The Men From Hope And Swahili BBQ Brisket

First of all, thanks for all your comments lately. You folks are proving that there are informed citizens who are not merely the partisan loonie tunes you see responding to most blogs.

The Men From Hope
Say what you want about Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee. Love 'em or hate 'em. But there must be something in the water in Hope, Arkansas because both guys know how to make a case to the people. XM Radio's Potus '08 carried speeches by each of them as they campaigned in Wisconsin. And if you're at all fair-minded, you walk away from their presentations at least impressed, if not convinced. Both are able to explain policy clearly, without talking down to folks. But their greatest gift is weaving a policy position inside a universal truth to give it common sense validation. Here is a smattering of random statements from those speeches.

Huckabee: "The Declaration of Independence stated that...'all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights... of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'. In other words, the Founders understood that every life has value... Not as a designation of government but as a creation of God. Government exists to preserve that value, not to grant it. I'm convinced that if, as a nation, we're not right on the sanctity of life, we'll be wrong on a lot of other things....If you look at the Constitution, it doesn't say what the government can do, it says what it can't do. It doesn't say it shall, it says it shall not, prohibit the exercise of religion, of assembly, of free speech, of the right to bear arms...I want to nail a 'going out of business' sign on the IRS so that April 15 can become just another beautiful spring day in America again...Some people want a coronation. I think we should have an election. I think you should have your voice heard. Because no voice means no choice."

I mean, I don't agree with most of his positions, but if you listen to him long enough you get dangerously close to the vat of Kool-Aid. Now, listen to that other Man from Hope:

Bill Clinton: "If you want to criticize me for NAFTA, that's fine, but don't criticize Hillary. She wasn't in the Senate. She didn't vote for it. And it's true that those agreements will need to be revisted because they're not being enforced properly. But the truth is, when I was President, we did enforce those agreements much more stringently...Look, Hillary has got comprehensive programs for job training, for health care, for green energy, for mortgage relief and if you go to her website it tells you exactly, down to the last dollar, how she'll pay for it...But I'm going to tell you, I've studied economic matters for a long time, it's been a lot of the work I concentrated on when I was President and now in my foundation, and I guarantee you if Hillary can implement her economic plans, you will see an even better economy than the one we had when I was President. I mean that...If you're going to elect a President, you need to ask yourself what you expect out of that President, what you really expect a President to do...here's three questions Hillary asks herself to determine if she's been successful: is the country better off when I quit than when I started? Do your children and your grandchildren have a brighter future? And has the world come together more since I've been President? I'll tell you, if the answers to those three questions aren't yes, Hillary won't feel like she's succeeded..."

It's not an accident the man was elected for two terms.

For All Of You Who Aren't Edumicated, Poa is Swahili for 'Howdy Y'all'.
Okay, he didn't say edumicated, but he did translate Swahili into Texan. See if you can do that! It's not often we can say positive things about George Bush's Presidency, but when he deserves credit, he should get it. And not just for his mastery of foreign languages like Swahili--and English. The President and the First Lady are on a five-nation trip to Africa to showcase how American aid has helped the continent. And surprisingly, Mr. Bush has got some real accomplishments to be proud of. Because of a $15 billion dollar commitment to fight HIV/AIDS, the largest by any nation in history, 1.2 million Africans are now on anti-viral drugs. 25 million people now have repellent-treated mosquito nets to fight malaria, the single biggest killer in the world. Bush's economic aid packages are helping struggling countries like Benin to stabilize their economies. As a result, he has finally found a part of the world that generally regards him in a positive light.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/17/bush.africa/index.html

Of course, you can't please all the people all the time, so he draws criticism for his abstinence-only, no condoms addenda to the AIDS package. This is a valid point. Condoms are the most efficient and cost-effective way to stop the spread of HIV. And placing a third of the money to abstinence-only programs is too much, especially since infection rates are not declining. But should it hold up passage of a new $30 billion package? No. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23200795/
He also received muted criticism for not going to Kenya, but he did dispatch Condi Rice to help mediate in the post-election chaos. And while it's a disgrace our country hasn't done more to end the crisis in Darfur, George Bush has been virtually the only leader to call it genocide and to persistently speak out against it. Would it have been a huge statement to go there? Yes. But clearly this trip held a different mission.

Which brings us to the question of motivation. When George Bush insisted that the purpose of his Iraq adventure was to liberate "the good people of I-raq from a tyrant", it strains credulity to believe that protecting 25% of the world's oil supply wasn't the primary consideration. You can't make that case for Africa. We must take Bush at his word when he says that there is a moral imperative to relieve the suffering of so many struggling people. The irony of his Africa largesse is that it may provide him with a positive foreign policy legacy he can really hang his hat on, much like Nixon with China. Think about it: as the planet becomes one big global marketplace, Africa will become the final frontier. New powers like China and India will look to be players (china's already started). Staking an early claim to those markets and constiuencies, not to mention the creation of Africomm, a new strategic command center, may prove to be the single greatest achievement of the Bush Presidency. And how can any one resist a guy who can translate Swahili into Texan?

Any thoughts on the role Africa will play in the future? Is Bill a good surrogate for Hill? Leave these and any other thoughts by clicking "comments, then by passing Google sign-up and hitting nickname or anonymous button.