30
Jan
People are already judging the Republicans based on what has transpired in the last week or so. James Joyner, who I admire a lot, has written an excellent piece over at Outside the Beltway. The problem he addresses is the issue of the Republicans being either obstructionist, or perceived as obstructionist, by not supporting some Obama policies. His main point is:
As I have opined before, the Democratic message will essentially be one of two things in 2010:
1. Obama’s accomplished X, Y and Z and showed the country the way forward, let’s give him leaders in Congress who can continue to deliver for the middle class, or,
2. Obama accomplished X, but he couldn’t accomplish Y and Z because the Republicans obstructed those measures to protect the special interests … let’s put partisanship behind us and elect leaders in Congress who can represent the common good.
One can understand the Republicans betting against #1, which won’t work unless the economy recovers. But in so doing, they seem to be writing the Democrats’ taglines for them on #2, the partisanship message. Of course, this is not necessarily an easy hand for the Democrats to play: they at once have to maintain the continued pretense/appearance of bipartisanship while at the same time attacking them for their non-cooperation.
Now, that is pretty much a given. That’s what Nancy Pelosi has basically done for the last decade. Blame everything on the Republicans. Even when she was in charge of Congress, she still blamed everything on Republicans. Needless to say, she had a massive assist from most media. However, that only works when people perceive her to be the underdog. She, read Democrats, can no longer blame any result on Republicans. They are the minority. So, to me, simply making the argument for #2 above only matters based on the outcome of the policy and a lot of luck. James goes on to add a chart of how policy, party, and outcome intertwine:
| Republican Vote | Policy Outcome | Political Result |
| Yes | Good | Obama Gets Credit, Republicans Nothing |
| Yes | Bad | Obama Gets Cover, Republicans Nothing |
| No | Good | Obama Gets Credit + Issue, Republicans Lose |
| No | Bad | Obama Gets Excuse, Republicans Get Issue |
The issue I have with that is that it’s just too simple. You can’t take every single policy/vote and simply lump it into an outcome and result based purely on the result. The example I cited was the current stimulus package. Initially, the whole world was for it. It had to be done. The economy was going to completely tank if it wasn’t done. Voting against it would be “bad” since the policy was “good”. However, as time has passed and people have had a chance to see the real thing, it’s not looking quite as good. There’s a lot of goofball pork in it. The people receiving previous bailouts are abusing them. The economy has only gotten worse since the previous bailout. These blank checks just aren’t looking quite as sweet. So, whereas a week ago this vote would have fallen into perception-wise row #3 with the Republicans handing the Democrats an issue for 2010, it’s now looking a lot more like row #4. Additionally, based on the previous bailout results, I think it’s already #4 and was the whole time sans media pressure. Which leads to the more important issue with this to me. Each issue represents a different moral tangent. Some issues will be ideologically neutral, others will fall squarely into the liberal versus conservative arena. What the Republicans can not afford to do with a media annointed saviour is abandon their core principals. If they do this, they cease to exist. On those neutral issues, like naming post office buildings and such, show some cooperation. But, if it’s obviously a liberal policy, oppose the hell out of it. Then, a new row evolves in James’ matrix, Obama gets issue, Republicans get cover.
There is a ton of gun control legislation evolving right now. This will be the perfect storm for my scenario. Protecting people from gun related crime is “good”. Dicking around with the Constitution to a lot of people is “bad”. So, where on the matrix does this issue fall? The media I’m sure will love Obama’s plan to rid the country of firearms. However, a huge majority of common people will be very uncomfortable I’m sure with losing a civil right. It will be an issue that will be painted as “good” by MSNBC, CBS, CNN, and the like, but will polarize the conservatives. If a Republican supports the legislation, they will be crucified regardless of how popular Obama is.
So, I don’t think the political scene is nearly as simple and neat as James, and a lot of people, want it to be. Whether the Republicans like it or not, they are now the minority party not because of how popular the Democrats have suddenly become. They are the minority party because when they were the majority, they forgot what they represented. Now, is not the time to worry about pandering to a popular president, it’s time to re-establish what their party represents. If they don’t, they will cease to exist until they do regardless of whether they are considered obstructionists or not.
28
Jan
Everywhere I turn, and I do mean everywhere, people are talking about bad times are. This morning I was reading a nice article in Sky and Telescope about how it would be cool to have leaders who were versed and educated in astronomy. Great concept. Can’t argue with that. However, I got stuck on one line:
Our current recession makes the 1961 downturn look tame.
