Over Christmas, I took the opportunity to read former President Bush’s new book Decision Points. I did so for two reasons: first, I really wanted to “hear” what he had to say; second, as an American historian, I need to be up to speed on how this former president defends his actions.

Let me begin with what I consider to be its strengths.

The first strength is Bush’s informal writing style. You get the impression this is exactly how he would express himself if you were sitting across the table from him, asking him questions. There is a personableness in the writing that is attractive. You connect with the man.

Second, I appreciate his unapologetic appeal to his Christian faith as his motivation for not only his policies but for all of his life. He does not artificially separate faith from action, personal or governmental.

Third, I highly recommend his chapters dealing with the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent War on Terror. He takes the reader through that awful day in American history as seen through the eyes of the one most responsible for an American response. One understands how difficult it was for him to know what he should do next, yet he explains clearly why he came to his decisions on how to deal with terrorism. The title of the book is appropriate. He does focus on key decisions.

Probably the most significant decision for his presidency was whether to go forward into Iraq. This chapter is a step-by-step analysis of all the twists and turns of the diplomatic thrust to avoid war, and then the rationale for finally giving the go-ahead. Bush is particularly effective in detailing the actions of Saddam and the manner in which he thumbed his nose at international law and his manifold violations of the conditions he had agreed to at the end of the Gulf War.

Bush also clearly explains why he thought WMDs existed within Iraq. He goes to great pains to document the intelligence regarding WMDs, and just as great pains to show that nearly all congressional Democrats at the time agreed with this conclusion. He includes vote tallies on the congressional resolutions that gave him permission to use the military and identifies key Democrats who favored this action—the very ones who later accused him of lying.

So, as a primer on the rationale for how to conduct a War on Terror, this book is invaluable. I highly recommend these chapters. Even some of Bush’s most vociferous critics have had to come to grips with the necessity of his policies.

It’s on the domestic side of his decisions where I have more fundamental disagreements. He does a fine job of explaining the need for tax cuts and often advocates the vitality of the free market. Yet he then goes on to offer an apologetic for why he had to interfere with the market, especially with the big bailout at the end of his presidency. He says he did it to save the market ultimately, but I don’t find his logic persuasive. I believe he allowed some of his advisors to pull him away from fundamental principles.

Neither does Bush have a great appreciation or commitment to federalism. He sees a need and wants to get the federal goverment involved to solve the problem: No Child Left Behind and the prescription drug bill added onto Medicare are two of the most egregious examples. While I’m sure he is fond of the Constitution, I wish he had been more devoted to following it.

So, yes, I do have criticisms of some of his decisions. Yet one can’t read this book without coming away with a sense of the basic decency of the man. That comes across repeatedly.

George Bush is coming to my university this March as part of our National Leadership Forum. I plan to be there to hear him speak, along with his former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. I will do so with sincere gratitude for his prosecution of a war on terror that is essential to the future of this nation. I will also do so out of respect for a Christian brother who tried to do his best in a very trying time.

I love all those year-in-review segments on the news channels. Sometimes they are interesting; other times, they are rather humorous. For example, in dissecting why the November elections turned out as they did, you might hear something like this:

The answers are not all that difficult to discern. Yet the media continues to portray political developments in the best light possible for the administration:

There’s also a lot of talk about President Obama veering to the center of the political spectrum. I’m not yet convinced. In fact, I think the following perspective is closer to the truth:

If I’m wrong, and he does attempt to govern from the center, I know it will be for political expediency only, and not because he has changed his views. The next task will then be to enlighten the general public on that point, so that the media won’t be allowed to frame the issue in its own way.

Unfortunately, it’s almost as if we desire to be fooled at times. Maintaining our liberty requires that we pay close attention to what is really happening.

The proposed tax deal is still the talk of the political world. First, there’s the substance, which is good with respect to maintaining the Bush tax cuts, but not so good on unemployment benefits and the estate tax. Second, there’s the politics of it all. That’s where the president fell down on the job completely.

