Tyndale University Buckles to Pressure From 'Social Justice' Activists, Cancels George W. Bush Speech

All someone has to do is scream "war criminal," and university administrators will cave. And this is a Christian institution.

At The Blaze, "CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY CANCELS GEORGE W. BUSH SPEECH AMID STUDENT & FACULTY PROTESTS." And Blazing Cat Fur, "Michael Coren: Tyndale University Caves to Cultural Marxists Cancels George W Bush Speech":

NASA Aerial Video of 9/11

Via Israel Matzav:

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Paul Simon Sings 'Sounds of Silence' at New York 9/11 Ceremony

Via Blazing Cat Fur:

President Bush Reads Lincoln Letter at 9/11 Memorial Service in New York

Via Althouse, who publishes the text of Lincoln's letter:

September 11 Memorial Ceremony in New York

Bloomberg took heat for excluding clergy and firemen, but I'm sad I wasn't able to attend.

At New York Times, "Bush and Obama: Side by Side at Ground Zero":

For the first time on Sunday, President Obama and former President George W. Bush stood together at the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, listening as family members read the names of lost love ones and bowing their heads in silence to mark the moment the planes hit.

In May, Mr. Bush declined Mr. Obama’s invitation to join him at ground zero after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. But on this morning, they stood shoulder to shoulder — commanders in chief whose terms in office are bookends for exploring how the United States has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, particularly in its response to terrorism.

The tableau was striking: the president who spent years hunting Bin Laden next to the one who finally got him. The president defined by his response to Sept. 11 standing alongside the one who has tried to take America beyond the lingering, complicated legacy of that day.

Mr. Obama read from Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength,” which an aide said he chose because it spoke of perseverance. Mr. Bush, the wartime leader, read a letter from Abraham Lincoln to a widow who was believed to have lost five sons in the Civil War.

More at that link above, and at Memeorandum.

And at Althouse, "President Bush, reading Lincoln's letter at the 9/11 ceremony in NYC."

Myth and Reality After 9/11

From Victor Davis Hanson, at National Review:

Why did radical Islamic terrorists kill almost 3,000 Americans a decade ago?

Few still believe the old myth that U.S. foreign policy or support for Israel logically earned us Osama bin Laden’s wrath. After all, the U.S. throughout the 1990s had saved Islamic peoples from Bosnia and Kosovo to Somalia and Kuwait. Russia and China, in contrast, had oppressed or killed tens of thousands of their own Muslims without much fear of provoking al-Qaeda.

Moreover, thousands of Arabs have been killed recently, but by their own Libyan and Syrian governments, not Israeli Defense Forces. Al-Qaeda still issues death threats to Americans even though its original pretexts for going to war — such as U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia — have long been irrelevant.

On this ten-year anniversary of 9/11, no one has yet refuted the general truth that bin Laden tried to hijack popular Arab discontent over endemic poverty and self-induced misery. In cynical Hitlerian fashion, al-Qaeda’s propagandists sought to blame the mess of the Arab Middle East on Jews and foreigners, rather than seeking to address homegrown corrupt kleptocracies, inefficient statism, indigenous tribalism, gender apartheid, and religious fundamentalism and intolerance ...

More at that link.

George W. Bush, National Geographic Interview: Remembering 9/11

I've been thinking about President Bush. I love him. Not a perfect president, especially on limiting the size of government, but he was the right president to lead the country in the war on terror. And for that he has my enduring gratitude.

This is a surprisingly comprehensive and fascinating interview. Watching the footage and photos from that day, I am reminded just how blessed our country was to have him during this time of tragedy and grief. It's difficult for some to admit, but his leadership and calm helped move us through one of the most difficult times in our country's history.

George W. Bush Speech at Shanksville Flight 93 Memorial

Watch President Bush in full at Gateway Pundit, "George W. Bush at Flight 93 Memorial: “One of the Lessons of 9-11 Is That Evil Is Real and So Is Courage” (Video)."

