14 January 2008 a Monday

I have to shake my head. Poor old Bush. Now he's getting knocked in the Washington Post because he isn't promoting democracy fast enough in the middle east:

...the episode underscores the sharp disappointment with Bush among democracy advocates and dissidents in the region, who were buoyed by Bush's clarion call in 2005 for freedom and democracy in the Middle East. They say the White House has backtracked because of a need to cultivate an alliance against Iran with the region's autocratic leaders and, perhaps, because elections in the Palestinian territories did not go the way it had wanted.

Bush is placing the promotion of democracy and freedom at the top of his agenda as he makes his way through his first extended tour of the Middle East during his presidency. At every stop, from Jerusalem and Ramallah to Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, Bush has discussed the issue, although he has done so with politeness and courtesy to his hosts in a region where most of the countries practice some form of monarchy, or rule of one.

I thought the complaint was that he was arrogant and imposed his will on everybody?

Aides said he plans to raise the issue again when he travels to Saudi Arabia on Monday and then to Egypt, considered by many democracy activists to be among the most repressive governments in the Middle East.

Previewing the message to Saudi Arabia, where the royal family wields near-absolute power, a senior administration official appeared to suggest that Bush would step cautiously in discussing reform issues. Speaking on background under White House rules, the official said the administration is taking heart in incremental steps, such as municipal elections.

"This is a conservative society, and it is moving at a pace that King Abdullah believes is appropriate to that society," the official said. "But he's a man who thinks deeply about the future of his country and I think understands that it needs to change."

On Sunday in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, Bush delivered what aides described as the centerpiece speech of his eight-day trip to the region, describing the promotion of freedom as a key pillar of U.S. foreign policy and asserting that "stability can only come through a free and just Middle East."

Bush said he believed that leaders in the region were beginning to respond to this call, citing parliamentary elections in Bahrain, Morocco and Jordan, as well as Kuwait, the country's first in which women were allowed to vote.

The reaction in the region to Bush's speech appeared at best mixed, if cynical in some quarters, owing to a widespread belief that the president has practiced a double standard in refusing to recognize Hamas, the armed Islamic movement that won free elections in the Palestinian territories before seizing power in the Gaza Strip last summer. The U.S. government considers Hamas a terrorist group.

Being consistent in not recognizing a terrorist group as a legitimate part of a democratic government is a "double standard" only if you wish to consider it that way. If you want to badly enough then I guess you will.

And for those complaining that merely the election in the Palestinian Authority which recognized Hamas qualifies them as a democracy, then Iraq is a qualified democracy and those people can stop complaining about the failures of the Iraqi government disqualifying it.

Democracy alone is not a sufficient. Bush has always added the qualifier that democracies TEND NOT to make war on one another, not that they absolutely DO NOT. Technically, Germany was a democracy in 1941; Hitler was elected. Why, even Saddam held elections.

This Robert D. Novak column is circuitously written and one can't quite tell whether he is defending himself and attacking McCain, or defending McCain, but in the process he makes these points, which I have rearranged and edited slightly and added emphasis:

Shortly after New Hampshire voted, a national Democratic Party leader telephoned me. Asking that our conversation remain confidential, he said he considers McCain the only electable Republican in what looms as a Democratic 2008 and, indeed, the only one capable of defeating either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. But, this Democrat asked, how can McCain explain and defend his votes against tax cuts the Republican president and Republicans in Congress are trying to make permanent?

When I had breakfast with McCain nearly a year ago...McCain told me: "I may have changed some of my views. You learn over 24 years." Explaining then, as he does not now, that he opposed Bush's tax cuts because there was "no commensurate restraint in spending," he said, "I am glad the tax cuts had the effect they did." The question of why he did not leave it at that goes to the nature of John McCain, which makes him both frustrating and magnetic.

So, did McCain regret his no votes? He replied, "I can't tell you that I cast exactly right votes over the years." Based on more than half a century talking to politicians, I took that as a yes. He also advocates making the tax cuts permanent because letting them lapse would constitute a tax increase, which he opposes.

Some people see inconsistencies in this but I cannot see where. He explains clearly why he was against them, says he's glad at the effect they had, and then deals with the issue that since they are already in effect his previous opposition or support isn't pertinent, only what do to next.

This is what people fail to understand about his immigration policy, I think. It doesn't matter, on a practical level, whether you have been for or against illegal immigration or amnesty or anything else IN THE PAST. In the present, today, you have to deal with the facts on the table: 11-20 million physical bodies, many with homes and jobs and families who are now LEGAL residents and citizens, their children born in the U.S. And, he adds, you have to deal with this problem in a compassionate way.