Archive for the ‘Reagan’ Category
June 25th, 2011 | 
Author: The case for Jon Huntsman's conservatism « The Enterprise Blog
blog.american.com12/4/11
Jon Huntsman in the 1980s, along with President Ronald Reagan and Rep. … Jon Huntsman clearly isn't a candidate super comfortable with escalating the 2012 elections into a climactic clash of ideologies. He's too cool, too …
Jon Huntsman Won't Kiss Donald Trump's Ring, Or 'Any Other Part …
www.mediaite.com12/5/11
Jon Huntsman gift-wrapped an unfortunate visual, telling anchor Martha McCallum that he's not going to kiss his (Trump's) ring, and I'm not going to kiss any other part of his anatomy. Huntsman was responding to the claim …
This is Part 16 of a look at possible GOP candidates that might run well against Obama in 2012.
Part 1 looked at Mitch Daniels Part 2 looked at Tim Pawlenty
Part 3 looked at Chris Christie Part 4 looked at Mitt Ronney
Part 5 looked at Sarah Palin Part 6 looked at Mike Huckabee
Part 7 looked at Rudy Giuliani Part 8 looked at Michele Bachman
Part 9 looked at Donald Trump Part 10 looked at Paul Ryan
Part 11 looked at Ron Paul Part 12 looked at Newt Gingrich
Part 13 looked at Herman Cain Part 14 looked at Rick Santorum
Part 15 looked at Rick Perry
Mr. Huntsman is most often addressed as "governor" because he was the two-term governor of Utah.
If like many others you’ve never heard of him then read on:
He became fluent in Mandarin Chinese during two years he spent in Taiwan as a young Mormon missionary.
He worked in the Reagan White House.
In the George H.W. Bush administration, he worked first on trade matters and then as Mr. Bush’s ambassador to Singapore.
During the second Bush presidency, he was deputy trade representative.
And in 2004 he was elected governor of Utah, re-elected in 2008.
Then in 2009 he accepted President Barack Obama’s offer to be the U.S. ambassador to China.
His father Jon Huntsman Sr’s first company, Huntsman Container, hit the jackpot by creating the "clamshell" burger box, which was adopted by McDonald’s and he is now the billionaire founder of Huntsman Corp., a chemical company.
It should be no surprise then that a man with this résumé, which is notably similar to that of George H.W. Bush, might choose to run for president.
His immediate problem is however that the vast majority of the public have no idea who he is.
Who Is Jon Huntsman?
The Economy
If there’s a short version of Mr. Huntsman’s core message, it’s that America needs to start competing again, and very aggressively, in the global marketplace.
"We need to get back in the game", he says, citing the lapse of free-trade momentum as a primary failing of the Obama years, "because if we don’t do it, China will move ahead with free-trade agreements as they are in Latin America, built around procurement practices that benefit Chinese companies".
The Military
"Now we have one out of every six defense department dollars going to Afghanistan. We’ve achieved much of what we set out to do. We’ve been able to rout the Taliban from power. We’ve been able to disrupt to a large extent al Qaeda. We’ve had free elections going back to 2004. And we still have 100,000 troops on the ground. The future well-being of the United States is likely not going to be fought on the prairies of Afghanistan. It’s likely to be the result of our ability or inability to compete competitively across the Pacific against the rising giants".
Washington.
"I think the appropriate role of the federal government is to carefully measure out the nation’s competitiveness. When are taxes too high and making us less competitive than our major trading partners? When do we reach the point of onerous regulation and have to throttle back so we can maintain a competitive posture?". "As a country we should maintain a level playing field for the states. Equip them with what they need to survive and be competitive and then be attentive enough to learn from them when it comes to possible national models".
Health
Mr. Huntsman says he favors repeal of the Obama health-care law and he’d block-grant Medicaid back to the states.
"Let states determine what the percentage of poverty levels are, and let public officials rise or fall on how local citizens feel about those decisions. They’re in a much better position to understand their vulnerable populations than at the federal level".
Energy And Subsidies
He thinks the recent natural gas finds in the U.S. "completely change how we operate and how we view our economy. I believe this is just revolutionary. Why not take advantage of something we control, when it’s derived from our reserves, it employs our people and enhances our economic base?". Look, we’re never going to be totally energy independent. You can talk in those terms but we’re always going to be accessing raw materials from elsewhere in the world. But we can do better than 60% of imported oil".
"I don’t like subsidies. I’d like to see us phase out all subsidies. Maybe a nudge in terms of a tax incentive like we did in Utah to convert cars to natural gas".
How Will He Try To Convince The Voters?
"When people look at what we’ve done", he says, "they’re going to say, ‘He’s a conservative problem solver’, I’m going to point people in the direction of what we’ve done as governor. I’m pro-life, strongly pro-Second Amendment. I think there are enough voters who will say, ‘I may not like everything, but there’s enough here to like’".