Ari Fleischer Remembers 9/11

This is an extremely fascinating discussion, from Alexis Garcia, at Pajamas Media, "PJTV: Ari Fleischer on 9/11 and the Fog of War." I'm struck by Fleischer's discussion of signalling to President Bush, upon first learning of the attacks, when he was still at the Florida elementary school, that he wasn't to go public with announcements or statements that the U.S. was under attack:

Progressives Take Aim at Bush Tax Cuts

No surprise Ed Schultz is mouthing talking points from the Soros-funded Think Progress smear machine. Schultz just came back from his suspension after attacking Laura Ingraham as a "right-wing slut." And here he is going off about exploding deficits and lost jobs, blah, blah. Is there a prize for being too obvious? The Anthony Weiner ethics disaster is just some foul topping for all the horrendous economic news of late, and Democratic prospects for 2012 are simply getting hammered. It's the smell of desperation, and it stinks.

[VIDEO TAKEN DOWN]

Here's Think Progress, "Ten Years Of The Bush Tax Cuts." And here's Joan Walsh, who just got beaten up on Twitter over her attacks on Andrew Breitbart and Weinergate, "Happy anniversary: Bush tax cuts turn 10." Folks can go back and forth on this forever. The truth is that higher taxes stifle initiative and entrepreneurship, and small businesses are among the hardest hit. Besides, no single variable explains current growth trends, least of all the first round up Bush tax cuts on 2001. As Mark Murray points out, "Judging the Bush tax cuts -- 10 years later":

Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, has a different take on the Bush tax cuts.

Edwards says the 2001 cuts (which included lower individual tax rates) turned out to be less effective than the later ones enacted in 2003 (on dividends and capital gains). "Bush's cuts were half and half in my view."

He also contends that it's too simplistic to extrapolate from the last 10 years that tax cuts -- in general -- don't work. "So much goes on in the economy," Edwards said, referring to external events, trade policies, and spending. "Clinton's higher tax rate doesn't prove any kind of relationship."

The current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls are continuing to bet on lower taxes. In his speech at the University of Chicago today, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed decreasing individual income-tax rates to just two levels: 10% and 25%; 35% is the current top level. And he also called for a lower corporate-tax rate.

"Growing at 5% a year -- rather than at the current level of 1.8% -- would net us millions of new jobs," Pawlenty said. "How do we do it? In short, we create more economic growth by creating more economic freedom."

See also Martin Feldstein, at Wall Street Journal, "The Economy Is Worse Than You Think":

The policies of the Obama administration have led to the weak condition of the American economy. Growth during the coming year will be subpar at best, leaving high or rising levels of unemployment and underemployment.

The drop in GDP growth to just 1.8% in the first quarter of 2011, from 3.1% in the final quarter of last year, understates the extent of the decline. Two-thirds of that 1.8% went into business inventories rather than sales to consumers or other final buyers. This means that final sales growth was at an annual rate of just 0.6% and the actual quarterly increase was just 0.15%—dangerously close to no rise at all. A sustained expansion cannot be built on inventory investment. It takes final sales to induce businesses to hire and to invest.

The picture is even gloomier if we look in more detail. Estimates of monthly GDP indicate that the only growth in the first quarter of 2011 was from February to March. After a temporary rise in March, the economy began sliding again in April, with declines in real wages, in durable-goods orders and manufacturing production, in existing home sales, and in real per-capita disposable incomes. It is not surprising that the index of leading indicators fell in April, only the second decline since it began to rise in the spring of 2009.

The data for May are beginning to arrive and are even worse than April's. They are marked by a collapse in payroll-employment gains; a higher unemployment rate; manufacturers' reports of slower orders and production; weak chain-store sales; and a sharp drop in consumer confidence.

How has the Obama administration contributed to this failure to achieve a robust and sustainable recovery?

The administration's most obvious failure was its misguided fiscal policies: the cash-for-clunkers subsidy for car buyers, the tax credit for first-time home buyers, and the $830 billion "stimulus" package. Cash-for-clunkers gave a temporary boost to motor-vehicle production but had no lasting impact on the economy. The home-buyer credit stimulated the demand for homes only temporarily.

