Looks like Obama’s trying to create a “Sister Soulja” moment for his campaign.

Problem for him is that he had that opportunity about a month ago with his “spiritual advisor” and utterly botched it.

Trying to artificially create one isn’t going to help him. Especially not if it means dragging the country through Vietnam War again. Just ask President John F. Kerry how well that worked for him.

Wrong thread, Thorley...

A.L.

Quite simply, no one in the Bush Administration understands how to "play" the media, whether to advance a national agenda or even for partisan gain. Ari Fleischer had a clue, but he's long gone and I would argue the years of McClellan somehow managed to shape Bush's stance in this area... in the most detrimental way possible.

I thought Congress controlled the federal budget and the line item veto has been taken away from the President. Am I wrong? If not, how can you hold the president accountable for specific budget cuts?

Nathan: if he submitted a budget with the cuts included, Congress may have just voted to approve it without examining this particular line. That doesn't absolve Congress of responsibility, but it does shift more blame onto the President, who really should be taking a lead in this area.

I detect "Washington Monument Syndrome" at work here. Presumably RE/RFL didn't get the money for some weird project (maybe a limo for the boss), so they fire their best analysts to make up for the "budgetary shortfall."

The Unbeliever, when I read Armed Liberal it didn't seem like there was any room for "ifs" and "mays" - it was the Administration.

I thought some of you guys were against 'propoganda'? Where is the applause?

Seriously though- i dont think its that Bush doesnt understand the nature of the war, its that he is either unable or unwilling to put his stamp on the entire government to force it into that role. This was a Pentagon decision, and the fighter jocks, the sub jocks, the missile jocks, and everybody else was simply NOT going to take a tenth of a percent budget cut to keep this thing going. Its important to remember that appropriations is nothing more than a giant govnerment bureacracy with a mission of funding their departments, nothing more. Plus, to take them on you have to explain to a lot of Senators and Congressmen why half an F-22 isnt going to be built in their state. And when those are the guys that have consistanty shown they care more about their pork than your global agenda, you have to choose your battles. I have no question there are Republicans (dems aside) on the hill that would threaten to pull the plug on Iraq if their pork trough was threatened even mildly.

Mark,

This wasn't a Pentagon decision. RFE/RL, Voice of America, and Radio Sawa are funded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a independent Federal agency for "non-military, international broadcasting." The decision to trade a F-22 or a Bridge to Nowhere for promoting America's point of view abroad would occur in the Office for Management and Budget, the White House, or one of the sub-committees in Congress.

The lower-level people at OMB are infamous for recommending budget tradeoffs that are penny-wise and pound-foolish, particularly in choosing short-term savings that create additional long-term cost. If a project gets behind schedule, for example trying to fix a problem on paper before buying parts; rather than add money to get back on schedule, it is more likely that the current and/or next year's budget will get a percentage-based cut, causing further delays and future cost increases due to inflation.

Given the tiny (by Congressional standards, $700M) budget and the few voters that it can influence in their home districts, the amount that they do receive is a testament to the relative value politicians put on the national interest versus their local / individual interests.

I think it's been clear since Bush declared a global war on terror in response to 9-11, and DIDN'T ask for an increase in troop levels, (Not to mention his ongoing sabotoge of the Armed Pilots program!) that he was fundamentally unserious about the war. Maybe he was serious about it for a few weeks, but that's all.

I agree that the administrative state (erected by Progressives, btw) is really not under the control of the Congress or the President. But the President does control the military. Bush can simply order people in the Pentagon to do his will, and if they refuse, he can imprison them at Ft. Leavenworth.

This "budget cut" is bullshit.

Like AL, I can't explain this. I can say that it has had an enormous "cooling effect" on people who would have launched careers in this area, and most have moved on to something more "reliable." I'm glad we're nearing the end of the Bush Presidency, but neither of the current candidates have convinced me that they'd do any better (and might do considerably worse).

I would conjecture that for some reason or other the people that an executive would normally trust to implement policy in this area of endeavor have somehow run afoul of the executive, and the latter doesn't have a vision of the WoT that includes the spread of Islamist/Salafist ideology as a risk factor. Which is like refusing to regard the spread of AIDS as a risk factor for Public Health.

If we had a useful press corps, someone would ask Dana Perino, or the Pentagon flack about this.