Wavy blurring lines immerse me as I go back to 1961……
Well, can’t do that, I was born in 1962. So, I’ll just have to rely on historical data. You know, data is the stuff astronomers use to figure things out in space because we can’t go there to check it out ourselves. First, let’s look at unemployment since that seems to be a major “crisis” issue right now:
Unemployment from 1948 to 2008
In 1961 the unemployment rate never got below 6 %. It peaked around 7%. We had a spike in 2008, but for the most part it was less than 6%. In 1961, the GDP grew at a fairly normal rate of 2.3%. In 2007 ( last full year so far ), it grew at 2.0%. Although people cite home foreclosures being at record levels, that’s only in the sub-prime categories. The traditional rates are at very normal levels. They, in fact, lower than they were in 1961. The big difference is there was no sub-prime market to speak of in 1961. So, all in all, things aren’t much different than they were in 1961. The reality is that 1961 was not even a recession year. It was a year of recovering from a bad recession in the late 1950′s. This is the real deal. GDP in 1961 was growing, it’s not now. So, perception has apparently skewed over time as to when we actually had recessions and when things just weren’t quite as rosy as they are now. Now, if that’s happening to those who rely on data, imagine how much it’s happening with those that rely on rhetoric.
But, I do like the idea of stressting astronomy more in school. It’s a topic that is woefully under-stressed in school and I think stimulates a child’s mind more than anything else possibly could. When a kid’s mind is stimulated, it makes learning that much more fun.
26
Jan
One of Obama’s first actions is to restore the auto emissions waivers for several states that requested them under Bush. Bush said no, because mainly they were unenforceable. Those states include:
- California
- Connecticut
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- New Jersey
- New York
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Washington
Now, the issue I have would be better reflected with a map I think:
Now, I am going to assume the waiver applies to cars manufactured in those states. It would be kind of difficult to apply it to autos previously manufactured or manufactured outside of those states, which most cars are. Although the laws of demand would dictate the higher standards of the the consumers in California, the laws of the land probably would dictate selling to the lowest possible standard and letting the buyer deal with the states. In other words, it would be a lot cheaper for the average person I’m sure to buy their car on Ebay and go get it than to pay for a car modified just for California. And, as some of those states try to outdo each other pandering to the global warming hysteria, how will automakers deal with the potentially wildly differing requirements of each state?
Now, these state in my opinion could have really gone full radical and done something I would have gotten a real kick out of, banning combustion engines entirely. Now, that WOULD have changed the world. But, they didn’t do that. They are simply dicking around with emissions. Big fat hairy deal. All automakers have to do is knock off another 10 or 20 horsepower and they probably will satiate the enviro-whackos. I don’t see them pursuing this issue any more than they have now that they’ve made their statement. It’s just hard to do. All the automakers have to do is cruise down an interstate at 35 mph and they will get their 43.7 mpg. What no one can do is dictate how the average driver will drive their 43.7 mpg auto once they’ve got it. So, setting some bogus standard that determines what’s efficient or not is meaningless when you’ve got the intangible of human nature.
So, come you guys, do something real. If you don’t like the effects of burning gas, go full radical or just quit whining about it. Dicking around with standards ain’t gonna do squat. Go full radical, ban combustion engines!
16
Jan
On Tuesday we’ll hand over the reigns to the presidency to Barack Obama. Last night Bush gave his farewell address. Immediately people have been assessing Bush’s legacy. First of all, since media in general has a way of thoroughly abusing words, let’s examine the word “legacy” real quick-like:
leg⋅a⋅cy /ˈlɛgəsi/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [leg-uh-see] noun, plural -cies.
- Law. a gift of property, esp. personal property, as money, by will; a bequest.
- anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor: the legacy of ancient Rome.
- an applicant to or student at a school that was attended by his or her parent.
- Obsolete. the office, function, or commission of a legate.
- –adjective. of or pertaining to old or outdated computer hardware, software, or data that, while still functional, does not work well with up-to-date systems.
