Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Krauthammer's Take [NRO Staff]
From last night's All Stars.
On whether House Republicans should accept the stimulus bill:
There might be a tax cut that the Democrats or the president could throw in that would attract enough Republicans to give him a broad base of support, but I think that would be a mistake on the part of Republicans.
I think they ought to oppose the bill on a matter of principle. And the principle is that this is the largest and the most rapidly run through stimulus spending package in American history, and a lot of it is simply not stimulus.
The president has talked about having three-quarters of it spent in the first two years. Well, if it's not spent in the first two years, it's not stimulus. It shouldn't be in the bill. It should be in the regular appropriations.
You've got almost half a billion for the study of climate change. Well, that could be a worthy cause, but it doesn't stimulate the economy or create jobs. It ought to be in the regular appropriation process, which has served us rather well over the 200 years.
The stimulus is supposed to be a response to a national emergency. That's why it's a huge amount of money being quickly legislated on way ahead of any other schedule. So that has to be stimulus.
I think Republicans ought to insist not that three-quarters happen in the first two years, but all of it. And, otherwise, vote no.
On Obama’s interview with Al-Arabiya:
Conciliatory, but also apologetic and defensive, I thought needlessly. We heard him say that he we shouldn't paint Islam with a broad-brush. Who does? That's a straw man. Did the Bush administration do so?
Obama said "My job is to communicate from the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives."
Well, where is the American heartland which is arguing otherwise?
Look, if he wants — dare say, "I have Muslim relatives," as he did in the interview, "and I lived in an Muslim land," as he did in the interview, "and thus I have a special appreciation of Islam," that's OK.
But somehow he is implying that somehow the Obama era is a break with the American past. Somehow it is undoing a disrespect of Islam that had somehow occurred under the previous administration.
One week after 9/11, the president of the United States, George Bush, showed up in the Islamic center in Washington and declared Islam is peace and extended a hand of tolerance and generosity. There were no anti-Muslim riots in America. There was a spirit of generosity and tolerance.
And, in fact, over the last 20 years, the United States has been engaged in exactly five military engagements in the world, two in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait, all of them liberating Islamic peoples.
We have no need to apologize. Extend a hand, yes, but to imply that there was a disrespect of Islam in the last administration, I think is unfair and fictional.
01/28 11:13 AM
Share