His own party is hopping mad at him, primarily because he didn’t include them in the negotiations. This is not a man who knows how to work well with others; he seems to think he can handle things himself. Now he’s getting some grief over that approach. The threat is real:

Now that’s scary.

To remedy his oversight, he’s brought in Bill Clinton to make the case for him. It was a little surreal last week when he introduced Clinton at a White House press conference and then turned it over to him totally. Some people had nightmares of the return of the Clinton era. Just what can the former president teach the current one?

But of course, he still has his ace in the hole:

Not very original, to be sure. Is this really his only tactic? Stay tuned and we’ll see how prophetic this is.

There’s been a lot of hostage talk this week. It started with President Obama and has become the mantra in Democrat talking points. I don’t get to listen to Rush Limbaugh often, but I did hear this week his revealing litany of audio clips of numerous Democrats saying almost the same thing—and always using the word “hostage” in reference to the Republicans and the continuance of the Bush tax cuts. Supposedly, we’re to believe it’s the Republicans who don’t want those tax cuts to remain in effect. Cartoonists have picked up on this “hostage” theme, but not in the way Obama intended:

I think that illustration explains what’s really been taken hostage through the Obama policies. Remember that ditch analogy he likes to use?

Right.

Of course, as I noted in a previous post, there are reasons to be concerned about the new tax deal, such as the highly expensive extension of unemployment benefits.

Are those rotten apples? Unlimited unemployment benefits are certainly rotten for the economy. When will they ever end? There will always be pressure to extend—maybe permanently.

Perhaps we just don’t understand the Obama strategy.

Why didn’t we think of this earlier?

That tax deal I wrote about yesterday may be in trouble. The biggest potential obstacle resides in the outcry on the Left. They feel betrayed by “their” president. They can’t stomach the idea that no one making more than $250,000 will be penalized by higher taxes. In their Marxian worldview, this appears to be unfair. There is no guarantee that enough Democrats in Congress will support this deal.

On the Right, there are concerns as well. Sen. Jim DeMint is indicating he may filibuster against it because it extends unemployment benefits without any way to ensure they are paid for, meaning that this will drive us deeper in debt. Another point of heartburn is the revival of the inheritance/death tax. In this case, it would only affect those whose estates are worth more than $5 million, yet there is a principle at stake here: this is a penalty that falls on those who will inherit the estate, and it’s really a form of double taxation. Inheritance taxes in the past were so high at times that the inheritors had to sell the estates even to pay the taxes. Are we heading down that icy road again?

Those are legitimate concerns. In one sense, I wouldn’t mind the deal failing right now. The new Congress, populated with a higher percentage of constitutionally minded representatives, will undoubtedly come up with a better bill. Maybe that would be for the best.

At the same time, the commission that Obama set up to address the deficit has unveiled what it would like to do. It’s a grab bag of less spending and higher taxes. The first sounds good, but the second will work against economic growth. And the “solution” for items such as Social Security is no solution at all—just more of the same band aid approach that doesn’t fundamentally change anything. What about Obamacare? Untouched.

Well, this is such a complicated issue, you know—how is it possible to come to an easy solution for our deficit woes?

We have a tendency to make things harder than they really are, and it doesn’t take a doctorate to figure out the best way out of our sad situation. What we lack is the determination to do what’s right.

It appears an agreement has been reached between Democrats and Republicans with respect to the Bush tax cuts—they will be extended for two years for all taxpayers [I was going to write "all Americans," but then I realized many Americans pay no income tax---52% of us cover the other 48%].

In announcing this agreement, President Obama was more than a little testy. In fact, he came across as downright petulant. One could be forgiven for calling his demeanor pouty. He obviously hated announcing the tax deal as he continued to pound Republicans as the evildoers who were holding taxpayers “hostage.”

Inadvertently, he displayed his true nature as someone who truly is ideological to the point of anger over having to compromise. What it really comes down to is that he’s not used to not getting his way. This whole “president” thing hasn’t worked out the way he envisioned. He would much rather be a monarch.