Now, we can immediately rule out definitions 1, 3, 4, and 5. The commonly accepted definition of legacy in this case is in fact “anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor.” I stress this for a reason that is probably obvious already. Bush’s legacy will be what our descendants think of Bush, not what we think of him. That would be our opinion of Bush. Now, since most media is rather loathe to admit to us that 99% of what they print and say are opinions, and not in fact, facts, they’re going to call it anything other than what it is. You have not seen one true expression of Bush’s legacy yet. Period. It’s impossible. You are seeing a lot of opinions of Bush. And, to say the least, there is nothing special about that. A lot of things in the future, some tangible and some intangible, will affect Bush’s legacy. There is no way on God’s green Earth these pundits can anticipate all the events and changing of attitudes over a period of time. In one year it will look one way, in five years totally another, in twenty, well, you get the picture. I’ll just wait it out and see what future generations think about Bush, if they ponder it at all. My gut feeling is Bush’s legacy will dominated by the events that occurred. All the rhetoric you hear now will be totally forgotten over time, as it is with every president. What is left are the major events and how they responded. So, let’s just see how the remnants of those events play out through the course of the next couple of decades and see how that affects Bush’s legacy.
Four years ago, the Associated Press and others in the press suggested it was in poor taste for Republicans to spend $40 million on President Bush’s inauguration. AP writer Will Lester calculated the impact that kind of money would have on armoring Humvees in Iraq, helping victims of the tsunami, or paying down the deficit. Lester thought the party should be cancelled: “The questions have come from Bush supporters and opponents: Do we need to spend this money on what seems so extravagant?”
Fast forward to 2009. The nation is still at war (two wars, in fact), and now also faces the prospect of a severe recession and federal budget deficits topping $1 trillion as far as the eye can see. With Barack Obama’s inauguration estimated to cost $45 million (not counting the millions more that government will have to pay for security), is the Associated Press once again tsk-tsking the high dollar cost?
Nope. “For inaugural balls, go for glitz, forget economy,” a Tuesday AP headline advised. The article by reporter Laurie Kellman argued for extravagance…….
According to the AP four years ago, things were so bad, Bush should feel guilty about blowing $46 million on his inauguration. Now, AP argues that Obama should have the most expensive inauguration ever. And, he’s obliging, with the cost somewhere around $160 million at this point.
Others took even further. Late 2004 also saw the awful tsunami that killed thousands of people. Some people took the opportunity to slam Bush’s inauguration in relation to that event as well:
So maybe we shouldn’t stand for it.
So I’ll open this for discussion:
- Should we try to start a groundswell (dare I say tsunami?) of popular support for scaling down the parties and sending the money to those in dire need?
- How can this be discussed and advocated free of partisan positions as something that active workers–those who really do get things done–from both Left and Right could accomplish together?
- Indeed, can it be done?
I can’t find where Paul Velleman went after Left2Right shut down, but I don’t see anything via Google where he’s shaming Obama over his inauguration.
Facts are that the economy is worse, we’re still in wars, and there are horrific humanitarian situations occurring all over the world. So, one has to ponder why AP and many others felt so compelled to shame Bush in 2005 and extol extravagance for Obama in 2009.
It’s called bias. It’s not so much of an issue to me that it exists, as it pretty much always has, but how overt and blatant it has become. Do people really feel comfortable with a one-sided media telling them what is news?
Sheez, people kept desperately trying to make Bush and Cheney into an incarnation of Big Brother. Why can’t they see the obvious? If “news” is so willing to re-write history based on their political views, you’ve got Big Brother
But, for what it’s worth, I supported Bush’s bash in 2005, and I’m all for Obama’s bash in 2009. It’s a feel-good event for the entire country whether you supported Obama or not. And, we need that as much now as we did in 2005.
14
Jan
Everyone is saying this has been a near-flawless transition:
I haven’t been quite as impressed.
- Bill Richardson had to withdraw his nomination due to pesky federal investigations. The investigation existed well before his nomination. How did they miss that?
- Eric Holder. His involvement with the Marc Rich pardon was such a deep secret that it emerged before Holder was even nominated. Now we’re finding out that Holder pushed for the FALN members commutation as well.
- The Rick Warren flap. I still don’t understand where that came from. Granted I’m sure Obama realized his personal pastor was damaged goods, but surely he personally respects others. Regardless, Warren’s history is well documented and they should have seen that he would offend a lot of people that voted for Obama.
- Leon Panetta as CIA director. Panetta’s background has been in the anti-CIA arena. His rhetoric recently has been very anti-intelligence gathering. It was obvious to me when I heard the name that this would raise eyebrows. How no one on the transition team couldn’t come to the same conclusion confounds me. My guess is they had no choice.
