Hannity Interviews President Bush

A good interview , in my opinion . Nothing new , but isn't that the President's focus ? Stay the course , both in Iraq , international politics , and domestic issues .

The most telling idea is that FREEDOM , if allowed to flourish , will marginalize extremists , and further democracy in the world .

I liked his response to the comments made about him from Pelosi and Kennedy.

I think they make a good pair.:leghump: :hititsmiley: :whistling: :blah:

Sean is a brown-noser and Bush is a :liar:

well, he gets part of that right...

I defer to Francis Fukuyama (who's a conservative, by the way...)

The Centrality of Social Policy

What is it that leaders like Iran?s Ahmedinejad, Hezbollah?s Nasrullah, and
Venezuela?s Hugo Chavez have in common that vastly increases their local
appeal? Anti-Americanism and an aggressive foreign policy are of course
components. But what has really allowed them to win elections and cement
their support is their ability to promise, and to a certain extent deliver on,
social policy?things like education, health, and other social services,
particularly for the poor. Hugo Chavez has opened clinics in poor barrios
throughout Venezuela staffed with Cuban doctors; Hezbollah has offered a
complete line of social services for years and is now in the business of
using Iranian money to rebuild homes in the devastated south of Lebanon.
Hamas in Palestine, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and Evo Morales in
Bolivia all have active social agendas. Organizations like Hezbollah and
Hamas do not merely lobby the government to provide social services; they
run schools and clinics directly while out of power.

The United States and the political groups that it tends to support around
the world, by contrast, have almost nothing to offer in this regard.
Washington stresses democracy and human rights?that is, procedural
safeguards that institutionalize popular sovereignty and limited government
?as well as free trade, with its promise of economic growth. This is a good
agenda in line with American values, and it has worked well in Eastern
Europe, East Asia, and elsewhere. But it tends to appeal to middle-class,
educated constituents. In those parts of the developing world that suffer
from deep social cleavages and inequalities, free elections and free trade
have relatively little resonance for the great majority of the population that
is poor.

The reason that Washington has so little to offer in the social sphere is that
American politics itself has focused on the cutting back on the state sector
and social services in the past generation. From the New Deal through the
Great Society, the American welfare state had grown enormously; Ronald
Reagan came into office promising to cut back on entitlements and ?big
government,? which he argued was an obstacle to economic growth. In the
context of American politics this made a lot of sense. America?s freer labor
markets and deregulated economy laid the groundwork for more than two
decades of sustained productivity growth. Britain went through a similar
revolution in late 1970s and 80s under Margaret Thatcher; the failure of
continental Europe to follow suit has saddled it with an unsustainable
welfare state and entitlement crisis.

But the legacy of the shift toward ?smaller government? has meant that
there has been little new thinking in America on social policy. Even the
Democrats today are loath to offer proposals for new social programs.
Washington has lots of advice to give developing countries on economic
policy, in terms of deregulation, privatization, reduction of tariff barriers,
and the like. But there is no equivalent of the ?Washington Consensus? on
how to help Bolivia or Pakistan or Egypt improve its primary education
system, or how to get health services delivered more efficiently in poor
neighborhoods.

The United States and its liberal democratic friends around the world need
to start thinking seriously about a social agenda that will appeal to the poor
if they are ever to compete successfully with the Islamists and populists of
the world. This is not a call for a return to the old social democratic agenda
of the 1950s and 60s. Social policy is very hard to do well, in ways that
don?t bust budgets, create dependency, and provide opportunities for
political patronage. There is often a trade-off between social spending and
economic growth. But all governments have to provide social services, and
it is important to figure out how to do this well rather than poorly.

We need to stop seeing this issue through the old Left-Right ideological lens
of American domestic politics, and recognize that our influence is
dependent in large measure on our ability to offer people around the world
what they want, and not what we think they should want.