Redstate

Perfect post Nick.  Been a long time since I've read the whole piece.

"Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us"..

Nothing else needed.

FDR is a reminder that you can be as lousy as you want on domestic policy, and still be a great foreign policy leader.

Not that we needed a reminder, having the President we have now and all.

Did you not get enough sleep?

I got plenty of sleep, why?

economic news? Which part of the thriving economy is lousy exactly?

Bush is the modern FDR ... expand govenment by a huge amount .. but still the right man in a time of war.

Had to get to the office, and knew I'd miss Neils reply.

Don't quite understand the need to take a shot as Neil did.

Nick put a post up that had nothing to do with partisan politics, and Neil couldn't refrain from kicking up dust.

Getting very old.

This is a partisan political site with a strong conservative bent and current political goals.

I don't see a problem with my comment.

He said "lousy".  Period.  It's a constant whine, and never an offering of solutions, ideas, positive input.  Again, getting very, very tiresome.

Yours is the first site I have run across this morning that mentioned the significance of this day.  

This is not "my site," I just work here. :-)

And there is the problem...you don't, can't or won't see.

There is something wrong with people that constantly bitch and moan, especially when there is no real need to do so.

Could you not comment on the original post without

your other snipe?

Simple question, yes or no?

I could not, because I can't bear not to try to apply the lessons of history when I come across them.

Oh please Neil, take us further down the road.  Teach us some more.

Chirping from the back seat, that's all it is.  Enjoy that back seat, I don't see it getting any better any time soon.

I would think that comparing the leadership of FDR in fighting fascism with the ladership of GWB in fighting terrorism would be taken positively.

As for the domestic policy, there's more to that than lowering tax rates.  Bush's tax rate relief was great, really, and ultimately it helped ensure me no doubt that Bush was by far my preferred candidate in 2004.

But there's more than taxes, there is spending.  Bush bet the first 6 months of his term on fixing FDR's grand Social Security scheme, after spending a  part of the last term on expanding LBJ's Medicare program.

If it's only people in the back seat who can see that, then the people in the front seat need glasses.

is the need for people to constantly keep bitching for no reason!

What would have been wrong with saying something positive in responce to post like Nicks, and leaving it at that?

Time and place for everything, no?

For example, this is neither the time nor the place to castigate Neil for having a different opinion than yours on President Bush's domestic policy, or that he chose to express it on a thread that's indirectly on FDR (I can see the connection, myself).  Please stop.

Moe

Was Neil's hit an run comment of 'Lousy Domestic Policy'. He offers no evidence, no explanation, no comment. It was a slam and nothing more. That begs to be challenged.

Only later did he come up with the "Oh, it's his spending I object to" comment (aside from ongress doing the spending). Having included that in the original post, may have been the wiser.

But then that opens up another can of worms on deficit spending......

in domestic policy between Bush and FDR which work in Bush's favor the comparison on foreign policy doesn't get off the ground, and that's even more in Bush's favor.  A great wartime leader Roosevelt wasn't.  I'll grant he projected well and gave competent speeches but he wasn't faced with the same divisive, even rabid dissent Bush has to deal with. In other words, less opposition equals an easier leaderhip path.  He made a number of major and costly blunders, failure to encourage an anti-Hitler  movement within Germany, his stunning call for Uncondtional Surrender, his gradual swing away from Churchill as a confidant and advisor, and related to that,Yalta.  Which last gave us a helluva peace.  I might add that he could have done more to bolster Chiang Kai Shek politically but considering most of the devil's work was done after his death that's mitigated somewhat.  On the plus side he let his military leader have have a free tactical, and for the most part, strategic hand.  Marshall, Eisenhower, Admiral Ernie King,Macarthur, Curt LeMay were given the latitude to wage war how and when they saw fit and that does count for something.

Dec. 16th, the day of another deceitful, if not outrageous, attack against the U.S. Armed Forces in the Schee Eifel, Hohe Venn and Ardennes regions of Western Germany and Eastern Belgium.  It was another slaughter on a grand scale.  At least we were already at war with the Nazis.  

I truly wonder if the American people have the stomach for another long war, this time against terrorists.  Our enemies have learned well the lessons of Vietnam, i.e. that with enough negativity, hand wringing, and biased reporting in the media, we can be defeated even though our Forces in the field have been victorious.  

