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OPINION

The Portrait of a President as a Young Nixon

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
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xjnyc90 wrote: Awwww. Look at Johnny trying his turn at the Watergate Anniversary Right Wing Nitwit Spin Story by trying to "Connect The Dots" between Nixon and Obama. I've read several of them this weekend -- All these snarling little Conservative pundits in their desperate attempts ranging from "Nixon was just misunderstood," to "Well yes he engaged in criminal activity but (insert whine) so did everyone else" Nixon was the Thug's Thug -- the epitome of the Republican Party at it's worst -- paranoid pols intent on steamrolling over the Dems. Greedy, nasty, will stop at nothing - The Repubs revealed then and there the kind of people they are. - Watergate at 40: Obama is the Democrats’ Nixon

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Dear Comrade Big Onion,

I don’t excuse Nixon. I never have. One of my earliest political memories was of watching the hearings about Watergate on TV.

As I have said before, Nixon was a troubled man who did many, many wrong things, perhaps even criminal things. We don’t know exactly because there will never be a trial.

But what’s your excuse for Obama? What’s your excuse for a deliberate attempt by the administration to foster gun violence on the US-Mexican border? What’s your excuse for the deliberate attempt to allow voter intimidation by the Black Panthers? What’s your excuse for a deliberate attacks on religious institutions, supposedly protected by the constitution. It’s supposed to be Freedom of Religion.

I live in a country where one of the most prominent clerics and a very reasonable man, Cardinal George of Chicago- who probably knows a bit about Obama- has said:

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.”

Liberals should be outraged by those attacks on religion. But you all stopped being liberal a long time ago. Now you are statist progressives who demand that we all bow down and worship at the altar of government.

I grew up in country that was supposed to be colorblind, and where the laws were meant to apply equally to all.

I live in a country where because of your partisan agenda, if often now prefers to look the other way when your side breaks the law, mutilates the constitution and makes a mockery of the great Republic a generation of giants founded.

Bring it.

rigby4 wrote: I can't stand my mother in law- Watergate at 40: Obama is the Democrats’ Nixon

Dear Rigby,

There’s an app for that.

Truth 001 wrote: Ransom said once again: “Our financial system is still the fundamental flaw of our economy. But its problems are political, not economic.”

If you call fighting 2 unfunded wars, passing unfunded tax reduction, allowing our banking system to invest in toxic debt, encouraging our businesses to ship jobs offshore, unwilling to fix our tax system, all on GWB's watch, political than I guess you are correct. It took 8+ years to screw this economy up. It will take at least that to put it back on track no matter who is president. If we elect a president whose only platform is to run on is more of the Bush policies it will be years if at all before we see a balance in the economy. Burn me once shame on you, burn me twice shame on me. -Obama the Genus, Err, Genius*

Dear Comrade Pravda,

It took longer than eight years to screw up our country. We’ve been on that path for about 100 years.

And nothing Obama has done is very much different than anything his recent predecessors have done to fix it.

I would not go so far to say that Obama is revolutionary. He’s way too much of a pansy to be brave enough to incite revolution.

He’s more evolutionary.

The real difference is that Obama is more open about what his ends are. He wants a big-government, top-down society with a command economy. He is brave about saying that.

But he’s done nothing to change the tax code; he’s done little about our banking system except make it more dependent on the federal government- which actually means that Wall Street owns much more of D.C. than they ever have before. He’s done nothing to encourage foreign investment in anything other than US sovereign debt. He’s withdrawn troops from Iraq, but that war was over before Obama was even inaugurated. The one war that Obama supported, the war in Afghanistan, he is losing pretty badly now after we made a quite a bit of progress there.

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From out Intelligence correspondent NightWatch this week: “Daily reporting from Afghanistan indicates the Taliban have sustained at least 100 attacks and security incidents per day since the start of the spring offensive. That is a high number for a group supposedly on the ropes.”

Here’s a table of military fatalities in Afghanistan:

Year

US

UK

Other

Total

2001

12

0

0

12

2002

49

3

18

70

2003

48

0

10

58

2004

52

1

7

60

2005

99

1

31

131

2006

98

39

54

191

2007

117

42

73

232

2008

155

51

89

295

2009

317

108

96

521

2010

499

103

109

711

2011

418

46

102

566

2012

145

24

33

202

Total

2009

418

622

3049

From icasualties.org

Fatalities have gone up significantly under Obama with no political or military progress made.

Make no mistake: Afghanistan is the war that Obama chose to wage. In 2008, he argued that it was the central front in the war against Islamist. His policy of adding US troops to Afghanistan has been a failure, just as I predicted it would be in 2009.

