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Opinion
THE
Press SHERIDAN Friday,
4
May 16, 2008
Israel is not a
freedom franchise,
Mr. President
Don't know why I bother. The man is leaving office in
eight months, his presidency noticeably marked by the
uneven tread of the lame duck. But so long as George W.
Bush is commander in chief, there remains something mesmerizing
about the way he seems to experience his momentous
tenure virtually unscratched, even ungrazed, by his
many brushes (collisions) with history.
I'm not suggesting callousness on his part regarding
American casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or
regarding American civilian casualties due to Islamic terrorism.
I think he feels such losses very deeply. In fact, I
think he feels everything very deeply. Whether the subject
is his feelings about Mexican illegal aliens, the war in Iraq
or on-off Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, I think
Bush's presidency, at its base, has been an emotional presidency,
more gut-driven and temporal
than attuned to anything like
that sweep of history you hear
about.
I point this out on reading the
president's remarks in Israel to
mark the 60th anniversary of the
nation's statehood.
"I suspect," Bush said, "if you
looked back 60 years ago and tried
Diana
West
Columnist
to guess where Israel would be at
that time, it would be hard to be
able to project such a prosperous,
hopeful land. No question people
would have said, well, we'd be surrounded
by hostile forces — but I doubt people would have
been able to see the modern Israel, which is one reason I
bring such optimism to the Middle East, because what happened
here is possible everywhere."
Let's run that last bit by again. The president says the
singular experience of "modern Israel" is one reason for
optimism in the Middle East "because what happened here
(Israel) is possible everywhere."
The jaw drops. On recovery, I suppose the most direct
response to this statement, better suited to a beauty-pageant
Pollyanna than a war-scarred president, is: No, Mr.
President. What happened in Israel is not possible everywhere.
Just for starters, what happened in Israel happened
to a people whose monotheism and ethics, as Martin
Gilbert writes in "Churchill and the Jews," was, in
Churchill's view, "a central factor in the evolution and
maintenance of modern civilization" — a central factor in
liberty and democracy as the West still knows it.
This is not, to understate the case, something that may
be said about the Islamic rest of the Middle East. Besides,
what happened in Israel — the modern incarnation of the
ancient Jewish nation that today enshrines freedom of conscience,
freedom of speech, rule of law, women's rights, etc.
— is also anathema (anti-Islamic) to the Islamic Middle
East, which to this day seeks or plots Israel's annihilation,
not in what has become a sham territorial dispute, but rather
to deny infidels (former dhimmis, to boot) a foothold in
what Muslims regard as once-Muslim land.
To President Bush, though, the un-Islamic conditions
culminating in an anti-Islamic event — 60 years of infidel
liberty — constitute a pre-fab democracy franchise that
might just as easily have opened up in Riyadh or Baghdad
as in Tel Aviv. I think he sees it this way because, emotionally,
he wants to see it this way.
So, why aren't we now celebrating 60 years of infidelstyle
liberty in Saudi Arabia or Iraq?
This must be an enduring puzzle to Bush, for just as he
seems blind to the singular qualities of Judaism that root
Israel within the Western tradition, he seems blind to the
equally singular (but not overlapping) qualities of Islam
that leave it outside. Distinguishing between the two traditions
is the height of political incorrectness, let alone shattering
to the multicultural vision of the Middle East that the
Bush administration has made the basis of its democratization
policy. All we need, the president will say just as he
told Politico this week, is "the advance of freedom throughout
the Middle East ... it's the best way to keep us secure."
Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, that
"advance of freedom" has mainly empowered Iran,
Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood — not my
idea of "secure." Of course, not my idea of "freedom,"
either. But we're supposed to forget the fact that Westernstyle
freedom is actually antithetical to Islamic law. In fact,
we're supposed to forget about Islamic law. Given the
administration's new lexicon that quashes most official references
to Islam, we're supposed to forget about Islam, too.