- Now, his pick to run the Treasury Department, Timothy Geithner, apparently had a flap with, get this, the Treasury Department, over not paying some withholding taxes for several years. He paid them once he knew he would be nominated. However, this makes his first recommendation to Barack Obama look almost silly, lower withholding taxes.
So far, I’m not terribly impressed. Most are hold-overs from the Clinton years. I have stated here in the past that the country was done wrong horribly by the Clinton cabinet. Only the cult status of Bill Clinton being protected as much as possible by the media kept his cabinet from becoming a political bloodbath. Otherwise, the policies of Janet Reno, Jamie Gorelick, and especially George Tenet created problems we are still dealing with today. Paul Rubin, Timothy Geithner’s mentor, has this financial meltdown all over him. His policies from 1997-1999 were followed IMMEDIATELY by a recession from 1999-2002. He is in the middle of the financial sector meltdown, being a board member for Citibank, which received billions in bailout funds, only to be broken up. Geithner’s ties to the meltdown and bailouts could get very contentious. Toss in the failure to pay his own taxes and it looks even worse. So, I am not at all impressed with the transition so far. Leon Panetta does not believe in torture or wire-tapping. How are we going to collect intelligence? That was the problem we had with Tenet. Eric Holder defends terrorists, just as Janet Reno demanded the protection of their civil rights. The “change” people expected is simply throwing out what we have for something even older that didn’t work in the first place.
Well, I have ranted more than once about the over-the-top expectations Obama allowed to fester during his campaign. I’ve also ranted how this is going to bite him in the butt eventually. Well, eventually’s already here apparently. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws’ director has sent an article to The Hill Blog lamenting Obama for not acting quick enough to legalize marijuana:
Rather than rebuff the public’s calls for drug policy reform, the new administration ought to be embracing it. After all, many of the same voters that put Obama in the White House also voted by wide margins in November to liberalize marijuana laws in two states — Michigan and Massachusetts — and in nearly a dozen municipalities.
They’re putting the gun to Obama’s head already. He’ll be sworn in next week.
It’s comforting to know that stoners now feel empowered.
I’ve got real issues with all this. Primarily, smokers are the new lepers. We can’t go in restaurants, public buildings, airplanes, or mass transit. We frighten the small children away. People fear they will die if they are stuck in the same room as us. It’s just gotten that bad. So, why do these stoners think society wants to contribute to the smoking epidemic by legalizing something new to smoke? Have they totally missed the cigarette and cigar hysterias of the last twenty-something years? Sheez, you’d have to be, well, stoned, to not know what’s going on.
But, if Obama does not legalize pot on his first day simply because a bunch of people lit one up and clicked repeatedly on change.org, they’ll be ready to jump ship and start whining.
That’s what I’ve been talking about. And, that’s what I expect to see a lot more of.
13
Jan
Saw this headline courtesy of Zogby:
Obama Enjoys 60% Favorable Ratings and Modest Expectations For A Quick Economic Recovery
It came with this chart among others:
| Very Favorable | Somewhat Favorable | Somewhat Unfavorable | Very Unfavorable | Not Sure | |
| Obama | 41% | 19% | 15% | 22% | 4% |
| Totals may not add up to 100% due to rounding | |||||
Sixty percent’s pretty dang good. However, I am kind of curious. When George HW Bush won in 2000, he was accused of stealing the election because Al Gore got more popular votes and Florida was so close they had to fling lawsuits all over the place to get it cleared up. By the time Bush took office, the damage was done. His popularity when he took office was only in the upper 50′s.
Due to an extreme event, his popularity would soar. Within a couple of years, it would slowly decline to what it was when he took office. Over time, it would drop to horrendous figures that made most major media giddy.
Contrasting that to Obama taking office as the annointed one of all media, it surprises me his numbers are not much higher than Bush’s were. I’m tellin ya’, the reality of Obama is not what the media is telling you. Unless he has some very big successes in very short order, things could get real ugly real quick. Of course, it should be noted that the most unpopularly elected president was Bill Clinton, who entered office at 49%. He actually left higher than he got elected with. However, people liked Congress then too.