Loadstar wrote: They seem to carry over some columns that get a lot of response...and perhaps some that strike a cord with Garthwaite. -Obama the Genus, Err, Genius*

Dear Loadstar,

I republish some stories during the week, especially ones that resonate. I only do it because I really can’t write seven days a week or even six very often.

I’m not really a blogger.

I’m more of a columnist who sometimes makes use of blogging elements, like hyperlinks. My columns tend to be longer than even most syndicated columns.

I’m kind of a hybrid.

Tacitus X wrote: Ransom apparently relishes the idea of a President wiling to "draft" citizens into the Army who won't do his bidding. He would have loved Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin, who felt the same way. -Obama the Genus, Err, Genius*

Dear Comrade X,

I liked Harry Truman.

I think he was a genuinely good man, who was sometimes wrong-headed, sometimes naïve, but still sincere. He also got many big decisions right.

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NSC 68, for example, written under and approved by Truman in 1950 to formulate a strategy to defeat communism, remained the relevant policy document throughout the Cold War. It ultimately helped bring down the Soviet Union.

It’s arguable that NSC 68 might be the all-time intelligence policy success in U.S. history.

Conservatives who hate Truman’s internationalism, aren’t thinking in the context of the times. The times required more international cooperation, not less. We have taken internationalism too far now, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need some mechanisms for international cooperation.

As to Truman drafting the strikers: Sure, why not?

American troops in Korea would have died as the result of a general strike. We needed the railroads to function to fight off the communist threat in Korea, which had just been overrun by the North.

You probably think it’s OK that American troops- not to mention thousands of Koreans- die so that railroad workers get ten cents more per hour.

I’m not OK with it.

Boopboopado wrote: Thanks for explaining what happened to the 'GM secured bondholders. I was one. I got 10 cents on the dollar instead of 80 cents (which was the value of the assets available to "first in line"). This GM situation is unprecedented in US bankruptcy history. Lawful? Unethical? -Getting Back the Minutes I Wasted on Liberal Logic

Dear Boop,

Lawful, apparently. But it sets a bad precedent.

One of the things that our country has been very poor at doing is thinking about the long-term consequences of our policy decisions. Long-term meaning fifty years, not five years.

Social Security is a good example of that.

Time Magazine predicted in 1939, for example, before people even started drawing Social Security benefits, that the federal government would borrow the money accumulated from the Social Security “reserve” to finance deficit spending and ultimately the public would have to pay the bill:

From Time:

[L]ast week came a fresh round of ammunition from Liberal Economist John T. Flynn. Writing in Harper's on "The Social Security 'Reserve' Swindle," plain-talking Mr. Flynn declared:

"Obviously the government cannot pay adequate pensions if it insists on 'borrowing' most of the old age taxes and spending them to support the government. The whole thing is a disguised tax levied upon the lowest income groups under the pretense of old age pension premiums. No government would dare support itself out of a payroll tax if it honestly proclaimed its purpose.”

But because the system wasn’t going to go broke until 1980, we allowed it to go ahead anyway.

Think wrote: John: The letters and your replies are all cool, but why spend time responding to libs, especially using logic? Libs don't USE logic as it requires thinking, not feeling, and if libs could think they wouldn't BE libs to begin with. I know it's fun being sarcastic to the kiddies, but, really, talk about a time waster.... Maybe it's just your entertainment channel - playing with the kiddies? If that's it - have at it, cuz they are fun to watch and read purely as entertainment value. Kinda like the old Satruday cartoons when the good guys still smacked the bad guys and no moms complained. -Getting Back the Minutes I Wasted on Liberal Logic

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Dear Think,

There are a few reasons why I do it: Readers enjoy it, it’s good for business, and readers deserve to have their views taken seriously- either to confirm or criticize.

It’s actually a time-consuming, long process to write this column. But I grew up at a time when columnists answered their mail. And if new media publishing wasn’t made for the format, I don’t know what was.

I get more “thank-you” notes from the Email, Hate Mail column than any other.

I also think there is a dysfunction going on in the world where leaders want to be insulated from the views of regular people, like somehow dialogue is threatening to them.

I’m not saying I’m a leader.

I’m just saying I want to remain a regular person. I want the dialogue.

Steve of CA wrote: It seems both sides ignore that the auto bailout was started under President Bush. -Getting Back the Minutes I Wasted on Liberal Logic

Dear Comrade Steve,

It started under Bush for sure, but: 1) that doesn’t make it a good idea and 2) the terms of the deal changed radically under Obama.