One wonders.  The idea that 9/11 victims were civilians and Pearl and the Bulge victims were military has been well rehearsed by now.  What I believe most people don't realize is that we can't pack up and come home from the war on terror because it will simply follow us back here.  As GWB has said many times, we will be fighting over there or dying over here.  And, as Bogie said in the Maltese Falcon, there's no third way.  

Have we gone soft?  We lost more soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge, roughly a two month engagement, than in all ten years of Vietnam. Yet Americans were determined to see it through to victory.  Of course there were individual protests after several of the more costly battles of WWII, including Iwo Jima.  But they were mostly complaints about strategy, never was the thought that we should quit seriously considered.  And certainly no specious claims that we were fighting an "unjust war" ever broadcast or seriously entertained.

And what about the hoary accusations of "immoral war", both in Vietnam and in today's conflict.  Let's see, in WWII we were fighting to free a large part of the world's surface from brutal dictators who enforced their will by torture, sham political prosecutions, and mass, brutal executions.  In Vietnam we were only trying to save a small corner of the world from the same.  (After U.S withdrawal, some three to five million S. Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians were systematically slaughtered, or died trying to flee the panjandrums of socialist paradise in open boats on the S. China Sea.)

Which brings us to Iraq.  Brutal, muderous dictator? Check.  Kangaroo courts and star chamber proceedings? Check.  Intentions of bringing the destruction to a country near you (with or without WMD's) check.  

So much for Sadaam.  How about Hammas, Hezbulla, Al Queada, et al and etc.?  Surprise attack on a peaceful country? Check.  Employment of liberal media, soft-headed leftists and other useful idiots to destroy the Americans' will to fight?  Just so.

It was the decadence of the Roman Empire which contributed to its' demise, not the quality of its' military.  Will we let it happen to us?

Don't look now, but President Bush didn't exactly tell them 'to tear down this wall' in China, so to speak.

We need China to pressure North Korea, so the President isn't going to do much against them, much as FDR traded away eastern Europe to get the Soviets into the Pacific war.

I know history doesn't remember Yalta well, but FDR had to choose the lesser of two evils, not knowing whether the Manhattan Project would succeed or not.

you guys to knock off the threadjack.

Start a diary if there is a real desire to debate this, but let's not do it on a Pearl Harbor thread.

I missed that request because I do a lot of discussion from the Your Comments page.

Hint, a key word is castigate.  Moe goes on to mention that Neil choose to comment on FDR," a connection I can see myself".  Neil wasn't castigated by yours truly, The post was about WW II, and FDR did have something to do about it, nor was there anything impolite about what I said.  Neil got his response back and as far as I'm concerned, case closed.  Rest easy.

and don't respond with such stirring counter examples as "Horse Hockey."

Bush has done well on the war on terror.

On taxes, he started off good, but he's focused now more on helping the rich with their capital gains taxes then on helping the middle class with a fix for the AMT and don't BEGIN to tell me that there is a bigger effect with the capital gains taxes.  I may be a member of the capital gains %s taht the money-republicans like to toss around, but it amounts to $10 of my > $100,000 income. AMT is a huge threat to  me personally and I suspect to many more people than higher cap gains will ever be (especially with the current exceptions for homes).

He's NEVER veteoed a spending bill (or any bill).  That is not failure on the domestic level, but it is a symptom of likely failure given how congressmen like to spend money.

He has given us a huge increase in government spending (something you apparently didn't have an issue with).

He has not dealt with the issue of illegal immigration and his attempt to do so is an psuedo-amnesty program at best.  If people want to run a guest worker program that won't be labled as amnesty then they need to start it with .. anyone found illegally in the US will be blacklisted from the guest worker program for X number of years.

He HAS followed through on judges... I will give him that.  Bill Frist has dropped the ball on this. He has campaigned for the wrong people -- Specter and has complicated his only good issue in doing so.

His sole focus on energy has been ANWAR.  While I'm not oppossed to ANWAR, I would like to see some additonal ideas like .. more nuclear .. more garbage burning plants (Americans are good at producing garbage).

So, let me clarify, other than judges and some tax cuts that are quickly fading, he has been a domestic failure.

What it means for me is that I will be looking at judges, illegal immigration, and fiscal responsibility in the upcoming primaries even over some measure of electability.

