"Iraq, U.S. sign pact on troops withdrawal deadline"

The Reuters News headline blares out the good news.  The troops, already withdrawing, will be completely gone before Obama completes his third year in office. 

A tree has been planted.  A nation has been built.

And besides all of this, a strategic partnership agreement was signed, as the article continues:

"...Apart from the troops pact, the two men signed a long-term strategic framework, which Crocker said would define relations between the countries for years in "economy, culture, science, technology, health and trade, just to name a few."

America will benefit for generations to come.  Iraq will benefit from generations to come.

Who had the vision to depose a threatening, terror-supporting dictator in the heart of the Middle East and leave behind a strong democracy and a solid partner on the world stage?

Only Bush. 

Certainly not those who said it couldn't be done. 

Certainly not those who fought and voted to prevent it.

sharp

Thanks, Democratic Party for fixing our problems.  We had a budget deficit of $161 billion in the last year of a Republican Congress.  Your first Congressional budget hit a $455 billion deficit.

But you've shown us deficits don't matter. At least not to the stupid and careless.

Now, you hit a quarter trillion dollar deficit in a single month.  And you've only begun.

Now you want to bail out bad credit card debt, bad mortgage debt, bad auto industry models, throw a few hundred billion into another pathetic stimulus package (how'd that last one work out?) and then you'll move on to alternate energy, free health care, free education, income redistribution and, perhaps, just some good old-fashioned tax hikes cause you like 'em.

At least you haven't changed since the dreadful 60's and 70's.  Sure this group of voters either didn't care what you'd do to the country or they are too young and uneducated to know what your plans will do.  But the good news is, we can look at history and know.

You will punish those who achieve and sacrifice in order to actually pay their bills and develop solid business plans - while rewarding the incompetent, the untrustworthy and the completely fraudulent.

At least you never change.

sharp

I would encourage Team Obama to get done what they can in foreign policy before Congress has a chance to say "screw you" to the world on trade during a recession.  When the protectionist wing of the Democratic Party (and they would be 90% wing, in this example) gets a chance to show unions how good they'll be treated by the left, they'll be passing trade barriers and anti-trade legislation so fast your head will spin.  This is not Bill Clinton's free trade Democratic Party (that one was made up of Republicans anyway).  These are Smoot-Hawley depression inviting protectionists.

Then when Obama goes with his hat in his hand to ask Germany to help with sanctions against anybody, they'll tell him where to stick it.

So will everybody else.

And Obama will get a lesson in how the world works.

It ain't Chicago anymore.

sharp

On a sad note, a good friend, Mark Matthews took his own life.  He was a wonderful, lost young man who came out of Orangeburg, South Carolina - leaving behind a life of drugs and bad choices - just after the death of his mother.

He showed up at my church in Fernandina Beach, Florida and we became close.  But his past caught up with him.  His girlfriend in South Carolina issued a warrant against him for not paying child support - which he denied knowledge of her pregnancy when he left Orangeburg.  Here's where it got bad.  The state of Florida acted on the warrant and arrested Mark, but South Carolina took a ridiculous month or more to extradite him. During that month, Mark was in jail with a network of drug dealers and thieves.  When the state finally dealt with him, he had a new set of friends and no job.  You can guess the rest of this story.

I had moved to Tennessee, but I went back to Fernandina Beach and visited Mark in jail.  He was the same Mark I had always known.  But the light was going out.

I saw him one more time and we exchanged email addresses. Friends told me he was struggling.  I guess it was more than he could bear.  He got in trouble with the law a few more times and lost his next job.  Then he decided it wasn't worth it anymore and he killed himself.

If Mark had been white, he would have had a lawyer and would have NEVER spent a month in jail.  Not even a night, I'm sure.  If he'd been white, they surely would have dealt with his situation quicker.  But Mark was the wrong color.

Obama's election does provide hope for the hopeless. And he will be in my prayers every day.  Among the things that I strongly oppose and fear in his administration, there at least rises the hope of equality and fairness.  And the difference between hope and hopeless is enormous. 

It just came too late for Mark.  May God take you in His arms and give you comfort for all the trouble you endured in life.  You deserved better.  As do many, many others.

sharp

Every change brings the hope of improvement.  In this election, there is certianly the grave risk of Socialist policies lurching us to European style unemployment (about 10%) and low growth (about 1%), but there are things that could immediately be better.

1) Foreign governments will welcome Obama.  It doesn't mean they'll change their stripes - they still won't be reliable partners on much of anything - but for a very short time they'll be true allies.  Obama has a brief opening to get some important things done.  Chief among those is Afghanistan.  Obama's promise? Obama has spoken continually about the failures of America in Afghanistan (they're actually failures of Europe, but he'll learn that soon enough) and he's said he could fix it.  Now he needs to do it.  Without losing Iraq.  Without spending money.  Essentially, he's got to get Europe to invest in Afghanistan during a world-wide recession.

2) Spending is beyond out-of-control.  Since the Republican's last budget (Fiscal 2007) the budget deficit has surged from $161 billion to $455 billion.  That extra deficit spending of $294 billion by the Democratically controlled Congress has delivered us absolutely nothing so far.  Remember that Bush vetoed some of their spending.  Their spending includes a stimulus package that did nothing to move us away from a depression.  Obama's promise?  Cut waste line by line in the budget.  Obama's promise?  To balance the budget while cutting taxes on 95% of Americans (which is deceitful in itself since he's raising taxes on 5% while 40% pay no taxes at all, but I digress).  Now he needs to do it.

3) Recognize failure and change that behavior.  The laws that Congress passed to increase ethanol have had a blistering impact on the wallets of the poor.  Food costs are soaring and the Democrats want to do more of the same in other areas.  Obama's promise?  Energy independence.  But he must not do it by destroying this great economy.  He must not listen to the liberal left, but rather be pragmatic and drill for oil while looking for other alternatives.

The risks of an Obama Presidency are enormous.  Punishing accomplishment and rewarding a lack of accomplishment has been tried and was a miserable failure.  Putting pro-abortion, anti-constitution judges on the bench will wipe away the America we know and leave us with something empty and soul-less.  Fear of fighting will invigorate al-Qaeda and leave us with a far bigger mess than he's inheriting.  Dealing as a dictator and not a leader will leave a whole generation of youth disillusioned with politics and with this great country.

My prayers will be with him every day - as they have been for the last year.  God knows what's best and right now, that's Obama.  But that isn't always in the way that we think.  Sometimes what's best is hitting the bottom so you return to your values and your God.  And sometimes people surprise you.  I won't allow my sharp disgreements with Obama to result in the hate that George Bush suffered.  He was mocked and disdained from the election of 2000 to the present day by liberals.  That can't take root in me.  It's the natural reaction from the natural man, but not the right one.

We will pray and offer our support.  But we will speak the truth.  Hopefully with a good measure of respect and dignity.

sharp