The automakers asked for $50 billion, Bush offered $17 billion and Obama compromised at $80 billion, to paraphrase Winston Churchill. But it's Bush' fault?

And on top of that, $23 billion of taxpayer money was essentially written off as a gift to the United Auto Workers even though we are now being told that the auto industry is healthy.

Why in the world would we not insist that GM and Chrysler pay back every dime of taxpayer money at time that the company’s are making record profits?

MikeTurnerUSA wrote: How again does the government control oil prices? It doesn't because it’s a world commodity. That means that the millions of dollars subsidies that us taxpayers pay the oil companies just go to their profits. - A Second Look at Our Government Overlords

Dear Comrade Mike,

The government doesn’t control oil prices.

But a government that doesn’t allow domestic drilling certainly has an affect on prices. And that affect will hurt consumers.

More importantly, it means that dollars that could be kept here at home for investment are shipped overseas.

Thanks Obama!

Seriously? That’s all you got comrade?

Because if that’s it: Checkmate.

Let’s get rid of all subsidies and all bailouts for all companies, da?

Bcolbert257 wrote: HAhahaha. Gas prices go up? Obama's fault, Gas prices go down? Free market, nothing to do with "Thugbama". HAhahahahhaha. Hypocrites. - A Second Look at Our Government Overlords

Dear Comrade Colbert,

See above for an explanation of government policy and gas prices.

But you have this part wrong by a mile: Free markets don’t control oil prices.

Oil prices are set by a cartel, not free markets.

Maybe you should learn a little about economics.

Ericynot wrote: Unless the economy takes a sharp turn for the worse (which is possible) between now and November, Obama will begin term 2 next January. Why? Because Romney doesn't even have the support of his own party. Two weeks ago at the Texas GOP convention he was loudly booed, as were the Republican Speaker of the House and the Republican Lieutenant Governor. If the GOP is that fractured in what is arguably the most important GOP state, how does it expect to attract enough independents to elect Romney? - The Obama Gaffe Machine Keeps Rolling

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Dear Comrade Eric,

One word answer: Ha!

Fantasy Control wrote: Romney will take a business-like approach to figure out how to turn this mess around so that he doesn't end up high and dry (like Obama today) four years from now - and that will involve making tough (and good) choices. And choices like that don't include Democrat policies. - The Obama Gaffe Machine Keeps Rolling

Dear FC,

Yeah, I guess.

I don’t know why the GOP is so infatuated with doctors, businessmen and military leaders as saviors.

You know who is really gonna save us?

You are. Or not.

You and I will either insist that the country change course or we won’t.

Don’t expect the politicians to rush off and make the tough decisions unless forced to it by the rest of us.

Politicians will always do what’s best for themselves.

Doctor Roy wrote: Well from what I understand Peleliu was a hell hole. Supposedly one day it was 120 degrees. You never hear about it and only Marines seem to know about it. My dad never mentioned the actual battle he just said he was there. I did some research on it one time and found out that the two battles he was at, Tarawa and Pelelui had the same casualty rate as Iwo Jima. - The Obama Gaffe Machine Keeps Rolling

Dear Comrade Doctor,

If you have not, you should read the book With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge. It’s a firsthand account of what the common marine went through on Peleliu.

I first took it up because I read somewhere that John Keegan, the military historian, recommended it as a great example of war memoirs by a common soldier.

Shubi wrote: How do you explain Nevada voting Reid in again? - The Obama Gaffe Machine Keeps Rolling

Dear Shubi,

Two word answer: Angle, Sharron.

Kizarvexious wrote: On a serious note, I have a question: What is with your fascination of low taxes? Your parents paid a lot more taxes than you, knowing that it would help build the country for their children. You seem to be okay with passing on a failing, crippled country so long as you don't have to sacrifice anything now. Romney had a 17% tax rate last year, that is embarrassing for a developed country. Seems like only Democratic Party presidents know where to draw the line on vacation time. Keep pumping out the lies TH, your slavish readers can't tell the difference anymore- Do-Nothing, Vacation-Loving, Golf-Addicted, Underemployed, Underachieving Candidate (for Reelection)

Dear Comrade Kiz,

Our fascination with lower taxes has to do with our fascination with a strong economy, strong families and strong communities.

Our parents did not pay higher taxes. When tax rates were higher, people just behaved differently in order to avoid paying taxes at a higher rate.

Low tax rates have increased government revenues.