As for the "stimulus" package, both its size and structure were inadequate to offset the enormous decline in aggregate demand. The fall in household wealth by the end of 2008 reduced the annual level of consumer spending by more than $500 billion. The drop in home building subtracted another $200 billion from GDP. The total GDP shortfall was therefore more than $700 billion. The Obama stimulus package that started at less than $300 billion in 2009 and reached a maximum of $400 billion in 2010 wouldn't have been big enough to fill the $700 billion annual GDP gap even if every dollar of the stimulus raised GDP by a dollar.

In fact, each dollar of extra deficit added much less than a dollar to GDP. Experience shows that the most cost-effective form of temporary fiscal stimulus is direct government spending. The most obvious way to achieve that in 2009 was to repair and replace the military equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan that would otherwise have to be done in the future. But the Obama stimulus had nothing for the Defense Department. Instead, President Obama allowed the Democratic leadership in Congress to design a hodgepodge package of transfers to state and local governments, increased transfers to individuals, temporary tax cuts for lower-income taxpayers, etc. So we got a bigger deficit without economic growth.

More at the link.

The bottom line is that the economy will continue to stagnate until the Democrats cut spending and lower taxes to spur entrepreneurship and investment.

CIA Detainees 'Produced Enormous Amounts of Valuable Intelligence Information' in Decade-Long Manhunt for Osama Bin Laden

Two key updates on the waterboarding controversy.

First, Weasel Zippers has the longer version of the clip below. Secretary Rumsfeld has clarified his messaging: "Part Two: Yes, Waterboarding Helped Get Osama""

Rumsfeld says waterboarding "absolutely" produced enormous amounts of information intelligence. And be sure to check that link to Weasel Zippers, which includes a segment from O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo," smacking down Alan Colmes.

And the Los Angeles Times has a careful analysis and complex analysis of the evidence-gathering process, and credits the coercive interrogations at Guantanamo as providing the initial clues about Bin Laden's courier, "Trail to Bin Laden began with CIA detainee, officials say":

An Al Qaeda suspect who was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques at a secret CIA prison in early 2004 provided a clue, the nom de guerre of a mysterious courier, that ultimately proved crucial to finding Osama bin Laden, officials said Wednesday.

The CIA had approved use of sleep deprivation, slapping, nudity, water dousing and other coercive techniques at the now-closed CIA "black site" in Poland where the Pakistani-born detainee, Hassan Ghul, was held, according to a 2005 Justice Department memo, which cited Ghul by name. Two U.S. officials said Wednesday that some of those now-prohibited practices were directed at Ghul.

Ghul was not waterboarded nor subjected to near-drowning, the most notorious interrogation technique and one that critics describe as torture.

Two other CIA prisoners — Al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his successor, Abu Faraj Libbi — gave their interrogators false information about the courier after they were waterboarded repeatedly, U.S. officials said.

Those lies also played a role in the decade-long manhunt, however. Over time, they were viewed as evidence by CIA analysts that Bin Laden's top deputies were trying to shield a figure who might be a link to the Al Qaeda leader's hide-out, according to U.S. officials briefed on the analysis. "The fact that they were covering it up suggested he was important," a U.S. official said.

In the end, intelligence gleaned from interviews with numerous detainees, high-tech eavesdropping and surveillance, and other investigative spadework provided insights on people close to Bin Laden. No one source or bit of intelligence was so decisive or critical that it instantly solved the puzzle or ended the painstaking hunt for the world's most wanted terrorist, officials said. They stressed that none of the three most critical pieces of information — the courier's name, the area of Pakistan in which he operated and the location of the compound in which Bin Laden was living — came from detainees.

The nuances of that complex chain of events were often lost Wednesday amid a renewed public debate about the efficacy and morality of coercive interrogations that the CIA carried out under President George W. Bush.

"I think the issue has been mischaracterized on both sides," said a former CIA official who was involved in internal debate over the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques program at the time. "The people who say 'enhanced interrogation techniques' directly led to catching Bin Laden are wrong, and the people who say they had nothing to do with it are also wrong."

