bush

The Recitation

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Yes, the recitation. This is a much better than ‘debate’ as a descriptor of tonight’s marketing fluff piece involving bush and kerry. Thanks to Will Baude for pointing out Professor Leiter’s post that led me to this term:

Which means, as these letter writers put it, that, “Instead of a debate, we will be watching two men reciting the lines they have committed to memory to prepare for this occasion” and that “the presidential debate is more like a joint news conference.”
Really, this event won’t even rise to the level of a news conference.
And, what’s the deal with the TV folks being allowed to only show the one speaking? Are these guys not able to look presidential for more then 90 seconds at a time? Are they going to read crib notes while off camera? Pick their noses?
I had hoped the series of debates between kerry and bush might be substantive events but it appears that this will not be the case. Sadly, it seems the media is, so far, going along with the joke. The losers, of course, the American people.

A Benefit of the Deficit?

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In 2003 US business invested $153 billion in foreign countries. This is about 27% of the world wide total foreign direct (FDI) investment of $560 billion and the second largest total on record. Sounds pretty positive.
Until you look at the other side of the picture. Historically FDI in the US has been about 20% of the world wide total and was $314 billion just four years ago. In 2003 FDI in the US was $29.8 billion, 5.3% of the total. Why has then been such dramatic slippage:

One explanation looks to the re-emergence of large budget deficits after the tax bills of 2001 and 2003. These can diminish confidence in America’s longer-term growth prospects, and simultaneously give foreign investors the choice to put money into government securities with a guaranteed return, as opposed to tangible businesses whose future can never be entirely certain. Security concerns and intensive media coverage of recent business scandals may also affect perceptions.
But the US doesn’t really need the jobs that this investment might have created, right?
Read the rest of the story.

Wishful Thinker

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g w bush is a wishful thinker. Mark Kleiman tells us about w the wishful thinker:

That’s what the President’s fiscal, environmental, and foreign policies have in common: a gay willingness to believe that things will turn out for the best in the teeth of logic, and that they are currently turning out for the best in the teeth of the evidence.
Wishful thinking isn’t seen as a horrible moral defect, like cowardice of meanness or dishonesty. It’s just a human foible, perfectly consistent with being a decent and likeable person. (No, you don’t think Mr. Bush is either decent or likeable, but you aren’t the audience for this message.)
And yet everyone knows that wishful thinking is the road to disaster; everyone with children has warned them of its dangers. In a military commander, in particular, wishful thinking is horribly dangerous, as it was when Mr. Bush ignored the National Intelligence Estimate that largely predicted the current disaster in Iraq.
This pretty accurately describes the guy O’reilly interviewed and I suspect the one that will show up at the joint soundbite presentation Thursday night.

Then and Now

This entry was posted in bush cheney Election 2004 US History US Politics on by

kennedy in 1963

Bush supporters dismiss world opinion. saying Europeans don’t like us, anyway. But Bush is the first American President in my memory who has to hide from the public when he goes abroad.
Hmmm, it seems that bush and cheney also hide from the public in the US. Unless, of course, the rally attendees have signed their loyalty oath or put in their time doing campaign work.

Freeway Blogging

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Do you live in Colorado, Arizona or New Mexico?
Then take up the Freeway Blogger’s challenge!
Hmmmm, there might be something here for all of you. I know the Freeway Blogger is not a bush supporter but the challenge doesn’t say the signs have to be any special denomination.
Do remember, though, that in a land of freedom no individual should have the power that has been vested in the US presidency, no legislature the power of the the US senate or house, and no judiciary the power of the US supreme court.
Via Talkleft.