

Little Chuckie Hagel, (RINO-NE), voted for the resolution. Shame on him for that. I’m told he didn’t just vote against the President’s plan; he went off on another diatribe against Richard Lugar, (R-IN), who said that proposing this resolution wouldn’t be helpful to our allies and our troops.

If there are any GOP activists from Nebraska reading this, I beg of you to find a viable candidate to defeat this idiot in next year’s primary so we can have a genuine GOP senator representing Nebraska. We can’t afford to have idiots like this demoralizing our troops when they’re fighting the greatest war of our generation.

People who’ve read this blog know what I think about John Murtha. I have little regard for Murtha; I think less highly of Sen. Hagel. Murtha raised his ruckus because he wanted political power. Hagel is making his stink because he’s been critical of President Bush from Day One. Simply put, Hagel is a petty little man who isn’t qualified to be an elected official in any level of government.

Technorati Tags: President Bush, SOTU, National Security, GWOT, Iraq War, Porkbusters, Election 2008, Hillary, Obama, Murtha, Hagel

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Intel, Iraq, Judiciary, Military, Subversives, Terrorism, W, Why We Fight: Series. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.