The president sure has. What happened here is possible
everywhere. What happened everywhere is possible here.
What's the difference when seeing what you want to see is
believing?
Diana West is a columnist for The Washington Times.
She is the author of "The Death of the Grown-up: How
America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down
Western Civilization," and has a blog at dianawest.net. She
can be contacted via dianawest@verizon.net.
Copyright 2008, Newspaper Enterprise Association
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Letters
City can afford tax cut,
but not fire, ambulance pact?
Editor:
Mayor Kinskey has offered a $36 tax cut on property
tax. With this cut, city residents would lose $632,000
in revenue.
City Assistant Clerk Mr. Badley has said, “If the tax
cut passes, the city will have to reduce its budget.”
What does this tax sneeze mean? Is this only election-year
vote pandering, or has the mayor sneezed,
and will the county catch the cold?
The last time this mayor declared a revenue shortfall,
the county residents lost ambulance and fire protection.
I find it interesting that the city could not afford to
continue the joint powers board fire and ambulance
agreement, but the city can vote to create a budget
shortfall.
A shortfall that, if the budget were reduced for the
city Public Works Department, might impact the
Sheridan Area Water Supply Joint Powers Board.
The city has never said that increased revenue from
ad valorem tax on CBM production would allow for a
mill reduction. Instead, the voters must believe this is
tax relief.
"What kind of America are we going
to leave to our kids?" The question is the
biggest cliche in American politics -- and
the least seriously addressed major issue.
Because, in fact, the now-retiring
baby boom generation is passing on to its
children an America buried in debt, woefully
short on savings and investment and
facing stupendous tasks we don't have
any idea how to finance.
The United States already ranks far
behind its major economic competitors in
health care outcomes, educational performance,
environmental quality and
national savings — threatening the country's
world leadership and standard of living.
The person who sounds the alarm
about all this better than anyone else —
and deserves to be vice president on
either party's ticket — is David Walker,
recently resigned as the head of the
Government Accountability Office and
now CEO of the Peter Peterson
Foundation.
A former Reagan administration official,
Walker ran — and transformed —
the GAO on an independent, bipartisan
basis. He couldn't deliver any state or
constituency, but he'd mark either party's
presidential nominee as a determined,
visionary reformer.
From a fusty agency specializing in
microanalysis and known as the General
Accounting Office, Walker gave GAO a
new name and turned it into a broadgauge
investigator of waste and a tireless
activist in the cause of economic sanity.
Along with representatives from the
Heritage Foundation, the Brookings
Institution and the Concord Coalition,
Vicki Taylor
Banner
Wants to recycle, but does not
like soaking label off bottles
Editor:
We were enlightened to have the recycling representative
come to Buffalo and speak of your new
program.
Because we in Buffalo do not recycle glass, milk
jugs nor No. 1 water/soda bottles, I bring them to
Sheridan. Up to this time, for the past 10 years, I
took them to Gillette as a matter of stewardship.
Having lived in several states over the past 25
years, I have experienced many responsible recycling
programs; however, they have not determined
labels need to be removed.
It is cumbersome having your sink filled every
day trying to soak off labels from bottles and jars.
Could you not include this task in your recycling
program as other municipalities have? I am sure you
would have a better response from residents.
Walker traveled the country on
a "fiscal wake-up tour" to make
people aware of the unsustainability
of America's long-term
finances.
The killer statistic that tour
participants emphasized was
that, by 2040, three federal programs
— Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid, plus
interest on the national debt —
are scheduled to consume 20
percent of gross domestic product,
or what the federal government
now spends for all its functions.
That's practically a dictionary definition
of "unsustainable." It means that the
next generation of workers will have to
have its taxes more than doubled.
In reams of reports and pungent
speeches, Walker has struck a loud series
of gongs about all levels of debt and
unfunded obligations, the challenges of
an aging population and the consequences
of inaction. He also outlined proposed
solutions — all politically difficult.