He’s not the only one unhappy; the radical Left in his party is having fits as well, and most are angry with him. Democrats may have had to compromise, but they’re visibly upset at what appears to be a Republican victory:

Two years into his presidency, Obama’s star has fallen, not only among independents but also within his own ranks. How bad is it?

Astute observation.

I always like to recommend good books. Usually, I focus on newer releases, but once in a while I want to point out a largely forgotten book that deserves more of an audience. One such book is Herbert Schlossberg’s Idols for Destruction.

Schlossberg aims at the various idols men create to take the place of God. One of his chapters, “Idols of History,” I use in my Historiography course. Another, “Idols of Power,” fits nicely in a new course I co-teach called Biblical Principles of Government and Policy. I’d like to offer a few samples from that chapter.

The state has become an idol for many of the elite, Schlossberg notes. They believe that only the state can solve all our problems, both material and spiritual. He remarks, “The state, for these devotees, is messianic in all its essentials, and their politics are directed toward religious ends. The state will provide for us whatever prosperity could not, because it has replaced God. In the hands of theologians of political redemption, the state is an idol.”

He gets to the heart of the problem of the nanny state when he says,

The paternal state not only feeds its children, but nurtures, educates, comforts, and disciplines them, providing all they need for their security. This appears to be a mildly insulting way to treat adults, but it is really a great crime because it transforms the state from being a gift of God, given to protect us against violence, into an idol. It supplies us with all blessings, and we look to it for all our needs. Once we sink to that level, as [C.S.] Lewis says, there is no point in telling state officials to mind their own business. “Our whole lives are their business.”

Even though this book was written in the early 1990s, it clearly analyzes current talk about how we cannot “afford” tax cuts. This mentality betrays an entirely different view of the world and property:

In the United States, federal tax policy illustrates the government’s unconscious rush to be the god of its citizens. When a provision in the tax laws permits the taxpayer to keep a portion of his money, the Internal Revenue Service calls this  “tax expenditure,” or an “implicit government grant.” This is not tax money that the state has collected and expended but money it has allowed the citizen to keep by not taking it. In other words any money the citizen is permitted to keep is regarded as if the state had graciously given it to him. Everything we have is from the state, to which we owe gratitude. In fact, we are the property of the state, which therefore has the right to the fruit of our labor.

It’s an upside-down explanation, but one that is still being used by the Obama administration, which comes from that same worldview, assuming that tax money naturally belongs to the government first.

But of course the little people can never understand the higher thoughts of the elite. As Schlossberg astutely recognizes, they view themselves as the only ones capable of grasping truth [as they perceive it]: “Combining social purpose with expertise sets the stage for a gnosticism in which only the special few have the key to the secrets of the universe.”

Yet, all the while they claim some sort of expertise and special knowledge, one must be careful: “Never ask the enlightened ones about their track record, which is a series of disguised disasters; just accept on faith that they have the secret to life.”

We see this in action in our day: the Obama policies are a disaster, yet they refuse to acknowledge it and continue to instruct us to trust them. They are the experts; they have all the answers. Yet they have no idea what they are doing:

Near the end of the chapter, Schlossberg lays it out plainly: “When loyalty to God disappears, there is no longer a barrier to an omnicompetent state. Social democracy makes society increasingly dependent upon the state for continued sustenance, thereby cementing its bondage.”

The chapter’s final paragraph sounds this warning:

Modern statism is the soured remnant of the Enlightenment idea of inevitable progress. This miserable wreckage, which once heralded joyfully the coming of the secular version of the kingdom of God, now hoarsely wheezes that if we worship it we shall receive salvation from extinction. The danger is not to be taken lightly. Woebegone as it is, with a record of fatuous incompetence, dishonesty, irrationality, and bloody repression almost beyond description, statism nevertheless boasts a hoard of fanatical adherents. Ignorant devotees or cunning and cynical hypocrites, they give it power and, equipped with modern technologies, make it a fierce and implacable enemy.

This is an enemy we need to overcome.