ConservativeINC

I was watching the news this morning, switching between Fox News and the KTLA Morning News and realized that something big was happening and no one was saying anything about it. Flabbergasted as I was I started railing against the biasedness (I told the spell checker that this is now a word, so be it) siting many examples of how just a month ago the biggest story was how this thing was performing badly and it spelled out doom for this country and the world.

But nothing happened. It just kept on getting ignored. What I am talking about is the stock market. The last time I checked the Dow Jones Industrial Average (forever more DJIA) was up over 100 points! This is big news or, according to how they reported drops of similar amounts, should warrant some breathless coverage. I just did some quick calculations and the results are encouraging. I found that since the closing on 8-3-07 to about 11:40 EST the DJIA is up 1.84% while both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are up approximately 3.6%. Never mind my own gains of 11.41% over the same period doing no trades and owning Home Depot and Altria stock.

Where is the love? Segueing nicely into the crippled position we have put Taiwan in. Taiwan’s president fighting for democracy in a place that sorely needs it and it seems like we’ll just let him hang himself for this. Here is a link to a talk Taiwan’s president had with the WSJ and here is the point:

the President reiterated that the Taiwanese people will not give up their determination to conduct a referendum on whether to apply for UN membership under the name “Taiwan.”

When I say that we need to open up trade with communist countries it comes along with the caveat that we also need to push for legitimate reform and not stop pushing until anyone would feel safe doing business in that country. Fighting the War on Terror is as much about spreading Western democracy as it is about stopping terror. Just because we are focused on Islamic terror today does not mean we can be complacent about Chinese, Russian, South American, African communism tomorrow.

That MoveOn ad cost about 1/3 the normal cost of a full page ad at the New York Times. $65,000 was all it took to slander a general, someone who is apolitical and is just doing his job. The democrats voted for him, why aren’t the democrat presidential candidates rushing to his support? This is beyond the pail and goes to show that no liberal, no matter how well meaning, cannot be trusted. This ad was despicable and, even though not legally criminal I don’t think, it would bring criminal charges if this country really wanted to win this war.

There is continued trouble in two of our allies; Japan and Pakistan. My only point for either of these stories is that I think it a grave mistake for there to be constitutional term limits on the presidency. The president or prime minister of a country is the most covered politician in any country and it could reasonably be assumed that most people know more about their executive than they do about any other office holder.

Term limits prevent good leaders like Koizumi of Japan from continuing a good thing. It prevented Reagan from seeking a third term or, for that matter, Clinton (I think Bush would have won with a much bigger margin against Bill Clinton thus ending the Clinton monster but there is definitely an argument going the other way). It also prevents Bush from running again. He definitely would win out against Hillary, Obama, Edwards, or anyone else they throw up there.

Term limits are best used to stem the power of congressmen and senators. They go along in their careers basically unchecked by the media. Both republicans and democrats know this and move to increase their power. There are more scandals among long-standing congressmen and senators (I think) than there are scandals for newer politicians. In the Congress and Senate is where we need fresh blood by constitutional fiat. We don’t need a constitutional fiat limiting the power of the man who leads this country in war.

Finally, President Bush will make the case for America that we need to win in Iraq (it’s sad he has to make this case at all) tonight in a speech. We are kicking butt in Iraq by capturing some high level al Qaeda and arresting dozens of others in two raids. And the democrats will be brought kicking and screaming along for the ride. They know there is no logistical way for us to leave as soon as they want and this isn’t even considering the fact that if we leave Iraq without Iraq having a stable country, hopefully a stable democracy, Iraq will become what Afghanistan was pre 9-11 but on steroids. BigT