Walker's principal mantra is "no more
entitlement programs that are not paid
for." Last week he denounced congressional
plans to spend $52 billion over 10
years on a new GI bill guaranteeing college
benefits to veterans.
"No matter how laudable the purpose
or well-intentioned the program," he said,
"if it's that important, we ought to pay for
it."
He also declared the Medicare prescription
drug bill passed in 2003 "the
most fiscally irresponsible legislation in
decades."
The easiest-to-understand level of
Carole Shelby
Buffalo
"national debt" is "debt held
by the public" — the accumulation
of federal fiscal
deficits. This number has
climbed during the Bush
administration from $3.4
trillion to $5 trillion — or
36.8 percent of the gross
domestic product.
According to the GAO,
that will rise to 62.7 percent
of the GDP by 2020 and 250
percent by 2040. The highest
that figure has ever reached
was 109 percent in 1946.
As Walker pointed out to me in an
interview, post-World War II U.S. debt
was all owed to Americans. Now, half of
it — and 75 percent of new debt — is
owed to foreigners.
But there are other measures of excessive
debt accumulated by the United
States. As of March 2008, the federal
government's total outstanding debt,
including sums owed by Social Security
and other trust funds, was $9.4 trillion, up
from $5.6 trillion when Bush took office.
Then there is the total of long-term
obligations incurred by current federal
law — mainly retirement benefits and
Medicaid for the poor — which comes to
an astounding $53 trillion over the next
75 years, representing 90 percent of the
total net worth of American households,
or $175,000 per person or $410,000 per
full-time worker.
Piled on top of all that comes
America's huge trade imbalance and the
personal debt — and lack of savings — of
ordinary citizens that used to be offset by
rising home values but no longer is.
Equestrian Hills Homeowners
thank MDU for gas pipeline
Editor:
Thank you, MDU!
Over the past few months we had contracted with
Montana-Dakota Utilities for the installation of a natural
gas pipeline to the property owners within our subdivision
as well as to the Big Horn Events Center.
Our working relationship during this project with
the utility company and its supervisor, Mr. William
Pettit, was outstanding, and we are greatly indebted to
both Mr. Pettit and his company for all their good
efforts.
From the early planning stages, when Mr. Pettit
made a thorough presentation to our homeowners,
until the final installation of the gas line, this project
was completed competently, carefully, and expeditiously.
Thank you, Mr. Pettit, and all those who worked
with you, for making this valuable addition to our subdivision
such a rewarding and pleasant experience.
Beverly Anderson, Bruce Burns, Jill Scott,
Paul Schwartz, Ray Usher
Board of Directors, Equestrian Hills
Homeowners’ Association
Big Horn
To get U.S. priorities right,Walker should be our next VP
Morton
Kondracke
Columnist
"We've not only burdened our children
with debt," Walker told me, "but
we're not investing in them. We're not
investing in them, but we expect them to
pay the bills."
A just-issued report by the children's
advocacy group, First Focus, shows that
federal outlays for children's programs
have increased by only $2.8 billion in the
past four years, while spending for seniors
increased by $140 billion.
As Walker put it in a recent speech,
"current fiscal policy is creating an unfair
and unethical relationship between
today's citizens and tomorrow's taxpayers.
Baby boomers and current retirees
benefit from today's higher spending and
lower tax policies, while our children and
grandchildren will be expected to pay the
bill for today's excessive consumption."
Walker advocates a series of reforms,
starting with shaving future entitlement
benefits, controlling health care costs and
changing the tax code to reward savings
and investment.
He'd be a challenge for either party's
ticket or administration. And yet, Walker
has the best strategy of anyone to answer
the question: "What kind of America will
we leave to our kids?" It's really the most
important question of the 2008 election.
If the next president won't nominate
Walker — as I expect — then he or she
emphatically should listen to him.
(Morton Kondracke is executive editor
of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol
Hill.)
Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise
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