That closing remark there is probably about the best we're gonna get. Waterboarding was a key factor, but not the decisive factor. No one source was crucial; the range of methods and our ability to use them was central.

George W. Bush Speaks at 4% Project on Driving Economic Growth

At LAT, "Bush defends taxpayer bailout of Wall Street":

Calling the TARP decision one of the biggest quandaries of his term, the former president says he has no regrets about it. Speaking at a Bush Institute conference in Dallas, he waves off speculation about his legacy.

And at Dallas Morning News, "George W. Bush calls for backing off government involvement in padding economy":

People can spend their money better than the government can, former President George W. Bush told a receptive audience at an economic conference hosted by his policy institute Tuesday.

“It's a cornerstone of a lot of debate that's going on in Washington,” Bush said, referring to the showdown between the White House and Congress over spending.

Bush made the remarks at the beginning of a two-day conference hosted by his policy institute at SMU.

“Some of the people here helped pass tax cuts. Some helped me form free trade agreements,” Bush said, adding that one of his toughest decisions was the move to bail out Wall Street.

Bush defended that decision but said government involvement should be unwound as quickly as possible.

The conference launched a three-year Bush Institute initiative called the “4 percent Project.’’ Institute officials say they will examine the public and private sector actions necessary to drive gross national product by 4 percent annually.

Institute officials acknowledged that goal may seem daunting in the current economic environment. “While 4 percent annualized GDP growth might seem a stretch, it can be achieved,’’ according to Bush Institute materials prepared for the conference.

“With modern information and industrial technologies, as well as deep capital investment in productivity tools across the economy in every industry, the United States can grow much faster than economists currently predict – as long as the best policies are in place,’’ the materials said.

John Yoo at David Horowitz's West Coast Retreat, April 3, 2011

I have a new essay at NewsReal Blog, "John Yoo at West Coast Retreat: Obama Has Made Us Less Safe."

Professor Yoo hammered the Obama administration’s foreign policy. President Obama has, he said, in attempting to dismantle the legal framework of the Bush administration’s anti-terror program, made Americans less safe. Not only did Obama attempt to shutter Guantanamo, but under his watch more than a quarter of the enemy combatants released from detention have returned to the field of battle. Professor Yoo indicated that the nature of the war on terror has changed significantly since the first few years after September 11. Al Qaeda has become increasingly decentralized as a terrorist organization, and transnational recruitment in the U.S. and Europe is a growing source of combatants for the next wave of operations. There are less likely to be large-scale attacks along the lines of 9/11, and more like that of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner two Christmases ago.

More later ...

Libya and the Anti-Intervention Left

From Jamie Kirchick, at World Affairs Journal:

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson argues that the campaign against Muammar Qaddafi represents the height of hypocrisy. Because the United States is abstaining from taking military action against other regimes in the region that are also using force to quell domestic uprisings—namely, Bahrain and Yemen—“all the homilies about universal rights and freedoms” are bunk. The war in Libya “isn’t about justice,” Robinson says, “it’s about power.” Far from arising out of some neoconservative impulse to spread democracy, he argues, the military action against the Libyan regime is rather an example of “realism” ...

The guiding principle of American foreign policy should be to support freedom overseas, when we can, where we can, and however we can. There are no firm rules by which this principle can be implemented. Libya, however, presented a rather obvious case: a murderous dictator who had the blood of many thousands of innocent people—including American citizens—on his hands, who had fomented instability in his region, and who had for many years been a leading sponsor of international terrorism, was suddenly confronted by a mass domestic insurgency. He reacted violently, in a way that rendered moot whatever economic benefit he was providing to the West. He all but announced his intention to commit genocide against his own people, stating that he would “cleanse Libya house by house,” practically rendering international intervention a legal imperative due to the stipulations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to which the United States is a signatory. Furthermore, from a basic practical standpoint, and unlike in Yemen and Bahrain, Libya is located on the periphery of Europe, meaning that continued strife would have resulted in a mass refugee exodus onto the shores of NATO states. By assisting an indigenous revolt, and not partaking in the dread warfare of the sort that liberals like Robinson so fervently opposed in Iraq, the United States and its allies were given a prime opportunity, the sort of opportunity that arrives once in a blue moon, to overthrow a despicable regime and implement something better in its stead.

