By All Means, Give Us the Democrat Changes

On Tuesday night former Representative Harold Ford, now chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, said that Democrats would win in 2008 “because the country needs a change”. That got me wondering just what changes the Democrats would have in mind for us if they won.

Since the Bush policies led us out of the Clinton recession of 2000 and also the post 9/11 crash, and resulted in seven years of growth, prosperity and record-breaking, continuous low unemployment, would the Democrat changes reverse this record? Or how about the trillion dollar tax increase that the Chairman of the Democrat-controlled Ways and Means Committee is talking about? Does the change Ford means include reversing the Bush tax cuts – including the new lower rates on capital gains and the elimination of taxes on smaller estates?

Perhaps Ford is talking about going back to the days before 9/11, when Democrats treated Islamic terrorism as a nuisance - a law-enforcement problem, and American interests, American properties and American people, including sailors on the USS Cole and airmen in the Khobar Towers were routinely being attacked and massacred. Since 9/11, due to President Bush’s policies, there have been no new terrorist attacks against American personnel or interests.

Another possibility is that our CIA will be retasked to concentrate on combating man-made global warming, instead of stopping terrorists from getting their hands on a nuclear weapon or a mass-murdering biological agent. This is what Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to have in mind.

Amongst all the caterwauling we have heard for seven years, certain things stand out: we have been free from terror attacks, we are defeating the Al Qaeda effort to establish an Islamic caliphate in the west and we have had prosperity at home. This is not a record that needs changing. Even David Broder, not a fan of Republicans and considered by most to be a centrist, had this to say:

A foreign policy window opens

David Broder, December 7, 2007, Washington Post

The shape of the world has changed again, signaling the possibility of a new American foreign policy and national security strategy. The portents are hopeful if U.S. leaders have the imagination and courage to seize some of the opportunities.

Just consider the major international headlines of the past few weeks. A Middle East conference including almost all the major players in that troubled region produced an agreement by leaders of Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate toward a peace agreement within the next year.

In Iraq, the level of violence has subsided and the first troop withdrawals are planned, while tribal leaders -- without waiting for the central government -- are negotiating among themselves and forming anti-al-Qaida militias.

In Iran, U.S. intelligence reported this week that work on a nuclear weapons program was suspended in 2003, apparently in response to U.S.-led and U.N.-sanctioned pressure. President Bush says this is no guarantee that the Iranian regime can be trusted to stay disarmed. But to others, at the very least, it opens a window for negotiations.

And in our own hemisphere, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the most anti-American of all the elected leaders in Latin America, was given his comeuppance this week by his own people. A referendum he sponsored for constitutional changes, which would have strengthened his control of the government and permitted him to serve indefinitely, was rejected. Chavez said he took it as a signal of dissatisfaction.

Excerpt; See Rest At: From Sea to Shining Sea