Sowell: Early Presidential Prospects

Creators Syndicate ^ | Janusary 20, 2016 | Thomas Sowell

[Osage Orange]

BTW...my dad didn't have one. Nor did he graduate H.S. Had some war to fight....but he was the wisest man I've ever known.

I do have a college degree...and it made me smarter in the field I chose. But didn't make me smarter in world affairs, economics, war tactics,...etc...etc..

[Alas Babylon!]

My list of GOPers I will NEVER vote for:

Alexander
Cain
Christie
Dole
Gingrich
Graham
Huckleberry
Huntsman
Jeb—or any other Bush
Kasich
McCain
Pataki
Portman
Romney
Rubio
Ryan
Santorum

Shoot RINO ~ Don't Vote RINO!

[jobim]

I didn't know about his lack of a college degree.

I of course care not a particle for someone's credentials, but I have long pondered the Left's all-consuming fixation on degrees, credentials, certificates.

Anyone else like to share an opinion of why this is so?

[jazusamo]

Bang/Bump

[Maceman]

I am sorry to part ways with Dr. Sowell on this one. I don't think the problem with President Obama is that he was a rookie senator.

I think the problem with Obama is that he is a buffoonish, megalomaniacal, America-hating, racist totalitarian leftist who knows nothing about economics, American history or American culture (because he never hung out with anyone in his whole life who wasn't also an America-hating totalitarian leftist), who has absolutely NO social skills (other than raising money from gazillionaire leftists), and who has never missed an opportunity to betray our nation and our allies to our enemies, particularly our murderous and inhuman Islamic enemies.

Whereas Ted Cruz is a brilliant, articulate man of accomplishment, integrity, knowledge, passion and plenty of governmental experience, who is the only potential candidate that has any chance at all of turning this country in the proper and necessary direction.

I am stunned that Dr. Sowell, whom I so greatly admire, and with whom I usually agree on just about everything, cannot see this.

Governor Scott Walker is pro-amnesty, so that alone disqualifies him.

And where did we get this notion that governors make great presidents anyway?

Here are all the former governor US Presidents over the past 100 years:

Woodrow Wilson
Calvin Coolidge
Franklin Roosevelt
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush

Out of those 7 individuals, only 2 were great presidents (Reagan and Coolidge). The rest were, to say the least, disasters (including GWB) -- in spite of what the leftist academics and journalists have been trying to sell us over the past 100 years about all the Democrat governor-presidents.

For example, FDR prolonged the Great Depression (unlike the little short one we had in 1920-1921 because nobody was listening to John Maynard Keynes then).

And for those who have forgotten what kind of despicable president GOVERNOR Bill Clinton was:

1) Clinton’s own words show his often expressed innate hostility to, and utter contempt for, the core principles of the American founding:

``If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government’s ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees.’’ -- President Bill Clinton, August 12, 1993

``The purpose of government is to reign in the rights of the people’’ –- Bill Clinton during an interview on MTV in 1993

``We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…that we forget about reality.’’ -- President Bill Clinton, quoted in USA Today, March 11, 1993, Page 2A, ``NRA change: `Omnipotent to powerful’’’ by Debbie Howlett

“When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly… that they would work for the common good, as well as for the individual welfare… However, now there’s a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there’s too much freedom. When personal freedom’s being abused, you have to move to limit it.” – Bill Clinton, April 19, 1995

2) Clinton inevitably pursued his own political advantage at the expense of American interests and national security. Here is just one of many possible examples:

It is well documented that Clinton and the Democrats took illegal campaign money from groups and individuals tied directly to the Chinese People’s Republican Army. It is therefore not surprising that In January 1998 Clinton went against the advice of then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Pentagon experts by lifting long-standing restrictions against the export of American satellites to China for launch on Chinese rockets. Not only did he move control over such decisions from the more security-focused State Department to the Commerce Department, but he intervened in a Justice Department investigation of Loral Space & Communications, retroactively enabling Loral to sell critical missile technology to the Chinese. Interestingly enough, Clinton’s decision was made at the request of Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz, whose earlier $1.3 million campaign donation made him the single biggest contributor to the Democratic election effort.