More at the link.

Kirchik is a great writer.

Botched Neocon Wars? Hardly

Ideological simplification is one of the biggest problems we're seeing with all the intense debate over Libya and the wider "Arab Spring." One example is Andrew Sullivan's little piece that stops just short of slamming neocons as fascist. Sully draws on C. Bradley Thompson's recent book on neoconservatism, but amplifies the implications without the theoretical context. For background, see Thompson's recent piece, "Neoconservatism Unmasked." It's pretty abstract, but if Thompson's right, there's a lot in my personal philosophy that's at odds with the neoconservative program hypothesized there. That said, much of the current debate over intervention in Libya hinges on the argument that the Iraq war was a colossal blunder of world historical proportions. It's the progressive meme that the Bush administration blew the mission after the initial post-conflict phase of operations. The photo-op on the USS Abraham Lincoln came to symbolize the hubris of an administration many argued was hell-bent on war and profanely dismissive of international norms. There's no convincing ideological partisans otherwise, of course, so it's probably not worth it to make the effort. Yet real-world events have repeatedly shown that the Bush administration's foreign policy was frequently masterful and often quite successful. There's been a long slide in Afghanistan's political efficacy, which is why we're still there today, after ten years of war. But in Iraq, the lodestar for progressive attacks on the "Bush-Cheney cabal," the revolutionary changes in the Middle East have elevated Baghdad to regional diplomatic prominence. See New York Times, "Ready or Not, Iraq Ascends to Take Helm of Arab Bloc":

BAGHDAD — After Libya was suspended from the Arab League last month, de facto leadership ended up coincidentally in the hands of Iraq, the Arab nation with the most experience — much of it painful — with a foreign-led military campaign against an unpopular dictator.

For all of that still unsettled pain, the foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari — in his new capacity as head of the Arab League — rushed off to Paris last Friday evening to join Western and Arab allies, where he argued passionately in favor of action against Libya, citing the American no-fly zone in northern Iraq that protected the Kurdish population from Saddam Hussein in the years before the American invasion here, according to a senior official who took part in the Paris deliberations.

And soon, Iraqi leaders, who are facing their own protest movement, plan to use their own troublesome democracy, still bloody and inchoate, as a showcase for Middle East countries. Iraq is taking on a larger diplomatic role in regional affairs as host of the group’s annual summit meeting — while assuming the rotating presidency of the league — in May.

“If there’s a political message, it’s that Iraq is back to play a major and positive role in the Arab region,” said Labid Abawi, the deputy foreign minister who has led a committee to prepare Baghdad for the summit meeting.

“We take pride in that Iraq has already exceeded all these other Arab countries in establishing a democratic regime,” he said. “Now, we can say yes, we are on the right track, and other Arab countries can follow suit in establishing a democratic regime.”

There's more at the link, but I want to reiterate the point above: No amount of evidence, not even Iraqi testimony on the country's democratic consolidation, will wrest from idiot progressives the claim that toppling Saddam Hussein was a debacle. It's all they have, along with endless allegations of racism and the demonization of Israel. And to respond to simpleton Mike Tuggle, who asked if I'd lost my "'neo-conservative illusions' as a result of the botched Neocon Wars?," the answer is no --- because I don't have any illusions to lose.

Bring Bush! Libyan Rebels Beg U.S. to Bomb Muammar Gaddafi

At Pamela's, "Libyan Protesters Beg for Bush: 'Bring Bush!'":

Has Katie Couric bit off her tongue yet? Not to worry, the jihadists she so enthusiastically defends and abets will do it soon enough.

Just as the world is undergoing a seismic shift in the arab regimes and dictatorships, the American media landscape is desperately in need of a revolution. The old media must be overthrown.

You'll notice that Reuters buried the lede.