Let me just say (reading some comments below this) that I did not mean to blow this up into a political thread.

However, when people do rude things (like yell Horse Hockey at me), I tend to respond.

Despite my getting sidetracked above, let me just say a huge thank you to the men and women who fought in WWII and to those who are fighting now for us in this war.

I was Director of Materials for a large automotive aftermarket company based in Providence, RI.  A delegation from Toyota was on a US tour visiting suppliers and potential suppliers.  They plugged us, as potential suppliers, into their schedule at the last minute.  We were pleased, it had the potential to be a very large account for us.

They showed up on August 15.  Back in the '80's, RI was the only state in the nation that still mandated VJ Day as a state holiday.  Our manufacturing facility, distribution facility and HQ operation was closed.  With the exception of a bunch us Directors and VP's who never did find a way to appropriately explain that our state had declared a holiday in remembrance of kicking their asses all over the Pacific.

We didn't get the business...

Sorry if you took exception to my counter to Neil.

My only point was quite like Streiffs below..Neils comment was unneeded in a Pearl Harbor rememberance post.

First of all, I shouldn't have (!) the horse hockey.  It wasn't meant to be a yell, it was meant to address the point that you just made;

politics should never have gotten into this entire thread, ...therefore I called Neil out.

Again, I'll restate, I'm glad that this day was brought to our attention with this post by Nick.

Didn't mean to inflame.

No huhu.

Cheers

Let's remember that Japan today is a great friend to the United States.

It's uplifting to know that no matter how dark it was throughout the early 40s, for both sides in the Pacific, that time can heal most of the wounds, and more time can heal them all.

I'm personally grateful that I didn't have to grow up at war with Japan, and instead can enjoy all these wonderful robotic pets!

The end of war is something to strive for.

My father was not at Pearl Harbor, but was involved in most of the major battles in the Pacific on board a destroyer.  It was, in fact, what happened on that day 64 years ago that led him to enlist in the Navy right after the attack.  One of his brothers also enlisted with him.  Even at 82 now, this day still means a lot to him.  Thanks again.

So do I. Gold ERS-210.

On this 64th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I took a little time to reflect. I am constantly amazed at all vets that either gave it all or were willing to so that we can complain daily about being able to live whereever we want, do what we wish, enjoy heat and AC with the flick of a switch. To live in this country today is almost too much to be taken for granted.

I, then also wanted to give thanks to todays soldiers. When I signed up in 1991, even in the midst of the Gulf war; I was sure I wouldnt be firefight. No one would try that on the US and for my entire enlistment, I was right.

However, todays soldier; much the same as those of 60, 50, 40 and 30 years ago; cannot say that will be true. Sure the media makes it much worse than it is. Over a million have rotated in and out of iraq and only 2100 have died and of the 25000 injured; only a several thousand are not returning to battle later.

Still, it should not go unappreciated that todays soldier, the same as those that signed up after Pearl Harbor; know that they may be in a firefight. Yet, they still sign up for it. Soldiers like those are outstanding !

The Pearl Harbor anniversary was the main topic of discussion today on MetroNews Talkline, a statewide radio program in West Virginia, and the FDR speech was played.  Someone should send tapes to Howard Dean and the rest of the cut & run crowd and let them know that once upon a time, Democrats believed in fighting to victory.

More interestingly, however, is that there are parallels between World War II and the War on Terrorism.  On December 7, 1941, the Japanjese bombed Pearl Harbor, yet we ultimately directed most of our war effort to first defeating Germany, which had not launched a direct attack upon U.S. soil.  Today, the War on Terrorism is pursuing all terrorist threats against western civilization, not just responding to the attacks of 9-11.

There is no substitute for victory.

I am fortunate enough that my dad is still alive as he was a teenager at the time that Pearl was bombed. My dad and his friends [many now gone] would gather in my dad's office at the CIA and every Pearl Harbor day and share their stories about where they were when they heard about the bombing of Pearl.

One time, as these esteemed gentlemen gathered to tell their stories, my dad's secretary chimed in: "Pearl Harbor,,,I read about that in the history books." Well, the looks on the faces of my dad and friends was priceless. They immediately felt "like geezers" [to use my dad's term].

To this day, my dad and I laugh about his secretary's statement as we recall old friends and those that my dad knew of the greatest generation.

LEST WE FORGET !!!!!!!!!!