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Glasses Filling Fast
Rich Galen Monday February 28, 2005
You wouldn't know it by reading the dailies or watching the nets, but the President is on a pretty good roll right now.
His trip to Europe was, by any measure, a success. Did Jacques Chirac throw flowers in his path? Did Gerhard Schr�der ask about condo availability in one of the Red States? No on both counts. But Newsweek's Richard Wolffe, in between pointing out what President Bush didn't get done during the quick tour, including gaining acceptance for his Democracy Offensive wrote the following:
"Over dinner with France's Jacques Chirac at the U.S. Embassy in Brussels, the two presidents bonded on the need for Syria to leave Lebanon. They even issued an agreement that was proposed only three days earlier-a warplike speed in the world of diplomacy."
. . .
"It was more of the same in Germany. Bush emerged from his talks with Gerhard Schr�der with a special agreement on climate change and renewable energy �"
On the meeting with Vladimir Putin, this excerpt between P. J. Crowley, former special assistant to President Clinton for foreign policy and you-know-who as reported on the BBC website:
"Privately," Crowley said, "I was hoping the president would take a sharper line" with Mr Putin.
"He [Bush] clearly went to bat for democracy yesterday, [but] I thought he swung and missed," Mr Crowley said.
But Republican strategist Rich Galen countered on Fox that President Bush probably took a much tougher line with the Russian president behind closed doors than he did in their press conference.
"Everybody who follows this [who is] being fair about it understands that what happened in private was probably pretty severe and that what President Bush was doing was letting President Putin have a little bit of breathing room for home consumption," Mr Galen said.
Then came the news over the weekend that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had, in the words of the London Times,
"announced some of the most sweeping democratic reforms in the country's history [asking] parliament to amend the constitution to allow direct, multi-candidate elections for the first time.
While this move was scoffed at by Bush opponents, as having no real effect, the Saudi Arabian Arab News said in an editorial for today's edition,
"In the Middle East, pretenses are now being pushed aside for the real thing. We have seen unprecedented elections in Iraq and Palestine and nationwide municipal elections in the Kingdom. Now Egypt is also to be added to the list of countries participating in democracy in the Middle East."
So, a pretty decent foreign policy week.
On the domestic policy front, Washington was abuzz with reports that Social Security reform was not being embraced by large numbers of constituents with whom Members of Congress met during their week-long break.
The Washington Post, in a top-of-the-front-page piece by reporters John Harris and Jim VandeHei, headlined:
GOP May Seek a Deal on Accounts: Anxious Lawmakers Negotiate With Democrats on Social Security Changes
On the Sunday edition of Fox Weekend Live, Democrat-but-Mullpal Bob Beckel said this showed the President's plan was a non-starter.
I said I saw Republicans preparing to negotiate with Democrats on reforming Social Security as a positive development because if President Bush hadn't shown the political courage to get the conversation started, neither Republicans nor Democrats would be discussing anything.
Furthermore, if - as the Democrats and their allies in the popular press would have us believe - the GOP has been acting as if there was no other side of the aisle, then they should be exuberant over the opportunity to do what they have been whining about for months: Have positive input into major legislation.
How, again, is this a bad thing?
Even granting my friends on the other side their criticism that since about noon on January 20, 2001, I have made a science out of seeing the glass half full, the National Glass appears to be filling very quickly indeed.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Lotsa Links - Newsweek, London Times, Arab News, and the Washington Post. Also, Plagiarism might well be the method of separating Ward Churchill from the University of Colorado as this Mullings investigation shows; and a better Academy Awards Catchy Caption than I thought I would have.
--END --
Copyright © 2005 Richard A. Galen
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