The result, as stated eloquently by syndicated columnist Linda Bowles, was that “the Democrats got money from satellite companies and from Chinese communists; China got supercomputors, advanced production equipment and missile technology; Loral got its satellites launched at bargain basement prices . . . and the transfer of sensitive missile technology gave China [for the first time] the capability of depositing bombs on American cities.” Incidentally, Loral ultimately failed to benefit from this permanent injury to America’s security interests: in July 2003, the company filed for bankruptcy protection, and in order to raise cash was forced to sell its most profitable business – a fleet of communications satellites orbiting over North America.

3) On two occasions, Clinton used military action for the specific purpose of distracting the American public from the fallout of the Lewinsky affair:

• On August 20, three days after Clinton finally admitted publicly to the Lewinsky affair, the news media was poised to focus on that day’s grand jury testimony by Monica Lewinsky. That same morning, Clinton personally went on national television to gravely announce his bombing of a Sudanese “chemical weapons factory,” and a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. It was the first time most Americans ever heard the name of Osama bin Laden. The factory bombing in Sudan killed an innocent night watchman, but accomplished little else. It later was proven that the plant was making badly needed pharmaceuticals for people in that poverty-stricken part of the world, but no chemical weapons.

Several months later, the U.S. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, part of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, stated: "...the evidence indicates that the facility had no role whatsoever in chemical weapons development." Kroll Associates, one of the world's most reputable investigative firms, also confirmed that there was no link in any way between the plant and any terrorist organization. As for the Afghanistan bombing, it failed to do any damage at all to bin Laden or his organization. Clinton’s action was accurately characterized by George W. Bush when he said right after 9-11: "When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt.

Clinton’s pointless and murderous military actions did not make Americans safer that day, although they did destroy an innocent life, and for all the good they did certainly could have been delayed in any case. But they did succeed in diverting media attention from Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony for a 24-hour news cycle, which was the main point. So I guess, they weren’t a total loss.

•On December 16, 1998, on the eve of the scheduled House vote on his impeachment, Bill Clinton launched a surprise bombing attack on Baghdad. As justification for this exploit, he cited the urgent threat that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction posed to America, and the need for immediate action. Almost immediately, the House Democrats held a caucus and emerged calling for a delay in the impeachment proceedings. House minority leader Dick Gephardt made a statement: "We obviously should pass a resolution by saying that we stand behind the troops. I would hope that we do not take up impeachment until the hostilities have completely ended."

Conveniently, a delay so near the end of the House term would have caused the vote to be taken up in the next session – when the newly elected House membership would be seated with more Democratic representation, thereby improving Clinton’s chances of dodging impeachment.

The Republicans did, in fact, agree to delay the hearings, but only for a day or two. Amazingly, Clinton ended the bombing raid after only 70 hours -- once it became clear that in spite of the brief delay, the vote would still be held in the current session.

Once the bombing stopped, Clinton touted the effectiveness and importance of the mission. As reported by ABC News : “We have inflicted significant damage on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs, on the command structures that direct and protect that capability, and on his military and security infrastructure,” he said. Defense secretary William Cohen echoed the point: “We estimate that Saddam's missile program has been set back by at least a year.”

Whether or not one buys Clinton’s assessment of that mission, it is difficult to believe that its timing was so critical that it required commencement virtually at the moment the House was scheduled to vote on the impeachment. I think the most reasonable conclusion is that Clinton cynically deployed US military assets and placed military personnel in harm’s way for purely political reasons.

4) Clinton’s reckless sexual behavior was a threat to American national security:

Clinton and his supporters have been very effective in persuading large numbers of Americans that the Lewinsky scandal was “only about sex.” But I see a bigger issue here, because Clinton is on record as saying that he would have done anything to keep knowledge of the Lewinsky affair from becoming public.

To me, that statement raises a very serious question: What if, instead of sending her recorded Lewinsky conversations to Ken Starr, Linda Tripp had instead secretly offered them for sale, say, to the Chinese government? Or to the Russians? Or even to agents of Saddam?

What kind of blackmail leverage would those tapes have provided to a foreign government in dealing with America on sensitive trade, security or military issues? One of the few things Clinton ever said that I believe is that he would have done anything to keep the Lewinsky affair secret. Given his demonstrated track record of selling out American interests for personal or political gain (and there are more examples that I could have cited here), how far would he have gone in compromising America’s real interests in order to protect his own neck when threatened with blackmail?