13
Jan
Here we go. The members of the US Senate class of 2008 haven’t even been fully seated and we are already sepculating on 2010. CNN has already decided the Republicans are in trouble in 2010 simply because, get this, they had trouble in 2006 and 2008. Logical huh? Wikipedia references something called the Cook Political Report as the official word on what is going to happen in 2010. Their breakdown has it looking something like this:
| DEMOCRATS | 17 HELD SEATS | ||||||
| SOLID D (11) | LIKELY D (5) | LEAN D (1) | TOSS UP (0) | LEAN R (0) | LIKELY R (0) | SOLID R (0) |
| Lincoln (AR) | Boxer (CA) | Bennet (CO) | ||||
| Dodd (CT) | Reid (NV) | |||||
| Kaufman (DE) | Dorgan (ND) | |||||
| Inouye* (HI) | Murray (WA) | |||||
| IL (Obama) | Feingold (WI) | |||||
| Bayh (IN) | ||||||
| Mikulski (MD) | ||||||
| Schumer (NY-A) | ||||||
| NY-B (Clinton) | ||||||
| Wyden (OR) | ||||||
| Leahy (VT) | ||||||
| REPUBLICANS | 20 HELD SEATS | ||||||
| SOLID D (0) | LIKELY D (0) | LEAN D (0) | TOSS UP (4) | LEAN R (2) | LIKELY R (2) | SOLID R (12) |
| FL (Martinez) | KS (Brownback) | OH (Voinovich) | Shelby (AL) | |||
| Bunning* (KY) | Specter* (PA) | Coburn (OK) | Murkowski (AK) | |||
| Vitter (LA) | McCain (AZ) | |||||
| MO (Bond) | Isakson (GA) | |||||
| Crapo (ID) | ||||||
| Grassley* (IA) | ||||||
| Gregg (NH) | ||||||
| Burr (NC) | ||||||
| DeMint (SC) | ||||||
| Thune (SD) | ||||||
| TX (Bailey Hutchison) | ||||||
| Bennett (UT) | ||||||
Basically, it’s a pretty simple chart. If you’re a Democrat, you’ll likely win. If you’re a Republican, it could be a toss-up. For instance, it lists Kentucky as a toss-up because the sitting senator might be retiring. That’s based on actions Bunning made in 2007. In 2008, he’s running. That’s how accurate these things are at this point.
Most people are painting the Republicans in trouble primarily because of what happened two months ago. However, history tells them, and me, that things are probably not going to be as easy in 2010 as they were in 2008. There are several things people need to take into consideration before lumping the Democrats unbeatable forever.
- Most pundits, especially the slightly more liberal ones like ABC, CNN and MSNBC, predicted Democrat super-majorities based on the 2008 elections. That didn’t happen. In Kentucky particularly, the Republican Senator won and Obama lost. So, these coat-tails that some media have been assuming is there never has been in some places. The Republicans did surprisingly well in Kentucky given that Kentucky is a 2.5 to 1 Democrat state and the head of the Democrat ticket was being lauded by all media as the greatest candidate of all-time. Something went wrong somewhere.
- History has been brutal on the majority party during the first election following a presidential election. The wildly popular Bill Clinton had his legs taken out from under him in 1994. The exception noted by CNN and most people was 2002. However, there was an event in very late 2001 that affected the elections of 2002. Barring some catastrophe in 2009, I expect history to repeat itself for several reasons. Partially, in large part, because the “wildly popular” Bill Clinton was never truly “wildly popular”. The media just loved him. The majority of people in the United States did not. 43% of the vote just isn’t a terribly long coat tail.
- The dynamics of the 2008 election have been horribly abused by the media. Although the Democrats nominated someone farther to the left than is typically successful, the Republicans nominated a moderate that failed to capture the base of his own party. This left the Republicans putting more resources into the presidential race as the presidential candidate was unable to compete financially with the Democrat. As such, their efforts in the Senate races were not well coordinated or financed. In 2010 the Republicans will not have this distraction and typically outspend the Democrats. Whether people like it or not, money talks very loudly in local races. Expect a much more coordinated effort from the Republicans in 2010. Because:
- Obama is pro-civil rights to the point of being extremely anti-business. A lot of his views border on Marxism. Sure, I know that has been tossed around a lot, but it is true. What little legislation we’ve seen coming out of the House in 2009 so far has been pro-civil rights, anti-business. Even with the economy in the tank, the liberal arm of the Democrat party is in full socialist mode, attacking businesses. That will bite the Democrats very quickly.