“What we do see indicates that the maximum tax rate has little to no bearing on how much money the federal government collects per household in any given year,” writes our contributor at Political Calculations. “Since 1967, the government's RPH to MHI ratio has risen steadily on average, indicating that the U.S. government is collecting more and more money per household over time, with the changing level of the topmost income tax rate having little to no effect on the rate of that change.”

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What’s crippling the country is massive deficit spending that’s given the economy little or no return on investment.

“With that being the case, there is no legitimate reason to set higher income tax rates today,” continues PC, “as they are now demonstrated to have little to no effect on how much money the government collects in any given year. Increasing the top income tax rate in the U.S. is simply not an effective strategy for closing the gap between the government's spending per U.S. household and how much it collects in taxes per U.S. household, making any ongoing effort to do so an utter waste of time that could be put to much better use.”

As to vacation time, you seriously want to compare the time Bush and Reagan spent on their ranches to the all-expense paid, taxpayer funded blowouts that Obama goes on every time thing get rough?

Obama lost the election when he vacationed in Martha’s Vineyard in 2011 as debt agencies downgraded government bonds.

DG wrote: Obama says: SHARED SACRIFICE. Romney offers SHARED PROSPERITY. It is a clear choice. Vote for Romney. -Do-Nothing, Vacation-Loving, Golf-Addicted, Underemployed, Underachieving Candidate (for Reelection)

Dear DG,

Bravo.

Not stop posting that over and over.

Truth001 wrote: Ransom said: No reading of history will be complete without acknowledging that Obama did nothing to fix the country’s financial system and very much to harm it. If you truly believe what you said above and it's just not your bias conservative smoke you blowing I would argue you have little to no understanding of the financial world leading up to 2008. Nor have a handle on the severity of the crisis.- Obama the Genus, Err, Genius*

Dear Comrade Pravda,

I’m guessing that your commenting on blogs more than adequately qualifies you to be an expert, huh, comrade? It certainly shows you have a lot of free time on your hands.

Probably the years that I spent as an investment executive for several NYSE member investment firms, doesn’t help me understand finance at all.

Probably, when as a partner, I helped found, and then successfully sold in 2004 a brokerage firm- that doesn’t count either. Nor would that private bank I helped save from seizure in 2002 by successfully getting it refinanced by new investors help make me an expert in finance and investment.

Nor probably when Registered Rep magazine, the trade magazine for stockbrokers asked me to pen a feature article on the real estate meltdown in 2007; nor the feature story I wrote for the Los Angeles Business Journal about stadium financing; nor probably when Macmillan hired me to cover finance for Nature Biotechnology.

I don’t know what you were writing about in 2007 but I was writing about how the CDO market in sub-prime housing fueled Wall Street to take more risk for fewer returns. And that how the OECD was underestimating the severity of the crisis.

Msrudin wrote: The degree of ignorance on this website is monumental, I will now cancel my account. their is too much sarcasm and name calling. And now John Ransom is manufacturing issues. Yucky Slime.- EPA Takes to Air to Watch Cow Pies

Dear Comrade Rudin,

Wisconsin hurts doesn’t it?

Goodbye and good luck.

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See you next week under a different screen name.

Truth 001 wrote: Why is it conservative error on the side of Paranoia. The EPA has obvious tested the water down stream and found high levels of bacteria in the water possibly E. Coli If you recall last summer in Colorado there was a listera outbreak caused by contaminated water possibly caused by cattle. This killed approximately 11 people and made 100's sick. If I were to guess the EPA is only doing their job. Looking for the source of a high bacteria count. - EPA Takes to Air to Watch Cow Pies

Dear Comrade Pravda,

Why is it that liberals err on the side of lying?

Interestingly I was down in LaJunta, Colorado about a week before the listeria outbreak last year.

My wife and I bought melons including cantaloupe from roadside vendors.

But the listeria wasn’t “possibly” caused by cattle.

“The federal Food and Drug Administration,” reports BusinessWeek, “has said dirty water on a floor, and old, hard-to-clean equipment probably were to blame for the outbreak.”

So unless your theory is that cattle were coming into the processing center at Jensen Farms to poop and pee on the floor, you are wwwrrrong.

Again.

That makes like 2347 times so far this year.

Yachtsman 388 wrote: WOW, Ransom actually proposes an expansion of government. The left would be proud. I'm suspicious though that if Soros were a well known Romney supporter would Ransom's opinion be any different?- Soros Says: Print More Money, Please- But I Propose the Soros Rule

Dear Admiral Kuznetsov,

Why don’t you go out and find me a Romney supporter who’s collapsing currency markets around the world and we can find out what my stance will be.

Go ahead. I’ll wait right here.

That’s it for this week,

V/r,

JR

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