Pretty far, I believe. Equally distressing is the prospect Clinton might, in fact, have succumbed to foreign black mail on other occasions in order to hide different sexual episodes that ultimately did not become public. There is no way to know, of course, but I prefer presidents for whom such a scenario is not a plausible possibility.

And don’t even get me started on the war crime in Kosovo.

WAR IN KOSOVO

During Bill Clinton’s 1999 NATO-led war in Kosovo – which according to some estimates cost as much as $75 billion – we bombed Belgrade for 78 days, killed almost 3,000 civilians, and shredded the civilian infrastructure (including every bridge across the Danube.)

We devastated the environment, bombed the Chinese embassy, came very close to engaging in armed combat against Russian forces, and in general, pursued a horrific and inhumane strategy to rain misery on the civilian population of Belgrade in order to pressure Milosevic into surrendering.

Why did we do all that? The US did not even have an arguable interest in the Balkans, and no one ever tried to claim that Serbia represented any kind of threat to our nation or our interests.

But for months the Clinton administration had told us that Milosevic was waging a vicious genocide against Albanian Muslims, and needed to be stopped. The New York Times called it a “humanitarian war.” In March 1999 – the same month that the bombing started – Clinton’s State Department publicly suggested that as many as 500,000 Albanian Kosovars had been murdered by Milosevic’s regime. In May of that year, as the bombing campaign was drawing to a close, Secretary of Defense William Cohen lowered that estimate 100,000.

Five years after the bombing, after all the forensic investigations had been completed, the prosecutors at Milosevic’s “War Crimes” trial in the Hague were barely been able to document a questionable figure of perhaps 5,000 “bodies and body parts.” During the war, the American people were told that Kosovo was full of mass graves filled with the bodies of murdered Albanian Muslims. But none were ever found.

BILL CLINTON ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE

During the election cycle of 1992, George H.W. Bush lost his job after Bill Clinton hammered him relentlessly for having caused the “worst economy of the last 50 years.”

In fact, as CNN’s Brooke Jackson has reported: “Three days before Christmas 1992, the National Bureau of Economic Research finally issued its official proclamation that the recession had ended 21 months earlier. What became the longest boom in U.S. history actually began nearly two years before Clinton took office.” See (See http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/31/jackson.recession.primer.otsc/).

By the same token, Clinton is generally perceived as having a stellar economic record during his own presidency, in spite of the fact that the economy was already starting to decline during the last year of his term after the stock market crashed in March 2000.

According to a report by MSNBC: “The longest economic expansion in U.S. history faltered so much in the summer of 2000 that business output actually contracted for one quarter, the government said Wednesday in releasing a comprehensive revision of the gross domestic product. Based on new data, the Commerce Department said that the GDP — the country’s total output of goods and services — shrank by 0.5 percent at an annual rate in the July-September quarter of 2000.” See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3676690/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/gdp-figures-revised-downward/.

[OrangeHoof]

I remember January 2008 when the mediabots were sure we’d see a Hillary versus Giuliani race.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

He’s working on his degree and will have it if he runs. I don’t think he had much to finish up. And if he doesn’t, he has a great track record to run on. It doesn’t really matter, either way. They’ll try to crucify him. Other than made up stuff they’ll throw out there, he’s been vetted pretty thoroughly...unlike SOMEONE currently ruining, I mean running, the country. *Rolleyes*

Pretty TIRED of the Elitist, Leftist MSM picking our candidates for us, that’s for sure!

[Oldhunk]

I have mixed feelings on running primary candidates against sitting RINO congresspeople. If you run the wrong candidate, it backfires, and backfires badly.

I’m not sure it was the right thing to do to primary McConnell. Kentucky is not a strong red state.

[Jack Black]

Nice! Clinton treachery was the original focus of FR, and it’s nice to see it summarized here.

[BradyLS]

Walker has faced and overcome a lot more challenges in a state that isn’t nearly as conservative as Texas. We need someone who knows how to deal with and perform under that kind of pressure as President. I like Cruz, but I’d rather see Walker run.

[itsahoot]

I’m not sure it was the right thing to do to primary McConnell. Kentucky is not a strong red state.