- Nancy Pelosi is in charge of the House. She got to where she is as a one trick pony. However, that one trick is now biting her. Running on purely ethics issues and against “the worst president ever”, she now has neither issue to fall back on. In addition, she is as liberal or moreso than Obama, and purely committed to partisan politics. Her stance that no Democrat ever had anything to do with the economic mess we’re in now flying squarely in the face of reality should mean something more if the economic situation continues into 2009. A very simple campaign platform for the Republicans would be that this mess didn’t occur until the Democrats took over the House. If it’s not resolved by election time, look for a lot more people to believe that argument.
- Harry Reid is in charge of the Senate. His ineptness and flip-flopping on issues has not only confounded people outside of Nevada like myself, it’s apparently tiring people in Nevada to the point where some are questioning whether he can even hold his seat. Some pundits are even calling Reid the most vulnerable Democrat up for re-election. If Reid is vulnerable in 2010 as the Senate Speaker under the most popular elected president in the history of the world, something’s amiss. If his leadership is so out of touch that it jeapordizes his long held seat, that could present problems for the DNC in 2010.
- Balance of power. This country has been unkind to the party in power. Bill Clinton had it all of two years. George HW Bush had it for a few years and lost it as well in 2006. It would most likely have been earlier, but the dynamics of the 2002 elections were skewed, and the Democrats shot themselves in the foot repeatedly in 2004. By 2006, things returned to normal and the people voted for balance. I’m not saying we’ll have that balance by 2010, but I think people will be working towards it.
- Failed expectations. People set the bar way too high for Obama. He can’t meet all those expectations. It’s just impossible. He can do well. But, well isn’t good enough. Because of that, expect some backlash over time as people realize he is not the messiah. He’s not at this point even controlling his own party. As much as he preached bipartisanhip, Nancy Pelosi has put the screws to that already. I expect he’ll survive. But, expect some backlash with the constituency.
- Iraq. If the troops aren’t out of Iraq by 2009, look for serious backlash.
- Economy. If the economy’s not back on track in 2009, look for serious backlash.
- National security. Obama painted a picture by choosing Leon Panetta as CIA director. If there is a major terrorist issue in 2009 or early 2010, expect that to affect things.
- Scandals. A lot of the gains the Democrats made in 2006 and 2008 were based on self-inflicted wounds within the Republican party. However, those players are out of the spotlight and now we’re looking at Democrats such as Blago, William Jefferson, Sheila Dixon, and others.
I could go on and on. Each race will have its own dynamics. However, the bottom line to me is this could be 1994 all over again. The only question to me at this point is if the RNC is capable of capitalizing. Now, I’m moderate. However, I’m not moderate on any real issue. No one is. The Republicans hung their hat on conservative issues with Reagan, and that’s what got them in charge. Over time, people confused conservative values with a reliance on religious values. That eroded some of the base. Abuses of power, inept leadership, and in-fighting took them down. However, the culmination was running a moderate for president. He appealed to me to some degree, but wasn’t anything I could get real excited about. It’s hard to get excited about any moderate. That’s just the nature of the beast being open to any issue. When Clinton won, he had to be more moderate, but won on liberal views. When Bush II won, he won on conservative values but had to move to more moderate views as well. Now, Obama has won running on extremely liberal credentials but moved to the middle during his campaign, and I expect will lurch even moreso to the middle once the realities of his decisions hits him ( which I think they arlready have ). I think this is a lot of the reason for the second year curse that seems to hit most modern presidents. As the figurehead abandons the ideology that got him and his minions elected, the public revolts in the democratic way. Obama can not possibly remain as liberal as he ran and was perceived and be an effective president. He’s already abandoned several campaign issues ( we’ll be in Iraq a lot longer, his tax incentives will be moderated ). As such, I expect the revolt to begin in 2010.
That’s all I have to say about that. Today.
Apparently The Air Force is soliciting bids for the new Air Force One. They have asked Airbus for a bid.
The problem I have with that is that Airbus is a French company. The French didn’t really feel a need to help us much the last time we asked. What with the economy going down the tubes and all, the Air Force needs to help us, not the French.
Come on Obama, time to do the right thing. What say we use some of that incentive money to buy US stuff? Sure would go a long way towards getting things back on track here if we bought stuff we actually made ourselves. Bowing has the 727-200. It’s pretty dang big too. I say we put a caveat in the purchasing that whatever the Air Force decides to cart the President of the United States in, it has to be built in the USA.