He adds a final point on his own behalf:
"I’m not trying to make things up as we go. I’m drawing from my own experiences, where I’ve seen it work. I want to make sure that what we advocate and say we believe in can be tied back to real-world experience. So when people say, ‘What do you stand for, what do you want to do?’ I can say, ‘Here, 1,2,3, here’s what I did as governor of a state’. I think that’s going to help people to connect the dots".
A Bold Rejection of America's Failed Diplomacy Sends Obama
Vetoing a Palestinian statehood bid at the Security Council will significantly damage one of President Obama's main foreign policy goals: to cast the U.S. as a champion of Arab freedom and democracy in a turbulent and …
Publish Date: 09/18/2011 4:36
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/17/1017848/-A-Bold-Rejection-of-Americas-Failed-Diplomacy-Sends-Obama-Administration-Scrambling
Obama's Foreign Policy Fails on Afghanistan, Israel – The Daily Beast
He was supposed to change Washington. But the president's strategy in the Middle East and Afghanistan has lacked courage and creativity—and pales in comparison with Bush's.
Publish Date: 09/07/2010 5:42
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/09/06/obamas-foreign-policy-fails-on-afghanistan-israel.html
One of the most refreshing things about George W. Bush’s memoirs, "Decision Points" is his honesty about his failings, and his unexaggerated comments on his successes, and there is much that Obama could learn from the book if he’d were willing to take on board at least some of what’s written there.
In the book Bush describes:
The basis for his key personnel appointments.
His stem cell policy.
The decision to take the fight to Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11
The mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina.
The economic blunders made before and during his tenure.
And he also highlights how his unpopular decision to implement the "surge" in Iraq turned out to be a crucial triumph in the “war on terror".
The Bush Doctrine – According to Bush
Beyond specific decisions and various turning points, his doctrine as noted in his book consisted of four main elements:
First, make no distinction between the terrorists and the nations that harbor them – and hold both to account.
Second, take the fight to the enemy before they can attack America.
Third, confront threats before they fully materialize.
Fourth, advance liberty and hope as an alternative to the ideology of repression and fear – His “Freedom Agenda".
The fourth agenda, which was perhaps the overriding one of the four was greatly influenced by the writings of Nathan Saransky and Ron Dermer.
Bush refused to accept that "the peoples of the Middle East were somehow beyond the reach of liberty", and he believed and perhaps still does that freedom is a universal objective that can, and should be obtained by all.
The Middle East revolution that began in Tunisia less than a month ago, and subsequently led to bloody protests and demonstrations in Yemen and Egypt may or may not lead to blossoming democracies, but for that to happen, lessons from mistakes made in Iran in 1979 and again in 2009 must be learned.
In 1979, President Carter stood embarrassingly idle, and in some ways tacitly encouraged the Islamic revolution that replaced the Shah, and in 2009 President Obama also stood idle as a popular uprising was struck down by the brutal Iranian authorities.
What Does Obama Need To Do?
This time around, if real democratic freedom is to be engendered in the Middle East, then President Obama will need to confront freedom’s enemies and not turn his back on America’s long term allies.
Democratic elections are only one element of freedom and, human rights, checks and balances, equal opportunity for all and the separation between religion and state are all indispensable freedom factors.
Iran and Gaza clearly show that a one-time democratic election can lead to the disaster of legitimized dictatorship, and there is every chance that elections in Egypt could lead to the spread of Sharia law rather than to the democratic rule of law throughout the Middle East.
* sharia –
n. (Islam) code of law based on the Koran; holy laws of the Islam which cover aspects of day-to-day life
Time, perspective and hindsight are required when passing verdict on a presidency, and history will judge Bush for the doctrine he set and the eventual success or failure of its implementation.
Truman, Reagan and Bush
When Truman left office in 1953 his approval ratings were in the twenties, but today he is viewed as one of America’s great presidents. Reagan was once ridiculed as a diplomatic dunce but will be remembered by most as the "Great Communicator" who won the Cold War and Bush may eventually be regarded as the best president of our time.
And Obama?
Obama’s agenda has alienated all of America’s previous staunch allies and gained no new ones, and his economic policies, unless halted by the Republicans will lead the country to bankruptcy by 2020.
Obama is far from stupid and the question is not, "Is he able to learn from Bush’s errors?", but, "How would he apply that learning?".
Until a recent five point drop in the polls and a pummeling from both politicians and journalists, it appeared the he would much prefer the Muslim Brotherhood to Mubarak.
Obama carefully hid his tracks and his policies and intentions are still not clearly understood, but how he eventually responds to the present crisis in the Middle East will provide many clues.
Posted in administration, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, America, egypt, fanatics, fatah, foreign policy, gaza, government, Iran, islam, jihad, Jimmy Carter, Middle East, muslim brotherhood, muslims, New Party, Obama, paper trail, politics, Reagan, republicans, rogue states, terrorists | 
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