The Grass is Blue and so is Mitch.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I have long pondered the Left's all-consuming fixation on degrees, credentials, certificates.

Anyone else like to share an opinion of why this is so?

Theodore Roosevelt famously said that

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

IMHO leftism is defined by being talk, rather than action. Journalists are the perfect exemplar of that tendency, they have big mouths but they do nothing. And college professors and teachers are famous for not doing much: “Them as can, does. Them as can’t, teaches.” Leftists are cynical about accomplishment, but they are in love with the idea that they deserve the credit - including the payment - for the accomplishments of others. “You didn’t build that” is Exhibit A in that respect.

[EvilCapitalist]

The left is probably so fixated on college degrees because in most cases, not all, but most, it usually means you lean left. This is just a guess. Ted Cruz made it through Harvard, and Princeton without becoming indoctrinated, but he might just be the exception. But, as for not having a college degree, General, and later President Washington never had a college degree. What he did have was common sense.

[Yaelle]

We know Sowell, one of smartest and most valuable citizens of this land, is not impressed with Cruz. This is some of his explanation why: he thinks Cruz can only talk the talk and doesn’t know how to articulate effectively as well as demonstrate what needs to be done. He has no evidence Cruz can run things. He sees Cruz in a vacuum, not applying his principles to get the best out of the opposite party. I finally understand his disinterest in Cruz.

Ted Cruz, prove him wrong.

Dr. Sowell hit bingo with his description of the flabby cast of RINOs running. And I can’t quibble with his choice of Walker. I could get behind him.

[jazusamo]

You stated that well and I too want Cruz to prove him wrong.

As yet Walker is the only other person I’ll support, the balance of them so far is just more of the same.

[oldbrowser]

The country does not need glib or bombastic talkers. But it does need people with clarity of thought and clarity of words, along with a clear sense of purpose and an ability to achieve those purposes.
So is Sowell tossing his hat into the ring?

When it comes to “clarity of thought and clarity of words”, Sowell is the best.

the only weakness I see with Walker is that he is from a smaller state. I think a Walker/Perry ticket might be formidable. What we need at this point is clear thinking, straight talking and the brass to do what is necessary. Get Cruz to lead the senate and Gowdy to lead the house.

[Menthops]

Walker is pals with GOPe (Priebus, Ryan, Rove). He is soft on immigration and he was completely on the sidelines when Ted was fighting tooth and nail against Obamacare. Walker was silent when Ted was defending the Constitution.

There were a significant number of Walker voters who later delivered Wisconsin to Obama. These voters are sure to deliver Wisconsin to Hillary (or Elizabeth Warren) if Walker is the 2016 Republican nominee.

Conservatives would have to be crazy to support a Walker presidential campaign.

[Jack Black]

Hmmm. You say: "Walker... was completely on the sidelines when Ted was fighting tooth and nail against Obamacare. Walker was silent when Ted was defending the Constitution."

Walked decertified and defunded public employee unions in Wisconson. That's an actual accomplishmnet, and it cost him terribly, as he was subject to a recall by those same forces.

I didn't see Ted Cruz going to Wisconson or doing floor speeches to help Walker. Did you?

Cruz's pseudo-filibuster didn't actually CHANGE anything. It was sort of a 'rhetorical' defense of the Constitution, not one involving actually doing something, changing some law successfully.

I would not expect a Gov. busy with doing to take time away from that to support a Senator (from another state) busy talking about things, no matter how important the topic.

So, I think that criticism is off base.

The open borders proponent charge you make against Walker is much more important to me. Got any references for your claim?

[Menthops]

Sums it up: Walker and illegals

[aquila48]

Though I like Sowell, he couldn’t be more wrong about either Obama or Cruz.

The reason Obama has been and will continue to be a disaster is not because of his lack of experience, but because of his lack of belief in American values, and that will never change even if he’s in office 20 years.

Ted Cruz on the other hand is the exact opposite. He believes in our values the way Reagan did, and he can just as passionately articulate them.

For me the most important criteria in judging the qualification of a candidate for president is his (or her) “world view”, his values. Second is his ability to “sell” them. Cruz scores an A in both categories.

That is why I also like Palin. She instinctively believes in our values. For her it’s not a mental exercise, but a visceral feeling. What she lacks is the ability to articulate them well.