"Bring Bush! Make a no fly zone, bomb the planes," shouted soldiers

Imagine that. Ayatollah Obama has achieved what would have been thought to be impossible: worldwide calls for the return of George Bush. They pleaded for Bush in Iran, too, when they were being slaughtered in the street while Obama ....... ate ice cream.

This Day in History: Inauguration of President Ronald Reagan

Exactly 30 years ago today:

And see USA Today, "Ronald Reagan: A 'Folklore' President Who Led a Revolution":

Thirty years ago, Reagan was sworn in as president of a downbeat nation that elected him despite concerns about his age — at 69, he would be the oldest president in history at inauguration — and his ideology. Was he too hawkish toward the Soviet Union, too hostile to social safety-net programs?

Now his estimation by presidential scholars and the American people continues to rise, though skeptics say acolytes exaggerate his legacy.

In a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, nearly one-third of Americans predict history will judge him an outstanding president, double the number who held that view when he left office. Among modern presidents, only John Kennedy gets higher ratings.

A C-SPAN survey of 65 historians in 2009 ranked Reagan near the top tier of presidents, 10th of 42. A Siena College poll of 238 presidential scholars in 2010 put him in the middle range, 18th of 43, though he ranked in the top five for communication skills, leadership of his party — and luck.

His two terms marked "a clear turning of a chapter" from the Great Society liberalism of the 1960s to a new conservatism, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley says. And his personal connection to many Americans endures.

Adding to his story: surviving an assassination attempt with reassuring humor two months after his inauguration in 1981, and leaving the public scene in 1994 with a letter to the American people revealing his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

He was 93 when he died June 5, 2004.

"He's become a folklore president," says Brinkley, who edited Reagan's diaries. "He's as much Buffalo Bill or Kit Carson as he is Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson."

Admirers credit Reagan with ending the Cold War — he both increased defense spending by a third and embraced Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev— and reviving the economy. After the unhappy tenures of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, Reagan returned a sense of optimism and buoyancy to the White House.

"No matter what political disagreements you may have had with President Reagan — and I certainly had my share — there is no denying his leadership in the world, or his gift for communicating his vision for America," President Obama says in an appreciation written for USA TODAY.

"It was a hell of a record," says James Baker, who ran the campaign of Reagan's chief rival in the 1980 GOP primaries and then became Reagan's White House chief of staff and Treasury secretary. "What I mean is, you did have 25 years of sustained, non-inflationary growth. You had a restoration of the country's pride and confidence in itself. You had peace. What more could you ask for?"

Since Reagan left the White House in 1989, just about every Republican presidential hopeful has sought to claim his mantle, including those weighing bids for next year's nomination.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has co-produced a documentary of Reagan's life called Rendezvous With Destiny; he'll screen it in Tampico at the town's centennial celebration of its most famous son.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin routinely quotes Reagan in her Facebook postings. Indiana Rep. Mike Pence's paean to American exceptionalism recalls Reagan's oft-repeated description of the United States as a "shining city on a hill."

Read the whole thing.

The Sienna presidential poll is not to be trusted, as I reported earlier, "Who Are the 238 Presidential Scholars, Historians, and Political Scientists Polled for the SRI Presidential Rankings?"

I think the USA Today/Gallup rankings sound reasonable. And speaking of ranking, at CNN, "CNN Poll: JFK Remains Most Popular Past President." And Althouse has the nostalgia, "Half a century ago, the inauguration of JFK."

JFK died when I was two year-old. He'll always be one of my favorites, but Reagan and George W. Bush are tops for me.

George W. Bush: A Letter of Holiday Greetings

At Amazon's Kindle Post blog (via Glenn Reynolds).

Bush v. Gore

Ten years ago today.

Not too many legal bloggers back then, which is good with respect to Scotty Lame-ieux.

RELATED: George Will, "A Decade After Bush v. Gore."

Bush Beats Obama in Gallup's Latest Presidential Ratings

At Fire Andrea Mitchell, "George W. Bush Job Approval Rating Now Higher Than Obama’s on Gallup."

RELATED: "Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You."